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“Our job is to help the police solve a crime,” she counters calmly. Too calmly. “It’s to serve our patients to the best of our ability.” She lowers Coral’s arm and moves on her good leg a fraction to the left. “That means balancing being thorough with being fast. At this point, it doesn’t appear you did either.”
She glances to Aubree. “Let’s attempt to extract stomach contents and run tox on blood. Did she die from neglect, or did he inject her?” Placing her gloved fingers on Coral’s jaw, Minka turns the woman’s head an inch to the side. “Chances are, we might get nothing at all, but we have to at least try.”
Casting a cold look back to Kernicke, she raises a brow. “Doctor? You may leave. You’re no longer required.”
“Fine!” He tears one latex glove off with asnap, then the second as Minka releases Coral’s jaw. Kernicke’s rounded face burns with anger, his ruddy cheeks glow red. His stomach bounces with each movement, then he commits the worst of all offenses and drops his gloves to the floor.
He compromises a crime scene because his boss pissed him off.
Minka’s glare turns glacial. Her anger, cold and calculated enough to make a grown man consider his next move.
When silence drags on and Kernicke loses his nerve, he bends to collect the gloves, but Minka stops him with a sharp growl. “Leave them there before you contaminate anything else. Exit this house, Doctor Kernicke, then go home for the day.”
“Wh—”
“You lack appropriate crime scene behavior. Popping off at the mouth is already calling into question your professionalism, but contaminating a scene? Shouting across a dead body, without a mask, mind you, and potentially spraying Mrs. O’Dey with your DNA?” She shakes her head and gently pries Coral’s mouth open. “You’re done for today. I’ll see you in my office at nine tomorrow. Bring a different attitude with you.”
“Fine. Fucking bitch.”
He says it under his breath, cowardly and quiet enough to think he’ll get away with it. But as he tries to pass us by, I grab his arm and stop barely short of breaking it in my hand.
“Apologize.”
“Argh!” He attempts to tug his arm from my grip. “Asshole! Let me g—”
“I saidapologize.” I step closer until his eyes widen. “You will turn around and apologize. Then you’ll go the fuck home and draft a resignation letter.”
He spasms in my grip and tries to swing around to Minka. “Resignation! What the hell?”
“Archer.” Minka slowly turns on her crutches, though she places most of her weight on her legs. She sets a hand on my wrist and gently squeezes. “Stop. Right now.”
I shake my head and stare into Kernicke’s eyes. “Apologize.”
“Archer!”
“I’m sorry.” Kernicke looks to her and grits the words through his teeth. “I said I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t mean it. Everyone in this room knows he doesn’t mean it,includingdead Coral, but I release him with a shove and step forward to stand in front of Minka.
When he regains his footing and looks from me to Fletch, his expression screams anger. And retribution. And if he doesn’t retire tomorrow, I know he’s going to become an issue for Minka’s daily life.
“Get off my crime scene.”
“You invited me on!”
“And now you’re dismissed. You’re damn lucky I don’t cite you for fucking with my scene.”
Huffing, he tries to shove past me, but when he slams his shoulder to mine, all he manages is to stumble back a step and grumbles under his breath when he proves his incompetence.
Storming around us and raging across the room, Kernicke mutters while, spinning back to me, Minka flattens her lips when our eyes meet.
“I was dismissing him on a professional level.” Minka glares. “It wasn’t a pissing match until you started peeing.”
“I was standing between you and an angry dude.” Leaning in, I press a surprise kiss to the center of her forehead and grin when she startles back with a wrench of her neck. “No pee necessary. Now get me the answers I need to close this case out and go home. I have dinner reservations to make.”
“You guys.” Aubree presses a hand to her chest and fawns behind her camera. “I would have documented that moment if this wasn’t official city property.”
“Shush.” Turning away from me, Minka slowly begins unbuttoning Coral’s nightgown. “Can we get this done, please, so we can transport this poor woman into town? She deserves to rest.”
