P.I. Files: Day to day life of Polly the P.I.

WARNING: DISTURBING

2007-01-18T07:57:00.000-06:00

I look at my watch. It's time. Det. Porte catches my eye and we each make our way slowly into the room. Det. Porte speaks. "The medical examiner needs to examine the body now. Everybody please leave the room."

Six or seven people clear out and only the father and grandmother remain. The father looks up at me. His eyes are dull and and his face is expressionless. "Will I see her again after you do the examination?" He's holding the little body protectively as if he's ready to fight anybody that comes near.

"I will need to interview you after I do the examination." I say quietly. "You can come back in here with your mother at that time, but nobody else. After the interview, I need to take her with me back to the Medical Examiner's Office, do you understand?" I am sitting in a chair across the room. I don't want to get too close yet. I need him to trust me first. He nods his head and looks back down at his child. His chin is trembling as he brings a shaky hand up to stroke her cheek. I look down at a spot on the floor in front of me. Det. Porte is also averting his eyes. As always, I feel like a voyeur intruding on somebody's most private and vulnerable moments.

The grandmother goes to her son and nudges him up. "Put her down, son. Let the lady do her job. We'll be back soon." The white paper crinkles as he lays the child on the table. I hear a quiet sob from deep in his throat. The grandmother puts her arm around him. As they pass me I touch the father's arm and whisper to him. "I'll take care of her. I promise." He meets my eyes before allowing his mother to lead him out of the room.

The door shuts with a click. I sigh deeply and look over at Det. Porte. "This sucks," I say.

"Yeah. At this rate we're not going to get out of here for another hour, at least."

I turn to the tiny form on the table. I fold back the blanket. Her skin is as white as snow except for some flushing around the upper chest area. I look closely for crease marks from the couch cushions or blankets that might indicate how she was positioned at the time of death. There is nothing. I'm not surprised. She was found shortly after she died and then was moved. There was no time for impressions to settle.

She's wearing nothing but a diaper. I estimate her to be about 2'5" tall with plenty of baby fat. No bruises or traumas. My initial impression that she would be too big for a roll-over is strengthened. I check her eyes to be sure. I am looking for any sign of petechiae, small pin-pricks of hemmhoraging that are indicative of asphyxiation. Nothing. Her bright blue eyes are crystal clear. I open her mouth to look for bruising or damage to the frenulum. Again, nothing. "She appears well cared for. No indication of neglect or abuse. If she asphyxiated, it would have been at a very, very slow rate because there are no signs of petechiael hemmhorage in her eyes and no pressure marks on her body. The only scenario I can imagine is if dad was drugged to the point that he didn't feel her struggling or heard her making noise." Det. Porte takes out a pad of paper and starts writing.

I feel her torso and her extremities. I bend the joints in her feet, fingers, and knees looking for rigor. It's slight. Just beginning. "She's still very warm." I check my watch. "It's been four hours since she was found. Usually a baby will cool at a much faster rate than an adult. I would have expected her to be near room temperature and in full rigor right now, but she's been wrapped in a blanket and pressed against her father's body for hours."

I turn her on her side to check her back. The skin is flushed red from blood settling to the lowest point. I press a finger into the flesh and watch as it blanches white. "Lividity has not yet set." I take some photographs and then swaddle the little girl back up in the blankets. I glance at Porte as I work, remembering what the DA said about the child possibly ingesting her father's prescription psych meds. "There's nothing conclusive here. We'll have to wait for tox to come back before we know anything for sure."

"Maybe you'll have more luck getting the dad to talk. He doesn't like me for some reason." Porte smiles sheepishly.

"I can't imagine why not." I say sarcastically. "You're like a big teddy bear. All sensitive and in touch with your feminine side..."

Porte grunts. "Yeah. That's me. You want me to bring the dad back in? I'll just sit over there in the corner and hope he forgets I'm here."

Porte leaves the room and returns mementarily with the father and grandmother. I am sitting next to the baby on the edge of the examining table. I have my hand touching the blanket. I want dad to know that I am watching over his little girl.

He walks over and kisses her cheek, whispering something that I can't quite hear as he does so. I back away again, not wanting to make the father feel at all that I'm stealing his baby.

"Do you know what happened to her?" The father asks.

People ask me this a lot after I examine a body and only very rarely can I give them something solid in response. "No. I'm sorry. We won't know anything until after the autopsy and toxicology come back. That can take a while, so I need you to try and be patient. I know you're looking for answers and it's frustrating to wait, but it may be a couple of weeks or longer before we can give you any difinitive cause of death."

He nods his head and looks me straight in the eye. "I didn't hurt my baby. I was a good father."

I say nothing, only reach over and touch his arm. "I am going to need to ask you some questions to help us figure out what happened to your daughter. Some of them may seem insulting to you, but keep in mind that they are necessary questions that we ask every parent who suffers the loss of a baby, good parents and bad parents alike. Okay?"

He nods again. I start out asking him to give me the general story of what happened from the time he woke up in the morning. He explains that he and his little girl woke up late in the morning. He said he fed her a cereal bar and was just getting ready to take his meds when the phone rang. He left the bottle open on the counter. When he got back the little girl had pushed a stool up to the counter and was standing on top of it. He was afraid she'd eaten some of the pills and swept her mouth with a cloth. He found nothing and assumed everything was okay. "I should have taken her to the emergency room," he says. "I should have." Yes. You should have, I think to myself sadly.

"Can I hold her while you talk to me?" He asks.

"Yes. Go ahead." He picks the child up and sits back down in the rocking chair. He looks down at her and then up at me again. "Why is she so stiff?" He asks me. "She wasn't like this before."

Det. Porte speaks up from the corner of the room. "It's part of the process of decomposition. It's called rigor mortis." I glance over at Porte in irritation. I probably wouldn't have said it in quite that way.

"It's normal," I say. The father seems to accept this as he continues to rock in the chair.

I ask him about his daughter's prenatal care. Was she born full term? He tells me that the girl's mother was on heroine during the pregnancy and she was born a month premature and addicted to drugs. Did she have any resulting disabilities? No. Was she exposed to any illnesses recently? Who besides himself cared for her? How was his health? He tells me he's schizophrenic and suffers from severe depression and he has to be on powerful meds to keep it under control. I imagine how difficult it would be caring for a toddler while in a drug-enduced fog.

After I finish the interview I check my watch again and tell him that it's time for me to take her. He starts to sob and holds the baby close. His mother comes over and whispers in his ear and I move in front of him. I know from experience that unless I reach for the baby he won't let go. I bend down and place my arms under his. I whisper to him that I'm sorry. That I promise to take care of her. That it will be okay. He lets me lift the little girl out of his arms.

There will be no body bag or stretcher for this child. I turn her toward me and tuck her close with her head resting on my shoulder. I feel the familiar weight of her. It's so natural to hold a child like this. Like a mother with her own offspring. Det. Porte takes my bag and opens the door for me. I craddle the back of the little girl's head with my free arm and avoid making eye contact with anybody in the hall. I hear voices all around me rise up in anguished cries. Four police officers flank me on all sides as we move quickly away from the crowd of people and down the corridor.

When we get to the van, Det. Porte opens the back for me. "No. I'll take her up front."

"You sure?" he asks.

"I'm sure."

I step up into the driver's seat and lay the baby across my lap. I just can't bring myself to strap her to the cot or lie her on the floorboard of the van.

"I'll meet you guys back at the morgue," I say before slamming the door and driving away.

The doc is waiting for us. She's appropriately upset that we're an hour late getting back, but understands how it can get with families. Her physical exam is fairly consistent with my own and she echos my doubts about this case being a roll-over.

"Okay," she says. "Did the warrant go through okay?" she asks D.A. Tate.

"Yep. All set, ma'am. We were just waiting for you."

"Well, let's get going. Maybe we can wrap this up before midnight."

"Hey, doc?" I ask. "Do you want me to get a body bag for her?"

"Nah. She should be okay until tomorrow morning."

The doc and detectives leave the office. I am alone for just a moment with the little girl. I wrap the blanket around her tightly, making sure her toes are tucked in and her shoulders are covered. It will be cold in the cooler, I think irrationally.

I softly hum a lullaby as I push the tray into the cooler. I tuck her in between two other bodies, a tiny pink bundle. I am sad and I am drained, but I have hours of work ahead of me yet tonight and I need to go. I touch her forehead.

"Goodnight, little one," I say. I walk to the cooler door and shut it behind me. I pick up my bag and turn off the lights on my way out.

1-13-07a WARNING: DISTURBING

2007-01-13T15:51:00.000-06:00

I call the Doc and she says she'll be at the ME's office to examine the body in 45 minutes. I turn back toward the family and wait with the other four or five law enforcement officials. I want to give them time, but I also need to examine the body and get it back to the morgue as soon as possible.

The cluster of people in the room prevent me from seeing the father or the child. An older man walks out with red-rimmed eyes. He looks me up and down. "Are you the dead doc?" He blurts.

Wow. I'm not quite sure how to respond. "I guess so," I say, "though I've never been called that before."

"Well, he's dead. That's for sure." The man wipes his eyes and watches me, expectantly.

This time I don't say anything.

"You know, I always watch those weird dead people shows on TV. I get a kick out of that stuff."

I nod my head and give him a weak smile. "They're pretty good." (It's about this point where I remind myself that people all handle grief in different ways.)

Det. Porte walks over and whispers in my ear asking if they should clear out the room, now. I look at my watch. The Doc will be at the office soon. "Go tell the father that in five minutes I will need the room cleared so I can examine the body. That way he can prepare himself and we can maybe avert a scene."

Det. Porte nods his head once and heads into the room. The people surrounding the father and his little girl part like a wave and I get a fleeting glimpse of a tall man with short dirty blond hair sitting in a wooden rocking chair. He's got a bundle of pink blanket in his arms and is rocking it gently. He is looking down at a shock of shiny blond curls peeking out from the top of the wrap. There are tiny alabaster toes visible at the other end.

Oh, you poor baby, I think. Pity and grief well up in me and I suddenly remember the feel of all the babies I've carried out of hospitals and homes over the years. I turn away from the door and walk a few paces toward the wall behind me. My heart is racing in my chest and I feel off-balance. I can feel the sharp sting of tears threatening behind my eyes and I concentrate on a sign posted on the laundry shoot in front of me. "CAUTION: DO NOT LEAVE DOOR OPEN" I read it over and over again. I am on a crumbling precipice and I need to do something quickly to keep myself from falling out of control. I study the red block letters that were spray-painted on the metal door with a stencil. I imagine myself in a gray jumpsuit. I am shaking a can of red spray paint, listening as the mixing beads knock around inside. I place a cut-out piece of cardboard stock carefully up on the metal door, tape it down with masking tape, and spray a coat over the top, making sure it's thick enough so the fat letters will be easy to read and thin enough so they won't run...

When I allow myself back to reality a minute or two later my breathing has evened out and my pulse has slowed. I raise an eyebrow as I turn back toward the room. Cool. I can't believe that worked. Visualization. I'll have to remember that.

More later...

1-13-07 WARNING: DISTURBING

2007-01-13T08:12:00.000-06:00

It's 5:00pm on Tuesday night. I'm not on call until 6:00pm, but I've already strapped on the pager and charged up the cell phone. Tonight I plan on going out with some girlfriends that I have been neglecting for the past, oh, year or so. It's always a roll of the dice making plans on nights that I'm on call. I guess we'll see.

5:03pm
HELL! My pager just went off. It's Nancy, my boss from the ME's office. Nancy is a very busy woman, so I've offered, on occasion, to take call early if she should get stuck with anything an hour or so before she's off for the evening. Unfortunately, Nancy more than took me up on the offer so that at least half the time I can expect to get a call or page before my shift starts.

I ignore the page. My pager is not officially on yet, I tell myself. Then my phone rings. I ignore it, too, knowing that if I take an early call I will never make it back in time to go out with the girls. Pretty soon my cell phone starts beeping at me, letting me know I have a message. What if a plane crashed or a chemical plant blew up and all hands are needed? What if the call is for somebody that Nancy knows and she just can't handle it?

DAMN! I open the phone and dial in my code for messages. "Um...Polly? It's Nancy. Can you please call me when you get this message? Thanks." Click.

I look at the phone and scowl. "Coward." I mutter. I walk back up to the bedroom and put the phone back on the charger. LHM is snuggled up under a blanket taking a nap. He stirs and turns to face me as I swear softly under my breath. "Whaa? Everything okay?"

"No," I snap. "Nancy is trying to get me to take call early again but I'm not going to do it. I have plans tonight. If it's my scheduled shift and I get called out, okay. But this isn't mine."

"Hmmm," he mutters and turns back toward the wall.

My pager goes off three times and the phone two more times without Nancy bothering to leave a message. Finally, on her third call (at 5:30pm) she leaves another message. "Polly, I was hoping you could take a call for me. It's a 20-month-old baby that was brought into the ER pulseless and not breathing. I've been holding off the hospital and haven't gotten anymore information than that, but I know this is going to be a long one and I just can't take it."

A baby. I close the phone without bothering to erase the message. I immediately start asking myself questions I don't have answers to. How did a baby end up dead in the ER? Was it a boy or a girl? Was it abuse? Neglect? An accident? I can feel my anxiety level rising. As soon as I start asking the questions, I know this is my case. I am now vested and need to get the answers.

I dial Nancy back and she answers on the first ring. "Hey, Nanc. What's up?" She gives me the few details she already has. A roll-over death. Dad was taking a nap with the little girl and when he woke up she was behind him, face-down between the couch cushions.

I call the ER and get further details from the nurse. She doesn't know much, either. She tells me that there are cops swarming the place and that the father is in the room holding the baby. "He's been holding her since the doctor pronounced. We can't get him to let go." I swollow a lump in my throat imagining this man rocking his dead baby. When you get right down to it, a body is a piece of evidence. We (and hospital staff, for that matter) are strictly instructed to prevent anybody from handling it after death. On the other hand, this father's baby just died. I reason that the damage is already done. "Just make sure that only the parents handle the body and that they know not to remove any tubes or alter anything. "They know. I already told them." The nurse assures me.

I head to the ME's office right away. I pick up an infant death questionnaire and a special doll that we use for reinactments. This is an invaluable tool when trying to determine what position a baby was in at the time of death because when a baby is found unconscious adults invariably move them.

Twenty months, I think as I drive to the hospital. That's really old for a roll-over. She wasn't a helpless infant anymore. You would think she would have struggled or screamed loud enough to wake dad.

I arrive at the back entrance and am greeted by two security guards in scarlet blazers. We chat as we take the elevator up to the first floor. They tell me there are at least twenty family members gathered in the ER and that they are very emotional. I walk down the long hallway that leads to the "family room", a place designated for those who just lost a loved one or who are waiting out an emergency situation. A crowd of people are loitering in the hall outside of Room 1. Room 1 is where ER staff always put bodies before transferring them to the morgue. It's right across from the family room and is out of the way of the rest of the ER. As I approach, Det. Port sees me and begins walking my way. We whisper greetings and he tells me what he knows..which isn't much.

"This guy is a piece of work. He won't tell us jack about what happened. We've got cops outside his home but he won't allow us entry. The DA is getting a search warrant as we speak."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. A search warrant? I thought this was a roll-over."

"Yeah. Well, things aren't adding up. Seems he fell asleep on the couch with the kid on his chest. Less than an hour later, his girlfriend showed up at the house and woke him up. No kid. He pulled back the blanket and she was lying there by his feet with her face in the cushions. They thought she was sleeping so they covered her with the blanket and went into the kitchen to make dinner. About an hour later, they went back into the living room to wake her and dad noticed that it smelled like vomit. He picked her up and saw she was blue in the face. They called 911 and did chest compressions and breathing as instructed by the dispatcher until rescue arrived."

I note that CPR was performed. This is very important because many times adults who are trying to save a child do chest compressions and inadvertently break ribs or cause bruising...injuries that look very much like child abuse if not documented.

A short, squat man with a gravely voice approaches us. He's wearing a ratty sweatshirt, jeans, and is carrying a gym bag. I figure he's a family member, but then he reaches out his hand to shake mine. "I'm Assistant DA Tate." Oh. Well. That'll teach me to judge a book by its cover. I grip his hand and introduce myself. He tells me that he wants the doc out here, stat. He wants her to examine the body and then come to the residence after the warrant is issued.

"Well, Dr. Frank is aware of the case as we understood it. A roll-over. She generally relies on my incident reports in these cases and, though I already invited her to accompany me to the home scene, refused the offer. So, before I really piss her off by calling her out in the middle of the night, can you enlighten me as to why this is potential criminal investigation material?"

"Sure." He says. "The father was on anti-psych meds. Really strong ones. To the point where he couldn't function on a job or drive a vehicle. Family said his speech was slurred and he got so off-balance that one time he fell down the stairs into the basement and broke his collarbone."

"Where's the mother?" I ask. "Is there anybody who was helping him care for the baby?"

"Not really. The girlfriend worked during the day, so he was the primary caregiver. The mother is currently in jail on drug charges."

"So, what are you thinking? Neglect?" I ask.

"Well, he mentioned to one of the nurses that he left his little girl and an open bottle of meds on the kitchen counter when the phone rang."

"Possible accidental overdose."

"Yeah."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

More later...

This is Cali.

2007-01-09T20:59:00.000-06:00

Cali is a rescue dog from the local Humane Society that I adopted this afternoon. She's part Border Collie part Golden Retriever (and a few other varieties thrown in there, too, if you ask me). She was a stray that was found near a local grocery store. She was skinny and shy and skittish when I met her the day after the Humane Society got her. I would have taken her home that day, but they have a week waiting period in case her owners (if she had any) came looking for her. Her back paw was hurt and she had a big gash on the back of her head. We think she was rolled by a car.

Anyway, she's really smart and funny. She already knows her name and follows the comands "get your toy", "sit", "stay", "down" and "lay in your bed". Not only that, but she already goes to the bathroom in one precise corner of the yard (after my showing her only twice). Somebody must have loved her very much and spent a lot of time training her. Either that or she's the smartest dog ever.

I am seriously thinking of training her to be a cadaver dog. We'll see how she reacts to me coming home some night with dead guy smell all over me...

My new puppy!!

2007-01-09T20:53:00.000-06:00

12/29/06 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING

2006-12-29T15:33:00.000-06:00

LHM and I examine the woman's driver's license picture. She had a broad smile that reached all the way to her pretty gray eyes.

"It's hard to believe that they're the same person," LHM says.

"That person is gone," I say softly. "There's no way we're going to get a visual ID on her, though, that's for sure. Let's hope we can find a dentist with some good x-rays on file."

I return to the living room and mentally walk through just how we are going to remove the body. Fortunately, she's wearing jeans. That will give us some traction. Her upper body is bare but for a thin cotton tank top, though, and that poses a problem.

"I'm afraid that the joints in her shoulders won't hold if we put too much pressure on them," I say. "I don't think lifting her down to the floor is an option."

"You mean you're afraid she'll fall apart?" LHM asks.

"Yeah. Her body has been decomposing for a month and the connective tissues are likely to be very fragile."

"Great. On that note, I'm going to go get the cot."

"Can you grab a sheet or a couple of towels, too? It will provide more resistance when we grasp the upper torso."

While LHM is getting the cot, I examine the body more closely. She was about 130 lbs, though bloating makes it hard to accurately determine weight. No evidence of trauma, though it's virtually impossible to tell with the body in this state. I see no tattoos or scars. Clumps of dirty brown hair are beginning to slough off the scalp as the folicles deteriorate and soften. I use the corner of her shirt to push down her jaw so I can see inside her mouth. Her tongue is black and swollen and it obscures my view.

I sit back on my heals and huff in frustration as LHM returns with the cot. "There is no point in doing this right now," I say. "I'll finish when we get back to the morgue. There's hardly anything left to work with, anyway. She's so far along that I don't even know if tox will give us answers."

LHM has some bad news, too. "No towels and no sheets."

I roll my eyes. Of course not. "It's my own fault. I should have made sure the van was restocked before we left."

"Maybe we can use the shower curtain in the bathroom," LHM suggests.

I shake my head. "No. It's plastic. We'd be back to the same wet noodle scenario again."

I walk into the bedroom and find a wadded up old sheet on the floor. "This will do."

We place the body bag at the foot of the couch and I ask LHM to hold onto the feet and make sure they don't move as I guide the rest of the body down to the floor. I use the sheet to grasp the arms. I slowly lift them over the head and listen as the joints pop in the socket. "No," I say, shaking my head. "This isn't going to work. I'm afraid we're going to break her." I stand back and reassess the situation.

"What if we tip the couch and let her roll off?" LHM suggests.

I consider...imagining the poor woman spilling off the couch and landing in the body bag with a thud. So little dignity for what was once a human being. But at the same time, it would be worse to tear her arms off and I didn't have any better ideas.

"Okay. Let's do it." I take the cushion from off the floor and place it approximately where I think she will land. LHM goes to one end of the couch and tips it up on it's side. The body begins to slide forward slightly, making a slurping sound as it separates from the couch. I hear LHM gag and look up at him. He wretches again before setting the couch down and quickly walking to the open window for fresher air.

"Oh..." he says, as he turns back into the room and begins to pace. "Sorry," he gives me a quick glance and a smile. "I forgot to breath from my mouth. The smell was just so strong when we started to move her..."

I watch him as he regains control. "Are you okay?" I ask.

"Yeah. I just needed a second. I'm fine. Let's finish this." He sounds determined as he walks back to the end of the couch and tips it again.

This time he angles sharply enough that she falls forward and tumbles onto the cushion before rolling onto her back. She is half in the bag already and it doesn't take much more for me to slide her in position. We place the first body bag inside another one because the outside of the first is covered in decomp fluid. Then we load her into the van and are on the way back to the morgue 10 minutes later.

"So," I say as I drive away from the apartment complex, "what did you think?"

Having just finished spraying himself down with Fabreeze, LHM is now pumping half a bottle of hand sanitizer into his palm. "What do I think? I think I'd rather do the dead rats." he says.

12/27/06b WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING

2006-12-27T12:30:00.000-06:00

"Your transport guy said that you wanted something?" Jonas is standing in the doorway with his sleeve covering his nose and mouth.

"Yeah. I have some questions. First, who was the last person to see her alive?"

"The sister. She said she talked to her a couple of weeks ago, but she wasn't exactly sure of the date."

"We need to get the date of death down more precisely. Did you check the mailbox yet? Postmark dates on mail that wasn't picked up can narrow it down."

"No. We didn't find any keys."

Yeah. I bet you didn't look very hard, either. "Okay. Also, I noticed there are 59 messages on the answering machine. One of your guys need to check those and mark the date of the earliest call.

"I'll send in a uniform. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Do you have a social security number?"

"No. We didn't find a wallet, either."

I sigh. "Okay, thanks."

Jonas is gone before I finish my sentence.

LHM walks through the doorway a few seconds later with flood light and camera in hand.

"We need to find this woman's wallet and keys." I take the light and walk into the kitchen before flipping the switch. The details of the room reveal themselves in technicolor splendor. The sworm of flies blanketing the liquified bananas on top of the refrigerator. The pot of mystery soup on the stove layered with a crusty pinkish brown film. The dirty dishes in the sink. The mop propped in a bucket full of filthy sludge water.

"Ugh." I say as I pull on some gloves. I open cupboards and find at least 50 or 60 bottles of herbal supplements. I checked the dates on them. Most were new. A few in the back were expired. "We need to take all this in. Maybe a few of these pills she was taking reacted with one another and gave her a heart attack or a stroke or something."

LHM give me a look. "Yeah, it can't be good for a person to take a handful of supplements every day."

LHM is referencing the 13 pills I take every morning. I roll my eyes. "I don't take herbs, I take a few phytonutrients, fish oil, a multivitamin, Vit D, and potassium. All this stuff is weirdo powdered mushroom cap and hogwart root extract and bark of willow..." I make a show of dismissing him, but can't help feeling uneasy. I make a silent vow to revisit this later when I'm not in the middle of investigating a death scene.

I try to pull open the refigerator door and the flies lift off the rotten fruit and decent on me like a cloud. I wave my hand above my head to shoo them away. "The door is stuck. Hold on." I hand LHM the light and try again. I prop my foot against the counter top and pull. There is a loud tearing sound as the seal finally breaks.

I wipe my forearm over my brow and then peer inside. An unopened bottle of milk. Desicated fruit and veggies. Mustard. I pick up the milk and look at the sell by date. Three weeks prior. "About how many days before the sell by date do stores usually stock milk?"

"I dunno. About a week?" LHM guesses.

"Yeah. That sounds about right. I think she's been here for more than two weeks. Let's go take a look at the body."

We walk back into the living room. The decedent's flesh is almost black in color. Her lips are swollen and her tongue is protruding from her mouth. Her eyes bulge from their sockets. Purge from her nose and mouth ooze down the side of her face and neck and into her hairline. It looks like clotted black jelly. Bubbles of putrid liquid are under the flesh of her legs and back where her body is touching the fabric of the couch. "Her skin is slipping," I point out to LHM.

"Charming." He replies. "It's all slimy underneath." He directs the light to the puddles of fatty fluid that are soaked into the cushions.

"Yeah. That, my friend, is adipocere. Basically, when a person dies the fat in their body liquifies." I grab his hand and switch the focus of the light back to the head. "Look there." I point. "Maggots." Two kinds of tiny white worms crawl in and out of an opening in the flesh behind the decedent's ear.

"The little thin ones are the same as on the bananas in the kitchen." LHM observes. "And look," he shines the light on a tiny black tubular structure attached to the couch cushion. "It's a pupal case. That means that we're talking at least two generations of flies. At least three weeks."

I look up at him and smile. "I almost forgot you were an entomology geek. You could really come in handy, you know." I reach out and touch the exposed flesh on the torso. Leathery. Dry. The hands are fisted. I look closer. Hard. Mummified. "It's going to be tough pulling prints off of her."

I get up and lead LHM into the bedroom. A bible lay on the bed along with an empty dinner plate with a fork and steak knife. The UV lights are off. No plants are under them. Packets of vegetable and fruit seeds are on a nightstand along with a carbon copy of a lease renewal dated and signed November 20. I rummage through a pile of dirty clothes behind the door and find a jacket with...tah-dah!...keys and a wallet. And a receipt dated November 22.

A uniform cop walks in and tells me that he just finished listening to the answering machine and the first message was from November 24.

"Okay," I say. "I'm going to estimate the date of death to be the evening of November 22nd or 23rd, then. A month."

More later...

12/27/06a WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING

2006-12-27T10:17:00.000-06:00

We pull into the apartment complex and park. Cops are loitering on the sidewalk outside the building.

"Okay," I say. "Grab a couple of pairs of gloves. Those heavy duty ones. You seriously DON'T want gloves to break when you're moving a decomp. We'll bring the body bag in after I do the investigation, so don't bother with that yet."

"Don't you have HAZMAT suits or something for this?" LHM asks.

"There are paper jumpsuits in the back and booties to slip over your shoes, if you like. We've also got face shields and respirators if you think you'll need them."

"Are you using one?" LHM asks.

I smile at him. "Booties, yes, but I have yet to wear one of the jumpsuits or use a respirator in the years I've been doing this. That would have to be a hell of a messy scene. Also, I need to smell it."

"Smell the scene?" he raises an eyebrow at me.

"Yeah. Smells can provide clues, too. For example, what if the dead guy in question actually killed somebody and stuffed them in the storage unit outside the apartment before taking their own life? Being able to smell two sources of decomp would be rather important. And certain odors like 'nutty' or 'sweet' can point to a poisoning. That sort of thing."

"Yeah, well I don't think we're going to encounter anything as pleasant as 'nutty' or 'sweet' tonight." LHM mutters as he slips out the passenger side of the van.

I walk to the front door of the apartment building with LHM behind me. After a few introductions, I turn to Detective Jonas and get the jist of what they have so far. The decedent is a 40-year-old white female. She lived alone in the apartment and was a factory worker at a local mill. Nobody at work seemed to miss her when she didn't show up for a month. Her boss said that she was pretty unreliable and he figured she just quit without bothering to tell anybody. Her sister said that she'd tried calling several times but it was normal for the decedent to ignore phone calls, so she wasn't worried. "This chick was a serious health and fitness nut, too." Detective Jonas said. "The cupboards are full of herbal supplement shit and she's got huge drums of protein powder on the cabinets."

"Where did she workout?" I was hoping maybe I could interview people at her gym, but also wondered if she went to mine and I might know her.

"I don't think she had a gym. There's workout equipment in the dinette where a kitchen table should be, so I'm pretty sure she worked out at home. Also, there were UV lights in her bedroom where she grew her own organic vegetables. And this is the weirdest thing of all...she's got three or four huge fish tanks full of water but without fish in them."

"Huh," I say. "The UV lights make me think she was growing weed. Any history of drug arrests?"

"Nah. I thought that too at first but I couldn't find anything that would point to her growing pot. She was too concerned with eating clean."

"Hmm. If that's true then maybe the tanks of water were because she was planning on buying baby fish and raising them for her own consumption," I say half to myself.

"Crazy." Jonas said simply. He ran a hand over his bald head and pulled his scarf more tightly around his neck. "It's damn cold tonight."

I give him a sideways glance as I open the front door of the building. A strong smell of decomp wafts out along with warm, moist air. "You're welcome to come in here with us if you like."

LHM and I step into the hallway and walk a few paces. I look behind us at the closing door. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

I walk to the open apartment door and am hit by wave after wave of putrid air. My eyes begin to water. "Breath through your mouth," I say over my shoulder.

"Already on that," LHM mutters.

I see the blue glow of a television casting ghostly shadows over the rest of the room. A dark figure is sprawled on the couch. I flip the light switch but nothing happens. I walk in a bit further and try to turn on a floor lamp by the wall. Again. Nothing. "No lights. But there's electricity because the TV is on."

"Maybe the bulbs burned out." LHM suggested. "The lights were probably on when she died."

"Yeah. Probably." I look around as my eyes try to adjust to the light. One of the couch cushions and the television remote are on the floor. She was struggling for breath, maybe. Or thrashing with pain. I look over at LHM. His face is neutral as his eyes scan the room and light ever so briefly on the body before skimming back to the other details of the scene. It's going to take me a while to learn to read this man that I married. I decide that the best thing to do is to keep him busy.

"Honey, can you please go out to the van and get the flood light? It's in the box between the two front seats. I also need the digital camera. And can you ask Jonas to get in here? I need to ask him some questions."

"I'm sure he'll love that," LHM chuckles. "Anything else?"

I give him kiss on the cheek. "I'll let you know."

LHM walks out of the apartment and I turn back to the scene.

More later...

12/27/06

2006-12-27T10:05:00.000-06:00

I call dispatch and they give me the address of the decedent.

"So, Clara, can you tell me anything?" I ask.

"Oh..." Clara chuckles. "You're gonna love this one. Been there for at least two weeks."

I groan. I'm the queen of decomps.

"Two weeks? Didn't she have anybody who cared enough to check on her?"

I get the phone number of the lead detective and hang up. While I'm dialing Detective Jonas, I look over my shoulder at LHM and he gives me an encouraging smile.

Detective Jonas answers on the first ring. "Hey!" Jonas sounds chipper. "I haven't seen you in a while! Where've you been, Sunshine?"

"I was on my honeymoon in paradise. You know...far far from here." I smile as I sit back in my chair.

"Isn't that a song? Honeymoon in Paradise?" Jonas asks.

"No. I think it's a low-budget 80's porn flick, actually, but thanks for asking. So, what's up with the decomp?"

Jonas proceeds to tell me about a 40-year-old woman that hasn't been seen for at least two weeks. The apartment complex manager, Zed, called the decedent's sister and the cops that morning because fellow residents were complaining of the smell. After forcing entry, they found her slumped on the couch in an advanced stage of decomposition.

"Any suspicion of foul play?" I ask?

"No. The apartment manager said he propped some mail up on the door two weeks ago and it hasn't moved. All the doors and windows were locked from the inside. I haven't taken a good look at the body, mind you. The smell is just so bad. Do you have anybody to help you move her when you get here? I can't go back in there."

I pull the phone from my ear and look at the reciever in disgust. Big baby. "Don't worry about it," I say and hang up.

I look over at LHM again as he happily continues to work on the desk...completely oblivious to what I'm about to ask of him. Poor, man. He had no idea what he was getting into when he married me.

"Hey, uh, honey?" He looks over at me. So innocent, I think to myself. Like a lamb before the slaughter. "Whatcha doin'?" I cock my head to the side and flutter my eyelashes at him in what I hope is an irrisistably provocative way.

"I'm doing exactly what I've been doing for the past hour." He puts the screw driver down on the floor next to him. "And you can stop flapping your eyes at me. I don't know why you think pretending your going into a grand mal seizure will make me want to help you more. I'll do it, but you seriously owe me."

I jump up from the chair and give him a huge hug. What a guy. I can't believe I was seriously considering demasculinizing him not 10 minutes ago. "Thank you, honey! It's just that the stupid cops are being big babies and refuse to go into the apartment."

"Yeah. I gathered that. Let me go put my crappiest clothes on. I hope this doesn't wreck my sneakers."

While we drive to the scene I coach LHM on how to avoid barfing from the smell. I also tell him to stand back and let me do the talking. "You're the brawn, darlin'. Strong and silent. Like a bouncer only you have to get your hands a little dirty. And don't tell anybody you're my husband."

"Whatever you say." LHM sits back and looks out the window for a moment before turning back to me. "I've had to clean dead rats out of an attic once before and that was pretty horrible. I can't imagine this is any worse than that."

You have no idea. I smile at him encouragingly. "I've never done dead rat before, so you'll have to let me know if it's different."

More later.

12/26/06

2006-12-26T13:07:00.000-06:00

1:06 p.m.

I can't believe I double posted. I AM rusty...

It's Wednesday night and I am on call for the first time since getting back from my honeymoon. You would think I'd be refreshed and excited to be back to work, but instead I'm crabby and irritated. It's raining outside and only a few days before Christmas. It could at least snow if I have to live in the Arctic tundra, I think as I read a magazine and pout in my office chair.

I look over at LHM. He is sitting on the floor trying to put a computer desk together...or I should say re-put it together.

It was originally my project and after 3 hours of nailing, drilling, and screwing, I tightened the last screw and stood back. I called LHM over to join me in admiring my work when he pointed out that one of the bottom shelf panels had somehow allegedly been screwed on backwards so that the lovely particle board side was showing.

"Oh, for hell's sake!" I threw my arms up in frustration. "I'll have to take the whole top and three sides apart to fix that!"

Pause. I looked at the desk again.

"It's fine the way it is," I said finally. "I'll just stack some books on it and nobody will be the wiser."

LHM, somehow not sensing my level of hostility and the danger he was placing himself in, chose that moment to grasp my shoulder conspiratorially, crack a wide (stupid) grin, and offer to fix the desk himself since..."Honey, everyone knows that men are better at this sort of thing, anyway."

I was debating the pros and cons of ruining his chance at fathering offspring when my pager went off.

More later...

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2006-12-26T10:22:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas, my dear friends!

I'm sorry I haven't been around for a while. I just got back from a very, very long honeymoon with LHM and was incommunicado for the entire trip. It was lovely, but I'm glad to be home with my internet and cell phone again.

I missed you all! And I have a very interesting ME story to tell from last week, but first I have to fix a leak under the sink.

More later today!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2006-12-26T10:22:00.000-06:00

Just me and a few random kids at the Grand Canyon

2006-08-23T00:33:00.000-05:00

8/23/06

2006-08-23T00:28:00.000-05:00

12:23 a.m.

I can't sleep.

I can't write.

I have a deadline looming and am stuck, stuck, stuck.

Why is it that when my life was hard and I was alone it was easier for me to write? Or do I just need to let things settle down before I can focus again?

I'm very frustrated.

I guess the best thing to do is just (as a good friend of mine recently told me) WRITE. Although his suggestion was to drink a bottle of wine first...

8/13/06 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING

2006-08-13T19:46:00.000-05:00

I am standing in a room at the ICU of a local hospital. A nurse in blue scrubs walks in with a pink satin-covered hat box.

"Here you go," she says and places the box on a counter top before leaving the room and shutting the curtain.

I turn from the body on the bed and walk over to the box. My initial thought of "What the hell were they thinking?" is quickly replaced by appreciation for the compassion of those who would prepare this makeshift coffin. I slip the cover off and look at the tiny baby inside. The OR staff washed her and laid her on a bed of white cloth. Her little arms are crossed over her chest and a towel covers the lower half of her body. A six-month-old fetus. She's red because there is no fat under her skin, but other than that she looks perfect.

I sigh and place the lid back on the box. Then I return to her mother. A 25-year-old woman with long, stringy dark hair. Huge bandages cover her abdomen where an emergency c-section was performed the night before. There are scrapes on her knees and dirt under her fingernails. I also notice dirt on the bottoms of her feet where she must have been walking around barefoot. I take photographs.

Nurse Katie walks in and begins telling me the story. Beth, the mother, came into the ER last night in excruciating pain. She was having contractions and her cervix was dilated 3cm. The doc couldn't detect any fetal heart beat. Beth told the ER staff that she'd done cocaine two days before. Before she lost consciousness, she kept saying, "I'm so sorry, Jake. I'm scared." Jake is her 18-month-old son.

Beth was rushed into surgery but it was too late. The baby had died when the placenta separated from the wall of the uterus. This was a direct result of the cocaine use. The OR staff couldn't stop the bleeding and Beth died on the operating table.

After several hours of interviewing family...friends...doctors...I somehow get through this case and go home. I sit out on the porch in my backyard, overcome by sadness. I think about the little boy, Jake, who lost his mother. I think about how Beth's friend said she was curled up with him napping on the couch the day before. I try to reconcile the loving mother with the woman that, according to witnesses, purposely tried to abort her fetus by overdosing on cocaine.

I am hurting inside and I call LHM to talk. He listens quietly and after a minute says, "Well, Polly, if you think we should try to adopt Jake I'll support you. We could make a good home for him."

I am touched that he would even contemplate such a thing. I smile and say gently, "It's not like taking in a stray puppy, you know."

After worrying over the whole thing for another few hours, I call Peter, the friend who is watching Jake. We talk for a long, long time. He tells me more about Beth. She was kicked out of her apartment a few weeks ago for not paying the rent. She and Jake were living in a homeless shelter when Peter took them in. Peter got her a job, a new car, and an apartment. You see, he and Beth had been best friends since high school. "She was there for me at a really bad time in my life and I told her I would always be there for her." He was trying to help her get her life back on track. "If you'd only known her five years ago," he says. "She was such an amazing person."

I ask about Jake and what would become of him. Peter's voice cracks and he tells me that he will adopt Jake and raise him as his own. "I'm a single guy and I've never had kids before, but I have a good job and I'll make sure this little guy has a wonderful life. Besides," he says, "when he smiles he looks just like Beth. How could I not love him?"

7/17/06

2006-07-17T09:21:00.000-05:00

7:17 a.m.

I have been drinking my tea chilled lately. (Summer and all.) I take a pitcher out of the fridge and fill a 64oz mug. It's hot in SoCal. And I'm sunburned. My knees are red and scabbed. My face is on fire and my eyes are puffy. Yesterday I went to the beach and was riding waves on the body board for hours. I came within inches of creaming a toddler on two occasions as I rode up on shore. The same kid. Instead of just stearing the board by leaning left or right, however, I panicked (both times) and slid off the back of the board, using my knees to skid to a stop in front of the little girl with the blond curls. She was so tiny I thought I might break her, so I sacrificed my knees. The second time this happened, she looked down at me, stuck out her tongue, and ran off to her mother who was snearing at me from under an umbrella further up the beach. If it weren't for the thrill of salt water mixing into my wounds and sending rivulets of blood down to my ankles, I might have cared. I sighed. Time to hang up the board for the day. It's bad enough to be riding in the water on top of a device that is shaped approximately like a harbor seal, but to mix blood in with that might be less than wise.

Anyway, I am now paying for my day of fun and sun on the beach. LHM walks into the kitchen and stops at the entrance. He's about to leave for work.

I smile at him, peck him on the cheek and say, "Too late now. You already married me." I pat him on the shoulder and hobble back toward the bedroom before saying under my breath, "Sucker."

I hear him yell from the other room some smart aleck comment about false advertising before he slams the back door.

I lay there in silence. Nothing to do. I am on my "honeymoon" and won't be back home for a month. I consider the events of the past month or two. I no longer work for the PI firm. They decided to bring all of the regional positions in-house...to Boston. Since I wouldn't be able to relocate, I decided that Hell, Inc. sucked anyway and I was better off sticking with one job, my death investigator gig. One job? I mean...what am I going to do with myself with all of this extra time?

So, then LHM proposed to me. (Over the phone, although I think I've forgiven him for that at this point.) He is selling his business, and will leave everything he's worked for over the past seven years to move to Chicago and start a new life with me there. We will start out own PI firm. A family business. You know...like "Hart to Hart".

So, does this make me Mrs. Haired-Man?

2006-07-16T22:28:00.000-05:00

5-20-06a

2006-05-20T20:47:00.000-05:00

8:45 p.m.

I'm looking for the webcam... I thought it would be fun to broadcast from the field. Can I even do that?

5-20-06

2006-05-20T12:17:00.000-05:00

12:15 p.m.

I'm sitting in my bedroom surrounded by half-packed boxes. I'm in the process of moving into a house nearby and the question that I keep asking myself is: How did I accumulate so much clothing in the course of three years? My walk-in closet is like an archaeological dig. Layer upon layer of clothes. Sometimes I find an artifact from bygone days...A picture with Olga when we went out clubbing in Chicago. A high-heeled silver shoe that I wore to a formal dance with an exboyfriend... Curiously, I found a lot of female sanitary devices (unused, thank goodness) and enough loose change to buy a weeks-worth of groceries.

The task is daunting and as I look around I come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is put it off until the last minute. We'll see how that works for me.

I'm getting ready to go on a surveillance up in Green Bay (go Packers) tomorrow. It's one day and should be pretty straightforward. The subject lives on a farm and I'm bracing myself for a long day of rolling by the house so as to avoid suspicion.

Last week I went to Boston for our bi-annual supervisor meeting. There, I met my new supervisor for Florida. This man, it turns out, is perhaps the biggest jackass known to man. His incompetence amazes me. I told Corp two days after he was hired that he wouldn't work out. Now he's in his death throws and I guess it's got him crabby. I called him yesterday afternoon to get some information the office was asking for.

"Bozo," I say, "I need to get a status on the eight late cases from your area that didn't come in yesterday."

Bozo huffs like a beligerant teenager. "Okay."

"We'll start with the Brandy case."

"Huh?"

I clench my fist. Patience, Polly. "You know..the three day surveillance that was run nearly a week ago by your Miami investigator? The one that I haven't recieved one update on yet? The one I've been asking you for since Monday?"

Bozo starts to raise his voice. "I sent an email to the investigator. It might have come in already." He huffs again. "Listen, I'm driving right now. Let me pull over and I'll call you back."

"That's fine. Get your files together and turn on your computer so I can get this status report up to Corp within the hour."

He hangs up. I loosen my death-grip on the phone and play a quick game of Spider Solitaire as a healthy alternative to swearing like a sailor and throwing something.

Ten minutes later, Bozo calls me back. With narry a hello, he starts in... "Okay, I got the report from the 10th but I sent it back for revision because the investigator didn't describe the residence."

"All right. When did you get the update?"

"The 11th."

"Okay. So, that was over a week ago. Have you followed up with the investigator? And what about the updates for the 11th and 12th?"

Bozo's voice raises another dicibel. "I don't know. I've been up since 3:30 this morning and it's going to take me 2 hours to get back home. I'm tired and..."

I interrupt. I've had it. I have listened to him whine for the past three weeks with excuse after excuse for his half-assery.

"All right. You need to stop with the crying to me about waking up early and commuting and how much work it is, Bozo. I was a supervisor and I had to do the same thing... It's part of the job. If it's too much, quit. Otherwise, suck it up."

[Yelling and swearing from Bozo] I hold the phone away from my ear.

"Bozo, please don't raise your voice to me." I say calmly. "I have never done that to you and I expect you to treat me with the same respect."

[Yet more yelling and swearing from Bozo]

Aaaand...he hangs up.

I sit back in my chair and sigh. Well, that went well.

I call Corp and speak to Satan's number 2 man.

"Bozo had another temper tantrum. When are you going to fire him? What did I do to make you hate me so much?"

"His area is a mess. He's almost out. Just let him dig his own grave."

I hang up. Right. Let him dig his own grave. I smile. Well, I might as well make this fun...

I call Bozo back. "Hi, Bozo. How's it going? So where were we? Oh, yeah... Brandy.."

5-4-06

2006-05-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

10:28 a.m.

Thanks for all the nice birthday wishes, bloglit! I got called out to a death at 2am this morning and I kept writing my birth year down instead of 2006. I think I'm already getting senile.

It's PollyMom's birthday today, too, by the way. I remember back when I was a kid Mom used to let me stay home from school on our b-day and we'd spend it shopping or doing some other girl thing together. That's where I learned the fine art of playing hookie.

So, not wanting to break tradition, I'm going out to lunch with Pippie from the ME's office this afternoon. And after I've pigged out sufficiently, I'm driving up to MN so that Mom and I can celebrate our birthday together. I'm not sure I'll get there in time for shopping, but at least there'll be cake and ice cream.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you!

4/21/06

2006-04-21T11:29:00.000-05:00

11:28 a.m.

Right now I'm sitting in a holding room on the set of a TV show called, Desire. I'm not sure what the show is about, but I just finished "acting" as a civilian on a scene where the stars of the show are being booked at a police station for having public sex. (I was just talking on the phone...fully clothed...sickos.)

More later...

I FOUND IT!!!!

2006-04-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

And that Jeremy is pretty darn bright. I think I have enough here to send him more than ears...

4/15/06c Jeremy is on a roll...

2006-04-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

10:42 p.m.

I'd offer Jeremy more of my chocolate bunny, but I'm not sure how much is going to be left. Jelly beans okay?

It was a ceiling fan! The following clue was stick to one of the blades: I hide things. A lot of things right behind me. But if you look really really close, I look just like you!

Figured that one out pretty quickly. It was the mirrored medicine cabinet in the bathroom. That clue said: The Danes, the Geats, and the Swedes. I'm the very first of the English reads.

Huh. Wish I'd paid closer attention in English Lit class...

Any ideas?

4/15/06b And the winner is...

2006-04-15T13:09:00.000-05:00

1:08 p.m.

JEREMY!! It WAS a door mat. I'll send you my Easter bunny's luck rabbit feet.

You guys are great! Though LHM says I'm cheating getting help from my bloglit. The way I figure it...we're talking about chocolate here!

Okay, I'm stuck on another one so perhaps I can ask for a bit more advice.

Under the door mat was a clue that said: 99% of the time I don't even have any gloves. I figured that one out pretty quick. It was in the glove compartment of LHM's car.

The next clue said: I'm hot and wet. Which is probably why I've been a woman's best friend since the 1950's.

That one was pretty simple. It was in the dishwasher. The next clue is sick and twisted and I'm sort of afraid to find out what it means. It says: Suck. Blow. Suck. Blow. *Click* Now I'm light-headed.

4/15/06 And the winner is....

2006-04-15T10:49:00.000-05:00

Cap'n Bob!!!!! You Rock! I'll send you the ears from my chocolate bunny when I finally find it.

BUT I STILL NEED YOUR HELP!

It was a bed. The people who use a bed the most remember it the least...because they're sleeping! Of course, I argued with LHM that beds aren't just for sleeping anymore...

:-)

The clue from under the bed was: We run all day just to get back where we started. Just two good friends who are constantly parted. That one was easy, too. It was behind the clock on LHM's wall. The hands of a clock run all day and are constantly parted.

The clue behind the clock was: Sit up. Lie down. Sit up. Lie down. Where I'm broken, the next clue is found. This one took me a minute or ten, but I figured out it was the futon in LHM's office...which is broken. Good thing he gets to sleep on it and not me.

The next clue has me stuck again. And I have less than 24 hours before Easter.

Here it is: I never thought you were dirty until I met your two friends. Now everytime I see them, they use me and leave me that much dirtier.

I know...I keep telling LHM I don't have friends like that anymore.

4/14/06 HELP

2006-04-14T21:52:00.000-05:00

9:51 p.m.
Okay, bloglit. I need your help. And this involves chocolate, so please....do what you can for me.

I just got into California a few hours ago to spend the Easter holiday with LHM. He picked me up from the airport and there was a rolled up envelope in the car door. I didn't pay much attention to it until I read who it was addressed to:

Baby Cakes
69 Bet Your Sweet Ass Lane
San Diego, CA

Huh. If somebody is sending letters to LHM at 69 Sweet Ass Lane I want to know about it...so I can find her and dispatch her with impunity. (Don't worry. I wouldn't really dispatch her with impunity. I just said that because there are so few opportunities to use that phrase in context.)

Anyway, I pulled the envelope out of the door handle and unrolled it. I turned it over and there was a note on the back that said, "Open when you are ready for Easter!!"

Hmm. Delay gratification, or go for the chocolate Easter Bunny goodness now.

I tore open the envelope and found a clue inside. It said, "Well, baby, I knew you couldn't wait. So the first clue is hidden with LHM and three heads of state."

I figured that one out. It was hidden in LHM's wallet with his money. The second clue was, "No matter where you go, I know where you are, which is good..because your next clue is hiding in a place that doesn't exist anymore."

I figured that one out, too. It was hidden on the globe in LHM's living room..stuck on the Soviet Union..which doesn't exist anymore. The third clue said " *JUMP* My life is hanging by a thread. One small shake and I'd be dead. Not up, nor down, nor left, look right! I have a stud to keep me warm at night."

That one was easy. There's a picture of a gargoyle jumping off the edge of a castle in LHM's house. The clue was stuck to the back on the right side.

And this brings me to why I'm writing. I'm going to need some help with the next one(and probably a few more..there are seven left)

The fourth clue says this: "The people who use me the most remember using me the least."

Other than mind altering drugs (and I checked his house to no avail) I can't think of what that might be. Does anybody out there in the blogosphere have any bright ideas?

4/9/06

2006-04-09T09:27:00.000-05:00

9:26 a.m.
It was stormy with high winds all yesterday afternoon and evening. This morning the sky is blue and beautiful, but the wind is still up. I wish I had a body board. The waves are high and crashing up over the dunes.

When I drove out from the airport Friday afternoon I was surprised to see that it's springtime here. The azalea bushes were flowering and I almost crashed my car when I saw huge vines of blooming wisteria braiding their way up tree trunks along I-64. I love wisteria. It takes 10 years for it to reach maturity and bloom the first time. It reminds me of the rewards of patience...which is something I need to be reminded of from time to time.

My case has been somewhat disappointing. None of my witnesses are willing to talk. I have spent two days taking photographs of the scene, timing the cycling of streetlights, and diagraming the intersection. I've dropped by houses unannounced. I've tried calling and leaving notes at the door. I guess nobody wants to put themselves out there.

When I knocked on the first door, I could here a male voice inside speaking urgently and quietly. I knocked again. No answer. Huh. I leave a card in the door and am just getting into my car when a woman peeks her head out. She looks afraid and won't meet my eyes. I walk over and ask her if my witness is there. She says that she's never heard of him and that she lives alone. I thank her and get back into my car. I wonder who the man was inside. I wonder who she was more afraid of...him or me.

The second house is just down the street. There are two kids playing on bikes in front of the house. They stop and stare at me when I pull into the drive. I smile and a little girl tentatively waves. Three or four dinosaur cars are parked in the yard where grass used to be. I see a teenaged woman open the front door before I even get out of my car. I ask her if my witness is there. She says she's not home right now. The girl uses her leg to block a diapered toddler from scampering out of the open doorway and into the yard. I give her my card and ask if she'd please have the witness call me. The kids on bikes continue to stare as I pull out into the street. I wink at the little girl and she smiles as I drive away.

I drive a couple of miles to get to the third witnesses house. But I never get the chance to knock on her door. As I drive down the street trying to find the house, I notice two men stop what they're doing and stare after me. I look in the rearview mirror as I pass and they are still watching my car. Oh, well. No doubt I do stand out. Let them stare. I find my witness's house a hundred yards or so down the street and just get out of my car after making notes describing the residence when the two men come up and angrily ask what I'm doing here. I am surprised at the anger and back into my car as they come closer. One of them asks me if I have a boyfriend. I am about to tell him about all of my boyfriends and all of the many venereal diseases that I carry when a cop pulls up. The men walk away as if the confrontation never happened. Oh, hell. That was close. I take a deep breath as the cop calls me over to his car.

"Hey! What in hell's name are you doing out here? Don't you know this is a bad neighborhood?"

I look around at the gutted cars, trash, and broken down shacks that line the street. "Yes", I say simply. "I'm working."

He shakes his head impatiently and says, "Get out of here. Now."

I am slightly irritated at his tone, but I decide that it would be better to comply then go to jail for suggesting that instead he kiss my ass. Now.

Besides, he might just have a point.

So, I spent the rest of the day knocking on doors and not getting answers.

I should be disappointed but it's hard to do so as I rub more sunscreen on the bridge of my nose and lie back in the warm sand.

Virginia Beach

2006-04-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

The view from the dunes outside my hotel.

4/7/06

2006-04-07T07:24:00.000-05:00

7:23 a.m.

I'm at the airport waiting to board my flight to Virginia. Traffic was stop and go through Chicago and it was a nail-biter the whole way thinking I might miss plane. Which is much better than being a nose-picker. Which is what the guy in the SUV next to me was being the entire length of Interstate 294. Sigh. I wonder why it is that so many people live under the illusion that their vehicle windows are opaque?

The gate attendant just told us that our flight is delayed until 8:15am. All that rushing around and I could have slept in for a half hour. Go figure. Maybe I'll go get a Cinnabon.

This trip to Virginia should be very interesting. I'm conducting a traffic fatality investigation over the weekend. It's supposed to be a full 30 hours of work packed into two days so the corporate office has relieved me of my regional supervisory duties this weekend. Hooray!!! I feel like a little kid at recess. What should I do first?

Well... of course, I will blog.

More later...

4/4/06

2006-04-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

jane said...
dude... where'd the booby polly pic go? that's what i looked at daily to cheer me up. er, wait....

12:14 PM

Yeah. The parents just got back from their winter travels and Mom checked my blog.

I love my mom and so I'm going to try to avoid causing future heart attacks by refraining from posting pictures of myself at unfortunate camera angles.

3/24/06

2006-03-24T08:16:00.000-06:00

5:03 p.m.
I am currently blogging from a grassy knoll on the side of a road in a very, very ritzy part of San Diego. Across the street there are a bunch of trailers lined up, several cop cars, and a particular trailer that reminds me of a chuck wagon-type kitchen because people keep going over there and getting food.

Which reminds me, I’m hungry.

I'm surprised how easy it was to sneak into the staging area for Veronica Mars with LHM. After we parked LHM's car a van came up and loaded three or four of us in. Nobody asked me who I was playing or anything. Probably because I am a private detective who is used to slipping seamlessly into any given situation without notice. Uh, yeah. That must be it.

There are a bunch of fake cops wandering around and a pretty young woman with short dark hair in a pair of pink silk pajamas and slippers just came over to me and asked what internet service provider I use on my laptop because she can’t get service out here. She’s either one of the main characters of the show or a complete nut job. I’ll have to ask LHM later.

LHM just got out of the dressing room. He’s wearing a brown cop uniform. Reow! I’m a sucker for a man in uniform. Unfortunately, he’s pretending not to notice me so that I don’t get kicked out.

Oh, dear. LHM is talking to the stage manager guy and pointing to me. This cannot be good. LHM walks over and I half expect him to tell me I’m going to have to leave, but instead he says that the stage manager is going to let me hang around in the staging area but that I can’t go to the set (the set is a huge mansion a block away). Cool!

So, I walk across the street and join a bunch of extras that are dressed like bomb squad and cops and firemen. They seem like a pretty nice bunch of guys. One is woman who is, I guess, what you would call a professional extra. She does at least one show a week. LHM and all the other cops are bussed over to the props truck and I am left with the bomb squad. There is an Hispanic guy who is between jobs right now but used to work for the county. He asks me if I'm an actor. I laugh and tell him what I really do. He asks me for a job. Another guy is Special Ops with the Marine Corp and does the acting thing for fun. He is a black guy and we had a good laugh when he told me that next week he gets to play an Iraqi insurgent on another show. “I don’t know,” he says, “I’m happy for the job but I’ve never seen a black Iraqi before.”

"It's okay," I say. "Maybe they're planning on making you a woman and you'll be in a burka."

LHM comes back with fake gun, radios, leather holster, etc... Then the stage manager comes over and tells the guys that it’s time for them to get in the truck and head to the mansion. Bummer. This is going to be a boring couple of hours. But, to my surprise, he comes to me and says, “I’ll probably get fired for this, but you can come along to the house.” Hooray!

So now I am in an enormous mansion full of strapping men in uniform. Can life get any better, I ask you? There are fire trucks and cop cars all positioned outside in the driveway. LHM disappeared. He's exploring the mansion. I got depressed and stopped looking around after I peaked in the master bathroom and saw that it's bigger than my house.

After about an hour, I heard someone yell loudly from the other room, "Break for lunch!" Lunch? It's 8:00 p.m.! But then again, who am I to turn down free food? So me and the boys are bussed back down to the staging area and I am walking through a lovely buffet when an assistant director comes up to me and says, "We were wondering if you would do an “eye shot” when we get back to the house. Just come find me and I'll show you were to go."

I look at LHM. He shrugs. “Sure,” I say.

The assistant director walks away I lean in and whisper to LHM, “What the hell’s an eye shot?”

LHM shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Great. A lot of good you are. I ask the professional extra and she tells me that an eye shot is just where I stand there so that they can get camera angles and lighting in place for when the real actor comes in. I sigh in relief. Cool! I can do that! A monkey could do that!

So, they just called us back to the van and we are headed back to the house when the stage manager says, “You know, you’re very lucky to be here. We’ve had other people bring friends and I have had to tell them to go home. But you seem like a very nice girl.” LHM leans in and whispers, "Yeah. And that little tank top and skirt can't hurt, either."

We get back to the house again and everything has moved outdoors in the driveway. Now that it's gotten dark, the cops and firemen get to play. It is very cold and I am seriously regretting the little tank top. The stage manage comes over and hands me his jacket. He's dressed like a bomb squad guy because one of the extras didn't show up. "Here. You can use this. You look cold." Aw. Gee, thanks.

I sit on the steps of the house and watch in fascination. Turns out the girl in the pajamas wasn't a crazy after all. Hey! Is that Steve Guttenberg out there in that bathrobe? I loved him in Three Men and A Baby!

It's now 10:00 p.m. They just wrapped up the outside scenes and everybody is moving inside. We finally get to go back. I have to walk through the house to get back to my stuff. Steve Guttenberg is in the living room and they are getting set up to rehearse a scene. He sees me coming and smiles and says, "Aren't you cold?" I think to myself, Why, yes, Mr. Guttenberg. I'm freezing my ass off! But instead, I just say, "It was a lot warmer when I got dressed this morning."

Then the director yells for everybody who isn't in the scene to clear out. I scurry off to the back room and gather my things before walking outside with the rest of the boys.

Anyway, I’ve got to wrap this up because LHM just told me he's going to have to frisk me.

3/23/06

2006-03-23T14:35:00.000-06:00

1:20 p.m.,

Well, I'm sitting in LHM's car waiting for him to get out of the electronics store. See, he bought this computer game and found that his video card wasn't allowing all the graphics so decided to go buy a new card. But the new card wouldn't work. So he took it back because he figured it was defective. But then the replacement wouldn't work either. So now he's going to buy a more expensive card because, hell, if it's more expensive it's got to work, right? If the expensive card doesn't work then he's going to get more power supply... Which will be even more expensive.

And all to play a computer game.

Men are funny.

Anyway, tonight LHM is going to be playing an extra on Veronica Mars. He gets to be a cop. I'm going to be his groupie. I'll be blogging live from the set this evening.

P.S. MAN, it's hot in SoCal right now. :-P

3/20/06

2006-03-21T00:33:00.000-06:00

9:11 p.m.
Right now LHM is looking over my shoulder as I write. Stop it! Go back to dreaming about past episodes of “Lost”. He keeps telling me that when we crash he wants me to call him John Locke. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about but he keeps laughing to himself every time he says it. I’m going to have to watch that show sometime.

I’m in a plane over the Rocky Mountains right now. As we were taking off about an hour ago the flight attendants performed a field experiment. The hypothesis was that the bag of peanuts would sail down the aisle faster than the pretzels. Pretzels won. LHM owes me 10 bucks. I love Southwest.

All right, here’s my latest ME story. It’s Saturday morning. I am just returning from releasing a body to a funeral home when my pager goes off in my pocket….again. Perfect timing, guys. You couldn’t hit me ten minutes earlier while I was still at the morgue.

I call dispatch and am directed to respond to a residence out in the county. A young woman, about 15-years-old, was found dead by her mother this morning. Dispatch can’t give me any details, but I’m assuming that it’s a drug or alcohol OD since it was St. Patrick’s Day yesterday.

I pick up the van at the MEO and head out. There are miles and miles of farmland once you cross to the west side of I-94. Stubborn patches of snow lay in patches on the fallow fields and a thin fog hovers over the trees. It’s really a beautiful morning and my mind registers this, though I am not able to fully appreciate it. I’m too distracted going over what needs to be done when I arrive at the residence. I am tense because I know that this will be a difficult scene. The girl was so young and her death was unexpected. Her family will be shocked and highly emotional. I need to be prepared.

I arrive at the home 20 minutes later. There are several men out in the yard. I note the stark faces as I pull in and get out of the van. A man about 40-years-old walks over. I introduce myself and tell him I’m from the Medical Examiner’s office. I tell him I’m sorry.

“I need to talk to you about this,” he says with barely controlled anger. “My daughter will not be taken away in that truck. You need to tell them to bring an ambulance. I’ve done that once and I won’t do it again.”

I’m not sure what he’s talking about so I sidestep the issue by telling him that I will need to go inside to speak to the officer in charge.

I walk through the front door and the situation is no better. Women are gathered in the living room, sobbing and holding each other. I hate walking in on scenes like this. I feel very acutely that I am an intruder at a very personal, horrible time. I give another general introduction, explain to the people in the room who I represent and what I’ll be doing before moving quickly to the side of the waiting detective. Det. Brown and I exchange a few words in hushed tones before he takes me to a small bedroom off the kitchen.

“So, what’s the story?” I ask. “Dispatch didn’t tell me anything but that it was a 15-year-old girl.”

Det. Brown opens the door and steps in with me. The room is sweltering hot, at least 90 degrees, and there is a small television on in the corner. I scan the room as Brown speaks. A teenage romance novel on a nightstand. A formal gown in the closet. My heart aches for this girl who will never see her first prom.

“Seems that the girl suffers from migraine headaches. She’s had problems with it for a couple of years. Her mother took her to the ER on Wednesday night because the pain was so bad and she was throwing up. She was given a couple of prescriptions and sent home. Over the next two days she just kept throwing up. Couldn’t keep anything down. There’s a bag of vomit there on the floor next to the bed.”

I look into the corner at the bag. “I’m taking the puke and the prescriptions with me.” I say as I bend down and mark the bag with a date.

“They’re all yours,” Brown says. “There’s another bag of vomit from the day before outside by the front stoop.”

I’m not sure why these people would save barf, but I am grateful. It will be analyzed for any clues as to what happened to the girl.

“Did she drink alcohol, do drugs…anything like that?” I asked.

“She had a tox screen back last year and tested positive for barbs, opiates, all sorts of shit.”

My mind starts going over the possibilities. Maybe she got a bad batch of drugs.

“Did they run tox at the ER?”

“Yes. She was clean.”

Hmmm. Okay. So she wasn’t hyped up on goofballs…at least none that your average, everyday drug screen will test for. She wasn’t out partying over the past few days. She’s got a history of migraine headaches but has been otherwise healthy.

“What did she drink or eat over the past few days?”

“She had water and tea on Thursday, but didn’t keep it down. On Friday she had water, a spoonful of warm jello and a cracker.”

“How many times did she vomit?”

“On Thursday, about 10 times. On Friday, 8 times.”

Nothing the girl ate or drank over the past couple of days contained any electrolytes. Meanwhile, she was throwing up everything she consumed and becoming more and more dehydrated.

“Do you know what her labs were like at the ER? How were her electrolyte levels?”

Detective Brown looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “How the hell should I know? Do I look like a doctor?”

I sigh. No. You look like a horse’s ass.

I make a mental note to call the ER as soon as I get out of here. Right now I need to examine the body.

I turn my attention to the small figure on the bed. She’s petite, maybe 105 lbs. Her hair is long and dark and tangled around her head. She’s got dark circles under her eyes. Her head is drawn back and her eyelids are partially open. She is wearing a tank top and pajama bottoms. There are three EKG leads on her chest and abdomen where Rescue checked her vitals.

“Did Rescue move her at all?” I need to know if this was the position she’d been found in.

“No. They were careful not to move her. They made no attempt at resuscitation.”

And I can see why. I pull on a pair of latex gloves and place my palm on her torso. Cool. I move my hand to her arm. Cooler. I try unsuccessfully to open one of her hands. They are closed tightly and won’t budge. I move to her elbow joint. Same thing. Her jaw is also tightly clenched. Rigor mortis is full. She’s been dead for at least 10 hours.

“When was she last seen alive?”

“Mom was staying up with her, rubbing her back and talking to her. She left the room at 0200 hours. She came in to check on her again at 0400 hours. And she found her in the same position at 0830 hours.”

Huh. It’s now 1030 hours. Even if she died at 0200 that’s only 8 hours…too soon for rigor to be full. I consider. The room is so hot, though. Heat accelerates the decomposition process and can cause rigor to present more quickly than normal.

I work my way down her body…documenting scars, tattoos, cuts, bruises. When I get to her feet I stop. Her toes are pointed straight out. I’ve never seen that before. I take photographs and bag up the meds and the puke. I pull out a syringe and pop the cap off the needle. I look back at Det. Brown. “How’s your stomach?” He turns away when he sees the needle puncture the left eyeball and draw out vitreous fluid. I deposit the milky thick fluid into a vial and label it. Vitreous is an excellent measure of electrolyte levels at the time of death but it must be drawn as soon as possible to give an accurate reading.

Before I leave the room I close the girls eyes and cover her with a blanket.

Det. Brown meets me outside the door and brings me to a separate room where he has the mother waiting to be interviewed. We’ve barely finished the first sentence when the girl’s father walked in. “Carl,” the woman says quietly in a warning voice. “Carl, just be calm. Please, Carl.” The man’s eyes are a little wild and I remember our conversation outside about the van.

“I want to see my daughter,” he says almost as a challenge. My heart sinks. I know that people need that closure, but it is so traumatic and I hate witnessing it.

I glance over to Det. Brown who is standing in the doorway and nod.

“That’s fine. Take all the time you need.”

I lead the man and his wife to the back bedroom. They walk past me and I close the door so they can have a private moment. A few seconds later I hear the man yell, “Angel! Oh, angel, no!” I hear the woman sobbing. I watch the faces of the other officers. I can see the same bleak countenance on all of them that I am sure is reflected in my own. It’s a feeling of complete impotence.

Several minutes later I am sitting with the mother again. She is alone this time and as she speaks to me I can’t help but admire her strength. I can see how shocked she is. She tells me her story. I listen carefully and take notes. After we have finished, I am about to get up to leave when she touches my sleeve.

“What do you think happened? Was it her heart?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure yet. We’re going to have to perform an autopsy and run some other tests before I can give you a definitive answer, but it seems that her chemistry might have been off because of her illness.”

“You mean that she was dehydrated? You mean that if I’d brought her back to the hospital she would have been okay?” The woman’s face has paled and her hands begin shaking.

I touch her arm and look her in the eye before saying, “No. You did everything right. You brought her to the ER the day before and they sent you home. You gave her the medicine prescribed and did your best to keep food and water inside of her. Don’t you worry about that.”

She visibly calms and I squeeze her arm as I stand up to leave.

I am lying, of course. It’s a lie I’ve had to tell several times over the years. And it’s one I’ll probably tell again.

3/20/06

2006-03-20T13:03:00.000-06:00

1:04pm

Long time no blog!!

For those of you who didn't know, I've had some pretty serious personal issues come up over the past couple of months that have made it difficult for me to blog.

To say the least. Ahem.

But I'm back and I have a pretty interesting dead guy story for you all that I plan on punching out this evening while I'm on a plane.

Just as a side note...I was riding in a car with some random five-year-old when a guy pulled out in front of me. Now, believe it or not, I've been known to swear like a sailor in the past and for some reason when I get behind the wheel of a car that tendency is raised to the level of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Anyway, this guy pulls out in front of me and I shake my fist and yell, "Screw you, buddy!" (Which I thought was pretty tame considering I had a random five-year-old with me.)

So the random five-year-old sits there a second and says, "That guy was a jerk. You SHOULD screw him!"

All right. Thanks for your patience, my friends.

More later...

2/20/06

2006-02-20T12:18:00.000-06:00

12:21 p.m.

Hey there, bloglit! Just a quick note to let you know I'm still alive. I know I've been neglecting you. I just sent LHM back home to Cali. He's jsut a really big distraction.

Ahem.

Anyway, I'm on call at the ME's office every night this week, so I should have some pretty good stories for you.

One funny thing:

I sent Pippie up to do an interview on Monday and she ended up getting caught in a blizzard. She was on the freeway and traffic was at a stand-still for hours. I got a call from her at about noon informing me she wasn't there yet and she had to pee really bad.

"Do you have a bucket?"

"No."

"Sheesh, girl! Have I taught you nothing? What about a Burger King cup or something?"

"Hey! I DO have a Burger King cup!" She said excitedly.

"Just be careful not to spill. Trust me on this."

I hung up the phone feeling a little jealous that I wasn't stuck in a blizzard peeing in a cup among voyeuristic truckers.

I'm weird that way.

2/15/06

2006-02-15T09:28:00.000-06:00

9:28 a.m.

This morning I got a call from Pippie. As I'd mentioned before, she's working cases for me on occasion as well as being a coworker at the MEO. She's currently on a surveillance north of here and was checking in.

"So, Polly, I found your blog this morning."

Silence. Oh, fudge.

"That picture of you is hot."

More silence. "I...how did you find my blog?"

"Well, hell, girl. I'm a detective!"

Damn. That's true, you are. "Um...you understand... Please don't tell anybody at the office!"

"Aw, don't worry about it. Your secret's safe with me...for now. But you better go in quick and change all the mean things you said about me or I might change my mind."

"I never said anything mean about you! I just talked about when you stuck the giant Hershey's Kiss in your sweater and pretended it was an accessory nipple."

"Huh. You realize that you're mine, now. I own you. Which reminds me...there's this really nice watch I found at the Outlet Mall the other day. It would be a great gift for Pippie Day."

"You're birthday is coming up?"

"No. Pippie Day."

"Oh."

So, bloglit. I am now Pippie's slave...cabana boy...French maid...

I'm sure she won't take advantage.

TESTING...

2006-02-06T10:12:00.000-06:00

Hi, Bloglit.

I've been informed by many sources that y'all haven't been able to post comments since Friday. (And here I thought you didn't love me anymore.) I lost a couple of entries I tried to post in that time, too.

So, this morning I smacked the side of the monitor a few times and I'm hoping the problem is fixed. Please comment if you can. If not, email me and I'll try yelling expletives at the rotten thing. I'm sure that will work.

Polly

1/23/06

2006-01-22T23:24:00.000-06:00

11:23 p.m.

Well, I'm packing again. I don't know why I bother UNpacking, really...I travel so much. I am heading out to California tomorrow on yet another visit to see LHM. I am especially looking forward to this visit because his parents will be there.

Apparently, LHM's mother has been reading my blog for some time now. And despite the frequent cussing, general irreverence, and the occasional photograph of myself dressed like a dominatrix or a high priced whore (Vegas), she still wants to meet me! How about that?!

I told my father and the first thing he said was, "Uh-oh. Well, maybe they'll like you anyway." Hehe. When I told my mother her immediate reaction was, "Oh, Polly. You've got to stop swearing so much on that blog! I thought you made a New Year's resolution?"

"Yeah, Mom," I answer. "I made a New Year's resolution that everytime I swore I would give a quarter to the Salvation Army...to be collected next Christmas."

"So... How are you doing?"

"Well," I say, "so far I owe them a full car payment and part of a month's worth of groceries. I feel good about it, though, Mom. This way I get to swear and some kid gets shoes and a warm meal. I mean, if I stop swearing now, it's like I'm taking the food right out of that kid's mouth! Really...what kind of cold-hearted jerk would I be? See! Right there! I could have called myself an 'ass' instead of a 'jerk' and that kid might be able to afford those braces he's always wanted. I feel so guilty..."

1/21/06

2006-01-21T11:39:00.000-06:00

11:41 a.m.

Dearest Bloglit,

From this point forward, I am going to start moderating comments on my blog. This means that your comments may not show up immediately after you post them because I will have to review and approve their content before allowing them for public viewing.

Please don't let that discourage you from posting, my friends. I love to hear from all of you and would be very sad not to get your feedback.

I only take this course of action because there have been a few harassing, threatening comments of late that have served no purpose other than to piss me off. So for those choosing to make such comments, I have a brief message that I think makes my point quite well...

YOU SUCK! And you will NOT have a voice on my blog. Why? Because my blog is not a democracy.

Have a nice day!

Polly PI...princess of the blog.

1/19/06a

2006-01-19T09:11:00.000-06:00

10:01 a.m.

SUPPLEMENT UPDATE

I have added a few more pills to my daily supplement regimen. (Not that 13 wasn't enough already)

In addition to the:
Alpha lipoic Acid
CLA
Fish Oil
Potassium
5-HTP
Multi-vitamin/mineral
CoQ10
Lycopene
Green tea extract
Grape seed extract
Ester C
And Calcium

I have now added:
Chromium
B-12
Vitamin D
and Acetyl L-Carnitine

I need all of these supplements because I can no longer afford to buy food.

1/19/06

2006-01-19T08:18:00.000-06:00

8:17 a.m.

I wake up when my alarm goes off at 6am this morning. I kick my feet over the edge of the bed and step down on something strange that is definitely not the floor. I look down. My dumbbells. What are they doing out here? Was I exercising in my sleep? "Hmph." I kick them back under the bed where they belong. Along with an old banana peel and an empty cake box.

I throw on my robe and slippers and shuffle out toward the kitchen, passing by Baby Jesus and his pals in the nativity scene that I still haven't put away since Christmas. I wave.

I glance over at the Christmas tree...needles scattered in a pretty round carpet around the base. I consider (briefly) getting my act together and throwing it away before I start a fire from the friction of my shuffling slippers one morning. Instead, I yawn and turn away. I do not see the Christmas decorations. Reality is what I make of it. Mind over matter.

HATE MAIL #2

2006-01-17T09:02:00.000-06:00

This one is from Ms. Muffett. She started as a supervisor when I did and met me at the training in Boston. Ms. Muffett was demoted back to a regular investigator a few months later. Recently, she ran a case for me (for one of my supervisors, JD) down in Florida. As you'll note in the following transcript from her report, she was picked up by the Subject and for some mysterious reason, continued on her surveillance. Again, stuff in brackets is what I'm thinking.

Enjoy.

______________________

AT 1:00 p.m.; Investigator notes that Krenshaw County Police came out. Someone in the complex had called and reported a suspicious vehicle in the complex. The officer then went to Subject’s apartment and spoke with Subject. [YOU JUST GOT PICKED UP!!]

AT 1:40 p.m.; Investigator observed Subject getting into his vehicle and leaving the complex. Investigator initiated mobile surveillance. [WHAT THE HELL? DIDN'T YOU USED TO BE A SUPERVISOR? WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE?!]

______________________

JD,

It appears that Ms. Muffett was picked up by the Subject...that the Subject was the one that called the cops on her. If that is the case then she should have bagged out immediately and called the office. Please call me.

__________________________

To make a long story short, I made Ms. Muffett close out the case effective immediately. She was not happy about this. JD was asked by Ms. Muffett to forward the below message to me. JD felt very uncomfortable because he thought it would hurt my feelings.

RE: 687654B, Concha, GG................I do not feel that I was picked up by the Subject on this case yesterday. I feel that your Regional Supervisor made an incorrect decision on this case by not having me go back today. I was a Supervisor for a long time, and have enough sense to make a decision as to whether my cover was blown or not. [THERE IS A REASON YOU WERE DEMOTED, HONEY.] In my opinion, your Regional Supervisor made a very bad decision. Had I thought otherwise, I would have called the office immediately!!!!! I resent your Regional Supervisor implying that I did not know how to make the correct decision. Please pass this along to her as "I WANT HER TO READ THIS". She became a Supervisor about the same time that I did, and I don't feel that she has anymore experience in this field than do I.

_________________________

Hi, JD.

How does it feel to be the messenger boy? Could you please pass the below paragraph on to your investigator? And don't worry...it takes a lot more than that to ruffle my feathers. I understand that she's upset and I don't mind being the target. That's what I get paid the big bucks for. ;-)

In this line of work we are constantly making judgement calls. It's part of the job. But as an investigator, Ms. Muffett is not authorized to make the decision whether to stay on cases when there is even a small possibility of compromise. That burden goes to the Regional Supervisor and the Office Case Manager. In this case, a police officer approached her vehicle. He told her that somebody had called him about a stranger in the area. Then he immediately went to Subject's residence to speak with him. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that the Subject probably made the phone call and so was aware of the investigator's presence. At that point, Ms. Muffett should have departed the area and called the office, per company policy.

__________________________

Nicely said!!!

Now go kick the garbage can....and have a good night....I'll talk to ya in the morning sometime....I promise not to call early unless the sky falls in......all's quiet here. I think everybody's gone to bed.

JD

HATE MAIL #1

2006-01-17T08:03:00.000-06:00

Good morning, bloglit!

I thought it would be fun to go over a couple of pieces of hate mail I've gotten from investigators recently. This first one is from Butch. He's been with the company for about a month. Butch ran a three day case and I had to send each of his reports back to him 4 or 5 times. This was beginning to get on my nerves a bit, so I sent him the below email. Little did I know he was such a sensitive man. (Please note that the comments in brackets reflect what I was thinking, not what I wrote.)

Enjoy.

__________________________
Butch,

I need you to fix the neighborhood canvass. Again, I need a separate entry for each person that you approached. I need a description of the person, the residence, and what you asked them as well as their response. Please get this back to me before noon. [YOU WON'T] I should not have to ask you so many times. All you need to do is read the emails I send you and follow the instruction I give. [A MONKEY COULD DO THAT.]

Also, I think that you should reword the following report entry. It may be construed wrong.

"At 8:14 a.m., Investigator returns to residence and notes that Subject has a community driveway and the green Dodge Truck was most likely from the neighbors behind."

[THAT'S GOTTA HURT.]

___________________________

Butch,

And again, I need you to include both the report AND the expense sheet in the email. [YOU WON'T.]

___________________________

Polly,

I am learning, I can't read a manual and magically know how to write a perfect report. I think that it's pretty ridicoulous to expect a person to know how to do everything prefect.

Had I known that addresses and descriptions were necessary when no answers were forthcoming, I would have gotten them. [YES, IF ONLY I'D TOLD YOU 3 or 4 TIMES... OH, WAIT! I DID!]

I would understand you criticism if I had been doing this for a while and was consistently not getting things right. [IT'S BEEN A MONTH.] But frankly if this is the way I'm going to be treated I don't think I need to continue. [TIME TO REQUEST A NEW INVESTIGATOR IN COLORADO.]

I am very frustrated with being maligned. [BABY.] You may get new investigators that know everything when they first start but I'm not one of them. Your criticizing me for not knowing something I have never learned is a bit much.

What's frustrating is that I just started to feel like I was getting some of these things down, starting to get the feel of how to do things the best way, and then I get the email from you saying I basically suck.

[I MAY HAVE THOUGHT IT BUT I NEVER SAID IT.]

1/13/06

2006-01-13T06:17:00.000-06:00

7:17 a.m.

"You should see this!" I say into the reciever. "There's a t-shirt for sale here that says, 'Tell Your Boobs To Stop Staring At My Eyes'." I giggle.

"Why would anybody buy a shirt like that?" LHM asks in disgust. "How tacky."

"Yeah!" I say, "What kind of a person, indeed!" I place the t-shirt on the checkout counter and wink at the cashier. (Sorry, Dad. If you're reading this then Father's Day won't be much of a surprise this year.)

I gather my purchases and head back to my room to go over reports for the night. I am especially anxious to read Fish's. He called me on the radio early this afternoon all in a tissy. "Polly! This Subject I'm following... His car is on fire! He's speeding down the road toward his house! I'll call you back!"

Well, there's something you don't see everyday.

A half hour later Fish radios me again. "Man, I've been doing this for 11 years and I've never seen anything like that before. It's almost as good as when the old homeless guy threw poo at my car." I consider asking him about the homeless poo experience, but think better of it.

"Anyway, the guy rushed home, ran at top speed into the house, and came back with a bucket of water. His limp miraculously disappeared, too, by the way."

Now, what are the chances of that? Of all the days that the guy would be under surveillance, it would be the day that he was required to test his supposed disability under extreme circumstances. Karma? I'd like to think so.

Anyway, I'm set up on a rural road here in Almost Canada. It's nearly 8am and still dark. The area is flat and barren with a few pine trees dotting the landscape. This is crazy. Why would anybody live out here voluntarily?

And I have no place to hide. There are no trees tall enough and thick enough to provide significant cover on the tundra.

I suppose I could dress up like a moose. Blend in. Go casually graze on the bushes under the Subject's bedroom window...

I FORGOT TO PACK MY MUKLUKS

2006-01-13T05:21:00.000-06:00

It's 7am. Still pitch dark outside. The moose (meese? mooses?) are looking at me funny.

I'M LOST. But at least there's a nice view.

2006-01-12T12:06:00.000-06:00

View from the other side of Lake Michigan.

Stuck in Chicago traffic

2006-01-12T10:04:00.000-06:00

It's times like these when I wish I'd gone for that on-board rocket launcher option.

ALL PACKED UP AND READY TO GO!

2006-01-12T01:34:00.000-06:00

Look! A picture of luggage!

1/12/06

2006-01-12T01:17:00.000-06:00

1:17 a.m.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a glorious adventure in northern Michigan! In the middle of January!

Hooray!

What? Don't look at me like that. I've been itching for a road trip for ages. Too many months cooped up in front of my PC.

I've got my digital camera, my guitar in the trunk, my bucket, and my laptop revved up and ready to go.

It's going to be a long drive and I'll be sure to take lots of pics and blog along the way. Right now I'm going to download some music for the road.

I bet those people at the BP station missed me...

01/09/06

2006-01-09T08:19:00.000-06:00

8:18 a.m.

After I get home from releasing the suicide, I tackle some PI work that has started to pile up when I was gone. Several hours of travel requests, investigator phone calls, and case reviews later, I'm eating my cat curry when my beeper goes off again. I look at the display. It says: "Please call Droi..." That's it.

Errg. I hate it when they try to text messages to me. They never come through all the way. I've told them 400 times to just send the phone number and I'll call them back. I call dispatch.

"Dispatch, Rollins."

"Yes, this is Polly from the ME's office. Did you guys paged me? I couldn't tell because the text didn't come thr..." She cuts me off.

"Oh. Yeah. Hold on."

Several cuss words and a short conversation with the supervisor later, I am calling the emergency room at one of the local hospitals. The ER nurse tells me she's got a 65-year-old male who collapsed after going for a jog this afternoon. The nurse said the decedent was in the garage and fell on the corner of a set of concrete stairs. The fall was not witnessed. "Polly, I've never seen a face split open like this. It looks like somebody took an axe to this guy's face... Right down the midline. I can't imagine anybody sustaining an injury like this from a simple fall."

Oh, great. Now I have images of the wife taking a frying pan to his face. But I'll come back to that later. First thing's first.

"Does he have a medical history?"

"Not recent. The last time he saw his doctor was 2 years ago. He was diagnosed with hypertension, but he refused to take medication for it. I already talked to Doctor Morris and he refuses to sign the death certificate."

I sigh. Doesn't look like I'm getting out of bringing this one in. Besides, I want to check out that facial laceration. It's got my spidey sense tingling.

"Is the family still there?"

"Yes. The wife is here and a son."

"Okay. Please ask them to stay. I want to question the wife. Oh...and how big is this guy?"

"Big. Maybe 6'5" and 375 lbs."

Ooftah.

I pick up the van at the ME's office and drive around to the back of the hospital...where the morgue is located. I am concerned enough about the facial injuries that I shove several paper sacks in my satchel...just in case I'm suspicious enough of foul play that I need to bag the hands for trace. I hop out of the truck and two security guards are waiting for me in black dress pants and red blazers with gold embroidered lettering on the breast pocket. I love this hospital that way. They are so accommodating. I feel like the bellhop just met me at the door of a fancy hotel. One of them takes the cot to the morgue while the other escorts me to the ER.

There are several nurses and doctors gathered around the nurses station when I get there. They are listening intently to a cop who is telling them a story in hushed tones. I wait for a moment, but when it becomes clear that nobody is going to help me, I walk closer to get the nearest nurse's attention. The cop who is talking looks at me just then and stops his story. He gives me a big smile. "Polly! I haven't seen you since we moved that decomp the other day!" It's Officer Wink. I greet him and we chat for a few minutes while the nurses and doctors dispurse... Story time is over, I guess.

One of Wink's partners comes over and chats with us. After the introductions he says, "Yeah. Wink told me how you caught him trying to take a picture of your butt at that decomp scene." They giggle like a couple of 12-year-olds. I roll my eyes. Cops. We are interrupted by Charles, the nurse assigned to my Dead Guy's case. He tells me that the body is in Room 5 and the family has all had a chance to see him.

I ask Charles to take me to the body first. I want to examine that wound before talking to the wife.

I walk into the room. Dead Guy is covered in a sheet from head to toe. A small wooden cross has been laid on his chest. The chaplain must have been here. I glove up, remove the cross, and pull back the sheet. Oh, for crying out loud. The way that nurse was talking, I was expecting the man's face to have been practically cloven in two. This is a nasty laceration, but it certainly is within the realm of possiblity if he hit a concrete stair at just the right angle. I can feel myself relax. No spousal homicide today. That's good.

More later...

01/08/06

2006-01-08T18:30:00.000-06:00

6:30 p.m.

The doorbell rings and I run down the stairs with check in hand.

"Hey. You ordered Chinese, lady?"

It's the delivery boy from The Bamboo Palace. They have great curry.

I pay for my food and hurry upstairs to the kitchen. I transfer the contents of my little white box to a plate heaping with rice. Mmmm...I take a big whiff of steam and smile. I could eat a horse. Or a cat. I don't really care as long as it's in curry sauce.

I take a bite while standing over the sink and am chewing away happily when I hear a loud buzzing sound in the other room. It's dispatch paging me. Oh, fudge. I whimper a little and look down at my food. Looks like Fluffy died in vain. I shovel one more bite in my mouth and head to my bedroom.

This shift has been hectic. It all started at 7am when I was called by a funeral home to release a body from the morgue. That took me a half hour or so and I was just heading home when I saw an ambulance pull out of the station near my home. Great. Probably a DOA. Happens all the time in the morning. I was right. Ten minutes later I got the page. I went to the scene and pronounced. It was an unremarkable situation. The decedent was an 80-year-old man who lived alone. His son tried to call him yetserday and got no answer. Son then drove by the house this morning and noticed that the garage door was open. That's when he knew something was wrong. Dad never left the garage door open all night. Son walked in and found his father face down on the floor by the couch. Dad had a host of health problems and nobody was exactly surprised. This was a natural. Not an ME case. I kicked it to the family doctor and released to a funeral home.

A couple of hours later I got a call from one of the local hospital ERs. Another old guy. Another natural. I declined ME jurisdiction and didn't even have to go pronounce since the ER doctor obliged.

Then I got called by a funeral home regarding a local police officer who committed suicide on a high school football field last night. "Oh, really?" I said. "I wasn't aware." My shift didn't start until midnight, so it's possible it came in earlier and I wasn't informed.

"Yeah," Mort from Pearly Gates Funeral Home said. "I would like to know how she looks so I can tell the family whether there will be an open casket or not."

Ugh.

"Well, since I live five minutes from the office, why don't I head over there and check for you?"

"Would you? That would be so nice! You're such a nice girl."

Yeah. Plus I want to see the woman. The name sounds familiar. I think maybe I was out on a scene with her once.

I drive over to the MEO and notice Dr. Frank's truck out front. It's 2pm on a Saturday. That woman works all the time. It's like all she does is work. She should just relax sometimes and turn off her phone and...

Nevermind. Pot...kettle...black.

So I walk in through the front door. "Hello?"

Dr. Frank greets me. She's in her office writing a lecture she's giving at a big symposium on Monday. I see a Powerpoint presentation on her computer screen and the word "Cirrhosis" emblazoned across the slide with bulleted points underneath it.

"Hey, Doc. Does Cory Shelly ring a bell to you? I got a call from a funeral home a few minutes ago asking me if she's viewable."

Dr. Frank turns in her seat and faces me. "Yeah. That was a sad case. So young. She was a local cop. Yesterday night she called into dispatch and gave them a ten code...10-45 or something like that...It's supposed to mean you're going off duty. Only she wasn't supposed to be off until the next morning. Anyway, dispatch couldn't really understand what she said and thought it was a different code...like an armed robbery or something...so they sent a whole bunch of cars and shit out there. Only it was too late. She shot herself through the side of the head."

I imagine the woman, still in uniform, sitting on the bleachers of a dark football field at night. What kind of dispair would have driven her to that?

Dr. Frank goes on, "I posted her yesterday. She should be viewable if they're good at putting craniums back together. Her face was pretty much okay. Go ahead and tell them they can pick her up."

We chat for a while longer before I call Mort back and tell him he can come get the body.

I walk down to the morgue, glove up, grab the cooler key from on top of the door frame, and pull the door open. There's a loud click and a hiss. Inside I can hear air whooshing from the ventilation system. Even so, it smells stale. I walk in and scan the toe tags for Dpty. Shelly.

I pull her out of the cooler and into the bay area where Mort will soon be arriving in his Suburban. I unzip the bag and immediately note there are loose stitches of waxed cord running up and down her arms, legs, and torso. She was harvested for tissue and organs. Her head is bagged. I tuck the white plastic up so that I can see her face. I sigh. I do recognize her. Back when I had my kidney infection and I had to run that motorcycle case. She was the rookie cop that came in with the body and almost started to cry when she was describing the scene to me. Oh, hell.

Her eyes have been harvested so her lids are closed on concave orbits. I can see tell-tale "raccoon eyes"...bruising in and around the eye sockets. Raccoon eyes are a direct result of the enormous pressure that is expelled when a bullet penetrates the brain at close range. Her skin is pale and her dark hair is tangled in around her face like a mass of seaweed.

I shake my head. I pull the bag back down on her head.

As I drive home I keep envisioning the young woman with the clear, kind eyes telling me about the motorcycle accident scene. Trying to be professional. Trying to be a cop.

More later....this was a long day...

01/06/06

2006-01-06T14:26:00.000-06:00

2:24 p.m.

Seriously...

Everything I touch has turned to monkey poo today.

It started out last night when an investigator called me (at 9pm) to tell me his car wasn't out of the shop yet..."I was waiting and then they just closed so now I can't leave for my case I'm supposed to start that's 400 miles away in San Antonio at 6am tomorrow."

Then, I was reviewing a report from South Carolina. The investigator USED to be a supervisor for my company but was relieved of her duties. I think I know why, now. The report said that the cops came out and questioned her on her surviellance and then the cop went to the CLAIMANT'S house and talked to them. So..clearly she got picked up. But did she call her supervisor? No. Did she immediately break off? No. She stayed on him for two more hours AND EVEN ENGAGED IN A MOBILE SURVIELLANCE ON HIM. Bloody hell.

So, I went to bed.

I woke up this morning to find that a case that was started yesterday was supposed to have been scheduled from 3:30pm to 11:30pm. I reminded my supervisor 4 times before he found somebody to run the case to schedule it properly. My supervisor scheduled it for 6am-4pm. And I'M the jerk because I didn't catch it while reviewing his assignment. It's just that I review 10 to 20 assignment schedules a day and it slipped by. So now we have to rerun the first day.

Then, Fish was running a case and his video camera blew up. He had to leave and get a new camera.

After that, Joe...remember Joe? My absent-minded former boss? He screwed up the video on a couple of cases he ran last week and then messed up some dates and times in his report, so I had to spank him for that.

Not to mention yesterday. I was renegotiating my contract and my boss...being the wonderful man that he is...called me and said, "You either take what we're offering or you're fired. Tell me now." He knows I've got a few very good little reasons for remaining where I am for the time being otherwise I would have told him to shove his job up his ass. Which I will do as SOON as I find another one.

And now I'm late for the dentist. I'm kind of looking forward to the drill. At least I don't have to answer the phone for an hour or so.

Polly PI playing as Elvira Lynn Fection (with...ahem...Space Invaders in the background)

2006-01-06T08:45:00.000-06:00

01/04/06

2006-01-04T15:44:00.000-06:00

3:44 p.m.

I am standing in front of the mirror in the guest bathroom at LHM's house. It's New Year's Eve and we're getting ready to go out for a nice steak (medium rare, of course) dinner. We are running late, so I call to LHM asking how much more time he needs.

"Hey!" I yell.

Silence.

I narrow my eyes. It's awfully quiet out there. Too quiet. I shrug. Maybe he's busy seeing a man about a horse. I turn back to the mirror and just finish powdering my nose when I hear a loud pop and feel a sharp sting in my left buttock.

"Ouch!" I jump and look up at the doorway. LHM is standing there with a grin on his face and the toy shotgun I bought him for a How To Host A Murder party we went to the other night. (He was Elias Truis Teeth, a young gun slinger, and I was Elvira Lynn Fection, the owner and maddam of the local brothel. I'll post a picture or two later.)

"Damn it!" I kick off my heels and start chasing him around the house. "This is the fourth time you've shot me in the ass with that thing! Now prepare to be kicked in yours!"

Unfortunately, I'm a rather small woman and in a wrestling match with a 6'3" tall man, fingernails and teeth can only do so much. I have no choice but to pull out the big guns. I collapse.

"My arm! Oh, it hurts! You hurt me!" I curl into a ball and craddle my arm. LHM lets me go and immediately asks me if I'm okay. I gasp a few more times before springing into action.

Ha. Men. So easy.

Unfortunately, the surprise attack only really works if you are intent on truly disabling somebody. So because I was kind and figured LHM might want to have children someday, I ended up in a headlock in my fancy dress until I said "uncle". Serves me right for not fighting dirty. Dirtier.

In other news:

Jose quit a couple of days after Christmas. So now I am acting supervisor for his area in addition to my other duties. Pile it on, babies. More weight.

I got my new contract, which was a joke, as expected. I countered this morning and have been waiting all day to see if I'll get what I asked for.

I am going to go run a couple of cases in Michigan next week...that is if they accept my counter-offer. It'll be fun to get out there on the road again. It's surprising how much I miss sitting in my truck blogging all day.

I haven't taken off my robe in 3 days. Maybe I'll get dressed tomorrow just for lips and tickles. I'm starting to feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

All work and no play makes Polly a dull girl.

Ho Ho Ho!

2005-12-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

7:59 a.m.

Well, today was my official Christmas seeing as I'm working from 10am to midnight at the MEO tomorrow.

Bah, humbug!

In the meantime, Santa was pretty good to me this year.

I got a jug of egg nog. Although I kinda wish he'd stuck it in the fridge instead of under the tree because now it's kinda chunky. Not that I'm complaining, Santa...chunky nog is better than no nog at all.

I got a hairbrush and some deodorant in my stocking. Huh. Santa must be trying to tell me something. I lift my arm and sniff into the pit of my Christmas jammies. My eyes start to water and my sinuses miraculously clear. I crinkle my brow in puzzlement. No worse than usual. I shrug and move on.

I got a fruit cake which I am currently using as target practice. I mount it atop an upside-down vase against the back wall of my closet. (I would prefer to use live ammo or a compound bow, but I guess I'll have to settle for darts...or maybe steak knives if I'm really having a bad day.) I walk back to my desk, sit in my office chair, swivel, and take aim. I send a dart deep into the belly of the beast. Candied fruit bleeds out in festive chunks. I smile. That was a kill shot if I ever saw one and I have three darts left! Damn, I'm good!

I aim higher on the wall at a picture of the Great Satan (that would be my boss) that I stapled to the dart board as an afterthought. The dart bounces off the board and ricochets into a line of clothes hanging along the wall. I smirk. No matter, old man. Your time will come. I turn back to the computer screen with a contented sigh and take a swig of chunky nog.

This is a hell of a lot more satisfying than squeezing a stress ball.

Oh, and peace on Earth, good will t'ward men and all that...

Merry Christmas!

12/22/05

2005-12-22T22:28:00.000-06:00

10:29 p.m.

Lunch at the MEO was fun. I brought chocolate for everybody because, after all, nothin' says lovin' like a giant Hershey's Kiss. Although I didn't anticipate Pippie using hers as an accessory nipple under her shirt. (Keep in mind that we're all a bunch of women and the only guy there was about 90 thousand years old. I think that when Pippie started EATING hers, well... the poor guy high-tailed it out of there as fast as his lil' old legs would take him.)

Pippie is as cool chick. We spent a big portion of the afternoon exploring the scary parts of the building that neither of us were brave enough to venture into on our own. We were joined by Igor, the autopsy technician. I know it sounds cliche and you will probably think I'm exaggerating, but trust me...the man is a pale zombie that is one hump shy of a bell tower. Igor is sweet and quiet and provided sufficient testosteroney support so that Pippie and I were fairly certain he would stand between us and whatever disturbed elderly nursing home spirit might still be gumming the halls of our building.

12/22/05

2005-12-22T20:48:00.000-06:00

8:49 p.m.

Contract negociation. Oh, boy. Come the first of the year Hell, Inc. is going to offer me some rediculously low sum of money to supervise 30 states (and one US territory). I have decided that if they don't meet my specifications on salary, I'm gonna tell them to kiss my purdy little arse.

I can always be a cocktail waitress in a stip joint and make more money than I make now, right Mom?

12/21/05

2005-12-21T08:30:00.000-06:00

8:29 a.m.

I spent much of last night trying to put out fires.

Only the fires are in Texas and my supervisor there, Jose, seems to be a pyromaniac.

My radio goes off at about 9pm. "Polly! Are you there?"

I am right in the middle of eating a late dinner...a bag of chocolate chips and a cup of chamomile. I stare at my radio for a minute and debate whether to answer. "Technically" I am off the clock after nine.

"Polly, I gotta problem with this Smoot case. I know you can hear me."

Oh, hell.

I pick up my radio. "Hi, Jose. Que paso?"

"Welp...it looks like the guy that my investigator was following for the past couple of days is actually the FATHER of the guy we're supposed to be following. And it turns out that first address we were given on the intake sheet really IS Subject's residence."

I sigh heavily and pinch the bridge of my nose. When I read the report that was submitted last night it indicated that the investigator did his own "research" when he got to town. He said he found a new address and phone number for the Subject. He didn't even bother to set up at the address we were given, but went straight to the new one...which, it turned out, belonged to Subject's father.

"Jose, how is it that your investigator mistook a 70-year-old man for a 27-year-old?"

"I dunno, man. He said he looked old for his age."

I sigh again. I have been making a huge effort to keep Jose from being fired. He tends to forget important things, has no common sense, and just generally is disorganized to the point that he is constantly reactive to stuff that has gone wrong.

He's a decent enough guy. A big, Mexican teddy bear. And I mean big. He's probably near 400 lbs and 5'8" tall. He goes far beyond what I, or any other half-way savvy individual would do to gain the loyalty of his investigators. He lends them money and covers their asses when they screw something up really bad. He's kind and innocent and I suppose that is why even though he is a lot of work, I am trying to help him succeed.

Yesterday morning Jose called me with a shaky voice and told me frankly that he didn't think he was very good at being a supervisor. This after a scathing piece of hate-mail sent down from the corporate powers-that-be telling him he sucks at reviewing cases.

Which he does.

I told him it's just a matter of being more organized and learning how to review cases better. We talked for 45 minutes on strategies he can utilize to improve his performance and when I hung up the phone I really felt we'd made some progress.

So when I get the call tonight indicating that we followed the wrong guy around for two days and it's our own damn fault, I am fearing for Jose.

"Okay. Damage control. Luckily the update from yesterday was so bad that they sent it back for you to review. I still haven't turned in the one you submitted tonight. Take them both and do what you can to make it prettier without lying."

What do I mean by that? Well, often it's not what you say, but how you say it. For example, I lose a guy in mobile surveillance because I'm following too far back and I get stuck behind a truck. Damn. I really goofed that one up, right?

When I write my report, however, I say something to the tune of:
"Investigator began running a loose surveillance in order to protect the integrity of the investigation. After several minutes, view of Subject vehicle was obstructed by a large 18-wheeler tractor trailor. Efforts to re-establish contact were unsuccessful."

Now doesn't that sound better? Dude, I know I lost him, but it was in an effort to protect the integrity of the investigation, for Pete's sake!

Another example... I get a new phone number for my Subject by calling 411:
"Extensive internal search efforts revealed new contact information for Subject as follows..."

Anyway, we'll see what happens today. I did what I could, but I think that Jose has hit the ol' brick wall. He has reached his level of incompetence. It's the Peter Principle in action.

In other news, we're having a Christmas luncheon at the ME's office tomorrow. I was supposed to bring in my $10 for Dr. Frank's gift sometime earlier in the week but I wrote Joy and Nancy an email today asking if I can just give it to them tomorrow, saying, "I suppose I COULD bring it in today, but that would mean I have to take a shower and I am in the process of breaking a personal filth record."

Which reminds me, I need to buy some more fly paper.

12/19/05

2005-12-19T01:13:00.000-06:00

1:17 a.m.

Boy, is it good to be home. I've spent the last couple of hours catching up on work...wrapped up in my polar fleece robe and sipping a cup of tea.

Boston was fun. I was flown out for the annual Christmas party that my PI firm throws for the managment they haven't yet fired. And since they encouraged us to bring guests, I invited LHM to come out from California for the party.

I had to spend the first day working in the hotel room. That was no fun and I felt bad for LHM because he was stuck watching television instead of touring Boston. The second day the Regional Supervisors met in the morning so that we could go over the same crap that we went over two months ago. That afternoon, the supervisors joined us and we went over the same stuff that we'd gone over that morning. That's about when I fell asleep and Dennis, the Regional sitting next to me, put an orange slice down my pants. I yelp.

"Yes, Polly? Is there a problem?" I look up at the CEO and then scan the room. Everyone is staring at me. I glare at Dennis, who is covering his mouth and trying very hard not to laugh.

"I... uh..." I suddenly remember that one scene in The Sound of Music. You know...the one when Maria sat on the pinecone her first night at dinner with the Captain and the children? The Captain asked her what the matter was and she patted her butt and said, "Rheumatism."

Brilliant.

"I...hemorroids," I say. There is laughter around the room and I can't help but add, "Hemorroids aren't funny, you know. Just wait until you get them." Somebody says something about being the 'butt' of jokes and the conversation spirals downward for a blessed few minutes before we get back to the topic at hand...which I don't recall because I stopped listening two hours ago. I tune out again but decide falling asleep would be inadvisable with jackass Dennis sitting next to me. I might wake up with a mustach drawn on my face. Instead, I get online and almost finish up my Christmas shopping by the time meetings let out at 4:30.

I grab my stuff and head up to my room. When I get inside, I call over to LHM's room, but he's not there. I call his cell. When he answers, he tells me he's shopping for clothes for us for the Christmas party tonight. Huh. My heart gets all gooey and melty. "Aw. That's so sweet of you! You don't have to do that." He assures me he wants to and I hang up the phone with a smile on my face. But then begin to worry about what he might have bought for me to wear. I hope it's not some hideous granny cardigan with Christmas stockings and Santa heads embroidered all over it...

LHM knocks on the door several minutes later and presents me with a long black skirt, a tastful, red sparkly sweater, and a sparkly silver earring and necklace set. He got himself some black dress pants and a red button-down shirt.

LHM leaves my room and as I start getting dressed I realize that we are going to be the annoying dress-alike couple with our red tops and black bottoms. I sigh and shrug. It could be worse. We could be wearing matching t-shirts that have arrows pointing to the other saying, "I'm with stupid."

In a nutshell, the Christmas party was a chance to see a bunch of my coworkers get wasted in a social setting. I had a nice time mingling and getting to know people better. Right before we left, we said goodbye to the CEO. He asked how long we'd be in Boston and I said a couple of days as we were going to do a bit of sightseeing over the weekend. He joked that I'd better spend my days working. LHM, who realizes how hard I work because he was with me for nearly a month, took that as an opportunity to mention that I put in at least 14 hour days and don't get paid nearly enough for my efforts.

Silence. CEO's eyes narrow. LHM stares back at him without blinking...his face expressionless. I am waiting for one of them to expose himself so we can see who's the bigger man once-and-for-all.

After several tortuous seconds of that, I grab LHM's arm. "Um...thanks for the party! G'night!" I pull LHM toward the door, looking over my shoulder once we get there. CEO is still glaring at our backs.

We are silent for a few minutes as we walk through the cold night air. "Well, that was fun!" I say with no small amount of sarcasm.

LHM immediately apologizes but adds, "I just hate that they take advantage of you. Somebody had to tell them how hard you work."

Men. I vascilate between wanting to clock LHM or hug him. So I do both.

12/16/05

2005-12-16T05:52:00.000-06:00

6:53 a.m.

I'm about to head down to the lobby for my crappy bagel breakfast. Yes. I'm back in Boston. We just had the Christmas party last night and today I get to sit through yet another day of boring meetings listening to Charlie Brown's teacher "wah wah wah wah" for several hours.

I think that I shall slit my wrists.

I'll be back to give you a full update this evening. Lots going on in the PI world.

Of note, Fish got fired for not showing up to a case that the client sent its OWN investigators out to audit.

Somebody put an orange slice down my pants in the middle of the meeting yesterday when he noticed I was falling asleep. I will have to kill him later. Luckily I know how to perform the perfect homicide...

LHM told my boss that I'm overworked and underpaid. I will have to kill him later, too.

So, anyway, now that I've planned a double murder/suicide, I guess I'll go down and get my breakfast.

12/8/05

2005-12-08T10:57:00.000-06:00

11:04 a.m. I am currently waiting to testify as an expert witness outside of a courtroom in La Crosse, WI. The client in one of my cases way back when decided to press charges. I guess it irritated them a little to make disability payments to a blind guy that drives his kids to school every morning.

It was bitterly cold and snowing when I left my house at 3am. Just like the good old days. I take a sip of Mt. Dew and then place the cold can to my cheek to keep me awake. I'll have to pull over soon if I can't get over this tired. I watch as flimy whisps of blowing snow curl across the pavement in front of me. I am currently feeling very smug about buying a truck with seat warmers. I take a sip of Mt. Dew. I will need it. It's a 5 hour drive to La Crosse.

Anyway, I've been sitting here since 9am and at this point I am so ticked off that I'm tempted to blow the case for them.

More later... They just called me in.

11/07/05a WARNING: GRAPHICER...er..MORE GRAPHIC/DISTURBING

2005-12-07T11:36:00.000-06:00

10:33 a.m.   Now where was I?

Oh, yeah.  Straddling Dead Guy taking pictures.

I gingerly tip toe back to the bathroom entrance, careful not to step in anything wet and oozy.  The cops are all watching me.  Officer Wink takes my hand as I balance on one foot and then hop to the safety of the bedroom carpeting.

“Okay.  I’m fairly certain this is a natural death, but we need to turn the body to be sure there isn’t a knife or a bullet hole anywhere.  Who’ll volunteer to help me?”

They all look at each other.  Huh.  No takers.  They start arguing and finally decide that it’s Officer Reflo’s turn to get dirty.  As yet he’s avoided moving a body in his 6 years on the force.  Reflo’s eyes go a little wild as he glances down at Dead Guy.  I decide to bide him a little time to prepare.

“I’m going to go in and talk to the family for a few minutes.  Then I’ll go out and get the cot.  Do any of you need some extra gloves or a mask or anything?”  They all nod.

I walk out into the other room.  The family is gathered where I left them.  I ask them again how long it’s been since anybody saw Dead Guy.  The daughter, who is on the couch being comforted by her boyfriend, answers.  “I saw him on Friday afternoon.  I spend a lot of time at my boyfriends’ house and I didn’t come home again until today.”  I feel for the girl.  She looks scared to death.

“Well,” I say to her gently, “do you know if he picked up the mail on Saturday?”  I know full well he didn’t.  The man had been dead probably since Friday night to have turned to that extent.

The mail is sitting on the coffee table.  She tells me that it was in the box when she got here this afternoon.

I try to explain that it’s been a couple of days and that cleanup will be messy.  I give them a list of bio-hazard cleanup services in the area.

The sister speaks up from the other end of the sectional couch.  “So do you think he can have an open casket then?”  I think of the black, bloated face I’d just taken photo of.

“No.  I’m sorry.”  My words fall like a weight on the people in the room and it’s suddenly very quiet.  “I’m sure you can smell it.”  I say quietly.  “It’s just been too long and the natural process of decomposition is already well underway.”  I shut up because now I’m not sure if I’m helping or hurting the situation.

I get the brother to fill out an identification form so that we don’t have to go through the headache of matching dentition or taking prints. (This would be an excellent opportunity to practice the gloving technique of fingerprint procurement, though).

I walk out the van and pull out a heavy-duty body bag, a homicide drop sheet, and several sets of gloves.   I pile it all on top of the cot and then drag the whole lot back to the house.  There is snow on the ground and it keeps the wheels of the cot from working.  Finally I struggle the whole mess into the garage and Officer Wink assists me in lifting it up the step and through the kitchen to the master bathroom.

We all glove up and I open the body bag.  Holy mother of pearl.  It’s enormous.  You could fit a family into this thing.  Officer Reflo and I unzip the bag and then roll it up on one side.  The goal is to roll Dead Guy from his back onto the bag.  The problem is that the room is tiny.  It’s a half bath no bigger than a linen closet.

Now, let me just stop for a moment and say that I am totally improvising here.  I have never had to transport a decomp or even move one before.  If you’ll recall, we had a transport service when I was an investigator in Florida.  So I am trying to make it seem like I am cool and calm and know what the hell I’m doing for the benefit of these poor cops.  I glance at Reflo, still standing outside the entrance to the bathroom.  He’s as skittish as a virgin in a whore house.  (Sorry Mom.)

We work the bag in and tuck up under the body as much as we can.  I am at the head and trying to maneuver the edge under the head without much success.  Dead guy is slippery and I can’t get a grip on anything.  Officer Wink is watching me and, being the big, tough cop, decides to help.  Before I can say anything, he moves into the bathroom and tries to grab a handful of Dead Guy’s hair so he can lift the head.  He pulls and I say, “No…you’re going to…”  Oops.  “…tear the scalp.”  Now even Wink is looking green.  He looks at me and says with feeling, “For as long as I live I will never be able to get that out of my mind.  I ripped his hair out.”  Poor guy.  He walks out of the room, careful not to touch anything with his dirty gloves.

“Okay,” I say, “Reflo?”  Reflo peeks back around the corner.  I look him in the eye to try and get him to focus. “We’ve got the bag situated as far below the body as we can.  Now we need to roll him over into the pouch.  You grab his legs and I’ll take the torso.  Do you think you can do that?”  He nods his head.

I get into position and grab the left arm.  Roflo has the ankles.  “Ready?  GO!”  I push the arm as hard as I can, but the body is very slippery and only succeeds in sliding across the linoleum toward the wall.  Reflo starts gagging and walks out of the room.  I am afraid he’s going to barf all over the room.  Wink is comforting him in the bedroom, telling him it’s okay and to pull it together.  He tells Reflo he’ll take over.  “Go ahead, buddy.  Take your gloves off.  It’s okay.”

I look down at the legs.  Oh.  I see why Reflo grossed out so badly.  The skin is slipping and when you grasp it, it pulls away from the body.  He removed a large portion of the skin off Dead Guy’s legs trying to roll him.

I sit on the toilet and sigh.  This sucks.  I’m in a bathroom with a rotting person and the girls in the other room are making this take way longer than it should.  I look down at my favorite shoes and sigh again.  Ruined.

I won’t bother you with more details.  I think that’s more than enough and you probably get the basic drift of the situation.  Suffice it to say we finally got him in the bag and out to the truck.

Officers Reflo and Wink are standing outside the truck with me.  “You’re taking him to that big back door at the ME’s office, right?” Wink asks.  “Yeah,”  I answer as I jump into the driver’s seat.  “Okay.  We’ll meet you there and help you get him inside.”

Good cops.  Nice cops.  Helpful cops.

They meet me there and we transfer Dead Guy to a tray.  I open the bag and take a couple more pictures.  So does Reflo since he neglected to take any when we finally turned the body.

The cops ask me if I want to go with them to their local hang out after I finish here. I thank them, but decline.  I need to go take a shower.  Or maybe three.

12/07/05 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING..or REALLY REALLY GROSS...OR BOTH

2005-12-07T09:59:00.000-06:00

8:16 a.m.

It’s early evening and I am just sitting down to a bowl of Chunky Firehouse Chili when my beeper goes off.   My shift started about 25 minutes ago.  I sigh.  Well, at least I had the forethought to take a shower this time.

Dispatch informs me there is a DOA at a residence about 10 minutes from my house. The decedent was a 50-year-old white male.  That’s all they can give me for details.  I ask for the name of the officer on scene and his/her phone number.  Officer Reflo.  I call him and he informs me, “He was found in the bathroom, unconscious not breathing.”   That’s it.  Okay, I think, that means that the family was probably all gathered around the television, he went to the bathroom, they heard a thump, and that’s the end of it.  Should be open and shut.

I ask Reflo to interview the family regarding medical history, doctors, medications he might have been taking, etc...  I’m hoping he has an extensive enough hx so that I can have a doctor sign him out instead of me having to brave -4 below weather on a cold Wisconsin night.

Reflo calls back a few minutes later with the name of a heart doctor and an oncologist.  The guy had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer two weeks ago.

Hmmm—this’ll be a snap, I think.  I call the oncologist and he tells me that, sure, the guy had cancer, but it was a very treatable case and he is truly SHOCKED that Dead Guy died.  Errg.  I mention the heart medication that Dead Guy was on and the oncologist waffles again.  “I don’t know about that.  I don’t feel comfortable signing a death certificate in this case.”

So, I call the cardiologist.  Same thing.  Sure, he had really unfavorable stress tests last time he was in, but she is still completely blown out of the water by this man’s passing.  She would feel better reviewing the chart on Monday and then telling me if she’ll sign the death certificate at that time.

“All right.  Thank you, doctor, for your help.  I’m sure you’ll hear from our office in the morning.” I flip the bird to the telephone before hanging up.

Sometimes doctors really piss me off.  Unless the guy has no medical history at all, unless he was stabbed, shot, or bludgeoned…unless he was hit by car, damage, or otherwise mangled in some way…this is not a medical examiner’s case.  Many doctors are skittish about signing a DC because they are afraid of liability if the family dislikes their final judgment on cause of death.  They’d much rather leave that nasty business to an ME.

So, here I am…stuck bringing the body in because it will take more than a couple of hours to argue with these physicians and, in the meantime, there is a family with a dead guy in their bathroom that would probably like him removed.  Well, I think as I pull a stocking cap down on my head and don my mittens, at least he’s not a decomp.

I drive to the MEO and switch out my truck for the van.  The lock is frozen and it takes me a minute to loosen it up, so by the time I get in, my fingers are stiff with cold.  I breathe on them and then turn the key in the ignition.  It starts up with a groan and the breaks squeak as I drive away.

Twenty minutes later I come up to the house.  It is a middleclass residential neighborhood with modest, ranch-style homes built in the ‘60s.  There are four cop cars parked along the road.  Must be a slow night.  They all like to come out and loiter around death scenes if there’s nothing better to do.

I am greeted at the van door by a tall officer, Officer Wink, with dark blond hair.  He’s got an easy smile and immediately begins joking around with me.  ‘This guy’s daughter last saw him on Friday.  She came in this afternoon with her boyfriend and they ordered pizza.  Polly, it smells to high heaven in there.  I can’t believe they didn’t notice it when they walked in.  I think the daughter is kind of slow.”  He points to his head and makes a ‘coo-coo’ gesture.

Uh oh.  “Smells?  How long did you say since the daughter last saw him?”   I ask as we walk toward the door.  We aren’t even inside yet and I can already smell it.

“Friday.”  He holds the door open for me.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought you said.”

I walk into a room full of people.  There are candles burning and the windows are open despite the frigid weather.  I introduce myself and give my card to the decedent’s brother.  I explain that I’ll be examining the body and then transporting to the MEO.  I tell them that based on the results of the investigation, there may or may not be an autopsy.

Officer Wink leads me down the hallway toward the master bedroom.  As we walk, the odor of decomp gets stronger and stronger.  I begin breathing through my mouth as I turn into the room.  There are two more officers there.  I greet Officer Reflo and say, “Yeah.  Would have been nice to get a heads up on the state of our DOA, here.  I would have dressed a bit differently.”  (I am currently wearing my favorite jeans, my favorite old sneakers, and a long-sleeved t-shirt with the MEO insignia on it.)  Reflo looks sheepish.  Good.

While the cops discuss what to do with the stash of marijuana in the bottom drawer of Dead Guy’s bureau, I walk to the doorway of the master bathroom.  The man is lying on his stomach.  His BVDs are around his ankles.  Looks like he was in the process of seeing a man about a horse when he collapsed.  The skin on his legs, arms, and face has already turned blue/green with decomposition and you can see what looks like blue/green “marbling” working its way up his torso from his extremities.  He is bloated and there is bloody purge pooling around his mouth.

“Hey!” It’s Officer Wink.  “Let’s order some pizza!”

I turn and roll my eyes at him.  I am currently straddling the torso so I can get a better look at Dead Guy’s face and take photographs.  His head in no way resembles the man he used to be.  It is black and swollen.  The lips are huge and the tongue is fat and protruding from the mouth.  His eyes are bugging out as the tissues swell and the optic nerve loosens its grip on the eyeballs.  There are huge blisters of fluid under the skin that are full of clear decomp fluid.  His skin is slipping badly.

My eyes and nose start to water.  I am currently breathing through my mouth to combat the smell, but it is almost worse since I can fairly taste the decomp, it is so strong.

Well, at least there are no bugs.

More later…

12/05/05a WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING

2005-12-05T09:21:00.000-06:00

9:21 a.m. I see a light move across the wall in front of me and when I look out the window a white van is passing and heading around back to the receiving area. Ah. There they are. I take my report and head back to the autopsy suite, turning off lights and locking doors as I go. I swipe my keycard and the garage door opens. There are four people, three women and a man, standing there. They've got enormous amounts of "baggage" with them. Several cardboard boxes and hard-sided carriers that I assume contain their equipment. They are a friendly, cheerful bunch and I feel at ease immediately.

There is a lot of chatter as they get things ready for the harvesting. A "prep" table is set up using an empty tray from the cooler. They cover it with a clean paper cloth and put several culture tubes on it. Apparently, they test every piece of tissue they take to make sure it's sterile. A large clear plastic bag is also on the table and it contains gauzy "cuffs" that the tissues will be placed in before they are wrapped in plastic and deposited in a very large styrofoam lined shipping box.

Tissue donation includes things such as tendons, valves, blood vessels, skin, and bones. In this case, the body has a lot of glass adhering to it from the accident, so they will not be taking skin. I've watched skin be harvested before, though, and can explain the process a bit. After they make sure the skin is clean and sterile, they run a device that looks kind of like a cheese slicer along the epidermis. It shaves off long, papery thin strips all along the back and torso. Shiver.

Blood vessels and valves will not be taken, either, because the body was left unrefrigerated too long. I guess I'll have to wait for some other time to watch that.

One nurse is set up behind the makeshift prep table. She will catalogue and pack each tissue that is taken. The other three spend several minutes washing the body with disinfectant and iodine. They make sure that every surface it touches is sterile. Then they use a substance that reminds me of plastic wrap only stickier and cover the skin of the entire body with it.

After the body is completely prepped, one nurse begins cutting a long, straight line through the skin of the upper right arm all the way down to the wrist. The other two do the same on each leg, cutting through the skin and flaying it back as they go.

The muscle is a rich, dark red and full of blood and I watch in fascination as they disect out tendons from origin points on the foot, follow them up to where they merge into muscle, and then, several inches up the muscle, cut through a thick chunk of meat to release it from the leg. There are three tendons taken from the front of the legs in this manner. Each tendon is then brought to the catalogue nurse. She is told which tendon it is and which leg it is from before she swabs it, wraps it in plastic, labels the bag, and places it inside of a gauze cuff. She puts everything into a shipping box. I ask her where it goes and she says, "New Jersey where it is cleaned and processed."

I imagine what a dandy job those New Jersey guys have. Processing and cleaning human tissue. Shiver, again.

From there, they move to the bones. First they bend the knee and begin disecting out the tibia (biggest bone in the lower leg) at the knee joint. They are careful to keep as much of the surrounding tissue intact as they can, being mindful that these bones might be used to replace entire joints.

The tibia is released at the knee first and then separated from the foot bones. Same with the fibula, which is so thin and covered in muscle that it would be easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. The real trick is the femur, which is the largest bone in the body. It has a long ball joint that fits into the pelvis and it is very difficult to reach in there and release it. The nurses have to make large circles with the bone and I hear sucking noises as joint fluid sloshed around.

The process on the arms is similar, only not quite as much work as the bones are smaller and the shoulder joint is not as deep.

After they are finished harvesting the bones, they pull the saran wrap stuff off of the skin. It helped to keep the body from getting greasy and dirty. I look at what is left of the body. Basically, it is a torso with long bags of skin leading to feet and hands. Gag.

"Just wait until we've finished the reconstruction," one of the nurses says, "It'll be a lot better."

First, they use tie backs to mark the major blood vessels that the funeral home needs to penetrate in order to do a proper preservation job...trading blood for embalming fluid that has been tinted to make the dead person's skin look pink and alive again.

Then, they replace the leg and arm bones with white PVC pipe that is adjusted to just the right length. Huh. PVC pipe's not just for plumbing anymore.

Finally, they sew the skin back together with thick, wax-coated cord and wash the body one more time before closing the body bag and replacing it in the cooler.

Clean up is messy. There is, as you can imagine, a lot of blood and fat and muscle smeared everywhere. But they clean it up like troopers and leave the place looking better than when they came.

I know that is a very grotesque description, but it's the reality of tissue donation. And I would feel very bad if this blog entry discourages anybody from being a donor. It is a very good thing to do. You can help improve the lives of others and might even be able to save lives with your gift.

That said, I am an organ donor myself. But it'll be a cold day in hell when my long bones are replace with PVC pipes and my skin is shaved from my torso.

12/05/05 WARNING: (not quite) GRAPHIC/DISTURBING (yet)

2005-12-05T07:26:00.000-06:00

7:26 a.m. I am waiting in the receiving area at the morgue. I pulled my truck in and am currently drinking from a mug of tea that I prepared before I left home. The harvest team should be here any minute.

I check my watch. They're 10 minutes late. I set my tea on the seat next to me and get out of the truck. The automatic door into the autopsy suite slides open and I walk down the ramp in the dark. I feel around the wall for the light. There is a skylight, but it's winter and even though it's only 4pm, it's already twilight outside. I flip the switch and the room is flooded with a bright flourescent glow.

It's chilly in here, so I keep my jacket on. Both of my cell phones, one for my PI job and one for my ME job, are in my pockets. I use my keycard to unlock the double doors and walk into the hall that leads to the main offices of the medical examiner. Maybe they thought they were supposed to meet me out front.

I walk down the dark hall and listen as the hiss from the boiler room gets louder. As I approach, I look down the side hall on my left and see a faint light. Someday I'll have to go down there exploring. Just not today. Or at night. I shiver and continue down the hall. I unlock another set of double doors, go through the vestibule, and then unlock the door to the main office.

I am greeted by the buzz of the fax machine. My police report! Excellent! I take about 10 pages off the machine, grab a handful of M&M's out of the jar on Joy's desk, and head down toward Nancy's office. I sit at her desk and begin to read.

The police report is unremarkable. A single vehicle, single occupant car accident. It occurred at 2am this morning. The driver was a 40-year-old woman. Scene reconstruction indicated that she ran off the shoulder, hit a tree, and rolled several times. She was ejected at some point during the accident...probably through the sunroof. A truck driver happened on the scene shortly after it happened and began CPR even though the decedent was not breathing and unresponsive. The trucker called 911. Police and rescue arrived. She was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead by the ER doctor.

No skid marks. No evasive action. No evidence that she'd tried to gain control the situation.

I got the call at about 6:30 a.m. It wasn't until I arrived at the hospital and spoke to the decedent's husband that I realized we might have something more than an accident on our hands. The man looked devastated and pale when I walked into what they call "the family room". I greeted him and told him I was sorry. Nothing more...just sorry. He nodded his head and his voice cracked as he said that he was, too. I gave him a minute and stalled a bit by asking of he wanted a drink or something to eat. He said no, but thank you. Then I began with my questioning.

The husband told me that his wife had called yesterday evening around 8pm to say she was stuck in traffic and would be home shortly. But she never came home. The husband couldn't explain why. He indicated that she had tried to commit suicide in a car years ago when she had a mental breakdown. She'd been hearing voices that told her to hurt herself. Her husband had brought a bag of medications that she'd been on and gave them to me along with the name and telephone number of her psychiatrist.

After the husband identified the body and I'd sent him home, I walked toward the ER room where the woman was being held. The ER nurse flagged me down in the hall and told me that the family had given consent for her to be a tissue donor and that I should expect a call from tissue bank soon. I thanked her and walked into the examining room, closing the door behind me.

The woman was blond and tan. She looked as if she'd taken good care of herself, physically. Her belly was very distended and she had some severe road rash on her left side that indicated to me she'd bled out severely into her abdomen. I was guessing her aorta may have burst or her spleen was crushed. There was blood and glass in her left ear and large matching abrasions on her shins.

After I'd finished charting all of the IV lines, tubes, EKG patches, etc.. that were on the body, I transported her to the MEO. Just as I pushed her into the cooler, I got a return call from her psychiatrist. I sat down at a table in the morgue and spoke to him about the decedent's mental health history.

The doc told me that it was highly likely this was a suicide attempt. Then I told him that I'd counted out the decedent's pills and found that she'd missed several doses of her anti-psychotic medication...the one that helped quiet the voices. He was not surprised and reiterated that he and the family felt it was just a matter of time before she tried to kill herself again. Before I hung up, I asked to get medical records faxed to our office. The doctor was very cooperative and I thanked him for his help.

Tissue Bank called me a while later and we coordinated the harvesting. I asked them to refrain from taking the pelvic bones or any heart valves because we didn't want to disturb the chest cavity in any way before the autopsy. I asked if I could observe and they were really cool about it. Back several years ago I'd tried to sit through a tissue harvest but it was so disgusting and shocking to me that I had to leave. We'll see how I do this time.

More later...

2005-12-04T03:55:00.000-06:00

I'm bored. I know!!! Let's hang out at the morgue at night! Here's the scary, dark corridor that leads to the autopsy suite (metal door at the end) from the main offices at the medical examiner's office. I'm about halfway down at this point. The metal doors you see on the left look like refrigerators, don't they? I haven't been brave enough to go exploring over there yet. Maybe next time. Tonight I want to check out the boiler room.

2005-12-04T03:51:00.000-06:00

And here is the side hallway on the right that leads to the boiler room. There are always loud hissing and popping sounds coming from down here as steam moves through the pipes. Hmmm... I wonder where that light is coming from? It's always on. Let's go exploring!

2005-12-04T03:48:00.000-06:00

This is where the light is coming from in the boiler room. Umm....Can anybody tell me why there's a CHAIR back here with a cage light? And what is that SMELL?

12/03/05

2005-12-03T14:06:00.000-06:00

2:06 p.m. Sorry I'm a bit late with the quiz results. I got called out at 6:25 this morning and I just got home from running three scenes. Ugh. Food would be good.

One of these cases, which looked at first like a textbook traffic, is turning into a probable suicide. I'll explain more later. Right now I have to hurry. The tissue bank is coming to harvest a guy in about an hour. Harvesting tissue is truly disgusting, though it does a lot of good and I would never discourage anybody from being a donor. I will give you a detailed summary of the process when I return.

QUIZ answers:

First, as a general rule, all manners of death that are not natural and/or unattended (i.e. the person dying had no medical history and, therefore, no doctor to sign their death certificate) come to the ME for autopsy. Suicides, homicides, accidents...they're all ME cases. With that in mind, here are the answers.

1) Deputy ME gets a call on a case from a local nursing home. They had a resident who passed away from pneumonia. Further inquiry revealed that the resident was a quadrapoligic. Seventeen years earlier a drunk driver hit him as he rode his bike down a country road. The decedent had been been wheelchair bound for years and was admitted to the nursing home two years ago when his health began to fail. He was bedridden most of his remaining life.

I would definitely bring this guy in right after I called the local homicide unit to inform them of the death and allow them to determine whether to charge the driver of the vehicle (if he's still alive) with vehicular homicide. Pneumonia and the car accident ARE related in that pneumonia is common in people that are bedridden and already not very healthy. Lying prone for days and days encourages fluid to build up in the lungs. And since the decedent wouldn't have been bedridden if he hadn't been hit by the drunk driver, his death can be directly attributed to the accident...no matter that it was 17 years ago. There is no statute of limitations on homicide.

The ME would rule the manner a homicide and the cause pneumonia due to complications resulting from injury.

2) Deputy ME gets a call from dispatch directing her to a home death scene. When she gets there, she notes that the 78-year-old man is lying on his bedroom floor near a nightstand. He has a moderate gash above his left eyebrow and a pool of blood around his head. The man was being cared for by his daughter. He had a significant medical hx of emphysema, hypertension, and diabetes that was so severe that he recently had several toes amputated off his right foot. According to the daughter, his health was failing precipitously for the past couple of months and he needed help getting out of bed to go to the bathroom because he couldn't walk without getting dizzy. The decedent was on 14 medications for his various conditions.

The investigator moved to the body and did a physical examination. The decedent was initially found face-down, but had been rolled on his back by rescue. There were EKG patches still adhered to his chest. His torso was warm and his extremities were cool. There was no evidence of lividity or rigor mortis. She noted a bandage around the foot that had recently been operated on. She noted a large yellow bruise along the midline of the torso. The investigator examined the head trauma. The blood was encrusted on the forehead and it made it difficult to determine the severity of the injury. The laceration appeared to be approximately 1/2 inch in length. The investigator examined the nightstand and noted a slight amount of blood smeared on the corner nearest the door. There was an empty water bottle lying on the floor.

I wouldn't bring this guy in. It's a bit tricky because he DOES have a head injury. Now, my job is to determine whether he died from that injury or whether that injury is secondary to his death. When I examined him, I determined that it was superficial...no skull fractures or profuse bleeding. Therefore, the head trauma was not a factor in the decedent's death.

The family doctor would sign this death certificate, ruling it a natural manner of death. Cause would be ...take your pick. Probably complications of emphesyma or diabetes.

3) This case was called into the Deputy ME in the late afternoon from the emergency room of a local hospital. The decedent had been brought in unconsious with a brain bleed at the base of his skull. His blood pressure was skyhigh when he arrived and the ER staff was never able to bring it under control. The decedent was being treated by his primary care physician for alcoholism. He had cirrhosis of the liver, esphogeal ulcers, anemia, and alcohol-enduced anorexia. His doctor said he'd be willing to sign the death certificate if the ME refused the case.

This one is a bit tricky, too. The brain bleed is directly correlated to the decedent's alcoholism. And though you might say that alcoholism is a slow form of suicide, so is obesity and smoking. Yet we wouldn't rule those conditions suicide. Neither would we call death from complications of alcohol a suicide. Normally, people are not being treated for alcoholism. Alcoholics tend to deal with their condition privately and in shame. Because of that, a lot of times when they die they are brought into the MEO because nobody is aware of the condition or the resulting degenerative effects on the body. However, THIS guy had a doctor that knew of his health issues and his condition and I was able to release the body because he was able to sign the death certificate.

Manner of death, Natural. Cause of death, brain stem aneurysm due to complications of alcoholism.

Thanks for playing! That was fun. I'll write more later about the process of harvesting tissue from a cadaver and I'll also take pictures of the scary MEO.

12/02/05

2005-12-02T09:50:00.000-06:00

9:51 a.m. Well, today I thought I'd give you all a bit of a quiz. (Sharpen your #2 pencils, kiddies.) And no cheating by looking stuff up online! (That means you, Higgy.) Oh, and I like trick questions.

When an ME investigator gets a call, they often have to make a decision whether to bring a body in for an autopsy or not. I'm going to present you with a few different scenarios and you can tell me what the manner (natural, homicide, suicide, accidental) and cause-of-death are in each case and whether the body should be released or brought in for autopsy.

1) Deputy ME gets a call on a case from a local nursing home. They had a resident who passed away from pneumonia. Further inquiry revealed that the resident was a quadrapoligic. Seventeen years earlier a drunk driver hit him as he rode his bike down a country road. The decedent had been been wheelchair bound for years and was admitted to the nursing home two years ago when his health began to fail. He was bedridden most of his remaining life.

So what do you think? Should the ME bring him in? What other questions would you ask before making that decision? What do you think the manner and cause of death should be in this case?

2) Deputy ME gets a call from dispatch directing her to a home death scene. When she gets there, she notes that the 78-year-old man is lying on his bedroom floor near a nightstand. He has a moderate gash above his left eyebrow and a pool of blood around his head. The man was being cared for by his daughter. He had a significant medical hx of emphysema, hypertension, and diabetes that was so severe that he recently had several toes amputated off his right foot. According to the daughter, his health was failing precipitously for the past couple of months and he needed help getting out of bed to go to the bathroom because he couldn't walk without getting dizzy. The decedent was on 14 medications for his various conditions.

The investigator moved to the body and did a physical examination. The decedent was initially found face-down, but had been rolled on his back by rescue. There were EKG patches still adhered to his chest. His torso was warm and his extremities were cool. There was no evidence of lividity or rigor mortis. She noted a bandage around the foot that had recently been operated on. She noted a large yellow bruise along the midline of the torso. The investigator examined the head trauma. The blood was encrusted on the forehead and it made it difficult to determine the severity of the injury. The laceration appeared to be approximately 1/2 inch in length. The investigator examined the nightstand and noted a slight amount of blood smeared on the corner nearest the door. There was an empty water bottle lying on the floor.

Okay. What about this one? What further questions would you ask? Would you bring the body in? What manner and cause of death would you assign this case?

3) This case was called into the Deputy ME in the late afternoon from the emergency room of a local hospital. The decedent had been brought in unconsious with a brain bleed at the base of his skull. His blood pressure was skyhigh when he arrived and the ER staff was never able to bring it under control. The decedent was being treated by his primary care physician for alcoholism. He had cirrhosis of the liver, esphogeal ulcers, anemia, and alcohol-enduced anorexia. His doctor said he'd be willing to sign the death certificate if the ME refused the case.

Would you bring him in? What's the cause and manner of death in THIS circumstance?

Good luck!!

11/30/05

2005-11-30T09:26:00.000-06:00

9:27 a.m. Well, I woke up this morning to an email from a new investigator in Nebraska who bailed on his first case, which was supposed to start at 6am.

I get LHM off to the airport and come home about an hour later. It's quiet. Too quiet. I put on my trusty Time-Life Christmas collection CDs and plug in the tree. Gene Autry starts singing, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. There. Festive. Happy.

I walk into the kitchen and find a mug of tea that LHM made for me this morning while I was in my office cursing in several languages at the investigator that bailed on me. I go to the cupboard, swallow a handful of vitamins and put water on the stove for some oatmeal. Sigh. I open the fridge. Ha! The blueberry cheesecake pie that I made for Thanksgiving. (Hey...I never said I couldn't cook. I just exercise the right not to.) Perfect! I dump a half can of whipped cream on top and take the whole thing into my office. I'll be feeling better in no time.

So, 30 minutes later I'm sitting in front of the computer polishing the pie tin with my tongue when suddenly I smell something burning. I sniff the air. Huh. I take one more lick and then head into the kitchen. Where I find my sauce pan just catching fire on the burner.

I rush over to the sink and turn on the water. Damn! I cup my hands and manage to get a ladelful of water in them. I run back to the stove and toss the water on the handle. It goes out. But it's still smoking. I grab the handle but quickly let go as I practically burn the skin off of my left hand. Curse words! All of them! I take a dishtowel off the rack, wrap it around the handle, and bring the pan to the sink where I douse it in cold water until it stops smoking.

I lean back against counter...breathing heavily. My hands are shaking from the adrenaline rush. Yikes. I almost set my house on fire and me with it. And I'm on call at the ME's office today, too. I smile to myself. How funny would that be if I ended up a shish-kabob and then the cops would page the ME and my beeper would go off? Wouldn't they be confused...

Well, I thought it was funny.

11/29/05

2005-11-29T08:44:00.000-06:00

8:44 a.m. Sorry I've been neglecting you, bloglit. I am finding that having a visitor from out of town for nearly a month can be somewhat distracting. But LHM is going home tomorrow and I can return to my virtual life.

A couple of things I'll be blogging about in the next few days...

LHM stood outside the Walmart for 14 hours in 21 degree weather to buy some random kids a new X-Box 360, a new television, and a few new video games. He is insane. Random kids think he's a god.

I got six ME cases two nights ago when I was on call. Didn't sleep. That sucked.

I hired Pippie, one of the other deputies at the MEO, to work for me part-time as PI. She starts Wednesday.

I ate a whole jar of Nutella the day after I got the six ME cases. I had to explain to LHM the correlation between chocolatey goodness and a woman's sense of well-being. Pretty sure he just thinks I'm a pig.

Being a regional supervisor sucks. I can feel myself turning into a corporate lackey... Suddenly I have this irrational belief that my supervisors and their investigators are all a bunch of idiots. Or maybe they really are.

I got feedback on my proposal. I need a plot. A case. Some common thread that my book can be based on. The problem is my life is plotless... It's just a random series of weird stories. Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

More later...

11/18/05

2005-11-18T03:00:00.000-06:00

3:00 a.m. I'm not sure why I'm awake so early in the morning when I don't have to be. Maybe I miss going out on surveillances. Maybe I miss my morning tea and the cozy seat warmers in my truck and ranchero breakfast wraps from the BP station.

Sigh.

I must be insane. I'm thinking of saving up a few cases and going on a roadtrip one of these weekends.

On the other hand, maybe I'll wait until spring so that I won't be freezing my moneymaker off in the back of my truck...

Several nights ago I had to pick up a police report off the fax and inspect a body at the morgue. It was late...almost midnight. Generally, I would wait until daytime, but I needed that information for my report that was due in the morning.

Now, I've told you before that the MEO is a rather foreboding place but I didn't actually describe it to you. You see, this office is a temporary facility. It used to be a nursing home.

Light Haired Man is still visiting and drives me over since I am still on drugs from my kidney infection/stone and operating heavy machinery (or even light machinery such as a television remote or a microwave oven, for that matter) is not a good idea yet. He's never been to a morgue before and I try to prepare him because I'm going to have to go to the autopsy suite and get a wallet off my Dead Guy's body.

I pass my keycard through the security pad at the front entrance and the red light on the monitor turns green. I open the door and we walk into the dark vestibule.

"Did you notice that the van is gone?" My voice echoes off the marble walls and floor as I walk toward the locked double doors that lead to the offices. "Whoever is on call tonight is bringing in a body."

I turn my key in the lock and enter the office area with LHM close behind me. I flip on the light and look around. There is a stack of papers in Joy's inbox that has got to be a foot high with autopsy reports, faxes, and bureaucratic BS memos from the county government. I reach into the candy dish that is always full on her desk and grab a handful of M & M's before I turn the corner toward the fax machine. I note the inch thick stack of papers in the tray. Excellent. My police report. I take several minutes to leaf through it while LHM noses around a bit.

After I finish skimming the paperwork, I walk down the hall to find LHM in the process of photocopying his face on the office copy machine. I smile.

"Hey!", I scold, "That's government property you're tampering with!"

LHM looks up at me. "Oh...yeah. Well, I was just walking by and I fell and... Luckily I closed my eyes just in time or I could have gone blind!"

I laugh. "Well, at least I got here before you started getting too creative. Come on. Let's go to the autopsy suite so I can note this guy's ID info and we can get out of here."

We walk past Nancy and Dr. Frank's offices and through another set of locked doors. We head down a long corridor, a couple hundred feet in length. I hit the light and a series of fluorescent bulbs buzz on in the ceiling.

LHM looks around as we walk. This portion of the building has been gutted. You can tell there used to be resident rooms on either side of the hallway, but the doors and non-load-bearing walls have been demolished. Stacks of drywall and bricks on wooden palates fill dark corners to the left.

"This kind of reminds me of a horror flick," LHM says as we continue walking. We pass a side corridor on the right that T's off at the end. I look down it. A faint light is glowing from the left and I can hear the loud hissing of steam moving through pipes.

"That's the boiler room down there," I point. Is it my imagination or is the big, burly LHM trying not to freak out? I smile smugly to myself.

Yes...the MEO has its very own boiler room. As if being in the presence of dead people isn't creepy enough.

"Great," LHM mumbles softly. "You get to be the mighty heroine that defeats the evil devil spawn zombies and I'll end up playing the roll of the loyal side-kick guy that gets knocked off within the first 20 minutes of the movie. I hate that."

I giggle as I pass my keycard over another security pad and push through a final set of doors.

Suddenly, I hear a high-pitched scream and jump. LHM grabs my shoulders and pulls me with him out of range of...whatever evil might be occupying the autopsy suite.

"Oh, holy mother effing eff!" I know that voice. It's Pippy. She's another deputy ME. "You @$%#!"

I peek around the doorway and see a tall, 35-yr-old red-head with brown freckles peppering her face and hands. She is currently holding her heart like an old man with chest pains.

"Hi, Pip!" I wave and LHM and I come out from behind the door. "I'm just going to ignore the fact that you called me a nasty name and chalk that up to your angina. What's going on?"

Pip ignores my question. "What the hell are you doing here this late? You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"I can see that." I look behind her and note the body on the tray. The bag is open and a set of fingerprint cards is balanced on the Dead Guy's chest. It appears Pip was in the process of checking him in when we so rudely interrupted her.

I introduce LHM to my coworker and we chat for a few minutes as Pip finishes up the prints. As she talks, she is absentmindedly trying to shove Dead Guy's foot into the bag. The zipper keeps getting caught on his big toe, however, so she shoves again, harder, and bends the toe down as she continues to talk. I glance at LHM. He is watching with a somewhat bemused look on his face as Pippy struggles with the toe, bending it this way and that...contorting it in a manner that would make a living man cry out in pain.

I suddenly feel a sense of shame. LHM isn't part of this club of death workers and having him here is making me acutely aware of how irreverent our lot can sometimes be. It's like inviting your minister over for dinner and then having him stumble across your porn collection. Only instead of a minister it's my boyfriend and instead of a porn collection it's a dead guy with a rebellious toe... Umm... Yeah.

Anyway, I am coming to the disturbing realization that no matter how much I didn't want it to happen, I've lost a small piece of my humanity being exposed to death as much as I have. I've become numb to it. What is wrong with me that I can laugh when a body falls off a tray or gets put through the window at the bottom of the ramp?

I come out of my brief reverie and remember that I have a reason for being here in the middle of the night on a weekend. I walk into the cooler and find the body I'm looking for. The decedent's personal belongings are stacked on the tray with him in a paper sack. I reach inside and find the wallet, then turn back toward the doorway. LHM is standing just inside the entrance.

We've got a full house...a couple of fire victims...some decomposed remains...my traffic. There are so many bodies, in fact, that we ran out of trays and have had to start stacking them on the floor. LHM is taking it all in. I try to remember what it was like seeing this for the first time and I suddenly become distinctly aware of the stale smell of cold death that is nearly identical in all ME coolers...the smell that I've become so accustomed to that it rarely even registers in my conscious mind anymore.

"Come on," I say as I reach the door. LHM follows me back into the light and I close the cooler behind me.

Out in the check in area, I open the wallet. I leaf through it, noting about $400 in cash and several credit cards before I finally find the victim's ID. He was a 28-year-old white male. Motorcycle accident. I study the photograph. He was a nice looking guy, I think sadly. Now his head is crushed to the point that I don't think the casket will be open.

The really tragic part of this accident is that the victim probably would have lived had he been wearing his helmet. From witness accounts, he saw the van pull in front of him and hit the breaks. When he knew he couldn't stop in time he laid the bike down on it's side. As the bike continued to skid toward the van, he jumped and hit the pavement...hard...before rolling several feet into the middle of the intersection. That's when he sustained the fatal head trauma.

I finish documenting the info and several minutes later, LHM and I are back in my truck on our way home. It's quiet and I'm looking out the window. "All that money," he says, "It's nothing." I am not sure what he means at first. He goes on. "The credit cards. The cash. They seem to be our goal in life but when it comes down to it they mean nothing when you're dead at 28 and laid out in the morgue. None of that is really important at all."

Hmmm. Philosophical LHM. This should be interesting. I sit back and listen as he talks it out...trying to make sense of things in his mind. He's grasping for the greater meaning that might underlie a tragedy such as this. As I look out the window I wonder if he'll come to the same conclusion that I did. That sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes things just happen.

11/9/05

2005-11-09T09:28:00.000-06:00

9:31 a.m. Oh, I'm feeling SOOOOOOOO much better since I layed an egg! (Okay, maybe it wasn't that big...) Just getting over the infection part now. Which is a gastro-intestinal delight considering I got the Agent Orange of antibiotics.

But enough about my bowels.

I'm so getting fired. Again. I'll update you on that later.

LHM and I are having fun. He's fixing and organizing everything around my apartment. What an exercise in futility...

I have an ME story for you but I have to get back to my "real job" for now.

More later...

11/6/05

2005-11-06T05:47:00.000-06:00

5:48 a.m.

Still waiting.

Still very, very sick.

Antibiotics don't seem to be working.

If this doesn't get better in the next 12 hours I'll head back to the hospital tonight when Light-Haired Man flies in from California.

Isn't that sweet? He's coming to take care of me.

11/5/05

2005-11-05T05:05:00.000-06:00

5:06 a.m. I'm going to hurry up and write this before I have to take anymore Lortab. I actually tried to write it last night but instead ended up spending three of the best hours of my life staring at a screen that was empty but for the word "The".

Any yet never have I felt so content being unproductive.

For the past few days I have been in labor. I'm about to give birth to a bouncing baby kidney stone, you see. Anybody have some cigars?

I sat in the ER waiting room yesterday afternoon for about an hour before I was finally seen. Actually, I was in my jammies and brought my fuzzy blanket with me so I ended up sprawling across three chairs and napping as best I could between phone calls from my supervisors.

Blah blah blah blah! (That's what the ringer on my phone says. It's very annoying and discourages me from just ignoring incoming calls.)

"Hey, boss. Que paso?" It's Jose. He's covers most of the southwest.

"I paso fine, dude. What's up?"

"Well, I am still waiting to hear back from my investigator that went out on the Jones case. Everyone else is accounted for and I tol' them to get their updates in by 5pm so I can start drinkin' sooner."

I had to have a talk with Jose yesterday about laying off the sauce until he's done reviewing cases for the night. There's nothing more frustrating than sending cases back to somebody who is drunk off his arse. "Jose! I sent this back to you three times! Sign the damn expense sheet!" I can hear him opening a can over the telephone. "Polly, you din't seem so mean back when we were in Boston and we were hangin' with Fish. Fish was a cool boss, man."

I sigh. Yes. Fish was cool and I'm mean. Fish called me a couple of days ago and told me that Jose is desparate for the good ol' days when he wasn't expected to do, well, much of anything more than answer the phone when an investigator called.

"Okay, Jose. Just make sure that girl does a neighborhood canvass if she doesn't ID the Subject. I'll talk to you later."

"Aye, Aye, Cap'n."

I hang up and snuggle back under the covers and pretty quick my phone rings again. It's Max. He's my supervisor for the southeast and has a lovely South Carolina accent. He proceeds to tell me how his investigator (a former cop) was trying to strong-arm a Subject into setting up an interview to sign some papers. Apparently, the Subject answered the phone the first time the investigator called and was "uncooperative..." Whatever that means.

So the guy proceeds to call him four or five more times thoughout the day like we're the freakin' Mafia. And all with Max's blessing. I tell him to back off and close the case immediately. If the guy doesn't want to be interviewed, who cares? It's not like we won't get paid of the effort.

Max is eager, but he is seriously lacking in common sense and calls me almost as much as Mouse did back when I lorded over Ohio.

"Okay, boss. One of my investigators got some video today."

"Hi, boss. Just thought I'd run something past you."

"Well, hey, there, Polly! I just thought I'd let you know that I'm about to use a public toilet and don't plan on washing my hands when I'm finished!"

Anyway, I finally get called from the waiting room and am asked to pee in a cup. I'm given instruction on the proper procedure for urine collection with the minimal amount of unpleasant spillage. Bah! Amateurs. That's like somebody instructing Houdini on how to pick a lock.

Anyway, after that excitement I lay there, pale and shivering in the fetal position on a highly uncomfortable bed for...oh... another hour or so, dozing in and out of sleep.

Finally the doc rolls in all bouncy and happy like a well-fed toddler. He was probably out eating lunch with a drug rep while I was freezing my tooshy off in the sub-arctic conditions of the ER for two hours. I lay shaking uncontrolledly as he cheerfully asks me how I'm doing today. I don't feel like being smart, so I say, "Never better! And you?" (Okay, maybe I am feeling smart.)

He asks me what the problem is and I tell him my right kidney hurts. He is dubious. Apparently, most people who complain of kidney pain don't realize the little buggers are jammed up high just under the ribcage on your back. "Well," he says, "Most of the time when somebody tells me their kidneys hurt it's because they're actually suffering from lower back pain or ovulation.

I narrow my eyes. Bastard. I should barf on him.

He asks me to lay on my stomach. I comply. "Oh...sorry. I mean your back." Too many mai-tais at the luncheon, doc? I wince and flip like a struggling fish onto my back. He lifts my shirt and feels around my abdomen, then asks me to sit up. He uses his middle and forefinger to thump lightly on the lower ribs of my left side. Nothing. Then he does the same on the right side and I recoil from his hand as red-hot pain shoots through my body. "Thaaat hurt like a son of a bitch." I say.

I am sweating and shaking like I've got a nerve disorder. The doctor looks impressed. "Wow. That test hardly ever comes up positive." Lucky me.

Just then a nurse walks in with a piece of paper. He takes it.

"Well, you sure have an infection, alright." He explains to me how I'm likely passing a kidney stone that hasn't yet travelled down into the ureter. Then he spends twenty minutes giving me an anatomy lesson which I don't have the strength to thwart by telling him I am already quite familiar with human innards.

He proceeds to cheerfully tells me how he had an accident while parachuting out of an airplane which resulted in a broken pelvis and several other broken things. "But that was nothing compared to the three kidney stones I passed last year. I just hope I die before I have to endure that again."

My eyes are as big as saucers. I am given a prescription for a months supply of Lortab, a killer antibiotic that promises to kill all flora and fauna present in my body...good or bad, and some anti-nausea medication. Apparently, they would like me to spend a few days waiting to pass the little guy before doing something drastic like admitting me and shooting my kidney with ultrasound to break up the stone.

I'm all for that. Just give me the drugs and I'll be on my way.

I go to the pharmacy and am just paying the cashier when a call comes in from the MEO. It's Nancy. "Polly! You answered!" I smile. Nancy sounds frazzled.

"Can you go out on a traffic in the county? I got slammed today...five cases and I can't be in two places at once."

Oh, fudge. I look at my bottle of drugs longingly.

"Sure. I don't have a pen to write down any info right now. Let me call you back in a few minutes. Will you be at the office when I get back? I might need help moving the body." I might need help moving myself...

Nancy promises she'll still be there. I tell her I need to go home and get my equipment (and change out of my bunny slippers).

A half hour later I call dispatch and ask for the officer in charge at the scene. "You mean a phone number?" Duh. Apparently, the ME hardly ever calls for a preliminary update here. After several minutes she gives me Lt. Hardy's number. I call him and identify myself. I ask a few questions. Apparently, this was a van vs a motorcycle. The motorcycle lost.

Lt. Hardy says that there was slight electrical activity when the EMTs arrived so they moved him out of the road and into the wagon. Huh. That means that I have no scene to investigate. "By the time I get out there the sun will be down and I won't be able to take any photographs," I say. "Can you send copies of what you have and your report to the MEO in the morning?" He is very cooperative and I hang up.

But then as I reach the outskirts of town, he calls back. "Hey. Rescue 24 wants to know if there's someplace you'd like them to transport. They've been here since 1430...that's three hours and we'd all like to go home."

I make a unilateral decision. "Hell yes! Ask them to bring him into the MEO. I'll meet you there." I thank him profusely and tell him I'm passing a kidney stone. He winces and tells me how his brother had one of those. "I never saw him cry before that and I haven't seen him cry since. Good luck with that." I can hear the respect in his voice.

I feel almost proud to join this small, rebelious band of kidney stone survivors. It's like going through a right of passage. A vision quest. Hell week with the Marines.

I get back to the office and Nancy lets me in.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Nancy asks as I hobble into the office. I tell her and she relays to me the story of her mother's kindey stone...that made childbirth look like a walk in the park. Then, she starts telling me about the double homicide this morning that was staged to look like a housefire. "Yeah. The screwdriver in the guy's neck and the gunshot wound to the woman's head sort of tipped me off," she says.

Several minutes later, the body arrives accompanied by a police cruiser. The officer walks in as Nancy and the EMTs struggle with the body. She is a young lady and is pretty green, but i give her points for remaining professional through what must have been one of her first death scenes. She holds it together through my questioning. Only when I lightly touch her arm and ask her how she's doing does she almost lose it. She tells me how the man still had a pulse when she arrived on scene and that she'd hoped he'd make it. Her eyes get glassy and I quickly get back to business because I know how sucky it is to almost break down in the company of your peers.

Dr. Frank is still there finishing laying out the clothes that need to dry from the fire. "You should have told Nancy to go eff herself (only she didn't say "eff") when she asked you to come in." I smile. "Yeah. Probably." I am leaning on the cabinet and am currently having a hard time concentrating on anything but the pills that are stashed in my truck.

Later, after I've taken some pictures, documented injuries, and moved the body into the cooler, I am sitting with Nancy in the office, chatting. Suddenly I hear a scratching sound in the bushes outside the window. Nancy and I look at each other. There's a knock. What the hell? Nancy stands up and goes to the window where a perfectly arranged woman with blond hair, a suit, and a microphone in hand motions for Nancy to go to the entrance. Nancy chuckles and shakes her head, "No". We hear the woman yell from outside, "This is Tamara from channel 5 news. Are the results of the homicide autopsies in yet?"

Nancy has no patience for the media. "No. Go away!" She turns back to me. "I've been answering calls from those vultures all day."

Okay. I should go, bloglit.

I am way overdue for my happy pills.

I'll let you know if it's a boy or a girl.

11/1/05

2005-11-01T12:12:00.000-06:00

12:12 p.m. I got a call in to the ME's office the other day. I was just heading back from a surveillance in Madison, WI.

"Polly, it's Nancy. Boy, do I have a case for you!"

"Yeah? What's up?"

"Well, we just got a call out on a bone case. Apparently, there's a dumpster behind the country club and when the garbage man came to dump it, he noticed a bone. So he dug around a bit and found two bags full of decomposing skeletal remains."

Oh, dear. "Any idea whether they're human or not?"

"I don't know yet. I just got the call. Can you come along on this one?

I look at my watch, then back at the road. "I'm about an hour out yet."

"Okay. Well, I'll go on out to the scene and I'll give you a call once I've done my scene investigation."

Nancy and I hang up and a little while later she calls me to say that she doesn't think they are human but that she's bringing a few back to the MEO so that I can drop by and tell her what I think they are.

I meet her at the office 20 minutes later. I walk in wearing my slippers and workout pants. "Well, you didn't have to go and get all dressed up on my account," Nancy says.

I look down at myself. "Yeah. I should probably apologize for the way I look...and smell. I usually don't get gussied up for surveillance."

"That's okay," Nancy says as she leads me down the hallway toward the autopsy suite, "These bones are so ripe that even YOU can't overpower them."

I smile. She's getting better at the sarcastic banter thing.

As we pass through the security doors Nancy stops and turns to me. "Notice anything different? Missing maybe?"

I look around, puzzled. "No. Not really. Everything looks the..." I stop as my eyes land on the window. You know... That window I told you about that is at the end of the poorly planned ramp? The one that I said somebody was going to put a body through one of these days?

I start to laugh. "You did it!!!! You sent a body through the window, didn't you?" Nancy is laughing, too, now. She nods her head and we both double over.

After several minutes of this, Nancy can finally speak again. "Yeah. I thought you'd get a kick out of that."

She tells me the story of how a funeral home was coming to pick up a body and she was pulling it up the ramp behind her. Her fingers slipped, though, and she accidentally let go.

Ahem.

"Well, I hope it wasn't going to be an open casket!" I say as I wipe the tears from my eyes.

"Fortunately, he went feet first. We'd be up a shit creek without a paddle, otherwise. That glass was not tempered and it left some nasty marks."

After discussing for a few minutes if it would even be worth replacing the glass in the window (I vote for no...This will happen again, so why waste the money?) we move on to the bones.

"I brought in a pelvis and some other bones. They were the cleanest ones there. Really, the rest was a goopy mess. I found no cut marks. I counted four rib cages there, so suspect there were four specimens. No heads." Nancy says as she pushes the tray out of the cooler.

I put on a pair of gloves and turn to the table. Oh boy. They ARE ripe. They are coated with a greenish brown layer of slippery decomp. Ick. There are two sets of several articulated bones...meaning that the joints are all still attached.

Right away I note that there is a scapula, or shoulder blade. It is long and fan shaped, not broad and triangular, like for a human. The scapula is attached to a squat humerus, which leads to a fused ulna/radius. The end of the radius was sawed off with what appears to have been an electric blade of some sort. The other set was a femur, a tibia/fibula, and a talus that was also cut off at the distal end.

"Well, it's not a human, anyway, so you can rest your pretty little head about that." I look up at Nancy and she's scowling at me. "What?"

"Nothing. Go ahead."

"Okay," I say. "The fused forelimbs and the shape of the scapula point to an ungulate, or a hooved mammal. And you see on the hindlimb? That long bone attached to the tibia/fibula is actually a modified foot bone that has elongated to create a third joint. That is also evidence that we're looking at an ungulate. It's a smaller animal...definitely not cow or horse-sized, but bigger than a goat. The bones are fused, so it's an adult. If I had a skull I could tell you for sure, but I'm 80% certain these are deer that were butchered and then tossed."

Nancy is writing down every word I'm saying. "I have to go change my report," she says. "Are you sure there's no pelvis in there?"

I smirk. "Yeah. No pelvis. And the feet were cut off, by the way. So much for your 'no butchery' theory, there, boss-lady."

"Oh, shut up. Smartass." (That was a quote, Mom.)

11/1/05

2005-11-01T09:28:00.000-06:00

9:28 a.m. Okay.. let's see. I'll start with Boston. I had to go last week for training to become a Regional Supervisor. The meetings were predictably boring. I was drifting in and out of sleep and couldn't remain inconspicuous because...well...there are only four of us.

"Polly?"

I twitch.

"POLLY!!"

I jump and find myself sitting at a conference table. I look around. There are several sets of eyes on me. Fish, one of the other regionals, is smiling.

"Jet lag," I say, "Sorry about that."

The CEO of the company raises an eyebrow. "You live one time zone west of here."

"Yeah...ah...I'm sensitive that way. And I'm getting sick, I think." I fake sneeze. I hear giggling. Phew. "Can I...ah...have the text of this Power Point presentation emailed to me? Just for future reference..." I sit up and take a Diet Coke from the cooler in the middle of the table. Caffiene will get me through this trial.

The weather is crappy. A Noreaster has blown in and it's been cold and rainy since my plane landed this morning. What I wouldn't do for a cup of tea to warm me up right now. Instead, Fish notices me shivering and lets me use his jacket as a blanket.

Fish is a big, scary-looking Scottish guy with red hair, a beard, and lots of tattoos. He looks like a lumberjack. Or a Highlander. He just needs a kilt. Fish has got a great sense of humor and when we get together we frequently mock..well...everyone and everything. It's fun.

And then there's Dennis. I'm calling him Dennis because he looks EXACTLY like Dennis Miller. He even SOUNDS like him and has similar mannerisms. Bizzare.

Anyway, Dennis and Fish have been with this company for about 10 years a piece. They are not pleased with the new directive that Regional Supervisors will no longer work cases. After our meeting is over, the three of us ride back to the hotel together. Along the way, I am practically peeing myself listening to them tell me stories of how they fudged videos over the years before sending them into Corp.

"Once I was supposed to be in North Dakota but didn't quite get there," Fish says. "I took my mastershot and then I looked it over and I realized, 'Hey! There aren't palm trees in North Dakota!'"

Dennis laughs and adds, "Yeah. I once had to make it look like it was raining, so I turned on my windshield wipers and had two of my kids get up on top of my truck with spray bottles while I took video from inside." He gives a melancholy sigh and looks off in the distance. "I guess those days are over now. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to handle being around my wife and kids all day."

Ah, well. The winds of change blow no matter what we want.

(Thank you, that'll be $20 bucks. Now get off my mountain.)

More later....

10/31/05

2005-10-31T21:04:00.000-06:00

I'M BAAAAAACK!!!

Boy, did I miss you guys!

I sent in my proposal this afternoon and now I can finally focus on something else. Hooray!!

Happy Halloween, by the way. And speaking of the dead...BOY, do I have a lot to tell you guys. I've got at least three posts for tomorrow, but for now I'm going to drop into bed and get unconscious for a while.

10/23/05

2005-10-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

11:29 a.m.

Hypothetically, there was a 10-year-old girl who was walking along the side of the road one morning. She was on her way to church, which was just down the street. Her parents were already there.

Hypothetically, some depraved, horrible person hit this little girl with their car. The child went sailing into a ditch..broken and battered, but not dead. But that bastard driving the car didn't stop. For some godforsaken reason, they didn't stop. And that little girl sat in a ditch in 40 degree weather...conscious and suffering for over an hour before her parents found her.

Hypothetically, the little girl was rushed to the hospital where she died a short time later from exposure and internal bleeding.

It's been a rough morning, bloglit. Hug your children if you've got them.

10/21/05

2005-10-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

2:45 p.m.

I was on call last night and I finally got to sleep around 1am when my beeper went off. The message said, "Call Jamie frm..."

That was it.

So I sat there in a half-asleep daze for about 10 minutes wondering who the hell Jamie is and why they didn't give me a damn phone number to call. Finally, my brain kicked in and I called dispatch. They gave me the proper information and we all lived happily ever after.

Well, some of us.

Ahem.

I am working on the proposal. Six days and counting to deadline. Several chapters are completed in the book.

Stinky Jimmy got demoted to a regular investigator probably because of the nasty email he sent the corporate office (and forwarded to all of his supervisors) telling them what evil bastards (that was a quote, Mom) they are.

Which, I suppose, is why I got a regional position with my company...to cover some of his territory.

Jimmy called me late on Wednesday night sounding susupiciously drunk while I was still in California visiting Light-Haired Man. He wished me luck and told me to watch my back. That's two of my former bosses that have been demoted. I think that perhaps I should ride this wave just a little bit further before bailing.

Damn. I'm going to miss Stinky Jimmy in Boston on Monday and Tuesday. Him breathing on me and making me pass out from the stench was the only thing that made those supervisor meetings tolerable.

2005-10-17T11:36:00.000-05:00

Light-haired Man and Polly in an entirely inappropriate little black dress. Wait. That sounds like we're both in the entirely inappropriate little black dress. Bugger!

2005-10-17T11:33:00.000-05:00

Jeff and Jackie...and some buggering Brit's hand....

2005-10-17T11:32:00.000-05:00

The happy Weasels sharing Italian on Friday night.

2005-10-17T11:31:00.000-05:00

It's Higgy! He's now my new favorite Brit...replacing that saucy little Prince William, of course. (Higgy taught me a new word. Bugger. I am using it as often as I can. Bugger the margaritas! It's all buggery!)

2005-10-17T11:28:00.000-05:00

No lie...this chick went swimming in a huge blender full of Margarita before dancing wet on the ledge. Now THAT takes talent, my friends...

2005-10-17T11:26:00.000-05:00

Dinner Saturday night at Margaritaville.

2005-10-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

Makin' paakes on Saturday morning...

2005-10-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

Mad Scientist and Weasel on our fancy night on the town.

2005-10-17T11:21:00.000-05:00

Higgy, Weasel, Mad Scientist and Polly on a quest to molest statuary...No statue escaped. And judging from the pictures I'm not posting, it's a good thing statues can't file charges for sexual harrassment.

THE NIGERIANS ARE TRYING TO GIVE ME MONEY, AGAIN....

2005-10-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

And you have to admit that "PollyPI" is a pretty rare last name...

FROM THE DESK OF : MR TERRY JESSY
CHATERED BANK NIGERIA PLC

I am terry jessy A Staff of Chartered bank Nigeria Limited.

We are conducting a standard process investigation on behalf of our
firm.
The international Banking conglomerate to reach either the relations or
anyone wanting to stand as the next of kin to late
Mr.Anderson PollyPI a nationality of your country with and also the
circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at FEDERAL
REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.with the Private Banking arm of Chartered Bank Of
Nigeria PLC.

This Private Banking client Mr.Anderson PollyPI died intestate and
nominated no
successor in title over the money with the bank.

I decided to trace his last name over the Internet, to locate any
member of
his family hence I contacted you.I have contacted you to assist in
repatriating the money and property left behind by this client before
they
get confisticated by the federal Government after being declared
unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged.

It is pertinent that you inform me ASAP if you are interested and
moreover,I
seek a very honest and reliable person.
You must appreciate that I have constrained from providing you with
more
detailed information.

At this point. Please respond to this mail as soon as possible to
afford us
the opportunity to proceed to the formalities as soon as possible.

Thank you for accommodating our enquiry.

Mr Terry Jessy
Please Reply to my private email address terry_cb@excite.com

10/12/05

2005-10-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

10:13 p.m.

Remember how I figured I was going to be fired from my PI job? Well, slap my a$$ and call me purty...they just offered me a regional supervisor job!

Here I thought you had to work hard and be enthusiastic to get ahead in life, when in reality you just have to give a lackluster performance and exhibit extreme apathy while threatening repeatedly to quit. Lesson learned. The squeaky wheel DOES, in fact, get the promotion.

I should be excited... but then again I work for Hell, Inc. and I'm not sure how I feel about descending the corporate ladder into the bowels of everlasting damnation.

Speaking of damnation... I have to be up at 3am to get to the airport for my 6am flight to VEGAS. Woo hoo! I'll be sure to take plenty of pix.

NEW FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER, DEUX

2005-10-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

9:17 a.m.

LADIES...

We are stupid, silly creatures and something needs to be done about it.

*replaces ice pack on crotch*

I made my next appointment for two months from now.

NEWS FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER

2005-10-11T16:54:00.000-05:00

4:54 p.m.

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. I am getting my very first bikini wax.

I feel like a virgin on her wedding night.

Only I doubt it will be quite as pleasant.

Unless it's a real disaster of a wedding night.

That is all...

10/11/05

2005-10-11T09:08:00.000-05:00

9:08 a.m.

So, I'm outside of a doctor's office right now. I have spent the past two days following a guy that is supposedly very, very injured in his left hip. He was doing yard work yesterday with hardly a limp. This doctor's appointment was actually set up by the insurance company to set him up for me.

I decide to bring a random 4-year-old kid with me while I'm undercover today so that I won't raise suspicion in the waiting room. (Who's going to suspect some lady with a child of spying on them, I ask you? What kind of a crappy parent would bring a kid on surveillance?)

I take random 4-year-old's hand and counsel him as we walk into the building. "Remember, kid, this is not the same thing as lying. This is 'pretext'. Big difference....you can't go to hell for pretext."

We are there early and the office manager is really cool about accommodating me when I tell him what I'm doing. He even shows me the back door so that I can sneak out after my Subject gets called into his appointment.

So I'm sitting on the floor and random 4-year-old and I are playing with a pathetic collection of snot-covered toys when my Subject walks in. Oh, my goodness. He's grunting and limping like the Hunchback of Notre Dame without the hunchback. It hurts to watch.

I get some good video from my spy purse and then slip out the back door. Now I'm waiting for Igor to leave his appointment and we'll see where he goes from here.

10/09/05

2005-10-09T14:34:00.000-05:00

2:35 p.m. If you love me, send me your spare Valium.

Here's my schedule for the past couple of days:

FRIDAY:
Wake up 3:30 a.m. Surveillance until 12:00 p.m.

Take 1 1/2 hour nap in McDonald's parking lot before starting another surveillance at 3:00 p.m.

In the MEANTIME, I go on call for the ME's office from noon until 4:00 p.m. Overlap..not good. Hoping nobody dies.

Surveillance lasts until 7:00 p.m. because I lose the guy in Chicago traffic. This is the second time I lost this guy. The client will not be happy. Too tired to care.

SATURDAY:
Grateful nobody died Friday afternoon.

On call with ME's office from 12:00 a.m. until 11:59 p.m.

Get called out to a scene at 3:30 a.m. for a guy who fell and hit his head. Pull on some jeans and a sweatshirt. Brush teeth. Look in mirror. Wonder why I am doing this to myself. Go to scene. Upset family. I end up deciding not to bring the guy in because the fall was from him dying..not the other way around. He was a very sick man. I call the family doctor to make sure he will sign the death certificate. Doc says he's down with that. Cool.

At 5:45 a.m. While heading home, I get called by dispatch again. This time on a hospice case. Don't have to go out since it is a natural death and they are just reporting it to me.

At 5:50 a.m. I get home, grab a few things and leave for surveillance of the guy that I lost last night. I drive by his house. No activity.

At 7:00 a.m. I come home. Sleep. Yes.

At 11:25 a.m. Wake up to beeper. Another case. Hospital ER death. Guy had a significant medical hx so I turn him down and tell the ER to contact his family doc to sign the DC.

At 11:30 a.m. Pack up and drive by guy's house again. No activity.

At 1:00 p.m. Come home. Sleep. Yes.

At 2:00 p.m. Wake up. Work on proposal. Get a few more pages done.

At 4:30 p.m. Get showered and dressed for a date. Fall asleep during movie. Wonder if the guy minds that I drooled on his shoulder.

At 10:30 p.m. Come home from date.

At 10:45 p.m. Talk to Light-Haired Man on phone.

At 11:45 p.m. Go to sleep.

SUNDAY:
At 4:30 a.m. Wake up. Check email. Find out the surveillance I'm supposed to go on this morning has been postponed. Hooray!!! Go back to bed.

At 11:25 a.m. Wake up, again. Good lord. I almost slept for 12 hours. I remember that I am on call again for the ME's office in a half hour and take a quick shower...brush teeth.

At 11:45 a.m. Panic attack. Overwhelmed. Eight million things to do. Three reports for the ME to write. Several cases to reassign for my PI job and two cases to write up. Proposal to write. And I have to clean my house so that I can call the landlord to come fix my heater that isn't working and the toilet I broke a couple weeks ago.

At 11:35 a.m. Call Light-Haired Man. Break down in tears. Tell him I'm going to jump and I mean it.

At 12:00 p.m. Gather up my papers and my computer and go to the diner down the street. Set up at a booth. Work and drink tea. Eat food. Oh yeah....forgot about food. Food is good.

At 2:00 p.m. Come home. Feel much better. Will be speaking in complete sentences again in no time.

I miss you guys. I will come up for air again really soon.

2005-10-06T15:04:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for sending this from the BoucherCon (mystery writer's conference) yearbook. I always had a thing for goats...

10/6/05

2005-10-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

Dearest Bloglit,

Well, it's time to get tough on my procrastinating self.

I've imposed a personal deadline of Oct 25 to finish my proposal. Until then I probably will only make an entry into the blog every other day since I am also working two jobs and have a lot of personal life stuff to deal with, too.

That is unless something irresistable happens, like my boss drops another body or Stinky Jimmy quits or I get called down to New Orleans...

And, of course, Vegas next weekend.

Later,
Polly

10/4/05

2005-10-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't have to worry about humiliating myself by relaying my Saturday escapades with Dead Guy to people at work.

Why? Because when I was driving home from the grocery store tonight I got a call from my boss, Nancy.

I answer the phone, "Hey, lady boss. How are ya?"

"Shitty." (It's a quote, Mom.) "I dropped a body and I can't get him up."

"You mean he's fallen and he can't get up?" I snigger.

"Uh..yeah." Nancy obviously has no sense of humor right now. "Is there any way you can come over here and help me?"

I lament the melting ice cream in my trunk. "Sure. No problem. Give me five minutes."

I sigh as I get off the phone and turn the car around.

When I get to the MEO I flash the magnetic strip of my ID card across a security pad to open the bay door. I walk through the receiving area and onto the hated ramp that leads to the autopsy suite/cooler. Nancy is there at the bottom along with her charge.

As I assess the situation I quickly note that there is a law of physics that was seriously violated here. I'm not sure which one, but it will definitely be rubbing it's arse for a while after this fiasco.

Dead Guy has an enormous belly and chicken legs. He also weighs upwards of 325 pounds. When you try to maneuver a guy of those proportions down a steep ramp with his hefty end first, well...it's gonna end badly.

Dead Guy is still securely strapped onto the cot. Only the cot is now tipped up on one end so his head is on the floor and his feet are up in the air. Oh, dear.

Nancy's eyes are a little wild. She looks like she's on the brink of doing something unfortunate. She says to me..."There's a lesson here. Don't EVER put the heavy end in front when you're moving a body down this ramp." I try with every fiber of my being not to laugh. Yeah. Just FYI.

First Nancy and I both get up on the foot side of the upturned cot and bounce on the bar between the wheels. No good. Between the two of us we weigh maybe 250 pounds. It doesn't even budge.

Next, we lower the wheels on one side, but because of the angle, the wheels on the heavy side are stuck. The only way to "unstick" them is to put Dead Guy further up on his head and pull the legs of the cot in so that we have him prone on the floor.

This works and now all we have to do is use our brute strength to lift the Dead Guy from the floor to an upright position suitable for transferring him onto a tray. Nancy gets her end up okay, but I am apparently a 98 pound (or so) weakling because I need help getting my end (the feet, no less) up.

I resolve to go to the gym three days a week, at least, and lift weights.

Anyway, we get him up and eventually on the tray. Nancy opens the bag to see what kind of damage was done to Dead Guy after being dropped on his head and then left that way for a half hour, give or take.

His head is rather purple seeing as gravity sent the majority of his deoxygenated blood supply to his head. The good news is there is no visible head fracture, though he did bite into his tongue...which resulted in some external bleeding.

Nancy is positively distraught. "Great. Dr. Frank is going to love hearing about this. 'Um... Dr. Frank, you may find some head trauma...just...you know... It's postmortem so... No big deal, right?'"

I laugh despite myself. "Nancy, are you being sarcastic?" She appears to want to hit me, but I poke the angry bear despite my better judgement. "Hey, I don't see him complaining." She narrows her eyes.

I decide to give some sage advice. "Nancy, we are all going to drop bodies in life...It's what you do AFTER you drop the body that determines the kind of person you are."

I run before I get smacked upside the head.

10/03/05

2005-10-02T22:52:00.000-05:00

10:52 p.m. Well, I brought in my first body on Saturday. I'll tell you all about it when the case is closed and the information becomes public.

What I can tell you is how interesting it is for a 118 pound woman to move a 275 pound man from the ground to a cot, into a big ol' van, and then from the van to a tray at the morgue. All by myself. Well, sort of. I have some nice cops that help me get the guy on the cot in the first place. But after that it's all me.

This is the only thing about my new ME gig that I've worried about. I have never had to transport bodies before and I'm kind of a small woman.

I am doing alright until I get back to the morgue and try to pull the cot out of the truck. It won't even budge. Figures. I start to panic a little. I would rather do just about anything than suffer the humiliation of calling in another investigator to help me.

So, anyway, I'm outside the bay doors at the morgue and I quickly realize this is not a "lift with your knees" situation. I have to pull straight out. So I brace my left foot on the bumper of the van and try again. Still no love.

Finally, I get up on the bumper and use both feet and arms to bring the stretcher's wheels to the edge of the doors. Then I jump down, grab the cot, and depress the lever to extend the legs. There are a few "Oh, fudge, I'm gonna drop him" seconds there when all of the body weight is on me. I am about to drop the guy but then hear the "click" of the back legs just in time.

I continue to pull out as the front legs extend. I have to push down so that Dead Guy is up on two wheels and sort of jerk the cot up and down a few times before the front legs lock. I wipe my brow with my forearm. Phew. So far so good.

But I'm not out of the woods yet. The genius who designed this facility decided it would be a really good idea to build a steep RAMP from the receiving area to the cooler/autopsy suite below. So here I am, pulling back on the cot and hoping to hell that my feet don't slip or I accidentally lose my grip because if I do, Dead Guy will end up speeding down the ramp and flying through the plate-glass window that is located directly in front of me. Which I would like to avoid even though, admittedly, it would be pretty funny in a twisted "Weekend At Bernie's" kind of way.

So, Dead Guy and I get to the bottom of the ramp and I am feeling pretty smug. Now all I have to do is get him on a tray. I try the cooler door. It's locked. Huh. I press a button by the cooler door and a red light goes on. I try the door again. Still locked. I quickly press the button again and the red light goes off. I look around to see if my random button pushing didn't trigger a silent alarm or turn off the cooler or something. Looks okay.

Then I remember that the cooler key is hidden along the frame of the door. I feel along the top of the metal lip until I snag the key. This reminds me of trying to break into my house when I lock myself out. We should get one of those fake hollow landscape rocks and put it by the cooler so we can hide the key there. I giggle at the thought as I open the cooler and grab a low tray, figuring that it'll be easier to get Dead Guy on that than a big one with a rim.

Hmm. This will be tricky. I look at the cot and back at the tray. Then I move Dead Guy up against the wall and put the tray right up parallel to the cot. I reach across the tray, grab a handful of body bag, and pull. Nothing.

I must think this through. I can't get leverage from this angle. I am obviously too low. And the only way that I can think of to get higher is to climb onto the tray and pull from there. So, I climb up and just as I begin pulling on the bag again I realize I forgot a very important step. That would be locking the wheels.

As I pull, the tray starts to move toward the cot. Which obviously surprises me so my automatic reaction is to push away. Only then the tray moves away from the cot and I am left straddling both...with the lower half of my body on the tray that is now four feet away and the upper half sharing the cot with Dead Guy.

So, the cot starts to wobble toward me and I have to do something fast or I will find myself in a pile up. I let go of Dead Guy's body bag and roll onto the floor in a most graceful manner. (Trust me.) I lay there on my back for a minute...a little stunned. But only for a minute because we're having a little maggot problem and I'd rather not be fishing them out of my hair.

After some trial and error, I finally get Dead Guy on the tray and into the cooler. I take off my latex gloves and turn off the lights as I walk back up to the receiving bay.

Boy, do I miss Dwight.