IT WAS A safe bet that on Monday morning my office would be buzzing with the news about Emmy Lee Barstow’s death. I didn’t want to miss a minute of that buzz, so after fortifying myself with some caffeine, I threw myself together and rushed up the well-worn marble steps of the Chimacam County Courthouse around seven-thirty.
Stepping onto the gold and black tile spanning the third-floor hallway, I noticed the sheriff’s deputy sitting outside Judge Witten’s courtroom glance at the ancient brass clock mounted above the front door. Stone-faced he gave me a subtle thumbs-up.
Yes, I’m capable of arriving to work early on rare occasion. I waved. “Good morning to you, too.”
I pushed open the oak door on the right and headed down a short, threadbare hallway. As usual, Patsy Faraday, the legal assistant sitting outside Chimacam County Prosecutor Frankie Rickard’s office like a sentry at her post, was efficiently clicking at her computer keyboard.
Her cool gaze shifted to me as I slowed to see if my boss was at her desk. “You’re here early.”
“I heard about what happened.” Mainly because I took a break from unpacking boxes to take Gram to church, where we sat next to the mother of the hotel maid who had discovered Emmy Lee Barstow’s body.
According to her daughter, an empty pill bottle had been found next to the bed, suggesting suicide.
I didn’t need Steve or Frankie to clue me in on what would happen next. After almost six months of working as one of Frankie’s deputy coroners, I knew the drill. An investigation would be launched to determine the cause of death.
“Thought that it might become a busy day,” I said, catching a glimpse of Frankie meeting with one of the criminal prosecutors in her office.
Such a meeting wasn’t an unusual occurrence and didn’t especially pique my interest this morning. “Has Karla come in yet?”
Karla Tate had been the county’s death investigation coordinator for the majority of the last ten years. One of the first things I learned after Frankie hired me was that nothing happened on a coroner’s case without it first passing Karla’s desk. Then, when some legwork was required, I’d get involved.
That was my thing—information gathering. Since I specialized in deception detection, she trusted me to conduct the majority of the interviews—the departmental grunt work needed when a relatively healthy person died outside of a doctor’s care. I’d then give my findings to Karla, she’d provide Frankie a report with our conclusions, and Frankie, the elected official who pulled double duty as the Chimacam County Prosecutor and Coroner, would then make the call as to cause of death.
I’d only worked a handful of official investigations, but this was a chain of command that I understood very well. And it had been made crystal clear that I was to stick to making the coffee and doing the filing until Karla or one of the senior staffers instructed me otherwise.
“She called in sick.” Patsy’s lips curled into a hint of a smirk. “I think you’ll be working with Shondra today.”
Shondra Alexander was the six foot tall, mocha-skinned deputy criminal prosecutor stepping out of Frankie’s office.
A former policewoman from Texas who joined the department after the first of the year, Shondra had impressed me as someone who was smart, driven, and disarmingly funny. But there was nothing disarming in the way her russet eyes were trained on me like twin laser cannons.
I immediately regretted coming into work early.
“Come with me,” Shondra said as she passed me, a blue file folder swinging from her hand.
Blue was the color used in the office to distinguish coroner’s cases from criminal cases. I didn’t need to guess whose particulars were listed inside the folder.
Laboring to keep pace with Shondra’s long strides, I followed her to her office, where she shut the door behind me.
After taking a seat behind her cluttered desk she gestured toward an upholstered chair. “Have a seat, Charmaine.”
Shondra drew in a breath and slowly released it while giving me a once-over. “I understand that you might know Emmy Lee Barstow.”
“I knew her.” Mainly from having waited tables over the years at my great-uncle Duke’s cafe.
“You’ve heard the news.”
I nodded.
“It’s always difficult when you know the deceased,” Shondra said, her tone softening. “But will you be able to compartmentalize your emotions and assist with the investigation into her death?”
I wasn’t sure why she was asking me this. Karla certainly wouldn’t have. It was a given in a town the size of Port Merritt that at least one of us would have known the subject of our investigation. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Good, because Karla Tate won’t be in today, and I have to be in front of Judge Witten in two hours. You know the expression, shit rolls downhill?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. “I had a sick kid when I got called out to the scene Saturday. Now I’ve also got a sick and cranky husband at home. While I knew I’d have to fill in as a deputy coroner now and again, and I’m willing to take point on this death investigation, what I don’t have time for today is hand-holding. Got it?”
She couldn’t have made herself more clear. “Got it.”
“Then let’s get started.” Shondra opened the file folder on the desk in front of her. “Emmy Lee Barstow. Forty-nine. Found in cabin number eight of the Crooked Lake Resort on State Route 17 at approximately twelve-ten, Saturday afternoon. As the deputy coroner on call I got notification from the sheriff’s deputy on scene around one.”
Around the same time that Steve got the call that his missing person had been found.
“Rigor was well-established throughout the body when I got there forty-five minutes later, so time of death occurred sometime Friday night after seven forty-eight, when the subject texted her husband an ‘I’m sorry’ message, or early Saturday morning. No sign of struggle. Some cash and credit cards in her wallet. Empty pill bottle found next to the body. No pharmacy label on the pill bottle so possible black market drugs. One pill recovered from the floor, imprint code indicating Oxycodone. Also an almost empty fifth of tequila—all taken as evidence by Detective Jim Pearson, who processed the scene.”
Black market drugs? Tequila? Health-conscious Emmy Lee Barstow? I’d never even seen her drink a cup of coffee.
“A patrolman found the subject’s car in the Chan’s House parking lot on 11th, but no one inside ever saw her, so it looks like she may have hooked up with someone there. The resort manager, Anita Stivek, said she rented the room to a white male in his thirties who drove a black SUV and paid with cash.” Shondra puckered her full lips. “Bogus name and address. No license plate. No distinguishing features—just a ball cap and blue jeans.
That could describe half the men I knew.
“The maid who found her didn’t see the guy or the car. Said there was no SUV in the lot when she got to work at nine. And the only other guest staying in those cabins said he never saw the guy, but he thought the SUV was fairly new and navy blue, so we’re not even agreeing on the color.”
Shondra slapped the file folder on the desk in front of me. “This has pictures from Saturday and my notes. Should be enough there for you to prepare a preliminary report after you get a statement from the husband.”
I reached for the blue folder. “You didn’t mention speaking to him.”
“He showed up a half hour after I did. Was pretty broken up. Kept saying that ‘she wouldn’t do this.’ Had to be restrained by your boyfriend.”
I inwardly cringed whenever someone used that word to describe Steve. At thirty-four, it seemed too high school-ish, too starry-eyed. I may have had stars in my eyes when I got married eight years ago, but as my grandfather used to tell me, experience was a good teacher, and I knew better now.
I also knew that it wouldn’t be wise to mention that I was aware that Steve had been there with Vernon. “I’m sure Mr. Barstow was in shock.”
“That was my take but get his statement. Talk to her friends. Maybe there were problems at home.”
In other words dig up some dirt. “Okay.”
I could almost smell the ugly pile of shit heading my way.
“So, you got this?” Shondra asked, her gaze fixed on her computer monitor. “‘Cause I have to get ready for court.”
“I got it.” I pushed out of my seat but paused at the door when I realized that she hadn’t said anything about an autopsy. “Do you want me to call Dr. Zuniga?”
Henry Zuniga was the semi-retired forensic pathologist based in Seattle that Chimacam and two other rural counties on the peninsula contracted with.
“Patsy already made the call. The autopsy’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay.” Things were moving quickly on the death of Emmy Lee Barstow.
“So, I’ll need that file back with your report by the end of the day.”
The end of the day!
I was wrong. A stinky pile of poo wasn’t heading my way. It was already here.
* * *
After brewing a pot of coffee, I sucked down a cup at my desk while I combed through Emmy Lee’s file. There wasn’t much there that Shondra’s debrief hadn’t covered. Mainly four disturbing pictures of a nude and disheveled Emmy Lee that I’d never be able to unsee. The witness accounts were concise; Shondra’s descriptions of the scene in clear block print almost clinical. In fact, the three handwritten pages torn from a spiral notebook read a lot like a textbook. Observation after observation, with the notable exception of the line written in one of the margins: Probable suicide.
Suicide? The vivacious Emmy Lee Barstow? I’d never seen her without a smile on her face. But could I say that I truly knew her? Based on what I’d just read, the answer was a resounding no.
I slipped the file folder into my tote bag. It was time to get some answers from the person who would have known Emmy Lee the best.