Текст книги "Brain Dead"

Автор книги: Eileen Dreyer

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"Go figure. Any idea why she moved home?"

Sherilee's eyes opened a little more. "Sounds to me like you're more interested in Timmie than her dad, Murphy. This couldn't be love, could it? Like, two strangers in a strange land kind of thing?"

Murphy stiffened like a shot. "Bite your tongue, little girl."

"Well," Sherilee hedged, her expression unusually coy. "Since you swear you're not working on a real story, it's the only reason I can think of that you're asking so much about her. It couldn't have anything to do with the shooting you two shared up close and personal or the fact that for some reason you asked Betty McPherson over at Vital Statistics for death records."

"I'm trying to plan out my golden years," he assured her. "I'd hate to settle in a town with a short life expectancy. Didn't help much, though, since old Betty protected those records like her virginity."

"Oh, Murphy, you're so bogus."

"Don't call me bogus, Sherilee. Anything but bogus."

She grinned like the kid she still was. "How 'bout a lying sack of shit?"

Murphy actually smiled at her. "Nice sibilance, excellent descriptive quality. I give it a seven. Don't break out in a rash. I'm really not interested. I just happened to see a gun and had the police ask me about it."

Suddenly her eyes damn near glowed. "And you don't know a thing about people dying..."

"Absolutely not."

"So then I guess you don't care that besides lifesaving, Timmie Leary has chosen threatening the coroner as another of her extracurricular activities."

"I heard about that. From the lady herself. It's just readjustment from life in the big city. She'll get over it."

"How about the fact that the guy she threatened him over is, like, being buried this morning."

"May he rest in peace."

"Or that any witnesses, or maybe... perpetrators might be hovering in the vicinity big-time."

"I hope they bring raincoats."

"Like his ex-wife, whom he used to beat like a rented mule until she divorced him ten months before his suspicious death."

Murphy found himself slowing to a halt right at the door. "Might be worth going just to see if she spits on his grave."

Chapter 5

"At Least She Was Wearing Black," Barb Philosophized later that morning when Timmie broke the news to the SSS about just who she'd seen step out of Van Adder's van the night before. "After all, she is in mourning."

"She's not in mourning," Cindy objected, leaning up from the backseat. "I mean, who the hell would mourn for Billy Mayfield?"

Timmie, Barb, and Mattie answered in unison. "Ellen."

They were, in fact, all technically in mourning for Billy. They were at least in his funeral procession, all decked out in their Sunday best and squeezed into Barb's new Volvo as she negotiated the meandering lanes of Puckett's second-class cemetery to where Billy was going to have his ashes cemented into a wall. They'd already sat through an interminable ceremony at the funeral home, and only had to lay the deceased to rest before heading to their favorite watering hole for debriefing.

Barb had spent the funeral making cracks about Billy's family. Mattie had prayed. Timmie had been preoccupied by the question of just how long Ellen had been sneaking off to Tucker's truck and whether it had anything to do with Tucker's attitude toward Billy's unfortunate demise. She also couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with those dead roses she'd thrown away and the card she hadn't, which made for a busy funeral for her.

"You're not surprised," Timmie accused Barb.

Her attention on the car ahead of her, Barb chose not to take offense. "Ellen's as human as the next girl," she said easily. "Just 'cause she's divorced doesn't mean she's a nun."

"It's just like your fireman's helmet," Cindy said.

"Her what?" Mattie asked.

Cindy leaned forward again. "Timmie has a brand-new Los Angeles Fire Department helmet in her closet. It fell on my head last night when I went to get my coat. Has her name stenciled on it and everything. Ask her about it."

Cindy had damn near worn it back out the front door when she'd gone home, too. But when she'd finally been alone, Timmie had sat for a long time just holding that helmet in her hands like a dried corsage.

"It was my going-away present," she defended herself.

"From who?" Barb asked with a knowing grin.

The helmet was still new enough for Timmie to blush. "All the guys," she protested. "Amazing how close you can get after sharing a couple of earthquakes and a riot or two."

"But especially one guy," Cindy chortled.

Timmie tried hard not to smile. "Fireman Dan," she finally admitted wistfully as she thought again of the fun they'd had with that helmet. "Finest turn-out gear in the city."

All three of them laughed. "So what happened?" Mattie asked.

Timmie shrugged. "He went back to his ex-wife."

"And you moved out of phase three," Cindy prompted. "Tell them about the phases."

Timmie sigh. She should have just coldcocked Cindy with that damn helmet and been done with it. "The four phases of divorce," she said for the whole group. "It's kind of like the stages of grief, except instead of denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance, what you go through is denial, anger, sluthood, and recovery. I am now in recovery."

"And Ellen is still in sluthood," Cindy finished for them all, and then offered a big grin. "Which sounds a lot more fun than recovery to me any day of the week. Especially if you're in love."

"I am not going to give her the dignity of labeling what they were doing as love," Timmie said. "Not in a coroner's truck."

"I did it in a meat locker once," Cindy mused. "But that wasn't love, either. Not like this time."

Timmie knew that Cindy wanted somebody to ask, "This time?" Nobody did.

"Ellen deserves better," she insisted anyway as they reached the top of the hill, where the town water tower could be seen past the Eternal Rest Crematorium.

"Shit, we all deserve better," Barb reminded her. "Doesn't mean we ever get it."

Taillights flickered like out-of-sync Christmas lights, and everybody slowed to a stop. Barb followed suit to the sound of unclicking seat belts.

"You don't think Tucker ignored Billy's death because he's been in Ellen's pants, do you?" Timmie asked as she stepped out onto the cracked asphalt.

Barb, Mattie, and Cindy were glaring at her when they joined her on the grass. "Let's bury him first," Mattie suggested. "Then we can dig him up and play with him some more."

"Can't," Timmie said, her attention briefly caught by a couple of Mayfield brothers who were shoving at each other over bumper proximities. "Can't test ashes."

"Then that takes care of that," Barb pronounced and led the way to the Eternal Rest Chapel, Mausoleum, and Gift Shop at the top of the small hill.

But it didn't take care of it. Just the mention of testing ashes made Timmie uncomfortable, as if she'd made a statement before understanding what it meant. She hated that.

"Mind a little company?" Timmie heard from behind her and turned to see Alex Raymond loping up from the end of the line. He was in a gray suit, his black cashmere coat open and flapping in the chilly breeze. The day was dank and dark and chilly, the sun missing in action behind a layer of slag-colored clouds. For some reason, it did nothing to dim his glow. He looked like a night-light, and everybody smiled at him.

"Of course not," Barb greeted him as every woman preened.

"I got caught at work, or I would have made the service at the chapel," he apologized a bit breathlessly as he slowed alongside Timmie.

"You didn't miss much," she assured him. "The minister tried to convince us that Billy was a good man, and Billy's family got into a fistfight and almost spilled him all over the carpet."

Alex grimaced. "Sounds like the best part. I couldn't leave till I said good-bye to Mrs. Salgado, though."

"That cute little old lady up on two west?" Cindy asked, laying a hand on his arm.

He nodded. "Yeah. Died in her sleep this morning. I really hated to lose her."

"She used to tell the neatest stories about growing up in Italy," Barb said. "I liked her."

She got general nods from the other women.

"At least she died in peace," Mattie offered. "Mrs. Winterborn's back in the unit."

"Again?" Cindy demanded.

"Again," Timmie assured them all. "Why they just don't put a bullet through that poor woman's brain and end her misery, I don't know."

"You were going to talk to Dr. Raymond today," Cindy told her.

"You were?" Alex echoed, his interest keen.

They'd reached the door to the chapel where the flow of people had clogged up waiting to get in. Turning to yell at Cindy, Timmie caught sight of Tucker Van Adder standing back on Valhalla Drive, smoking with one of the local uniformed cops.

"You don't suppose he's here on official business, do you?" she asked, knowing full well what she was doing.

All heads immediately turned. Several emitted noises of disgust.

"Don't be ridiculous," Mattie told her. "Like you said, it's too late."

"Besides," Barb added with a dignified sniff. "Even if he were looking for work, he's standing next to the most worthless cop in three states."

"He's not all that worthless, Barb," Alex protested without noticeable heat. "He came to my office to take my full statement after the incident, and he seemed... competent."

"Who is he?" Timmie demanded.

Barb snorted unkindly. "Oh, come on. You mean to tell me you haven't met the lovely Mr. Dr. Barbara Adkins?"

Timmie took a look at the skinny, acne-scarred man holding on to his leather equipment belt as if holding his pants up and hooted, which turned more than one head in the crowd.

"Oh, Barb, say you're joking."

"Only when I said 'I do,'" she assured her with another sniff. "And let me be the one to tell you that the only police work Victor's interested in is strip-searching that trashy little dispatcher he ran off with."

"What a guy."

"Oh, yeah." Barb made it a point to smile and wave at the police officer, who didn't seem quite so sanguine about it. "He doesn't understand why I don't want my kids visiting with that tramp there, who calls my baby girl a mongoloid, the bitch. 'Get used to it,' he says.^'She loves me.' She loves his eight-inch dick."

"He has an eight-inch dick?" Cindy demanded, squinting in his direction as if she could actually see it.

"You don't want to go down that road," Barb warned her.

"You coming in?" one of the mortuary guys asked, since they were the last ones standing outside. "We're about to start the final prayers."

"Which better begin with 'Pass the marshmallows, it's gonna be a hot one tonight,'" Mattie offered as she tugged her church dress more smoothly over her backside.

Timmie was about to pass through the faux-granite walls when Alex stopped dead in his tracks to her left.

"If they aren't here to investigate something," he said, his attention back toward the street, "what's he doing here?"

That effectively stopped forward progression all over again. This time, even the mortuary guy took a look.

"It's just the reporter," Timmie said, seeing him picking his way along the line of trucks, notebook in hand.

"Reporter?" Mattie asked. "What reporter?"

"Daniel Murphy," Alex said with a bemused expression. "The man from the horse show."

"He probably ran out of people to save," Barb suggested. "Which means he has to do his job. Isn't this his job?"

"A funeral?" Alex retorted with no little disbelief.

"He reports for the Puckett Independent," Barb reminded him. "The Independent doesn't exactly cover trade embargoes. This is probably the most exciting thing he could find to do."

"Daniel Murphy cover just a funeral?" Alex demanded with a laugh. "I don't think so. That man has two Pulitzers."

This time Timmie's attention was caught. "He's that Daniel Murphy?"

Actually, she should have figured it out when she'd seen him before. There was something familiar about him, something about the way he walked and talked and looked that reminded her of the hardcore guys who used to cover L.A. Sexy as hell with his just-shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and hound-dog eyes, but tired and battered and faded at the edges. Clad in his army's uniform of shapeless old tweed jacket and jeans that were as worn as a battle banner nobody saluted anymore. As burned out as the cops he'd covered.

So there was a multiple Pulitzer winner in a town the size of Puckett. Alex was right. Timmie wondered what it meant. And why he'd come to this particular funeral.

"He's headed this way," Cindy said, patting at her stiff crest of hair. "What do you think we should do?"

"Anybody here have something to hide?" Timmie asked.

Every hand went up. Even the mortuary guy's. By the time the reporter reached the steps to the Eternal Rest Chapel, there was no one left to greet him.

* * *

Debriefing probably would have been a lot more fun if the waitress who was serving them at the Rebel Yell Bar and Grill hadn't also been Billy's first cousin on his mother's side. Other than that, it was a typical hospital party, with Travis Tritt on the jukebox and steins of beer on a constant slide down the Formica bar to where the hospital crew had assembled in the Jeb Stuart party room.

"I... hate funerals," Cindy moaned, her face almost in the salsa. She'd had three beers, and her hair was already flat.

"I hate Richard Simmons," Mattie retorted.

"I hate family court," Timmie chimed in.

Everybody cheered and lifted glasses. The SSS had made a strong showing at the bar, along with other hospital staff who had smelled a celebration and showed up before their shift. Even Alex had come along for one drink, although truth be told, his scrubbed-cheek appearance did put a bit of a damper on the celebration.

"What would your father say?" Cindy asked, veering her attention toward Timmie like a Yugo skidding on ice.

"About what, family court?" Timmie asked. "He hated it, too."

"No..." She waved, her gesture exaggerated. "Death."

"Ah." Timmie considered it. Lifted her glass, which held only 7-Up with a twist. Cleared her throat. "He would say..."

"Yes?" four people urged.

"Fuck it. The guy's dead. Let's drink."

She got an even greater cheer. She also got half a glass of beer over her head from the mourning cousin.

Timmie sputtered and wiped. The cousin cursed. "You wouldn't'a thought it was funny if it was your cousin that was dead. 'Specially if it shouldn't'a never happened ."

"Hard to avoid in the long run," Timmie philosophized, accepting a bar towel from the outraged bartender, who was trying to pull the cousin away.

"He was only forty-four!" the cousin screeched, her heels skidding in beer as the bartender yanked her back.

Timmie paused for a moment as she blotted foam from her only decent dress. "Yeah," she said. "He was only forty-four."

"He woulda been okay if he'd gone in like I told him three weeks ago," the cousin insisted. "He'd'a got saved."

Timmie blinked. "Three weeks?" she asked. "He was only sick for four or five days."

"He was sick for a month!" the girl yelled, pulling away from her restraint and bearing down on them again. Everybody grabbed their beer glasses in self-defense. "Pukin' and gettin' numb and itchin' and feelin' bad. But that bitch of a wife of his told him he was makin' it up so's he didn't have to pay no child support. What the fuck did she know? He was sick!"

Only Timmie was really listening. "But nothing showed up on the tests."

The cousin snorted. "Like you really give a shit."

"Get outa here, Crystal," the bartender demanded. "Cool off."

Crystal got out.

A month, Timmie couldn't help but think. Sick a month. Like the flu. With numbness and itching.

That niggling thought about testing ashes resurrected itself right there in the middle of the bar. God, if only she weren't so distracted and tired, she knew damn well she'd be able to make sense of it.

"Don't even go there," Mattie warned.

Timmie swung her own attention wide. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Uh-huh. You in town one month and you got dead flowers in you locker and beer in you hair. Girlfriend, I think you askin' for trouble."

"Dead flowers?" Alex immediately asked. "What dead flowers?"

"It's nothing," Timmie assured him with a warning glare at Mattie, who was sitting right next to Cindy as Cindy regaled one of the unit nurses with tales of Johnny's funeral in Chicago.

"The line of cop cars went on for miles," she insisted. "Miles. He was a good cop."

"He was a cop?" Timmie echoed instinctively.

"Yeah," Barb said. "Didn't you know?"

Timmie shook her head. "No... I sure wish they hadn't dry-roasted him."

"Cindy's husband?"

"Billy."

Barb smacked her on the head. "Knock it off."

"Fine," Timmie snapped. "Ignore the obvious. We missed something, Van Adder was incompetent, and now we're not going to ever know what killed a damn near healthy man."

"He was an asshole."

Timmie glared. "Asshole is not a recognized cause of death."

"Is this what being a forensic nurse means?" somebody asked.

"Yeah," Mattie responded. "Forensic is Greek for 'pain in the ass.'"

"Forensic is Greek for 'no shit, that's what he died of?'" Timmie told them all. "And in a town like Puckett, I think every nurse could stand a little training. God knows the coroner hasn't had any."

"Training isn't the problem," Barb assured her. "It's the pain-in-the-ass part. Pains in the ass get threatened, ya know."

Timmie waved her off as if she were a fly. "It wasn't a big threat. It was a little threat. Flowers and a lovely note in my locker. Big deal."

"Forensics?" Alex asked. "How can you be involved in forensics?"

Three separate people at the table groaned.

"It's a new nursing specialty," Timmie explained, ignoring them. "In other jurisdictions, forensic nurses work as death investigators, rape investigators, or police-hospital liaison. Collecting evidence, intervening in abuse situations, stuff like that. That's what I did at L.A. County-USC."

Alex nodded, suitably impressed.

"It also makes her annoyingly persistent," Barb assured him. "As in, 'won't let a dead horse drop'?"

"Is that a proverb?" somebody asked.

"No. Big animal with four legs."

Timmie scowled at them all. "You were sure singing a different song when I taught you that trick with the fabric softener and the lighter."

"You learned that in forensics?" somebody demanded. "I thought you were just twisted."

"She is twisted," Barb said. "It's why she does forensics."

"So, how'd you end up working back at Memorial?" Alex asked.

Timmie slugged back some soda and turned to Alex, who was smiling. "An offer I couldn't refuse. After a divorce and a downsizing, I ended up in a city that couldn't afford me. So instead of trying to eke out a living there, I decided to come home and eke one out here." She shrugged uncomfortably. "Besides, my dad needed me home."

"He's not who you were going to call me about, is he?" Alex asked with such real sadness he made Timmie squirm.

"I'll call you about it tomorrow," she lied badly, certain he could see the ambivalence. "It's not urgent."

Thankfully, Cindy was hip deep in reminiscing about her post-Johnny depression and didn't pick up on it.

"Dr. Adkins?" a male voice interrupted.

Timmie looked up to see a rumpled, damp young man standing at the doorway alongside Jeb Stuart's dour photo and almost crawled under the table. Something was all too familiar about that stance. That manner. That rectangle of paper in his hand.

"What?" Barb asked.

The young man laughed and bounced over to her. "Wow, he was right. He said you'd be easy to find."

Barb was glowering now. "What?" she demanded again.

Timmie's reflexes were good, but she wasn't in time. Before she could bat the paper away the young man had handed it over. "You've been served, ma'am. Have a nice day."

He barely made it out the door alive.

Timmie had never seen Barb in full fury before. It was fast, it was devastating, it was noisy as hell. Timmie had lived through four good-sized quakes. They had nothing on this.

"I think we'd better—" Timmie had meant to say find cover. She was too late again.

Barb lurched from her chair like an Atlas rocket. "Son of a bitch!" she shrieked, her voice soaring so impressively that Timmie expected her next words to be "fee fi fo fum." "That smarmy, insufferable, shit-faced sack of shit!"

Let Grimm put that in a fairy tale.

Even Travis Tritt shut up for this one. Cindy startled so badly that two people had to hold her in her chair. The pool players in the main room dove under the table as if expecting a tornado to take out the front window.

"That was what he was doing there today!" Barb howled.

Timmie swore glass trembled and weak men fled.

"What is it?" Alex asked, hand instinctively up to help.

"A subpoena! That tiny, worthless little putz is suing me for support. Me! The one who's raising his three children while he's muff-diving in his gun and handcuffs. Support!" Barb screeched, rattling glassware all over again. "I'll show him fucking support! Shit, I'll show him that trick with the fabric softener!"

"But I thought you said he was a big putz," Cindy objected blearily.

"He's a dead fuckin' putz!" Barb screamed.

"This calls for a forensic specialist," somebody offered.

"This calls for a lawyer," Timmie retorted evenly.

Barb swung on her, eyes wild. Nodded briskly.

Smoothing her skirt, she stalked from the room with immense dignity, the subpoena by now nothing more than a tiny, misshapen lump in her fist.

"Well," Mattie spoke up brightly, gaze surreptitiously following her friend. "Anybody got a funny story?"

"Ellen looked just like that when Billy yelled at her," Cindy said, nodding. "Just like that."

Everybody stared at her, then turned almost as one to look after Barb. Thought of quiet, passive Ellen.

"Oh, be serious!" somebody objected.

Cindy lifted her head. "She did. He hurt her so much she—"

"He dead, girl," Mattie interrupted. "Enough."

"And Van Adder let him go," Timmie said to herself.

Mattie swung on her like an avenging angel. "Stop! Just stop."

Timmie glared right back. Secrets, she thought. The damn town was full of secrets, and they were supposed to keep more. Everybody was afraid. Even Mattie. Even, when it came down to it, Timmie.

"It's a bad habit," she defended herself, even though she knew that Mattie wasn't fooled. "It's what I'm used to doing."

"Uh, Miz Leary?"

All heads turned toward the door.

"Oh, shit," somebody warned. "It's a cop."

Timmie's heart skipped a couple of times. "Yes?"

Another fresh-faced puppy. Nervous. "Uh... well..." His posture rigid, he delivered his report like a history paper. "I was told by your baby-sitter I'd find you here? It's your father. He's wandering around town in his underwear."

Timmie's first instinct was to flush hard, the old shame hot and familiar. So she laughed instead. Leave it to Joe to break up her life. It meant she really was home, she guessed. She turned on Mattie, determined to ride this out as a joke. "How'd you manage that?"

Mattie scowled. "Oh, yeah, I tol' that boy to come in here if you got rowdy and tell on you daddy."

It didn't keep her from following Timmie to her feet. In fact, everyone did. Timmie didn't want them to. Not when she knew what was going to happen. It seemed she didn't have a choice. The party streamed right out the door after her, and she was left with one less secret of her own.