C is for Corpse

Derek glanced at his watch. "I better get home. Face the music." He tossed the rest of his martini back and eased himself off the barstool. He pulled out his wallet and sorted through several layers of bills until he found a five and a ten, which he placed on the bar.

"Will Glen be mad?"

He smiled to himself as if he were considering a number of replies. "Glen is always mad these days. It's been a hell of a birthday, I can tell you that."

"Maybe next year will be better. Thanks for the drinks."

"Thanks for coming down here. I appreciate your concern. If I can do anything to help you, you just let me know."

We walked the half-block to my car and then parted company. I watched him in my rearview mirror as he ambled toward the visitors' parking lot on the far side of the hospital. I suspected he was pretending more motor control than he actually had. We'd only been in the Plantacion for thirty minutes and I'd watched him down two martinis. I started my car and did a U-turn, pulling up next to him. I leaned across the seat and opened the door on the passenger side. "Why don't I give you a lift?"

"Oh no, I'm fine," he said. He stood for a moment, his body swaying slightly. I could see the message being relayed through his central nervous system. He cocked his head, frowning, and then he got into my car and pulled the door shut. "I got problems enough, right?"

"Right," I said.

Chapter 7

By the time I got into the office the next morning at nine, Bobby's attorney had forwarded copies of the initial accident report, along with notes from the follow-up investigation and numerous eight-by-ten color photographs that showed in glossy detail just how thoroughly demolished Bobby's car had been and just how dead Rick Bergen had become as a result. His body had been found, crushed and mangled, halfway down the slope. I recoiled from the sight as though a bright light had been flashed in my face, a shock of revulsion running down my frame. I had to steel myself to look again so that I could study the details dispassionately. There was something about the way the police photographer's lights had been rigged against the harsh dark of night that made the death seem garish, like a low-budget horror move that was real short on plot. I shuffled through the series until I found photographs of the accident scene itself

Bobbys Porsche had taken out a big section of guardrail, had sheared off a scrub oak at its base, scarred boulders, and dug a long trench through the underbrush, apparently flipping over five or six times before it came to rest at the bottom of the ravine in a crumpled mass of twisted metal and shattered glass. There were several views of the car, front and rear, showing its position relative to various landmarks in the terrain and then the close-ups of Bobby before the ambulance crew had removed him from the wreckage. "Oh shit," I breathed. I put the whole stack down for a moment and put a hand across my eyes. I hadn't even had my coffee yet and there I was looking at human bodies turned inside out on impact.

I opened the French doors and went out on the balcony and sucked in some fresh air. Below me, State Street was orderly and quiet. Traffic was light and pedestrians obeyed the signals as if they were appearing in an educational film instructing grade-school kids how to conduct themselves on city streets. I watched all the healthy people walk up and down with their limbs intact and the flesh still covering their bones. The sun was shining and the palm trees weren't even stirred by a breeze. Everything looked so ordinary, but only for the moment and only as far as I could see. Death could pop up anytime, a jarring jack-in-the-box with a fixed, bloody grin.

I went back inside and made a pot of coffee and then sat down at my desk, going through the photographs again and taking time now to study the police reports. A copy of the postmortem examination on Rick Bergen had been included and I noticed that it had been conducted by Jim Fraker, whose responsibilities at St. Terry's apparently extended to such services. Santa Teresa is too small a town to pay for its own police morgue and its own medical examiner, so the work is contracted out.

The report Dr. Fraker had dictated effectively reduced Rick's death to observations about the craniocerebral trauma he'd sustained, with a catalogue of abrasions, contusions, small-intestine avulsions, mesenteric lacerations, and sufficient skeletal damage to certify Ricks crossing of the River Styx.

I hauled out my typewriter and opened a file for Bobby Callahan, feeling soothed and comforted as I translated all the unsettling facts into a terse account of events to date. I logged in his check, made a note of the receipt number, and filed the copy of the contract he'd signed. I typed in the names and addresses of Rick Bergens parents and Bobby's ex-girl.friend, along with a list of those present at Glen Callahan's house the night before. I didn't speculate. I didn't editorialize. I just typed it all out and used my two-hole punch at the top of the paper, which I then clamped into a folder and placed in my file cabinet.