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Authors: Annelise Ryan
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“teacher days” because they know many of their students will be missing from class.
That the two hunters entering the ER are pissed at one another is obvious because they are trading obscenities. The red flush in their cheeks tells me their blood pressures are reaching Mt. Vesuvius levels as torrents of their alcohol-laden breath waft through the air, quickly permeating the entire department.
The first guy, who is heavyset, bearded, and has a blood-soaked dressing wrapped around his right foot, is screaming and wagging a finger at the second man. “You shot me, you frigging asshole! You tried to kill me and don’t you deny it. I knew you were pissed about that stock tip I gave you. I just knew it.”
The second man, who is lean, tall, and has a neck like a giraffe, is grimacing in pain. His left leg is splinted from foot to hip and I can see dressings covering a large protuberance in his lower leg—an open tib-fib fracture. He glares back at the other man, and through gritted teeth says, “It was an accident, you fucking moron.”
“The hell it was,” grumbles the first guy. “You tried to kill me!” Seeing that he now has a larger, newer audience, he raises his voice several decibels, points to Giraffe Guy, and yells, “This fucker tried to kill me!”
Several state troopers have arrived with this entourage and I see one of them roll his eyes and shake his head. After a quick game of musical beds, the two hunters are finally ensconced in their separate rooms, each with a trooper close by to babysit. The eye-rolling trooper, a twenty-plus-year veteran named Hans Volger, enters the nurse’s station and drops into a chair with an exhausted sigh.
“Rough night?” I ask him.
“Ya, you betcha,” he says, tagging himself as a hardcore Norwegian. “Always is during hunting season. And these two drunken yahoos take the cake. Get this . . . the tall guy decided he didn’t want to risk scaring off the deer by climbing down from his tree stand to take a dump. So what does he do? He drops his drawers, squats over the edge of the stand with his bare ass in the breeze, and tries to squeeze one out. Except the idiot lost his balance, fell ass backward, and broke his leg. Unfortunately he grabbed at his rifle when he felt himself falling, and he accidentally fired off a shot as he went down. The bullet went through the floor of another tree stand and hit the second guy in the foot.” He shakes his head. “I’ll bet all the deer out there are still laughing.”
My funeral home transport arrives and I see that it’s the twin sisters from Johnson’s: Cassandra and Katherine, who go by the nicknames Cass and Kit. Their parents, who established the funeral home over thirty years ago, have always had a twisted sense of humor and it was never more apparent than when they named their daughters. The girls seem to have taken to their nicknames and the family business to a surprising degree. Not only are they both very involved in the day-to-day work, they both look the part with Morticia-like skin, builds, and hair.
After bidding Hans adieu, I take the twins into Minniver’s room and assist them as they wrap him up, strap him up, and load him into their transport vehicle, which looks more like a soccer mom’s minivan. I head out to my hearse and follow the funeral home car to the morgue.
Other than weighing Minniver on the huge floor scale in our take-in area, I leave all the rest of the processing for morning. After the sisters help me place Minniver’s body in the fridge for the night, I finish my paperwork and leave.
Five minutes later I am in front of Minniver’s house expecting to see a yellow-taped crime scene area, but the place looks like every other house on the street. As I pull into Minniver’s driveway to park, a squad car pulls in behind me. I watch in my rearview mirror as Ron Colbert climbs out, and then I grab my evidence kit and get out to greet him.
“How come there’s no crime scene tape
That the two hunters entering the ER are pissed at one another is obvious because they are trading obscenities. The red flush in their cheeks tells me their blood pressures are reaching Mt. Vesuvius levels as torrents of their alcohol-laden breath waft through the air, quickly permeating the entire department.
The first guy, who is heavyset, bearded, and has a blood-soaked dressing wrapped around his right foot, is screaming and wagging a finger at the second man. “You shot me, you frigging asshole! You tried to kill me and don’t you deny it. I knew you were pissed about that stock tip I gave you. I just knew it.”
The second man, who is lean, tall, and has a neck like a giraffe, is grimacing in pain. His left leg is splinted from foot to hip and I can see dressings covering a large protuberance in his lower leg—an open tib-fib fracture. He glares back at the other man, and through gritted teeth says, “It was an accident, you fucking moron.”
“The hell it was,” grumbles the first guy. “You tried to kill me!” Seeing that he now has a larger, newer audience, he raises his voice several decibels, points to Giraffe Guy, and yells, “This fucker tried to kill me!”
Several state troopers have arrived with this entourage and I see one of them roll his eyes and shake his head. After a quick game of musical beds, the two hunters are finally ensconced in their separate rooms, each with a trooper close by to babysit. The eye-rolling trooper, a twenty-plus-year veteran named Hans Volger, enters the nurse’s station and drops into a chair with an exhausted sigh.
“Rough night?” I ask him.
“Ya, you betcha,” he says, tagging himself as a hardcore Norwegian. “Always is during hunting season. And these two drunken yahoos take the cake. Get this . . . the tall guy decided he didn’t want to risk scaring off the deer by climbing down from his tree stand to take a dump. So what does he do? He drops his drawers, squats over the edge of the stand with his bare ass in the breeze, and tries to squeeze one out. Except the idiot lost his balance, fell ass backward, and broke his leg. Unfortunately he grabbed at his rifle when he felt himself falling, and he accidentally fired off a shot as he went down. The bullet went through the floor of another tree stand and hit the second guy in the foot.” He shakes his head. “I’ll bet all the deer out there are still laughing.”
My funeral home transport arrives and I see that it’s the twin sisters from Johnson’s: Cassandra and Katherine, who go by the nicknames Cass and Kit. Their parents, who established the funeral home over thirty years ago, have always had a twisted sense of humor and it was never more apparent than when they named their daughters. The girls seem to have taken to their nicknames and the family business to a surprising degree. Not only are they both very involved in the day-to-day work, they both look the part with Morticia-like skin, builds, and hair.
After bidding Hans adieu, I take the twins into Minniver’s room and assist them as they wrap him up, strap him up, and load him into their transport vehicle, which looks more like a soccer mom’s minivan. I head out to my hearse and follow the funeral home car to the morgue.
Other than weighing Minniver on the huge floor scale in our take-in area, I leave all the rest of the processing for morning. After the sisters help me place Minniver’s body in the fridge for the night, I finish my paperwork and leave.
Five minutes later I am in front of Minniver’s house expecting to see a yellow-taped crime scene area, but the place looks like every other house on the street. As I pull into Minniver’s driveway to park, a squad car pulls in behind me. I watch in my rearview mirror as Ron Colbert climbs out, and then I grab my evidence kit and get out to greet him.
“How come there’s no crime scene tape
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