“Are you his wife?”
The woman looked offended. “No. House cleaning.”
“She found the body,” explained Frank, before turning his attention to the housekeeper. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Corentine Flores.”
“Do you know him?”
She shook her head. “No. First time here.”
“He left quite a first impression,” mumbled Charlotte trying to peer around Frank to get a better look at the body. He stepped in front of her and grunted with disapproval.
Frank continued his interview. “You found him like this?”
“Muerto,” she said, nodding.
Frank mumbled to Charlotte. “I think his name is Marty and she calls him Marto, near as I can figure.”
“Muerto means dead,” said Charlotte, ever helpful. She motioned at a square, canvas casing on the ground. “Looks like he was trying to cover his skylights for the hurricane.”
Frank heaved a sigh. “Why these old people crawl up on their roofs like they’re still twenty, I’ll never know.”
Charlotte used Frank’s attention on the ladder to move around him and squat beside the body. “I guess he thought he could do it. I mean, when do you know you’re too old to do something?”
“When you fall and kill yourself,” muttered Frank.
He turned back to the woman. “When did you find him? You called right away?”
She nodded.
“Do you have any idea when he fell?”
The woman shook her head and her expression dropped, as if she felt guilty for being unable to help more than she could.
Poor thing. She’s probably had quite a shock.
“It hasn’t been too long. There’s no lividity,” said Charlotte. She wrapped her hand in her shirt and shifted the man’s arm. “He’s in rigor, so three, four hours?”
“Can you not touch him please?” said Frank.
“But I covered my hand, and you said yourself, it isn’t a crime scene.”
“It’s still creepy. Just cut it out.”
Another police car arrived and lanky Deputy Daniel soon strolled over to the group.
Late and useless as usual.
“Thought you might need some help,” he said. He was talking to Frank but his eyes were on Charlotte. Frank stepped into his frame of view.
“You. Listen up. Call the coroner for me.”
Daniel snapped out of his Charlotte-induced trance. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, sure...” He tipped his hat at Charlotte as she looked up and acknowledged his presence. Daniel beamed.
Charlotte held up a hand. “Hold the phone. Stop the presses.”
Frank put his hands on his hips. “I can’t let you play crime scene with this guy all day long. We need to call the coroner.”
“It’s not that. I think it might not be an accident.”
“What? Wishful thinking doesn’t make it so, sweetheart. He fell off the damn roof. He did everything but leave a note that said I’m going to fall off the roof now.”
“But I think he did leave a note.”
“That he wrote on the way down?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Charlotte, looking smug. “I don’t know if he had time to do that and eat it.”
Frank closed his eyes and prayed for strength. “Will you make some sense?”
“Come here. Look.”
Frank moved around to Charlotte’s side of the body and squinted toward where she pointed near the man’s mouth. He could see now something beige rested between his lips.
“That his dentures? Popped out of his mouth maybe?”
“Put your glasses on. It looks like cloth.”
Frank felt inside his shirt pocket for his eyeglasses and slipped them on his face to peer again at the object pressed between the man’s lips.
“What is it?” asked Daniel.
“Make yourself useful and get me a pair of gloves out of your car,” said Frank.
Dan jogged to his trunk and returned with two pairs of latex gloves.
“I’ve got the gloves,” he announced, as if he’d just found the cure for the common cold.
Frank shook his head and took a pair.
I guess when you’re that useless fetching gloves is a win.
“Thank you,” said Charlotte, reaching up for the second pair.
Daniel’s chest puffed another inch.
Frank slipped on the gloves and peeled open the man’s blue lips. Pinching the edge of the flat object he slid out a round, cloth disk with a stitched edge. At the top of its design, sat a yellow plus-sign, a blue house occupied the lower left corner, and the lower right sported what looked like green lightning.
“What is this?” he asked aloud.
“More importantly, how did it get in his mouth? Hold it still, let me get a picture.” Charlotte pulled her ever-present phone from her pocket and snapped a photo.
Frank addressed Corentine. “Ma’am, I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to stick around. Do you understand?”
The woman wrapped her hand around the waterspout and rested her shoulder on the wall, resigned to waiting.
Frank returned to musing on the mysterious patch. “Maybe his hands were full and he needed a way to hold this while he was on the ladder.”
“But why would he need a patch on a roof?” asked Charlotte poking at her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m doing an online image search. Here it is.” She held the phone up for Frank to see. “It’s an emergency preparedness Boy Scout badge.”
“Huh,” said Frank. The badge on Charlotte’s phone did look exactly like the one in his own hand, but for the traces of watery blood on his version.
“How did they solve any crimes before the Internet?” she asked no one in particular.
“No Internet and we were all so busy hunting dinosaurs,” said Frank, rising. He gazed up the ladder. “You think he was going to award himself a patch for putting on the hurricane covers?”
“You’re suggesting he’s the world’s oldest boy scout?”
“I dunno. People are weird. Nothing surprises me anymore.”
“I think it’s more likely someone left a message.”
“Oh you and the murderers.”
She shrugged and Frank looked
