Praise for Annelise Ryan
and Working Stiff
“Sassy, sexy, and suspenseful, Annelise Ryan knocks ’em dead in her wry and original Working Stiff.”
—Carolyn Hart, author of Dare to Die
“Move over, Stephanie Plum. Make way for Mattie Winston, the funniest deputy coroner to cut up a corpse since, well, ever. I loved every minute I spent with her in this sharp and sassy debut mystery.”
—Laura Levine, author of Killer Cruise
“Mattie Winston, RN, wasn’t looking for excitement when she became a morgue assistant—quite the contrary—but she got plenty and so will readers who won’t be able to put this book down.”
—Leslie Meier, author of Mother’s Day Murder
“Working Stiff has it all: suspense, laughter, a spicy dash of romance—and a heroine who’s guaranteed to walk off with your heart. Mattie Winston is an unforgettable character who has me begging for a sequel. Annelise Ryan, are you listening?”
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Keepsake
“Matty is klutzy and endearing, and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments…her foibles are still fun and entertaining.”
—Romantic Times
“Ryan, the pseudonym of a Wisconsin emergency nurse, brings her professional expertise to her crisp debut…Mattie wisecracks her way through an increasingly complex plot.”
—Publishers Weekly
Books by Annelise Ryan
SCARED STIFF
WORKING STIFF
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
Working Stiff
Annelise Ryan
A Mattie Winston Mystery
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
This one is for Ryan Douglas, my best production ever.
Acknowledgments
Warm thanks go to Jamie Brenner, my agent, and Peter Senftleben, my editor, for believing in me and making this happen. You guys rock my world. Thanks, too, to Doug Clegg, for keeping my flagging spirits up and pushing for Mattie every time I was ready to give up on her. To my family, thanks for all your loving support and faith in me, for understanding why I sometimes become a social recluse so I can write, and for being my best promoters.
And finally, a hearty thanks to all the family, friends, coworkers, and miscellaneous acquaintances in my life who ever made me laugh, especially those of you who share my warped and occasionally dark sense of humor. Laughter truly is the best medicine and this book is my small way of trying to return the favor.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 1
I’m surprised by how much the inside of a dead body smells like the inside of a live one. I expected something a little more tainted, like the difference between freshly ground hamburger and that gray, one-day-away-from-the-Dumpster stuff you get in the discount section at the grocery store. Of course, all I’ve seen so far is the freshly dead, not the deadly dead. Apparently the deadly dead can invade your nostrils with molecules of nasty-smelling stuff that clings and burns and threatens to make you vomit for days afterward.
Or so says Izzy, and he should know since cutting up dead people is what he does for a living. And now, so do I. It’s only my second day at it, but I can already tell it’s going to be a real conversation stopper at cocktail parties.
At the moment, we are standing on opposite sides of an autopsy table with a woman’s body laid out between us, her torso looking as if it’s just been filleted. I’m sure we create a strange tableau, and not just because of the open corpse. Izzy and I are the yin and yang of body types—the Munchkin and the Amazon. The only thing we have in common is a tendency to put on the pounds: Izzy is nearly as wide as he is tall, and I’m cursed—or blessed, depending on your perspective and what century you were born in—with the perfect metabolism for surviving long periods of hunger. My body is a model of energy efficiency, burning calories the way a miser on a pension burns candles.
But that’s where our commonalities end. Izzy is barely five feet tall, while I hit the six-foot mark at the age of sixteen (though I tell anyone who asks that I’m five-foot-twelve). Izzy has a dark, Mediterranean look while I’m very fair: white-blond hair, blue eyes, and a pale complexion, though not nearly as pale as the woman on our table.
Izzy reaches
