Page 166 of Cold, Cold Bones
“Hold please.”
I finished half the coffee and all the donut before Herrin picked up.
“Sorry about the wait.” The coroner offered no explanation for the delay.
“I’m wondering if you managed to determine who accessed the Cruikshank file.”
“I was about to ring you.”
Right.
I heard paper rustle. A lot of paper. Then a chair squeaking asHerrin leaned back. “My clerk found a photocopy of the request form when she pulled the hard-copy file. The form was submitted in person. Filled out with handwriting that suggests someone in the possum family.”
“Possums aren’t known for their elegant cursive.”
“The paper is creased and smeared to Kansas and back.”
“What happened to the original?”
“Before my time.”
“Why wasn’t the request entered into the system?”
“Same answer.”
I waited out a long silence. Pictured Herrin struggling to decipher the info on the page before her. Info clearly not studied before my call.
“The request may have come from law enforcement. Looks like that box is checked. I think. Maybe.”
“Did the applicant sign the form?”
“Just initials. OSA? Maybe OSH? Heck, it could be DSA?”
“Who handled the request?”
“Reggie Pudding. Man took a lot of grief because of that name. Never lost his cool.”
“Does Pudding remember the transaction?”
“Reggie’s been retired over a year now. Surely do miss him. He was one conscientious son of a gun.” Another pause, this one accentuated by a short squeak. “Reggie left a note in the file saying he’d given out a photocopy of the coroner’s report. As I’ve explained, anyone can access those.”
“Will you shoot me a pic of the form?”
“Can do. I hope your eyes are better than mine.”
They weren’t. No way I could decrypt the scrawled initials. The smeared checks. The only thing clear was Mr. Pudding’s meticulous autograph. All the squinting and magnifying gave me a headache.
Frustrated, I returned to the septic tank jaw, wrote a report, and called Ari Leshner. The dentist penned me onto his calendar for the following Monday.
With an epic headache blooming, I finished with the crawl space remains, wrote a report, and dialed Florence’s owner to say the beagle could have her bones back. They’d belonged to a member ofSus domesticus. Domestic pig.
Driving home, I was again in a mood to be ruthless with myself. All this time and what had I accomplished? What did I have? Victims’ names and their dates and causes of death. Links to old cases. Cold, cold cases.
Harsh admission. Grating as she was, Henry had contributed more to the investigation than I had.
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At the annex, I popped two Advil, lay on the study sofa, closed my eyes, and allowed my thoughts to free-range. They thundered like mustangs crossing a prairie.
