Scared Stiff

that.

Chapter 1

Despite the fact that I hang around dead bodies a lot these days, I find the scene before me very disturbing. The backdrop is ordinary enough: a well-maintained, ranch-style suburban home set on a generous plot of land near the edge of town. But any sense of normalcy ends with the front yard, which is littered with dead bodies. Fortunately, only one of the bodies is real, though I suppose it’s not so fortunate for the victim in question, who I’ve been told has been murdered.

As if the body farm isn’t surreal enough, my clothing adds to the absurdity, I’m wearing a full-skirted, white ballroom dress with puffy sleeves that make my shoulders look wider than a linebacker’s. Clipped to the bodice is my ID badge, which bears my name, Mattie Winston, and my title, Deputy Coroner. Though I’m still kind of new at this dead body stuff, I’m pretty sure my outfit isn’t the sort of couture one would normally wear to a crime scene. But then, who knows? I don’t think there’s a designer who has tackled this particular niche. I can see possibilities though: shirts and pants with chalk outlines drawn on them, sexy, peek-a-boo blouses with strategically placed bullet holes and knife tears, and, of course, lots of bloodred colored material.

In spite of the macabre scene and thoughts, in a perverse sort of way I’m happy to be here. Five minutes ago I was at a Halloween costume party being bored to tears by William-not-Bill, an obsessive-compulsive, germaphobic accountant in a Dracula costume. He is a date my friend Izzy fixed me up with, making me wonder what horrible thing I’ve done to Izzy to earn such retribution. After less than an hour in William-not-Bill’s company, listening to him give me a paranoid’s primer on how many infectious ways there are to die, I was trying desperately to come up with a plausible plan of escape. Fortunately my beeper chirped and saved me. My relief was countered by a smidgen of guilt when I remembered that work for me meant someone else was dead, but probably not as dead as the date I was on. It was stone-cold, bones-only, well-beyond-the-putrid-stage dead.

I tried not to look too relieved at my reprieve as I snatched my beeper up from the table and gave William-not-Bill an apologetic smile. Duty calls, I said, feigning disappointment. I’m afraid we’ll have to make it an early night.

William-not-Bill frowned and said, Darn it. Are you sure you need to go?

I’d never been so sure of anything in my entire life. I’m afraid so, I told him.

I’d really like to see you again. Can I give you a call sometime?

I would have rather stabbed myself blind with a dull fork and was tempted to say so when Izzy, who is only five feet tall and dressed tonight as the Keebler elf, tapped me on the shoulder.

Aside from being my date rescue, Izzy is my neighbor, my landlord, and my boss. He is also the anti-me: dark where I’m light, short where I’m tall, and male to my female. We do have three things in common however: fat-hoarding metabolisms, fondness for men, and jobs that require the removal of human organs. Izzy removes organs because he’s the county’s medical examiner. I used to remove organs, or at least assist in the process, inside a hospital operating room, which is where my soon-to-be ex-husband, David, works as a surgeon. But after catching a coworker named Karen Owenby playing with a certain private organ on David, I ditched both him and the job. Now I work with Izzy in the ME’s office, and while I still assist with organ removal, the goods aren’t as fresh as they used to be.

Mattie? You ready? Izzy asked as William-not-Bill pouted like a child.

Absolutely. I got up from the table and beat a hasty exit—not an easy task given the wide girth of my gown, the two-foot wand I was carrying, and the crown that kept sliding off my head. I left Izzy, whose legs are only a third the length of mine, behind in my wake, along with several broken drink glasses my skirt knocked from tables as I passed. By the time Izzy caught up to me I was standing next to his car in the parking lot, tapping my foot impatiently.

What’s the rush? he asked. Afraid a house might drop on you?

"I’m Glinda, the good witch, I reminded him. Houses don’t fall on Glinda."

Then why the big hurry? I haven’t seen you run that fast for anything other than ice cream in a long time.

Very funny, I said, giving him a dirty look. I didn’t want to give Dracula a chance to ask for my number again. Though I have to admit his costume was perfect. He spent our time together sucking the life out of me. I shook my head woefully. I can’t believe I let you talk me into dating that bozo. He has a comb-over, for Christ’s sake. His only saving grace is that he’s tall. This is actually an important asset for me. I hit the six-foot mark at the age of sixteen, which made me a good foot taller than all of the boys for most of my high school years. That, combined with my ample bosom, made me very popular during the slow songs at school dances.

Izzy opened his door, got in the car, and reached over to unlock my side. The car is a fully restored Impala from the sixties. No such thing as automatic locks. Unfortunately, there are no bucket seats either, which means I have to pretzel six feet of me into the same amount of space Izzy uses.

I ripped the crown from my head and threw it and my wand into the back seat. Then I tried unsuccessfully to stuff the skirt of my gown down around me. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I imagined it must look like a giant puff ball was sitting in the passenger seat.

Give William a break, Izzy said as I spat taffeta. So he’s got a touch of OCD. What’s the big deal? It’s his attention to detail that makes him such an ace accountant.

"A touch of OCD? I’ll have you know he shot his cuffs at least fifty times, straightened the tablecloth a dozen times, and counted how many people were at the party every ten minutes. I can’t guess how many times he cleaned all the silverware at the table. And don’t even get me started on the fangs."

Izzy conceded with a sigh. Okay, maybe he’s a little anal retentive.

Doubt it, I snapped back. He’s got his head so far up his ass there isn’t room there for anything else. And just how old is he, anyway?

Late forties, maybe early fifties.

That’s a bit of a spread, don’t you think? He’s got to be at least fifteen years older than me.

I’m twelve years older than Dom.

That’s different. You’re gay.

What’s that got to do with it? Izzy laughed. Besides, it’s not like you were looking for a serious date. You just wanted someone to tote along to make Hurley jealous.

This was true. Steve Hurley is a tall, dark, and blissfully blue-eyed homicide detective that I’ve known for all of three weeks, ever since I became Izzy’s assistant. For me it was lust at first sight, which unfortunately occurred over Karen Owenby’s freshly murdered body. Things kind of went downhill from there, particularly after I became a suspect in the case.

Clearly it was a wasted effort, I pouted.

Hey, it’s not my fault Hurley didn’t show up at the party.

With that one sentence, Izzy shot straight to the heart of my misery. I sulked for the remainder of the journey, which was all of three minutes since Sorenson isn’t a very big town. When we arrived at our destination, I unfolded myself from Izzy’s car like a performer in Cirque du Soleil and stood a moment to let the blood flow back into my legs. Then I reached into the back seat and took out my processing kit.

That’s how I ended up here on the edges of suburbia, surrounded by bodies on a Saturday night, dressed like a white witch carrying a large tackle box.

Chapter 2

Izzy and I pause long enough to don gloves and shoe covers. With that done, he grabs his camera while I take out the digital recorder he gave me a couple of weeks ago for documenting scene observations. I turn the recorder on and put it in voice activation mode. After trying to find a place on my outfit to clip it, I settle for sticking it down inside my cleavage, or what a boy in my high school geography class once dubbed the hotand-gentle divide.

Despite the darkness outside, the yard is brightly lit thanks to Halloween spotlights and the flashing bars atop the cop cars parked in the driveway. At the foot of a huge oak tree off to my right, a man sits strapped into a large wooden chair. On his head is something that looks like an old-fashioned electrocution helmet. Nailed to the tree a foot above his head is a large board that has the words ON and OFF painted on it with a forkshaped lever clearly placed in the ON position. Wires are running from the lever to the helmet and the clothes on the man appear to be singed.

On closer inspection I see that the helmet is actually a metal mixing bowl turned upside down and the handle on the board is made out of tin foil, but the effect is realistic enough to make me shiver.

On the opposite side of the tree is another body, this one hanging from a thick rope, its face painted a ghastly blue, the body swinging slightly in the night breeze. A third body is half buried in a makeshift grave, its hands and feet protruding from the freshly turned soil. At its head is a gravestone that bears the inscription:

WHO TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS

?

Four more bodies are strewn about, all of them wearing blood-soaked clothes. One has a large butcher knife protruding from its chest; another has its head lying a conspicuous distance from its body. The third one is missing its arms and legs, though they are lying nearby, and the fourth one is splayed halfway down the steps of the front porch, a glistening trail of blood marking its journey from the front door.

This last body is the one I zero in on since there is a trio of police officers—two in uniform, one in plainclothes—grouped around it. I know most of the cops in town either because they’re Sorenson lifers like me, or because we became acquainted years ago when I worked in the ER. I even dated one of them briefly, a sweet guy named Larry Johnson who is the plainclothes officer in tonight’s group. I never felt any reciprocal attraction to Larry, but if I had it would have died some time ago when he came into the hospital for hemorrhoid surgery. I was the scrub nurse on the case, and the sight of Larry’s jingleberries hanging above his dingleberries would have put a definite damper on future intimacies.

One of the uniforms in tonight’s group is a guy named Al who I’ve known for a decade or so, but the second uniform is new to me, and he looks like he’s twelve. The one face conspicuously absent from the group is Steve Hurley’s.

Hey, where are Sleepy, Sneezy, and Dopey? Larry yells as Izzy and I approach. Al and the new guy snigger. I realize they have misinterpreted our costumes, mistaking me for Snow White and Izzy for one of my dwarfs.

I don’t know, I say, setting down my scene kit and glancing around the yard. Where are the real cops?

Ouch, says Larry as the other two groan. Okay, truce.

I turn my attention to the body on the stairs and wrinkle my nose. There is a faint odor in the air, one that tells me this body has been here a while. The weather over the past week or so has been uncharacteristically warm for late October in Wisconsin, with temperatures in the high seventies during the day and the low sixties at night. Normally we’d expect highs in the fifties with frost or snow warnings at night, but this year October decided to go out on a high note. This last gasp of summer proved a delightful treat here in a state where snowblowers are considered a necessity five months out of the year, but it also allowed putrefaction to set in a little sooner than it otherwise would have.

Do you know who she is? Izzy asks, using his camera to shoot pictures and video of both the body and our immediate surroundings.

We’re pretty certain it’s Shannon Tolliver, Larry says.

One of the advantages of living in a small town is that eventually you get to know almost everyone, if not by name, then at least by face. Here the six degrees of separation are often narrowed down to one or two. I’m at a slight disadvantage because of my last job. Even though working as a nurse in the operating room of the town’s hospital allowed me to cross paths with a lot of people, most of them were draped, gowned, bonneted, and drugged into oblivion. As a result, I’m quicker to recognize some people by their navels or knees as opposed to their faces.

Tonight’s victim is someone I do know by face, though it’s hard to be sure it’s her. The body is lying on its back with the feet at the top of the stairs and the head at the bottom. Gravity has done its job. What little blood is left in the body has settled in the head and face, causing gross discoloration and swelling.

Who found her? I ask.

Al says, A couple of trick-or-treaters who got the scare of their life when their parents drove them to this house. The parents rounded the kids up and then called it in on a cell phone.

I grimace. Kids traipsing near our corpse and running hell-bent through the yard means contamination of our scene.

I note two holes in Shannon’s torso that appear to be bullet entry wounds, both of them surrounded by the blood-soaked cloth of her blouse. Years of working as a nurse have gifted me with the rather dubious talent of being able to estimate blood loss with a reasonable degree of accuracy. A quick estimate of the dried pool beneath Shannon’s body and the trail leading back from it to the house tells me there’s a good chance she bled to death.

Squealing wheels sound behind us and, as I turn to see a familiar black car pull up, my heart quickens and a different kind of shiver goes through me.

Hurley.

He parks right behind one of the spotlights, forcing me to squint as I search eagerly for his long-legged stride. But something is wrong. The silhouette I see has two heads and way too many arms. For a second I think it must be Hurley’s Halloween costume, but it turns out to be something much scarier. It’s Hurley walking side by side with Alison Miller.

I feel a pang of jealousy and mutter a curse under my breath. Alison Miller, a photographer and reporter for the biweekly Sorenson Journal, used to be my friend. We went to high school together, and while we never hung out much, we maintained a cordial, if distant, relationship. Our current status is a bit more strained, thanks to her attempts to print a picture of me bare-chested on the front page of the paper a couple weeks ago, and the fact that she has suddenly become the main obstacle between me and Detective Hurley, assuming, of course, that Hurley has forgotten about that unfortunate incident when I barfed on his shoes.

It isn’t just the sight of them together that bothers me. I knew they had plans to attend a Halloween party tonight—the same party Izzy and I just left—because I was there a week ago when Alison all but threw herself at Hurley and demanded that he take her. What bothers me is the fact that they never made it to the party but are still together. What were they doing while I sat letting Dracula turn me into one of the undead?

Both of them are in costume: Alison looks disturbingly cute dressed as a genie, and Hurley, rather unimaginatively, is dressed like an Eliot Ness–era FBI agent, though the hat does give him a sexy, debonair, I-want-to-bite-your-lip quality. I give their outfits a quick once-over searching for signs of disarray or a fresh-out-of-the-sack look, but don’t find any. It’s a mild reassurance at best, and any relief I might feel vanishes when I see the smug expression on Alison’s face.

Her camera is slung around her neck and she is holding it with one hand, prepared to take a quick snap if something worthy should present itself. Even in high school Alison always had her camera close by and ready. It earned her the nickname Snapper, a moniker that always made all the boys snigger. Nowadays she’s a freelance reporter/photographer and the primary photo source for our local paper, so a camera is still as ubiquitous an accessory as ever. I briefly wonder if she sleeps with it, but as soon as the thought hits my mind, I flash on an image of Hurley naked in bed with her, and my face grows uncomfortably hot.

Hi, everyone, Alison says with a perky little wave of her hand. She eyes me and Izzy and says, How cute. Snow White and Doc. What a clever idea.

Before I can correct her she has raised her camera, snapped a shot, and blinded me with her flash.

No pictures unless I say so, Hurley grumbles, and I am instantly grateful for his reprimand. I smile in his general direction and blink hard several times, trying to get my vision back. Then I realize I probably look like I’m batting my eyes at him and stop.

Not to worry, Alison says. That was just a fun picture for Mattie and Izzy. Nothing official.

I can see the vague outlines of everyone as my eyes struggle to adjust to the dark, and it seems they are all looking at Shannon again. So I focus my own gaze in the same direction.

What do we have? Hurley asks.

Izzy says, Mattie, do you want to take this one?

Oh, goody, a chance to impress Hurley! I nod solemnly to hide my delight. Since I can’t see very clearly, I try to remember what I’d noted earlier as I start to speak.

The victim’s tentative ID is Shannon Tolliver, a thirty-something female and the resident of this house. It appears she was shot at least twice, once in the chest and once in the upper abdominal area. Given the location of the wounds and the amount of blood beneath the body, I’d guess one or both of the bullets pierced the liver or aorta and she quickly bled out.

Any guess as to time of death? Hurley asks.

I’m still half-blind so as I move closer to the body to check for the presence of livor mortis and rigor mortis, I fail to see the bottommost step to the porch. My toe rams into the riser and my upper body continues its forward motion as my feet stop dead in their tracks. I feel myself falling and pinwheel my arms in a desperate effort to regain some balance, but the laws of physics are against me. I’m bracing for a collision with the hard wooden stairs when a strong arm wraps around my waist and pulls me back.

Careful there, Hurley says, his breath warm in my ear.

I’m momentarily in heaven as I feel the length of my backside come into contact with Hurley’s front side, but my rapture evaporates with his next words.

Christ, you’re like a bull in a china shop.

Hurley’s arm uncoils itself from my waist and I miss its warmth immediately even though my face is burning hot enough to start a fire. My vision is almost back to normal and I can see Izzy shaking his head. He steps up and takes over the examination, leaving me to stand where I am, trying not to look as stupid as I feel.

A few seconds later I step forward more carefully and kneel on the other side of the body, taking care to shove the bulk of my gown between my legs so I don’t contaminate the blood pools.

Together we begin our examination, looking for any gross trace evidence on the surface of the body before we touch or move anything. There are several stray hairs stuck in the congealed blood surrounding her wounds but their long length and blond color makes me suspect they are Shannon’s own. I pick them up one at a time and place each in its own evidence envelope, sealing and labeling the specimens as I go.

Shannon’s left arm is beneath her body, hiding that hand from view, so examination of that will have to wait until we move her. But on her right hand, which is flung out in front of her, I notice that the knuckles appear raw and abraded. I wonder if she incurred this injury in her crawl and fall down the stairs, or if she managed to deliver a blow to her attacker during a struggle. If the latter, I know there might be valuable evidence there so I carefully place a paper bag over the hand, securing it with evidence tape. In doing so, I notice her arm is stiff. Izzy notes the same thing in both of her legs.

None of the lividity blanches and it appears she is in full rigor, he announces.

Eager to redeem myself in front of everybody, I jump in and say, Given the outside temperatures we’ve had, that means she’s likely been dead for somewhere between twelve and thirty-six hours.

Izzy nods approvingly and says, That is correct.

I hear Alison mutter a little hmph behind me and can’t help but smile. But then she says, Twelve to thirty-six? Is that the best you can do? That’s a twenty-four-hour window of time.

My initial impulse is to leap across Shannon’s body, grab Alison by the throat, and throttle her. But before I can, Izzy jumps in.

It appears there is the start of some putrefaction here, he says, pointing to a faint greenish patch of skin on the lower right side of Shannon’s swollen abdomen, just above the waistband of her pants. That helps us narrow things down a little more. Odds are she’s been dead for around twenty-four hours, give or take a few. Here in the field, that’s the closest prediction I can make, but once we get the body to the morgue and do some further analyses, we might be able to pinpoint the time of death more precisely.

I glance at my watch, see that it’s just past eight-thirty in the evening, and do a quick mental calculation. So time of death for now is likely sometime yesterday evening. I pause and glance around, suppressing a shiver when I realize Shannon’s body lay out here all day long with no one noticing. It saddens me to think how hard she worked to decorate her lawn for Halloween, not knowing she would soon become a part of her own gruesome diorama.

After unfolding a white plastic sheet and carefully placing it over the body to preserve any surface evidence we might have missed, Izzy and I turn Shannon’s body on its side to examine her back. There is a slight sucking sound as her body separates from the large pool of congealed blood beneath her and that, combined with the wafting scent of rot and decay, makes my stomach lurch.

Izzy examines Shannon’s back and announces, It’s hard to be sure with all the blood but I don’t see any exit wounds. So hopefully we’ll have some ballistic evidence once I do her post.

Hurley is scratching down notes in a small spiralbound notebook as we ease the body back into its original position, first making sure to tuck the plastic wrap sheet in place. With that done, Izzy and I secure the wrap, completely enclosing the body. Then we stand, remove our bloodied gloves, don new ones, and start taking in the rest of the murder scene.

I study the blood trail leading from the body to the porch and from there into the house. It doesn’t make much sense for the killer to have dragged her outside where she might be found sooner, I surmise. And the amount of blood in this trail suggests she was alive until she got to the stairs. So I’m guessing she was shot somewhere inside the house and managed to drag herself out here.

Izzy says, I agree.

But why? I pose. Why come out here rather than phone for help from the house?

Hurley rewards me with a smile that makes Alison’s pout deepen. Excellent question, he says. Let’s go inside and find out.

Chapter 3

It turns out a white ball gown isn’t the best thing to wear to the scene of a bloody homicide. Despite my efforts, the hem of my skirt is spotted with blood and dirt. That means incurring a hefty dry cleaning bill before I can return it to our office receptionist, Cass Zigler, who let me borrow it from the wardrobe cache her thespian group owns. In order to avoid any further contamination of either the dress—which is actually two pieces, a skirt and a bodice—or the evidence, I slip on a pair of scrub pants from the stash Izzy maintains in the trunk of his car and remove my skirt.

Izzy, Larry, Alison, and I follow Hurley along the edges of the blood trail into the house, Izzy marking our progress with his camera. Alison really has no business being with us but I suspect Hurley is letting her come along because he doesn’t trust her not to sneak a few pictures if left outside with the body.

We’re only a few feet down the hallway when Izzy asks me, How well did you know Shannon?

The question makes Hurley stop and turn to look at me, bringing our human train to a halt. No doubt he’s wondering if I will need to be recused from this investigation the way I was from Karen Owenby’s. In the latter case I had to step aside not only because I knew the victim, but because she’d been having an affair with my husband, a fact that put me high on the list of suspects. This time I should be in the clear.

Only casually, I assure everyone.

Larry pipes up. A lot of people know Shannon. She’s a waitress over at Dairy Airs.

Dairy Airs is an ironically named restaurant in town run by a family who owns a dairy farm. The menu is filled with fattening and delicious foods like fried cheese curds, cream puffs, cheesecakes, and my personal favorite, ice cream. The name, though cute, is an apt one since the place has made significant contributions to many of the derrieres in town, my own included. With all the wonderfully fattening delights the place has to offer, it’s amazing to me that Shannon is so slender. If I worked there, I’d be big as a house in no time.

To be honest, I say, I know Shannon’s husband, Erik, better than her. He’s a radiology tech at the hospital.

Hurley frowns. She’s married? Where’s the husband? Did he call this in?

Larry repeats the trick-or-treater story, stating that the kids who found Shannon’s body have since gone home with their parents. We talked to them and they were pretty traumatized but I don’t think they saw anything of consequence. She’d been dead a while by the time they found her. As for the husband, we’re not sure where he is.

He doesn’t live here anymore, I tell Hurley. He and Shannon split up three or four months ago. Did you try the hospital? I ask Larry.

We did. He’s not there.

Any scuttlebutt on why they split? Hurley asks me.

I shrug. I don’t know. Erik never said anything other than that he’d moved out, but there were lots of rumors flying around the hospital when it first happened.

What sorts of rumors? Hurley asks, his blue eyes narrowing.

The usual suspects, I tell him. That Erik is gay, that one of them wanted kids and the other didn’t, that he had an affair, that she had an affair.

Hurley stares at me a moment and his gaze is so intense it feels as if he’s looking through my clothes to the skin beneath. Heat surges through me and I have to resist the urge to start fanning myself. Finally he says, So what do you believe was behind the separation?

I think I detect some subtle innuendo in the question and I blush. I’m hot on the heels of my own separation, a fact Hurley knows all too well, and he also knows all the sordid reasons why.

I have no idea why Erik and Shannon split, I say honestly.

Are they just separated or have they filed for divorce? Hurley asks.

Again I pick up a hint of subtext and I can’t help but wonder if Hurley is somehow alluding to my own situation. The fact that everyone else in the room is watching and listening intently makes me realize they have picked up on it, too.

I’m guessing they were only separated, given the relatively short time since their breakup and the fact that Erik never said anything about a divorce, but I don’t know for sure.

Hurley stares at me a moment longer, then his gaze drifts down my body. Alison sees it and seizes an opportunity to jump into the conversation, stepping away from me to force Hurley’s gaze in her direction.

Shannon was dating someone, she tosses out, looking proud. And rightly so. Gossip is a hot commodity in small towns like ours, and having the latest info elevates one’s standing in all social circles, especially one involving a homicide investigation. She’s been seeing that new psychologist who came to town six months ago.

Hurley poises his pen over his notebook and says, Name?

Luke Nelson.

As Hurley scribbles down the name I add my own two cents’ worth, just to show I’m not totally ignorant. He’s a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.

What’s the difference? Hurley asks.

"A psychiatrist is a medical doctor and a psychologist isn’t. Psychiatrists provide counseling and psychotherapy the same way psychologists