Page 4 of Dirty Looks

When I’d gotten the call from dispatch the bed had been empty beside me and the sheets cool. I’d been no stranger to cool sheets over the past few days. Preparing for the Simmons trial had been more than enough to occupy Jack’s time, along with his regular workload. But it had been for the best. Things were strained between us at the moment, and I think both of us were relieved the trial was giving us time and space.

The last year had been the best and worst of my life. Jack and I had come through so much and we were at the height of our professional and personal lives. I had no idea why it felt like things were falling apart. Maybe there had been so much bad in my life I didn’t know how to process when things were good.

Some people didn’t wear peace well. Maybe I was one of them.

Despite all the good in my life and my marriage to Jack, there were things we didn’t have answers to. Like why two people who loved each other and whose heart was family, were having such a hard time starting their own. Or in reality, whyIdidn’t seem to be capable of conceiving.

I’d always heard the saying about sins of the father. And my father had a great many sins so maybe there was some truth to it. It was just one of the many questions I’d asked that I had yet to get answers for.

The rift between me and Jack was my fault.Allmy fault. I knew it in my mind, but I didn’t know how to right the ship, so to speak. This last round of false hope and pregnancy tests had broken my spirit, and I just hadn’t pulled myself out of the quicksand yet. And Jack hadn’t offered to pull me out either. I was guessing he was dealing with his own pit to crawl out of.

Jack would be occupied with the trial for the rest of the week, so I had at least that long to try and figure out a way to apologize and make things right again.

I watched the black Suburban we used to transport bodies navigate through the media vans and past the police barricades. The media was relentless this morning. They’d showed up close behind the first officers on scene and it had been a fight to maintain the integrity of the scene and respect the victim’s privacy since we didn’t have an identification and no family had been notified. The techs had constructed a half wall of sorts to block the victim to prying eyes since she was in a public park.

If Jack had been here he’d have put the fear of God in every one of those reporters, especially since the victim was a minor, but Martinez had done a pretty good job in Jack’s absence and all the cameras and fresh and polished reporters stood behind the barricades so they could go live for the six o’clock news.

Lily was driving the Suburban, her face partially hidden by a baseball cap and a pair of dark aviators, but I could see the half smile on her lips as a cameraman dodged out of her way. Lily was working for me as assistant coroner while she was finishing up medical school to become a pathologist, and I was lucky to have her. She’d go on to a bigger city and a higher paying job at some point, but for now she was a gift to King George County. She had a brilliant mind that people overlooked because of her beauty.

Sheldon Durkus sat in the passenger side next to her. He was my assistant at the funeral home, but more often than not he got roped into helping me on the forensics side of my job description. I’d been a medical doctor working in the ER at Augusta General up until my parents had died a few years back, though it had turned out they’d faked their deaths and had been secretly working for a foreign government to smuggle in everything from weapons to drugs. It had also turned out they weren’t really my parents and I’d been stolen as a baby. That might traumatize most people, but to be honest, I’d been relieved to find out I didn’t share their blood.

All that to say, I’d inherited the family funeral home, and then Jack had helped me get hired on with the county as coroner so I could pay my most of my bills after the FBI froze all my assets. They came in and took apart my life and business just to make sure I was an innocent party where my parents were concerned. Iwasinnocent, by the way.

I hadn’t inherited Sheldon along with the funeral home. He’d showed up on my doorstep like a stray puppy looking for a job,and somehow, I’d become responsible for him. He was young and knew the craft, and he was great with the dead. It was the living he wasn’t so good with.

I gestured to Lily where I wanted her to park, and then watched as she and Sheldon got out and went to the back to get prepped for transport. They were already dressed in their coveralls, but it would be a while yet. I hadn’t even started the preliminary report.

I drew in a deep breath and grabbed a pair of latex gloves from my bag.

“It’s been a while since we had a kid,” Martinez said.

“Peter Winslow was the last,” I said automatically. “You never really forget them.”

My breath was coming in cold puffs as I blew into one glove and slipped it on, and then the other. An old trick from my ER days.

The grass was damp with dew, so I squatted down next to the victim, and tried my best to compartmentalize what I saw. Pure science. No emotion. Emotions were paralyzing.

“She’s not been moved?” I asked.

“This is how responding officers found her,” Martinez said. “The call came in from an early morning jogger.” He read from his phone where he’d taken notes. “Kelly Sandborn is her name. She’s sitting in the back of the ambulance with the blanket wrapped around her.”

I looked in the direction where the ambulance was parked and the woman sitting on the back, taking the occasional huff of oxygen. She looked to be mid-thirties or forties. She was in good shape, and she was decked out in Spandex leggings and a long-sleeved Spandex shirt in hot pink.

“She doesn’t look like an idiot at first glance,” I said, shaking my head.

“Right?” Martinez asked. “Why the hell was she jogging alone at five in the morning in a mostly deserted area? Maybe this will be a wake-up call for her.”

“People generally don’t think they’ll become a statistic. Especially in a place like Bloody Mary, but this isn’t the small town it used to be.”

“Tell me about it,” Martinez said. “DC has started bringing their crime here.”

I knew this to be true. Over the last year Jack had created a white-collar-crime division and hired cops from bigger cities with the experience to deal with it. Developers and politicians had tried to make King George County their playground, and Jack was having no part of it, which put a very large target on Jack’s back from some very powerful people.

I pulled my camera from my bag and took several shots so I could remember how she was positioned and then I got a couple of close-ups of the trauma and bruising on her body.

“Rigor is fully set in,” I told him. “All the rain we’ve been having has kept temps in the forties, so that could accelerate rigor and factor into TOD, so it’ll be a little wider range of time.”

I couldn’t cover the body until I’d taken all the samples I needed, and I could tell it bothered Martinez that she was still exposed. My lungs burned and I kept reminding myself to breathe. Everything had to be done right. I documented her body temp in my notes. Checked her eyes and mouth.

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