Board Stiff

Book 0: Mattie Winston Mystery

by Annelise Ryan

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

A rest home makes a coroner-turned-sleuth restless in this hard-boiled mystery by the USA Today bestselling author of Dead Ringer.



Sorenson, Wisconsin's deputy coroner Mattie Winston is back on the job . . . in a nursing home examining the body of Bernie Chase—the now former president of the Twilight Home's board of directors—who is covered in a powder used to turn liquids to solids. The home's residents are certain Bernie was offing the patients who cost him too much . . . and the patient that found him can't remember a thing.



Between her ongoing tug of war with Detective Hurley, fulfilling her new job requirement of seeing a shrink, and wrangling with the Twilight Home's board of directors, Mattie's got her scrubbed hands full. She'll need all of her outside-the-box forensic skills to crack a case that's turning out to be stranger—and more dangerous—than anything she's seen before!

Release date: March 19, 2013

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 284

Sample

I can’t tell if the shrink sitting across from me, a psychiatrist by the name of Maggie Baldwin, is disturbed or intrigued by my fascination with dead bodies. She is sitting in her chair, leaning forward, pen poised over the tablet she has on her lap. The eager expression on her face reminds me of the one my cat, Rubbish, gets whenever he spies a bug he’s about to pounce on. I wonder if the doctor is about to have me hauled off by the cops on a 51-15, the part of the Wisconsin state code that deals with the emergency detention and involuntary commitment of people who are deemed mentally unstable, a euphemism for what we used to call “bat shit crazy” back when I was a nurse working in the ER.

“So tell me, just what is it about dead bodies that fascinates you?” Dr. Maggie asks.

At the very least, I fear she’s envisioning some fame-garnering write-up in a psych journal highlighting the exciting yet disturbing mental case she’s just discovered, so I try to explain myself better.

“I’m not fascinated by dead bodies per se. Well, not exactly.” I sigh, frustrated by my inability to express what I mean. “You see, this is why I didn’t want to come here. I tell you I’m fascinated by my work and the next thing I know you’re making me out to be some kind of weird necrophiliac or something. You people aren’t happy unless you can come up with a fancy psychiatric diagnosis on everyone you see, and if one doesn’t present itself, you’ll make one up. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you won’t be filing your Mattie Winston chart under psycho.”

“I see,” she says, scribbling something on her pad.

“No, I don’t think you do.” I’m feeling a bit irritated and try to see what she just wrote down.

“You’re angry.”

“Did your fancy degree help you figure that out, or is it the snippy tone in my voice that cued you in?”

She sighs, shifts a bit in her chair, and puts the pen down on top of the tablet. Then she folds her hands in her lap, her fingers interlaced.

I note she has an expensive French manicure and several rings—three with diamonds and one with a giant blue sapphire—the combined worth of which is probably more than I’ll make this year. She’s a tiny woman, the kind who can wear pencil skirts and fashionable shoes, the kind who can eat whatever she wants and not worry about it, the kind who can realistically expect to be carried over the threshold someday. Psychiatrist or not, she has no understanding of what it’s like to be me—six feet tall with size twelve feet and living on the wrong side of the two-hundred mark on the scale.

“I’m not your enemy, Mattie,” she says. “I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t need any help.”

“Apparently, Izzy felt otherwise,” she says softly.

Yes, he did, damn it. And her reminder of this fact is like a slow dagger penetrating my flesh one centimeter at a time. Izzy is my friend, my landlord, and my on-again, off-again boss. I trust him and would do almost anything for him. That’s the only reason I’m here now with Naggy Maggie, who sighs again, picks up her pen, and lifts the front page of her tablet. Underneath that page is a sheet of paper with stuff typed on it. I want to ask her what it says, but her next words give me a pretty good idea.

“My understanding from Izzy is he’s concerned about the emotional trauma you’ve been through recently. He told me that you’re a nurse and that you and your husband, David, who is a surgeon, both worked at the local hospital here in Sorenson. Some months ago, you discovered your husband was having an affair with one of your coworkers at the hospital, and this particular coworker was then murdered. When Izzy did the autopsy, it was discovered she was pregnant and tests proved that the baby was your husband’s. You and your husband—”

“Ex-husband,” I correct.

“I’m sorry. You and your ex-husband were suspects at one point, though you were both eventually cleared. You have now divorced him, undergone some financial ups and downs, and met a new man you have—or had—a romantic interest in. I believe Izzy said he’s a local homicide detective, is that correct?”

“Yes. His name is Steve Hurley.”

“Izzy said a non-fraternization rule meant you had to choose between a working relationship and a romantic one with this man. Is that correct?”

I nod.

“And you chose the latter,” she says, driving that knife forward another centimeter or two.

“I tried to, but it didn’t work out.”

“Izzy said you resigned your position with him because you thought you were getting hired back at the hospital, but your ex-husband did some kind of political wrangling and the job fell through.”

“Yes it did,” I say, feeling my anger build again. “What David did was totally unnecessary. He’d already moved on. He’s dating our insurance agent. The job I was going for was a night shift position in the emergency room. It’s not like I was going back to my position as an OR nurse. David and I would have hardly ever crossed paths. But apparently the risk of it happening even once was too much for him. He told the director of nursing that it would be too awkward. Since he’s the only general surgeon on staff right now, the administration can’t afford to piss him off.”

“Izzy said you got a decent settlement in the divorce, so the unemployment wasn’t a financial stressor for you.”

“It wasn’t the money that was the problem with not having a job. In fact, I was fine with it as long as I could be with Hurley. But that didn’t work out, either.”

“What happened?”

“Well, after several months of flirtation, Hurley and I finally consummated our relationship.”

“You had sex.”

I nod, smiling at the memory.

“I take it from the expression on your face that the sex was satisfactory.”

“Very.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Everything. We were still in bed when his doorbell rang. When he answered it, there was a woman and a teenage girl standing on his front porch. Turns out they were his ex-wife, who isn’t really an ex because she never filed the divorce papers, and the daughter he never knew he had. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shocker. Since things haven’t gone well for them lately, they moved in with Hurley.”

“That must have been painful.”

“You’re a master of understatement.”

“So what does Hurley plan to do from here on out? What are his plans? Where does this leave the two of you?”

I shrug, and look away from her.

“What does Hurley say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him since it happened.”

“Which was when again?”

“A couple months ago, right after the new year.”

“Hurley hasn’t tried to speak to you in all that time?”

“Oh, he’s tried,” I say. “Several people have tried, but I haven’t wanted to talk with anyone.”

“Yes, Izzy mentioned that he felt like you were avoiding him and everyone else. So what have you been doing all this time?”

“This and that,” I say with a shrug. “I spend a lot of time at the casino. I discovered I like to play blackjack, and occasionally some poker. It relaxes me.”

“When was the last time you were at the casino?”

I hesitate a beat too long and I know she knows I am considering a lie. “Last night,” I admit.

“Do you go there every night?”

Again I hesitate, and again I realize it’s pointless. “Lately I have, yes. But that will be changing. Now that I’m back working with Izzy, I have to be available to take call.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Very much so.” I quickly add, “I mean, I do feel bad that Jonas Kriedeman couldn’t keep the job. I know he wanted it as much as I do. Unfortunately, he discovered he has allergies to formaldehyde and sodium fluoride that are so severe, he was having trouble breathing even when he wore protective equipment. It worked out okay for him though, because his job as an evidence tech at the police department was still open. They tried to eliminate the position and pass off the evidence collection duties onto the detectives and officers to save money, but it proved to be too much and too many things were getting missed. When they heard that Jonas was interested in coming back, they were more than happy to let him step back into his old position. In the end, it worked out well for both of us.”

“When I asked if you were okay with that, I was referring to the fact that you will no longer be able to go to the casino every night.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling totally stupid. “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

“How much time have you spent there in the past two months?”

“You think I’m an addict, don’t you?”

“Do you think you’re an addict?”

I wag a finger at her. “No no no,” I say with a sly smile. “I know that answer-a-question-with-another-question trick. I used to use the same technique on my patients all the time when I worked in the ER. And I used it when I was working with Izzy, too, whenever I had to question someone.”

“Are you planning on going to the casino tonight?”

Once again, I find myself hesitating because the truth is I had planned on going. Friday nights are my favorite. It’s busier than during the week and the blackjack tables are generally full, which makes for a more interesting evening most of the time. But I know that admitting to this will only fuel the fire Naggy Maggie has already kindled so I opt for an indirect and far more virtuous answer instead.

“Actually, I’m meeting someone I know at a local gym for a workout session tonight.”

“And what friend is this?”

“Sheesh,” I say with what I hope is a disarming and distracting chuckle. “You make me feel like I’m back in high school being interrogated by my mother.”

Maggie arches her brows and starts scribbling on her tablet. “So, who is the friend?” she asks again.

As I cuss under my breath for mentioning my mother, my heart skips a beat, and I wonder what psychological flaw I’ve just revealed. I know there must be some pathological skeletons hanging in my closet of a brain because of my mother.

“I’m going with Bob Richmond, a semiretired detective on the police force,” I tell Maggie. “We worked a case together awhile back, and he ended up getting shot. Turns out that may have been the best thing that could’ve happened to him. He was grossly overweight, hanging in somewhere around four hundred pounds. After his surgery, he lost a bunch of weight and he’s been working out at the gym. He looks pretty good and he’s lost nearly a hundred pounds. I had agreed to be his workout buddy back before he got shot, so he’s calling in that chit again. I figure I can use the exercise. I tend to eat more when I’m stressed, so I’m sure I’ve gained a few pounds over the last couple months.” This last comment proves that I, too, am a master of understatement.

Maggie doesn’t say anything for twenty or thirty seconds. She just sits there in her chair looking at me with this enigmatic Mona Lisa smile that makes me nervous and pisses me off. When she finally does say something, I realize she wasn’t at all fooled by my attempt to divert her attention. “And after your workout, will you be going to the casino?”

“Fine. Yes,” I say irritably, sagging in my chair. “I might go for a little while, but if I do, it won’t be for long. My on call hours start at seven o’clock tomorrow morning, assuming you approve me for duty.”

“That’s not my job. Izzy already rehired you.”

“Yeah, but he made the offer contingent upon my seeing you. Why is he doing this to me?”

“Because he cares about you and he’s concerned. As am I.”

“I’m fine.” Even I know this is a lie. I’m far from being the equivalent of a psychiatric code blue, but my mental state isn’t exactly stable, either. My life over the past two months has been a hot mess of frustration, confusion, and self-loathing.

“I think you’re okay for the moment, but the fact remains you haven’t seen Hurley yet, correct?”

I sigh. “That is correct.”

“And whether or not you’re willing to admit it, this gambling thing has me concerned. So here’s what we’re going to do.” She gets out of her chair, walks over to her desk, and sets her notebook and pen down. Then she picks up another notebook. It’s one of those black and white composition books, the kind that I used to have in middle school. She walks over and hands it to me.

“I want you to start keeping a diary. At least once a day, I want you to sit down with this notebook and jot down what you did for the day, and what your thoughts and feelings were at the time. It doesn’t have to be very detailed as far as activities are concerned, but I do want you to be honest in recording your thoughts and feelings. No one will see what you write unless you want to share them with me, and what you decide to share with me is up to you. I think it will help you zero in on some key emotions and feelings that will help us over the long term.”

“The long term? I have to come back?”

“At least once more,” Maggie says. “Let’s plan on meeting again on Monday after your weekend on call and we’ll see how things have gone. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

Great. It’s not bad enough that Izzy has forced me to see a counselor when he knows how much I hate shrinks, he’s also managed to hook me up with one who’s giving me homework. This can’t end soon enough for me, but first I know I’m going to have to convince Maggie that I’m not addicted to gambling. It won’t be easy; in my mind’s eye I see the weekend stretching out before me, sitting in my cottage, twiddling my thumbs, aching to hit up the casino, but unable to go. The very thought of it makes my palms start to sweat.

That’s when I realize that if I’m going to make it through the weekend and get rid of Maggie, someone will have to die.

Saturday, March 1

Dear Diary,

This is the first of my entries, dictated not only by the shrink Izzy made me see, but also by my new personal trainer, Gunther, who I’m convinced is a throwback to the era of Medieval torture chambers. Both Dr. Maggie and Gunther want me to record my feelings, emotions, and activities each day, though Gunther also wants me to track what I eat. He says it’s part of what he calls my new life plan, which I find ironic since I’m pretty sure the end result of the “exercise circuit” he ran me through last night will be my death. First he strapped me into some contraption that looked like a birthing chair and kept pulling my legs apart like I was the wishbone on a turkey. Then he put me on another machine where I had to pull on a bunch of bars with weights connected to them. It made my boobs bounce like beach balls in an ocean surf. Then I had to ride a bicycle to nowhere while sitting on a seat about as wide as the average thong, which gave me a severe case of ’rhoid rage. I think I must have blacked out after that because I don’t remember the rest of my “circuit.”

This morning when I tried to get out of bed, my muscles screamed at me and I ended up walking like a ninety-year-old woman. My arms hurt so bad I couldn’t hold my coffee cup and when I tried to brush my teeth, the pain made me want to rip my arm off my body and beat Gunther over the head with it. I was so tired by the time I finished with the machines that I flat out refused to get on the treadmill, which should be called a dreadmill. I kind of wish I had one here now, though, so I could walk Hoover on it instead of having to leash him up and take him outside.

I was surprised how fast the stiffness set in. By the time I got home, I was already walking as if I had a broomstick up my ass and the hot shower I had hoped would help, only made me more tired. I didn’t sleep much, though. Every time I moved, it hurt so much it would wake me up. And it’s hard to sleep without breathing. The worst part of it all was watching Bob Richmond run through his circuit, which included some of the same torture devices Gunther made me use. Richmond, who was the fattest person I knew three months ago, breezed through the circuit with only a tiny pant to show for his efforts. I, on the other hand, was wheezing like a broken accordion and vacillating between fearing I was dying and wishing I was dead. It took four ibuprofen and two extra-strength acetaminophen tablets this morning to get me to where I could pull my own pants up.

The good news is my utter exhaustion and near-death experience with Gunther kept me from going to the casino last night. I didn’t even miss it. This should make Dr. Naggy happy and maybe get me paroled soon.

Before starting my note this morning, I thought about what I should write to comply with her assignment. That’s when I realized how diabolical it was of her to give me a notebook with the pages sewn into place. I know she said she wouldn’t ask to look at or read what I wrote, and it is up to me if I want to share, but I don’t believe her. If I commit something to these pages that I later want to delete, I’ll have to tear the page out or scribble over it. With this composition style notebook, I can’t do either of those things without leaving evidence, and I’m afraid of what conclusions she might draw from my second guessing. So I’ve done the next best thing, instead. I’m using a pencil to write everything down. At least then I can erase the evidence if I think it’s too damning.

This is the start of my first weekend on call since I got my old job back. Since Dr. Naggy wants me to record my activities and feelings, I will say that I’m happy to be back at a job I love doing. But I also find myself longing for a call because the weekend is stretching out before me bereft of anything fun to do. Not that someone dying is fun, but it is something to keep me busy. Right now I need that to distract me mentally and because if I stop moving for very long, I may not be able to talk my protesting muscles into starting again. Of course, work will mean seeing Hurley again and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Gunther’s request that I record what I eat isn’t off to a great start. I’ve been eating out a lot lately, grabbing stuff on my way to and from the casino, so my cupboards are looking a little bare. For breakfast this morning, I finished off half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. I would have behaved better, but aside from pet food and a can of peach slices that I didn’t have the strength to open—it hurt too much when I tried to pull the tab—it was all I could find. As it was, I had to let the ice cream sit out for a bit and soften up so I could get it out of the container.

I’m bored, I don’t want to sit still, and I don’t want Gunther’s tortures to be for naught, so I suppose the smart thing to do at this point is to go grocery shopping. Since I’m turning over a new leaf, I’m making up a list of healthy crap to stock up on.

Maybe this diary thing isn’t such a bad idea after all.

It’s strange how life works out, and sometimes, like today, death is even stranger. It is the ultimate equalizer, eliminating the barriers that separate the Haves from the Have-Nots, the blacks from the whites, or the young from the old. It can be feared or revered, expected or surprising, welcomed or shunned. But it cannot be avoided. It is the one thing we all have in common: some day we are going to die.

That day has arrived for the man I’m staring at and I’m not sure which part of this scenario is stranger: the fact that I’m standing in a men’s room with another woman, the fact that there is a corpse on the floor, or the fact that the woman standing beside me is alive, but looks deader than the body at our feet.

Since I live in a small town of about 11,000 souls and the odds of me knowing any one of them are pretty good, I should probably feel guilty that someone is dead since I was sort of wishing for exactly that less than an hour ago. But I don’t. God is punishing me enough as it is by making every movement feel like the bite of a Taser.

It all began with my decision to go grocery shopping. I loaded myself and my dog, Hoover, into my car, a midnight blue, slightly used hearse. Inconspicuous it is not, but it’s reliable, has relatively low mileage, and most important, it was what I could afford back when I bought it.

It’s a beautiful spring day—forty-eight degrees outside already—atypically warm and sunny for early March in Wisconsin. But then the whole winter has been kind of wonky, with warmer temperatures and much less snow than usual. Because of the warm temperature, I cracked the windows in the hearse and Hoover forwent his usual spot in the back where the smells keep him in sniffing heaven, and settled into the front passenger seat, instead.

I got out of the hearse and shut the door, leaving Hoover inside with the windows half down. I didn’t bother to lock the doors. Sorenson is a small, Midwestern town with Midwestern values, and unlocked doors on cars and even houses are fairly common. Not that we don’t have our share of crime. But I’m not too worried about my car since most people, thieves included, are reluctant to look or search around inside a hearse.

I turned to head into the grocery store and nearly got run over by a big white car that braked at the last second. Had it been going any faster, I’m sure it would have hit me, but it was moving so slow I hadn’t realized it was moving at all. The car was a large, mostly white Cadillac, circa 1980-something. One of the perks of living in a small, self-sustaining town is the low mileage on many of the cars. There are plenty of vehicles on the roads in Sorenson that are older than I am. Between the winter salt, the springtime potholes, and the summer and fall collisions with drunken tractor and combine drivers, most of the cars around here have had more body work than an aging Hollywood star.

Behind the wheel was Irene Keller, who is eighty-something years old and the owner of the Keller Funeral Home. She leaned out her side window. “Oh, Mattie! Thank goodness I caught you!”

This struck me as an odd thing for her to say considering that she doesn’t know me all that well and has never been overly friendly toward me unless she’s trying to sell me a casket. Our main connection is Bjorn, an elderly gent who taxied me around for a week or so after I wrecked my car and before I bought the hearse. Bjorn is Irene’s husband. They tied the knot almost two months ago after a very hasty courtship. Then again, when you’re both past eighty, the definition of hasty when referring to courtships is likely not what it is for the rest of us. My only other connection to Irene is Barbara, Irene’s hair and makeup artist to the dead. Barbara is also my hairdresser, and a very talented one. The fact that she works in the basement of a funeral home, makes me lie down on an embalming table, and always smells faintly of formaldehyde are minor transgressions I’ve learned to overlook in exchange for her wizardry. Seeing Irene reminded me that I was long overdue for a visit to Barbara.

“I was on my way to your house when I saw you pull out,” Irene said, wringing her arthritic, veiny hands. “I didn’t think I’d ever catch up to you. Thank goodness you pulled in here.”

I’ve seen Irene drive. She’d have trouble catching a cripple on crutches as slow as she goes. But since I suspect she can’t see all that well anymore, it’s probably just as well. She looked genuinely upset and I’m certain she would have been pale if she’d ever had any color to begin with. But she’s had skin as flimsy and transparent as one-ply toilet paper for as long as I’ve known her.

“What’s wrong, Irene?”

“It’s Bjorn,” she said, and for a second I was certain she was going to tell me he had died. But then she shocked me by saying, “I think he killed someone.”

“You think Bjorn killed someone?” I was certain I must have misheard her because the Bjorn I know can hardly figure out how to get his pants on each morning and forgets who he is each night after sundown. Then I remembered that up until a few weeks ago he was driving a cab for the local service. Had he run over someone? “Did he have an accident with the taxi?” I asked her.

“No no. He quit that job right after we got married.”

“Then why do you think he killed someone?”

Irene shook her head and the skin beneath her chin flapped like a turkey wattle. “Not here, not in public,” she says in a whispery voice. “I need to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“The biggest mess you’ll ever see.”

That was saying a lot because I’ve seen some pretty big messes in my time. A smart person would have run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. A smart person would have written Irene off as a nut job with an overactive imagination. But curiosity is my third biggest vice, right behind food and gambling, and today smart was taking a holiday. I was already trying to figure out how to spin this for my diary.

I got back in the hearse and followed Irene out of the parking lot and toward the east side of town at a snail’s pace. Several minutes later, she pulled into the lot of the Twilight Nursing Home and parked. I found a space near the end of a row, realizing that a hearse out front was probably less likely to attract attention here than it would in other places. I again cracked the windows and told Hoover to stay.

When we reached the main entrance, which took longer than it should have since neither of our bodies were moving very well, Irene grabbed my arm and leaned in close, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t think the staff knows yet so just pretend you’re here to see someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Pick someone. Don’t you know someone who lives here from your days working at the hospital?”

There were several someones who fit the bill, and I picked a name at random. “Okay, I’ll say I’m here to see Gladys Stumper.”

Irene had her hand on the door handle. Instead of pulling the door open, her head whipped around so fast her neck made a loud snapping sound.

I waited, wondering if her head would fall off, or if she’d fall to the ground paralyzed. Neither happened.

“Hell, no, Winston,” she sneered. “Gladys died a month ago. Had the big one during the night. They found her cold and dead in bed the next morning, the lucky bitch.”

I was a bit appalled by both the news of Gladys’s death and Irene’s comment.

“What?” Irene said, seeing my expression. “You don’t know what hell it is, getti. . .