Digging Up Death (A Mari Duggins Mystery) (19 page)

More like the sick sense. “Your job sounds fascinating, but I’m really in a hurry to return to the family.” And the living.

“You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I don’t usually go out after dark.

He stepped closer. “Yeah, I do.”

His stench turned my stomach, or maybe it was the thought of where the odor came from.

“You work at the university, don’t you? You’re that archaeology lady. You look different on TV.”

Oh great, a fan from the crypt.

“You must know my uncle-in-law. He married my aunt. Too bad about those two splitting. I really liked the guy. A little stiff at family reunions, but then again I’m used to stiffs.” He snorted a laugh that made me want to turn and run. But I couldn’t without Henderson.

I didn’t care who his uncle was, or his aunt. I only wanted out. “Do you have Henderson?”

He wrinkled his brow and disappeared. When he returned moments later, he carried a beautiful jade-colored urn. It would go perfectly in Henderson’s trophy room. At least Susan had relented to Natasha’s wishes to keep her father at the mansion where he belonged. My hands clasped the cold stone encasement.

“You sure you don’t want to see the crematory? I’m preparing a guy with a pacemaker. I can leave it in and let it explode. Kapow! Did that once. It’s not really dangerous. Just destroys the oven. The cemetery has insurance for stuff like that.”

I recoiled. “Maybe some other time.”

“Great, you know where to find me.” He winked as he pointed his finger and shot me with his pretend gun. I spun on my heels, held tight to Henderson, and took two steps at a time toward the darkening night. Finger chills walked up my spine. I flew to the Jeep, strapped Henderson in the passenger’s seat, and peeled from the cemetery, throwing reverence to the curb.

The setting sun crowded the horizon as I drove ten minutes to my next errand. Why didn’t I say no when I had the chance? Then again it was my idea to have Natasha check her father’s safe deposit box and finances at the bank. She couldn’t be two places at once.

Calming orange and purple hues blended together in the sky, but my nerves didn’t notice. I slowed to turn into the hospital parking garage. Cramps blossomed in my belly. I gunned the gas, rounding the corner of the intimidating building and drove down Mulberry Street two more times. The squeal of an ambulance pierced the air before I made a detour and drove into Coffee Haven’s parking lot. Not that I needed any more adrenaline coursing through my body. I knew I was taking a chance drinking coffee on a sensitive stomach, but I needed a distraction before I picked up Henderson’s death certificate at the morgue.

When I walked into the crowded coffee shop, a rich, savory aroma activated my salivary glands. My breathing settled. Before they doctored up coffee with all the fancy creams and sugars, I never drank the bitter beverage. Now I craved the sweet, caffeinated pleasure, which distracted me from my troubles. At least it did before Monday.

After ordering a Venti, skinny, mocha latte with whipped cream, my body relaxed. I hurried to the restroom while they made my price-inflated coffee. Exiting the bathroom, I did a double take at the woman at the counter with over-processed, blonde hair, wearing an unflattering navy jacket and combat boots. Most definitely a contender for Lyndon’s worst dressed. She paid the cashier with a credit card. I caught her profile and gasped.

Susan Kip—er, Henderson? Blonde? I scanned the coffee shop and noticed Peter by the far window with his back toward a potted tree. It made perfect sense. The conversation I heard through his wall. The mention of a meeting at a coffee shop downtown.

Susan took her coffee and sat opposite Peter.

The person on the other end of the phone. The one Peter was arguing with. It had to be Susan.

“Mari!” I jerked as my name blared through the intercom, then bumped into a businessman exiting the restroom. “I’m so sorry.”

He scrunched his brows and shook his head.

I hurried off, grabbed my coffee, and shielded my face with a menu, pinballing my way through the crowded room. I slipped into the seat on the other side of the thick foliage where Susan and Peter sat, turned my back, and craned my ear toward them.

“I don’t understand. Why won’t you even consider it?”

What was Peter groveling about? He sounded nothing like the self-assured man who’d accused Jack of stealing antiquities, or the irate man on the phone earlier.

“It’s not that simple.” Susan’s voice barely rose above the coffee shop chatter.

“Sure it is. Henderson’s dead. He’s gone from the picture. You have no excuse now.”

“I don’t need an excuse, Peter. I don’t love you anymore.”

Ouch! The hot liquid scalded my tongue. Didn’t Peter say he was over Susan?

Matt’s cell phone played the same heinous rock song as before. “Hello?”

“Mari, Jan Carson.”

“Good to hear from you,” I whispered.

“Are you okay? Sounds like you’re losing your voice.”

“No, I’m fine. Must be a bad connection.”

“Good, because I want you to come in tomorrow at 3:00 for a second interview. We need to see if there’s chemistry between you and John Lewis, the host of
‘
Rise and Shine, Lyndon.’”

“Sure, I can be there. 3:00.”

I pressed End, glad I had transferred my calls to Matt’s phone and stunned at how things at KTXL seemed to be working in my favor. I could’ve shouted for joy right there in Coffee Haven, but the excitement faded in the reality that my personal life was on a downward spiral.

“Think of the children.” Peter’s voice strained. I homed in on the conversation. “They need a mother and father.”

“For heaven’s sake. They’re grown and in college. We’re still their parents, just not together. We’ve been apart for a while. Get over me.” She stood. “I’m leaving on vacation right after the memorial service. I’ll be traveling through Europe for a few weeks, so you’ll have the kids all to yourself this Christmas and New Year’s.”

“You’re disappearing again? You left the kids all summer when you went off to find yourself.”

“I was going to school.”

“You could have done that here in Lyndon or Austin.”

“I checked into it. My credit hours wouldn’t transfer. It could have taken two years to complete. The University of Iowa offered training in four months.”

“I still don’t understand why you switched careers. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ve never made sense to you, Peter.”

“So who is it this time?”

“What?”

“Who are you running off with?”

“It’s none of your business.” Susan inhaled, softening her tone. “I just wanted to say goodbye before I left. Tell the kids I’ll miss them. I’ll call for Christmas.” She rushed past me with Peter on her heels.

The peculiar aura surrounding the two lingered, swirling around my head. My stomach flipped. Pushing my mocha latte away with trembling hands, I realized Lopez was wrong. A love affair did cause Henderson’s demise.

I glanced at Peter, head down and defeated.

Just not his own.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

6:13 p.m.

I PULLED INTO THE well-lit hospital parking garage ready to commit myself to the psych ward. Escaping the crematory only to walk into the morgue defined grounds for committal. Entering the building, I determined not to lose control, or my latte. A promise was a promise. I told Natasha I would pick up her father’s death certificate, and I would. I just hoped I made it out alive.

After several wrong turns down eerily-clichéd empty hallways, I found the morgue. Drawing a deep breath, I noticed the sterile lobby void of personality didn’t smell like rotting flesh, not that I knew what rotting flesh smelled like. It actually smelled fruity, something I hadn’t expected. Clutching my bag, I walked to the desk. Peter’s conversation with Susan increased my suspicions that he might be involved in Henderson’s death.

It was no secret Peter loathed Henderson and wanted his position as Head of Archaeology, but wanting his wife back strengthened my conviction. The blood work on Henderson would probably show positive for some kind of drug. Maybe something that interfered with Henderson’s heart medication. I bet there were plenty of things to choose from in Peter’s desk that could kill a man with a weak heart.

“May I help you?” The emaciated woman behind the counter looked like she belonged in the morgue. Under a sheet.

“I’m Mari Duggins. I’m here for Theron Henderson’s death certificate.”

“Can I see some identification?”

“I’m a friend of the family. I have a note.” I reached into my bag and fumbled around for it. “I’m sure it’s in here somewhere.” I handed her the paper.

She snatched it with her skeletal fingers. “You’ll have to wait a moment while I call the number in the file to verify this information.”

I sat on the stiff, aqua lobby chairs, watching a group of squawking students strut by. They huddled close, bouncing around like they were headed to an amusement park instead of the morgue.

“Mrs. Duggins?”

I walked to the counter.

“The Medical Examiner is on vacation, but the Assistant Medical Examiner has all the paperwork you’ll need. Right now he’s teaching a lecture to a group of LU undergraduates. You’ll have to wait a while.”

“Thanks.” I glanced at my watch. Still time to make it home for dinner. After traipsing around the dead and barely living, I longed to eat a hot meal, hug my kids, and crawl into bed. My mocha latte tap-danced inside my bladder. “Where’s the restroom?”

The secretary pointed past the boisterous students. When I had finished washing, I downed a couple of Midol I bought before school, and exited the restroom, landing right in the middle of the LU undergrads. Giggling students pushed me from both sides. I tried to press through, but got swept away with them down a short corridor. I raised my hand to get the attention of the young man in the lab coat at the front of the pack, but he ignored me. Leaning on a cane, he waved his left hand in the air at the students and shouted. Their voices escalated. His efforts, ineffective.

I quit struggling to free myself from the group and found myself in a small room with a large grey curtain. As the rest of the students piled into the room, I lingered in the rear waiting for the doorway to clear for my escape.

“Good evening, class. I’m Brian Farlow. The Assistant Medical Examiner or
Numero Uno
AME as I’m known around here.”

I stopped mid stride and turned toward the man. Just the person I needed to see. Maybe my detour would be to my benefit if I could get his attention before he engaged in a lecture.

“Everyone settle down and please take a seat.”

I waved at him, but he focused on herding the students to their desks. What if I was forced to listen to a detailed lecture on forensics? The all-too-familiar
agita
churned.

Get a grip, Mari.
Instead of my mind responding, my stomach tightened like a boa, constricting and weakening what little grip I had left. I inched toward the door. I could come back. Henderson would still be dead tomorrow.

“Please everyone take a seat. That means you too, miss.”

Miss?

He limped to the door, his cane tapping on the floor, and blocked my escape. “Everyone is a little nervous their first time.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He pointed to a chair. I sat.

“For the next hour you will be entering my world. The world of forensic medicine. After studying to become a physician, why did I go into forensics, you might ask? Well, pathology is an important and fascinating field of medicine. Autopsies are done with respect, and providing the family with answers to their loved one’s death is very rewarding. And since my patients are dead it really helps cut down on malpractice. Ba-dum chh.”

When nobody laughed, the AME reached for the black cord to the grey curtain. “Okay, then …”

My hands clasped the underside of my cool plastic seat with a death grip.

“Since you’re all pre-med and have had limited exposure to cadavers, there is a sickness bag on the back of the chair in front of you. Don’t hesitate to use it.”

No one reached for it. I saw the white bag, but my arms stuck to my side.

“I’ve seen even the toughest guys lose their lunch when they get a load of this.” He tugged the cord and the curtain opened. Students in the room whispered to one another. Paralysis overtook every muscle as I peered through the large glass window at a naked dead man on a metal table, mesmerized by the foreign-yet-familiar scene. The two men behind the body wore scrubs, gloves, and a plastic shield protecting their face. The taller one stood at the dead man’s head, rattling off something … about race … male … the color of something, maybe the eyes, but all I saw was the shiny scalpel in the smaller man’s hand. This was CSI up close and way too personal.

Without warning the knife pierced the man’s shoulder. The girl to my left shrieked and covered her eyes as the man sliced through the dead man’s skin like butter, stopping mid chest. A faint shiver trickled through my body, but I couldn’t turn away. Then the second cut on the opposite side, making a V. Heaviness settled in my gut, yet it didn’t jolt me like the horror movies my father made me watch as a child.

The last slice down the length of the torso completed the Y incision, which took all of four seconds to make. No blood sprang from the body. No blood. No life. The weight in my gut lightened until my middle felt empty. Void of feeling, like the body on the cold table.

The smaller man grabbed the skin, peeling it back. I turned away as someone gagged behind me. I focused on the sign hanging on the wall of the autopsy bay. “This is the place where death rejoices to help those who live.”

I laughed at the irony. Death does rejoice, but not to help the living. Death rejoices because it can.

The sound of a saw revved to life. My hands flew to my ears as I watched the blade hitting the skull. Metal on bone. Piercing. Cutting. The shrillness vibrated through my entire body. I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to kill the tingling sensation. Panic awakened my body.