Chapter 15 MINKA
MINKA
“Ihave an update on Donna Beecroft, Chief.” In a white lab coat and with her hands tucked securely in the pockets, Doctor Flynn hovers by my floor-to-ceiling windows and peeks out at a city buzzing with Monday morning traffic.
She was employed at the George Stanley long before I was, but she was smart enough to remain just a medical examiner.
The type who follows the rules and goes home at the end of a shift.
The kind who gets to leave her work at the office and enjoy her weekends off.
I… foolishly aspired for more.
I thought my plan to become Chief Medical Examiner was something to celebrate. A promotion. A prestigious title. Responsibility I would thrive within.
Now, I realize I might’ve been the dumbest one of us all.
“That was the old woman who passed downstairs last week, right?” Doctor James Kirk—not of the Star Trek fandom—waits by the two-seater couch. But he doesn’t sit. “Her husband passed away in the street. MI.”
“Yeah.” The one I tore my knees up for while I was trying to save him. I meet Flynn’s eyes. “Update, please?”
“Ironically, the autopsy shows her aortic valve was basically ground beef, possibly a result of the car accident. Everyone was so focused on her husband dying, and she was caught up in her grief… I have no doubt she felt pain in her chest. But she probably considered it a broken heart.”
“Kinda was, in a way.” Doctor Raquel lounges on the couch, dressed in a cargo-pockets-on-the-side skirt, black boots, and a black tank top, all partially hidden under a crisp white coat.
It’s a look. One she gets away with, considering she almost never has to leave her lab or talk to real humans.
She especially never has to talk to the families of the deceased.
“Her husband died. She had a broken heart—literally. And now she’s with him, skipping into the afterlife and enjoying that pie she intended to bake for him. ”
“A romantic notion.” I bring my focus back to Flynn. “Have they been transferred to the funeral home?”
“Last I heard, yeah. I believe they’re having a joint showing and a same-day funeral. They’ve got family coming from out of town for it.”
“Good. That’s…” I draw a deep breath. “That’s good. She didn’t want to live without him, so I guess it all worked out. Doctor Kirk? What’s on your slab this week?”
He blushes. The poor, young doctor has no clue how to deal with a female—any female—let alone an entire room filled with them, turning their attentions his way.
“Y-yeah, Chief. I had the weekend off, and tied up my last case Friday afternoon, pending tox. MV accident. Male driver, female passenger. I was assigned the female, while Doctor Torres took the male.”
Nick Torres drops his chin in acknowledgment.
“Male victim. Reckless driving, by the looks of things. Rapid tests came back indicating a high concentration of alcohol in his system. Samples are with tox. My guy suffered blunt force trauma to the face after he plowed his car into a tree. Took him about ten minutes to die, according to the police on scene.”
“Female vic was ejected from the car,” Kirk continues.
“Face first through the windshield. Instant death. No alcohol or drugs were detected in her system. She leaves behind a four-year-old son. The driver was her boyfriend, but he was not the father of the child. Patient’s parents flew in from Colorado on Friday afternoon and liaised with child protective services and, as far as I’m aware, will assume custody of the child.
I have no bodies stacked up on my table at this time, but once you delegate whatever arrived over the weekend, I’ll be all set. ”
“Same,” Doctor Torres murmurs. “I’m clear and awaiting a new assignment.”
“Me, too.” Doctor Flynn raises her hand.
“Everyone is so organized.” I settle against the edge of my desk, taking a little weight off my knee and folding my arms while I consider what comes next.
“Alright. Unfortunately for us, there was a mass casualty event on the freeway about…” I glance up at the clock on the wall.
“An hour ago. Every lane in both directions has been shut down. Eight or nine cars are piled up, and according to what I heard on the radio, a tandem-trailer semi truck was involved, too. Jackknifed itself trying not to hit the existing pile-up.”
“Did he succeed?” Raquel questions. “Or did he wipe the whole lot of them out like bowling pins?”
“Rolled his truck,” Catlin inserts, nibbling on her bottom lip.
“They were reporting about the pile-up on the news when the truck came screaming along the freeway. I guess he panicked when he realized he’d run out of room.
Braked, turned, rolled. It was literally playing out live on television.
We’ve got our work cut out for us today. ”
“What was the truck hauling?” Raquel presses. “Teddy bears, right? Definitely nothing flammable.”
“Not teddy bears.” I scratch my chin and work to hide the smile creeping across my lips. “But nothing flammable, either. It was a refrigerated storage truck headed for the grocery stores.”
“So we’ve got cold cuts littering the freeway,” Torres quips. “Too bad it’s hotter than hell out there. If this happened in the winter, I could swing by on my way home after work and fill my freezer. Do you know how much a T-bone steak costs these days?”
“No. I can’t say I do.” And that realization, after spending the first twenty-seven years of my life counting pennies and worrying about having enough for next month’s Factor, almost takes my breath away.
Marrying Archer has changed my life. And he’s so smooth with it all, so freakin’ subtle, I’ve hardly had a chance to notice.
Because it’s not always luxury SUVs and four-story mansions.
Sometimes, it’s just never needing to go to the grocery store, because the fridge is somehow, magically, never empty.
Pushing away from my desk, I circle around and sit in my chair, tapping the mouse to fire up my computer screen.
Then, I go to my emails and start delegating.
“We have six new bodies stacked up from the freeway incident, plus four others from the weekend that Doctor Patten didn’t have time to work through.
That makes ten, and seeing as how there are five of us available, I say we take two each and see how we go.
It’s a fresh new week, which means unattended deaths will pile up in the next few hours when folks don’t turn up to work and alerts are sent out.
I’ll delegate those as they arrive. Work your two, and if something more urgent pops up, we’ll reshuffle. Questions?”
“Yeah.” Raquel thrusts her hand in the air, a teasing grin quirking up at the side. Then her bright blue eyes flicker to my office door. “Is there a reason the Secret Service is staring at us, or…?”
Groaning, I set my elbow on my desk and my chin in my hand.
Then I glance across and stop on a line of men in black suits.
Four of them in a row. Whether they’re breathing, I couldn’t say, because they don’t move at all.
If they possess emotion, they don’t show it.
If any of them need to pee, they control themselves enough not to squirm.
“Dude on the far left is kinda cute,” Raquel adds.
“It’s like if Rambo and Chuck Norris had an angry little baby, and that baby grew up to be seven feet tall and maybe got in a knife fight once upon a time.
The other guy got in a lucky shot, slicing Baby Chuck’s face up, but in the end, Chuck won, and the guy with the knife has never been seen or heard from again. ”
“You have a vivid imagination.” I close my eyes, breaking focus with the Rambo/Chuck Norris amalgamation, and trying—but failing—to come up with a reasonable excuse for their presence. Instead, I go with something close-ish to the truth. “We have a high-profile DB in house today. He makes eleven.”
Doctor Torres’ eyes flare wide. “You want me to—”
“Nope. I’ll do it.” Dropping my hand, I sit back in my chair and cross one leg over the other.
“Don’t speak to the guys out there. Don’t get jokey.
Don’t offer them coffee.” I meet Raquel’s playful gaze.
“I’m not kidding. That’s a direct order from your chief.
Go. Work.” I gesture toward the door. “Check your email for assignments.”
They file out, heads down, eyes on the floor, and shoulders tucked tight, like they’re afraid of taking up too much space. But Doctor Raquel remains seated.
Of course she does. She’s a pain in my ass.
“Do you need something?”
“Are things weird between us now?”
The door swings shut behind Kirk. The suction of air stops, and the tap-tap-tap of shoes on tile fades away. I’m anxious to get Agosti’s body on my table sooner rather than later, but I take this moment and meet Raquel’s questioning gaze. “What do you mean?”
“Well… you met Taylor on Saturday. And Taylor’s a woman.”
“This is true.” I set my feet on the floor and stand. “Who you have in your bed is none of my concern.”
“Right. It’s not. But maybe you think it’s weird. Because I feel like we were friends before. Under duress.” She forces a laugh. “You didn’t like it, but you allowed it. Turns out my boyfriend is actually my girlfriend, and now, it’s like you don’t have time for me anymore.”
“You were in my home yesterday! In my pool. You ate at my table.”
“And then you kicked me out because I brought her up.”