Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential - Undertakers Spill the Dirt

The deputies at the bottom of the ravine looked up and shook their heads. Not that they were really looking any too hard for clues. They were pussyfooting around in the tall grass, trying to steer clear of the mud and water.

“Well, Toules, looks like we have an obvious accident on our hands.” Joe pushed up off the guardrail where he had been resting his foot, using his knee as a leaning post.

“You going to go down and look for yourself?” I asked, incredulous. Joe was lazy and had the kind of stupidity combined with cunning intellect that could get you in trouble if you crossed him. He had been elected into office eons ago, and just kept getting re-elected. It was almost like he got recycled in spite of himself. The more he got re-elected the lazier he got.

“I can see just fine from up here what happened. Obvious accident.”

I squinted down into the ravine. “You sure?” I asked dubiously.

“Fell.”

“He fell over the guardrail?”

Joe took the stub out of his mouth and flicked it at my feet. “What? You want to play coroner today, Toules? My job here is done. You and your corpse-humping friend get your asses down there and drag that body out of that water, and try not to get your nice shoes wet.” He pounded me on the back and laughed meanly. “I’ll stop over later to make an ID,” he called over his shoulder.

Asshole , I thought, as Joe got into his government-issue sedan and took off with a squeal of tires.

“Does he do anything?” Paul asked as I returned to the wagon.

“No, except stuff his face at Smiley’s Diner.”

We both laughed.

“Lets get this over with,” I said and sighed.

“Bad?” Paul asked.

“It’s going to be messy.”

I put on a pair of rubbers to protect my good shoes and donned a pair of large yellow kitchen gloves, the kind that go nearly up to your elbow. We used them for coroner-related work because we never knew what kind of mess we’d find, and they afforded a little more protection than regular latex gloves. Paul pulled the cot out onto the pavement and collapsed it to the ground. I got out a black body bag and a coil of rope. Handing the coil of rope to my partner, I hopped over the guardrail and wind-milled my arms as I slid down the muddy slope. Thankfully, I made it to the bottom without falling. Paul wasn’t so lucky.

I found myself standing in sixteen inches of muddy water and him sitting in it. We turned the air blue with our language as we got to work. I unfolded the thick vinyl body bag on the tall grass of the stream’s embankment parallel to the facedown man.

We both stood in the stream. I grabbed the arms, Paul took the legs, and we hoisted him right out of the stream and into the bag. I zipped it up, and we flipped the body bag over so we didn’t drag the man facedown. Paul looped the rope through one of the sturdy nylon handles and climbed the ravine hill. He slipped a couple of times, and each time a loud cuss word cut through the silent mountain air like the report of a gunshot. When Paul made it to the top of the embankment, he looped the rope around the guardrail. Then he pulled on the rope as I grabbed a handle and helped drag the body bag back across the stream and up the muddy hill.

Paul and I loaded the body bag onto the cot and put it in the back of the station wagon. We waved to the deputies and sped off.

Hours later, after I had time to change out of my ruined suit, shoes, and raincoat, Paul and I stood in the morgue and placed the body bag on the porcelain embalming table. Since the zipper was on the underside of the man, I took a pair of shears and cut the bag down the center.

We stepped back in surprise, and I think Paul captured both our feelings with two words. He covered his mouth with his gloved hand and whispered, “Oh, shit!”

The man lay on the table, staring up at us with surprised, vacant eyes. A ten-inch piece of chrome bumper stuck out from his torso. Clearly, he had been the victim of a hit-and-run.

I was on the phone to the state within minutes. Coroner Joe offered his resignation less than a week later.

Contributed by a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter

When I was in mortuary school my roommate was raped. I took to carrying pepper spray in my pocketbook for protection, which in hindsight would’ve been as effective as trying to use a garden hose to put out a forest fire. By the time I had identified the danger, dug around all the junk in my purse looking for the darn can, and then figured out how to point and spray, I would have been a goner. But it made me feel safe at the time. After college I was looking for a hobby, something to unwind from work, and started doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, partly to learn something new, partly because I like to exercise, and partly to replace my can of pepper spray.

Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art used by ancient Samurai warriors. It uses punches, kicks, throws, and ground grappling. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a derivative of it that focuses more on takedowns and ground grappling than its counterpart. Over 90 percent of street fights end on the ground, so it’s imperative that you know how to get your opponent on the ground and then control him. I don’t go around looking for fights. I’m just comfortable in situations where most women wouldn’t be…like stranded on the side of Interstate 25 in the dark with a van full of dead bodies.

I work for a mortuary near Santa Fe. People who aren’t familiar with the area would have no idea where my hometown is, so I just tell everyone “Santa Fe.” It’s a quaint little town sitting on the edge of the desert framed by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I’ve lived in the Southwest my entire life and would never dream of moving. I love it too much.

We were quite busy at work one day with three funerals, and during the course of the day two calls came in from Albuquerque, which is only about an hour away. It’s not uncommon for calls to come from families with loved ones at Albuquerque-area hospitals because they have excellent care facilities and some of the most advanced trauma units for hundreds of miles.

It was early evening in the wintertime, so it was getting dark when I loaded up the panel van with a cremation box. I was going to stop on the way back from Albuquerque at our retort—the technical term for a cremation chamber—that’s across town and then drop the body off. It would be ready to be cremated first thing the following morning. The van has two steel shelves built in, almost like the old World War I ambulances, so that up to four bodies can be carried at once. With the help of one of my co-workers, I put the box on one of the shelves, loaded two empty cots, and headed out.

I made good time going to Albuquerque because all the rush hour traffic was heading out of the city as I was heading in. I stopped at Presbyterian Hospital and picked up the first body, and then stopped at UNM Hospital and picked up the second. Because it was after hours and I had to wait for security to key me into the morgues, it took about two hours to get both bodies. At this point it was near 8:30 and I was starved, so I stopped at a café and parked the van out front where I could see it while I grabbed a quick bite to eat. I did some quick time calculations in my head and called my boyfriend.

I told him I was running a little late, and probably wouldn’t be home until ten o’clock or so, and asked him if he could give the babysitter a ride home. Freddie, like me, sometimes works late. He told me he was just leaving the office. We exchanged “I love you’s” and hung up.

I hopped back in the van, wanting to get home to Freddie and my daughter as soon as possible. I navigated back onto I-25 and headed north. I was doing a pretty good clip when I hit some road debris. The van jolted so hard I looked in the rearview mirror to see what I had hit. I couldn’t tell what it was. No matter, I thought, and quickly forgot. About five more miles down the highway I heard a noise. It got louder until it sounded like a helicopter was hovering over me. When the tire exploded it sounded like a bomb going off.