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Authors: Annelise Ryan
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I leave her in the chapel and head back down to the ER, calling Izzy on my cell phone as I go. When he answers I fill him in on what I’ve discovered so far.
“So I’m thinking this might be a suicide and the cause of death could be carbon monoxide poisoning,” I conclude. “I’m going to go by his house and check out the scene tonight but I’m thinking we’re going to have to post him.”
“I agree,” Izzy says. “That’s an excellent catch. Do you need me to come in and help you with anything tonight?”
“No, I think I’ll be fine. I’ll call Johnson Funeral Home and have them transport the body, then I’ll check out Minniver’s house.”
“Holler at me if you need any help.”
“Thanks, Izzy.” I disconnect the call and make another one to the funeral home. They give me an ETA of twenty minutes, so I settle back in at the ER desk and look at Mr. Minniver’s chart again so I can get his home address.
That’s when I get my second big shock of the day.
Chapter 8
I ’m stunned to discover that Mr. Minniver’s house is right behind Hurley’s. When I look at the times on Minniver’s chart, I realize that he was found and brought to the hospital just before I arrived at Hurley’s place for dinner.
I make a call to the police station and it’s answered by Heidi Cronen, the dispatcher on duty. “Hey, Mattie, what’s up?” she asks.
“I need to take a look inside the house of Harold Minniver, the man who was found dead in his car earlier this evening. Are any of the officers still there?”
“Hold on, let me check.” She puts me on hold for half a minute, then comes back on and says, “They’ve already locked the place up.”
“I have a key,” I tell her. “But I’d like to have one of the officers who was on scene meet me there and go through the place with me.”
She puts me on hold for another thirty seconds. “Ron Colbert said he can meet you there in five if you want,” she says when she comes back on.
“I need to get Minniver’s body back to the morgue first. Can you tell him to meet me there in an hour instead?”
“Will do.”
I hang up and start filling out all the paperwork necessary for processing Minniver’s body but I’m quickly distracted. The ER is not an easy place to focus at times, and tonight proves no exception. Within minutes two ambulances pull up and the ER staff starts jockeying beds, trying to find a place to put the latest victims. As the EMTs wheel their respective patients into the main part of the ER, two things become apparent: the victims are hunters, and they are royally pissed off at one another. The first fact is obvious from their dress. Both men are wearing insulated bib overalls made out of a camouflage fabric. I’m guessing hunters wear this get-up so the deer won’t see them as easily, but over the top of the camouflage both men are wearing vests and earflap hats—standard hunting fare—done in a blaze orange so bright it’s likely visible from Mars. Despite this precaution, every year a couple of hunters are shot—supposedly by mistake—because some yahoo thinks deer have blaze-orange fur.
Here in Wisconsin we’ve learned to adapt to this idiocy because hunting is as much a rite of passage as growing pubic hair. In fact, I know a hunter or two who thinks the act of killing an innocent animal is what gives you pubic hair. During deer hunting season the air is filled with the sound of gunshots, the roads are riddled with carcasses of fleeing, frightened deer, and girlfriends and housewives everywhere are holding hunting widow parties—all-female get-togethers that often involve recipe sharing, chick-flick marathons, and frank discussions of everything from sex to what to pack in the kids’ school lunches. Deer hunting season is as much of a holiday as Thanksgiving and since the two often overlap, it’s not unusual to see people taking the entire last half of November off from their jobs, or schools that provide
I leave her in the chapel and head back down to the ER, calling Izzy on my cell phone as I go. When he answers I fill him in on what I’ve discovered so far.
“So I’m thinking this might be a suicide and the cause of death could be carbon monoxide poisoning,” I conclude. “I’m going to go by his house and check out the scene tonight but I’m thinking we’re going to have to post him.”
“I agree,” Izzy says. “That’s an excellent catch. Do you need me to come in and help you with anything tonight?”
“No, I think I’ll be fine. I’ll call Johnson Funeral Home and have them transport the body, then I’ll check out Minniver’s house.”
“Holler at me if you need any help.”
“Thanks, Izzy.” I disconnect the call and make another one to the funeral home. They give me an ETA of twenty minutes, so I settle back in at the ER desk and look at Mr. Minniver’s chart again so I can get his home address.
That’s when I get my second big shock of the day.
Chapter 8
I ’m stunned to discover that Mr. Minniver’s house is right behind Hurley’s. When I look at the times on Minniver’s chart, I realize that he was found and brought to the hospital just before I arrived at Hurley’s place for dinner.
I make a call to the police station and it’s answered by Heidi Cronen, the dispatcher on duty. “Hey, Mattie, what’s up?” she asks.
“I need to take a look inside the house of Harold Minniver, the man who was found dead in his car earlier this evening. Are any of the officers still there?”
“Hold on, let me check.” She puts me on hold for half a minute, then comes back on and says, “They’ve already locked the place up.”
“I have a key,” I tell her. “But I’d like to have one of the officers who was on scene meet me there and go through the place with me.”
She puts me on hold for another thirty seconds. “Ron Colbert said he can meet you there in five if you want,” she says when she comes back on.
“I need to get Minniver’s body back to the morgue first. Can you tell him to meet me there in an hour instead?”
“Will do.”
I hang up and start filling out all the paperwork necessary for processing Minniver’s body but I’m quickly distracted. The ER is not an easy place to focus at times, and tonight proves no exception. Within minutes two ambulances pull up and the ER staff starts jockeying beds, trying to find a place to put the latest victims. As the EMTs wheel their respective patients into the main part of the ER, two things become apparent: the victims are hunters, and they are royally pissed off at one another. The first fact is obvious from their dress. Both men are wearing insulated bib overalls made out of a camouflage fabric. I’m guessing hunters wear this get-up so the deer won’t see them as easily, but over the top of the camouflage both men are wearing vests and earflap hats—standard hunting fare—done in a blaze orange so bright it’s likely visible from Mars. Despite this precaution, every year a couple of hunters are shot—supposedly by mistake—because some yahoo thinks deer have blaze-orange fur.
Here in Wisconsin we’ve learned to adapt to this idiocy because hunting is as much a rite of passage as growing pubic hair. In fact, I know a hunter or two who thinks the act of killing an innocent animal is what gives you pubic hair. During deer hunting season the air is filled with the sound of gunshots, the roads are riddled with carcasses of fleeing, frightened deer, and girlfriends and housewives everywhere are holding hunting widow parties—all-female get-togethers that often involve recipe sharing, chick-flick marathons, and frank discussions of everything from sex to what to pack in the kids’ school lunches. Deer hunting season is as much of a holiday as Thanksgiving and since the two often overlap, it’s not unusual to see people taking the entire last half of November off from their jobs, or schools that provide
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