me of the one my nephew Ethan gets when he sees a bug on the wall. “What are you doing here?” Hurley asks.
“I used to work here,” I tell him with as much indignation as I can muster, hoping it will disguise the fact that I am more or less avoiding the question.
Hurley studies me, his eyes giving me a head-to-toe perusal that leaves me confused about whether I want to run and hide, or wrap my legs around his waist and ride him home. He turns to David. “You are Dr. Winston?”
“I am.”
“I’d like to speak with you please. If you have a moment.” Hurley flips his detective badge out like it’s an invitation.
“Sure. But make it quick. I have a patient I need to get up to the OR.”
“In private,” Hurley says.
I realize Hurley is going to haul David away, which means I won’t be able to see David’s reaction when he finds out about Karen. Then Molinaro, of all people, saves the day. “Is this about Karen Owenby’s murder?” she asks.
Hurley shoots me a look that makes my toes curl up like the witch under the house in The Wizard of Oz. He is clearly pissed. He doesn’t stare at me for long though, because David lets out a “What?” that sounds like the yelp of a wounded dog. All the blood drains from his face and he staggers back as if he’s been hit.
Syph, who is standing across the room, looks up at the sound of David’s outburst and studies the faces in our group for a second. Then she approaches and says, “Let me guess. You told them about that nipple incident, didn’t you?”
Chapter 7
Hurley hauls David off, just as I feared he would. I try to tag along but Hurley shoots me another one of his looks and says, “Stay put. Your turn is coming.”
I take that as my cue to leave. Molinaro is in a huddle with several of the ER nurses as I make my exit through the doors to the ambulance bay, planning to walk around the outside of the building so I can avoid another encounter with Gina and her TV crew.
I head for work, where I find Izzy in his office. Sitting next to him is a man about my age with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. He’s wearing glasses so thick they make his eyes look bigger than his head.
“Ah, Mattie,” Izzy says. “We were just talking about you. I want you to meet Arnie Toffer.”
Arnie stands and gives my hand a hearty shake. He’s about six inches taller than Izzy, which still leaves him a good half-foot shy of me. I’m starting to feel like Snow White.
“Arnie just got back from a seminar on fiber analysis,” Izzy explains. “He’s an evidence technician and someone you’ll need to work closely with. His job involves processing fingerprints, tire tracks, fibers, tox screens…that sort of stuff. Snagged him from LA. He’s one of the best.”
I instantly make the connection that, as an evidence technician, Arnie is the person most likely to be in possession of my underwear, which means he is about to become my new best friend. And despite what the cliché says, I know that the quickest way to a man’s heart isn’t through his stomach, it’s through his penis. So I shift into light flirt mode, hoping that Arnie isn’t gay and likes to read comic books about women from the planet Amazon.
“You sound like a pretty versatile guy,” I tell him, making and holding eye contact. “You must be very smart to know how to analyze all those different types of evidence.”
“Well, I have had a lot of experience,” he says, puffing his chest out a bit.
“I’ll bet you have,” I say, flavoring my tone with the barest hint of innuendo. “And since I need to learn how to do some of this stuff, I’d love to be able to watch what you do. To see you in action.”
Arnie’s smile broadens into something uncomfortably close to a leer. He stares at me a moment and then officially completes our little mating dance by ogling me from head to toe and winking. “I’d love to show you some action,” he says with a crooked, half grin.
Damn, Animal World would be proud.
“Good idea,” Izzy says, seemingly oblivious to all the innuendo zipping through the air. “We don’t have any autopsies pending so why don’t you take Mattie up to your office, Arnie, and show her a few ropes.”
The mention of me and ropes in the same sentence makes Arnie’s eyes grow wide. “Sounds good to me,” he says, licking his lips and making me wonder if I’ve taken the flirting thing a bit too far.
“When you’re done with Arnie you can take the afternoon off if you like, Mattie. Make up for the time we spent out in the field last night.”
“Thanks. I could use a nap.”
“One other thing,” Izzy says, opening his desk drawer. “I want you to have this so I can reach you more easily.” He hands me a cell phone along with a battery charger, and I realize my days of ignoring pages are over. Then he hands me a piece of paper. Typed on it is the number for my phone and instructions for its use. At the bottom, written in Izzy’s hand, are instructions for paging his beeper.
Fully wired for communication, I leave Izzy’s office and follow Arnie down the hallway, studying a bald spot that is starting to appear on the crown of his head. He stops by a locked door that marks a flight of stairs, sliding a card into a panel on the wall. I hear a faint click and he pulls the door open.
“Only one flight up,” he says.
“A key card?” I say with a sinking feeling. Without access to the area where the evidence is kept, it’s going to be much harder than I thought to steal back my underwear.
“Didn’t Izzy give you one yet?”
I shake my head.
“He should have. Ask him about it. He probably just forgot. All the employees have one. It’s one of the security measures we use to assure the integrity of any evidence we keep here.”
I make a mental note to ask Izzy about the key card as soon as possible. Arnie waves me through the door, insisting I go up the stairs first. I sense his eyes on me as I climb and try to clench my ass cheeks together so they won’t jiggle too much. But this makes me feel like Herman Munster when I walk so I give up, letting my jiggly parts jiggle and letting Arnie watch. I consider it a fair trade. After all, I did gawk at his bald spot.
Arnie’s office is nothing more than a desk parked in one corner of a laboratory. Lining the walls are various machines, several of which are humming, whirring, or making other odd mechanical noises. A gooseneck lamp sits on the desk—the only significant source of light in the room at the moment, though I notice there are fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling.
“This is the true brain of forensics work,” Arnie says proudly as we enter the room. “Sometimes the cause of death is as obvious as the nose on my face and then there are times when the cause isn’t obvious at all. That’s when you have to get down to the microscopic level to find the real answers.”
He pauses and gives the room a wary once-over, as if he expects to see someone lurking in the shadows. When he looks back at me his eyes are drawn down to a steely glint. “Even when the cause of death seems
