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“I will pencil you in for the salon too,” she says instead. “Doors open at seven-thirty, seats at eight… which means you’ll need to be in a stylist’s chair by five.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“As a heart attack. Yes or no to the event, Doctor Mayet?”
“Undecided,” Idecide. “Don’t book me in any place. Don’t plan my social life. In fact, you should lose my number and stop calling me at all.”
“It’s literally my job.” I don’t see it, but Iknowshe rolls her eyes. “I won’t RSVP for youyet, but I will book you in at the salon, just in case.”
“Please don’t.”
Without waiting for more argument, I reach out and plop the phone into its cradle, then I drag my head around as though it weighs a ton and I have no energy left.
Studying Aubree on my desk, her shaky smile and her sparkling shoes perched on my visitor chair, I draw a deep breath and sit back in my seat. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.” She plays with the long, pink ends of her hair and refuses to look my way. “You?”
“Uh-huh,” I parrot. “Did you kill Tim last night for being a douchebag?”
“Nope.” Sucking a little air between her teeth, finally, she brings her gaze to me. “Did you kill Archer for being a douchebag?”
I exhale sadly and shake my head. “Nope. But we, uh…” I shrug and make myself busy fussing with a pen and doodling on the reports that have Doctor Kernicke’s name all over them. “I doubt we’ll be spending much time together anymore. We had the kind of fight people don’t come back from.”
Finally, Aubree looks to me with something that isn’t entirely wrapped around her own hurt feelings. “Something a sorry can’t fix?”
“Right.” Slowly pushing up from my desk and taking with me the stack of reports I asked the accounting department to prepare, I slide a half-chewed pen behind my ear and make my way toward the door. “Sorry won’t fix it, because we’re two people who just can’t come together on some really important things. Come on,” I swing the office door open and nod for Aubree to follow. “I have to go talk to Kernicke.”
“You want me to follow?” She slips off my desk and crosses the room. Between us, I’m not sure we have much energy or enthusiasm to give to the job. It can’t be a coincidence that we’re angry at men from the same bloodline. “Am I watching, or am I stopping at my desk and minding my business?”
“Don’t care.” I slide the stack of papers under my arm and release the door when Aubree passes through. “He’s no longer a suitable employee for the George Stanley, starting with his abuse and behavior on a crime scene a little over a week ago, and ending with the reports in my hands that basically say he’s milking the company for far too much while having nothing to show for it.”
“You think he’s stealing?” She walks beside me as we cross the ninth floor in search of the man who hasn’t liked me from the moment I came on as chief medical examiner and his former boss stepped down. Clearly, he and the former chief M.E. had an understanding that reminds me of incestuous nepotism, though they’re not actually related. “Or is he just lazy?”
“Definitely the second,” I answer, “with heavy sprinkles of the first—though I can’t prove it without years of litigation I’m unwilling to invest. I’d prefer to cut the cord here and simply let him go.”
“Yeah, and I bet this is gonna be simple.” She lowers her voice as we approach Kernicke’s desk to find him sitting back with his feet up and a steaming cup of soup in his hands.
He has cases to work, bodies to process, and paperwork to fill out. There are more people dying in Copeland City than there are coroners, but Sure, Kernicke, sit back and chill the hell out.
“Good luck,” Aubree murmurs almost silently. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Actually,” I turn back to her and whisper, “alert security and have them come up immediately. He’s got this fragile masculinity thing going on, so it’s unlikely he’ll enjoy this. Things will go smoother if he has an audience—more so if that audience is male.”
“Oh, to idolize the patriarchy,” she growls low on her breath. But sliding her hand into her coat pocket, she takes out her cell and starts dialing. “I’ll make the call now.”
“Thank you.”
Turning on my heels and crossing the mostly empty space where desks are crammed and doctors sit to finish the administration side of their jobs, I can’t help but notice that the rest of my team is actually working. They’re elbow-deep inside cadavers, searching for answers to the puzzles these bodies have left for us.
“Doctor Kernicke?”
While he glances up, slowly and with a smugness in his expression, I grab a chair from one of the surrounding desks and set it on the opposite side. Sitting down, I rest my pile of accounting craziness in my lap, then, because he still hasn’t moved it, I raise a single questioning brow and look pointedly at his dirty foot, just two feet from where I sit. “Do you mind?”
As though my request is the most bothersome thing to happen to him today, Kernicke sets his cup of soup on his desk and draws his legs back with a groan, until his chair squeaks and his breath comes a little faster. Placing his feet on the floor and wheeling back in until his stomach touches the desk, he looks to me with a grin that sets my temper alight.
Which is strange, considering I believe myself to be a reasonably levelheaded person.
“How can I help you, Doctor Mayet?” He puts emphasis on the T in my name so it almost sounds like he’s spitting. “It’s not often you slum it back here with your stooges.”
