“Er…”
“Yes or no?” she pushes. “Either way, there should’ve been a report. What about post-mortem indicators?”
Because he has no answer, Fletch sets his hands in his pockets and flattens his lips. “She died upon impact. Emergency services arrived approximately eleven minutes later, which means, by the time they got there, she’d been dead for approximately eleven minutes.”
“Do you often assume, Detective Fletcher?” Haughty now, Minka picks up the report and passes it to her second. “What else is missing?”
“Uhhh…” Aubree scans for a fast minute, then searches the desk for more. “What else was in the M.E. file?”
“That’s it,” I answer. “That’s all there was.”
“So no death scene photographs? You said she was slumped over, seatbelt on. But where are the photos proving it?”
“Turns me on when you’re smart,” Minka murmurs playfully. Bringing her gaze back to me, she concludes, colder now, “Your file is incomplete. Which means either you’re simply missing half of a storage box, or your M.E. was lazy as hell and ran only what they were told to.”
“So, they ran tox,” I muse. “Which is kinda advanced information. But they missed the easy stuff?”
“Not easy.Fundamental,” she clarifies. “What’s the first thing Aubree does when she steps onto a scene?”
Fletch throws his hand in the air like an eager student. “She pulls out her handy dandy camera.”
“Gold star for Detective Fletcher,” Minka grins. “This case might’ve happened more than thirty years ago, but even then, the commercial camera was over a hundred years old. Which means this coroner should’ve taken photos for his file. Additionally, just because Holly crashed eleven minutes prior to the cops arriving on scene doesnotmean she died eleven minutes prior. The fact she was belted in and slumped over leads me to wonder if she was under the influence, asleep at the wheel, or already dead before the truck and car collided.”
“All of which fly in the face of the other cops calling it suicide,” Aubree adds arrogantly.
“So you’re saying she was out?” Fletch challenges. “She was already asleep, unconscious, or dead before she hit?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying without appropriate case files, you can’t know for sure. She was driving along the wrong highway, in the wrong direction. She was supposedly happy only three hours earlier. Working. Spending time with Shirley. She’s on all these meds, but M.E. says she was low on prescribed Lithium. Your initial thoughts, as well as those of the original investigating detectives, are that the absence of her mood stabilizers sent her mental health into a tailspin.
“Many sufferers of bipolar disorder, when they’re manic, have been documented to strip down naked, go for a swim… that sort of thing. Getting in her car after a perfectly standard late shift at a diner and driving hours in the wrong direction could be Holly’s version of whatever the hell was going on. But like I said, without all the files, you don’t know shit. Without those, I don’t know if you can solve this case unless you dig up the bones.”
Fletch chews on his bottom lip. “You’re still gunning for exhumation?”
“Gunning?” She crosses her legs and clasps her hands in her lap. “Never. Bringing a body up requires significant manpower, red tape, and trauma, not only for the remaining family, but the deceased themselves. I never advocate for exhumation if I can help it. But in this case, it might be the only way you can see for yourself what happened. Where’s the vehicle diagram?”
“Mink—”
“Evidence log? Did they pullanythingfrom the vehicle that may aid your investigation? Beer bottles? A bag of weed?”
“No.”
“Did they test the vehicle for trace evidence? Blood? Hair? Any liquid whatsoever?”
“No!” Fletch cracks under her inquiry. “They don’t have any of that shit. Jesus.” He glares down at me. “She’s like a fuckin’ bulldog.”
“Yuh.” I twist back to the front and grin when I meet my wife’s determined eyes. “I know.”
“Right now,” she goes on, “you have an old, incomplete file and three…” she stops to look at Fletch. “Three?”
At his reluctant nod, she continues, “Photographs, plus a couple of newspaper clippings. And you have a woman who died; whether of her own accord, a result of her mental illness, or otherwise.”
“We also have her former husband who, we’re quite certain,” I add, “genuinely loved her. And we’ve got Holly’s sister, who claims Henry Wade is the reason Holly is dead.”
“So… you’ve got a mystery to solve, gang. Would you like to borrow pens and scrap paper from my office, so we know the cops will be more thorough this time?”
“Har-har.” Stepping forward with a roll of his eyes, Fletch snatches up the single, lonely medical examiner’s report so the paper makes acrackingnoise. “You act like I was the incompetent jockstrap who screwed this up.” He slaps the sheet inside a manila folder and glares. “I’m the guy trying to fix it.”
“And I’m the bulldog medical examiner you officially requested for the case. If you wanted someone with softer hands, you should’ve asked for Doctor Kirk.”