Page 81 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“And then he drove the body to the winery?”
“He must have had help… One of his cousins maybe…”
Lehmann frowned at me.
“Look… he has scratches on the backs of his hands. And he tried to strangle me.” I tried clearing my throat. Seriously, I sounded like Harvey Fierstein—which was fine for him, but not something I was aiming for. I was still young and pretty.
Lehmann reached over to move my jacket away from my neck and I jumped. Well, wouldn’t you? More slowly he pulled the jacket back. I had no idea what he was seeing. I hadn’t wanted to look while I was in the car, but I imagine my neck was red, scratched, possibly already bruising.
I asked, “Did they scrape Bobbie’s nails when they did the autopsy?” Thank you,CSI.
“Yes, but… it hasn’t been sent out for analysis. It’s expensive. We’ve been considering it. I guess you just made up our minds.”
He frowned. I imagined their budget was miniscule since most of the county thought there was no such thing as crime in such a charming area—which certainly hasn’t beenmyexperience.
“You should go to the emergency room.”
“I’m fine.”
“We’re going to need photos of your neck. That was attempted murder, you know.”
“Oh yeah. Um…There’s a phone on my camera. I mean, a camera on my phone. I’ll do it when I get home.”
“That’s probably not good enough.” He reached into his desk and brought out one of those old-timey instamatic cameras that spit out pictures. “Bring it back. I’ll need a statement. In fact, I need two. One for the Denny Hazzard thing and one for this mess.”
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll come in tomorrow. Or the next day.”
And that was that.It took me most of the week to come in and make my statements. By that point, I had pictures of my neck from three different days, and my bruises went from brown to purple to yellow. My voice actually got worse for a few days and I sounded like something out of a horror movie. My sister thought this was hysterical though, I would read her the labels on her food, and she would laugh and laugh, until Nana Cole would say, “Stop it. She’s going to choke.”
It took some doing apparently, but eventually three of the four other cousins living on the property confessed to dumping Bobbie’s body in front of Three Friends. There was one innocent cousin, though I couldn’t tell you which one that was.
And then, Denny’s preliminary autopsy became available. Well, sort of available. Technically, only his family had a right to see it. They seemed not to have a problem believing he’d died of an overdose. They’d likely been expecting that for a long time. They gave their permission for Carl and Opal (and me, unfortunately) to look at it.
Detective Lehmann was kind enough to bring the three of us into his office and close the door. He handed out copies to Opal and Carl. Then said, “I’ve highlighted the important details. Your friend had significant damage to his arteries, which would have constricted due to methamphetamine use. They examined his heart tissue on a cellular level and found necrosis. During a heart attack the heart muscle quickly begins to die.”
“So, it wasn’t an overdose?” I asked.
“The toxicology report will take another month or so. But the coroner is tentatively calling it a drug-induced heart attack, which basicallyisan overdose.”
I watched Carl’s face. I could tell he didn’t really want to believe the yellow-highlighted paper in front of him. He asked, “What if the toxicology report shows there were no drugs in his system?”
“Given the circumstances, that’s very unlikely. But if there aren’t drugs in his system, he still died of a heart attack. Which at his age would likely be due to his previous drug use, even if it wasn’t the direct cause.”
Opal seemed to be having an easier time with this, possibly because nearly a week had passed. She put her hand on Carl’s. “None of this means he wasn’t trying, Carl. He didn’t leave you on purpose.”
I thought he might burst into tears again, but he didn’t. Solemnly, we left Lehmann’s office. In the lobby, before we went out into the snow, Opal said, “Thank you. It was nice of you to help.”
“I didn’t really do much of anything.”
“No, you did,” Carl said. Then he threw his arms around me. I froze, instantly. The suddenness, his heat, the emotion. I had to remind myself I was fine. Nothing bad was happening. This was grief, not violence.
Carl sniffed a couple of times then finally let me go. I started breathing again. It was probably recently having been strangled, and other things that have happened in the—I mean, Buford had been that close to me, his hands on my neck. I managed to stay relatively calm when it was happening, while I was being strangled, and then, well, it kind of showed up now and then. And Carl, being that close, it just?—
Opal, who must have seen how uncomfortable I was, patted me on the shoulder and said good-bye. They walked out of the building, while I stayed there a moment. I felt a little panicky. I had a date with Edward the next day. What if he got close to me and I freaked out? That was definitely not sexy. I triedto convince myself not to worry. Sex was sex. I was freaked out by Carl hugging me. Carl, who I wasn’t attracted to. It was awkward. That was all. I was making too much of it.
I spent the rest of the afternoon at thrift shops in Bellflower looking for a turtleneck shirt to cover my bruises.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
