The Goodbye Body (14 page)

“No one admits any responsibility for it. The exterior doors are locked at night, but that’s the only security measure taken. There aren’t any cameras in the hallways. The cleaning staff and orderlies with reason to be in the basement all claim to have seen nothing out of the ordinary, which one assumes would include the body being removed by person or persons unknown. The hospital administrator is reportedly apoplectic.”

“The door to the morgue’s not locked at night?” I said. “Anyone in the building can trot downstairs and borrow a body instead of going to the trouble of digging one up in the cemetery? Burke and Hare would have sneered at our present-day practitioners.”

“It’s no longer a viable occupation. Any valuables on the body are sealed in a manila envelope and kept in a safe. Medical schools aren’t that desperate for specimens for dissection, and are required to keep records for the ones they acquire from legitimate sources.”

“This is ridiculous. Maybe Mordella wasn’t really dead. According to your very own officers, he has a history of rousing himself when he doesn’t care for the accommodations. I have no idea why he chose the freezer, but he was clearly more at home there than in a drawer in the morgue. Maybe he’s sitting in the gazebo as we speak.”

“The medical examiner pronounced him dead at the scene.” Peter went over to a table and refilled his coffee mug. “The scene being Dolly Goforth’s house on Dogwood Lane, of course.”

I glared at his back. “So now you’re trying to put the blame on her.”

“The medical examiner was planning to do the autopsy this morning to determine how long Mordella’s been dead. He might not have been able to tell us much of anything if the body’s been in and out of the freezer several times. You don’t want to hear the details, but apparently it’s a question of ice crystals and tissue decomposition.”

“The day before Dolly left, she told me to help ourselves to the contents of the freezer. She couldn’t have thought the body was there at that point.” I stopped and thought about it. “Unless she wanted us to find it—but, no, I just can’t believe that. Why would she have called on Wednesday? To see if we’d found it? That doesn’t make any sense, since sooner or later we would have opened the lid to the freezer. If she had anything to do with it, she wouldn’t have asked me to house-sit. She would have told her committee members that she was taking a trip to some foreign destination, packed her bags, locked the house, and left. No one would have started asking questions for months.”

Peter sat down at his desk. “I agree that her behavior was irrational. However, we know she couldn’t have moved the body on Wednesday because she was in Atlanta when she called. It’s seven hundred miles from here.”

“Did she make any other calls?”

“Not on the cell phone. We obtained the record of calls from her home phone for the last several weeks. All of them were local, mostly to places like the arts center, the country club, a health club. One to a catalog company that specializes in gourmet cheeses and sausages. The only one that stood out was made early Sunday afternoon, when she called a local motel. We’re checking it out now. If Mordella was a guest there, we can determine when he arrived in Farberville. And as for Dolly Goforth, we’ve got some serious questions about her. I’m beginning to doubt she actually exists.”

I set down the cup before I spilled its contents in my lap, hoping that I wasn’t experiencing symptoms of a concussion, which conceivably might include auditory hallucinations. “You’ve been in her house, for pity’s sake. You saw her car. Your men have probably pawed through her lingerie by now. Half the caterers in town are on a first-name basis with her. She spends several hundred dollars a month on books.”

Peter gave me a mug of coffee and waited until I’d taken a shuddery sip. “She may have a corporeal presence, but not much else. She leased the house and furnishings for six months and paid with a cashier’s check. The agent, now panicked, is trying to run down the references. The car was leased as well, with cash from a dealer in Oklahoma. The Social Security number she used for a credit card and a bank account is valid as far as the government is concerned, but she apparently has never paid any income taxes or had money withheld from a payroll check. She doesn’t have a credit rating, a passport, or a criminal record.”

I took another swallow of bitter coffee. “What about Bibi? He owned a large business.”

“Not in Illinois,” Peter said with a grimace. “On a brighter note, he didn’t die there unless he did so without the standard paperwork. No obits in any of the major newspapers, no death certificate on file, no notification sent to the government agencies, including Social Security, Medicare, and the armed forces.”

“Dolly told me about his funeral. It wasn’t held behind a barn. Bibi was obviously a nickname. Did you—”

“Only two people with that same last name died in Illinois in the last five years. One was an elderly widow living in a nursing home in De Kalb, the other a siding salesman in Peoria. Neither left an estate in excess of a few thousand dollars. Local authorities are hunting down the families, but it doesn’t seem likely to lead anywhere. We have inquiries out to all the other states, but it’ll take time to hear back.”

I put aside the coffee before it did further damage to my stomach. “What about Sara Louise? Surely she can explain.”

His forehead furrowed, which in other circumstances I usually found endearing. “Sara Louise took a pain pill and is asleep in the den. Had you bothered to notify us before you went to the Book Depot, we might have been able to trace the call Madison made to you. We’re working on the call she made to the house.”

“I didn’t have time,” I protested with more indignation than I felt. “She told me the line was tapped, so you should have known, anyway.”

“We do not have a tap on the line. Even in this climate of disdain for civil liberties, we have to get a court order, and there was no evidence that any crimes were being plotted. Criminals tend to use cell phones or computers for such activities. You need to stop reading cozy mysteries and watch more cop shows on television.”

“If you say so,” I said as I stood up. “Are we finished for now? I’d like to go back to the bookstore and assess the damage. I guess I’d better have the locks changed as well, and install some designer deadbolts.”

Peter cut me off before I reached the door. “I don’t want you at the store by yourself, and we don’t have anyone available to stay there with you. An officer will take you to fetch your car, and then follow you back to Dolly’s house. Caron and Inez should be there shortly. If Sara Louise rouses herself, give her very strong coffee and call me.” He took advantage of his height to loom over me. “Don’t go anywhere and don’t take it upon yourself to question the girl.”

I was not impressed with his attempt to intimidate me, but smiled demurely and said, “We’ll be out by the pool playing Scrabble if you need us.”

Caron flung herself on me as I came out of Peter’s office. After I’d assured her that I was all right, she released me and gave me a beady look. “Jorgeson told us you were attacked in the bookstore. I Do Not Like This, Mother. I think we should break into Inez’s house and stay there. I personally will fight off any rabid librarians that creep into Mr. Thornton’s study to steal his precious notes on the decimal system.”

Inez looked up from a grimy plastic chair. “I don’t think my mother would like that. She always wants the house to be perfect for guests. Before her sister from Boston came to visit, she painted the kitchen cabinets and waxed the garage floor. She even made me buy new underwear, just in case.”

“In case of what?” asked Caron, momentarily distracted.

I tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m leaving now. I’ll tell you everything when you get finished and an officer brings you back to Dolly’s. We can have a picnic on the patio.”

Caron spun back around. “What if there are snipers on rooftops? I’m not setting foot out of the house, not even if somebody starts lobbing in tear gas canisters!”

“Then you’d better ask Peter if the department will loan us gas masks.”

An officer appeared, and I followed him out to a patrol car. Despite his visible discomfort, I insisted on sitting in the front seat. I recognized him from one of the previous 911 visits, but in that he wasn’t smirking, I couldn’t remember which one. I realized it would not be in my best interest to remind him of it.

“Quite a mess,” I said lightly as he pulled away from the curb, “what with the body disappearing from the morgue. Security at the hospital must not be very effective.”

“They’re understaffed, same as everybody else. I got a friend that works there, and he says there’s no way to secure all the ground-floor entrances. Nurses and orderlies go out for a smoke, then leave the door propped open. Delivery guys do it, too. The employees are supposed to wear ID badges, but they forget them half the time. Visitors come day and night. After ten o’clock, they have to use the main entrance. Nobody keeps track of them, though.”

“Guess I’d better leave my diamonds at home if I go in for surgery.”

“Yeah,” he said. “My sister-in-law had her purse stolen from her room while she was off getting some kind of test.”

We were approaching the Book Depot, which meant I had only a minute or two left to see what more I could weasel out of him. “Were you assigned to check out the victim’s motel room?”

“Naw, but I heard they didn’t find much. No wallet or personal papers, just a small suitcase, some clothes, bathroom stuff, a couple of paperbacks, and a bunch of racing forms all scribbled up. Hope the guy’s horses won.”

“The Wormwood Motel, wasn’t it?”

He sucked on his lip for a moment. “I thought it was the Fritz out on the highway.” He drove into the parking lot and stopped. “The lieutenant says that you’re not supposed to go inside, and that I have to follow you home. Any problem with that?”

“I would never dream of ignoring the lieutenant’s orders,” I said as I got out of the car. “And I solemnly swear to drive well under the speed limit so you won’t be compromised.”

And so I did, even observing the fifteen-mile-per-hour limit through the campus, which meant the students attending summer school sailed past me. After I parked in front of Dolly’s house, I waved to the officer, who backed out of the driveway and went racing down the hill. The Squeaky Clean van was gone. Dolly’s Mercedes was parked near a magnolia tree; I toyed with the idea of searching it, but decided the police had already done so, no doubt fastidiously ascertaining that there was no body in the trunk.

I went into the house, where I found Sara Louise snoring in the den and a young female officer sitting on a stool in the kitchen, drinking iced tea and reading one of the fashion magazines. She was startled when I entered the room, but stopped short of pulling out her weapon. “Corporal Margaret McTeer, ma’am,” she said.

I introduced myself, then poked around in the refrigerator for some cheese and salami. “Hungry?” I asked as I put everything on the island.

“No, thank you,” she murmured. “I hope you don’t mind that I fixed myself something to drink. There’s not much going on.”

I began to slice the cheese. “Anybody call?”

“Half a dozen reporters, and some friends of the woman who lives here. A lawn service guy, wanting to know if he should still show up. A dentist’s office about rescheduling an appointment for next week. I kept a list on a pad by the phone.”

“Is this what you envisioned when you signed up for the police academy?”

“I’ve had more challenging assignments, like directing traffic at high school football games. If you’re okay with it, I’m going to call the department and have somebody pick me up. Maybe I’ll get lucky and be assigned to patrol the mall for shoplifters. Most of the stores are having sales on swimwear.” She held up the magazine and showed me a photograph of bony models in improbable poses and little else. “I’m thinking about something like this.”

“Charming,” I said. I wondered if I would feel vulnerable after the officer left. Although she was petite and could easily go undercover at the high school, she did have a gun. It occurred to me that I did, too—unless the investigators had taken it. I had no idea how to operate it, but I most certainly could pretend otherwise in a crisis. Furthermore, it was not a dark and stormy night, and I was hardly destined to watch candles flicker in a mansion with creaky stairs and moans emanating from the attic. “We’ll be fine,” I added. “My daughter and her friend will be back shortly, and we’ll restrict ourselves to the house and the backyard.”

“If you’re sure,” she said. “I don’t want Lieutenant Rosen hollering at me. I heard one of the 911 dispatchers called in sick this morning.”

“I’ll assume responsibility. Go ahead and call for a ride.”

I turned my attention to making a sandwich. A few minutes later, she came into the kitchen to tell me she would wait outside. I nodded, and after I’d heard the front door close, poured a glass of iced tea and went into the dining room. Had Dolly been there, she would have effortlessly produced a mushroom quiche or a pizza with sun-dried tomatoes, prosciuto, and feta cheese. Salami and cheese, even with imported brown mustard, did not compare well.

I managed a few bites, then pushed aside the plate. I wished I could take a hot bath and a long nap, but I felt as though I needed to remain vigilant in case the body appeared on the front porch or on a rubber raft in the pool. I went into the den and looked down at Sara Louise, willing her to open her eyes and offer some explanations about Dolly and her beloved uncle Bibi. Who they were, for instance, and where they’d lived. Precisely where Bibi was resting in peace for all eternity. Why Dolly had lied to me, which she obviously had and in curious detail.

Sara Louise failed to so much as flutter her eyelashes. Irritated, I tossed the comforter across her bare feet. This elicited a faint snuffle. Short of poking her, there was nothing I could do until she roused herself. I went over to the desk and opened the drawer in which Madison and I had discovered the ominous gun—or little Beretta, depending on one’s perspective. It did not seem likely that she’d familiarized herself with the nomenclature at Drakestone College.