Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

you just have to know, if you could just remember where.

“ID’s going to be a sonofabitch,” Mickey had muttered to himself, but Luci’s aunts heard.

“Really?” Miss Theo said, moving in for another look.

“I didn’t realize men were so—similar.” Miss Weena stared at the corpse, then looked at Mickey.

For the honor of his sex, he’d tried not to look self-conscious. Now he looked at the Crime Lab technician. “You find anything?”

“Didn’t leave much to find.” The tech gave him a glum glance. It was hot in the garage and the smell of disinfectant was almost overpowering.

“So, are the old broads nutty or just naive?” The forensics investigator from the Coroner’s office grinned at Mickey and Delaney. He could afford to grin. He only had to deal with the stiff.

Mickey shrugged. “Probably both.” He stretched, then rubbed at his temples where the ache was now a sledgehammer pounding away at his concentration.

“If you didn’t find much, what was in those bags you hauled out of here?” Delaney mopped at the sweat beading along the worry lines that creased his forehead.

“Have to give the taxpayers their money’s worth. Besides, you never know. Might be something there we can use.”

Mickey looked at the CI. “How long before we can get the results from the autopsy?”

He shrugged. “You won’t even get a prelim for three or four days.”

“Why so long?”

“Gotta thaw him first. This ain’t no Thanksgiving turkey, Ross. We can’t shove him under running water.”

“We need an ID.”

“We’ll be able to get his prints by tomorrow or next day. Extremities thaw first. Looks like his family jewels are already starting.” He grinned.

Mickey didn’t want to talk about family jewels. He looked at the tech. “Anything unusual?” Everyone stopped and looked at him in disbelief. “Anything else?”

The tech rubbed his chin. “I did notice one thing, but I’m not sure what it means.”

“What?”

“I think he might’ve been hosed before he was froze.”

There was a moment of silence as each of the men assimilated this. It was a long moment, because this was not easy to assimilate.

“Hosed?” Mickey asked, looking at Delaney instead of the tech.

“Think so.”

“How can you tell?” Delaney asked.

“He’s shining like a new penny. Practically polished. Smells like PineSol, too.” This produced shudders all around as the tech turned to spit. He caught the eye of the CI and turned the action into a cough instead. Coroner hated anyone contaminating the crime scene with outside bodily fluids, even crime scenes that had been scrubbed.

“I noticed some of the usual gunshot indicators were missing,” the CI said with a frown. “No external bleeding. No powder or burns. For a violent death, he’s uncommon clean.”

“Just some gunshot tattooing that couldn’t be scrubbed away,” agreed the tech, sending another round of shudders through the group. “Surprised the perp didn’t take a Brillo to that. Not that it would help. Can’t scrub away tattoos. Just surprised he didn’t try.”

“Maybe the perp knew it wouldn’t help. Thanks to television, every school kid in America knows the basics of forensics,” said the CI.

“Yeah, but—hosing a body?” Mickey asked.

The tech shrugged. “Maybe the perp had a thing about cleaning?”

Delaney and Mickey exchanged glances at this remark. Was there a connection between their scrubbed John Doe and the not-exactly-normal Seymours?

“Maybe the old ladies did it,” said the CI, echoing Mickey’s thoughts. “They sure cleaned this place up good.”

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions,” Mickey said, not entirely honestly. He really did want to jump to conclusions. It would wrap things up, if not neatly, at least quickly, if the old ladies did it. With a caseload up the whazoo on his desk, quick was nice. The old broads would never see jail, wouldn’t last that long. And if they did? Well, just pity the poor schmucks who had to do time with them.

Trouble was, his gut was telling him the easy solution didn’t quite track. Damn his instincts, he thought. They’d gotten him in more trouble than he cared to remember. In a city of complex, not entirely straight-forward political relationships, good instincts weren’t always wonderful to have.

“It’s possible,” Delaney said, “that someone familiar with this setup and crime scene techniques is our perp. Other than the stupidity of leaving the body frozen, there is a calculation to this that isn’t completely insane.”

Mickey nodded agreement, looking at the tech. “You notice anything else?”

“Well, I’m not the doc, you understand, but the lividity seems...well, odd.”

“How?” Delaney crossed his arms over his chest and watched without expression as the body, resisting efforts to reduce it to a discreet, flat bundle, was wheeled away.

“I don’t know how freezing effects lividity, but it looks to me like he was moved. The blood pooled along his buttocks and legs and along his front. Like he lay on his face for a while.”

Mickey thought for a moment. “What does that mean?”

The tech shook his head. “Don’t have any idea. Just thought it was unusual.”

“So basically, we don’t have much to go on?” Delaney said.

“Not much that I can see,” agreed the tech.

“Sorry,” added the CI. “Maybe after the autopsy?”

“And our ID?”

“Gonna be a bastard if he’s not local. You know how slow the FBI is. But we’ll do the usual. Circulate photo, prints, dental. Might scare up someone who knows him.” The CI frowned. “Who does know him, I mean.”

“You know you haven’t a hope in hell of getting a time of death, don’t you?” The CI turned to go, then looked back to add, “Guy could’ve been in there for years.”

“Not years,” Mickey protested. “The old ladies must have used it recently.” Though, how, he had to ask himself, likely was it that they’d be using a freezer stored in a garage?

“Ought to ask them,” the tech suggested with a smirk. “And tell them thanks for the tea.”

He gave an evil chuckle.

Mickey gave him a stiff smile with a glare attached.

“Good luck,” said the CI. He was smirking, too. “Think you’re gonna need it.”

The garden was very much like her aunts, Luci decided. She