Drop Dead Sexy

When I walked up to the bed, it hit me how different Randy looked. Sure, he was going to look different considering he was dead, but it was more about how I was used to seeing him. Gone was the crisp, white lab coat he sported over a button-down shirt and tie. In its place was a whole lot of pasty-white flesh. I never would have pegged Randy for someone who slept naked. He seemed more like the pajama type, even in summer.

I reached into my pocket and took out my voice recorder. After clearing my throat, I pressed the button and began speaking. “Today is February Eighth, 2015. Time is ten forty-five am. Victim is a male, Caucasian between sixty and sixty-five years old. Preliminary cause of death appears to be a gunshot wound to the left pectoral at close range. The wound is about an inch to an inch and a quarter in diameter.”

I then turned my attention to reporting on Randy from the head down. After lifting one of Randy’s eyelids, I said, “No signs of petechial hemorrhaging, so he wasn’t choked or strangled before he was shot.” As I examined the rest of his face, I didn’t notice any cuts, scratches or bruising.

I picked up one of his hands and eyed it curiously. “No defensive marks or wounds.” I massaged Randy’s forearm before lifting it. “From the rigidity of the muscles and range of motion in the arm, the victim appears to be in peak rigor mortis.” Rigor Mortis was an easy way for coroners to estimate the time of death. It usually set in two hours after death, and it reached its peak at twelve. By fifteen hours, the muscle fibers began to break down and would loosen up again.

I cut the recorder off and looked at Ralph. “He obviously didn’t put up a fight. From the looks of it, someone just came in and shot him after he’d gone to bed.”

Ralph sighed. “If that’s the case, I guess there are some small mercies in the fact he wasn’t tortured or beat up. Maybe he never even knew what was happening. Just went to sleep and never woke up.”

“Unless he woke up to someone standing over him with a gun, which considering the shot range wouldn’t be surprising,” Todd countered. When Ralph and I both looked at him in surprise, Todd gave us a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I watch a lot of Law and Order.”

“Yeah, well, they do things a little different up in New York City,” Ralph said.

I lifted my gaze momentarily to the ceiling. I could tell the animosity rolling off Ralph toward Todd was about more than just a television show. Todd had grown up north of the Mason Dixon line, so to Ralph, he couldn’t be trusted because he was a Yankee.

“Let’s not turn this into a Yankee vs. Southern thing, okay?” I said.

“Whatever,” Ralph grumbled.

“All right, let me check his lividity to see if I can pin down a possible time of death.” Lividity happened when the body’s blood supply stopped moving after the heart stopped pumping. You could gage how long someone had been dead by the way gravity caused the blood to settle. It presented in deep purple discoloration. Since Randy was lying down, I would need to examine the blood discolorations on his back.

I reached to pull the sheet away from Randy’s body when a male’s voice boomed from the hallway. “Hello? GBI.”

Ralph groaned. “Great the G-Men are here.”

I wagged a finger at him. “Be nice. We owe it to Randy to find his killer by having a smooth investigation without animosity.”

“I will as long as they are. But if they start that holier than thou bullshit, the gloves are coming off.”

I didn’t bother arguing with him anymore. Instead, I left Randy’s bedside and started for the door. I got halfway there before I froze on the spot. Like I seriously looked like something out Despicable Me with the freeze ray.

When I was in second grade, I fell off the monkey bars. As I had lay in the grass, I’d tried desperately to catch my breath, but I couldn’t. I had the wind completely knocked out of me. I had never experienced the feeling like a flattened tire because my lungs wouldn’t inflate.

That’s exactly the same way I felt when Catcher Mains waltzed through the bedroom door.





As I continued standing there like a statue, Catcher reached into his coat pocket for his badge. “Afternoon. I’m Holden Mains from the GBI and this is Elias Solano.” He motioned to the tall, Latino standing next to him.

It was then as he gazed around the bedroom that he finally saw me. And then that smile—that drop-dead-sexy smile that had made me throw my inhibitions to the wind and my panties to the floor—stretched across his face and managed to de-thaw my frozen status. “Well, well, well. Olivia Sullivan. Fancy seeing you again.”

Glancing between Catcher and me, Ralph questioned, “You two know each other?”

Catcher licked his lips. “Oh yes, I know Ms. Sullivan very well.”

I shifted nervously on my feet. “Oh, I wouldn’t say it was that well. We just seem to run into each other from time to time.”

A wicked gleam burned in Catcher’s blue eyes. “Yes. I would say it’s been at least three times, wouldn’t you?”

A strangled cry erupted from my lips at the fact he was alluding to the number of times we’d had sex last night. My mouth had already run dry with nerves, so it took me forever to find my voice. "Might I have a word with you, Agent Mains?” When I felt Ralph and Todd’s eyes on me, I quickly added, “So I can discuss the case with you?”