Harriet appeared in my doorway as Sammie left and handed me a thin folder. After a few minutes of reading, I picked up the telephone and dialed the hospital’s emergency room, requesting nurse Elizabeth Pace, a friend of several years’ standing.
“What can I do for you, Joe?” she asked after we’d exchanged greetings.
“I gather you folks recently treated a bum named Milo Douglas for a heart condition.”
“That’s right. George Capullo was asking about him. Is there a problem with how he died?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered honestly. “I just wanted to tie up a couple of loose ends. The doctor’s name on Milo’s pill bottle was Jefferies—is he still on the ER shift?”
“He’s here right now—want to talk to him?”
A soft, bland voice came on the line a moment later. “Dr. Jefferies. How may I help you?”
I identified myself and then asked, “Do you remember a patient named Milo Douglas? He was a bum you prescribed some heart medicine for.”
There was a slight pause. “Right. Nurse Pace just handed me his chart. Mild supra ventricular arrhythmias. I put him on the smallest dosage of Inderal available—ten milligrams. I see there’s a note he died recently. Is something wrong?”
I sympathized with his implied misgivings. “Not that I know of. I do have some questions, though. Our witnesses reported he had a seizure just before he collapsed. Would that be consistent with his condition?”
“A grand mal seizure?”
I consulted the file before me. “Those words weren’t used, but that’s the implication. The quote here says, ‘He flopped around like crazy.’”
“What were the Medical Examiner’s conclusions?” Jefferies asked cautiously.
“He hedged his bets—said ‘natural causes.’”
Jefferies thought for a few seconds before admitting, “He may be right, given Mr. Douglas’s personal habits. But if you’re asking if death was due to the heart condition I treated him for, then I’d have serious doubts. It wasn’t that severe. And certainly the grand mal seizure would have had nothing to do with it—that had to have been from another cause entirely. Looking at the chart, by the way, I see I did a pretty thorough medical history at the time I examined him. Mr. Douglas was no pillar of sound health, but there’s nothing that would indicate any grand mal seizure activity. It might’ve been alcohol-related, and misinterpreted by your witnesses. I take it they were people who shared his lifestyle?”
I smiled at the diplomacy. “Yes, they were, and that’s a distinct possibility. They may’ve been more scared than accurate.”
My curiosity further stimulated, I hung up on Dr. Jefferies and punched the intercom button. Harriet Fritter picked up immediately. “Which funeral home handled the untimely that George took care of a couple of nights ago?”
“Guillaume’s,” she answered without hesitation. Harriet was what the computer was supposed to be for our squad—the fastest source of information available. I hadn’t the slightest idea how old she was—although she was a grandmother several times over—but I knew when she left us eventually, it would be the equivalent of a major system meltdown.
I called Guillaume’s, found out they still had Milo Douglas on the premises, and retrieved my coat.
In Brattleboro, funeral homes were employed by the town on a rotational basis. The procedure followed clear and simple guidelines—once the funeral home took possession, an extensive search for next of kin was conducted while the death certificate was reviewed by the Medical Examiner’s office in Burlington. Then the body was disposed of in a respectful, inexpensive fashion—all in a few days at most.
The catch was often in finding the next of kin. The state allocated $850 for the disposal of each body, which for a simple cremation wasn’t too bad. Embalming and burial cost more and took longer, however, and the state insisted that if no relatives were found, this was the route the funeral home had to take. Guillaume’s had informed me on the phone that such was to be Milo’s fate.
As with many businesses in Brattleboro, Guillaume’s was located in a converted turn-of-the-century residence—this one a true architectural gem, located on one of the town’s main drags. Heavily Victorian, replete with an excess of multihued gingerbread along with the requisite corner turret, the house had long made me ponder the connection between the exterior’s pristine appearance—and the efforts made inside to make its clientele look their best.
I parked by the side, climbed the broad porch steps, and entered a huge, thick-carpeted entrance hall—dark, wood-paneled, with stained-glass windows and gleaming brass fixtures. I knew it was meant to both comfort and impress, but it just made me feel self-conscious to be alive. I was relieved when a middle-aged man in a dark blue suit appeared almost immediately through a door beneath the sweeping staircase. His name, much to his chagrin, was Conrad Blessing.
“Joe,” he said with a wide smile. “Good to see you again.” We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries while he led me back the way he had come. His lack of stilted, unctuous manners reminded me that cops weren’t the only ones instantly stereotyped by their profession.
“I take it you’re having second thoughts about Mr. Douglas’s demise,” Blessing said, opening the door. The hallway we entered was white-painted, brightly lit, and as functionally stark as the lobby had been theatrically overstuffed.
“Nothing that solid. I just used to know Milo.”
Blessing’s voice dropped to a more conciliatory tone. “I’m sorry. Were you friends?”
I laughed. “Hardly—the man was a pure opportunist. I used him as a source now and then.”
He led the way to a service elevator. “We’re running a little behind schedule, so we stored him in a tunnel under the driveway. That’s why I didn’t take your coat. It’s pretty cold down there.”
The elevator sank one story, to a large, cool, dimly lit basement with several empty gurneys stationed along the wall. Blessing crossed over to a broad, closed door on the opposite wall, paused to put on a coat he had hanging from a nearby peg, and swung the door open.
The column of cold air that hit us was a surprise, even with his warning, and I shivered as we crossed the threshold.
Blessing closed the door behind us. “Mr. Douglas is down here a ways.”
I followed him along a semicircular tunnel, lit by naked bulbs strung along a rough cement ceiling. More gurneys lined the uneven walls, a couple of them occupied by long, shapeless, fully bagged bundles. At about the halfway mark, we stopped, and Blessing waved a hand at a gurney topped by a long cardboard box. “Milo Douglas.”
We both lifted the top off the box. Inside was a zippered black body bag, which Blessing, having donned rubber gloves from his coat pocket, expertly opened and peeled back.
From within, obliquely lit by one of the overhead bulbs, Milo’s hairy, filthy face grimaced up at us, his one good eye half-closed as in an alcoholic stupor, the other more open—milky, strange, and as sightless as it had been in life. The hair around his mouth was matted and caked with dried saliva. The stench, even in this natural freezer, was overwhelming.
“You must love these cases,” I said. “This just the way you received him?”
Blessing nodded. “Yes. He’s scheduled for cleanup and embalming this afternoon.”
I looked down at Milo for a moment, struck by a memory so lasting and powerful that it hit me with a jolt. I hesitated before saying, “Okay. We can wrap him up again.”
Blessing worked the zipper, adding, “It’s no problem if you want to move him upstairs for a closer look. It’s warmer and we’ve got very good ventilation.”
I shook my head, keeping my thoughts to myself. “That’s okay. I mostly just wanted to make sure it was him. Do you have any of his personal effects, by the way?”
He led us back to the warm basement, and to a shelf lined with several brown paper bags, one of which he handed me. I poured its contents onto a nearby table and picked through an assortment of rags, bottle caps, paper clips, broken ballpoint pens, and other assorted junk until I found Dr. Jefferies’s orange plastic container of prescribed Inderal. Blessing nodded silently as I gestured putting it in my pocket. “Thanks. I’m going to see if I can get an autopsy ordered. I’d appreciate it if you held him till I let you know.”
Blessing returned the bag to the shelf. “No problem. He’s not in anyone’s way.” I wondered if the same had been true at the end of his life.
· · ·
Gail was sitting at her desk, to one side of the reception area. Her tired face broke into a smile when she saw me. “Hey, stranger. You get any sleep?”
I crossed over and kissed her. “A few hours this morning. Sorry I missed you.”
“Not to worry. My spies told me what you were up to.” She waved at the files all around her, covering the desk and floor both. “In fact, Patty Redding is hiding here—somewhere—already. What’re you up to?”
“Petitioning your boss for an autopsy. I wanted to tell you something about Linda Feinstein, though.” Gail’s eyebrows rose. “I won’t breach any confidentialities, but I think you ought to talk to her. She may have something to get off her chest. You can tell her I told you that much. It’s up to her if she wants to spell it out.”
She nodded and made a notation in her desk calendar. “You got it. Did you get a decent breakfast—or dinner for that matter?”
“Yeah,” I answered evasively. “Ron treated me.”
Jack Derby’s door opened behind her and he beckoned me with his hand. “Come on in, Joe. You got five minutes.”
“Life in the fast lane,” I murmured to Gail, and followed him into his office.
“I’m heading for court, so don’t mind the distractions.” Derby was standing behind his desk, a large briefcase sitting on its edge. He was surveying a snow bank of documents, selecting from among them, and marking his choices off on a checklist by his right hand.
I sat in his guest chair. “I’d like an autopsy ordered on Milo Douglas. He’s the bum they found under the Whetstone bridge on Main Street a couple of nights ago.”
Derby didn’t look up. “Why? I thought he was natural causes.”
“He might’ve been. He had a bottle of heart meds in his pocket for chest pain, but witnesses said he died after a seizure. The Assistant Medical Examiner was a GP, covering for Al Gould, who’s on vacation. He combined the cardiac history, the alcoholism, poor living habits, and the fact that Milo was in his sixties, and came up with heart failure. But nobody talked to his actual doctor—both the AME and our own investigator just checked with the hospital.”
“And you did talk to his doctor,” Derby surmised.
“Right. He said sudden death in such a case was pretty unlikely, and that seizures have nothing to do with what Milo was being treated for.”
“Was he part of one of your investigations?”
“Milo? No. I hadn’t even seen him in months. I have used him over the years, though, as a less than reliable snitch.”
“But he was an alcoholic, right? Couldn’t he have died of the DTs? Those could look like seizures, especially given your witnesses.”
I considered telling him of my biggest concern—the one triggered by seeing Milo at Guillaume’s—but with only my own memories to go on, I wanted some reliable confirmation. The implications of Satanism in Shawna’s death were bad enough. No need to add my own unfounded fears to that kind of fire. I opted for a compromise instead. “We’ll never know unless we check it out.”
He stopped long enough to look me squarely in the eye. “We can’t do it all, Joe. We’ve got plenty on our plates without fishing for more.”
“I realize that.”
He held my gaze a couple of seconds longer and then returned to his checklist. “All right—I’ll order an autopsy.”
“Thanks, Jack.” I stood up and moved to the door, hesitating as I placed my hand on the knob, wondering if I should tempt fate. “Why, by the way?” I finally couldn’t resist asking.
He stopped again and gave me an enigmatic shrug. “Maybe it’s because you’ve been at this for donkey’s years, and from what I heard, you don’t ask for special favors. Maybe it’s because I’m the new boy on the block and I don’t want to piss you off. Take your pick. Anyhow, the ME’s office pays for autopsies, so it doesn’t dent my budget in either case. Have a nice day,” he added with a smile.
Not that my reasons weren’t entirely self-serving, but I admired the man’s style. It made me happy I’d voted for him.
JACK DERBY HAD BEEN RIGHT
about the Medical Examiner’s office paying for their own autopsies—$1,000 each—but when I reached Beverly Hillstrom by phone, she voiced no opposition, despite the fact that she’d already signed off on the death certificate.
I arranged to have Milo shipped to Burlington, but with growing misgivings. Both Derby and Hillstrom had placed their trust less on any real evidence than on my gut instinct, and even there I’d shortchanged them, keeping my worst suspicions to myself.
I couldn’t help praying those suspicions were well-founded. George Capullo, one of our Patrol sergeants, and a veteran of more years than I could remember, had been the one called to Milo’s side the other night. He had also collected the witness statements.
I found him preparing for the four-to-midnight shift, reviewing the prior shift’s dailies. There were only a few desks in the so-called Officers’ Room, forcing everyone to share. It was a situation that led to endless, three-times-a-day shuffles of personal belongings from desktop to allocated drawer, and—I thought—a slightly disquieting sense of impermanence. In my own squad room, I could see the imprint of its inhabitants everywhere—from the types of information they posted on the walls before them, to the little knickknacks that littered their cubicles. There was little of that in the Officers’ Room. A decades-old veteran like George left as much on its surfaces as a week-old rookie. Neither space nor budget allowed otherwise.
I perched myself on the edge of the desk he was rummaging through searching for paper clips.
He glanced up briefly, his first words a commentary on our department’s small size. “Hey, Joe. Nice collar on Patty Redding. He must’ve shit his pants when he saw you two at the door.”
“Close enough.” I chose my next words carefully. As old as our friendship was, what I’d just done with Milo’s body could easily have been taken as a rebuke for shoddy work. I felt on thin enough ice as it was without damaging George’s pride.