Chapter 5

I’d had no call to be around Zacharias Bolt before Jacob’s death.  I thought it unfortunate that I found him to be a bit odd, since his was the only funeral home for several towns and I was the recently appointed official county medical examiner.

 Zacharias’ family had been in stiff competition with the Crowley family for the funeral business of the area for several generations. This, along with an over-abundance of fumes from embalming chemicals were surely what lend to his unlikeable personality. The smirk on his narrow and pinched face when he inspected the remnants of the Crowley morgue while delivering Jacob’s corpse to me was an immediate indication as to the person I’d be dealing with. He wasted no time comparing his state of the art set up to my pathetic -yes, he used the word ‘pathetic’- and antiquated one while speculating on the poor workmanship that surely was produced as a result. 

He clearly had no idea that I found him repulsive.  Nor did he have a clue about what an ass he sounded like as he proceeded to assure me that he’d prepare the bodies for viewing to such a perfect degree that, even as a doctor, I’d be forced to check for a pulse to be sure they were dead. I couldn’t help comparing his arrogant attitude to the earnest and compassionate ones of the funeral directors I’d had cause to associate with while in residency.  It was like night and day.

I eagerly signed the papers his boney and abnormally white hands shoved at me and hustled him out the door.

It was only after he’d gone that I felt the eeriness of my environment.  I’d been around enough dead bodies not to be freaked out by them. In fact, I’d had to dissect more than my fair share of them during my studies.  So, I knew it wasn’t poor Jacob who was sending chills up and down my spine. 

I looked around the room, but could

see nothing out of the ordinary. I decided that the lighting needed to be updated.  Not only was it a little on the dim side, but the fixtures were probably leaking an abundance of electro-magnetic signals.  This happened with old equipment and was behind many alleged hauntings in a home since they would make the hair stand on your body as well as give you goose bumps.  More than that, they were unhealthy.

I didn’t know how much time I’d be spending in my little morgue examining bodies, but, however much time it was, I wanted to have my environment healthy and not detrimental to my well-being.  I decided to also have a mold check done.  Just for good measure.

“Vickie, are you down there?”  Angela’s sweet and steady voice echoed off the walls as it funneled down the stairs that led to the main part of the house.

“I have a dead body down here,” I warned.  “Enter at your own risk.”

She smiled as she gracefully descended the stairs. “I’ve been around my fair share of them over the years. It’s an occupational hazard, I guess.  Most of them are mountain people who have either starved to death or taken the wrong home remedy for an illness.”

“I had no idea,” I said with awe.

My boarder and I weren’t what I would call friends, but we were gradually becoming very friendly with each other.  I think that if she was in town more often, our friendship would have developed and solidified at a more rapid rate. As it was, I liked her, and she liked me. We’d occasionally have lunch or dinner together, during   which   the   conversation

flowed so well that time just flew by.

She shrugged.  “In the beginning, I was traumatized by what was occurring and I spent many a sleepless night trying to think of ways to get through to these people and convince them to drop some of their outdated ways.  But, I eventually gave in to the fact that you can’t save the world.  How does that saying go?  ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’  Well, I adopted that philosophy with my cases.  If for no other reason than my sanity.”

“They’re that backward?”  I mused with surprise.

“It could be worse,” she chuckled. “I could be assigned to the Appalachian region.”  Before I could press the subject further, she shifted direction. “I came to invite you to lunch.  An old friend is in town who I’m sure you’d enjoy.”

I looked at my watch.  It was approaching lunch time and I’d yet to have breakfast. I had no patients scheduled for the day and wasn’t required to monitor my office for walk-ins until six that night.  I could join her for lunch and still have time to do an autopsy on Jacob before then.

I covered Jacob’s waxen face up with the sheet that Zacharias made it a point of letting me know he was providing as a courtesy and wheeled the gurney into the walk-in refrigerator that was large enough to accommodate three gurneys at a time.   “I need to clean up.  Tell me where to meet you and I’ll be along shortly.”

Angela chuckled. My question seemed almost comical because the dining selection was so limited.  We had a diner, a luncheon café, and a restaurant that opened for dinner only on Tuesdays through Sundays. “I thought the café today.”

I smiled as I closed the door to the

refrigerator.  “Okay.  I can be there in about thirty minutes.  Does that work?”

“That’s perfect,” she said as she scooted back up the stairs.

As I closed the one-time morgue turned medical examiner’s lab, that eerie sensation overtook me again.  I made a mental note to be sure to call an electrician before the end of the business day and scooted up to my room to change into something more suitable for a luncheon with my boarder and her unknown friend. It was at that time that I realized she’d not divulged whether her friend was male or female. But then, did it really matter?

I selected a pair of dark blue slacks and a cream colored short sleeved sweater.  The weather was warming up during the day as spring settled into the mountain townships, but there was still enough of a bite in the air to require a jacket or sweater.  I decided to wear the cardigan that came with the short-sleeved sweater. It was a set that was given to me at Christmas and something I thought I’d never wear because it was far too preppy a look for me.  For some reason, that day, I found the preppy look appealing.

The sun felt warm and soothing when I stepped off the porch and onto the broad sidewalk that led from the house to the street.  I decided to walk to the café where, by now, Angela and her friend waited for me.  

I made it there within fifteen minutes, making it exactly thirty minutes from the time I agreed to join Angela to the time that I actually did.   After walking in such bright sunlight without sunglasses on, it was difficult to see inside the café.  I could hear her hail me as I stood at the front door and waited for my vision to adjust. Her companion had his back to me, but I could see it was a man.  There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t say just what. 

I waived to her to acknowledge that I saw them and scurried through the crowded room toward the table they occupied in the far corner.  I was surprised to see how many people ate out on a Thursday.  There was barely a vacant chair in the place.  I wondered, if I went to the diner, would I find it the same there?  Did the entire population of Wolf Junction eat their lunches out?  Had I been going against tradition all these months?

It took a little longer than I would have liked to reach the table.  I had to stop and wait for an old woman to get out of the chair she’d pushed back from her little two top table just as I reached it.  Then, I had to politely acknowledge a few ‘hello’s’ from patients who recognized me.  When I finally reached them, my heart was racing just a bit from the exertion.  Rather than slow down, it practically lept from my body when she made the introductions.

“Dr. Vickie Anderson, may I introduce to you my very dear friend, Dr. Peter Thomason?”

Not only did my face show my surprise, but my body reacted in such a way as to embarrass me. My knees trembled so badly that they buckled. I was forced to grip the back of Peter’s chair.  When he smiled and extended his hand in greeting, my hand trembled just as wildly as my knees did as I took it.

“Why, Vickie,” Peter said as he vigorously shook my hand.  “Angie told me that she was boarding in a house run by the town doctor, but I had no idea it was you.  So, you went ahead and got your medical degree.  Fantastic.”

Angela’s brows raised. “I can’t believe it. You two know each other?”

I found my tongue enough to explain how I knew Peter as I retrieved my hand and took my seat next to her and opposite him. “I met Dr. Thomason when he was teaching the class that convinced me to get my medical degree and combine it with the holistic healing method I was already practicing.”

“That she did,” he said with a broad grin.

Other than shorter hair, Peter looked exactly the same to me.  Oh, there were signs of stress around his eyes that I didn’t notice all those years ago, but, otherwise, he was most definitely the Peter Thomason I’d sat across from at Starbucks while longing to be in his bed instead.

It struck me as I ordered a cobb salad.  Other than Max, Peter was the only man I’d met who turned me on enough to want to give up my virginity. What were the odds that he’d show up in my little town as the good friend of my boarder … and, on the day after I’d done such a horrific thing as almost have sex for the first time on the ground next to a corpse!

The memory of my actions the night before made me shudder with humiliation.  It didn’t go unnoticed by Peter who immediately confronted me about what could be wrong.  Was I cold?  Did someone walk across my grave? By the time he finished badgering me with ridiculous questions, we were all laughing comfortably.

The conversation flowed so well that I soon lost track of time.  I’d forgotten how much I liked Peter as a person.  He’d been a phenomenal story teller all those years ago and that hadn’t changed. I learned that he’d returned to Africa and decided to stay and set up a practice rather than return to the United States with the other doctors.  He founded a non-profit that he ran right up until a few weeks earlier when he decided it was time to return to his home land.  He assured me that the foundation was still in operation and in competent hands. The only thing that changed was that he’d left it. 

Something in my gut told me that there was more to the story, but I let it go.  We all have our secrets and our skeletons.  Some are more exciting and interesting than others, but they’re there, none-the-less.