Gallows Humor Page 3

  Jude signed the transfer paperwork. “So, you’re not, like, in an abusive relationship or anything, right?” he asked in an uncharacteristic moment of seriousness. “Because I know people.”

  “What? No, of course not.” She would have laughed had he not looked sincerely worried about her.

  “Oh, okay.” He seemed almost disappointed he couldn’t come to her rescue.

  She leaned against the doorframe. “The other guy is a twenty-seven-year-old woman in my MMA class named Rachel. She’s super cute and real hard-core. She works at the coffee shop downtown with the giant mug on the sign.”

  “Oh yeah. I know it.”

  “Go look her up.”

  He grinned, lopsidedly, flashing a dimple. “Yeah, okay, maybe I will.” He seemed to consider for a moment. “Should I mention you?” He gestured to her eye. “Or will that get me a scalding coffee to the balls?”

  She laughed. “We’re friends. It was an accident. You can mention me.” Rachel had never expressed a sexual preference and Jude might just interest her.

  Jude had managed to relieve her funk for the moment, and she stabbed at the blinking message light on the office phone and put it on speaker while she massaged her temples. “Please call Sergeant James Collier, Jackson City Police Department, at your earliest possible convenience and arrange a time for the postmortem of the construction site victim from last night,” the disembodied, disinterested female voice recited as if she were reading a script.

  “Great.” Corey scowled at the phone and marched back to the cooler where her scowl morphed into a seething mask of rage as she ripped the sheet off the body. “Jesus Christ.”

  The head of the man, clearly the construction site victim, was a misshapen, bloody mess with one eye bulging from the socket and his handlebar mustache askew from multiple facial fractures. He was still in his clothes and boots. She assumed DOA and the police brought him in until she caught the flash of white plastic at his wrist. He was wearing a hospital ID tag, so he must have come in with vitals for a hot second and died in the emergency department. She could barely lift his arm because of the intense rigor. She read the name, Gordon Akers.

  Now she was really pissed. The kind of pissed a phone call couldn’t handle as she slammed the cooler door and snatched the lab coat off the back of her chair fully intending to vent her anger on the first available warm body.

  Thayer leaned against the admission desk in the ED, enjoying the hustle and bustle of her new department, while she waited for Dana to get off the phone. She turned at the sound of the receiver hitting the cradle.

  “I see you survived HR,” Dana mused.

  “Barely.” Thayer sucked in a sharp breath. “Talk about an intimidating woman.”

  “Speaking of intimidating women…” Dana’s eyes jerked past Thayer to movement over her shoulder.

  Thayer followed her gaze as Corey Curtis stalked into the department looking like a storm about to break, her eyes tracking the staff members nearest her until they landed on the unsuspecting Jules Archer passing by. She stepped in front of her to get her attention and motioned her out of earshot of other staff and patients but still in visual range of the desk.

  “Wonder what that’s about? Do they know each other?”

  “Not as far as I know.” They watched Corey tower over the young nurse, her body and voice controlled but she was clearly speaking in anger. Jules was shying away from her and looking very uncomfortable. Dana said, “I better go see what’s going on.”

  “May I?” Thayer eyed her friend.

  Dana stifled a laugh and grandly gestured in the direction of the two women. “By all means.”

  “I don’t have time for this shit,” Corey growled at Jules. “Find it. I’ll wait.”

  Thayer caught the tail end of their conversation and interrupted politely. “May I be of some help?”

  “Oh, Dr. Reynolds,” Jules said, relieved. “Um, Corey was looking for a chart for a man who died last night. He’s in, um, the morgue without paperwork and I just came on and I don’t know—”

  “It’s okay, Jules.” She smiled gently at the stammering woman before her eyes moved to Corey Curtis, who stood, arms crossed, her previous glower faltering into something more akin to embarrassment and no small amount of surprise. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Jules disappeared without another word and she faced Corey full-on. “You’re scaring the children.”

  Corey’s lips parted in surprise and she rocked back slightly. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Didn’t you?” Thayer allowed herself a small smile.

  “I need a chart,” Corey blurted.

  “So, I gather.” She nodded, her eyes flashing with humor. “Let’s start there. Whose?”

  “Akers, Gordon.” Corey cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “I already have the police calling me about the case and I have no information.”

  Her voice was so low and smooth Thayer could practically feel it. “I’m not familiar with it by name, but this is what I can do for you. I will find the chart and bring it down to you within a half hour. How does that sound?”

  Corey blinked. “That’s fine. Thank you,” she managed before she stalked out the way she came.

  Thayer walked back to the nurses’ station meeting Dana’s rapt expression with a wide grin. She leaned across the desk and thumbed through a stack of charts so high they were in danger of tipping over. Akers, Gordon was near the bottom and she worked it free without upsetting the entire pile. Thayer grinned at her friend. “I need this.”

  Dana eyed the name on the chart. “Oh yeah. Poor soul died gruesomely last night and…” Her eyes flicked to where Corey had been standing. “Oh, shit. That should have gone with the body. That’s what her panties were in a bunch about, huh?”

  Thayer leaned back against the counter with the chart tucked under her arm. “I don’t know. She doesn’t really strike me as the panty type. I’m thinking boy shorts.”

  “Oh, really.” Dana smirked. “And I suppose you think you’re going to get into her pants and find out?”

  Thayer arched a brow. “No need to rush things.” She tapped the chart on the counter. “First things first. Coffee.”

  Corey walked the stairs back to the basement in a daze, having no idea what had just happened. That woman, Dr. Reynolds, had eyes so light brown they looked golden, and her smoke and whiskey voice made the hair on Corey’s arms stand on end. She went up there, guns blazing for that chart, and mere seconds with Dr. Reynolds left her a stammering fool, leaving without her chart and feeling like she’d just done three shots of tequila.

  She gave herself a mental shake as she dropped back down into her desk chair to make her phone calls, letting the powers that be know she had a potentially suspicious death case starting in a half hour. She had no doubt the chart would show up in plenty of time.

  Chapter Four

  Corey spread a clean green towel onto the wheeled, stainless steel tray and began lining up her instruments—scalpel handle, a sheet of #60 dissecting blades, her favorite tungsten-carbide blunt-tipped scissors, rib shears, calipers, serrated forceps, bone mallet, and skull breaker. She had already changed into scrubs and booties and was replacing the blade on the Stryker bone saw when the door from the hallway opened.

  She watched Dr. Reynolds approach, a coffee in each hand, a folder tucked under her arm, and an air of polish and confidence that set Corey’s heart racing. She was so caught off guard at their earlier interaction she failed to really see her. The woman was stunning in a khaki pencil skirt and emerald green button-down blouse with understated gold jewelry and very little makeup. Her hospital-issued white coat, shapeless on everyone else, seemed to enhance her figure.

  Corey was determined to show a little class herself, or at the very least, not make an ass out of herself again. “Is one of those for me?”

  “Yes.” Thayer handed her a coffee. “I thought perhaps you could use one, and I’m afraid I haven’t made a very good first
impression.” She reached into the pocket of her coat and produced an array of cream and sweeteners.

  “No, thank you.” Corey waved them off. “Black is good, thanks.”

  “Of course.” Thayer’s mouth quirked as she looked her over. “I’m Thayer Reynolds. I’m sorry I’ve not managed to introduce myself yet.” She extended her hand.

  Corey, thankful she hadn’t yet touched anything that required her to first wipe her hands on her pants, gripped her hand—warm, strong, with long, elegant fingers and neat, unadorned nails—and hoped she didn’t hold it for longer than was appropriate. “Corey Curtis.”

  “I enjoyed your resident class yesterday.” Thayer smiled. “You seem to have made quite an impression and some of them are still talking about you. I assume you know what they call you?”

  “I do.” She rolled her eyes. “It could be worse.”

  “Oh, indeed.” Thayer laughed. “You could be T-Rex or Jugs or Wheezer and those are just a few of the ones I’ve heard. I don’t even know who those people are yet.”

  “Jugs is a man, by the way, and the name doesn’t have anything to do with his body.” The door opened again. She looked past Thayer and gave a nod. “And here comes Wheezer now.”

  A morbidly obese man with a ruddy face and a thinning, gray comb-over shuffled into the anteroom and lowered himself into the desk chair, unleashing a groan of plastic and metal. He physically had to pick his own leg up and position it across his knee. His breath came in panting gasps as he attempted to don the shoe covers.

  Thayer winced. “Oh, my.”

  “Dr. Randall Webster, forensic pathologist. It’s best if you just don’t watch.”

  Thayer eyed her. “Is he all right?”

  Corey shrugged. “You’re the doctor.”

  “Yes, and if someone came into my department looking and sounding like that I’d probably be admitting him for a full workup,” she said grimly.

  Corey arched a brow. “You don’t sound like a resident.” She took a chance that Thayer Reynolds was indeed flirting with her and let her gaze wander the woman’s body. “You don’t look like one either.”

  Thayer’s brows rose. “What do I look like?”

  “Oh, hello.” Dr. Webster lumbered into the room before Corey had a chance to answer, his eyes boldly assessing Thayer. “You must be the new emergency department fellow, Tracy Reynolds?” He held out his hand.

  “Thayer Reynolds.” She corrected him with a dazzling smile and shook his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Dr. Webster. Corey speaks very highly of you.”

  “Oh?” His gaze flicked to Corey in surprise. “That’s always nice to hear. Are we just about ready to get started?”

  “We’re just waiting for Sergeant Collier.” Corey glanced at the clock. “He should be here any minute.”

  He glanced around. “Right. Right. Do you have the chart?”

  “Right here, sir.” Thayer held it out.

  “Thank you, my dear.” He opened the folder and flipped through the few pages. “Ghastly business. Was he your patient?”

  “Oh. No, sir. I don’t start in the rotation for another day.”

  “Well, we’re happy to have you on staff, Tracy.” Dr. Webster lumbered back toward the desk with the chart.

  “He’s charming.” Thayer rubbed the fingers of her right hand together. “And really sweaty.”

  “You think that now.” Corey laughed. “Come back in a few hours.”

  “Is that when you’ll be through?” she asked.

  “I, uh, no, I meant—”

  “I know what you meant.” Thayer smiled. “I guess I was just hoping for the opportunity to get to know you better. I haven’t even had the chance to ask you what happened to your eye.” She reached up, lightly brushing her fingertips down the side of Corey’s face.

  “I’m, uh, it was—”

  The door banged open again. “Where’s this goddamn body, Curtis?” Sergeant James Collier stalked in, nodding to Dr. Webster in the anteroom briefly.

  “Am I interrupting?” the sergeant asked from the doorway as he looked between them.

  Corey cleared her throat and focused her thoughts. She had been hit on before, plenty of times, but never by someone like Thayer Reynolds—smart, bold, charming, and bewitchingly beautiful. Corey didn’t know which way was up right now and she needed to get her head on straight. “Uh, yeah, I mean no, not interrupting.” She cleared her throat again. “Sergeant James Collier, this is Dr. Thayer Reynolds, the new ED Fellow.”

  “Jim.” Collier extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Dr. Reynolds.”

  Thayer shook his hand. “Thayer is fine. It’s nice to meet you, Jim.” She turned briefly back to Corey. “I guess I’ll get out of your way.”

  Jim Collier was a big man, well over six feet and barrel chested from years of working out. He had short, salt-and-pepper hair and a thickening middle from too much beer, but he was still fit and good looking for a man pushing fifty despite his dated suits and crooked ties. He was gruff, profane, and rough around the edges, but he also had a huge heart. Corey thought he was an excellent cop, which one didn’t need to be to know something was going on between Thayer and Corey. “Leaving so soon?” he asked Thayer’s retreating form and eyeing Corey from the side.

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” Thayer looked back over her shoulder and threw Corey a wink.

  He waited until the door closed behind her before he grinned at Corey.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “You are so going to fuck that up, Curtis. That woman is way out of your league.” He snorted a laugh. “Which reminds me, has that pretty little banker kicked you to the curb yet?”

  She sighed heavily and ran her hands through her hair.

  “Oh, shit.” His mouth gaped. “She did, didn’t she?”

  “Last night.” She might as well say it out loud.

  “She do that to your face too?”

  “What? No.” She scowled. “It was an accident at the gym.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Chapter Five

  “Make sure you get pictures of his head,” Collier rumbled as he flipped open his notebook.

  Corey’s eyes flicked to him. “Yeah, thanks, Collier.” She crouched at the top of the victim’s head, snapping photos with their high-resolution digital camera. Dr. Webster guffawed from his perch so far away she wondered why he wasted the energy putting on booties. The body would have to explode for him see any blood. She took pictures from every angle, standing on a stool and stretching to her full height, arms extended, to get full shots looking down.

  Setting the camera down, she donned her gown and plastic apron. She pulled a bonnet over her hair and settled a face shield over that. Finally, she worked a second pair of extended cuff gloves over the ones she already wore and snapped them over the cuffs of her gown to prevent blood from leaking into the sleeves of her gown.

  She paused between each blood-soaked article of clothing as she removed them—T-shirt, jeans, briefs, belt, socks, boots—to record the description on the whiteboard before bagging them up. “You go through his pockets?”

  “Yeah. Nothing exciting.” Collier stepped closer to appreciate his injuries. “Je-sus.”

  There were multiple, gaping lacerations to his scalp, some with visible skull protruding. His chest looked caved in on one side and his left leg angled unnaturally. His back and right side were mottled red and white where blood had pooled around the pressure of the ground against his skin where he landed.

  “He’s got a nicotine patch.” She pointed to his left shoulder before taking a picture of it. She noted the faded tattoos on his right forearm and shoulder, an old appendectomy scar, and the missing tip of his left second finger from a long ago healed injury.

  “Huh.” Collier pursed his lips and jotted a note. “All right, I’ll run down what I know.”

  “We’re listening,” she encouraged while placing a ruler against one of the scalp lacerations before taki
ng the picture. She had already filled up much of the body diagram on the whiteboard with notes.

  “Akers, Gordon. Fifty-six-year-old white male, five-eleven, one hundred eighty-five pounds, married to wife Gloria for thirty-six years. They have two sons—Gordon Jr. and David—thirty-five and thirty-one respectively, both married and living in the city. Worked for Conrad Construction since he was eighteen, worked his way up, been foreman for the last seven years, working on the building going up on Coburn and Hall for the last year. Which, by the way, has kindly shut down while we look into Akers’s death. The company says they’ll keep it closed through the week since he was well liked and respected.”

  Corey set the camera down again and moved over to the body. She lifted his torso with her left arm and slid the body block between his shoulder blades so his head dropped back and his chest was thrust up. “How do you know all this already?”

  “Because I’m a damn good cop, Curtis.”

  “Uh-huh.” She snapped a scalpel blade on the handle.

  “And because he has a public intoxication from five years ago.”

  She grinned, eyeing him through the shield as she lined up her first incision. She made two swift cuts from each shoulder to sternum, then one down, around the navel to the pubic bone in the classic Y-incision. Collier went on as she started to work on one side and began to flay the layers of skin, muscle and fat away from the ribs and abdominal cavity.

  “The guys knocked off at precisely five p.m. because of union policy, and he stayed behind to check their work. They were on the fifth floor, by the way. It’s assumed he went for a smoke over the air duct under construction. A lot of guys did if they could get away with it. ”

  She spread both torso flaps open like a book, exposing the muscle and bone of the rib cage and gripped the triangular section of skin at his neck, going slower now as the skin was much thinner. She pulled it back, teasing off the connective tissue, while being careful not to button hole the neck, breaking the skin and royally pissing off the funeral home that had to fix it, cosmetically. “Went for a smoke, huh?”