“Oh?”
Pete didn’t elaborate but couldn’t help thinking the late coroner would’ve been fascinated by the serial killer theory.
Astute enough to realize Pete had said all he was going to, Graley folded her arms. “When can I take a look at the evidence?”
Pete’s opinion of Graley sank. “When are you going to tell me what you have on your DLK?”
Again, she considered the request. “Let’s not waste any more of each other’s time than necessary. I’ll tell you what we have while you show me the murder weapon.”
The sooner she examined the gun and anything else that might prove or disprove Landis’ serial killer theory, the sooner she’d be out of Monongahela County and back at the FBI Headquarters in Pittsburgh. He picked up his phone. “Let me make a call.”
A weary-sounding Abby answered on the second ring.
“Did I wake you?” Pete asked.
“Not really.”
He reconsidered what he was about to request.
“What do you need, Chief?”
“Never mind. You need your sleep.”
“That’s not gonna happen anyway. Why’d you call? Do you need me to come in?”
He eyed Graley who was studying him. “I wondered if you’d be interested in working the rest of my day shift this afternoon so I can take care of some business in Brunswick,” he said to Abby. Then he added, “Instead of your midnight shift.”
She didn’t jump on the offer as quickly as he’d expected. Perhaps she and Seth had patched up their differences. Pete winced. Maybe Seth was the reason Abby wasn’t sleeping. Had Pete interrupted something else?
“I’d be short hours,” she said after a few moments.
Oh. “You can double up with Kevin for part of second shift to make up your time.”
The reply was immediate. “Okay. I can be there in a half hour.”
Pete thanked her and hung up. Graley continued to watch him. “My relief will be here in thirty minutes. Why don’t you go ahead to Brunswick, grab some lunch, and meet me at County Police HQ in an hour.”
She gave a quick nod. “One hour. Got it.”
After Graley left, Pete leaned back. He’d make sure the agent got her access to the evidence room, demand to know what the FBI had learned about the Deserted Lot Killer, and then head over to the hospital.
Zoe draped her arm around Paulette’s shoulders, the secretary’s soft weeping the only sound in the hospital room. No pinging of monitors. No yelping alarms. And since the nurse had closed the door to give the women some privacy, even the extraneous chatter from the hallway was muffled to near silence.
Franklin’s pale body lay in the bed where he’d died, his eyes closed. Zoe imagined hearing him comment on how the odds of the deceased’s eyes being open or closed were fifty/fifty. How could it be that she’d never hear his pearls of morbid wisdom ever again?
A sheet covered him from the chest down, round EKG pads still stuck to him. The machines had been shut off. Someone had done a quick cleanup of the debris that occurs when doctors and nurses attempt to save a life. Zoe noticed a ripped paper wrapper from a syringe sticking out from under the bed, evidence of the failed effort.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Paulette said through the tissue pressed to her mouth. Then she huffed a tear-soaked laugh. “How many times have I heard that line? Everyone says it, don’t they?”
Zoe rubbed the secretary’s arm. Words formed in her brain, made it to the back of her tongue, and dissolved before she could speak them. None felt adequate.
And as Paulette pointed out, they all sounded cliché, especially when referring to a man who’d been around death his entire life.
Paulette sniffled and looked up at Zoe. “You’re the county coroner now.”
Zoe had been tossing around titles for the last few months. Chief deputy coroner. Acting coroner. Now, all the qualifiers fell away. Who was it who’d said, “The buck stops here”? She exhaled long and deliberate. The caseload now stopped at her doorstep.
A soft knock on the door drew her attention. A nurse, the same sad faced one who’d greeted her and Paulette when they arrived, poked her head in. “Is there anything I can get you ladies?” she asked, her voice soft, respectful. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”
Zoe looked at Paulette who gave a quick shake of her head. “No. Thank you,” Zoe told the nurse. You’re now the county coroner. “But I’d like to talk to you if you have the time.”
“Sure.” The nurse glanced at Paulette whose gaze remained glued on Franklin. “Here?”
“No.” Zoe rubbed Paulette’s arm again. “Will you be all right for a few minutes?”
“Yes, of course.” Paulette lowered her soggy tissue and lifted her eyes to Zoe’s. “You take care of business. It’s what he’d want.”
It was what he’d insist. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
Zoe headed for the door, stopping to grab the notebook she’d started carrying. In the hall, the nurse—her name badge said Dorian—stood next to the wall, out of the way of traffic. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her scrubs’ smock top. “How can I help you?”
“I’m—” Zoe couldn’t say the word coroner without the modifier yet. “—the acting Monongahela County coroner—”
“I know.”
“I need to know what happened.”
Dorian’s posture stiffened. “As his friend or officially?”
Zoe hesitated. “Both.”
“I can speak with you as Mr. Marshall’s friend. However, he died here in the hospital, which puts it outside of the coroner’s office jurisdiction.”
“Mr. Marshall was the coroner’s office,” Zoe pointed out, although she knew the nurse was fully aware of Franklin’s identity.
Dorian lowered her gaze. “The hospital administrators have already been on the phone with us about this. His death was a result of complications from diabetes, and therefore does not meet the criteria of suspicious or unnatural to fall into the coroner’s jurisdiction.” She sounded like she’d memorized a prepared statement.
Zoe eyed the woman but heard Franklin’s voice in her head. Choose your battles. Or in this case, she needed
