A Long December (16 page)

Interesting. “Ten-four. What’s the nature of the call, Comm?”

“I’ll ten-twenty-one,” she said, and a few seconds later my cell phone rang.

“Yo!”

“Houseman, it’s your lucky day.”

“Uh-oh. What’s he got?”

“Unattended death,” Sally replied.

In Iowa, the sheriff’s department is required to investigate all unattended deaths, to make sure they aren’t crimes. An unattended death is one where a person dies without being under medical supervision for the thirty-six hours preceding their demise, unless they’re prediagnosed as terminal. Then it’s thirty days. We call it the 36/30 rule. If there’s any doubt, call the sheriff. We have to go, even though ninety-nine percent of them are old-age-related. It’s reasonable, really. Just time-consuming.

“Shit. Okay, where is it? “This was going to require a complete and thorough report, too. Just when I didn’t need it.

“He gives an address of two-oh-six Jefferson, in Battenberg,” she said. “It’s a…”

“We were just there,” I said, cutting her off. “There was nobody home.”

“Well,” said Sally, “in a way, that’s probably true.”

When we got back to 206 Jefferson, we met with Chief Norm Vincent, who was standing in the driveway. He was also beginning to look rather harried.

“What we got here, Norm?”

“It’s a deader, Carl. Sounds natural to me. I told your dispatch that I’d take the call, but they said that you have to do it.”

“Yep. Thanks for the offer.” Norm knew the sheriff’s department had to do it, so it had been an easy gesture on his part, but one that was well-meant. These little things count. “So, what happened?”

“You know why so many of the Mexicans left and all? Well, one of’em was sick, I guess, and they called a social worker and told her about it, and she came to check up on him, and found him dead.”

I looked at the porch and saw Myra Gunderson talking to a young, dark-haired woman I didn’t know. “That the social worker with Mrs. Gunderson?”

“Yeah. Name’s Sarah Deitzenbach. Oh, and I called the ambulance just before you got here. Figured we’d need it.”

“You been in the house to see the body? “I asked.

“No. I wouldn’t want to mess anything up.” He wasn’t being sarcastic. If he’d ‘messed anything up,’ it could cost him a long report, as well. It was typical of him to say it looked natural without having actually observed the body, too. Sloppy, but well intentioned. It was worth a lot of effort to keep him off the stand.

“Okay. So nobody has pronounced anybody dead yet, right?”

“Not as far as I know, Carl.”

“Then I’m glad you called the ambulance and not a hearse.” With that, I headed for the porch while Hester and Norm made some small talk. Hester, being a state officer, wasn’t required at an unattended death. Lucky her.

As I approached Sarah, it occurred to me that she was my last hope of getting out of a lengthy report. If she knew that the deceased had been under any medical care, including an ER visit, I was off the hook.

“Hi, my name’s Houseman. I’m a deputy sheriff here in Nation County. You’re Sarah Deitzenbach?”

“Yes.”

“You found the deceased?”

“I did.” She sounded a little defiant.

“You okay?”

“Yes, of course. Fine.”

“Could you lead me to the body?”

“Sure. You know,” she said, once we were inside the house, “this is all so senseless. If they weren’t so afraid they’d be deported, they’d go to the hospital or the clinic.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.

“Poor Orejas,” she said. “I guess they thought it was the flu.”

“Orejas? Sonofabitch.” I only knew of one Orejas.

“Yes. Well, that’s not his real name, really. It’s just what his friends call him.”

“Was his real name Jose Gonzales? By any chance?”

Sarah turned on the stair, and I almost ran over her. “Yes. It was. Do you know him?”

“Not yet,” I said as I turned and headed back down the stairway.

Hester and I followed Sarah back up the stairs, down a dingy hallway, and into a very small room that had probably been occupied by an infant child in the heyday of the old house. Now it contained one cot, one card table, two folding chairs, an album cover poster of a beautiful woman that said
“Todos Mis Exitos
—Selena,” and one body.

He was curled up in the bed the furthest from the door, next to the window. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt, socks, and a stocking cap pulled down to, but not over, his large, protruding ears. It probably got cold at night in the drafty place. He was half rolled up in an old army blanket. He looked pretty ugly, with his mouth hanging open, liquid on the pillow, and vomit on the floor and in a big dog-food bowl by the side of his bed. He’d tried not to make a mess, but had probably been too weak to get up.

I reached into my jacket pocket and got out a pair of latex gloves. The snap as they went on was the only sound in the room. Gingerly, I reached out and touched his neck. No carotid pulse presented itself. His lips were a bluish tint. His eyes were wide open, and as I shaded each of them in turn with my hand, the pupils didn’t change at all. Fixed and dilated, as they say. It wasn’t as if there was any question in my mind that he was dead, but you learn to check for the obvious signs in case you end up in court. I tried to move his left arm. It was stiff as a board. Rigor had set into the major muscles. At room temperature, that meant he’d been dead a minimum of twelve hours. I couldn’t tell closer than that.

I lifted the blanket back and off the body and pulled up his sweatshirt. There was a purplish mottling on the right, or down side of the body. It was postmortem lividity. It’s produced when the blood seeks the lowest level after the heart stops. After about an hour or so of the blood clotting in the capillaries, it becomes irreversible, so it’s a fairly good way to tell if a body has been moved after death. There was also a strong odor of feces. Either diarrhea or a post-mortem evacuation. I figured I’d leave that to the doc. There were no indications of foul play that I could see, meaning that there were no gunshot wounds or knives left in the victim. I noticed that there appeared to be a billfold in his right hip pocket. I reached in and removed it. Opened, it revealed a plant employee card in the name of Jose Gonzales. I was still willing to bet that wasn’t his real name, but he did have documentation. He had a Social Security card, and I wrote the number down. It looked familiar. There was a photo of Jennifer Lopez that looked like it might have come with the billfold, and a small Roman Catholic prayer card in what looked to me like Latin or Spanish. Three dollars completed the inventory. I laid the billfold on his hip, because I’d noticed some liquid still escaping his mouth when I’d half-rolled him over to retrieve it from the rear. No point in creating more of a mess than necessary. The funeral director would hold it for next of kin.

I straightened up and looked at Hester. “Natural causes, so far. No idea what they might be, though. He sure looks like Orejas,” I said.

Sarah, who had averted her gaze while I’d checked the body out, spoke up. “I thought you didn’t know him?”

“I’ve seen his picture,” I said. “So, how well did you know him?”

“I met him when his cousin applied for food stamps,” she said. “He was a pretty good kid, I think.”

I was doing a cursory visual search of the room, and I noticed three items that stood out. “That’s what I heard about him,” I said absently. The first item was a small bag of a green, leafy substance. “He seemed to be pretty benign.” The second was a spray can with no label, and it only caught my eye because it was bright silver. Both were on top of an empty gym bag near the head of his bed. Probably hairspray. The paper labels frequently get removed, especially if the can is shoplifted. “He didn’t have any record with us, anyway.” The third item was a very nice Stetson, obviously the one in the wedding photos. It was hung carefully on a hook on the back of the door.

“How long had he been sick? “asked Hester.

“I don’t really know,” said Sarah. “His cousin stopped by yesterday afternoon and asked me to check on him around noontime today.” She sighed, and her voice sounded flat. “I got stuck with a house call on a client in the country. I was late.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” I told her. “He looks to have been dead for at least twelve hours.” I snapped off my gloves and tossed them into a brown cardboard box that was obviously being used as a wastebasket. “I’m going to get my camera and take a few shots, just for the record.”

I was almost out of the room when I turned and asked, “Can I have the name of his cousin? We need to know how long he’d been ill.”

“Sure, it’s Baldomero Gallegos.”

“He live here?”

“Yes. Number six.”

“Thanks,” I said, heading down the stairs. Another witness to find and interview. Things were beginning to pile up.

Hester and Sarah followed me down the stairs.

Once in the car, I got the camera bag and did a check through my notes from the morning. Sure as hell.

I headed back into the house, got back to Hester, and motioned her aside. “Wanna hear somethin’ neat?”

“Sure.”

“The deceased Jose Gonzales up there has the same SSN as the late Rudy Cueva.”

“Well, damn,” said Hester. “Fascinating.”

I grinned. “You think they’re related? “It was an old cop joke.

She smiled back. “Just close enough to shop for documents together.”

I did about a half dozen photos of the late “Jose Gonzales,” or whatever his name actually was. I then did an “around the room” pan, snapping the photos as soon as the viewfinder stopped at the edge of the last shot.

I heard a noise under the cot. My first thought was rats. I took the little mini-Mag flashlight out of the camera bag and said, “You better not be gnawing on my body, here…” as I lit up the floor beneath the bed. “Damn,” I said. It wasn’t a rat. It was a little beagle, about a year old or less, lying very still and looking at me with those unique beagle eyes. “Who’re you? “I knelt down and held out my hand. “Come on, it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you…”

“Houseman, who are you talking to? “asked Hester from the hallway.

“Come on in, look what I found,” I said, not taking my eyes off the dog. “That’s a good boy, come on…”

He began to wag his tail, causing a soft thumping on the floor. Hester knelt beside me and was a goner from the first instant she laid eyes on him.

“He’s adorable!”

He was also pretty frightened, and pretty reluctant to come out from under his late owner’s cot. Well, for me, anyway. I was about to caution Hester about getting bitten when she reached her hand out and the little dog came right to her and started licking her hand and wagging his tail so hard that I thought he was going to torque himself right off his feet.

We took the dog downstairs with us and took him to Myra Gunderson, who was still standing on the front porch, trying to find out what she could about what was going on inside.

As soon as she saw the dog, she said, “Where did you get that?” She didn’t sound too happy.

“Up in Jose Gonzales’s room,” I told her. “Do you know anybody who can take care of him until some of his friends get back?”

“We don’t allow dogs. I don’t want it. Have it put to sleep.”

I wasn’t about to do that. “You don’t know anybody who will take his dog?”

“No.”

“What about his cousin?” suggested Hester.

“Baldomero? He can’t have it in that house, either.”

My next thought was to give the little fellow to Sarah, but she informed us that she had four cats at home, and her husband wouldn’t put up with a little dog to boot.

I ended up putting two garbage bags in the backseat of my car and explaining to the little dog that if he made a mess, we’d feed him to the prisoners. He seemed to accept the terms.

As I said to Hester, the upshot was, we were now deprived of a witness, maybe the best witness, who might have been able to enlighten us regarding Rudy Cueva.

“You’re probably right.”

I suspected Jose Gonzales had probably died of natural causes that had been left untreated because he was afraid that the local clinic would have to contact the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and he’d be deported. We’d tried to dispel that rumor by explaining that medical confidentiality would prevent the INS from being notified, but it just didn’t seem to take. I said that to Hester, too.

“Right, again.”

And, just to top things off, we’d inherited a dog. I said that, too. I looked over at Hester, who reached into the backseat and brought the puppy up to the front seat with her. “Aren’t you so cute,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Not you, Houseman. You’re just grumpy.”

“Hmmm.”

“What should we name him?”

“Hold on, there, Hester. You name ‘em, you own ‘em forever.”

She was holding the little beagle up in front of her face. “He’s got such big, floppy ears. Don’t you? Don’t you? Yes. Hey, maybe we should call him Big Ears.”

“You’re doomed. That’s now your dog.”

It didn’t seem to bother her a bit. Not even when she said, a few seconds later, “One little problem…”

“Oh?”

“I’d be glad to take him tonight, but they don’t allow dogs at the motel.”

Hester, like all DCI agents who stayed on a case in Nation County, had to grab a motel. The nearest agent actually lived in Waterloo, about seventy-five miles away, and after putting in a long day, nobody wanted to do what amounted to a minimum of a hundred-and-fifty-mile commute.

“I’m not taking him home,” I told her. “Hell, we don’t even know if he’s housebroken.”

“I was thinking the coram center at the jail,” she said. “There’s somebody awake there all night, and they could watch him for me.”

“Lamar’s gonna hate that.”

“Oh, Lamar will be just fine. Trust me,” she said.

As it turned out, Sally and a new dispatcher named Pam fell just as hard for Big Ears as Hester had. It was easy to see how. The damned dog charmed the socks off the whole bunch in seconds. They even prevailed upon me to go to the Pronto Market and get dog food for it.

“Treats,” said Pam. “Don’t forget treats.”