Always Kiss the Corpse (8 page)

“Vanderhoek,” he barked.

Kyra smiled. She didn't feel like smiling at this fat, officious asshole. “I'm hired by Maria Vasiliadis, the woman who didn't recognize—”

“I know who she is.”

“I need to determine whether the body is or isn't her son.” Pictures of German Shepherds covered the walls.

“Crazy business.”

Kyra provided her most winsome smile. “A mother should be able to identify her son.”

“Darn right,” said the sheriff. “The woman who ID'd the body did, without doubt.”

“Who was that?”

The sheriff breathed in, largely, and out, largely.

“A friend?”

“How should I know?” The sheriff looked as if he were searching his memory bank for a good reason not to give the name. Reluctantly he said, “Bunche. Works in X-ray at the hospital.”

“Thank you.” Kyra wrote it down. “How did Vasiliadis die?”

“OD'd.”

“On what?”

“Heroin.”

“Yeah?”

“What the report says.”

The man believed in authority. And had photos of fifteen German Shepherds on the wall. Or fifteen photos of one. “Was he a known user?”

“Not on the list. Needle tracks up his left arm, though. Too many damn drugs on this island, all the Navy guys—” He clamped his lips shut.

What, from their tours of duty? She smiled as if agreeing. Question: What's worse than smiling your teeth out to get information? Answer: Scowling and staying stupid. Vanderhoek seemed to thaw, slightly. A big man. Not fat, but burly. Tall. A vote-getter description for a county sheriff. On his desk stood pictures of a prettyish woman, a prettier girl in graduation robe and mortar board, a pimply youth with a basketball. “You're satisfied it's suicide?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Anyone who overdoses is a suicidal type. Suicidal stupidity or active suicide, it's all the same to me.”

“Where did Vasiliadis die?”

Silence for several seconds. “Where the body was found. The blockhouse at the cemetery.”

“What's a blockhouse?”

“Small shelter, open doorways and windows. Just barely a shelter.”

“Who found the body?”

“A kid. Twelve.” The sheriff rubbed his nose. “Not much fun for him.”

True, thought Kyra.

Vanderhoek thawed another degree and leaned back.

“How'd he get to the blockhouse?”

“Drove. His car was right close by.”

“Is that how you identified him?”

“Name on registration. But we had the positive ID from the X-ray lady.”

“Did you check out his house?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“No need. He lived alone.”

“But isn't it important to—”

“Look, Miss, this is a suicide. The next of kin was the mother. We informed her, okay?”

“But his house could've—”

“We're not talking investigation here, okay? “

“Yes. Sure. Um—Sandro's mother particularly noted his lack of facial hair. The coroner or whoever handled the autopsy, did he comment?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Was the autopsy thorough?”

“Why wouldn't it be?”

“You tell me.”

The sheriff bristled. “Thorough as necessary.”

“To establish suicide, you mean?”

He nodded. “Our coroner is always thorough.”

“Once it's decided it's suicide, that's enough autopsy?”

He nodded.

She needed to push. The phone rang. He lunged. “Vanderhoek.” Pause. “Uh-huh.” Pause. “Right away. Bye.” He slammed the receiver down and stood up. “Got to go out, Miss, ahh—”

Kyra stood too. “Rachel. Here you are.” She laid a Triple-I card on his desk. “We'll complete our investigation and let you know what we've learned.”

The sheriff's mouth opened. No words came out.

Kyra doubted he knew the phrase,
such effrontery
. But he was searching for some version of it. And did he have Miss Brady Adam phone him ten minutes into an interview?

≈  ≈  ≈

“Say I was only listening to Martin. I mean, like I'd had my eyes closed. I'd have had no sense of him at all, he was that flat.” Noel sipped his latte.

“Flat how?”

“Practically no timbre, almost no inflection, close to total mid-range. Would've been hard to tell if this was man or woman if I hadn't been sitting right there. Or if I hadn't read his name.”

“Most people talk like that.”

“Not like Claude Martin.”

“Most men and women intone their words within a range of three or four notes on the scale, around middle C.”

“Come on.”

She added the contents of a packet of sugar to her latte. “That small range is about all you need. Except, when somebody's talking, there's more going on than just what's audible.”

“Yeah?”

“It's what we were talking about before, affect. It conveys what the speaker's feeling. And it creates a mood in whoever's listening. What you're saying is Claude Martin's voice held little emotional tone.”

“I guess.” So Kyra's voice must be filled with affect since he got her mood from whatever she said. “Maybe morticianing takes away your affect.”

Kyra raised one eyebrow. “Or maybe you become a mortician because you have none in the first place.”

Noel took out his notebook. “Anyway, I got a list of those who signed the guest book.”

“Good.”

“A doctor, Stockman Jones. Two women who, as Claude conveyed, seem to be a unit. Brady Adam and—”

“I just met her.”

“You did? How?”

“She's the sheriff's receptionist. Very pretty.”

“She seems to be with a certain Ursula Bunche.”

“That simplifies things. She officially identified Sandro. She works at the hospital.” Ursula Bunche. Kyra suddenly giggled. “This is too silly.”

“What?”

“If Ursula and Brady are lesbians, if they get married, if Brady takes Ursula's last name—”

“What?” He glanced at his list. He laughed. “Oh god.”

“Okay, who else?”

A man, Rudy Longelli. A woman with green hair, Cora Lipton-Norton.” He closed his notebook. “A few others, but they didn't sign in.” He finished his latte. “Talk to Brady Adam?”

“I'm not ready to meet up with Vanderhoek again.”

Noel grinned. “Didn't hit it off?”

“I hate pandering for information.” She described her interview. “He made my skin crawl.” She got up, leaving half her latte. “Plenty of affect there, the sheriff of Island County.”

FIVE

Kyra pulled off North Main into the Whidbey General Hospital's lot and parked. They followed the sidewalk through emerald lawn to the front door. It opened automatically.

Noel flinched.

Kyra quirked an eyebrow.

“The smell. Those trips to the hospital with Brendan.”

“Yeah.” Kyra touched his arm. “Hushed and busy. Some kind of disinfectant.”

Funeral home, thought Noel. Now hospital. Order reversed.

At the information desk Kyra asked for Ursula Bunche.

The receptionist tapped on her computer keyboard, glanced up at the screen. “X-ray. Down that corridor to the right.”

They walked along the hall to another receptionist. Bunche was on her break, maybe the cafeteria, should be back any minute. They sat on a brown plastic sofa.

“We should check out the morgue while we're here,” Noel said.

“Why? We wouldn't recognize Sandro. Better to talk to the woman who ID'd him.”

“That too. But let's be thorough.”

Three uniformed women appeared in the hall. Kyra stood and said to a petite, blonde, competent-looking woman in a white pantsuit, “Ursula Bunche?”

“Yes?” The other uniforms continued down the hall.

Kyra let Noel patter their explanation and hand Bunche a Triple-I card.

“Poor Sandro.” Ursula glanced at the card and stuck it in her pocket. “Look, my break's over but I'm off at three. Can you come back?”

Noel held out his notebook. “Can you just tell us who these people are and where we might find them?”

She looked. “Rudy, he's on Sandro's bowling team. He's a plumber. Alice at the liquor store's his wife. She'll know where he's working. Brady works for the sheriff.”

“Yes, I've just met her,” Kyra smiled.

Ursula squinted at Kyra but didn't respond. “Cora, I think she's a student Sandro was friendly with at the college. She was at the viewing, green crewcut. Sorry, they're waiting for me in X-ray.”

“Thanks. See you at three. The front door?”

A nod from Bunche. Kyra said, “Liquor store to find Rudy.” Alice, plump and motherly, said he was plumbing some new condos in Oak Harbor. Out by the Golf Club, Swanton and Monticello area.

Twenty minutes of highway north, fifteen minutes of wrong turns and they drew up to a muddy construction site. In the middle sat an L shape of two-storey condos, framed, undersided with pressboard, empty window holes. Kyra parked near a collection of trucks and vans. Noel made his way across a planked walkway over the mud and stuck his head in the nearest door. “Rudy Longelli work here?”

A man in a hard hat and coveralls slipped between two wall frames. “Who wants him?”

Noel handed him a card. “May we take a minute of his time?”

“Far's I'm concerned you can, he's on lunch break.” The guy, maybe the foreman, handed Noel back his card.

Kyra looked around. “Where'd he be eating?”

“Probably Aztec Tacos. Down in the Mall.”

“How do we recognize him?”

The man shrugged and started to turn. “Skinny. Wearing a blue and black flannel shirt, Mariner's hat.”

“Thanks.”

Back in the car, Kyra wheeled out. “Remember a mall?”

“No. But even island towns have malls. Full of Ye Olde Shoppes.”

“So if he's eating we can multi-task too.”

They spied a twenty-store mall on the right complete with Aztec Tacos. Inside the café's turquoise plastic decor a couple of dozen people munched and slurped. Noel spotted a blue and black flannel shirt. “Rudy Longelli?”

The man looked up. “Yeah?”

“We'd like to talk about Sandro Vasiliadis.” Rudy's hands were full of burrito. Noel put a Triple I card on the table. Kyra explained, hired by Sandro's mother, and so on.

“Yeah, I was there. Sad thing. He was a good guy.” Rudy took a bite.

They slid into the other side of the booth. Kyra saw from a wall board that Aztec Tacos offered chimichangas. Her order was ready.

“We bowled together,” Rudy mumbled, still eating. He was extremely thin, Noel noted—asset for a plumber, crawling under floors? “For Krawcyk and Sons Garage. Him and me, we were the best of the team.” He waved his burrito in his left hand. “Lefties.”

Lefties. Kyra smiled. “An advantage in baseball but I didn't know about bowling.”

“Yeah. Sandro was maybe even better than me.” He slurped something dark up a straw. “He played badminton too.”

“We've heard he didn't play sports growing up.”

“Dunno about before. Just those two now.”

“Was he seeing someone? Living with someone?”

“Not that I know of.” Rudy started on the second burrito.

A cautious friend, Kyra decided. A server arrived. Kyra ordered a chimichanga and Noel two soft chicken tacos.

“Did he have many friends? A partner?”

“No partner, no.” Rudy mumbled, mouth full. He swallowed, then said, “He used to be married. Has a kid, she's about ten or eleven. Used to bring her bowling sometimes, nice kid. Come to think, I haven't seen her for a while.” He ate more burrito. “But usually we just bowled and had a beer after. Never took him home to meet the wife.” He sighed. “Too bad now. The wife said I shoulda, our kids might've got along with his.”

“He seem depressed recently?”

“Nope.”

“Anything different that you noticed about him?”

“Like what?”

“Well, his face, say.”

Rudy munched and thought. “When I first met him he had a beard. When he shaved it off he still looked like he needed a shave. But recently he didn't. I was kinda wondering if he had that new laser treatment. I coulda asked but figured it was none of my business.”

“Did you see him in the coffin?”

“Quickly.”

“You're sure it was Sandro?”

“Yep.”

“What about friends?”

“Yeah, I guess. I saw him with a green-haired girl a couple of times, maybe she was his girlfriend, he just grinned when I asked him.”

“Any others?”

“Mmm.” Rudy finished his burrito and drink. “You know, I just don't know.” He looked at his watch. “I gotta go. Gotta rough in five more this afternoon.”

“Keep our card,” Noel said. “In case anything comes up.”

Rudy took it, said, “See ya,” and walked away without looking back.

≈  ≈  ≈

A couple of hours till their conversation with Ursula Bunche. Kyra found a phone book, looked up Cora Lipton-Norton, dialed the number. A machine. Okay, head over to Skagit Valley College and track her down.

Oak Harbor had some fine-looking fast-food places, seemed to be frequented by young families from the Naval Air Station. “Too bad we've just eaten,” Kyra mourned, “we could've grabbed a souvlaki at that Greek takeout.”

“Too messy to eat while driving. You need a picnic table and eight minutes to chomp down any serious souvlaki.”

They headed to Pioneer Way. The college campus was several buildings on nearly treeless land overlooking the Oak Harbor Marina. It took four askings, people of all ages, to find the registrar's office. Three women at four desks. Six computers, forty or fifty file cabinets four drawers high, over a dozen shelves filled with catalogues and loose-leaf binders: the record-keeping branch of the college. Noel approached the woman at the nearest desk, forties, blondish-grayish curled hair, a matronly bosom.