Scared Stiff

Hurley.

He parks right behind one of the spotlights, forcing me to squint as I search eagerly for his long-legged stride. But something is wrong. The silhouette I see has two heads and way too many arms. For a second I think it must be Hurley’s Halloween costume, but it turns out to be something much scarier. It’s Hurley walking side by side with Alison Miller.

I feel a pang of jealousy and mutter a curse under my breath. Alison Miller, a photographer and reporter for the biweekly Sorenson Journal, used to be my friend. We went to high school together, and while we never hung out much, we maintained a cordial, if distant, relationship. Our current status is a bit more strained, thanks to her attempts to print a picture of me bare-chested on the front page of the paper a couple weeks ago, and the fact that she has suddenly become the main obstacle between me and Detective Hurley, assuming, of course, that Hurley has forgotten about that unfortunate incident when I barfed on his shoes.

It isn’t just the sight of them together that bothers me. I knew they had plans to attend a Halloween party tonight—the same party Izzy and I just left—because I was there a week ago when Alison all but threw herself at Hurley and demanded that he take her. What bothers me is the fact that they never made it to the party but are still together. What were they doing while I sat letting Dracula turn me into one of the undead?

Both of them are in costume: Alison looks disturbingly cute dressed as a genie, and Hurley, rather unimaginatively, is dressed like an Eliot Ness–era FBI agent, though the hat does give him a sexy, debonair, I- want-to-bite-your-lip quality. I give their outfits a quick once-over searching for signs of disarray or a fresh-out-of- the-sack look, but don’t find any. It’s a mild reassurance at best, and any relief I might feel vanishes when I see the smug expression on Alison’s face.

Her camera is slung around her neck and she is holding it with one hand, prepared to take a quick snap if something worthy should present itself. Even in high school Alison always had her camera close by and ready. It earned her the nickname Snapper, a moniker that always made all the boys snigger. Nowadays she’s a freelance reporter/photographer and the primary photo source for our local paper, so a camera is still as ubiquitous an accessory as ever. I briefly wonder if she sleeps with it, but as soon as the thought hits my mind, I flash on an image of Hurley naked in bed with her, and my face grows uncomfortably hot.

“Hi, everyone,” Alison says with a perky little wave of her hand. She eyes me and Izzy and says, “How cute. Snow White and Doc. What a clever idea.”

Before I can correct her she has raised her camera, snapped a shot, and blinded me with her flash.

“No pictures unless I say so,” Hurley grumbles, and I am instantly grateful for his reprimand. I smile in his general direction and blink hard several times, trying to get my vision back. Then I realize I probably look like I’m batting my eyes at him and stop.

“Not to worry,” Alison says. “That was just a fun picture for Mattie and Izzy. Nothing official.”

I can see the vague outlines of everyone as my eyes struggle to adjust to the dark, and it seems they are all looking at Shannon again. So I focus my own gaze in the same direction.

“What do we have?” Hurley asks.

Izzy says, “Mattie, do you want to take this one?”

Oh, goody, a chance to impress Hurley! I nod solemnly to hide my delight. Since I can’t see very clearly, I try to remember what I’d noted earlier as I start to speak.

“The victim’s tentative ID is Shannon Tolliver, a thirty-something female and the resident of this house. It appears she was shot at least twice, once in the chest and once in the upper abdominal area. Given the location of the wounds and the amount of blood beneath the body, I’d guess one or both of the bullets pierced the liver or aorta and she quickly bled out.”

“Any guess as to time of death?” Hurley asks.

I’m still half-blind so as I move closer to the body to check for the presence of livor mortis and rigor mortis, I fail to see the bottommost step to the porch. My toe rams into the riser and my upper body continues its forward motion as my feet stop dead in their tracks. I feel myself falling and pinwheel my arms in a desperate effort to regain some balance, but the laws of physics are against me. I’m bracing for a collision with the hard wooden stairs when a strong arm wraps around my waist and pulls me back.

“Careful there,” Hurley says, his breath warm in my ear.

I’m momentarily in heaven as I feel the length of my backside come into contact with Hurley’s front side, but my rapture evaporates with his next words.

“Christ, you’re like a bull in a china shop.”

Hurley’s arm uncoils itself from my waist and I miss its warmth immediately even though my face is burning hot enough to start a fire. My vision is almost back to normal and I can see Izzy shaking his head. He steps up and takes over the examination, leaving me to stand where I am, trying not to look as stupid as I feel.

A few seconds later I step forward more carefully and kneel on the other side of the body, taking care to shove the bulk of my gown between my legs so I don’t contaminate the blood pools.

Together we begin our examination, looking for any gross trace evidence on the surface of the body before we touch or move anything. There are several stray hairs stuck in the congealed blood surrounding her wounds but their long length and blond color makes me suspect they are Shannon’s own. I pick them up one at a time and place each in its own evidence envelope, sealing and labeling the specimens as I go.

Shannon’s left arm is beneath her body, hiding that hand from view, so examination of that will have to wait until we move her. But on her right hand, which is flung out in front of her, I notice that the knuckles appear raw and abraded. I wonder if she incurred this injury in her crawl and fall down the stairs, or if she managed to deliver a blow to her attacker during a struggle. If the latter, I know there might be valuable evidence there so I carefully place a paper bag over the hand, securing it with evidence tape. In doing so, I notice her arm is stiff. Izzy notes the same thing in both of her legs.

“None of the lividity blanches and it appears she is in full rigor,” he announces.

Eager to redeem myself in front of everybody, I jump in and say, “Given the outside temperatures we’ve had, that means she’s likely been dead for somewhere between twelve and thirty-six hours.”

Izzy nods approvingly and says, “That is correct.”

I hear Alison mutter a little hmph behind me and can’t help but smile. But then she says, “Twelve to thirty-six? Is that the best you can do? That’s a twenty-four-hour window of time.”

My initial impulse is to leap across Shannon’s body, grab Alison by the throat, and throttle her. But before I can, Izzy jumps in.

“It appears there is the start of some putrefaction here,” he says, pointing to a faint greenish patch of skin on the lower right side of Shannon’s swollen abdomen, just above the waistband of her pants. “That helps us narrow things down a little more. Odds are she’s been dead for around twenty-four hours, give or take a few. Here in the field, that’s the closest prediction I can make, but once we get the body to the morgue and do some further analyses, we might be able to pinpoint the time of death more precisely.”

I glance at my watch, see that it’s just past eight-thirty in the evening, and do a quick mental calculation. “So time of death for now is likely sometime yesterday evening.” I pause and glance around, suppressing a shiver when I realize Shannon’s body lay out here all day long with no one noticing. It saddens me to think how hard she worked to decorate her lawn for Halloween, not knowing she would soon become a part of her own gruesome diorama.

After unfolding a white plastic sheet and carefully placing it over the body to preserve any surface evidence we might have missed, Izzy and I turn Shannon’s body on its side to examine her back. There is a slight sucking sound as her body separates from the large pool of congealed blood beneath her and that, combined with the wafting scent of rot and decay, makes my stomach lurch.

Izzy examines Shannon’s back and announces, “It’s hard to be sure with all the blood but I don’t see any exit wounds. So hopefully we’ll have some ballistic evidence once I do her post.”

Hurley is scratching down notes in a small spiral-bound notebook as we ease the body back into its original position, first making sure to tuck the plastic wrap sheet in place. With that done, Izzy and I secure the wrap, completely enclosing the body. Then we stand, remove our bloodied gloves, don new ones, and start taking in the rest of the murder scene.

I study the blood trail leading from the body to the porch and from there into the house. “It doesn’t make much sense for the killer to have dragged her outside where she might be found sooner,” I surmise. “And the amount of blood in this trail suggests she was alive until she got to the stairs. So I’m guessing she was shot