Trudy, Madly, Deeply (Working Stiffs Mystery Series) (3 page)

“Dr. Cardinale called early this morning.” Frankie handed me the folder. “These are my notes. I’d like you to go with Karla and get a statement from him.”

I knew Frankie wanted me to sit in on witness interviews and be an emotional barometer for the prosecution, but after we left Ben’s office on Friday, she had talked about me shadowing a couple of the legal assistants in the office for the first week. Maybe observe the criminal case that was supposed to start jury selection tomorrow.

Obviously, with the call about Trudy’s death, the plan had changed.

“The statement is just a formality,” Frankie said as if she could sense the nervous knots in my gut twisting themselves into pretzel rolls, “but it will be a good chance for you to jump in and get your feet wet. If the two of you leave soon, you can probably catch the doctor before his shift ends.”

To avoid embarrassing myself during my first interview, I scanned Frankie’s notes. At the bottom of the page, three letters were followed by a question mark. “C-O-D?”

“Cause of death, which will remain unknown until we hear back from the forensic pathologist.”

“A pathologist. Like a medical examiner?”

“Exactly, and he’ll be doing the autopsy that Dr. Cardinale requested.” She leveled her gaze at me. “Of course, nothing about any of this will be shared with anyone outside this office.”

Like anything juicy could be kept quiet within earshot of Duke’s. I nodded anyway, then started for the door.

“One more thing,” Frankie said, stopping me in my tracks. “Go downstairs and get sworn in before you leave.”

“Huh?”

Chapter Three

“I’m here to be sworn in,” I said to the Julia Child lookalike in the County Clerk’s office on the second floor.

She leaned against the counter, the name placard at the bank teller-style window identifying her as Gloria. “And what might you need to be sworn in for, honey?”

“It seems that I just became a deputy coroner.” I tried to not choke on the words coming out of my mouth.

When I’d handed Frankie’s notes over to Karla, she explained that deputizing me simply meant that I could speak with the doctor as an official representative of Frankie’s office. No more, no less.

Since my skill set required working with people who were still breathing, I was totally counting on that
no more
part.

Gloria’s unpainted lips pulled back into a lopsided grin. “Weren’t you the one who sold me a cinnamon roll last Thursday?”

“That would be me.”

“Interesting career path.”

“Tell me about it.” I just prayed that path wouldn’t lead to me wearing my breakfast on my shoes before the day was over.

She grabbed a form from behind the counter and slid it toward me. “Fill this out.”

Fifteen minutes later, Gloria handed me a laminated badge with the county seal that looked about as official as my library card.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, hon.” She patted me on the hand. “Try not to lose it or do anything to get the county sued.”

Nice. “I’ll give it my best shot.”

Since I had to make a side trip to the County Clerk’s office and Karla needed to get a registered letter out in today’s mail, we had agreed to meet up at the hospital. Figuring she had a ten-minute head start on me, I dashed to the parking lot, slid behind the wheel of my ex-husband’s Jaguar, and put the pedal to the metal to blast up to Chimacam Memorial at the crest of the hill on 6th.

Don’t get the wrong idea about the Jag. I got it as part of the divorce settlement. I needed a car and Chris was motivated to supply the wheels to fast-track me out of his life. Considering how much he’d loved the sleek, silver XJ6 he’d been driving when we met at culinary school, I was more than a little suspicious that he’d been so willing to part with it. Turned out for good reason—it overheated on my way back home to my grandmother’s house and cost me over a thousand bucks in repairs before I’d even made it out of California. The mechanic told me that for another grand he could fix the Jag’s oil leak and have her purring like a kitten.

As long as the damned thing didn’t cough up a hairball, I could live with feeding it a quart of oil every couple of weeks. Especially since that was all I could afford until I saw my first paycheck. Then I was going to unload it before it bled my bank account dry, and buy a car that wouldn’t make me feel like my ex had played me for a sucker.

When I entered the hospital lobby, I didn’t see Karla so I went to the information desk. “Where can I find Dr. Cardinale?” I asked the twenty-something who’d had her pierced nose buried in a romance novel when I served her a grilled cheese sandwich last Wednesday.

She popped her chewing gum. “Do you have an appointment?”

This seemed like a good opportunity to test drive my newly acquired plastic, so I pulled out my badge. “I just need to speak with him.”

She squinted at the badge, an uptick at the corner of her high gloss lips signaling her amusement. “You’re a deputy coroner now?”

I might have been given the county stamp of
officialdom
, but that obviously didn’t mean squat to anyone who’d seen me at Duke’s last week.

I pasted a smile on my face. “Yeah, I got a promotion. Dr. Cardinale … is he around?”

“Maybe. Take the elevator to the second floor and ask at the nurse’s station.”

When the elevator door opened, my cell phone rang—a local number but I didn’t recognize it.

“I have a problem,” Karla said without identifying herself. She didn’t have to. I’d have known her throaty smoker’s voice anywhere.

I also recognized the sounds of street noise and walked to a window overlooking the hospital parking lot. “Where are you?” I asked, looking for her.

“Third and Main. A tourist in the mother of all Winnebagos rear-ended me. I’m waiting for the cops to arrive.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but my car’s not. Are you at the hospital?”

“Yes, do you want—”

“Good. This will take a while, so I want you to meet with Dr. Cardinale and take his statement.”

Me?
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait and—”

“There’s nothing to it,” she said over the rumble of a passing truck. “Just ask him the five W’s—
who, what, when, where
, and find out
why
he called to report a suspicious death. That should get him talking. Your job is to take good notes, then I’ll follow up with him later to fill in any blanks.”

“Okay.” That sounded easy enough.

“Gotta go. A patrol car is pulling up. I’ll catch up with you in a couple of hours.”
Click.

I dropped my cell phone into my tote and then sucked in a shaky breath as I started down the hallway.

A woman in her mid-thirties dressed in a pink Winnie the Pooh tunic looked up at me from a computer monitor at the nurses’ station. Her face broke into a smile as I approached. “Char?”

“Hi …” Drawing a blank, I sneaked a glance at her hospital badge. “… Laurel.”

“It’s Laurel Seeger now,” she said, flashing me an emerald cut diamond ring.

I remembered a Laurel from high school. She’d been two years ahead of me, a Goth type with long, stringy black hair and thick glasses. This Laurel’s hair complemented her oval face in soft maple brown curls. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you without your glasses.”

“Yeah, I got that a lot when I moved back to town last year.” She leaned back in her desk chair, her gaze settling on my hips. “But you haven’t changed a bit.”

Liar.

After a minute of obligatory chitchat about our families, I brought up the subject of the funeral both our grandmothers would soon be attending. “I heard the sad news about Trudy.”

Laurel shook her head, a smile frozen on her lips. A little off, but Laurel had always been half a bubble off plumb, so I didn’t make too much out of it. “Such a shame. She was supposed to go home today.”

Really. I hadn’t seen that tidbit of information in Frankie’s notes.

I leaned closer, resting my elbows on the counter. “What happened?”

“You should probably talk to Dr. Cardinale,” Laurel said, her gaze fixed on the hunk and a half walking in our direction.

Solid with spiky hair the color of espresso and an olive complexion paying homage to his Italian surname, Dr. Cardinale stood a few inches taller than me, making him around five foot ten. He wore black high tops, faded blue jeans, and had dark stubble that could give a girl some serious whisker burn. The front of his white lab coat was stained with dark smears I prayed had nothing to do with Trudy.

“Can I help you?” he asked, the tension in his square jaw betraying his wariness.

“I’m Charmaine Digby.” I showed him my badge which drew a nod, then his whiskey brown eyes shifted toward two women in green scrubs waiting for the elevator. I knew I needed to get him out of the hallway for both our sakes. “Is there someplace we could talk privately?”

His chiseled lips drew back, giving me the impression that he’d done all the talking he wanted to today.

“Just for a few minutes,” I added with an easy smile.

After a nod, he led me down the hall to the doctor’s lounge, where I sank my butt into an aqua blue vinyl chair.

“I’ve been asked to follow up with you about the call you made to the County Coroner,” I said, catching a whiff of deodorant soap as he took the chair opposite me.

He rested his toned, tan forearms on his thighs and steepled his fingers. “I already told her everything I know.”

“I’m sure you did.”
But now you need to tell me.
“This will just take a few minutes.”

I pulled out a notebook and a pen from my tote bag, then noticed a
GQ
magazine on the table between us. I recognized the popular actor on the cover as one of my mother’s former boyfriends. Tilting my head I scanned the text to the right of his perfectly straight, bright white teeth. Not that I was interested in anything he had to say—as long as the article didn’t mention anyone I knew.

“You can take it home with you if you’re a fan,” Dr. Cardinale said.

I covered the magazine with my tote. “I’m not.”

For the last twenty years, I’d made a point of avoiding my actress mother’s boy toys in person and in the media. Really, the less I knew about the guys boinking my mom, the better for all of us.

I opened my notebook to a clean page. “Shall we begin?”

Taking a deep breath, Dr. Cardinale leaned back and crossed his legs.

I mirrored his posture—something that I’d seen my divorce attorney do during our first meeting. When I asked him about it, he sheepishly confessed that it was a technique he used to help establish a rapport with new clients.

Since my first interview could use all the help it could get, I also shot the doctor a friendly smile. Mainly to help me relax, but if it could do the same for him, all the better.

The corners of his lips curled, then he lowered his gaze, lingering at my breasts. I was struck with an immediate sense of curiosity mixed with male awareness, like he wanted to know what I was hiding under my oversized cotton pullover. A nanosecond later, his eyes were fixed back on mine.

The extra zip in my pulse confirmed that rapport had definitely been established, so I diverted my focus to the task at hand and the first of the five W’s—
who
.

“What is your full name, Doctor?”

“Kyle Edward Cardinale,” he said, spelling his last name.

“Address and phone number?”

I scribbled down the local post office box address and cell phone number he provided.

“And you live in town?”

“On my boat. Slip 51.”

That explained the tan. Since he lived at the marina, I’d wager that meant he was single.

“Married?” Probably not a question Karla would have asked him, but I wanted to know that I was right.

“No.”

Knew it. “And your job title here is …”

“It’s not much of a title, but I’m an attending.”

Which meant he was probably close to my age.

He tried to stifle a yawn and failed.

“Long day?”

“They all are.” He swiped at the waist-high brown smear on his lab coat, then glanced up at me. “I was slimed by a four-year-old who decided to finger-paint me with chocolate pudding.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that my gag reflex got the message.

As pleasant as it might be to chat about the artwork on his lab coat, I knew I needed to move on to the next
W
—
what
.

“So, Doctor, I understand you called the Coroner about Trudy Bergeson’s death early this morning,” I said, hoping he’d swing at the slow pitch I’d just served up.

He nodded, tight-lipped. “That’s right.”

Which told me nothing except that he didn’t want to play.

“Because she took a sudden turn for the worse?” I asked, prodding for more than a two-word confirmation of what I already knew.

A frown line etched a path between his dark brows as if I had poked a sore spot. “Not exactly. She just coded.”

My hospital jargon was limited to old episodes of
ER
. “Which means you get a page and rush to her room, right?”

“Basically.”

“Who paged you?” I asked in case Karla needed to interview one of the nurses or another doctor.

“A nurse. Cindy Tobias.”

I knew Cindy from having worked with her at Duke’s the summer after my junior year of high school. Smart, warm-hearted, skilled at telling little fibs to make people feel better. I wasn’t at all surprised when she became a nurse.

“And what time was this?” I asked, mentally crossing off another
W
from my list.

Dr. Cardinale propped his feet up on the table between us. “Around three forty-five.”

“Then what happened?”

“She asphyxiated.”

Unblinking, his eyes were fixed on his high tops. By the intensity of his gaze I sensed he’d just replayed the scene in his head.

I’d also played it in my own mind. It wasn’t the way I wanted to envision my favorite Story Lady, and I swallowed the lump threatening to clog my throat. “She died?”

He nodded.

“Anyone else there?”

He shook his head. “Just Cindy and me.”

“Then what happened?”