“Am I that obvious?”
“Nah. I just know how I’d feel if someone pulled that shit on me.” He gave a rude snort, shook his head. “Frat prank? I don’t know about that.”
“It wasn’t a frat prank,” I said. “Derrel, that was no college punk. I know the cops have no reason to believe me, but I’m not making this up.”
“I don’t believe for one second that you’re making any of this up.”
“I know, and you have no idea how much that means to me,” I said earnestly. “Here’s what I was thinking: The dude who wrote that damn article was getting off on how horrible it was for the family when the remains of their loved ones weren’t cared for and guarded properly. But…has the next of kin for poor Mr. Norman Kearny shown up?”
He leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head. “Y’know, funny thing, that. I’ve been trying to track them down, and it’s looking more and more like Mr. Kearny didn’t have any. Next of kin, that is. Widower, no kids as far as I can tell. Not a peep from any of his coworkers, either.”
“There’s something weird about this whole thing,” I insisted. “There has to be a reason that asshole stole that body.”
“I’m with you, Angel, but I don’t think there’s much doubt that this victim was simply a security guard who tripped on some stairs. I have all of the background checks and info that the lab had on file, and it all says that this guy really was Norman Kearny.”
“Well, what if the personnel file was tampered with?”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “You don’t think that’s veering hard into conspiracy-theory territory?”
I made a sour face. “I know how it sounds, but I think that there has to be some sort of thing going on for it to be worth holding me up at gunpoint to steal the body.”
Derrel grimaced. “True. Unfortunately I have no idea how we could find out if the personnel file was altered. If we still had the body we could run the prints or check dental records, but…” He spread his hands and shrugged.
I sat up straight. “Derrel, I’m fucking brilliant.”
He gave me an amused smile. “Well, I’ve known that for a while, but what makes you think so?”
“I put his watch in the property safe,” I said with a grin. “We can have that fingerprinted.”
He nodded slowly, an approving gleam in his eye. “That could work, since we don’t have the actual body to verify the prints.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Two p.m. “I have court in half an hour, but I’ll talk to the folks in Investigations in the morning.”
“I could take the watch over there now,” I said, probably too eagerly.
He smiled. “Impatient much?”
I didn’t smile back. “Derrel, there are people who think I was involved. My name is plastered all over the paper, and I’m really afraid I’m going to lose my job.” I gulped. “And I really need this job.” My voice cracked on the last part, and I wasn’t even trying to be dramatic.
His expression softened. “I know you do. And I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this. I just…I don’t want you to get your hopes up too far about that watch suddenly answering all the questions.”
I nodded stiffly. “I know. But it’s worth a shot, right?”
“Right.” He gave me a kind smile. “I’ll go get that watch out of the safe for you. Let me know what you find out.”
Derrel retrieved the watch in its plastic bag for me, then left to go to court. I sat in the office, dithering and angsting for several minutes while I wondered whether I was truly being an overly paranoid idiot with my conspiracy theory. Finally I sighed, picked up the phone and put in a call to Detective Ben Roth, relieved that it was his case. At least he consistently treated me like a person—unlike some of the other detectives at the sheriff’s office. If this had been Abadie’s case, I’d have probably chickened out.
“Detective Roth,” came the gruff answer a few seconds later.
“Hi, Ben,” I said, “It’s Angel Crawford. From the Coroner’s Office,” I added, suddenly paranoid that I was totally imagining any sort of rapport we might have had.
“Hiya, Angel!” His gruff tone shifted to something much brighter. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, I’m wondering if you can humor me on something.”
“Only if it’s naughty,” he replied with a laugh.
“Not in the way you probably want,” I said, also with a laugh. “Can I come by your office? This may take some explaining. It has to do with the body theft.”
“Yeah, sure thing.” He gave me some quick directions to where his office was, and then I hung up and drove the van the half mile or so to the building that housed the Sheriff’s Office.
His door was open when I arrived. His office was the size of a broom closet, barely big enough for a desk, a filing cabinet, and an extra chair. The desk itself had a computer and a phone on it, and every other square inch was covered with stacks of paper and files. A cork board on the wall behind him had a picture of Ben and a blond-haired man holding several speckled trout, as well as another of him with the same man, arms around each other’s shoulders and holding up beers. Around the edge of the corkboard were a number of newspaper clippings of what I assumed were cases that he’d closed. A framed photograph was wedged between a pile of papers and his computer monitor, again of the two men.
I tapped lightly on the doorframe to get his attention. He pulled his gaze from his computer and gave me a wide smile. “Angel of Death!” He chuckled and motioned to the chair in front of his desk. “Come on in, have a seat.”
I closed the door behind me, then sat. His eyes flicked briefly to the closed door, but he didn’t comment on it. I fidgeted for a few seconds while I tried to think of how to explain my theory. “Is that your brother?” I asked with a nod toward the framed photo, seizing on the first piece of conversation I could think of.
Ben smiled, shook his head. “Nope. My boyfriend.”
I blinked in surprise. “Oh!” I paused, fumbled for something to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a jackass. “You’re, um…No one gives you shit about that around here?”
He chuckled. “They’re welcome to try. I’m sure some shit is said behind my back, but no one’s been dumb enough to say anything to my face or to Neil. I bring him to all of the departmental gatherings that spouses or girlfriends are welcome at, and so far everyone’s been cool.”
I found myself grinning. Ben might have a teddy bear exterior, but there was a hard glint in his eye right now that told me he would seriously fuck up the first person who dared mess with someone he cared about. “I’d like to meet him someday,” I said.
Ben gave a slight nod. “That can be arranged. So, what’s going on?”
“Okay, here’s the thing,” I began. “I know there are people who think the loss of that body was some sort of fuck up on my part—”
“I don’t believe that,” he interrupted, eyes narrowing.
I gave him a weak smile. “Thanks. But the other theory is that it was some sort of stupid prank, and I honestly can’t believe that it was anything of the sort.”
He leaned back in his chair, nodded. “I can tell this is bugging the shit out of you.”
“It is, and not just because my name is being dragged through the mud,” I said. “Look, there’s something weird about the guy who died. I know that on paper he looks like a nobody, but there has to be something else about him.” I set the bag with the watch on his desk. “I took this off the body when I first bagged him up. I was hoping to see if it could be fingerprinted…to see if the dead guy really was this nobody security guard everyone thinks he is.”
Ben picked up the bag and peered at the contents. To my surprise a grin spread across his face. “I love it. A goddamn conspiracy theory.” He looked back up to me. “I’ll take it over to the lab right now.” He stood up. “Wanna come with me?”
“Sure!” I said. I loved forensics and CSI and all that shit. There was no way I was going to turn down a chance to see the inside of a crime lab.
The crime lab was in a building adjacent to the Investigations Division, joined by a covered walkway. Upon entering I found myself in a cramped room with a single desk covered in piles of paperwork and one other door that had the kind of key card lock that we used at the coroner’s office. A middle-aged Asian woman with hair cut in a short pixie style sat behind the desk. She gave Ben a nod of greeting and me a somewhat inquisitive look. I could see her taking note of the coroner’s office insignia on my shirt and some of the doubt in her eyes faded.
“Morning, Tracie,” Ben said. “Is there anyone around who isn’t too busy and could do a quick processing of a piece of evidence for fingerprints?”
“No such thing as a ‘quick processing,’” she admonished. “And there’s also no such thing as ‘isn’t too busy’ around here. We do have a backlog of cases to work, you know.”
He gave her a placating smile. “Sure, but I’m always super nice to y’all, and deserve to be bumped ahead of those other rude bastards.”
She snorted, but went ahead and picked up her phone and punched a button. “Hey, Detective Roth is here and wants to kiss your ass because he needs something done right damn now. You want me to tell him to get screwed?”
I blinked in surprise, but Tracie caught my eye and winked. “Gotcha,” she said into the phone, then hung up. “Sean said you’ll owe him lunch,” she told Ben, “but he’ll come do it.”
“Perfect,” he said. “He can put it on my tab.”
Less than a minute later the red-haired tech opened the secured door. “Oh, hi there, Angel. Hi, Ben. Come on in. This is just one item, right?” He gave Ben a look filled with distrust. “Not like the time that you had fifty-three beer cans?”