by Lotta Smith
He wasn’t ugly—lucky him—thanks to inheriting high cheekbones, baby-blue eyes, a well-sculpted nose in a perfect shape that would make Cleopatra cry with envy, and a tall, slender figure from both his mother—Miss California—and grandmother—Miss Greek—he managed to appear almost as strikingly gorgeous as a woman. At least in photos.
Speaking of photos, I supposed perhaps she had seen the pictures of him in the morning paper. Newspapers often carried his photographs. As a Virginia-based PI, he usually consulted with law enforcement, such as the FBI, and worked on tricky, weird, or even the most impossible cases. As a matter of fact, he happened to be a good detective—not just good, but top-notch. He always cracked difficult cases quickly, and as result, newspapers, magazine articles, websites, and sometimes even TV shows reported his accomplishments.
Then again, seeing him in person was a whole different story. Archangel happened to have an even bigger impact in person. He still looked almost like a woman. To be precise, he looked more like a supermodel than a woman. I mean, it’s not like supermodels look like the rest of us real women, right? Those tall, skinny girls are byproducts of women-hating men who dominate the fashion industry and set out to punish us real women by force-feeding us distorted body images, just because we have curves and boobs.
Okay, enough with my little speech. I had mixed feelings about my employer’s looks. I know his outfit preference was none of my business, and I believe everyone’s entitled to express themselves through fashion. I also appreciated he was the one who caught all the attention, not me. I was the shadow. I enjoyed my invisibility. Then again, it got a little awkward when total strangers would stare at us, chattering about ‘That totally dazzling supermodel,’ and they went on like, ‘Who’s she? The little one standing next to her? An assistant wannabe? Doesn’t she look so mediocre and a little bit heavy?’
And it got a little annoying when Archangel caught such chatter and would announce, ‘Did you hear that? They think I’m pretty and you’re not!’
Did I mention he has a diva personality?
Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two. But in my defense, I’ve got the boobs, uterus, ovaries, and everything a girl needs. Besides that, it’s totally rude to judge people based on the physical features for Pete’s sake! I might be described as a petite woman, but that doesn’t make me the little one. I’m the assistant, not a wannabe. Besides that, if you looked carefully, Archangel’s jaw was a little bit too strong for a woman and he has an Adam’s apple. At 6’3” with lots of toned muscles, what he resembled the most was a Greek Goddess with excessive growth hormone. Or Poseidon in drag.
“Mr. Archangel, why do you think I’m the one who’s responsible for spooking her out? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re the one who’s grabbing her full attention?” I asked.
“Why?” Without answering my question, he arched an eyebrow.
“First of all, she’s looking in our direction in general, so both of us are in her sights, and…” I struggled with the words.
“And?” he probed, tapping the backrest of the bench chair with his fingers, which sported nail polish in the same shade of color as the lips.
I was ready to tell him, “And… with all due respect, a giant transvestite is very eye-catching—or rather, an eyesore?” Then it dawned on me that maybe dissing your employer might not be a good move. Call me desperate, but I wasn’t made of money and I needed to pay my credit card balance. Unlike Mom, I wasn’t a rich-husband-magnet, which meant I really needed to keep my job as a personal assistant to this huge, cross-dressing, brilliant-yet-cynical detective. Maybe I shouldn’t have purchased those pricy pillows from Neiman Marcus, but they were so worth it. You want to invest in high-quality pillows to ensure beauty sleep and sweet dreams, especially when you see murdered corpses on a regular basis.
Also, I knew the chances of my scoring other gainful employment anytime soon were practically nonexistent. My resume wasn’t something described as highly-decorated. On top of all that, it’s not like having lost my last employer in a tragic murder—which wasn’t my fault but made me look like a jinx— and being an ex-wife of a notorious swindler would catch a potential employer’s attention in a good way, would it?
Yes, I was desperate. So much for an independent woman ready to kick ass.
“Kelly? Tell me why you think I’m the one who’s creeping her out.” Crossing his long legs, Archangel pressed on.
“Well…” With all due respect, I furrowed my eyebrows like a confused third-grader struggling to grasp the concept of division. “What was I thinking? Isn’t it odd that I can’t recollect whatever was in my head?”
“Ha. You need to get a head CT to see if you’ve got a brain at all.” Archangel gave a throaty, husky, oh-so-manly laugh. Did I mention his voice was often a dead giveaway for his otherwise confusing gender? When I first met him, I thought he must be gay, but I wasn’t so sure any more. I knew his sexual orientation was none of my business, and I respected people with every sexuality, but for a guy who opted to wear women’s clothes, Archangel was pretty much lacking delicacy.
Turning my face away from him, I stuck out my tongue. Very mature, I knew. So far, my job duties were one part secretary, one part chauffeur, and one part personal chef. Not to mention being a part-time comic, or rather, laughing stock. Unlike brilliant detectives in literature, Archangel didn’t need much assisting when it came to investigation and solving cases. Just like fictional detectives, he was crazy and tended to torment his precious little assistant, having a chuckle at my expense.
I was an assistant extraordinaire who outshone the detective only in my fantasy, and in reality, I was merely a newbie assistant and a butt of jokes to this huge, cross-dressing detective.
It really sucked when the gap between your fancy daydream and the hard, cold, stone-hearted reality was so huge.
Chapter 2
When Richard Henderson, Advisory Special Agent of the FBI, met us in the corridor to the dissection room, he had deep furrows in the forehead. He was one of Archangel’s regular clients.
“What do we know about the victim?” Archangel questioned.
“An unidentified, adult, Caucasian woman, age yet to be specified—that’s about it for now,” Henderson said and gave a brief synopsis.
According to him, the dead woman was discovered in a closed campsite preparing to reopen for the coming summer. It was estimated the body had been left in the woods for a while—several weeks, perhaps.
As we went into the dissection room, two guys in plain clothes and several officers in uniform were having a heated discussion with a young woman clad in grayish-green scrubs.
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “I think the body… I mean, her body is missing the eyes?” It sounded more like a question than a statement.
“I can see that, Doctor,” the man in plain clothes with The Simpsons tie said.
“I mean, did you bring them with her?” the doctor asked.
“No, Doc,” the plain-clothed Latino answered, shaking his head.
“So, the eyes are really missing? I mean, as in missing, not misplaced?”
“I believe so,” Simpsons confirmed in a serious tone, but when the doctor turned away, he rolled his eyes.
“She’s a substitute,” Henderson stage-whispered to us. “She’s used to dealing with people who die of natural causes, such as cancer, stroke, and heart attack. The former ME suddenly decided to retire in Scottsdale. She happens to the only pathologist in this district available to work temp on short notice.”
“I see.” Archangel shrugged.
“Well, then…” The pinch-hitter ME tilted her head. “So, where have the eyeballs gone, and what are they doing right now?”
“I believe locating the eyeballs is our job,” said the Latino.
“All right.” She nodded. “Now I’m wondering how they’ve gotten out of the orbits.”
“It’s your job to determine that, I’m afraid,” Simpsons pointed out.
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“Oh.” She frowned. “That’s tricky. Maybe wild animals ate them? Like the rest of the missing parts of her body?”
Considering the background of the body’s discovery, her reply sounded plausible to me. My understanding of campsites was that they had a wide-range of wild animals, including but not limited to hedgehogs, raccoons, squirrels, and grizzlies. Oh, don’t forget the bugs. Lots of them.
“No, animals didn’t eat the eyeballs,” interrupted Archangel. He didn’t seem to share my thoughts. He was observing the body over the ME and the officers’ heads, using his height to full advantage.
He continued. “Look at the endings of the optic nerve where the eyeballs used to be attached to. The edges are sharp and the nerve fibers are not wavy, which implies they were cut off by a sharp object like a scalpel, rather than getting yanked out forcibly with teeth or claws.”
“Oh really? Let me see.” She took a magnifying glass and carefully observed the corpse on the dissecting table.
As the law enforcement guys who had been grilling the temporary coroner stepped aside, Archangel moved forward for a better view.
“Found any residues of the eyeballs, like aqueous humor, fragments of cornea, sclera, or ciliary muscle, for instance?” he asked.
“I have to run some tests to confirm that, but so far, I don’t think I’m seeing them,” the coroner replied.
“Okay, so if the tests come back negative for eyeball components, then that means the eyeballs were cut out by delicate hands that belong to a human,” Archangel told her. “Generally speaking, wild animals aren’t crazy about table manners.”
“I see, you have a point.” She turned to face him. “Are you a forensic medicine expert?”
“No. I received basic training in forensic sciences back in the old days, but that’s about it. It’s only that I happen to be a genius when it comes to detail orientation and observation.” In Archangel’s dictionary, words like modesty seemed to be missing.
“By the way, which section are you from?” the ME asked curiously, scanning him from head to toe.
Henderson stepped in and introduced us to her. “Dr. Stewart, this is our consultant Michael Archangel and his associate Ms. Kelly Kinki. Archangel, this is Dr. Stewart, the medical examiner.”
“Oh,” she gasped with wide eyes. “It looks like the FBI is more… avant-garde than I’d expected.”
“I guess so.” Archangel shook off her comment as he observed the deceased while the officers in uniforms fed him more details.
I took a quick peek at the deceased and wished I hadn’t. Yikes was an understatement. On the table was a chunk of flesh that was barely recognizable as a human. Many parts of the decaying body seemed to be missing—probably bitten off by critters in the wild. The victim’s complexion was greenish purple. On top of all that, in the eye sockets where the eyeballs fit in was nothing but reddish-brown darkness.
I felt like vomiting. It was true that I’d seen many corpses before, but this particular victim was by far the most gruesome.
All of a sudden, it hit me that I didn’t belong here nor did I deserve to be here. Unlike the assistants of brilliant detectives in fiction, I had no relevant training in criminal justice or forensic sciences, much less expertise. My areas of expertise were pretty much limited to cooking, planning and organizing a party, speaking some French, and breathing fire. I didn’t even know if fire-breathing counted as a skill.
I also realized that a real-life autopsy involved a real corpse, and the aroma of decomposing human tissue was not lovely. It was a completely different experience from watching gruesome scenes in TV cop shows. Hell, I was getting really sick.
“Are you okay?” asked Dr. Stewart. She had stepped away from the dissecting table.
“I’m terribly disturbed, but I think I’ll live. Thanks for asking,” I answered, managing not to puke.
“I know,” she sighed. “Disturbing is an understatement. You know, I was totally convinced the eyeballs were eaten by wild animals. It’s early April, and critters coming out of hibernation are hungry. Maybe a part of me wanted to believe so. Not that being left in a deserted campsite to die is nice, but it feels better to imagine raccoons or some animals had feasted on that poor dead woman, rather than the depressing possibility that some kind of human freak poked the eyeballs out of her. I know I’m sounding irrational, but it’s just too horrifying to imagine the latter, even though it certainly looks like your friend’s right.”
I thought about pointing out that he’s not my friend, but it seemed irrelevant. Instead, I asked, “Does it mean the deceased was murdered?”
“Maybe, but I’m not really sure which of the events—death or poking out the eyeballs—happened first. The cause of death is really hard to tell right now because the body has sustained tremendous damage, and the corpse is already at a very advanced stage of decomposition. Looks like she was left in the field for at least a week. So she might have been murdered, but natural causes of death, such as a heart attack, cannot be completely ruled out. I need to cut open the cadaver to find out more about her. Also, I’d better call someone for backup.”
She shrugged and continued. “What I can tell is I’m just a temp substitute medical examiner and I’m somewhat clueless. And, basically, this field called forensic medicine doesn’t look as good as I had previously anticipated. They said it’s an easy job to earn extra bucks on account that this is a rural area where you’re not likely to have many bodies to observe and cut open, unlike big cities. Look what happened, my luck’s really rotten.” She rolled her eyes.
I made some sympathetic sounds.
I could imagine her feelings. It was a rare occasion to meet someone feeling as out of their league and confused about criminal investigations as myself. In general, people I encountered in the job were very confident about what they did and who they were, and I was the only clueless tourist.
“Besides that,” rubbing her tummy, Dr. Stewart said, “encountering this kind of death doesn’t seem like a good prenatal experience for the little one.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. Due to the baggy scrubs, her baby bump was almost unnoticeable, but if you looked closely, she was indeed pregnant. Under the surgical mask, she also sported the certain glow of a mother-to-be.
“You need a raise,” I told her. Actually, I wanted one, too. It might be selfish to think so, but I suppose meeting a decaying, half-eaten cadaver missing eyeballs has that effect on many people.
“I know!” she chuckled. “But I guess I’d rather say adieu to this job than demand a pay increase.”
“Oh, so you’re taking time off for a while, that’s nice,” I said.
“Nope, I’m saying adios muchachos to medicine, as in forever. I’m quitting.”
“Oh, wow…” I said, a little taken aback with the unexpected turn of events. As a woman without much of a career, I had a hard time grasping the concept of withdrawing from a challenging, albeit lucrative, profession for good—add that little green-eyed monster raising its head for effect. For me, having a serious career that you called your own sounded like a real privilege. Not to mention a profession in which you got to cut people open with scalpels and everything sounded pretty cool.
“Yeah, I know my decision won’t be considered a smart one by everyone, but at least I’m determined to quit and live a little. I’m positive I won’t regret this decision.”
“Wow,” I said, partly because “wow” was the best my clueless-self was able to come up with. “That’s nice.”
“The truth is, it really bothers me I couldn’t even find the stuff the tall guy in a dress had pointed out so easily,” Dr. Stewart admitted.
“Well,” I interjected, “if that giant transvestite is the reason for your quitting medicine, I’m afraid you seriously need to reconsider. It’s not you, it’s him. When it comes to crime-solving, he’s simply special. I’ve seen him beat even the most seasoned investigators. Please don’t feel bad about missing something he found first. It cou
ld happen to anybody, and it does all the time.” I didn’t get all pushy or bossy, but I didn’t want her to make a big decision just because of Archangel. He had this special effect of draining confidence out of people—mostly in law enforcement.
“No. That’s not the case.” She chuckled. “It’s just me, no one but me. Actually, I should have made up my mind more than a decade ago, when I was still a medical student.” She grimaced. “As soon as I started clinical rotations, I realized I was afraid of catching whatever germs the patients have. In addition, I totally sucked at providing care. I seriously thought about quitting medical school, but listening to my folks proudly bragging about their wonderful ‘doctor’ daughter, I just couldn’t tell them ‘Hey, Mom, Dad, I can’t breathe around sick and potentially sick people, for fear of catching their illnesses and/or misery. Can I quit medical school?’ Anyway, I managed to endure pathology residency mostly because the patients were dead and they didn’t cough, sneeze or vomit. I took this substitute ME position, in hopes of being needed for a change. But nooo, even now I’m as useful as a giant gallstone. So finally, I’ve come to terms with myself and I’m quitting for good.”
Her fair skin around the eyes turned pink. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you such a big speech like a Congress candidate. Where’s my manners and what was I thinking?”
“Don’t worry, the tale of your journey and your opinion was very compelling,” I reassured her. Phew…it was true that all happy people are alike; each happy person is unhappy in his or her own way. Her story had me convinced I was lucky not to be a medic. Indeed, the prospect of dealing with germs and bodily fluids sounded icky, not cool.
