“To come by the office tomorrow morning. He said he’d be there at nine.”
“I will be, too,” Joanna said.
“There is one other thing,” George Winfield added.
“What’s that?”
“Speaking of next of kin, has anyone done anything to locate Carol Mossman’s child?”
“What child?” Joanna asked.
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“I take it you haven’t read my autopsy report?”
“I’ve been a little pressed for time,” Joanna returned. “What child?”
“Carol Mossman bore at least one child,” George said. “It was delivered by C-section.
She also had a complete hysterectomy. From the scarring, I’d say both the C-section and hysterectomy were done at the same time by a surgeon who wasn’t exactly the head of his class.”
“It was bad?”
“Let’s just say it was unskilled,” George said. ‘And as bad as the hysterectomy was, it’s likely that the child didn’t survive, but we should clarify the situation just to be on the safe side. If you want me to, I can call Edith Mossman and ask her.”
“No,” Joanna said. “She’s been through enough. I’ll ask Eddie Mossman about it myself in the morning.”
She put down the phone. Butch had muted the television set. Andy Rooney’s mouth was moving, but no words could be heard.
“A looming funeral battle?” Butch asked.
Joanna nodded.
Butch shook his head. “I hate it when that happens. Funeral fights are the worst.
My grandparents both wanted to be buried in Sun City. Gramps hated Chicago. He told me once that the last thing he wanted was to spend eternity buried under drifts of Chicago snow and ice. He asked me, over and over, to make sure that didn’t happen, and I promised him I would.
“He and Grandma died within weeks of each other. The minute Gramps was gone, my mother and aunts and uncles came riding into town on their broomsticks. They had Grandma’s casket dug up and then they shipped both Grandma and Grandpa back home to bury them.
It’s years later, Joey, and I’m
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still pissed about it. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t gone back home to visit.
I’d as soon punch my aunts’ and uncles’ lights out as look at them.”
“I never knew any of that,” Joanna said quietly.
“No,” Butch agreed. “I don’t suppose you did. I’m still ashamed of myself for letting him down-for not putting up more of a fight. But I was only the grandson. No one was interested in listening to me.”
Joanna reached over and put a comforting hand on Butch’s leg. “I’m sure you did the best you could,” she said quietly.
“Right,” he said bitterly. “Sure I did, but it wasn’t good enough.”
With 60 Minutes over, Joanna went into the den, turned on her computer, and wrote up a report on everything she had learned during her trip to Lordsburg. When she finished, she emailed it to Frank Montoya at the office. That way, even if she didn’t go in right away in the morning, the report would be there.
“Reports come first,” D. . Lathrop used to say. “If you’re not doing the paper, you’re not doing the job.”
Twenty-four hours late, Dad, she said to herself. But the paper’s there.
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I
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Good as her word, Joanna was at the Cochise County Medical Examiner’s office by eight forty-five the next morning. Busy on the phone, Nell Long, the ME’s receptionist, waved Joanna toward George Winfield’s open office door.
‘Any sign of Mr. Mossman?” Joanna asked, peering around the doorjamb into her stepfather’s office.
“Not so far,” George replied. “But I have an idea he’ll be here shortly. Have a chair.
How are you feeling?”
“I’m still a puking mess every morning,” Joanna returned. “I’m hoping that’ll settle down in a few weeks. At least that’s how it worked when I was pregnant with Jenny.”
“I never had a chance to say anything about the other night-with Ellie, I mean,”
George Winfield said. “I thought she was way out of line, and I told her so. In other words, if it’s any consolation, Joanna, I think she’s as provoked with me right now as she is with you.”
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“The old misery-loves-company routine,” Joanna said with a hollow laugh. It was easier to make light of Eleanor Lathrop Winfield’s rantings and ravings when she was well out of earshot.
“Something like that,” George agreed.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ve known Mother a lot longer than you have, George.
She’ll get over it eventually.” Joanna made the statement with more conviction than she felt. There were some things Eleanor Lathrop never got over.
“What about you?” George asked.
“I’m going to go ahead and do what I do,” Joanna told him. “Eleanor will have to like it or lump it.”
“Good girl,” George said. “Way to go!”
The telephone rang. Nell answered it. A moment later, her voice sounded on George’s intercom. “Edith Mossman is on the line.”
“Great,” George said. “Just what I need. I love being caught in the cross fire between battling relatives.” He picked up his phone. “Good morning, Mrs. Mossman. What can I do for you?”
There was a pause. A frown appeared on George Winfield’s brow. The longer Edith Mossman talked, the deeper grew the lines on George’s forehead.
“Yes, that’s true. He is coming in this morning. I’m expecting him in the next few minutes. And no, I’m not sure who notified him. Someone from the sheriff’s department, I should imagine.”
Another pause. “No, I’m really not involved in all that. I release the body to the mortuary. After that, it’s up to the family to handle things from there.”
There was another long silence on the medical examiner’s part. Joanna couldn’t make out any of the words, but the angry
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buzz of Edith Mossman’s shrill voice hummed through the telephone receiver and out into the room.
“Really, Mrs. Mossman, that’s not up to me. You’ll need to discuss it with Norm Higgins and with your son. I’m sure if you’ll just sit down and talk, you and he will be able to sort all this out-“
Suddenly, a dial tone replaced the sound of Edith Mossman’s voice.
“She hung up on me,” George said, staring first at the phone and then at Joanna.
“I don’t think she liked what you had to say.”
“No kidding! But it’s true. My job is to release the body to the mortuary. It’s up to the family to figure out who takes charge from there.”
“Mr. Mossman to see you,” Nell Long announced over the intercom.
“Saved by the bell,” George Winfield said, raising an eyebrow as he rose to greet the newcomer Nell Long showed into his office.
Somehow Joanna had expected there to be more to Eddie Mossman than what she saw.
He was a pint-size bantam rooster of man, only an inch or two taller than Joanna’s five feet four. Wiry and tanned, he had a bottle-brush mustache and piercing blue eyes. For some reason, he seemed familiar, even though Joanna doubted she had ever seen him before.
“Dr. Winfield?” Mossman asked.
George nodded. “That would be me,” he said. ‘And this,” he added, indicating Jo anna, “is Sheriff Joanna Brady.”
Edward Mossman wasn’t interested in pleasantries. ‘As I told you on the phone, I’m here for Carol’s body.”
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‘And as I told you on the phone, it hasn’t been released yet,” George returned evenly.
“I haven’t yet prepared the death certificate. When it’s finished, I’ll be releasing the body to Norm Higgins at Higgins Mortuary and Funeral Chapel. I believe your mother has already discussed arrangements with them. If you want to change those, you’ll have to discuss it with them and her.”
“I’ve already been to see Norm Higgins. Tried to, anyway. Since Mother has already made a deposit on those ‘arrangements,’ as you call them, no one at the Higgins outfit will give me the time of day. I want the body to go to someone else. I’ve contacted a mortuary over in Nogales that’s accustomed to transporting bodies in and out of Mexico. I want you to release Carol’s body to them.”