Read Online Fixin' To Die (A Kenni Lowry Mystery Book 1) by Tonya Kappes - Free Book Online

myself than I needed to of Doc Walton’s dead body was not high on my priority list. I wasn’t looking forward to downloading them at home tonight as I stirred my spaghetti.
    “I had to take pictures while Ronald was in the body bag.” His voice cracked, and I looked over at him. There were tears in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “And when I transferred him to the table.”
    I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder. He continued to snap.
    “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure how to console him. “I know y’all were poker buddies and friends.”
    He stepped away from my hand, putting the camera down on the stainless steel table next to Doc Walton, and peeled off his gloves, the bags under his eyes damp.
    “I’ve never had to do an autopsy on a friend before.” He nodded for me to follow him. He picked his camera up, putting the strap around his neck. He lowered the exam table, grabbed his camera, and took pictures of Doc’s face. “What in the world?” He let the camera dangle and grabbed a pair of tweezers.
    “What?” The shock in his voice had me hoping it was something important.
    “Is this mercury from a thermometer?” He held the tweezers under the magnifying lens.
    “There was a broken thermometer on the floor. Doc Walton didn’t believe in the battery ones.” I thought about going to see him as a child and having to put that glass thermometer in my mouth for what seemed like a long time. I almost smiled.
    “I know, but why was this embedded in his mustache?” Max asked.
    “Embedded?” I asked and leaned over Doc Walton’s face.
    Max used the tips of the tweezers to rake through Doc’s mustache. “See?” The tweezers parted a couple of hairs to expose another ball of the mercury.
    Carefully, Max put the mercury ball into a beaker with the other one.
    “You don’t think he could have dropped the thermometer while he was being stabbed?” I asked. “Maybe he was taking the killer’s temperature. The killer could have taken Doc off guard and stabbed him. Doc dropped the thermometer, breaking it, and the mercury rolled everywhere. When he fell to the ground, he fell face forward into the mercury, getting it in his mustache.”
    It seemed like a pretty good analysis, if I said so myself.
    “There are no cuts on his face.” Max grabbed his magnifying glass and looked down through it. “If he landed in glass, he would’ve had some cuts. Besides, when I moved his body, there wasn’t a pile of mercury or glass.”
    “Oh.” I bit my lip, disappointed that my theory was probably wrong.
    “Kenni.” Max put the magnifying glass down. His tone became chilly. “I think I can guess how Ronald died.”
    “Guess?” There was no room for guessing.
    “I’m pretty sure I know.” His voice cracked. “I think the killer somehow made Ronald ingest the mercury.”
    “What?”
    I had never heard of such a thing.
    “Ronald might have been stabbed multiple times, but he most likely died from ingested mercury balls.” He put his hand over his mouth like he was being smothered. “I believe the balls on the floor fell out of the killer’s hand when they were trying to smother Doc. He does have some bruising on the back of his neck, which makes sense if the killer grabbed Doc and forced the mercury balls from the broken thermometer over his mouth and nose. When Doc tried to catch some air, the mercury balls would’ve slid down his passageways. This would explain the little blood in his mouth, his swollen eyelids, and bloodshot eyes.” He moved his hand over every body part he had named that would be affected by the poisoning. “It’s hard to trace and the killer was smart enough to know that. And,” he moved his finger over one of the stab wounds, “they were very angry with him to keep stabbing him.”
    “So your theory is the killer stabbed him first and saw it wasn’t going to do the job so they broke the thermometer, got out the mercury globules, and forced them down Doc’s