Dead Spaces: The Big Uneasy 2.0 (12 page)

I
t was
anticlimactic to resolve to move forward and then not move forward that much. There was real life. And their jobs. There was always a new day with a new body to dig through for Hannah. And it wasn’t like she could use that time to mull the next step. Even the obvious autopsies required concentration. It was, thankfully, all too easy for Hannah to get lost in what one of her brothers like to call “the innards.” After that last autopsy, she was glad she didn’t drink or smoke.

She nodded for her guy to move the body out and tossed yet another pair of gloves into the bin. So far her “move forward” had been to set up a bulletin board. It was old school, but she’d tied it into one of those brainstorming apps. She added some photos from her phone and it looked like “something” only it wasn’t. Not yet.

She studied the output from her electronic brain-storming. Not much of a storm. She switched over to the photo she’d taken of the actual board at home. Maybe an old-school case needed old-school methods. The disparate pieces she’d pinned up made her eye hurt. She rubbed the brow over it. She was a cutter—what if she approached it like it was a body? She mentally drew a chalk line around her board. The human body had certain, predictable responses to events, like getting shot. Bleeding. Shock. Death. She wasn’t as good with live people, but she was one, so that should give her enough data to create a hypothesis. That’s what she did with bodies. Looked for out-of-the-norm, created a working theory, then tried to prove/disprove it. She even had a tiny budget.

Could she find the familiar in the unfamiliar?

Predictable.

Unpredictable.

Old and cold…

If Charlie and possibly Ellie had returned to New Orleans, well, Charlie was a Baker. He’d have done some research before he came back. These days you could do that over the internet. So they’d be looking at the same list of retirement homes. Could she figure out which ones he’d look at, maybe narrow the list a bit? Zach, he’d read the reviews, but he’d also reject anything that sounded old. Or too cute.

And the timing would matter. She could postulate a couple of triggers that might bring them back. Nell. Or St. Cyr’s demise. If Charlie was still one of the good guys, then Nell would be the trigger. If he wasn’t…

Revenge was a dish best served cold.

But this was really cold. Like arctic cold.

She’d keep an open mind, but—

“I’ve got someone out front that wants to speak with you, Dr. Baker.”

Hannah looked at the receptionist hovering in the doorway. Was she the same person who’d let Guido Calvino waltz unaccompanied into her surgery? Hannah examined her thesis and realized the answer was in the question. Of course they let Calvino come back. He was scary. Unlikely to take no for an answer. Or wait for someone to be fetched. Unless he sent a goon to do the fetching. Ergo—had she actually used that inside her head?—this someone must be someone relatively normal who could be stopped by their new—again—receptionist.

She peered at the girl, but her ID had flipped so it couldn’t be read. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and asked, “Wants to see me? What about?”

“Harold White. His body came in a couple of days ago. She’s his PA. Melinda or Belinda Harris. She’s got some paperwork. Something about final disposition of the body?”

Hannah stared at her, trying to remember if she’d done the autopsy, assuming there’d been one. There was no way they could physically autopsy every body that came through. A death certificate didn’t always require a full autopsy. At times all it took was a phone call.

“Was he on my list?”

Instead of answering that, she repeated, “She wants to speak with you.”

Translation: she won’t leave until someone more official than a receptionist speaks to her. Hannah noticed the girl held a file, presumably White’s. She held out a hand, got it, and scanned it quickly. Looked like a heart attack. Nothing suspicious. He was in their morgue because he hadn’t died while supervised by his doctor.

“Someone called his doctor,” she noted. Doctor was surprised, but not surprised. The other vitals didn’t mean much until an address caught her eye. She’d been there surely—that’s right. The catering gig with Sarah. Miz Cookie’s house.

“Did this PA say why she needed to talk to me?” Hannah asked, still studying the details. Looked like he donated a few organs before arriving at the morgue.

“She wouldn’t say.”

“She wouldn’t say or you don’t want to tell me what she said?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

Hannah sighed. Hoped it wasn’t another “cry murder.” If someone wanted to get away with murder, pick a city with a high murder rate and an overworked, understaffed, and underfunded coroner. She didn’t like to think of anyone getting away with it, but it was only on TV shows or in books that official types had the budget to pursue hunches and such. She considered Miz Cookie and her unsweet expression. Too bad she didn’t have the time or the power to pull her chain a bit. Bet she had Harold’s funeral all planned.

She reached up, tugging at the fasteners to her bloody cover. “Okay. I’ll see her.”

The girl looked relieved. “I don’t think she’ll leave until you do.”

Hannah confirmed the girl’s impression when she met Belinda Harris. Her name was a tad too whimsical for the sturdy, practical woman waiting doggedly for Hannah to appear. If parents could see—but of course they couldn’t see the future, just the baby. The woman she’d become seemed too practical for the morgue. She would die tidily—Hannah blinked, pulling her thoughts firmly back to the present.

Belinda Harris was about Hannah’s height with a bland mien mitigated by an alert and intelligent gaze. Probably was a very good PA, possibly too good for her own good. The eyes were red-rimmed from crying, boosting the “too good for her own good” impression.

Hannah gestured her to a seat, then took one opposite. “How can I help you, Ms. Harris?”

“Mr. White had special instructions in place for when—” her steady calm faltered and she compromised by holding out some papers. “I wanted to make sure you received his paperwork so you can release the body.” This time she managed it with only a slight hesitation.

Hannah took the sheets and studied. He wanted to donate his body for scientific study. “This is kind of out of my area, too, but I’ll make sure this makes it into his file. We can copy this and get it back to you—”

“I suppose there’s nothing—it was a heart attack?”

Hannah opened the file again, pretending to study it. Death had not been kind to a face that already trended toward bland. And yet he’d married Miz Cookie and inspired devotion in his PA. Interesting.

“Our office spoke with his personal physician,” Hannah said vaguely and closed the file.

“So no autopsy?”

She looked again. “The Coroner has not signed a death certificate yet.”

“But you think he will?”

Hannah looked rueful. “I did not perform the assessment, Ms. Harris. If you have information—”

A look that was almost—fear flickered in her calm gaze, and she stood up abruptly. “No. Mr. White trusted me to make sure his last wishes were respected. And I’ve done that. I’d better go.”

“Well, thank you for doing this. It’s a valuable contribution. Do you want to wait for copies—”

Again, that sharp shake of her head. “I made them in the office. Thank you.”

And she was gone in a silent, determined rush. Hannah delivered the paperwork and headed back, her thoughts turning slowly. How odd that Miz Cookie kept, well, not exactly turning up in Hannah’s life, but intruding. She had other, more important things to mull, but her brain hung on while she found her purse and logged off her computer for the day.

Why hadn’t Harold White trusted his wife to make sure his wishes were followed? The party had seemed like a bid for attention. If she was trying to break into a higher social scene, well, if one couldn’t marry in—her thoughts stalled for a moment, but she scrubbed her brain free of Miz Cookie in a wedding dress—philanthropy was another way to do it. Donating the body was a nice first step. And a lack of body never stopped anyone from having a big funeral with lots of important guests commiserating with one.

Hard on Belinda Harris, who looked to have been in love with the boss. Neither of them fit the stereotype for star-crossed lovers, but real people didn’t. Hannah pulled up Harold’s face from the file and wished she hadn’t. She could imagine any man preferring the crisp and salty Belinda after a few years with sugar-and-no-spice, however. But that wasn’t to say they were having an affair.

Divorced women were dangerous, while a widow is a sympathetic figure.

She couldn’t remember where she’d heard that. Probably accompanied by a meow. Hannah shook her head really firmly this time. It was time to move on from the Whites. But one, final thought crept through.

Black would suit Miz Cookie and not just because it was so slimming.

C
laude closed
the big door to the home that didn’t feel like home. It hadn’t ever, wouldn’t until Helenne left it. The chill of her presence cooled better than the A/C. Perhaps she kept the cooling bill lower, Claude thought caustically, so she served some purpose by not dying.

All the way he’d debated what to do. Did he tell her or not? If she found out, she’d know he knew and hadn’t told her, but if Dunstead was looking for some payback, he truly hated being the one to put her on her guard.

That, of course, assumed she was ever off her guard.

As if she sensed his thoughts, she appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. Claude studied her with his usual, colorless dispassion. She’d been attractive, beautiful even, at one time. Life had trimmed back all that was soft or womanly, leaving all hard, cold lines and a bitter gaze.

According to the old stories, it was Bettino Calvino she’d wanted to marry. Couldn’t see that it mattered. Both had done about the same with the wealth they’d taken from Zafiro. So why had she cared? Unless she hated to lose. He could understand that.

Had she finally gotten her revenge on Calvino? Claude could believe she’d kill Bettino while out on bail for the murder of her husband. He just couldn’t believe Bettino would put himself in a position where she could kill him.

Her thin, hard brows arched. “Well?”

The decision, in the end, was obvious. “Roger Dunstead made bail today.”

Her lashes flickered. She hadn’t heard. That was interesting. Were her sources drying up?

“Will he be a problem?”

“No.” That response was too quick. She knew it. Her lashes flickered again. “Thank you for the…information.”

“Of course.”

Her gaze met his, each striving to be the most indifferent. Then she turned back to the sitting room, and he headed for the stairs.

For a little longer, they’d pretend that each didn’t want the other dead.

F
erris was pleased
to see Hannah emerge from the NOCC. Repeated exposure had not diminished his dislike of the place, but his desire to see Hannah currently trumped that. She stopped abruptly, though he could tell she hadn’t seen him.

“Ow.” The exclamation was soft, but emphatic. She also rubbed her head.

“Headache?” he asked from the bottom of the loading dock.

She looked around, her gaze unfocused for several seconds. Then she smiled, taking her time with it.

“Painful thoughts,” she said, inexplicably, but with an air of certainty that he’d understand.

Holy Hannah.

She came down the ramp, the angle emphasizing all the stuff that made her “holy.” The lowering sun had lost its harsh edge, softening the pale and the tired in her face and bringing something more to her gaze. A gaze that turned a guy’s brain to…

“You all right?” The touch of her hand on his arm put some heat in the spot, but brought his brain back online.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his face. It gave him a chance to look away from her eyes. But the memory of them lingered. Innocent—how was that possible in a woman who cut open bodies on a regular basis?—mysterious, deep enough to get lost in. “I, um, tried to call…”

“Really?” She extracted her cell phone and tried to activate the screen. “Battery is flat as Zach’s griddle cakes. I guess I forgot to plug in after I messed around with this brainstorming app last night.”

“Brainstorming app?” Alarm did a chilly run down his back. There was an app for that?

“For our incident board. It’s kind of small on my phone. Looks better on the desktop, though I am finding the board I made more helpful than the app. Isn’t it interesting how sometimes old tech works best? I took a picture of that board, but the app lets me input more information than, well, the board would let me if I weren’t so lazy. Do you find it painfully hard to use a pen these days?” She turned her hands over, studying them as if they were on her table instead of on the ends of her arms.

“Yeah,” he said, even though he’d lost the thread when her mouth curved at the edges. How did she do that and talk? He realized she’d gone quiet and was looking at him expectantly. “You free?”

“Yeah, was just heading home.”

Something in her expression told him he hadn’t responded to what she asked, but he was not going to admit he didn’t hear the question because of her smile. He smiled at her, hoping it would disarm her like hers had disarmed him.

“I was hoping. Had one of the guys drop me off…just in case you were free?”

“Well, you lucked out. I have wheels and I’m flush again. Sarah paid me. I can buy you dinner.” She hesitated. “We could get take out and put our heads together?”

The hint of hesitant in her voice helped get his head straight. Well, mostly. “I was hoping we could put our heads together.” He didn’t mean for his gaze to drop to her mouth. It did it all on its own, sending a faint color into her cheeks.

Holy Hannah.

He took her arm before he lost control of his thinking again. “So, tell me about your day. Punks still shooting at punks?”

She laughed, her chin lifting, releasing a throaty sound. “The pace has slowed some.”