Chapter 9
In the car, I call Ryan’s number again but it goes straight to voicemail.
Frustrated, I hang up and toss the cell phone into the passenger seat. I drive three blocks from Firewood Road to the county hospital.
I park the department’s cruiser in a one-hour space in front of the building and head inside. I check with the medical examiner’s secretary, Malloy Lane, at the front desk and slide my badge across the counter at her.
She takes the badge in her wrinkled hand, examines it through her glasses, and flashes me a white, toothy smile. She picks up the phone, and in a hushed tone, I hear her tell M.E. assistant Emmett Carlson, “There’s a police officer to see you.”
She hangs up and passes me a clipboard to sign my name.
As she nods, her double chin waddles, and she points dow
