Текст книги "Brain Dead"

Автор книги: Eileen Dreyer

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Chapter 6

"Where is he?" Timmie asked, hand over her forehead to keep the sleet out of her eyes as they hurried up Elm Street. Alex had offered to ferry them all in his car, but the quickest route had been to weave through driveways up the hill to where her father had last been seen.

In his underwear. Out in the freezing weather. Timmie was going to kill somebody.

"They're trying to get him inside the church, ma'am," the cop was saying as he ran with one hand holding his holster in place. "We thought it was safer. He seems to be tryin' to incite people against the IRS."

"No," Timmie said, wishing one of the old-timers had filled the kid in. "He was trying to enlist you for the IRA. There's a difference."

"I wouldn't know, ma'am. All I know is that when Miss Charlton demanded he go home and put clothes on, he yelled somethin' at her about women needing to be struck regularly."

"Like gongs, yes," Timmie answered. "It's Noel Coward."

"Who is, ma'am?"

Timmie sighed. "Never mind."

They topped the rise at Elm Street and turned right up the sidewalk toward the church. It was just after two, too early even for hospital-induced rush hour. A few cars scattered water over the streets, and the lights were already on in the dingy gray Timmie saw a few pedestrians catch sight of the phalanx from the bar and stop dead. No surprise. Several carried to-go cups. One or two had forgotten to get rid of pool cues. And Timmie was taking them to her father as if they were the villagers after Frankenstein's monster.

"Then he started singing bawdy songs," Officer Braxton informed her. "He really has a good voice." The boy sounded surprised.

Timmie almost laughed at that one. The kid was so stern faced as they tramped up the glistening, darkening streets of town like a pack of lemmings in search of a cliff.

"He spent some time singing intro for the Clancy Brothers in the sixties," she explained. "Got a lot of his music from Greenwich Village."

"Uh-huh." Which meant that he'd never heard of the Clancy Brothers or Greenwich Village. Hell, he'd probably never heard of the sixties.

Well, if there was one thing she could depend on from her father, it was diversion. Far be it for Joe Leary to simply age gracefully. Or, for that matter, quietly.

Considering that she could hear him from two blocks away, she doubted she could even hope for manageably.

"'Too-rah-loo-rah-loo-rah-loo, they're lookin' f'r monkeys out in the zoo...'"

Uh-oh. Timmie ran a little faster and hoped that nobody'd bothered to get the local priest involved. Her father was in full and glorious voice, and the song was one of his favorites, "Sergeant McGrath." Not the best choice for church.

They were heading uphill, of course. St. Mary's of the River commanded the highest point of the small town that had been built straight up the hills on the banks of the Missouri. San Francisco to scale. The steeple could be seen for miles, stabbing its well-ordered way through the ragged sky, the crown of a pretty little redbrick church that looked for all the world untroubled and serene. Except for the music issuing from inside, which was not in any way ecclesiastical.

"...and if it was me, I had a face like you I'd join the British arm-y-y-y-y...!'"

Timmie was panting like a dog and freezing from the beer that hadn't dried yet on her hair before the sleet had hit it.

Damn that old man. Seventy-five years old, and he'd probably run all the way up. He had a heart like a fifteen-year-old. Timmie had chest pains, but she wasn't sure whether it was from the run or the fact that she was trying so hard not to laugh.

"'Too-rah-loo-rah-loo-rah-loo...'"

"Oh, Daddy, don't..." Timmie gasped, reaching the steps of the tall brick Gothic church and sliding right into the wrought-iron rail. She broke a heel and limped the rest of the way, trying to get inside the door before her father got to his favorite line.

"'They're lookin' f'r monkeys down in the zoo..."'

"We tried to hold him down," the police officer protested.

"Wrong thing," Timmie assured him, getting to the door.

"'But if it was me, I had a face like you-u-u... I-I-I-I-I'd..."

"Daddy, no!"

"'FUCK the British army!!' "

She was wrong. The priest was here; standing right behind her father. The look on his face would have been damn near comical if he hadn't had a semi-naked septuagenarian singing obscene songs in his vestibule. That did it. Timmie burst out laughing and her father, delighted, laughed back. The priest was not noticeably amused.

"You want us to get hold of him?" the cop asked.

She shook her head. "No. I'll handle it."

Not one person in the church could have lasted three minutes against her father if they really got him riled. There were several more raincoated police standing by the priest, along with an outraged-looking dowager and, of all people, that damn reporter.

"What are you doing here?" Timmie demanded as the rest of the SSS and Alex pounded through the door behind her until the tiny vestibule was thick with humidity and the black-and-white-marbled floor puddled from too many dripping bodies.

Dripping from his own battered London Fog, Mr. Murphy shot Timmie an enigmatic smile and showed her his notebook. "You were the one who said your father was a character."

"'River-r-r-u-n-n..."' began the sonorous voice in near-Gielgudian tones.

"Oh, God, that's it." Timmie groaned. "He gets started on Finnegan V Wake, we'll be here till Easter. Daddy?"

He didn't even notice her as he recited on, effectively mesmerizing everyone in the vestibule. He was dripping wet, his white hair wild, his great arms thrown so wide he almost shut out the light, his voice majestic enough to fill a cathedral. This would be what Brian Bora would have looked like had he lived so long, Timmie thought. Cuchulain, Niall of the Nine Hostages. Maybe, she thought, it was why they had all died young, those huge Irish heroes, so they wouldn't have to betray in their eyes the longing for their once-legendary magic.

"Da, it's Timmie. Come on, sweetie, it's time to go home."

"'...to bend of day brings us commodious vicus of recirculation..."'

She reached way up to him, laid her hand against his thin white stubble. Smiled her best smile. "Yo, Finnegan. Wake's over."

He saw her finally, and his features crumpled straight into distress. "Kathleen," he whispered, his own great hands up to her face. "Oh, Kathleen, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

Timmie stopped smiling. "Da, it's me. Timmie."

"It was just me and some of the boys, ya know. Celebrating the series. Wasn't it a hell of a series? We won, girl. Surely that deserves a celebration."

Timmie pulled her hands back. Jammed them in her pockets. Fought like hell to maintain her poise. "It does, Joe. It does. Now, come on home."

He was crying now, big, sloppy tears and shaking shoulders. "Say you forgive me, Kathleen."

Timmie smelled the old incense, the beeswax the altar society still used on the wood, the damp of wool, and fought uncommon claustrophobia.

"I forgive you, Joe. Now let them close down for the night."

There was utter silence in the church. Timmie couldn't look. She couldn't take her attention from her father or she'd lose him. She couldn't stand to see the pity in all those eyes.

"Do you want a ride home?" the young cop asked behind her.

"No," Alex spoke up for the first time. "He needs to go to the hospital. He's too old to be out in this stuff."

"He can't," Timmie said, her focus still on her father. "It'll confuse him. And Medicare won't cover it."

"Yes it will," Alex assured her. "I'll see to it."

Timmie turned to see that Alex was smiling at her, and there was no pity in those lovely brown eyes. She could have kissed him on the spot. "Thanks," she said.

"After a couple of days at Memorial, we can figure out what else to do."

"Thank you."

And so she ended up walking her massive father out the doors of the church like a stunned bear, and spent the next two hours getting him settled in the hospital, where they tied him down and snowed him all over again so he wouldn't sing to the other patients or hit the staff. And then she went home to confront her baby-sitter for letting him get loose in the first place.

"You didn't tell me he could be that fast!" the babysitter protested. A strapping forty-year-old woman who claimed experience in children and adults, she'd come highly recommended and even more highly paid for. And she'd let that old man out on her first night.

"I've told you before," Timmie snarled, her temper worsening. "He could talk you into robbing the rectory for him. You never believe him unless he says he has to pee. Are we clear on that now?"

"Well, don't blame me," she objected, puffing her full chest out like a pigeon with a crow in sight. "I did my best."

Which meant Timmie was running out of relief baby-sitters, and it was a long way to go till the ninth inning.

The entire time Timmie had been confronting the baby-sitter, Meghan had been bouncing on the balls of her feet as if she'd saved her grandfather instead of letting him get loose.

"Well, what do you have to say, young lady?" Timmie demanded, swinging around on her. "Didn't you even notice your grandda walk out the door?"

"I was busy, Mom," Meghan apologized, eyes glinting oddly, her hands wrapped tightly around each other. "I was so busy."

Timmie definitely didn't like the look of this. "Doing what?"

"I had to answer the phone," the little girl all but sang.

Timmie's stomach dropped. She wasn't a nurse because she liked bedpans. She was a whiz at diagnosing symptoms. And she diagnosed Meghan's with no problem at all. God, no, not this.

"Who was on the phone, Meghan?" she asked, knowing.

Meghan beamed and spread her hands. "Daddy."

Timmie thought she was going to throw up. "Who?"

Meghan began to dance around. "Daddy. My daddy. I told you he'd find us, and he did. He said he'd figured we'd try and come here, and he was awfully upset with you for taking me away like that. Didn't I tell you, Mom? He misses me so much. He's coming to see us."

Timmie sat down so fast she unlodged a pile of health flyers and sent them cascading to the floor. Meghan kept pirouetting around the room like a sprite on high air. As for Mrs. Filpin, she was busy stuffing her knitting into her bag and mumbling about ungrateful clients.

Jason. Oh, Jesus, Timmie had known it. He'd finally come off that last high and decided to look for them, and now it was going to start up all over again. The lawsuits, the harassment, the control, just to prove he still could. And Timmie just didn't have the money or the patience to deal with him this time.

"Did he say when he was coming?" she asked, trying very hard not to scream.

"No," Meghan sang, still twirling. "He has some business to finish. He's so busy, but he's coming right here when he's finished. And he's going to buy me a pony!"

He was waiting, just like always. Playing Timmie along, stretching her out, lurking just below the water like the shark in Jaws until she let down her guard.

"I just can't do it," she muttered to herself, unable to move. Unable to think past the overwhelming urge to run to work and drown herself in some good, mindless trauma.

She was going to need a lawyer. She was going to need a nursing home. Hell, she was going to need a new baby-sitter.

Screw it, she decided, getting back to her feet. She'd think about it all tomorrow. She and Scarlett, soul mates to the end, the only difference being that Scarlett looked better in curtains and Timmie knew what to do with a parking lot full of injured soldiers. But both of them up to their elbows in manure, and neither of them knowing how to admit defeat.

Tomorrow. After she waded around in an accident or two at work, just to settle her nerves.

"Meghan?"

Meghan came to a sliding halt a couple of feet away, her hair still flying, her expression once again caught between warring emotions—this time, exhilaration and guilt. Timmie held out her arms.

"Come here, punkin. I need a hug."

"But you're mad at me."

Forget the exhilaration. The kid radiated a hundred percent apprehension from those big blue eyes. Afraid, even as high as she was, that she'd be left. If she were bad, if she were noisy, if she was too demanding. If she chose one parent over another. Her father had done it. Wouldn't her mother? Most days it wasn't noticeable. On a day when her grandfather had slipped his bonds and her father had called, it was glaringly obvious. And nothing Timmie could do would convince her otherwise.

"Yeah, I was a little mad," she admitted. "But mostly with Mrs. Filpin. She was the adult. She should have watched Grandda."

"What about Daddy?" Such a small voice.

Timmie grinned. "How could he watch Grandda?" she asked. "He's in California."

Meghan almost smiled.

"Do I love you?" Timmie asked, a game as old as her child.

"Yes."

"No matter what?"

A hesitation this time, which spoke volumes about how little a small girl trusted her father, no matter how excited his call had made her. "Uh-huh."

Timmie smiled right through the terrible comprehension. "Well, then, let's hug on it."

Meghan rushed at Timmie as if afraid the offer would be withdrawn, and Timmie hugged Meghan before she had the chance to back out, a tiny flood wall against the frustrations of Timmie's life.

"I love you," the little girl whispered.

"Me, too." Timmie picked her up and swung her into her arms. "Come on, munchkin. Let's go read Charlotte's Web and feed Renfield some flies."

"I don't think Mrs. Filpin likes Renfield, Mom," Meghan whispered in conspiratorial tones.

Timmie had to laugh. "Well, that settles it then. She's history."

She'd made it up only two steps before the phone rang. Setting Meghan down with a pat on the bottom, Timmie turned for the dining room. She picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

"Hello?"

"Don't you listen?"

Timmie stopped cold. The voice was a whisper, low and raspy. Creepy. "Just a second," she said, and turned to her daughter. "Head on upstairs, honey. This'll only take a second."

When she was sure she heard Meghan's footsteps enter her own room, Timmie returned her attention to the call. "You wouldn't be the thoughtful person who left flowers in my locker, would you?" she asked in deceptively sweet tones.

"Has it occurred to you yet," the voice responded, "that you can't afford to lose your job? Or worse?"

Never one for a slow temper, Timmie fought against absolute meltdown. "You threatening me?"

"Warning you. Leave it be."

She was sure her caller was set to hang up. Until she laughed, that is. "Listen, asshole. You want to intimidate me, you're going to have to do a better job. I've had better threats from fourteen-year-old girls."

"It's a warning," the voice repeated. "Pay attention."

"Get fucked."

By the time Timmie got upstairs, Renfield was asleep and Meghan was on chapter two. Even so, Timmie settled beside her on the window seat and read along, trying very hard to disappear into a world where the most important thing that happened was the perfect spinning of a web.

She was not going to be threatened. On the other hand, would she accept a warning? Nuzzling her daughter's peach-soft cheek and listening to her play the part of the pig with a decided Irish accent, Timmie wasn't so sure.

Chapter 7

"Now, you say you just took over responsibility for your father's care," the Restcrest caseworker said to Timmie the next morning.

Timmie squirmed in the faux-leather office chair she'd been shown to and looked around at the soft Impressionist prints and lush potted palms that decorated the office. Typical of a hospital in the nineties, the good stuff was reserved for paying customers. The better the hoped-for reimbursement, the classier the decor. This was about the best Timmie had seen in the entire Memorial campus, and it made her nervous.

"Yes," she said, doodling on the notepad the caseworker had provided her with for pertinent info. "I moved home about a month ago."

"And so far he's been in three different nursing homes."

"Yes."

The caseworker nodded, scribbled a little on her own notepad. Mrs. Everly, said the nameplate that matched the prim, conservatively gray woman behind the comfortable oak desk. No first name. No jewelry, no personal mementos strewn about the office. Polite, professional, all business in a caregiving setting.

Timmie wanted to go home. She wanted to go to work. She wanted to watch Meg ride that little horse down the road. Instead, she was forced by Medicare restrictions to lay her life bare to this woman who only wanted to give her a chance to fork over whatever was left of her money so her father would have a safe place to live.

"And you've been relying on Medicare," Mrs. Everly said.

"Yes."

Timmie jotted a few words on her own pad. Her note wasn't about level-two nursing care or Medicare co-pays, though. She was doing what she always did whenever things got too uncomfortable. She was splitting her attention in as many different directions as she could. If not flu, she wrote, what cause of death?

"Do you know what kind of testing your father has had?"

Jason Parker, she wrote next, then scratched it out with furious strokes. No, that was definitely another road she didn't want to go down today. Stick to the fun stuff, even if she wasn't going to do anything with it. Which she wasn't. She just preferred to work on the puzzle of Billy Mayfield rather than the tragedy of Joe Leary.

"Mrs. Leary-Parker?" Mrs. Everly gently persisted. "Has your father been tested?"

Timmie looked up. "No," she admitted. "He really hasn't. He was already in the second home by the time I got back. So far I haven't had much of a chance to do more than catch up."

"Facility."

"Pardon?"

"We prefer to use the term 'facility.'"

Timmie smiled. "Of course. God forbid we should admit that our parents are as mad as March hares or more dependent than six-foot-four three-year-olds."

It was Mrs. Everly's turn to squirm a little. "We don't like to think of our clients that way," she protested.

That actually made Timmie laugh. "That's okay. I don't like to think of my dad as a client."

And far be it for Timmie to admit to this tightly wrapped little woman with her comfortable catchwords and plastic sympathy that Joseph Aloysius Michael Leary had been as mad as a March hare and as dependent as a three-year-old his entire adult life.

"Your father has been... asked to leave these other facilities."

"Thrown out," Timmie amended, her attention back on her list.

Liver failure?

No

Electrolyte imbalance?

Possible

Slow poison?

"Aw, shit."

"Pardon?" Mrs. Every asked.

Timmie glanced up. Smiled to cover the sudden lurch her stomach had just taken. She'd done it now. Admitted what she'd suspected all along. "Nothing. I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"I was asking why your father was asked to leave."

Timmie sighed. "It's in his records, Mrs. Everly. Besides, I thought you were only concentrating on the financial obligations today. We know he has need."

Sepsis?

No

Kidney disease?

No

It couldn't have been poison. Billy was a jerk, but there wasn't any reason to kill him.

Billy had been sick a month. Long enough to build up enough poison to knock over a rhino, given in small enough doses so his symptoms wouldn't be suspicious.

Cardiac failure?

No

Ebola virus?

Nice try

It couldn't be poison.

What Timmie couldn't understand was why, after all that damn forensic training she'd taken, poison hadn't been the first thing she'd thought of.

But if she'd thought of poison first, she would have had to consider the logical correlations. If Billy had been poisoned, then who was the most likely suspect?

"We think your father would certainly benefit from Restcrest," Mrs. Everly was saying. "We would begin by thoroughly testing him so that we could maximize his potential. Then, at Restcrest, he would have available to him the most progressive program for Alzheimer's patients in the state, which would include the latest in physical, occupational, and recreational therapy. We're even experimenting with aroma and music therapy at the moment."

Nausea

Numbness

Itching

Cardiovascular collapse

Generic symptoms to fit any disease... and, of course, most poisons.

"Dr. Raymond has also worked to include Restcrest in several pharmaceutical studies to avail our clients of the latest possible drug interventions. Our staff is highly trained and committed, and our unit has been newly redesigned with the latest innovations for patient safety and stimulation. But all that, of course, is expensive. We do our best to acquire grant and research money to cover some of the costs, but intensive care of any kind is... well, uh, costly. You understand that, don't you?"

"Quite well."

Thallium

Arsenic

Sodium fluoride

Don't do this. You have enough problems as it is. You weren't responsible for Billy Mayfield's death, and that's all that matters. Heck, you've even been warned off the playing field.

But poison...

"Was it a financial problem?"

Still preoccupied with the thought of Billy and murder, Timmie belatedly looked up. "Pardon?"

"Your father. Was he asked to leave the homes for financial reasons?"

"No. It was a behavioral problem. My father has decided not to go gentle into that good night, and at six foot five, he can make a lot of noise about it."

Mrs. Everly blinked. "What good night?"

Timmie sighed. Didn't anybody in this town study literature anymore? "It's a poem," she said. "By Dylan Thomas? About death. You know, 'rage, rage against the dying of the light'?"

Mrs. Everly thought for a moment. Nodded. "Ah. I see."

No, Timmie bet she didn't. "Let's get down to the bottom line here, Mrs. Everly. You might be able to find a bed for my father if we can cough up the cash. Is that right?"

Mrs. Everly went dangerously red. "We have the premier facility in the state here, Mrs. Leary-Parker—"

"And you could take really good care of my father. I know that. I just need to know if I can afford it, and I don't think I can. So I need straight answers."

There was an uncomfortable pause during which Timmie could see Mrs. Everly trying hard to find another way to sidestep. It must be hell to have to face a person with no use for euphemisms.

"A deposit of five thousand dollars," she finally admitted as if the words had been squeezed out of her. "One hundred ten dollars a day with the understanding that barring extraordinary situations, Restcrest is capable of providing permanent care for your father no matter his health. And understanding also that as one of the reasons we can provide such progressive care is the research we do, you agree to participate, and that after your father... passes, his remains be donated to the Price University Medical Center for the sole purpose of Alzheimer's research. You wouldn't have to worry about his being used for, say, med school."

"You only want his brain." Timmie nodded. "I understand perfectly well."

Conrad T. Jones, she wrote and smiled.

What a good idea. Conrad was a nearby medical examiner with a passion for pharmacology. He was also at least as suspicious as Timmie and far, far more knowledgeable about poison. Maybe Timmie would call him when she got out of this hothouse. Have lunch. Talk dead people. It'd sure as hell be more fun than this.

"Is there anything else I can explain?" Mrs. Everly asked, laying down her pen.

Timmie finally looked up. Smiled. "Yes. Where I can get the money. I don't have it."

"You don't have anyone else to help you?" the woman asked.

Timmie found herself going very still. When she smiled, she knew it looked forced. "I doubt it."

"In that case," Mrs. Everly said, closing Joe's file, "maybe one of the other social workers can help you find placement for your father at another fine facility."

"Just don't call Golden Grove," Timmie suggested, getting to her feet. "I don't think filthy and abusive is what I'm after, either."

And with little more ado, she was shuffled off the good furniture and sent back to the cheap seats.

* * *

"Poison," Conrad T. Jones sang over the phone line with unbridled delight half an hour later. "Favorite murder weapon of the passive-aggressive. Neat, sneaky, tough to spot. What do you think you have?"

Timmie leaned a bit outside the lounge door to make sure no one could overhear. "You tell me. Gastrointestinal symptoms for a month. Transient numbness in the extremities, rash, no real test anomalies. He came in complaining of the flu and went out plastic-wrapped."

"Symptoms for a month, huh? How about liver failure? Hair loss?"

"No real cirrhosis, even for a man fond of the bottle. He did look kinda yellow as I remember it, though. I guess I should have been surprised his enzymes weren't higher. As for anything else, I don't know. History didn't include it, nobody thought to ask."

He considered the problem a moment and then snorted. "Arsenic goes to the top of the class. A perennial favorite, arsenic. Romantic yet effective, creating just the right touch of suffering to make it all worthwhile. A favorite also of medical examiners and historians everywhere, because you can still catch it in the hair and nails forever afterward."

Which was probably what had made Timmie itch in the first place.

"Not if the official in question okayed cremation, you can't."

"Ah. So the call is merely academic."

Timmie sighed. "I guess so. I just wanted to know I was right."

"You're right. I'd stake my considerable reputation on it. So, bella donna, when are you coming back to town to visit?"

Bella donna being Conrad's favorite feminine form of address, his little forensic pharmacologist's inside joke, since belladonna was also one of the deadliest and most popular historical poisons.

"I have come back," Timmie admitted without noticeable enthusiasm. "I'm living in Puckett now."

She'd first met Conrad three years earlier when she was doing her initial death-investigation training at St. Louis University. A forensic pathologist with a minor in pharmacology and an obsession for all things Italian, Conrad had taught the course on poisoning and overdoses. He'd been fifty-five and randy as a goat, and Timmie had found herself adopted on the spot. She loved Conrad to death. It didn't mean she'd let herself be left alone with him for ten minutes. Not only did he look like Truman Capote on a bad-hair day, he considered the tongue an integral part of any kiss.

"Puckett?" he echoed with growing disbelief. "You're within spitting distance and you haven't called yet?"

"I am calling."

"Puckett... Puckett. Madre mia, Timothy Ann, don't tell me the official you're talking about is none other than the infamous Tucker Van Adder."

"How'd you know?"

"I think I just used the word infamous, didn't I? Good God. Over a hundred counties in Missouri and you have to pick the one with the worst coroner in the country. Come to St. Charles. Have lunch. I'll tell you all the details." He laughed. "And then I'll talk you into helping change it."

"No thank you, sweetheart. I have a full enough plate at this picnic as it is. I'll call you."

Hanging up, Timmie checked her watch. Ten minutes left in her lunch break. It was too late to use them to call another bank. The first three she'd contacted to inquire about a second mortgage on the house had been polite but very cautious. Not that Timmie blamed them. Not only had they never seen the inside of the house, they hadn't scanned Timmie's credit report. Once they did, they wouldn't hesitate. They'd just laugh themselves silly.

If she really needed to, she had a last option before throwing her father to Golden Grove. Like the craven coward she was, though, she preferred putting off the inevitable as long as she earthly could. So she sat back instead, propped her feet on the couch, and closed her eyes to think forensics.

Poison. Billy Mayfield had probably been poisoned.

Fine. Now what?

She couldn't prove it. Not without tissue. Besides, nobody wanted to know about it. Heck, nobody wanted to know about anything in this town. And to top it off, if she pursued this, not only would she seriously displease her friends, but a certain caller would be back on the line, her boss would fire her, and the coroner would probably have her run out of town on a rail.

If this had happened in L.A., her choice would have been easy. In L.A., she'd still had a certain sense of her accomplishments. She'd been crystal clear about her mission. She'd been Wonder Woman. Trauma Queen. The Forensics Fairy.

But she was in Puckett now, where nobody believed in fairies except the little girl and old man who looked to her for support. And she couldn't think of a single area of her life that would be improved by her walking out onto the work lane and announcing that somebody somewhere had poisoned Billy Mayfield for reasons unknown, and that since the coroner was too busy bumping boots with the deceased's ex-wife to do anything about it, she, Timothy Ann Leary-Parker, would prove it.

Tomorrow, Timmie decided, sinking farther into what was left of the cushions. She'd make her decision tomorrow, when she felt better. When she knew what she was going to do about Joe. When she knew what Jason was going to do about her. When she knew better how to make her boss like her enough to let her stay here for the next hundred years, which was what it was going to take to pay for that old man and that little girl, who both needed so much.

In the meantime, though, Timmie seriously needed to patch up a few bodies and yell at a couple of drunks.

"Timmie? You okay, girl?"

Timmie grinned at Mattie without opening her eyes. "I'm bored. You guys promised me action. I haven't even seen a tractor crash."

"Every case can't be forensics, girl."

Timmie sighed. "Only in a perfect life, Mattie. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Besides take over for me so I can eat?"

"Where's Cindy?"

"Been pulled to Restcrest. They got need, we don't, and Ellen lost the toss to go, although why those two like it up there is beyond me."

"She'll pass a happier shift."

"Amen and hallelujah. Now, if you want to get that lazy-ass white butt of yours off the couch, I got that new plastics guy, Dr. Babbaloo, or whatever—"