Read The Angel of Death Online
Authors: Alane Ferguson
The Angel of Death (4 page)
“How come you’re so fancied up?” she asked.
“I had a meeting in Ouray.”
“With who?”
“A judge.”
“What judge?”
“I—it doesn’t matter,” he said, waving her off. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, Cammie. Couple of things. First, I wanted to talk to you about your job.”
“My job at the Grand?” She knew she was being cagey, but she didn’t like the look of intensity in her father’s eyes. Just the night before, she’d overheard Mammaw’s exasperated voice from behind the bedroom wall: “Patrick, your daughter needs you now more than ever. Stop putting this off—talk to the girl already!”
“What’s wrong with my job at the Grand?” she asked.
“No, no, no, I’m not talking about your job as a waitress—”
“Server,” she corrected.
“Server, right. What I
mean
is”—he took a breath— “your job as assistant to the coroner. Your job working for me. Mammaw tells me Justin dragged you off to look at some carcass. Did that upset you?” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Because I’m wondering if looking at bodies is the reason you seem . . . off . . . lately.”
mean
is”—he took a breath— “your job as assistant to the coroner. Your job working for me. Mammaw tells me Justin dragged you off to look at some carcass. Did that upset you?” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Because I’m wondering if looking at bodies is the reason you seem . . . off . . . lately.”
At this point it seemed best to stay quiet. So she just stared at him.
“Okay, ’off’ may not be the right word. ‘Stressed’ might be better. But the point is that I can tell something’s wrong. It’s like you’re . . . pulling away.” He looked at her, his eyes anxious. “Is it all the death?”
“I still want to be a forensic pathologist,” she insisted, a little too loudly. She tried again in a quieter voice. “Being assistant to the coroner is going to help me get into medical school. It’ll give me an edge. You know I’m good—”
“You’re about the best I’ve seen,” he agreed, “which is pretty amazing since you’re only seventeen. But your mammaw’s worried that forensics is to blame for your moodiness.”
“Mammaw’s wrong,” she answered. “If I’m moody it’s my age. Teenagers are by definition grumpy. It’s written on our DNA.”
Nodding tersely, he said, “All right then. So we’ll leave our forensic life as it is.” He picked up an old stuffed animal she kept on her bed, the puppy dog she’d named Rags, then absently set it back down. “Now, for the other matter. I want to talk to you . . . about Hannah.”
Cameryn felt the panic rise. Had he heard the conversation with Lyric? Did he know about the telephone call? But a quick check of his eyes told her he didn’t know a thing.
She fought to keep her own expression under control. Emotions existed beneath her surface, gliding unseen through her own dark inner waters. But if her father looked at her face closely, he might be able to see what moved beneath. She knew she couldn’t risk it. Everything concerning Hannah had to remain hidden—she’d promised her mother that much. Swallowing, Cameryn tried to make her face smooth. “I just had this same conversation with Mammaw,” she told him. “I don’t want to have it again.”
“I know. It’s a subject I’d rather forget about myself,” he replied. “But that may have been a mistake.” His hand floated to the top of her head, and she felt it press down, gently, tenderly. “You’re so much like her, you know,” he said. “I don’t know how she looks now, but back then, your mother wore her hair long. Long and dark and curly. She was small like you, too. I didn’t know how she could carry twins in that tiny body.”
“Dad—
stop
. I don’t want to talk about this.” Cameryn pulled away from his touch, something she had never done before. He stared at her, his mouth agape for seconds or a minute, Cameryn wasn’t sure which.
stop
. I don’t want to talk about this.” Cameryn pulled away from his touch, something she had never done before. He stared at her, his mouth agape for seconds or a minute, Cameryn wasn’t sure which.
“Cammie,” he asked, “what is going on?” He started to say something more, but the telephone rang, and a moment later Mammaw called shrilly, “Patrick! It’s for you.”
Her father didn’t move.
Cameryn said, “Go ahead and take it.”
“No. No, we need to finish this.” Turning toward the door he called out, “Tell whoever it is I’ll call them back, Ma.” Although his head turned slightly, he kept his eyes locked onto Cameryn’s as he spoke, and Cameryn returned his gaze.
Her grandmother’s voice shot up again. “It’s the sheriff. He says it’s urgent.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Hold on, Cammie, this should just take a minute.” Reaching past her for her bedside phone, he punched the TALK button and barked, “What is it, John?”
Patrick’s brows knit together as he twisted away from Cameryn. “When? . . . Are you sure?” A beat later he added, “Of course. . . . Yes, right away. We’ll be right over,” then tossed the phone onto the bed. He blinked hard and ran a hand through his hair, destroying its sheen.
“Dad—what happened?”
“You know Brad Oakes?” His voice was tight. It seemed he had to push from his diaphragm to get the words out.
“Yeah, I had him last year for Advanced English. Why? ”
“Some kid just found him.”
“Found him?” She echoed the words, buying time to stall the next words she already knew were coming.
“Sheriff says it’s the strangest thing he’s ever seen, and I need to get right over to make sense of it. He’s dead, Cammie. Brad Oakes is dead.”
Chapter Three
“MR. OAKES WAS the greatest teacher,” Cameryn told her father. “He really was amazing. I can’t believe he’s dead.”
Patrick nodded as he rolled the gurney toward the back of the family station wagon. Perched on the gurney was his “death bag,” a black gear bag with the word STREETPRO stamped on the side. In it were all the tools he needed to process a scene: latex gloves, a gunshot-residue kit, paper and plastic bags, shoe covers, medical tape. Next to the death bag was a new body bag, still in its plastic, set on top of a clean white sheet that her mammaw had washed and folded. Although most body bags were not reused, the sheets always were. Mammaw bleached and cleaned them after every death and stacked them in the garage on the shelf.
“I’ll wash them for you, son, but I don’t want those sheets in my house,” she’d declared. “They give me the willies. And don’t tell me any details about what happened to the poor souls. Remember, Pat, I don’t want to know.”
That was another big difference between her mammaw and herself. Cameryn always wanted to know. Her father said those who worked with the dead were the last ones to hear them speak because their remains told the story, however softly spoken. If Patrick didn’t hear their final whispers, no one would.
“Brad Oakes was a fairly young man,” he told Cameryn now, “which makes it an even greater tragedy.”
“Was it a heart attack?”
“Here, smooth the tarp down. No, I don’t think it was his heart—Jacobs was going on and on about the bizarre condition of the body, whatever that means. I’m confident we’ll be taking a trip to Durango for an autopsy. You got the tarp all the way in the corner?”
“Got it,” Cameryn grunted, smoothing the heavy plastic—the one to protect against body-fluid leakage—into the edges of their station wagon. Since Silverton was so small and its budget so tight, the old Mahoney family station wagon had been pressed into duty, at times doubling as the county hearse. When her father was called on a case, he’d slap a long rectangular magnet, which sported the words SAN JUAN COUNTY CORONER in thick red letters, onto the driver’s-side door. Once, though, her father had forgotten to put the sign on their car. She had been riding with him when they’d stopped on Greene Street, where they were approached by a tourist wanting directions. Her father had blandly explained how to get to the store named Fetch’s, and the woman thanked him and walked away, oblivious to the corpse zippered into a body bag in the station wagon’s bay.
Cameryn loaded the satchel, sheet, and body bag into the back of their car while her father collapsed the gurney. In sync, she helped her father slide it inside and slam the hatch shut. Then, putting his arm around her, he pulled her close and kissed her roughly on the top of the head.
“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” he asked. “Since he was your teacher and all?”
“I’m just glad I can help.”
“It’s all we can do for him now.”
It was strange, Cameryn thought, the way life could change so suddenly. Ten minutes ago all she could think about was the tragedy of her mother, and here was another, more immediate heartbreak that had plunged her feelings further into the depths.
Get professional,
she told herself.
Someone has died. Do the work.
Get professional,
she told herself.
Someone has died. Do the work.
Her analytical mind resurfaced, ready to interpret the scene and sift for clues. Patrick, too, seemed to have shoved their prior conversation into his own personal underground. Though they were father and daughter, they were now coroner and assistant to the coroner, and, most importantly, a forensic team.
Cameryn had barely slammed the door before her father backed the car out of their driveway and headed for River Street and the tiny blue home where Mr. Oakes lived.
Had
lived. Patrick’s eyebrows, thick as awnings, came together as his fingers tapped the steering wheel. He was nervous, that much was clear. Whatever Sheriff Jacobs said had rattled him, which surprised Cameryn since her father didn’t rattle easily.
Had
lived. Patrick’s eyebrows, thick as awnings, came together as his fingers tapped the steering wheel. He was nervous, that much was clear. Whatever Sheriff Jacobs said had rattled him, which surprised Cameryn since her father didn’t rattle easily.
Bizarre condition? What did that mean, exactly?
Cameryn wondered.
What were they walking into?
Mostly Patrick Mahoney dealt with the garden variety passings, when ancient Silverton residents expired in sad but not unexpected ways. Those required nothing more than signing a release that allowed the departed to be taken away to a mortuary. But a questionable death like this meant pressure. From this point on, Cameryn knew, everything she and her father did would count. The coroner couldn’t make a mistake because every move would be scrutinized by judges and lawyers. In the game of death, you played for keeps.
Cameryn wondered.
What were they walking into?
Mostly Patrick Mahoney dealt with the garden variety passings, when ancient Silverton residents expired in sad but not unexpected ways. Those required nothing more than signing a release that allowed the departed to be taken away to a mortuary. But a questionable death like this meant pressure. From this point on, Cameryn knew, everything she and her father did would count. The coroner couldn’t make a mistake because every move would be scrutinized by judges and lawyers. In the game of death, you played for keeps.
She pressed her forehead against the window and felt the chill of the glass, wishing it could cool her mind and the thoughts that seemed to fever her. The station wagon passed brightly painted, jellybean-colored houses as they headed east to Silverton’s foothills. Most of the trees out here were evergreen, although every once in a while they’d pass clumps of aspen stripped bare by the cold November wind. She remembered Mr. Oakes reading a poem about seasons and how in nature things seem to die, only to be reborn in the spring. But Mr. Oakes wouldn’t be reborn. He’d be buried and stay in the ground or maybe blow away in ashes. There would be no spring for him, ever again.
“Where did they find him?” she asked softly. Her breath frosted the glass.
“It seems he was found in his own bed.”
“At least that sounds peaceful.”
“I’m not sure about that—not from the way Jacobs was babbling about the body’s condition. I guess we’ll know more when we get there.”
Cameryn thought about the death, but forced herself to think about his life. “Mr. Oakes wasn’t married, was he?”
Her father squinted, thinking. “If memory serves he is—
was
—a single guy.”
was
—a single guy.”
“So who was it that found him? A girlfriend?”
He shook his head. “No. Sad to say he was discovered by a Boy Scout.”
It took a beat for Cameryn to register this. “A
Boy Scout
found the body? Exactly how did
that
happen?”
Boy Scout
found the body? Exactly how did
that
happen?”
Her father put on his blinker and turned onto Snowden, a winding dirt road that took them close to the cemetery. “Oakes was a Scout leader—did you know that?”
“No. He was a real health-nut type of guy—a hiker and mountain biker—but I didn’t know about the Scouting. Then again, I haven’t been in a troop since Brownies.”
“Sheriff Jacobs told me Oakes was supposed to take a group on some wilderness hike. When he didn’t show, one of the Scouts went looking for him, pounded on the front door, and then let himself in. That’s when he found the body. The kid’s apparently pretty shook up.”
Cameryn rubbed her knees through her jeans as she thought about this. “Do you know the kid’s name?”
“All I know is Jacobs said he’s some Eagle Scout—”
“An Eagle Scout?” She straightened and looked at her father in surprise. “Then it’s got to be Kyle O’Neil. He’s the only guy in Silverton who’s made it that far.”
“It’s probably him, then. And here we are.” Easing the station wagon into Mr. Oakes’s driveway, Patrick turned off the ignition. But he didn’t move. Instead, he rested his elbow on the steering wheel, tapping his forehead with his index finger. She could tell he wanted to say something, so she waited, outwardly patient, although her mind was already focused on what she’d find inside the blue house.
The clipboard with the coroner form was on the dashboard, so she pulled it onto her lap. Checking her watch, she entered their arrival time: 1126 military time. She’d already taken out a pair of latex gloves from the death bag, so she wriggled them on and snapped the bands against her wrists, stinging her skin. Her hair had been tied back, and the peppermint oil, perfect for covering smell if need be, was secure in her pocket. Cameras weighed down the death bag. She was ready.
Patrick sighed. “Could you stop for just a second, Cammie? I want to talk to you before we go in there.”
She clipped the pen into the top of the board, not meeting his gaze. “What about?”
Other books
AMelodyInParadise by Tianna Xander
The Scarlet King by Charles Kaluza
All Other Nights by Dara Horn
Divine Vices by Parkin, Melissa
Finding Peace (Love's Compass #1) by Melanie D. Snitker
The Golden Horde by Morwood, Peter
The Ultimate Erotic Short Story Collection 19: 11 Steamingly Hot Erotica Books For Women by Bray, Kimberly, Hodges, Lois, Dunn, Andrea, Keller, Angela, Cross, Nellie, Conley, Cynthia, Robles, Bonnie, Hunt, Evelyn, Bright, Nicole, Copeland, Phyllis
Paris, He Said by Christine Sneed
El fin del Mundo y un despiadado País de las Maravillas by Haruki Murakami
Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront by Harry Kyriakodis
