Free Cavanaugh Hero by Marie Ferrarella

crack.
    * * *
    Sergeant Holt’s autopsy had been completed by the time they arrived. Likewise, all the findings had been duly noted and recorded and were now waiting to be entered into a usable report.
    “The lab results aren’t in yet,” medical examiner Dr. Donald Forest, a short, pudgy man, who seemed to be counting the days to his retirement, told them. “I can’t tell you whether or not the officer was drugged yet, but I’m assuming so because there were no signs of a struggle evident.”
    For their benefit he reviewed his lack of findings. “No bruised knuckles, no skin beneath the nails. Death came from a single bullet, fired at close range. There was visible stippling around the wound so the gun was practically pressed up against his chest. And then there were the two staples in his chest,” he barely mentioned, “but those were done postmortem.”
    The medical examiner wasn’t telling them anything that she didn’t already know. She’d taken in the single wound and had already decided that most likely, Matt hadn’t been conscious when he was killed. He almost looked peaceful, not like someone fighting for his life.
    “His blood alcohol level will probably come back rather high,” she told Dr. Forest.
    “He had a drinking problem?” the medical examiner asked, curious.
    She had another way of wording it. “He had an ex-girlfriend problem which led to the alcohol problem. It wasn’t something that was going on in his life for a long time,” she told the older man. “He’s not—wasn’t—a diehard alcoholic,” she said, correcting herself again. God, but it was going to be hard, thinking of Matt in the past tense.
    The M.E. nodded as if he had expected the answer. “I didn’t think so. His liver was in very good condition. Most likely in far better shape than mine is,” he murmured.
    “Text me the lab results as soon as you get them,” Declan encouraged the medical examiner.
    Forest gave him a rather withering, impatient look. “I don’t text, Detective,” he informed him. “I do, however, use the phone and I’ll have someone here call you when I get the tests back.”
    Declan nodded. He couldn’t ask for more than that. “Thanks.”
    A few more words were exchanged between them and then Declan took his leave, as did Charley.
    Once they were back in the corridor, away from the drawers with their resident dead and breathing air that was relatively untainted with the smell of chemicals, he looked at the woman beside him. “You’re not green,” he marveled.
    Charley wasn’t going to point out the obvious, that there had been no disjointed body in view to cause her stomach to upheave. “Disappointed?”
    “Just surprised,” he corrected, then he shared a piece of his history with her. “I threw up the first time I came into Autopsy. Of course, the M.E. was right in the middle of performing one and he had a brain in his hand when he turned toward me. It was like a really gross scene out of Frankenstein . Not my all-time favorite movie,” he confided.
    “The original version isn’t bad. It’s melodramatic enough to be funny,” she said matter-of-factly.
    Her response surprised him. There was a lot about Charley Randolph that surprised him. “Old-movie buff?” he asked. He wouldn’t have picked her to be one.
    “Partially,” she amended. She hadn’t been, not really. It was Matt who used to get a kick out of the movies that were generally referred to as “classics.” He would bring home a bunch of old movies that he found in the old video shop on Friday nights and they’d spend the weekend eating popcorn, watching old movies and taking them apart. And when it came to trivia about those old films, he beat her hands-down every time.
    Charley could feel it again, could feel her throat threatening to close off, clogged with tears again. She did her best to shake off the sensation, occupying her mind with the details of the case and praying that they would, somehow, lead