At the Scene of the Crime (30 page)

He looked away. “I didn’t care for it, not a bit. It seemed to me a dreadful responsibility, and there was the, the . . .”

She thought he seemed embarrassed as he sought the words. “It wasn’t just seeing people the way I wasn’t used to seeing them, but having them tell me the most private things. It made me extremely uncomfortable.”

He swiveled in his chair and looked straight at her. “I’ve always been shy, you see. Psychiatrists would say I have a fear of intimacy. God knows my parents did nothing to make me welcome it.”

She felt unaccustomedly uncomfortable in the presence of this old man’s emotional exposure. “I wouldn’t have guessed. In the courtroom . . .”

“That’s different. When I got into the courtroom the first time, in the case I’m telling you about, I felt comfortable. I knew then I wanted to be there, doing my utmost to win justice for the victims, to see the guilty punished. I know what I’ve seen, and what it means, and to me it’s the most important thing in the world. But actually . . . caring . . . for living people . . .”

His voice trailed off and she wondered if he had lost his thread. She was about to prompt him when he resumed.

“So I didn’t do so well in my final years in medical school, and when I graduated the only internship I was offered was in a community hospital in Hibbing, Minnesota, where I had to deal with sick people twenty-four hours a day. That was a miserable experience for me and quite unsatisfactory to the hospital, but it led me to accepting a job as medical officer for the Taconite Mining Company, in Sioux Junction, in the iron ore belt north of Hibbing. My father wanted me to return to Minneapolis and join him, but I had just enough spine to stand up to the old man this time, and the Taconite post was the only other thing on offer.”

He shook his head. “Sioux Junction, Minnesota, the back of the beyond. Just a huge crater a mile deep, and ten thousand people, most of them miners and their families, living on the edge of it. And it suited me just fine.”

“It sounds rather bleak.”

“You can’t imagine. But as soon as I interviewed, I saw that they’d only created the position as a sop to the union. They wanted a medic on the payroll, to patch up any bumps and scrapes, and keep the more seriously injured miners alive long enough to send them to the hospital in Hibbing. Glorified school nurse was what I was. But it left me plenty of time to collect and analyze data on mining-related disease, which had come to interest me, and God knows the men weren’t looking to me to share their life’s secrets. I had a paycheck, my record collection, and a decent apartment. And as long as I had the title ‘Doctor’ my father couldn’t complain too much. So all in all, I was content enough. For eighteen months I was reasonably happy, happier than I’d ever expected to be, at least as a doctor. And then it happened.

“The call came at about four in the afternoon, while I was in the company dispensary. October seventeen, nineteen fifty-four, a fine, crisp day. I should have been reviewing the results of the blood drive, but I had a record player there, and I remember I was listening to Schubert’s String Quartet Number Fourteen as I picked up the receiver.”

Stork’s eyes lost their focus and he was gone in thought for a moment, before making a soft, wondering noise. “Strange, how a stray fact like that stays with you, all these years later. ‘Death And The Maiden,’ the piece is called. Ironic. Anyway,” he brought his attention back to her, “at first it simply didn’t register. It was the sheriff ’s office, but I couldn’t understand why they were calling me.

“Then my mind cleared and of course it made perfect sense. Shortly after I’d arrived in Sioux Junction the local GP who served as county medical examiner, Dr. Latham, had retired and moved away. The other physicians in town had family practices and neither the time nor the taste for the job, so I’d agreed to take it on. The call was from the dispatcher, saying the sheriff wanted me to get over to Lakota Street right away, there’d been an accident. That was his term, ‘an accident,’ but I remember I felt a strange foreboding as I arrived.

“It was a two-family house, one unit above another, and a patrolman was just coming out of a side door. He saw me and pointed to the second floor. On the front porch of the house next door I saw a large, gray-haired woman standing with her arms crossed and a disapproving scowl on her red face, and on the sidewalk another patrolman was holding half a dozen gawking neighbors at bay. I was glad to slip through the screen door and hasten up the stairs, bag in hand, steeling myself for what I might find.

“Sheriff Coomer was a large, florid man. I suspected he drank more than was good for him. He was standing in the corner of the sitting room, watching as Harold Elkins, the town photographer, snapped pictures of the small figure lying on the floor. A deputy sheriff named Tongren had his back to us, staring out the window. I just had time to take it in before a flash bulb went off and I was momentarily blind.

“‘That’s it, Sheriff,’ I heard Elkins say, as my vision cleared. Sheriff Coomer nodded to me. ‘Then she’s all yours, Doc.’ He walked over and stood looking down at the body. ‘Place downstairs is vacant, and the windows were closed, so nobody heard nothing, but the nosy old battleax next door got to wondering, saw the girl’s car still here. Thought she might be sick, so when she didn’t answer, came up and found her.’

“The sheriff pursed his lips. ‘My take, she tripped and hit her head on that table.’ His big chin indicated the marble-topped coffee table a foot from the body. It had been pushed askew from the settee behind it. ‘Accident, I’d say. Sad, girl that age.’

“I felt horror as I stared at the still figure. This gave way to outrage as I digested the Sheriff ’s words, but I forced myself to remain calm. Any fool could see this had been no ‘accident,’ but that could wait. ‘I’ll look at her,’ was all I said.

“‘You do that, Doc,’ the Sheriff said. ‘I’m going down to call for the meat wagon.’

“Coomer and Elkins went out, and I waited until I heard the screen door slam to let out my pent-up breath. ‘Some “accident,” eh, Doc?’ Deputy Tongren was standing next to me, looking down at the broken figure. I
noticed dark blood had pooled next to her head, soaking the carpet. I felt myself sway, and forced myself not to think about anything but the job I had to do.

“‘He’s an idiot,’ I said, stepping forward and sinking to my knees. ‘This was murder.’

“‘Think so?’ Tongren, a big Swede, didn’t sound the least surprised. ‘Nothing to trip on, her housecoat’s come loose, and she didn’t just bump her head, push that heavy table back like that. Figure she was shoved, and hard. Course I could be wrong.’

“I looked up. There was nothing to betray Tongren’s thoughts on that impassive face, but it occured to me that he was no fool. I’d missed the significance of the knotted robe, open enough to reveal her nakedness underneath it. I nodded and turned my full attention back to the pathetic form, lying just inches before me.

“I’d seen my share of dead bodies, but never one that affected me like this one. She was lying on her side, so that her right cheek was on the carpet, sightless eyes staring down her extended right arm, the fingers curled in a cadaveric spasm. Her lilac robe splayed on either side of her, like butterfly wings, her skin white except where her body pressed the floor and internal blood had pooled in a ghastly lividity. Tongren was right, the sash on the robe was still knotted, so she hadn’t come into the room with it hanging open. It had been wrenched, probably when she was pushed. And even as my fingers touched the ringlets of light brown hair turned black with congealed blood, I knew that only a brutal force could have driven her head into the marble table-top hard enough to have produced the awful concavity they found.

“I completed my examination swiftly, repressing all extraneous thought as I jotted my findings in a notebook. There was no pulse, obviously, and her temperature was that of the ambient air. From that, the lividity, and the state of rigor mortis, I began to think about the time of death.

“While I was examining the body I was relatively calm, but as soon as I completed my initial examination the fact that she was lying that way,
exposed and naked, horrified me, and I tried to draw the folds of her robe over her. As I did, my eye caught a scrap of paper wedged beneath her leg. I looked around for the deputy, but he’d disappeared, and I picked up the scrap, an irregularly-shaped piece of cream linen stationery perhaps two inches by three.

“I looked at it just long enough to see that it was covered with several lines of script in blue ink before thrusting it in my suit pocket. Perhaps I’d already formed a concern that the sheriff had no intention of handling this hideous crime seriously, and wanted to be sure the evidence was properly treated. My impression was only reinforced when the sheriff returned a minute later, as I was putting away my instruments.

“‘Well, what do you think, Doc?’ He stood, hands on hips, staring down at me with a look of dumb hope on his face. ‘Fell and hit her head?’

“I glared up at him. ‘It was no accident, I can tell you that. She was murdered. Some time last night, I’d say, though I can’t be sure until the autopsy.’

“The sheriff screwed up his lips in a perplexed scowl. ‘You sure about that?’

“‘Absolutely. In my opinion, there is no possibility it was anything else. She was thrown into that table top with enough force to collapse her skull. No fall could have done that, even if there were anything to cause it, which there wasn’t.’

“The sheriff grunted, then nodded resignedly. ‘Coulda been a client, then. Happens. Didn’t want to pay for it, most likely.’

“It took a second to sink in, then I sprang to my feet, overcome with sudden, murderous rage at this insensate fool’s impenetrable stupidity. I must have appeared genuinely threatening, because Deputy Tongren, who’d returned with the sheriff, interposed a restraining arm between us. ‘Easy,’ he muttered.

“I had to fight to control my voice, and my fury. ‘Her name is Madelaine Birney, and she teaches at the Indian school. She did, I mean.’ Then, my emotions still gyrating wildly, I added: ‘She was a lady.’ It sounded ridiculous, even as I said it.

“The sheriff gaped at me. ‘You knew her?’

“‘Of course I knew her.’ In fact, I was surprised the sheriff didn’t. People knew each other in Sioux Junction. ‘She played the organ at Faith Lutheran, where I sing in the choir. And you’re not going to be able to pass this off as some Saturday night brothel killing, Sheriff. The community won’t stand for it.’

“I wasn’t sure what I meant by that, but I could see the sheriff weighing it in his little, pig eyes. Finally, he nodded. ‘Just you finish your report and get it to me pronto. I’ll decide what we do next. Probably some intruder, came in to rob the place, and she surprised him.’

“I was about to point out that there was apparently no evidence of forced entry, and she would hardly have opened the door to a strange man late at night, but I thought better of it and said nothing until the sheriff, scratching his chin, added, ‘May have to call the fucking state in. Meantime, nobody talks to anybody, hear? Anybody asks, Doc, you got a girl here, died of unknown causes, that’s all.’ He pointed his big forefinger at me. ‘Got it?’

“I nodded as two men carrying a gurney came through the door. The sheriff looked at me again, told Deputy Tongren to lock up, and stomped out, muttering a loud, disgusted ‘Shit’ as he went.

“Tongren stood next to me, watching as the attendants lifted the body onto the gurney for transport to Birdwell’s funeral parlor, which let the county use the preparation room for postmortems. He didn’t break into my silence until they were gone, for which I was grateful.

“‘Nice girl, eh?’

“I nodded, fighting for control. ‘A wonderful girl. I guess I didn’t know her very well.’ As I was to soon learn, even less well than I imagined.

“I put my hand over my eyes, hoping it would block the ghastly image, but of course that was burned into my brain. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

“Tongren made a soft, commiserative sound. ‘Hell of a shock, you know someone gets done like that.’

“‘Yes,’ I said.

“‘Sheriff isn’t a bad type.’ Tongren had the slow, quiet speech of the
Swedes in those parts. ‘He’ll get the state in, and do his best to get to the bottom of this. He just hoped it was something else. Gonna be a lot of frightened people, this gets about. Got an election coming up, helluva time to have somebody doing something like that.’

“‘There aren’t any good times for it, are there?’ I knew he meant well, but my insides were leaden. The horror of what I’d experienced had left me feeling as though I was in a dream state.

“As we were descending the stairs I had a thought. ‘How long before the state people arrive?’

“‘Well, my guess is Sheriff ’ll wait as long as he can, see if he can turn anything up. He’d sure rather not have them bigfooting in his backyard, making it look like we aren’t doing our job. Hell, maybe the man who did it’ll get religion and turn himself in.’ Tongren stopped and scratched his head. ‘Two, three days, though, he’ll have to make the call. We aren’t set up for serious investigating. Can’t even dust the place for prints.’ He locked the door, pocketing the key as he turned his open, earnest eyes on me. ‘But believe me, Doc, we’ll get the bastard responsible for this.’

“I wanted to believe him, but I could envision the police settling on some loser, some miserable career criminal who’d confess to anything, just to close the case. This was a thought I could not abide, not then, not ever, and as I look back, I think it was then that I vowed that never, if I had any power to prevent it, would the kind of person responsible for Maddie Birney’s death escape judgment.

“When I’d taken over as county medical examiner, old Dr. Latham had passed on to me his library of forensic medicine texts, which I’d supplemented with a few purchases of my own. The job, so alien to most physicians, whose passion is for the living, was congenial to the detached, cerebral curiosity that was all that bound me to my profession. I had studied the materials avidly, determined to be, whatever my limitations as a clinician, the best ME Lakota County had ever had. That night, as I reviewed protocols for the proper procedures for a forensic investigation, I felt curiously confident, as I never was in my dealings with patients.