“Come, I’ll show you.”
Liam followed the M.E. down the hall, trying not to breathe too deeply. There was an excellent air-conditioning-and-exhaust system here, but even so, the smell of chemicals clung to the air: chemicals that spoke of death.
In the area Franklin referred to as “the fridge,” the medical examiner went straight to a metal door that was second down from the top and pulled. Cutter Merlin, covered reverently in a sheet, lay on his cold metal bed.
Franklin pulled down the sheet that covered the face. To Liam’s surprise, he saw that coins had been set on the eyes, something he had seen before only in historical pictures.
“His eyes keep opening,” Franklin explained. “This is an old method of keeping them closed, but…well, I am an old man, nearing retirement, you know. Best I can do until his granddaughter tells me where she wants the body taken. I expect I’ll hear shortly—talked to Joe Richter earlier, and he said that he was expecting her to make final arrangements today.”
“She just got into town yesterday, after hours, so, yes, I’m sure she’ll make her decisions today, though I’m assuming she’ll have him interred in the family plot at the Key West cemetery. Her mother is there,” Liam said.
“Yes, of course, I remember that interment. So very sad,” Valaski said, shaking his head. “Such a young and beautiful woman. Such a tragedy.”
“You performed her autopsy, right?” Liam asked.
Valaski nodded.
“And she died of a broken neck from a fall down the stairs—but her eyes were open, as well,” Liam said.
Valaski shrugged. “When I first arrived at the Merlin house, she was in her husband’s arms. But, yes, her eyes were open.”
“And you’re certain that Cutter Merlin died of heart failure, or cardiac arrest?” Liam asked.
“As certain as I am that night follows day,” Valaski said.
“I’m still wondering how Chelsea Merlin Donovan managed to fall down a stairway she’d known since childhood. She was young, thin, coordinated, and she managed a terrible tumble. And yet you said that she had the same terrified expression that Cutter was wearing when we found him,” Liam said.
“She saw that she was tumbling down a staircase,” Valaski suggested. He waved a hand in the air. “Liam, I know you’re busy, so I never should have spoken that day. I didn’t mean to suggest anything. Naturally, they resembled one another. Chelsea was Cutter’s daughter. And good God, man, Cutter was nearly as old as Mrs. Merriweather, since he didn’t settle down to procreate until he was in his fifties!” He sighed. “Sadly, Cutter Merlin rather slipped through the cracks. He wanted to be a hermit. In Key West, we respect that. God knows, he might well have been suffering a form of age-related dementia. The human brain is the most miraculous computer out there, and we all know what happens when a computer gets a virus.”
Valaski studied Liam, frowning.
“Liam, you can’t be thinking that anything wasn’t what it seemed in either death…can you?”
“Hey, Doctor, you’re the one who mentioned that Cutter and his daughter had the same expression on their faces when they died,” Liam told him.
“Yes, yes, I did,” Valaski admitted, casting his head to the side and staring at Liam with his still-enormous, magnified eyes. He shook his head. “But I’m good at what I do. Chelsea died of a broken neck. Cutter died of heart failure. Cutter was old. He had Lanoxin in his system.”
“A heart medication?”
“Yes. And it can cause hallucinations.”
“Can a person die of being frightened to death?” Liam asked.
“Sure—if fear causes the heart to give in,” Valaski said.
“Or if it causes someone to misstep, and they go crashing down the stairs?” Liam asked.
“They died years apart,” Valaski pointed out. “There were other people in the house—it was a normal house when Chelsea died. Well, an almost-normal house. It was still filled with all kinds of oddities. Hey, Ripley had nothing on old Cutter Merlin, really,” he added, and grinned suddenly. “What? You think the mummy arises and scares folks to death? If there had been something there, wouldn’t George Donovan have seen it, too? He was in the house. If I remember right, he heard his wife’s scream, and the thudding as she fell. He would have run to her in a split second. If he had seen something, he’d have been after whoever or even whatever in a flash. That man loved his wife.”
“I’m sure he did. What about Chelsea, though? She was young—she couldn’t have been on any kind of medication.”