Document of Expectations

Monday, 6:00 p.m.

115 “Did he talk about it with tony?” “no. i mean, tony never said he did. i don’t know why he would. there’s no publicity about it all. Very hush-hush.” she scratched Balto’s head. “Like i said, it doesn’t matter anymore.” “no, professor Badger,” disagreed monique, “i think you’re wrong about that.” monDaY, 6:00 p.m. monique and clarke returned to her vehicle. monique drove for a while in silence while clarke held a carton of eggs in brown shells, thinking about the day. “so how do you like this case, clarke? You enjoying yourself?” “Like a tornado in a trailer park. seriously though. this case is full of strange cookies.” “most murder cases are,” said monique. “there could be any number of people who committed the murder. maybe more than one person planned it. there’re quite a few motivations for killing tony and roxanne. their colleagues have always worried about them taking a share of the monetary pie. not everyone can get a merit raise each year, and only one-third of the department can qualify.” “right,” agreed clarke. “the raises amount to 8 percent of their salaries for each of the last four years, so the result is a nasty competition. tony and roxanne made the cut for ten years.” “some faculty might lose the money Badger and smoke rise would get for heading the dig and besides, this institute is taking away whatever prestige that department had.” “Yeah, i think so too.” clarke rubbed his eyes. “i’m gettin’ tired. my eyes feel like they got sand under the lids.” “cases like this are rough and tough. Get used to it because after someone is murdered, raped, or kidnapped, you have to find the perp fast. i feel like we’re getting close, so don’t poop out on me. i’m wondering about that dig.” “Wonderin’ what?” 116 “roxanne doesn’t seem to know much about it and claims that tony didn’t either.” monique took a small bottle of advil from her pocket, opened it and worked two caplets out with her tongue. “We need to make one more stop.” “university?” “nope. our least favorite place.” “swell. and i wanted to have a nice night’s sleep.” at 9:12 p.m. they arrived at the moose city medical center. they parked in the emergency area and went through the automatic glass entryway. instead of turning right to er, they went left down a dimly lit corridor about a hundred feet to the door marked “morgue” and “authorized personnel only.” on the other side of the door was what Klaus called the “mud room,” furnished with an unattended desk, filing cabinets, and lockers. the desk lamp had been turned off, but bright lights illuminated the larger room where Klaus worked. Light from the large overhead bulbs reflected off the cold storage lockers where the cadavers rested. the room seemed lit by the sun. Klaus looked up from what he was doing, weighing the organs of the body on the table. Klaus had only initially evaluated tony smoke rise and was working on some poor guy unknown to the detectives. “enter please. almost done,” he said loudly. Klaus wore goggles to keep blood and other fluids from spurting into his eyes, and his mask kept things out of his mouth and nose. He wasn’t opening the skull on this individual, so he didn’t worry about flying bone fragments. He picked up the heart and put it in the scale that looked a lot like the ones at the grocery store. “Heart weighs 298 grams,” he said into his dictaphone . then he took the organ off the scale and looked at it closely. He cut into it and said, “ah ha. You guys should see this.” monique and clarke walked over very slowly. clarke lagged behind in case he needed to sprint to the men’s room. “see here?” He put his plastic gloved finger next to the revealed cross-section of the aorta and smaller vessels . “almost completely clogged. Guy had a heart attack and family doesn’t 117 understand why. He was overweight and smoked. Lungs looked like they’re lined with tar.” Klaus nodded to the plastic bag on the table that was half full of mr. x’s soft tissue. “and he drank too much. You should see his liver.” “no...