Fall Guy by Benjamin Carol Lea

Author:Benjamin, Carol Lea [Benjamin, Carol Lea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0060538996
Amazon: B000C4SHMC
Published: 2013-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Something called the Certificate of Preliminary Letters of Testamentary was in the mail from Melanie Houseman's office. So was O'Fallon's death certificate. Dashiell began to explore the garden as if it were a brand-new place, every inch of it worthy of his attention. I sat on the steps and opened the mail, but it was too dark to read. I didn't think reading a death certificate was exactly what Jin Mei had in mind, even though I was, as she had suggested, in a garden.

I decided to do a round of tai chi, to see if that would clear my mind. As soon as I took the first stance, Dashiell came to stand near me to bask in my increased energy. By the time I'd finished the form, I felt clearer. I went inside to read the mail.

There were only a couple of items on O'Fallon's death certificate that I was interested in, but I read every word. It seemed, somehow, disrespectful not to. The single sheet had been issued by the Department of Health, and after the identifying information, O'Fallon's full name, age and last-known address, there was a box that said, „Date and hour of death or found dead.“ The date he died was there. The time his body was discovered was there as well. There would be no exact time of death. There had been no witness, no broken watch, no one claiming to have heard the shot. Eventually the ME would record an approximate time of death, a period of several hours during which evidence reveals he might have died. Because Jin Mei had heard him crying early in the morning and Parker had called 911 around noon, the time of death would probably be recorded as between eight and twelve that morning.

I didn't know if any more specific information would be coming my way, unless I could pry it out of Brody. I imagined that because O'Fallon had been fully submerged in hot soapy water, the ME might make a narrower assessment of the time he'd died, that the particular deterioration caused by or prevented by the water would help him to pinpoint a tighter time frame.

After „Death was caused by ...“ there was a caution. It read, „Enter only one cause per line.“ But only the first line remained, the other two having been crossed out so thoroughly that even holding the form under the light, I was unable to read what had been deleted. What was left was, „Immediate cause.“ And typed alongside that, in capital letters, PENDING FURTHER STUDIES. It said the same thing, all in caps, farther down the page, after „Manner of Death.“ None of the other choices—homicide, natural, suicide, undetermined—had been checked.

Near the bottom of the page were my name and address, as executor, and the name of the funeral home designated in O'Fallon's will, Redden's on Fourteenth Street. After that, there was a statement certifying that all the foregoing information was a true copy of the record on file at the Department of Health.

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