Free No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella by Barbara Seranella Page A

business hours, another for emergencies, and a third for 5:00
RM. to 8:00 A.M. on weeknights, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. She
dialed the last number.
    "L.A. County"
    "Is this the morgue?"'
    "We are not a morgue," a man's voice
informed her. "We are the Coroner's Office of Los Angeles
County"
    "Oh," she said, not quite sure what the big
difference was. "I just wanted to check your hours. Are you
open?"
    "Not to the public."
    Of course, she thought, they wouldn't let just anyone
in there.
    "I'm not exactly the public," she said,
stopping short of saying that she was missing a family member. That
wouldn't work. He'd want to know the name of her missing relative,
how long he had been missing, and if she'd filed a missing persons
report. Understandably the coroner might also want to know why she
thought her relative might be dead and at his facility
    "Are you with the CSI class that's coming here
this afternoon?" he asked.
    She hesitated only a second. "Yeah, when is
that?" It was only a teeny lie, she decided, but one that might
get her inside if it came to that.
    "Don't you have your sheet?" he asked.
    "No, uh, sorry I don't have it."
    "Great. It's today at four. I suppose you've
lost your parking pass as well." She could almost see him
shaking his head.
    "If it was with the sheet then I don't have it,"
she said truthfully
    "And you want to have a career in law
enforcement?"
    "It's my dream," she said.
    "Just get here, but you'll have to park in the
public parking lot."
    "I don't mind. Will we be viewing bodies?"
    "Yeah, we got a full house for you guys."
    "Great. I'll be there."
    She hung up the phone and remembered to breathe. Then
she made a third call.
    When Danielle answered, Munch told her that her
errand was going to keep her tied up for most of the morning and
possibly the afternoon.
    "Are you all right?" Danielle asked. 'You
sound funny"
    "Yeah, I'm fine," she said and cleared her
throat as if that would diminish the weight of the unsaid words
there.
    They said their goodbyes and hung up. Munch went to
her closet and looked over her limited wardrobe. What was the
well-dressed student criminalist wearing these days? She picked out a
pair of camel-colored slacks and a flowered blouse and draped them
over a chair in her bedroom.
    She spent the rest of the morning doing busy-work
around her apartment. At two-thirty she put away her tools and
changed her clothes.
    Her hair was straight again after last evenings bath;
she pulled the top half back into a ponytail, letting the rest fall
softly around her ears. Danielle had had Munch buy all sorts of
makeup, most of which sat in her drawer unopened. The lipstick that
Danielle had picked out for her had felt too conspicuous when Munch
had put it on alone in her bathroom. Without Danielle's brazenness
for encouragement, she had been unable to leave her house until she
wiped all of it off. Now she applied it carefully as well as the eye
shadow, blush, and blue mascara.
    She found a pair of pumps that almost matched the
pants. But her hands, she realized, definitely didn't go with the
outfit. If she was wearing her work coveralls, they'd be fine, but
now they just looked dirty She dug out a pair of soft leather driving
gloves from her dresser and slipped them on, wincing as they chafed
against her numerous cuts and split cuticles. Before she left the
house, she grabbed her notebook off the kitchen table, thinking that
this added prop would make her look more scholarly
    The building that housed the Coroner's Office of Los
Angeles County was on the eastern fringe of downtown Los Angeles. The
entrance of the building was at the top of a small hill, and as Munch
stood in the lobby reading the directory by the elevator, she
realized she was on the third floor.
    "Can I help you?" the security guard asked.
    "Oh," she said, startled. For a moment, the
presence of a uniform shook her nerve. How illegal was it, she
wondered, to sneak into a morgue? " was looking for the CSI
class," she