Working Stiff. Annelise Ryan

shape as a hammer—the weapon her drunken, jealous husband used to kill her.

      Izzy pauses to snap a few pictures with the digital camera, and then says, “Part of my job is determining the cause and manner of any suspicious deaths in the county, and only part of that is gleaned from the autopsy. There’s also investigative work that needs to be done at the scene of the death and afterward.”

      He sets the camera aside and folds his arms over his chest. “You know, your position here can go one of two ways. You can keep working as a morgue assistant, which is basically what you’re doing now, or you can function as a deputy coroner, which combines the morgue duties with investigative work. My last assistant had no training in forensics and no interest in learning it. He simply wanted to do his job and get out of here.”

      “I can’t imagine why,” I mutter, eyeing the body before us.

      “But you have an analytical mind and a strong curiosity. With a little training, you’d make a great investigator. And frankly, I could use the help. I think you should give it a try, go out with me a time or two and see what it’s like.”

      “You make it sound like a date.”

      He scoffs. “Yeah, like you would know.”

      I scowl at him. “Give me a break. It’s only been two months.”

      “And you’ve spent every minute of it hibernating in your cave.”

      “I’m healing.”

      “You’re wallowing.”

      “I am not.”

      “No? Then tell me how many pints of Ben & Jerry’s you’ve polished off in the past two weeks.”

      “Oh sure, make me measure in pints so the number will sound worse than it is.”

      “Okay,” he says, arching one eyebrow at me. “Have it your way. Tell me how many gallons of Ben & Jerry’s you’ve polished off in the past two weeks.”

      “Bite me, Itsy.”

      There’s one other thing Izzy and I have in common—a fondness for nicknames. Izzy’s real name is Izthak Rybarceski, a mouthful of syllables that even the most nimble linguists tend to stumble over. Hence the nickname, though even that gives him trouble at times. Because of his size there are some who insist on pronouncing it as Itsy, something that drives him up the wall.

      For me the problem is just a general loathing of my real name. I don’t know what the hell my mother was thinking when she chose it and even she has never used it. All my life I’ve been Mattie—the only place where my real name can be found is on my birth certificate—and that’s fine by me. Outside of my family, there are only a handful of people who know my real name, Izzy being one of them. So I have to be careful. If I pick on his name too much, he might turn the tables on me.

      “I don’t think I’d make a very good investigator,” I tell him, hoping to divert his attention away from my insult.

      “Sure you would. You’re a natural. You’re nosy as hell.”

      Now there’s a bullet item I can’t wait to put on my résumé.

      “At least give it a try,” he says with a sigh.

      “But I don’t know the first thing about crime scene investigation. Hell, I’ve only been doing this for two days.”

      “You’ll learn. Just like you’re learning here. Just like you learned when you started working in the OR. I’ll send you to some seminars and training programs. You’ll catch on.”

      I think about what he’s suggesting. We live in Sorenson, a small town in Wisconsin where the crime rate is low, longevity is high, and the obits frequently tell of octogenarians who die “unexpectedly.” Even with what might come in from the surrounding areas, which is mostly villages and farmland, I can’t imagine us getting that much business. After all, this is Wisconsin, the land of cheese, brown-eyed cows, apple-cheeked people, and old-fashioned values. The only reason we have a medical examiner in Sorenson is because Izzy happens to live here and we are the biggest city within a hundred-mile radius, which isn’t saying much, given that our population is only eleven thousand. So how often is a “suspicious” death going to occur? Still…

      I’m about to argue the point one more time when Izzy says, “Please? Will you just give it a try? For me?”

      Damn. His pleading face reminds me of what a good friend he’s been to me, especially lately. I owe him.

      “Okay, you win. I’ll give it a shot.”

      “Excellent!” he says. “Though perhaps a bad choice of words for our line of business.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me and I have to stifle a laugh, though not at his corny joke. At fifty-something, Izzy suffers from that wooly caterpillar thing that strikes so many men as they age. The hairs in his eyebrows are longer than many of those on his head, though there are a few in his ears and nose that look like they might catch up.

      Moments later, my humor is forgotten as I place Ingrid Swenson’s brain on my scale.

      Chapter 2

      I’m sitting in the small cottage I call home, reflecting on day number two of my new job. Invariably, my thoughts drift to David and I wonder if Karen Owenby is the woman Izzy saw visiting him. The mere mention of her name fills my mind with murderous thoughts, yet as bitter as my feelings toward Karen are, they’re nothing compared to what I feel toward David. His betrayal devastated me.

      After catching him in the act on that fateful night, I drove home, threw together some clothes, and fled the house so I wouldn’t have to face him again. But I didn’t know where to go. I briefly considered heading to my mother’s house, but realized that would be a big mistake. My mother is a lifelong prognosticator of gloom and doom, a modern-day Nostradamus. Five minutes with her can induce a severe case of depression in me even when I go into it on the highest of highs. And on the night in question, I was already as low as I cared to go.

      In addition to her role as the Great Depressor, Mom is also a professional hypochondriac. She’s a full-fledged, card-carrying, many-times-honored member of the Disease of the Month Club and revels in sharing her various aches, pains, and possible terminal diseases with David and me. She has a collection of medical reference books at home that the Harvard Medical School would envy, and getting a doctor into the family has been the pinnacle of her existence. I knew she’d never forgive me for letting David go. Nope, Mom was definitely out of the question.

      I then considered my sister, Desiree, who, after a childhood of sibling rivalry and creative tortures, has become my best friend. But Desi thinks of marriage as a sacred, inviolable institution. I feared she would try to convince me that mine was worth saving no matter how grim it had become and that I just might cave under the pressure. Or worse, I might say something about her marriage that I’d later regret. Not that her marriage is in trouble—as far as I know, it’s doing just fine. But I can’t stand Desi’s husband, Lucien. He’s a lawyer, a good thing I think, since he’s a walking, talking sexual harassment suit waiting to happen. Half the words coming out of his mouth sound like dialogue from a bad porn movie and he’s been known to pop a chubbie over anything that has, as he so indelicately puts it, “two pairs of lips.”

      Then there’s the matter of Desi’s two kids, Ethan and Erika, who sometimes seem like the perfect poster children for birth control. Erika is twelve, and if she isn’t actually the devil’s spawn, she does a damned good imitation. She’s weathering the hormonal storm of adolescence and is as emotionally stable as a crack addict quitting cold turkey. Desi doesn’t seem bothered by the wild outbursts, the sullen attitude, the constantly dyed hair, or the nose piercing. She says it’s just a phase, though personally, I think Erika is a by-product of the curse crazy old Mrs. Wilding cast on Desi back when we were kids and Desi peed in the old woman’s flower garden.

      Ethan on the other hand, could be a sweet kid—is a sweet kid, I suppose. He’s nine and still at an age where he’s