Frozen Stiff by Annelise Ryan

silence stretches out for what seems like a full minute or more, long enough that I start to wonder if he’s disconnected the call. I’m about to call his name to see if he’s still on the line when he says, “What do you think, Mattie? Do you think I went off the deep end and killed both my ex-girlfriend and my neighbor?”
    The term “ex-girlfriend” rankles me, particularly when I realize I’m still naked. It just feels wrong to be nude and discussing an ex-lover with someone I have a current interest in. Plus, I’m reminded of how lovely and tiny and petite she was, and as I survey my own body in the mirror, I’m reminded of my many faults, not the least of which are the bingo wings I can see developing on my upper arms. Fortunately I’m spared visualizing anything below the waist since the mirror is mounted too high.
    “I don’t think you killed anyone, Hurley, but I want to hear you tell me,” I say finally. “I need to hear it, from your lips to my ears.”
    “I didn’t kill them, Mattie. I swear it. But I’m starting to get a very bad feeling about all of this.”
    Well, that makes two of us. “I’ll call you after the autopsy is done, okay?” I say, hedging for now. I’m hoping that once I have a definitive cause of death for Harold Minniver, things will be clearer in my mind. “But there’s no way you should be there. It’s just too . . . too . . . dicey. I think you should continue with your case of the blue flu.”
    “I suppose you’re right,” Hurley admits, and while I’m tempted to breathe a sigh of relief, his quick capitulation leaves me suspicious. It doesn’t help that he hangs up before I can utter another word. I stare at my phone a minute, wondering what to do.
    Once I’m showered, dressed, and blown dry, I gather up the hair I collected from Hurley’s bathroom, hop into my hearse, and head out. When I arrive at the office, I find it empty of any living souls, though there are now two dead ones in our morgue fridge. I check the fax machine and find a reply from a hospital in Chicago verifying that the numbers on the breast implants we sent them were surgically implanted in a patient named Callie Dunkirk, confirming our presumptive identity.
    As I’m walking the fax report to Izzy’s desk, I hear the door to the garage area open. A minute later Arnie, our lab tech and resident conspiracy theorist, appears. Despite his casual dress, John Lennon glasses, and ponytailed hair, all of which make him look more like a Woodstock survivor than a scientist, he’s a whip-smart and very talented evidence tech.
    “You’re here early,” he says when he sees me.
    “I had my first solo last night and thought I’d come in to prep the body.”
    “Wow,” he says, looking suitably impressed. “Izzy let you out on your own already?” The way he says it you’d think I was a serial murderer who’d just been paroled.
    “He did,” I say, “though it appeared at first blush to be a pretty basic case. It was a PNB the EMTs brought into the hospital. The guy had a cardiac history so it was assumed that was the cause of death.”
    “And you found something to make you think otherwise?” Arnie looks intrigued. He loves unraveling mysteries and he’s suspicious by nature. Both qualities, combined with his faith in science, make him excellent at his job.
    “I did, though it might have been some other natural cause.” Arnie looks crestfallen. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
    “How much prep did you do last night?”
    “Just the weight and the basic intake paperwork. I didn’t do the vitreous samples . . . I hate those.” Obtaining vitreous samples requires sticking a needle into the dead person’s eye and withdrawing a sample of fluid. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. When I worked as an OR nurse, I never did the eye cases if I could help it. Eyes creep me out.
    “No problem,” Arnie says with a shrug. “How about we do the X-rays together and then I’ll collect the