“If that’s what you prefer,” Dean said. “Just keep in mind that those services are available if you need them.”
Keith couldn’t imagine being asked to do something like that, but maybe all stylists knew that preparing a client’s hair for his or her funeral was a possibility. The last dead person he’d encountered had been his father, and even though they’d never been particularly close, that loss had hit him hard, since Malcolm was the only calm parent of the two...
Trying to shrug off the feelings any memory of his father—or his past, really—evoked, he studied his mother’s throat. He thought he could discern a faint tinge of blue, where a strong pair of hands might’ve cut off her airflow, but he wasn’t sure if he was just imagining things. Her whole body looked blue...
“Have you seen enough?” Maisey asked.
Keith didn’t answer. “She has no marks on her anywhere?” he asked Dean.
“Marks?”
“Injuries?”
Dean shook his head. “None that I’ve seen, but I haven’t examined her. They’ll do that during the autopsy. Record every bruise or blemish.”
But things could change from day to day, couldn’t they? Even if she was dead? Keith had learned that the signs of strangulation typically didn’t show up during the first twenty-four hours, so it was reasonable to assume that they also might disappear after a certain length of time. “Would you mind removing the sheet and taking a look now?” he asked. He didn’t feel he could do that. It would be the ultimate invasion of his mother’s privacy at a time when she couldn’t defend it. But he felt someone should check her corpse before the autopsy was performed. Having more than one person provide an opinion could prove useful later on—although he had no idea how or why. He was just trying to document everything he could before it was too late, trying to use simple logic.
“Um, sure,” Dean said. “But...can I ask why?”
“I’d like to know what you see.”
The coroner’s technician had been quite solicitous. At this, he hesitated, as if it was pretty far outside his expectations. But then he acquiesced. “Of course. If it’ll help.”
“You look, too,” Keith told Maisey and turned away while Dean peeled back the covering.
“Anything?” Keith asked when they indicated that it was safe to turn back.
“She’s had breast augmentation surgery,” Maisey said drily. “After pretending her figure was God-given, ever since I can remember, that should surprise me, but it doesn’t.”
That didn’t surprise Keith, either. But he wasn’t investigating her vanity. “Anything else? Anything suspicious?”
“Nothing,” Dean said.
Steeling himself for whatever he might find, he lifted his mother’s eyelids. “Do her eyes seem bloodshot to you?” he asked Dean.
Dean was startled by the question. “Um...I guess. Yeah, they’re bloodshot. But...I wouldn’t say that necessarily means anything.”
“According to what I’ve read, bloodshot eyes can indicate strangulation,” Keith said.
Dean smoothed the sheet over their mother. “A pathologist would be the one to answer that question. I’d suggest not jumping to any conclusions.”
“Because...”
“Because those conclusions could have far-reaching implications,” he said. “And they may not be correct.”
“Our mother didn’t kill herself.” Turning to Maisey, he said, “We need to make sure they test the level of carbon dioxide in her blood, too.”
Maisey stared at him. “What will that tell us?”
“It’s another sign of suffocation.”
His sister blanched. “And you know this how?”
“Everything’s on the internet.”
She looked torn. “Keith, I don’t want to be rude, but...a little internet research doesn’t make your opinion any more relevant than the coroner’s.”
“It might be relevant to whatever pathologist we choose,” he said. “And that’s who’ll be doing the autopsy.”
She reached out to touch their mother’s hand—then quickly withdrew. “It’s funny. This is the first time I’ve ever felt as if I’m in control while being in the same room with her.”
Keith understood what his sister meant. But before he could acknowledge her comment, she said, “Are you sure we aren’t in denial, unwilling to see our capable mother succumb to human emotions like depression? Desperation? Maybe she wasn’t impervious to all the things that get to the rest of us. You have to admit that financial stuff we learned from Chief Underwood would have to make an impact on her.”
Keith tried to entertain that thought but felt more resolve instead of less. “The mother I knew wouldn’t give up.”
“When you say stuff like that, I agree,” Maisey said. “But I keep coming back to one thing. Who could’ve killed her? Who would’ve wanted to?”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
“Whoa! You think she was murdered?” Dean broke in.
“You don’t?” Keith replied.
“No. I understand that what you’re going through is painful, but the coroner knows what he’s doing. You can trust whatever he tells you.”
The coroner was an elected official. He had a background in law enforcement; he wasn’t even a doctor. “Are you one hundred percent sure of that?” Keith asked.
Dean backed away from the challenge. “He’s the coroner,” he mumbled.
Keith could barely refrain from rolling his eyes. “Maybe so, but he’s as human as you or I.”
They thanked Gillespie. Then they went out and sat in the car while they pored over the list of pathologists Chief Underwood had given them. Keith used the internet on his phone to see what he could find out about each one—but they all seemed reputable. So they started going down the list to see who could do it relatively soon.
After three calls and a bit of negotiating—which included the offer of a bonus to get a Dr. Pendergast to rearrange his schedule—they had it booked for early Sunday morning. Maisey contacted the funeral home to arrange for transportation, since the coroner didn’t provide that, while Keith started to drive them back to Fairham. After Maisey was done, they called Rocki on his Bluetooth so they could update her.
“It’s all set,” Maisey told her. “The funeral home will pick up Mom’s body from the coroner and take it to the hospital here in Charleston first thing Sunday morning.”
“That’s soon,” Rocki said. “You must be happy about that, Keith.”
