Tags:
Fiction,
General,
detective,
Suspense,
Gay,
Mystery & Detective,
Mystery,
Fiction - Mystery,
Mystery & Detective - General,
Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),
Crime & mystery,
Lesbian,
Crime thriller,
FICTION / Lesbian
trainee?” Nicholls asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Squinting, she looked at her partner. “It’s a woman.”
“So what’s the problem?” he grinned. “You like women.”
Yeah, I do , she thought. On the dance floor, in the kitchen, or on their backs in bed. Although Nicholls was aware of her sexual preference he wasn’t particularly comfortable with it. It was a non-topic between them despite the fact she was usually forced to listen to stories of his sexual exploits on a daily basis. Hell, if she were his age again she would probably be doing the same thing. She smiled to herself.
“Did you turn it down?” Nicholls asked.
“What? Oh, no. Didn’t get a chance to, but it’s not all bad. You get to be the unofficial official assistant training officer,” she said.
“I’m sure she’ll be all right, RB. What’s her name?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t get that far before Donaldson told me to haul my ass out of his office.”
Nicholls’ face took on a serious expression.
“You’re not gonna show her any slack, are you?”
Watching the seemingly endless line of cars and trucks in front of them, she said, “Nope. A woman has to cope the same as a man.”
They remained silent the remainder of the drive deep into the city. Nicholls finally found a parking place halfway between the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Austin city limits. It was apparently a busy week for the Medical Examiner. As they rode the elevator to the basement of the county office building Brodie could smell the formaldehyde and other chemicals from the morgue and autopsy rooms before the elevator doors opened.
The Medical Examiner’s section was surprising bright. Someone, obviously someone with a sense of humor, had placed cheerful posters of children and wildflowers along the corridor walls in an attempt to counteract the nature of the work taking place inside the basement autopsy rooms. They stopped at the receptionist’s desk halfway down the corridor. The woman behind the desk was typing furiously and appeared to be in a trance. She was wearing headphones attached to a cassette player on her desk and didn’t seem to notice the two visitors until Brodie reached over the counter and tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, the woman ripped the headphones off and glared at the detective. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties and Brodie noticed she had been a little heavy-handed with her make-up that morning. She smiled to disarm the fuse she lit by surprising the woman.
“Hi. You must be new to be so jumpy.”
“I’m sorry, but this is kind of a spooky place. I was concentrating on the report on the recorder. One of our doctors doesn’t speak English too well. Can I help you?”
“I’m Detective Royce Brodie and this is Detective Curtis Nicholls from Cedar Springs. We’re here about a victim from a traffic accident in our jurisdiction last night.”
“Name.”
“We don’t exactly know that yet. Probably came in as a John Doe.”
“Do you know how many John Does we get in
here?”
“I’m sure it’s a bunch, sweetheart, but it should be the only one from Cedar Springs.” Turning to her partner, Brodie asked, “Who did you talk to?”
Pulling a notebook from his inside jacket pocket, he grinned at the receptionist as he looked through it.
“Dr. Harrald.”
Brodie looked hopefully at the secretary, who was rewinding the tape in her cassette player.
“I think he’s in Room Six. End of the hall.”
The detectives moved down the hall, stopping to knock on the door to Room Six. No one answered, but they could hear voices inside. Brodie pushed the door partway open and stuck her head in. Two men, dressed in green hospital scrubs, were standing over an autopsy table. Seemed like everyone in the building was pre-occupied.
“Dr. Harrald?” she asked loudly.
“Yeah, come in,” one of the men said. Both wore masks over their faces and she wasn’t sure which one had answered, but she