Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

At one point, sophomore Latitia Hall, sister of senior center Mandy Hall, and hopefully a future star, lobbed one from the middle of the court in a perfect arc which dropped through the rim, barely shaking the net.

The crowd stood up and cheered. People blew their noisemakers, waved their Styrofoam swords, their blue and orange pennants. Harry felt a cold breeze whizz near her left ear. She turned around to see who blew a noisemaker close to her, but everyone behind her was hollering or puffing on noisemakers.

As the game ended and people filed out, Little Mim climbed over a row to reach Susan. Blair joined Harry, Fair, and BoomBoom. Harry waved to Miranda and Tracy on the opposite side of the court. They returned the wave.

By the time the group of friends had reached the parking lot, Susan had the latest on the H.H. drama.

The cats and dog, noses pressed against the driver's side window, couldn't wait for Harry. Herb passed them and rapped his fingers on the window.

"Guess he still doesn't know." Pewter put both her paws on the window as a greeting to the pastor.

"Maybe he's gotten over it," Tucker thought out loud.

"No way." Pewter smiled big as Herb smiled back and then headed toward his old car, on its fourth set of tires. He'd need new tires soon or a new car.

"He'll find out before the first Sunday in February. He needs them for communion."

"Maybe not, Murphy. Maybe he has an extra stash in the church itself. Bet Elocution and Cazenovia don't get in there very often, because Elo eats the flowers on the altar," Pewter said.

"That's true." Mrs. Murphy laughed. "But if those two wanted to get into the church I bet they'd find a way. They're pretty smart."

Fred stomped by them.

"What an old grouch," Tucker noted.

"Humans get the lives they deserve." Pewter then quickly added, because she knew there'd be an uproar, "Short of war or famine or stuff like that."

Before the last word was out of her mouth, H.H., shepherding Anne and Cameron, was three vehicles away. He jerked his head up, sweat poured down his face, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his knees collapsed. He dropped down in a heap.

Anne knelt down. Then she screamed for help.

Tucker noticed Fred turn. He saw who it was and hesitated for a moment. With reluctance he walked over to Anne.

"Help me!"

"Daddy, Daddy, wake up!" Cameron was on her knees shaking her father.

Harry, Fair, Susan, and Ned heard the commotion. Susan's daughter, Brooks, was with her friends, behind her parents. Matthew and Sandy, his wife, sprinted toward the fallen man. From the other side of the parked cars, Tracy hurried up.

Fair bent over, took H.H.'s pulse. None.

"Matt, help me get his coat off."

Matthew and Fair stripped the heavy winter coat off H.H., Fair straddled him and pressed hard on his heart. He kept at it, willing H.H.'s heart to beat, but it wouldn't.

Tracy looked gravely at Jim, who'd just reached them. He already had his cell phone out.

"Ambulance to U-Hall. Second row from the main entrance. Hurry!" Jim called the rescue unit closest to the university. As mayor of Crozet, he knew everybody in an official capacity.

The ambulance was there within five minutes.

Fair, sweat rolling off him, kept working on H.H.'s chest. He stood up when the rescue team arrived.

Little Mim had the presence of mind to wrap her arms around Anne because she didn't know exactly what the woman would do. Big Mim held Cameron.

They all watched in complete dismay as John Tabachka, head of the ambulance squad, quietly said, "He's gone."

Herb knelt down, placing his hand on H.H.'s head. "Depart in peace, thou ransomed soul. May God the Father Almighty, Who created thee; and Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who redeemed thee; and the Holy Ghost, Who sanctified thee, preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, even forevermore. Amen."

"Amen." Everyone bowed their heads.

"Amen," the animals said.

6

Fair and Ned Tucker accompanied the corpse to the morgue. Ned, as the family lawyer, wished to spare Anne further distress. Fair thought Ned might need some bolstering.

Little Mim and Susan Tucker took Anne and Cameron to their home in the Ednam subdivision just west of the Clam on Route 250.

Each person, after ascertaining if they could do anything, finally went home.

A subdued Harry flipped on the light in the kitchen. She made a cup of cocoa, feeding her pets treats as she sipped. She felt miserable.

Ned felt miserable, too. He'd never witnessed an autopsy. Fair had. All living creatures fascinated him, how they functioned, how they were put together. He often thought that an autopsy was a way to honor life. How could anyone view a horse's heart or a cat's musculature without marveling at the beauty of it? Any chance he had to learn, he seized. The human animal was complex in some ways and quite simple in others. For instance, humans had simple dentition. Sharks, by contrast, had a mouthful of really complicated teeth.

Tom Yancy, the coroner, had been called by John Tabachka and had everything ready. Anne had insisted on an immediate autopsy. Grief stricken and shocked as she was, she wanted to know exactly how her young husband had died.

Yancy for his part was only too happy to comply. By the time he got to a body it had usually been in the cooler or worse.

Even laid out on the gleaming stainless steel table, H.H. was a handsome man, a man in seemingly good physical condition.

Yancy knew him, of course, but not well. Tom Yancy and Marshall Wells, the assistant coroner, often knew many of the corpses they examined.

"Ned, stand back." Yancy looked up at him as he pulled on his rubber gloves. "If you faint I don't want you falling on the body. Occasionally, organs will, uh, be under pressure. They may somewhat pop out, the brain especially. It sounds grotesque but it really isn't. After all, the inside of the body is experiencing light and air for the first time. If you can't take it, leave the room."

"I will." Ned felt nervous. He didn't want to disgrace himself, but he wasn't sure he would be up to the process.

Yancy's blue eyes met Fair's. "Put on a coat, will you? Just in case I need you."

Fair lifted a doctor's white coat off the peg against the door. He, too, put on thin latex gloves.

"All right, gentlemen, let us closely inspect the outside before we get to the inside." Yancy measured H.H. "Here." He handed Ned a clipboard, thinking having a task would help the lawyer. "Height, six feet one-half inch. Race, Caucasian. Weight, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. Age, I'd say between thirty-three and thirty-six. Of course, I know he is thirty-six because I knew H.H. and we have his driver's license, but you can still tell age by teeth. Not as well as we once could thanks to advances in dentistry, but they wear down." He opened H.H.'s mouth, pointing to the slight irregularity on the surface of those molars not capped. "Fillings can help us. Silver fillings have a shorter life span than gold."

"Remember Nicky Weems with his gold front tooth?" Fair recalled a man, old when Fair was a teenager, who flashed a gold grin.

"Used a lot before World War Two. Expensive but prized. It's still good stuff. Now, dentists, the advanced ones, use ceramics, and who knows what they'll come up with next? The stuff doesn't even discolor."

All the while he was talking, Yancy carefully felt over the body. "His temperature has dropped a few degrees."

"When does a body go into rigor mortis?" Ned was becoming interested. He was beginning to realize one could read a body like a book.

Of course, it's better to read it while it's still alive.

"Depends. On a blistering hot August day a corpse can go through the stages of death, light death, if you will, to advanced death, in a matter of hours. Putrefaction can begin rapidly especially on battlefields where the temperatures can be over one hundred degrees because of the guns. Gettysburg was a real mess, I can tell you. July." He shook his head. "And the little muscles go into rigor first. But on a temperate day, say sixty degrees to seventy, a corpse exposed to the elements, no rain, will begin to stiffen in two to three hours. Unless"-he held up his hand-"a person has ingested strychnine. By the time they are finished with their convulsions, which are so severe all the ATP in the muscles is depleted, they're in rigor. It's a horrible, horrible way to die. That and rabies. ATP is a molecule that releases energy for muscle contraction. When it's used up, so are you."