Heart of Ice

Chapter Twenty-five

Spokane

Casper Wilhelm had been Spokane County medical examiner for decades. So long that Emily Kenyon was sure he had to have been the ME when she was in high school, and she didn’t want to do the math on that one. Dr. Wilhelm was white haired, foul mouthed, and as brilliant as could be. His reputation outside of the region was so stellar that many thought there had to be something wrong with him because he’d never left for a bigger city.

“Hell,” he said, quite plainly at a conference in Chicago, “dead is dead. Doesn’t matter much where you live when you die. A body’s a damn body. I like Spokane. What’s more, my wife does.”

The ME’s assistant, a pretty young woman named Denise in a spotless white lab coat, offered coffee and Emily thanked her. She sipped it from a disposable cup and waited on the blue couch just outside Dr. Wilhelm’s door.

It was 8:45 A.M. When she called after Mandy’s body had been found, Dr. Wilhelm told her to be there at 8:30.

“Not a second later. We’ll start sharply.”

He’d said it with a short laugh. “You know, all autopsies start with something sharp—a scalpel.”

Emily resisted the eye roll at the time. “Yes, of course.”

“My grandson thinks it’s funny,” he said.

In reality, she didn’t think there was much to laugh at. A dead pregnant woman had been cracked out of the ice at Miller’s Marsh Pond. It was clear that she’d been murdered. No one ends up in a frozen lake in a sleeping bag in the middle of winter by accident.

All the while on the drive up, Emily considered every bit of the terror that Mandy had likely endured. She could see the young woman in her mind’s eye, battling the evil of a man who cared nothing for her life or the precious baby she carried. She could hear her voice as she screamed or begged.

I hear you, Mandy, she thought. We all do.

Dr. Wilhelm told her to be there sharply, but it seemed he was running late. She sat outside his office door, sipping on coffee Denise provided from a thermos carafe next to a counter crammed with medical supplies. She could hear his belly laugh as he talked with someone on the phone. Clearly, Dr. Wilhelm was a man who loved his work.

“Donut?” he said as he emerged from his office. “Denise! Get Sheriff Kenyon a goddamn donut to go with that lousy coffee of yours! I want one, too!”

He patted his protruding belly. “Like I need one more, you know.”

Emily took a donut, because to say she didn’t want one was akin to telling Santa to screw off.

“Delicious,” she said.

“Let’s get down to it. She’s prepped and on the table. Water’s running. Did you see Mr. Crawford?”

Emily looked puzzled. “When? I mean, not for a few days.”

The ME shrugged. “Half hour ago. Just before you arrived. He came in and did the ID.” The ME reached for a second—maybe a third—donut. Sugar rained on the floor and he pulverized it with his heel. “We tried to notify him that we might have found Mandy, but he wasn’t home.”

“But this hasn’t been on the news. Did you leave a message or something?”

Dr. Wilhelm swallowed his last bite. The man ate like a snapping turtle.

“Negative. He said he heard it on the scanner that a body had been found. He was sure it was Mandy. He drove up first thing. Denise almost decked him to get him to wait his turn. Wanted him to take a chill pill. Didn’t you, honey?”

Denise, a woman who a moment ago was a donut server, was a tough chick when she had to be.

“You got that right,” she said. “The prick went right around me and found her in two seconds flat. He didn’t want to follow procedure. Anyway, I don’t care. He ID’d her. Cried like a baby.”

The news surprised Emily.

“Really?”

“Yeah, you know the type. Big explosive sobs, followed by hacking and then the whole apology for being so ‘emotional.’ Jesus, the woman was his wife, pregnant with his baby. He had a right to fall apart.”

Emily hated Mitch Crawford, but she almost felt sorry for him just then. The way Denise described it, the fellow was distraught—as he ought to be.

“Did he say anything?”

“Yeah, you’ll love this. He says, ‘Why, Mandy? Why did you do this to me? I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.’”

Emily watched from the corner of her eye as Denise removed the pale gray drape that covered Mandy’s body. Although the baby had been removed, her abdomen was still distended.

“Do what?” she asked, suppressing the horror of what she was seeing. Somehow it helped to focus on anger at Mitch Crawford for something callous that he’d said, rather than the evil he’d done.

“I dunno. Die? But it bugged me that he seemed to blame her for doing something to him when she was laying there like a thawing turkey the day before Thanksgiving.”

“I know the guy. Enough said,” Emily said.