Super Meals: Part Eight

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Doctor Ralph landed as the sun was setting and darkness was beginning to fall on the small town where Detective Mimi Spatchcock was visiting the coroner’s office and Walter Elliot was passed out on a swing set. His rental car was waiting for him, and the on-board GPS directed him to his hotel, but before he left he searched to find the county coroner’s office. He was pleased to find that the hotel was within walking distance to the coroner, so he checked in, dropped off his travel bag, and took a walk.

His phone’s GPS directed him past the charming main street bistros and shops, down to the off-main-street second-tier stores where he turned and followed the street to the coroner’s office. It was after hours, but he tried the door anyway and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. He waited at the bottom of the stairs, strolling and checking his phone like he’d stopped mid-walk to look something up.

Within two minutes, Mimi left the building and headed down the stairs. Doctor Ralph walked up the stairs and caught the door before it closed, letting himself in.

The office staff had already left, so nobody stopped him from making his way downstairs and into the examination room. Seeing that the light was still on, he walked in and saw the half-covered corpse splayed out on the table, as well as Jane’s report on the table next to it. He moved around the table, glancing upwards and seeing the dictation microphone dangling above the table and followed the wire across the ceiling to where it was plugged into a digital recorder.

Hearing footsteps approaching, he first moved to the side of the room and unplugged the microphone, then went back to the exam table and picked up the report.

Jane walked in just after he opened it. “Excuse me,” she said. “This is a private office. Who are you?”

“Doctor Ralph Quinlan,” said Doctor Ralph. “I was brought in to check your work on this case.”

“By whom?” asked Jane.

“My employers are very curious as to your findings,” he said, ignoring the question. “You have failed to identify the stomach contents on the victim—“

“What makes you say that?” asked Jane.

“Because you’ve listed in your report that there are ‘chemical compounds’ but not what they are. I wouldn’t expect you to put failure in your report.”

“No,” she said. “I meant why did you use the term ‘victim?’ Calling him a victim implies that someone did this to him.”

Doctor Ralph was surprised, he wasn’t used to medical examiners being that quick on the uptake. He recovered quickly, though, saying “Isn’t there a perpetrator? You’ve found a dead transient. Typically in instances like this it’s a case of two homeless guys fighting over a camping spot.” He looked at the report and continued, “Like the overpass where he was found.”

Jane walked over and yanked the file out of his hands. “You’re going to have to show me some identification or leave. Now.”

Doctor Ralph clucked his tongue and moved towards the door, saying “Very well. I assume a court order would suffice to give me access to the deceased and perform my own analysis?”

“Why do you care? What kind of examination do you want to perform on a dead hobo?”

“I’ll explain to the judge and let him decide if it’s worth granting me access,” he continued, pushing through the exam-room’s double doors. “I just wanted to give you the chance to let me have a look before we took it to the law.”

Jane took out her phone and started tapping the screen, which Doctor Ralph accepted as his cue to leave before she reached whomever it was she was calling. He turned and made his way back upstairs and outside.

When he was gone, Jane stopped tapping her phone screen and went to check the digital recorder on the side of the room. She wasn’t surprised to see that the microphone was unplugged, which was why she was glad that she’d had the recorder active on her phone. She saved the file, emailed it to her personal account, then texted the file to Mimi, along with the words “Strange guy just came by, checked the body. No ID. Seems hinky. Check out what he said while he was here…” and hit “SEND.”