Residue by Jim Knipfel

Author:Jim Knipfel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Hen Press

ASS. M.E.A.T.

Association of Mortuary Entrepreneurs, Aestheticians & Technicians

Handwritten in elaborate script beneath it was a simple list of names.

Dr. Klaus Unterhumm

Dr. Amos Squire

William G. Dobbs

Robert Makurji

Dr. H. West

Dr. Harry Burke

Fr. Timothy Avalone

Kirby Mudge

While the handwriting was apparently the same, the names seemed to have been written at different times and with different pens. There was little mystery surrounding who these people were and why most of them were so linked, given the letterhead. It wasn’t as clear why Father Tim would be part of some fraternal order of morticians, but it was easy enough to ask him. Easy enough to talk to the others too (except of course Unterhumm and Kirby). The other thing that wasn’t immediately clear was why such an innocuous piece of paper had been so carefully locked away and hidden under a bed, but he’d find out soon enough.

When he reached his desk, he found Deputy Ellsworth sitting in his chair reading one of the files Vandenberg had brought back from Unterhumm’s office. “Heya Ellsworth, dreaming again?”

Ellsworth looked up from the file. “Oh, heya, Chief. Just dropping off a report.”

“A report? Oh yah?” Koznowski folded his arms and leaned on his desk. “What’s this now? Some diabolical crime?”

Ellsworth pointed at the sheet of paper. “Ida Boyes, over on Route Seventeen? Says someone’s been deliberately, ah … ‘unnerving’ her cows.”

Koznowski was quiet for a moment. He reached for the report but didn’t pick it up. “Unnerving them?”

“That’s what she says, yah.”

Out of curiosity more than anything, Koznowski picked up the report and glanced at it. “Mm-hmm. Super, yah. Well, I s’pose we should put all our best men on it, eh? Keep round-the-clock surveillance on her place an’ such.”

“Yah, that’s what I told her,” Ellsworth said. “But I told her they’d be, like, working undercover so she probably wouldn’t even see ’em around. But not to worry, they’d be there.”

“Good man,” Koznowski said. “Keep it up you’ll have my job one day, eh? Maybe soon, way things’re going. But, ah, until that day comes? You wanna get the fuck outa my chair?”

As if only then realizing where he was, Ellsworth quickly dropped the file he was holding and scrambled from the seat. “Sorry, Chief. But I was looking at some of them forms Deliah found, and she’s right. They’re, like, kinda weird.”

The sheriff took his rightful place and exhaled. “Yah, thanks a million there for keeping it warm. Now what’s this you’re saying?” He looked around the desktop with some concern. “Hey, you eat my beer nuts while you were playing sheriff?”

Ignoring the question, Ellsworth reached for the stack of files and snatched the top one away, flipping it open. “See, my uncle Gomer? He used to work at a hospital in Kaukauna,”

“Yah? So why am I uncomfortable with the idea of anyone’s Uncle Gomer working in a hospital?”

“Well, it was Kaukauna anyways. But he used to deal with these. They’re receipts for, like, sellin’ body parts to medical schools an’ stuff like that?”

Koznowski frowned. “Yah, that I can see.

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