Chapter 44
W
hile Izzy processes the scene in the consulting room, I opt to remain in the office area. I don’t think I can bring myself to look at Carla’s corpse yet so I continue going through Nelson’s desk, pulling files from his drawers and flipping through them. I’m alone with my thoughts trying unsuccessfully to focus on the files, when Hurley, who disappeared half an hour or so ago, returns with Alison in tow. My mood is dark enough as it is, and Alison’s presence doesn’t help the matter any, especially when she starts rubbing up against Hurley.
“It’s a bit inappropriate for her to be here, isn’t it?” I say to Hurley.
Before he can answer, Alison pipes up with “Oh, I’m not here as a reporter. The police station is a bit short-staffed right now so they hired me on as a freelance photographer to help out for a while.”
I look questioningly at Hurley, who nods and shrugs. I’m not happy with this turn of events and I suspect Alison knows why. Not only don’t I trust her not to use the pictures for the paper, it gives her more excuses to spend time around Hurley.
After flashing me a smug smile, she takes her camera in hand and starts shooting pictures of Nelson’s office. Apparently Hurley has his doubts about her trustworthiness, too, because he warns her, “Remember, Alison, none of the pictures you take here can be used in the paper unless they’re cleared by me first. Understood?”
After Alison nods, Hurley heads for the front of the office, leaving me alone with her while Izzy works on Carla’s body in the next room. I’m sorting through some files in Nelson’s desk drawer when Alison starts snapping pictures of me.
“I can’t believe all the death we’ve had here in town lately,” she says. She pauses and cocks her head at me. “Ever since you took your job at the ME’s office, Mattie, it seems people are dropping like flies.”
I’d like to drop her at the moment, out a twentieth-story window.
“Or maybe,” I counter, “it’s just that you’re more aware of the deaths now that you’re following Hurley around like a bitch in heat.”
She smiles but there’s no warmth to it. “Aw, are you jealous?” she taunts.
“Not at all,” I say, smiling back with matching iciness. I suspect half of Alison’s interest in Hurley is simply her desire to take a jab at me. As a reporter, it’s her job to be provocative and trigger emotional outbursts. It makes for good pictures and good copy. I figure if I feign disinterest, maybe she’ll move on to something, or someone else.
“Are you saying you have no interest in Hurley?” she asks.
I focus on the files I have stacked on the desk, not wanting to meet her gaze when I lie to her. “None at all,” I say with great nonchalance.
“Then you won’t mind if I make a move.”
“Have at it,” I say with a shrug. “Hurley is just a toy to pass the time with. I have no romantic designs on him whatsoever. In fact, I’m dating someone else right now. I’m having dinner with Aaron Heinrich.”
This isn’t altogether true since I haven’t actually accepted Aaron’s invitation, but I’m banking on Alison not knowing that.
I hear someone clear their throat and know from the masculine sound of it that it isn’t Alison. When I look up expecting to see Izzy, I see Hurley instead, standing in the doorway, staring at me with a wounded expression. Panic sets in as I wonder how long he was there and how much he heard.
“Hurley, I—”
His cell phone rings, cutting me off. He answers with a brusque “Hurley here,” and then listens for a minute. When he hangs up he turns away from me and addresses his remarks to Alison.
“It seems our Dr. Nelson has flown the coop,” he says tersely. “I’ve had the office issue a statewide APB on him so we’ll get him eventually.” He looks back at me then, his expression cold. “I listened to the tape and you were right. It’s obvious what was going on. But I’m afraid it’s not going to be usable for evidence given how it was obtained.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think things through very well,” I say, trying to convey my apologies for more than just the tape.
He stares at me for several seconds and as I struggle to read his face I try to communicate volumes with my own. Then he says, “I’m outa here. I’ll leave a couple of uniforms behind to help you with the evidence.” And just like that, he’s gone.
Alison raises her camera and snaps a picture of me, one I pray won’t show the disappointment and hurt I’m feeling. Then she smiles. “Wait for me, Stevie,” she yells over her shoulder. “I need some quotes for the paper.” She flounces out of the room, leaving me angry and alone.
I spend some time shuffling the files around but I’m too upset to focus: upset with Alison but even more upset with myself. I’m relieved when the Keller Funeral Home shows up to load Carla’s body and take it to our morgue because at least it’s a distraction. As I follow them out into the anteroom I look for Hurley, but he’s nowhere to be found.
As soon as the funeral home vehicle takes off, Izzy turns to me and says, “Arnie is still at the office so he can do the intake. I don’t plan to post Carla until tomorrow morning and I know this has been a rough day for you, so why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
Knowing I’m dangerously distracted, I take him up on his offer, stripping off my gloves and tossing them in the trash. I drive home in a somber mood, where I find Hoover curled up in the middle of my bed sound asleep. Nestled between his front paws sleeping just as soundly is Rubbish. I strip down to my undies and crawl in beside them. They waken, but when they see I’m joining them, they both settle down and go back to sleep.
Surrounded by my warm, snuggly little furballs, I curl up into a ball and start to cry.
After a fitful night of pacing, crying, and occasionally sleeping, I awaken the next morning to the ring of my cell phone. Daylight is peeking in through my windows and a quick glance at the clock tells me it’s a little after seven. Memories of the previous day’s events come flooding back as I grab my phone and I mutter a silent prayer that it’s Hurley on the other end, calling to give me another chance and forgive me for my stupidity.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” My spirits sag as I realize it’s Izzy, not Hurley.
“No,” I lie. I sit up and rub the sleep and dried tears from my eyes, then look over at Rubbish and Hoover, who are curled up together on the other side of the bed. “What’s up?” I ask, throwing the covers off and climbing out of bed.
“Have you seen this morning’s paper?”
I shake my head, then remember that I’m on the phone. “No. How bad is it?”
“Well, your picture fills the front page above the fold, right beneath a headline that reads,
LOCAL WOMAN DEAD, INVESTIGATION ONGOING
. You look appropriately stricken. Beneath that is another, smaller headline that says,
PSYCHIATRIST ON THE LAM
, with a picture of Luke Nelson. The article doesn’t say anything about the sexual abuse or that Carla killed herself, just that Nelson is wanted as a person of interest and can’t be found. Hurley said he wants to keep the details quiet for now.”
“You talked to Hurley this morning?”
“Yep, I called him right before I called you. My mother fell yesterday and she’s in the hospital so I need to run up there and see her this morning.”
“Sylvie fell? Is she all right?” I’m concerned not only because of my friendship with Izzy, but because the cottage I’m living in was originally built by Izzy for Sylvie when her health was failing. She gradually improved and moved out after a year because she’s fiercely independent and has little tolerance for Izzy’s lifestyle. She’s been going strong ever since at the ripe old age of eighty-something, but if she’s had a setback and needs to move back in, I might lose my digs.
“Not to worry,” Izzy says, reading my mind. “The hospital said she didn’t break anything. They diagnosed a mild case of pneumonia that temporarily weakened her but her doctor said she should be good as new in no time.”
I breathe a small sigh of relief.
“Anyway, because I’m heading up to the hospital, I won’t be doing the post on Carla until later today. That’s why I called Hurley. He said he wanted to be there for the autopsy so I wanted to let him know I’m not planning to start it until around eleven.”
“Okay. Anything you need me to do in the meantime?” I’ve made my way to the kitchen to start the coffeepot up and both Rubbish and Hoover have followed. They are sitting patiently at my feet, looking up at me with beseeching eyes.
“Actually, there is,” Izzy says. “We need more photos of the scene. I shot some yesterday in the room where Carla’s body was but I didn’t have time to finish because I got the call about my mother and had to head for the hospital.”
“No problem. I’ll run by first thing this morning and get the pictures for you.”
“Thanks. The digital camera is in the office on my desk. I’ll see you at eleven.”
“Tell Sylvie hi for me.”
“Will do.”
I hang up, glad for the revised schedule since I overslept. After letting Hoover out to do his morning ablutions, I fill up the critters’ respective food bowls and admire Hoover’s restraint in not eating Rubbish’s food after he snorts up his own. A shower, a cup of coffee, and a bowl of cereal later I head for the office.
I find the camera right where Izzy said it would be and sitting next to it is his digital recorder. Remembering that Hurley has mine, I grab Izzy’s, figuring I can use it if I find anything at the scene I want to note. I tuck the recorder in my pocket, put the camera and a handful of gloves inside my purse, and then make my way to Nelson’s office.
The place is locked and sealed up with crime scene tape, but Junior Feller is pulling guard duty in a squad car parked out front. I park a couple spaces away, grab a pair of gloves and the camera, toss my purse on the car floor, and get out, locking the car behind me.
Junior rolls his window down as I approach. He’s sipping coffee and reading the morning paper. I see my face plastered across the front of it and realize that Alison did, indeed, use the last picture she shot of me.
“Morning, Junior.”
“Hey, Mattie. Nice picture.”
“I guess.” He makes no big deal about my status as a headliner. In a town the size of Sorenson, just about everyone makes it into the paper at some point.
“You need in?” he says, gesturing toward the office door.
“I do. I need to snap some shots we didn’t get yesterday.”
“No problem.” He balances his coffee cup on the dashboard and climbs out of the car. We walk up to the door together, managing to attract a crowd of curious onlookers in the process. After he slices through the evidence tape and opens the door for me, he says, “Holler if you need anything.”
I thank him, don my gloves, and head inside. I take off my jacket and remove the recorder from its pocket, turning it to voice activation mode. I then slip it in its usual place, nestled between my breasts. I make a mental note to not tell Izzy where it was lest he worry it has girl cooties on it.
I snap some photos of the front room from as many angles as I can manage, making a verbal note when I shoot the corner where Luke Nelson was treated by the EMTs. Once I feel I’ve gotten what I need, I head into the office area.
The room is cold and dark; the blinds on the one window have been closed to keep people from peeking in. I flip the light switch and the first thing I notice is the files I was wading through yesterday still stacked atop Nelson’s desk. I shoot a couple of pictures of the area, set the camera down, and then go about returning the files I looked through yesterday to the drawer. It takes two loads to get them all in and unbeknownst to me a hanger hook on a file in the second half catches on my sleeve. When I pull back, the hooked half of the folder comes with me and its contents spill out, some inside the drawer, some on the floor.
Cursing, I unhook the file and toss it on the desk. I round up the papers that spilled in the drawer and stuff them back inside. Then I kneel down to gather up the ones on the floor. A small slip of paper has slid far beneath the desk and I have to crawl underneath to get it. When I try to get back up, I miscalculate and bash my head on the underside of the desk’s middle drawer, aggravating the area where my stitches are.
“Damn it,” I mutter, wincing and rubbing my head gingerly. As I’m waiting for the pain to recede, I look at the paper that caused all my misery and see that it’s a receipt from an Internet store. I start to toss it aside but the name of the store—Spies R Us—catches my eye. As I read further I see that the receipt is for a video camera, but not just any camera. This receipt is for a nanny cam.