Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
Lex shrieked, his voice hoarse even as he felt his breathing begin to slow. “W-w-w-w-w-w-we made a deal! I-I-I-I-I-I gave you the name!”
“I never made any promises,” Isaac Kane said.
He upended the bags to fill the tub to the brim once more.
“Lookslike a plain and simple heart attack to me,” the EMT said.
“Bullshit,” the EMT’s female partner said. It came out, “boo-
shit.”
The EMTs finished strapping the sheet-covered corpse on the gurney. Water dripped off it and into the matted carpet of the motel room. They’d found the man in the tub, as pale as the sheet that covered him.
“What’s she talking about, Hank?” Sheriff Dane Willets asked the man, Henry Fellowes. Henry was a young man Dane knew from playing Pop Warner ball with one of his sons.
One of his deputies, the first responder, stood looking idly about the room. Good kid, Bob Coates, in his third year out of Forsyth. This was Dane’s first term as sheriff of Pickens County after twenty years of driving a prowl car, and he was only the second black man to hold that post. He relied on men like Coates to help him keep that position.
Bristling at being referred to in the third person, the sister said, “I’m talking about how he was head-to-toe blue , Sheriff.”
“You’re saying it wasn’t his heart?” Dane asked.
“Mighta been,” she said. She and Hank hauled the gurney up and locked it upright. “But it was caused by hypothermia.”
“You mean he froze to death?”
“Looks that way to me,” she said.
The EMTs rolled the gurney out into the late morning light.
“Froze to death in a motel bathtub,” Dane said. He watched them load the gurney into the back of the ambulance. “What’re y’all,Quincynow?”
Both EMTs, who were in their twenties, stared blankly at him.
“You run a tox screen on this guy,” Hank said. “Hunnerd to one it’s the oxy.”
“Naw. Naw.” The sister shook her head. “I pulled a kid outta Little Pine last winter. Looked just like this man here. All blue and shit. And not exposure neither. Hypothermia.”
“It wasn’t that cold last night,” Dane said.
“All’s I’m sayin’ is what I’m sayin’,” the sister said with a shrug. Her partner sealed the back of the van.
They climbed into the cab and rolled off the lot. Dane rejoined his deputy inside. Bob Coates had the contents of the man’s wallet laid out on the bed. He was going through the cards and inserts with gloved hands.
“So, who was he?”
Bob read from the driver’s license: “Alexander Davies Krogstad. Up here from Peachtree. That’s his car out front. He’s a schoolteacher, according to his union card. And, huh, still has a Blockbuster membership. Thought all those places was closed.”
“Well, there’s a clue. The man was a procrastinator at cleaning out his wallet.”
“You think she was right, Sheriff? Think this fella froze to death?”
“I don’t know what to think. Man checks into a motel alone, less than a day’s ride from his home, to take a bath and wakes up dead.”
“You want me to tape the room off?”
“Naw, Bob. Just lock her up when we leave. I’ll ask the manager not to rent her out until further notice. Won’t be much of a sacrifice this time of year. Most all these rooms are empty anyhow.”
Dane made for the door and turned before leaving.
“Bob, you know who Quincy is?” he said.
“That’s one of the Muppets, right?” the deputy replied.
* * *
The first thingDane did upon arriving at the office was to fire off an email to the county coroner requesting a toxicology screen on Alexander Krogstad. It was more out of idle curiosity than any suspicion of foul play. It might only be an overdose like Hank said, and maybe the guy just had poor circulation. Still, he knew if he didn’t have it confirmed one way or the other, it would gnaw at him.
He next called the high school in Peachtree where the deceased worked and was not surprised to find it was still closed for the holidays. Bob Coates brought him Krogstad’s wallet in an evidence bag. He pulled on gloves and went through the contents. From the three-digit number following his street address, Krogstad lived in an apartment building. It took a call to the police office in Peachtree to learn that the address was an apartment complex called Westchase Heights. The building manager informed Dane that Mr. Krogstad lived alone, was divorced, and his wife lived in Florida with her new husband. They had no children, and as far as the manager knew, had no relatives that ever visited him, though he’d ask among the other tenants.
Just after lunch, Dane’s secretary came on the intercom to announce he had a call from the GBI on Line One.
“Special Agent Cy Godshall, Sheriff,” a husky smoker’s voice said on the speakerphone. “I understand you have an Alexander Krogstad DOA in your morgue. His name rang a few bells here.”
“Well, he’s over to the funeral home here in Jasper,” Dane said. “That’s where our coroner does his work.”
“Could I ask you to put a hold on any further investigation until I have time to get down there?”
“Well, the fella ain’t going nowhere. Turns out he didn’t have much in the way of family. When were you thinking of getting here?”
“I’ll be there before five, barring traffic.”
“Well, I’ll be here whenever you get here, Agent Godshall,” Dane said. He made a mental note to call home and tell his wife he might be late for supper.
* * *
The GBI agentarrived closer to six, apologizing and cursing the traffic. He was a big, bluff man with a red nose whose overcoat smelled of nicotine just as Dane suspected it might. He had in tow a second agent, a blonde girl with a turned-up nose and the build of a runner. He introduced her as Special Agent Lindsay Dauber.
“Never thought I’d live to see the roads clogged like this,” Godshall said as he shook Dane’s hand. “Fast as we build new highways, they fill ’em up.”