“What about you?” George asked.
“I’m going to go ahead and do what I do,” Joanna told him. “Eleanor will have to like it or lump it.”
“Good girl,” George said. “Way to go!”
The telephone rang. Nell answered it. A moment later, her voice sounded on George’s intercom. “Edith Mossman is on the line.”
“Great,” George said. “Just what I need. I love being caught in the cross fire between battling relatives.” He picked up his phone. “Good morning, Mrs. Mossman. What can I do for you?”
There was a pause. A frown appeared on George Winfield’s brow. The longer Edith Mossman talked, the deeper grew the lines on George’s forehead.
“Yes, that’s true. He is coming in this morning. I’m expecting him in the next few minutes. And no, I’m not sure who notified him. Someone from the sheriff’s department, I should imagine.”
Another pause. “No, I’m really not involved in all that. I release the body to the mortuary. After that, it’s up to the family to handle things from there.”
There was another long silence on the medical examiner’s part. Joanna couldn’t make out any of the words, but the angry
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buzz of Edith Mossman’s shrill voice hummed through the telephone receiver and out into the room.
“Really, Mrs. Mossman, that’s not up to me. You’ll need to discuss it with Norm Higgins and with your son. I’m sure if you’ll just sit down and talk, you and he will be able to sort all this out-“
Suddenly, a dial tone replaced the sound of Edith Mossman’s voice.
“She hung up on me,” George said, staring first at the phone and then at Joanna.
“I don’t think she liked what you had to say.”
“No kidding! But it’s true. My job is to release the body to the mortuary. It’s up to the family to figure out who takes charge from there.”
“Mr. Mossman to see you,” Nell Long announced over the intercom.
“Saved by the bell,” George Winfield said, raising an eyebrow as he rose to greet the newcomer Nell Long showed into his office.
Somehow Joanna had expected there to be more to Eddie Mossman than what she saw.
He was a pint-size bantam rooster of man, only an inch or two taller than Joanna’s five feet four. Wiry and tanned, he had a bottle-brush mustache and piercing blue eyes. For some reason, he seemed familiar, even though Joanna doubted she had ever seen him before.
“Dr. Winfield?” Mossman asked.
George nodded. “That would be me,” he said. ‘And this,” he added, indicating Jo anna, “is Sheriff Joanna Brady.”
Edward Mossman wasn’t interested in pleasantries. ‘As I told you on the phone, I’m here for Carol’s body.”
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‘And as I told you on the phone, it hasn’t been released yet,” George returned evenly.
“I haven’t yet prepared the death certificate. When it’s finished, I’ll be releasing the body to Norm Higgins at Higgins Mortuary and Funeral Chapel. I believe your mother has already discussed arrangements with them. If you want to change those, you’ll have to discuss it with them and her.”
“I’ve already been to see Norm Higgins. Tried to, anyway. Since Mother has already made a deposit on those ‘arrangements,’ as you call them, no one at the Higgins outfit will give me the time of day. I want the body to go to someone else. I’ve contacted a mortuary over in Nogales that’s accustomed to transporting bodies in and out of Mexico. I want you to release Carol’s body to them.”
“I’m sure Norm Higgins could assist you with that as well,” George Winfield replied.
“In the meantime, I think it would be more to the point if you and your mother met and sorted this whole thing out before you involve some other mortuary in an already complicated situation. Your mother-“
“My mother’s an interfering old lady,” Ed Mossman said. “She has no right to usurp my authority like this. After all, I am Carol’s father. Doesn’t that give me some right to decide about things like this? And who the hell are you to say that I don’t?
If I have to go back there, find Carol,_and carry her out of here myself, my daughter’s body is coming back to Mexico with me. Understand?”
With that and still bristling with anger, Ed Mossman slammed his doubled-up fist on the top of George’s desk. The Tiffany crystal clock Eleanor had given her new husband as a wedding present skittered toward the edge of the desk. George caught it in time and returned it to its original place.
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Thinking things had gone far enough, Joanna stepped into the fray. “Excuse me, Mr.
Mossman,” she put in. “If you’ll allow me-“
“Allow you what? I believe I was speaking with Dr. Winfield here,” Mossman growled at her. “I don’t remember anyone asking for your opinion.”
