Aunt Edyth, ever contrary, would have to pick a time when her housekeeper was out of town, leaving her body to be found by Jan. And yet it was nice to have had it happen quietly in bed—the bed covers were not disturbed, meaning there had been no struggle. She probably was gone before she got beyond that first look of surprise.
Jan rubbed her forehead to stop her rambling thoughts and went to the phone on the little bedside table to call 911. This wasn’t an emergency, obviously, but she knew the rules. When someone is found dead at home, government officials have to be notified. Never mind that Jan Henderson, RN, knew a dead body when she saw it. Aunt Edyth wasn’t really dead until the county’s medical examiner declared it so. The operator said she’d send the police—no matter what the emergency, the first responder arrived in a squad car. Then Jan went downstairs to let Lizzie in and give her breakfast while they waited.
She was sitting with the dog on the front porch steps when the squad car pulled through the twin brick pillars that marked the entrance to the house’s curving drive. No siren or lights, which was fine. And all the nice young police officer did was call the medical examiner’s office, which is what Jan expected to happen. Funny, though, how the bureaucrats couldn’t take even a policeman’s word for it that Edyth Hanraty was dead but had to come for a look their own selves.
While they waited, Jan made the policeman a cup of tea, made one for herself, then sat down by the kitchen phone. She called her mother first. “Mother, bad news. I’m at Aunt Edyth’s house—I said I’d take her to church this morning, you know—and she’s…she’s dead.”
“Oh, my dear, how awful! What happened? Did she fall?”
“No, she died quietly in her sleep.”
“Well, that’s a blessing. The poor old thing, I suppose we should have been prepared for this, but it’s still a shock.”
“Yes, it is. The police are here, and they’ve asked someone from the ME’s office to come by, and I have to stay until that’s finished. Could you call Jason and Uncle Stewart? I’ll contact Reese at the university, and I’ll tell Ronnie when I get home. Meanwhile, there’s a list she had all drawn up of people to notify. I’ll call her doctor and that Excelsior mortician she decided on, Huber’s, to let them know they have a customer to take care of. She had a prepaid arrangement with them. It says on the list to remind them of that—wasn’t she something? And her attorney, and Pastor Garson.”
“Give me those last two numbers. I’ll call them for you.”
“All right. There are some other names here, too. Friends, I guess. I’ll call them. Bless her for that list. This will make things a lot easier.”
SUSAN was sitting in her kitchen, lingering over her lunchtime cup of tea and considering mortality. Aunt Edyth had been an old woman when Susan was a child and had seemed to live in a kind of time warp, never growing any older. Susan had started to wonder if she would outlive everyone.
But right now, this minute, Susan’s brother Stewart was at Huber’s Funeral Home waiting for the arrival of Aunt Edyth’s body. It appeared Aunt Edyth was mortal after all. She had gone from a determined, opinionated, cranky old woman to a mere body.
If a body meet a body…That weird song began to run through her head. When she was a child, she thought it a very scary song about dead bodies meeting in a field. If a body kiss a body…Ugh!
She remembered when her mother died. It had been explained to her that a dead body turned into a piece of property. So now that Aunt Edyth was dead, her body didn’t belong to her anymore. Mortal remains belonged to the next of kin—as if anyone could think of doing anything with a dead body but burying it as quickly and decently as possible! But Aunt Edyth, bless her, was still maintaining control, having previously selected Huber’s in Excelsior to handle “the arrangements”—an odd term. She had also set out the order of her funeral and sent copies to everyone last spring after a bad cold had turned into a mild case of pneumonia and frightened her. In that same letter, she had reiterated the terms of her peculiar will, which had reignited Stewart’s old campaign to make her change it.
Even so, Stewart, to Susan’s surprise, had proved surprisingly amenable to driving to Huber’s Funeral Home to sign papers and get that process started. Susan would have done it herself but had found herself caught up in a sad weakness over all this. She’d been relieved when her brother—usually not one to step up to the plate—said he would handle it. Perhaps he understood that Susan had been genuinely fond of Aunt Edyth, even though she could be exasperating.
Only a couple of weeks ago, Aunt Edyth had complained to Susan that Stewart was trying, again, to make her think he was fond of her, too. He had come over several times, ostensibly to run errands, but in fact to hint ever so heavily that he had four daughters, and since Aunt Edyth liked girls so much, how come she wasn’t willing to remember them in her will?
But Aunt Edyth wasn’t to be swayed by the arguments of a male, particularly this one. She was sure he only wanted his daughters to be given some of her property so he could wrest control of it from them, and sell it. She had filled Susan’s ears with her angry complaints and had threatened to sell off some of the items herself to stop his annoying hints.
The sad thing was, Susan mused, Aunt Edyth was undoubtedly right, both about his motive and his clumsiness in acting on it. Stew certainly would have guilted his daughters into sharing any property or money they came into possession of—and just as certainly have wasted it on improbable schemes.
He had the attention span of a housefly, and the work habits of a dead possum.
So Stewart’s efforts were unavailing—and now there could be no more of them.
She looked down at the notepad beside her coffee. A lifelong list maker, she had started this one as soon as she finished talking with Jan. It was a to-do list, of course. It started with “phone Stewart” and “phone Jason.” There were check marks after each. Stewart hadn’t been home when she called, but Katie was there. She had been shocked and was in tears before they hung up, which rather surprised Susan. She hadn’t realized that Katie actually had been fond of Aunt Edyth. Jason’s reaction had been, “Oh, really? Man, I thought she’d never die! I’m sorry, Mom, but seriously, didn’t she seem, like, immortal?” Susan had been both shocked and amused that his reaction was so much like her own, if more boldly expressed.
Next on the list, “Funeral.” That was pretty much taken care of. St. Luke’s Lutheran—whoops, she’d better call Pastor Garson again. He should be home from church by now. He would call her back, he said, after consulting his calendar, to arrange a date and time for the service. She’d already left a message with the attorney, Marcia Weiner, and Dr. Phyllis Brown.
Next on the list, “close house.” She remembered how sad and creepy it was going through her mother’s things after she had died. This would be different: Aunt Edyth was so distant there wouldn’t be that Peeping-Tom feeling. Besides…Susan tried but failed to suppress the thought.
Aunt Edyth’s house had been built by her father early in the twentieth century. It was large and full of wonderful things. Susan allowed a guilty little thrill of anticipation to run through her. Going through that house was going to be…well…fun.
ON Monday morning, Jan was soothing a frightened child before Dr. Hugs came in to look at an infected thumb. Another nurse came in and said, “I’ll take over here, Jan. You have a phone call, line three. It’s your mother, and she says it’s urgent.”
Jan’s mother rarely disturbed her at work; that she felt it necessary to add that it was urgent made Jan go immediately to an empty exam room. She touched the button beside the blinking light and said, “Yes, what’s the matter?”
“Jan, dear, I just got the strangest call. It’s from a Dr. Wills, who works in the medical examiner’s office. He says Mr. Huber at the funeral home notified him that—well, he says—” Her mother paused, whether to gather her strength or her vocabulary or her courage, Jan couldn’t tell.
“Is this about Aunt Edyth?”
>
“Yes, of course. He says Mr. Huber was, er, arranging the body to prepare it for, for embalming, when he cut the finger of his glove—his rubber glove, presumably—on something stuck in Aunt Edyth’s head.”
“Something stuck in her head?” Jan echoed. “What does that mean? A hairpin?”
“No, not a hairpin! Something actually stuck into her head, like a needle. Stuck right into the bone.”
Jan just sat there for a few moments.
“Jan? Are you there?”
“Yes. A needle, he said?”
“Like a needle, or a pin. And…and so, the medical examiner says they’re going to do an autopsy.”
“I see.” A perfectly dreadful thought was forming in Jan’s mind, although she fought against it with all her strength.
Susan continued. “I said, ‘But what about the funeral?’ And he said he was very sorry, but we will have to put off the funeral.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Oh, Mother, do you know what this means?”
“Well, I’m sure there must be some innocent explanation. I mean, didn’t you say she died peacefully in her sleep?”
“Yes, I did.” But now Jan was remembering that staring look of amazement, and again that feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Her mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “If someone came and tried to stick a needle into my brain, I’d struggle with all my might.”
“Well, of course, so would anyone.”
“So that can’t be what happened, don’t you see? Maybe she did fall, and there was a needle in the carpet, and she didn’t realize what happened but just went to bed with a headache. That must be the explanation.”
Jan took a breath, then let it out. “Of course, I’m sure you’re right.” Her head was starting to ache. Conversations with her mother often made her feel like that. “Will you call Pastor Garson about the delay in the funeral service?”
“Yes, as soon as I talk to Stewart and Jason.”
“Fine. I’ll tell Hugs.” Jan hung up and closed her eyes. Aunt Edyth’s death had been a surprise, though Jan also thought it a blessing, going like that, quickly, without a protracted illness. Now…this was really, really scary. She needed to talk to someone levelheaded about this, someone whose nickname described what she also needed from him. Her dear, patient, kind, strong husband.
Five
SERGEANT Mitchell Rice didn’t like autopsies. Like many police detectives, he was tall and burly, with dark hair, very thin on top, and an unstylish tie worn so tight it looked as if it were strangling him.
An autopsy is sort of like an operation, only a little rougher, and without the anesthesiologist. And the surgeon takes photos of his progress, which Mitch was pretty sure didn’t happen in an operating room. Normally there are no non-medical people in the operating room; but if an autopsy is for the purpose of collecting evidence for a criminal investigation, a representative from the police department must be present.
Finally, autopsies are a grim reminder of mortality, something Mitch didn’t need; and while he tried to be professional and distance himself from the process, he couldn’t get far enough away to remain undisturbed.
Maybe if he went to more of them…now there was an ugly thought. He was not one of those cops who liked action. In fact, while he enjoyed his work, he was also grateful to be a cop in a community where murder was a very rare thing.
He was startled back to the present by the sound of something metal falling into a little pan. The medical examiner gave a grunt of satisfaction, and Mitch said, “Got it?”
“Yes.” Using his tweezers, the ME poked at what he’d retrieved. “Looks like a piece of wire. Steel, maybe.” He picked it up, rinsed it in a jar of water, then held it out to Mitch, who reluctantly came closer. It was about two inches long, shiny and pointed at one end. The other end was snipped off, not smoothly.
“That’s not a piece of wire,” Mitch said.
The ME lifted it up to his own eyes, squinting behind the clear plastic mask that covered his face. “You’re right.” He held it closer, then touched the pointed end with a rubber-gloved hand. “Dull point, but doesn’t seem from wear.”
“What do you think?”
“I couldn’t say for sure. It looks machined, not ground or cut, except at the other end. Shiny, so stainless steel? Maybe it’s a part off something.”
Mitch, intrigued now, held out his hand for the tweezers. The piece of metal didn’t look cut or filed to its point, but polished or rolled. There were no scratches on its gleaming surface. It was very thin—thinner than most nails. He very gingerly felt the pointed end and agreed that it was not very sharp. The other end, when touched, felt rough on the tip of his finger.
“Which end was the end inside her head?” he asked.
“The pointed end, up to about the last eighth of an inch, barely visible to the naked eye. And something else,” the ME went on, “there are a couple of small puncture wounds very near where I found this. In my opinion, someone made several tries to insert this in order to cause the deceased’s death.”
Mitch frowned. “That can’t be true. I have a report that the decedent was found in her bed under undisturbed blankets, as if she’d died peacefully in her sleep. If someone came into my bedroom and started poking me in the back of the head with something pointed, I’d kick up a fuss. Maybe the other injuries are because she was out in her yard with the mosquitoes.”
“They don’t look like mosquito bites to me,” said the ME, who had photographed them. “Unless it was a mosquito with one hell of a proboscis.”
Mitch handed the piece of metal back. “So it’s your expert opinion that we’re talking homicide here?”
“Oh, I’d say so. I don’t see how she came by this injury any other way. This was done by an individual who knew where to insert this pin or whatever it is, but was inexperienced in doing it.” He looked across at Mitch’s baffled face and clarified his remark. “The puncture wounds say the murderer poked around a bit. Not a brain surgeon, in other words.”
“Oh. Okay. But what do you mean, insert it? Is there a place, an opening in the skull?” The thought that the human brain pan was not a solid round of bone was startling to Mitch.
“Where the base of the skull meets the first vertebra of the spine is a layer of—well, call it gristle. Shaped sort of like a disk—you’ve heard of slipped disks? There are disks between the vertebrae, and one on top, where the spine meets the skull. This piece of metal wasn’t driven through the bone—it was slipped through that tissue and up into the brain stem.”
Mitch, not big on clinical detail but swift at methodology, asked, “If it could be pushed in, why couldn’t it be pulled out again?”
“Probably because the woman, in a dying spasm, threw her head back and pinched the space closed. This piece of metal was once longer than it is now, though how much longer is anyone’s guess. The roughness of the cut would indicate it was done with a dull blade—that’s why the mortician cut himself on it.”
Mitch nodded. “Good thing for us that criminals generally make mistakes. This one thought the old woman’s hair would hide it. And it almost did,” he added, without sympathy for the ME’s rookie representative who hadn’t found it before sending the body to that mortician in Excelsior, and who would get soundly rapped on the knuckles for that error.
Mitch thought some more, reaching for his notebook. The murderer would very likely not have brought wire clippers along and would have had to go looking for them. And then, not wanting someone to notice them missing, he probably put them back. Mitch wrote that down. Maybe there were fingerprints on them.
He’d go search the house today.
SUSAN was scrubbing down the kitchen cabinets when the doorbell rang. In good shape for a woman in her midsixties, she hopped nimbly off the little step ladder, wiped her hands on a dish towel, and hurried through the dining room to the front door. From habit, she looked around before opening the door. All was in order; she kept a very c
lean house.
She glanced through one of the leaded lights beside the door and saw a tall, heavyset man with dark hair. He wasn’t carrying an attaché case, so he wasn’t a salesman. And his suit was too ill-fitting to belong to an attorney. Not a mortician—that was all taken care of. That left one choice, and her heart sank. A police detective had called earlier to see if she would be home. This must be him.
She opened the door. “Yes?”
Sure enough, he reached into a side pocket and produced a photo ID and badge in a worn leather folder. “Mrs. McConnell?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Sergeant Mitchell Rice, Orono Police. I called you earlier. Is it all right if I come in?”
She hesitated, but it was too late to say no without a really good reason, and she didn’t have one. “All right.”
She turned and led the way into her living room. It was a good-size room for such a small house, done in pastel shades of green and cream, with touches of pink. Not fluffy, but definitely feminine. He paused a moment, then chose the pale upholstered chair; in his dark suit he was like a june bug on a buttercream birthday cake. He offered her a business card printed with his name, phone number, fax number, even an e-mail address, plus the round Orono city seal.
She couldn’t think what to do with it, so she held it in her hand as she went to sit on the couch. “I assume you’re here about my aunt,” she said.
“I’m here about Edyth Hanraty. She was your aunt, right?”
“That’s right—my mother’s sister.”
“Huber’s Funeral Home contacted the police when Mr. Huber found evidence that Ms. Hanraty’s death occurred under unusual circumstances.”
Sins and Needles Page 4
