Despite the fact that Izzy is shorter than most twelve-year-olds and you could fit at least three of him into Richmond’s mass, he looks quite intimidating. The two men have a little stare down—quite literally down, in Richmond’s case since Izzy is only chest high to him—before the bigger man backs off.
“No,” Richmond mutters finally, looking down at his feet. “No problem.”
A long, tension-filled moment follows, during which I can hear water dripping from the faucet in one of the sinks. Everyone finally breathes again when Alison breezes into the room, her ubiquitous camera hanging around her neck. She glares briefly in my direction, then dismisses me and addresses Izzy.
“Whatcha got?” she asks. She walks toward the table, stopping when she’s about a foot away. “Oh, my,” she says, paling. “That’s Callie Dunkirk.”
“You know her?” Izzy says.
“Know her? Hell, I want to be her,” Alison says. Then she winces and adds, “Well, except for the dead part.”
“Are you sure it’s her?” Izzy asks.
“Oh yeah,” Alison says with a definitive nod. “I’d know her anywhere. Aside from her obvious physical attributes, the woman is . . . was one of the best investigative reporters in Chicago. She used to do a beat for the Trib, but about a year ago she got hired by that TV news show, Behind the Scenes. What is she doing up here?”
“We have no idea,” Izzy says. “Until you got here, we didn’t even know who she was.”
Alison’s eyes grow wide. “She must have been onto something big, something that got her killed.”
“We don’t know that,” I caution. “For all we know she might have been just traveling through town, or meeting a boyfriend, or maybe she has family up here.”
Alison shakes her head vehemently, her eyes bright with excitement. “Nope, she was here for a story. I just know it. All I have to do is figure out what it was.”
“That might not be a wise avenue to pursue,” Richmond says.
Alison turns to look at him and blinks her eyes several times. “Bob Richmond? I thought you were retired?”
He shrugs. “I still do some part-time stuff.”
“Where’s Hurley?” Alison asks, looking over at me.
“Sick. A stomach bug or something,” I tell her, despite my knowledge to the contrary. “Richmond is going to handle this one.”
Alison turns back to Richmond. “You might want to be careful yourself then,” she tells him. “People who work with Mattie have an uncanny way of ending up injured or dead.”
Chapter 5
I manage to bite my tongue and not snap back at Alison’s snide comment. I’m assisted in this incredible show of restraint by Izzy, who wisely shoos Alison from the autopsy room and asks her to wait in the lobby or the library until we have the murder weapon removed.
It turns out that Callie’s body isn’t frozen but it is in full rigor—making it likely that the time of death was actually hours before we found her. Izzy carefully documents the wound trajectories and when that’s done, he removes the knife. It’s a wicked-looking thing, just over nine inches in length with a five-inch blade. There’s a small nick in the blade near the hasp, and the handle, which appears to be ivory, has a dragon carved into it. After taking his own pictures and cleaning the blood off the knife, Izzy sets it in a tray in preparation for Alison’s pictures.
When we open Callie up we discover that Izzy’s guess about the cause of death is correct. The knife pierced both her aorta and her left ventricle. Eventually the first wound alone would have been fatal as it caused massive bleeding. Since the second wound would have stopped the heart, the amount of blood lost suggests that some time elapsed between the two wounds, making me wonder if the woman was alive and aware she was dying during the interval.
The remainder of the autopsy is relatively uneventful. Colbert does himself proud by managing to not only stay upright throughout the entire thing, but also asking intelligent, thoughtful questions about our findings, which other than the knife wounds and the single hair, consist mainly of some tiny metallic-looking globs we find entangled in Callie’s hair. The metal pieces will need to be packaged and taken to the Madison crime lab where they can analyze them using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. We also discover that Callie had caps on her teeth and breast implants, both of which will make it easier to confirm Alison’s tentative ID.
I let Izzy deal with Alison and the knife photography, and after cleaning up the autopsy room, I change into my regular clothes, and head home. I’m eager to get to Hurley’s place but need to stop by my own first to let my dog, Hoover, out for a break.
I’ve had Hoover for all of three weeks. I found him—filthy, frightened, and emaciated—hovering beside a grocery store Dumpster. Judging from his coloring, his ears, and the shape of his head, I’m guessing he’s part yellow Lab or golden retriever. Judging from the way he inhales food, I suspect the other part is vacuum cleaner, hence his name.
So far Hoover has proven to be gentle, friendly, and quite smart. He has already mastered the come, sit, and stay commands, and he and my cat, Rubbish, entertain themselves quite nicely when I’m gone. Hoover’s only negative is his predilection for eating the crotch out of any panties I leave lying around, a habit made even more annoying by the fact that I just committed a lot of money to a major underwear upgrade.
Hoover greets me now as he always does, with a happy yip and a wagging tail. This makes him the best companion and roommate I’ve ever had. My husband, David, never greeted me with that much enthusiasm, not even on our first anniversary when I met him at the door wearing nothing but some well-placed dollops of whipped cream.
After letting Hoover outside to do his business, I reward his devotion by indulging him in a few minutes of belly scratching. My cat, Rubbish, watches this with a look of disdain. Though he has tolerated the addition of a dog to our household, I sense there are times when he’s not happy about having to share my attentions. And he seems to be all about self-expression, often making his displeasure known by barfing up a hairball on my bed, or taking a dump just outside the litter box rather than in it.
Once the animals are fed, watered, scratched, and otherwise attended to, I spend a little time on myself. I take a quick shower and wash my hair to get rid of the lingering smells of death, decay, and formaldehyde. Then I don some peach-colored, lace-trimmed undies that have fortunately evaded Hoover’s teeth, and a matching bra. In case things go well at Hurley’s tonight, I want to be ready and look my best. I then try on several different outfits and study each one carefully in the mirror, trying to find the one that hides my flaws the best. This involves checking out the rear view as well as the front, as the wrong combination of slacks and top makes my butt look as wide as a house. I finally settle on a pair of forgiving gray slacks and a long, loose-fitting, baby-blue sweater with a cowl-neck collar.
After blow-drying my hair and taming the more cantankerous strands with a curling iron, I put on some makeup. Deeming the result as good as it’s going to get, I hop in the hearse and head for Hurley’s house. My heart is racing with anticipation, wondering what he wants to talk about, wondering what the night will bring, and wondering how far I’m willing to let him go if things should progress along those lines. Even though David and I have been physically separated for several months, I’m technically still married. Consequently I’m not willing to go for the home run with Hurley yet, though I’m open to letting him run the bases if the mood strikes.
Of course, that’s the optimist in me talking. My darker, more pessimistic side is still worried that Hurley might be planning to dump me because I uttered the “L” word. I’ve learned over the years that when it comes to men, emotions are like antimatter. Say anything that matters to them and they’ll obliterate you. So I need to keep my shields at the ready tonight in case Hurley hits me with a barrage of anti-emotion photon torpedoes.