Switchback. Ch14 pt2

Josh Spooner pulled up on the morgue’s car park and climbed from the second Cherokee they’d brought with them from Putnam County. He walked around and opened the door for his Pa who twisted in his seat and planted both feet on the ground, he pushed himself upright, put his hat on, settled it, pulled down the front.

          The morgue had a dark-brown, almost black facade that looked to have been rendered to the brickwork over a lifetime ago. Just one storey and about one-hundred feet in length, it had four narrow horizontal windows glazed with defused glass tiles, two on the left, a door, then two on the right.

          ‘Mind if I sit this one out, Pa? Can’t say I like the smell of these places much.’

          Spooner turned. ‘Did I sit-out scrapin’ the shit from your ass after your ma walked out on us?’

          ‘No, sir’

          ‘Then come on.’

          Spooner pulled open the door to a dim reception area that felt as claustrophobic to him as a phone booth. Formaldehyde fumes were present in the humid space and made the air heavy to breathe. He heard a “Eurk” sound come from behind and turned to see his son retreat out the door. He shook his head, he’d never liked the smell much either, but he preferred it to the scent of a rotting corpse.

          On the floor were cheap cord tiles and fake pine panelling covered the walls. A sliding misted reception window faced him with a door to its right. A bell you ding with the palm of your hand –like those in many roadside motels– rested on the ledge at the bottom of the window, he hit it three times. The third ding started to fade as the window slid open.

          A young girl, maybe seventeen with dyed blue hair and a stud under her lower lip, smiled at him. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Are you here about the break-in?’

          Spooner removed his hat. ‘Yes, miss, is Mr Granger around?’

          She lifted the phone, dabbed three digits. ‘Mr Granger, you have a gentleman here from the County Sheriff’s Office about−. He’s on his way.’

          Spooner saw a short, weasel-faced man in a white lab coat and John Lennon specs open an inner door and then the outer to reception. A paper mask had been moved from his mouth to his forehead and a cotton-wool stopper had been stuffed in each of his nostrils. His voice was thin and nasal.

          ‘What the hell took you so damn long?’ he said. ‘You think I got nothin’ better to do than wait around all damn day?’

          ‘Control the cussin’, Mr Granger, there’s a young lady present.’

          ‘Screw my cussin’, and screw you, Spooner. I called you first thing this morning and you turn up half a damn day later?’

          ‘We’ve been busy,’ he said. ‘A simple break-in is low priority right now.’

          ‘You fellas and your damn prioritising, it’s no damn wonder this town is in the shit state it’s in. This way,’ he said, and hurried ahead.

          Spooner gave the receptionist a thank you nod and followed Granger through both doors into an oblong room where the temperature was at least twenty degrees colder. The smell of formaldehyde was still present, but due to the blackened charred remains of what might have been Dorothy Winkle lying on an aluminium bed in the centre of the room, so was the smell of scorched flesh. Her form inhuman, arms bent at the elbows, no fingers, knees pulled up tight, no feet.

          ‘It’s them damn Howler boys, I tell ya. Breaking in here and moving things around thinking it’s some kinda big joke. Shoulda been strangled at birth every damn one of ‘em. The sheriff had the right idea, shoot the fuckers, best way.’ He held out a box of cotton-wool stoppers.

          ‘I’m good,’ said Spooner.

          Granger shrugged, put down the box. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

          Broken glass fragments crunched underfoot as they walked a short corridor to the rear entrance.

          ‘There, smashed the damn window they did.’

          Spooner looked just below the window. ‘Do you always leave the key in the lock, Mr Granger?’

          ‘Yes, what’s the point in removing it?’

          ‘Well I think your insurance broker would probably tell you it’s to lessen the chance of a break-in, and in this particular case, a break-in they’re not going to cover you for.’

          Granger smiled, and, all-of-a-sudden coy, removed the key from its hole. ‘Well then, Mr Spooner, I mean Abe, may I call you Abe.’

          ‘Look, Granger, I don’t care what kinda bullshit you tell your insurance broker, because right now it stinks in here and I’m freezin’ my ass off, and quite frankly you’re beginning to nauseate me more than that little old lady in there. Now, tell me what was stolen so I can get back to the more important issues I need to deal with.’

          ‘That’s the thing, nothing was stolen.’

          ‘Absolutely nothing?’

          ‘Absolutely, but those Howler boys have pushed me a step too far.’

          ‘Stop blaming the Howler’s, you don’t know it was them.’

          He pointed. ‘Well do you know who else would find it amusing to move a child’s body from one drawer to another?’

          Spooner was silent, looked back into the room they’d just come from.

          ‘Here, I’ll show you,’ said Granger.

          Dorothy Winkle was still smelling and still waiting patiently on the aluminium bed when Granger pulled open one of the cadaver drawers, an empty one.

          ‘When I left to go home last night, this drawer held a little girl’s body’ He pulled open another. ‘I come in this morning and I find her in here. That’s how I discovered the break-in.’

          ‘Are you sure about this?’

          Granger went to a desk and took a file folder from one of its drawers. ‘According to my records, drawer B-two held the body of Elizabeth Ferris, cause of death, suspected drowning. That’s the empty one in front of you.’

          From his current position, Spooner could see photographs of the little girl Granger spoke of in the folder he held. She had been where Dorothy Winkle now lay when the pictures were taken. He looked inside drawer B-two at the empty space and across to B-one to see the covered form of the child.

          ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Don’t touch another thing in here until it’s been dusted for prints.’

          ‘That would be a waste of time, I wipe everything down first thing every day and last thing every night, always have.’

          Spooner sighed. ‘Then it’s pointless me going to see the Howler boys because unless they admit to breaking in here, I’ll have nothing on them.’

          ‘But what about the damage that’s been done to my damn door? Someone has to pay for that.’

          Spooner put his hat on, settled it, pulled down the front. ‘Call your insurance broker, Mr Granger.’