The Doctor and the Detective

By Jeffrey Birch

A quirky love story between a young female doctor and a police detective set amid the backdrop of a serial killer dropping mutilated corpses at the local landfill. Her past is an unexpected complication. Yet, their relationship deepens unexpectedly as both are thrust into the hunt for elusive killer who repeatedly thwarts attempts to identify and capture him. Detective Stanton Pulley is confused initially by too many suspects. The FBI offers assistance but of limited value. As the detective closes in, the increasingly desperate killer tries to kill both the doctor and the detective. With their lives in danger, Pulley must protect themselves and capture or kill the murderer of young women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098325862

Book preview

37

___1___

Humans, people in general, have the common characteristic of being both repulsed and intrigued by ghoulish murders. It’s a contradiction not easily explained. Repulsion is borne from feelings of abhorrence, disgust, revulsion; sometimes fear for oneself and other sensibilities often defying word descriptions. Emotions often cannot be put into words. Feelings of fascination are oppositional. The macabre has been alluring from time immemorial. Gory novels and horror movies abound. Newspapers reap success in the reporting of blood and gore. The more details, the more papers are sold. Blood sells as well as sex. Thus, it was for the people of Blanton, Missouri to reconcile what happened with contradictory feelings.

The body: young, white, female, naked, had been dropped on stinking garbage in the Blanton landfill. The limbs had been cut off and replaced inches from their position in life. The head was missing. It seemed an artful arrangement in its pose apart from the bloody disarticulation, and one that took the killer a few minutes to purposefully achieve to some preconceived plan.

These initial observations were made by Detective Stanton Pulley of the Blanton Police Department upon viewing the mutilated corpse. He stood over the victim both repulsed and fascinated. Detective Pulley had never seen a murdered human before let alone one that had been dismembered. Later, he recalled his first impressions wondering if he had seen or known her in life and concluded that he hadn’t. Still, without a head and naked, identification was impossible by appearance.

The call had come in and directed to his desk by Evelyn Gruen, the dispatcher.

This one is yours, Stan. Sounds gruesome, really disgusting. Never heard of anything like it here in Blanton. A body all chopped up. No head. Al found it, her. He’s the one drives that big machine at the landfill.

When did he find the body? Did he say?

A few minutes ago. Said he spotted it along County Road 6 that borders that mountain of trash. Near the edge. Easy to miss he said. Could have covered her right over.

Detective Pulley had immediately made the short drive to the landfill where the body had been spotted by the driver, Al Oakes, on one of the big front-end loaders that endlessly shifted the garbage from point A to point B. Eventually the county would abandon the landfill as full, cover it over to find another place to dump the trash from the county’s residents. But for now, it was active much to the disappointment of Blanton’s residents, although everybody needed a place to put it, their trash. As with many things, residents preferred the reviled facility be relocated elsewhere. Anywhere but so close to town and by its placement usually upwind. They also groused about the rendering plant not far out of town but the close proximity of the landfill and its location relative to the prevailing wind made it worse in comparison.

Seeing the body, Pulley called the town doctor, a new doctor with a practice and clinic about four months old, and the only doctor in Blanton. Most folks, especially the older ones on Medicare made the drive to Grayson or even farther to St. Louis if their problem was serious. But for colds, flu, scrapes and broken bones, simple stuff you wouldn’t likely die from, Dr. Siobhan Murphy, a certified family physician, sufficed. Sufficed was perhaps an unfair description. The truth was that Dr. Murphy although apparently a skilled physician lacked a winning bedside manner in his opinion. She was blunt and unafraid to voice her opinion of her patients’ lifestyle shortcomings, including his.

Pulley recalled his one visit to her for a cold that seemed unwilling to go away two months before, just as spring was beginning to reveal itself in all its green and flowery splendor. She had lectured him on hand washing and noticing he was a nail biter advised him to keep his hands away from his mouth if he wanted fewer colds but hadn’t given him anything that would ease the lingering symptoms. Pulley thought she hadn’t been nice about it either. The reminder rose to the surface of his memory leaving a sour taste in his mouth or maybe that was too much coffee. Dr. Murphy was a hard one to like he had concluded after one visit, but he also noticed, couldn’t help but notice, that she was uncommonly pretty and stood out among Blanton’s other young women he knew. Being liked was important to Detective Pulley. A person caught more flies with honey than vinegar as the old saying went and he had grumped about her admonishments all the way home.

He didn’t regret the call to her office exactly, about the body. He had no choice really. Dr. Murphy acquired the title and job of medical examiner in that part of the county with her extensive education in pathology– and she was close. Why she had chosen to hang out her shingle as a family physician in Blanton was anybody’s guess. Blanton was a dying town. It was perplexing to Detective Pulley given her extensive credentials displayed in her office glimpsed but not studied during his single visit. Family physicians had residencies and he imagined that pathologists did too. Two residencies would mean years more in school unless perhaps they could be completed simultaneously like prison sentences served consecutively. But he really didn’t know. He wondered if his feelings resulted from her obvious young age or his initial displeasure with her attitude that prejudiced him toward her. The bottom line was Dr. Murphy was the one to call.

Her receptionist, Jasmine Land, a local farm girl who knew nothing about medicine but was young and handsome in the way big boned girls could be and personable where Murphy wasn’t, transferred the call saying into the receiver in a needlessly hushed voice since the adjacent waiting room was empty, It’s a Detective Pulley from the police department.

Did he sound like he has a cold?

I don’t think so, but I haven’t spoken to him since I started here, so I really can’t tell.

You know him, then?

Most everybody knows everybody in Blanton.

Put him through.

Dr. Murphy, Pulley began.

Just a minute, detective, she interrupted. Pulley could hear unintelligible sounds over the phone but no voices.

All right, I’m back, detective. What’s up? You still in a panic about that cold? Colds go away. I told you. Or did you catch another one?  What’s it been? A couple of months?

Ah, no, no and yes. About two months. I’m calling because I need you to come to the town landfill off of County Road 6. Not to the main entrance on Carl Street.

I know where it is. Why?

A body was found with the arms and legs dismembered and placed near their original position in life…more or less. The head is missing. The body is positioned kind of like a dancer or something. Pulley thought his description succinct and professional.

A dancer? Male or female?

Female. Adult woman but young I think although without the head that might be conjecture. The skin is discolored but looks young and firm. I mean not wrinkly.

Okay. I’m on my way as soon as I can get George Furney and Ruth Reddleton the hell out of my office and him to quit drinking.

Pulley was thinking town drunks were a cliché but George Furney fit the description. Nothing short of death would get the old man to give up the bottle. Drinking up his Social Security check was about all George had to look forward to every month. When the money ran out, he had to dry out. It was Widow Reddleton, a neighbor who saw to it that Furney didn’t starve between checks. Everybody has some kind of mission in life and hers was saving Furney from himself. Furney had no interest in Widow Reddleton but tolerated her meatloaf, beef stew and peach cobbler that had won first prize at the county fair the year before.

After Furney’s wife Mabel had died he fell in love with the bottle. Widow Reddleton held out hope that Furney would expand his love affair to her but few in town thought he would.

Dr. Murphy arrived at the landfill fifteen minutes later. Blanton was a small town and the landfill was an odiferous neighbor, situated too close as time had passed and it had grown in size but since there had been an emptying of the town’s once flourishing population in recent decades, fewer people existed to complain. In truth, Howard Thompson’s big hog farm contributed far more to the fetid air than the landfill. But Thompson’s business was profitable and sometimes downwind. Not much profit existed for the paltry collection of merchants that remained. Some blamed the Walmart for the decline but it was a love-hate relationship since everyone shopped at Walmart including the remaining merchants.

Murphy parked and walked to Pulley after spotting his standing form silhouetted against a mountain of trash.

Dr. Murphy. Thanks for coming. This is one for the books in Blanton. Pulley pushed his fedora back, squaring broad shoulders and placing two big former farm kid freckled hands on his hips beneath the jacket of his suit. Nobody wore hats anymore but Pulley had grown up with a cap on his head and the fedora suited him. Besides, it covered the red hair he hated along with the pasty, freckled white skin he inherited from his Scottish mother. He had to stay out of the sun and the hat helped. He’d considered dying it, his hair, but that was too much work and everyone in town would know and probably giggle behind his back. Red it was and red it would remain although his mother always called it cinnamon-colored not red to ease his self-consciousness.

Murphy stared from Pulley to the body following his eyes to the ground before kneeling to study the dismembered corpse. She had donned a mask, disposable examination gloves and plastic footies as she approached the corpse. DNA contamination was always a risk, but she had quickly determined that the crime scene was already compromised and judged her precautions as adequate – no hazmat suit although the garbage was likely more a health risk to her and the detective than contamination of the corpse absorbing whatever was beneath it.

I don’t suppose you could recognize her without her head?

Pulley shook his head. No. Pulley considered that humor or hoped it was by Murphy and sported a slight grin. I guess I’ve seen most of the kids and young women living around here at one time or the other…but never naked, feeling the need for the clarification.

Murphy glanced at him, sporting a small smile in return Pulley couldn’t interpret.

The legs were severed above the knee at mid-thigh and the arms near the shoulders. That allowed the killer to create the odd pose.

Murphy said, The killer took some time to position the body parts with some reason to place them as we see.

Might have been a hooker or runaway or…. Pulley wasn’t sure how many categories were possible so he let the comment remain unfinished. How long has she been dead?

Since her last breath.

Murphy didn’t smile so he was unsure if her comment was supposed to be humor but

Pulley considered the comment needless sarcasm. Maybe his question demonstrated his unfamiliarity with corpses and the comment was a dig. His opinion of Dr. Murphy remained low.

She quickly added as if to dismiss her previous remark. About twelve to eighteen hours give or take but an autopsy will confirm that. Bodies decay in predictable stages depending on other conditions such as temperature and the presence of water. Hasn’t rained as I recall. As far as being a hooker, that is an unsubstantiated conclusion. But I’ll know more later.

Last night, then. She was placed last night. No. No rain lately. Pulley let out a breath treading cautiously into the medical science of autopsies. He was a cop not a doctor, after all. How would an autopsy show if she had been a hooker?

Dr. Murphy replied with, he thought, veiled amusement in her voice. Genital warts, one or more STDs, anal scaring, etc. That good enough for you, detective?

Pulley cringed at the thought of anal scaring, his mind abruptly, unwantedly, visualizing what would produce the condition. Some kind of sicko guy, he voiced weakly in reply.

Murphy looked at him. Guy? Could have been a woman.

Women don’t kill like this, Dr. Murphy. Carrying the body would require a man, he said with confidence.

Murphy smirked. Bring the body parts in separate plastic bags. Even the torso would not be too heavy. She was a small woman in life.

Pulley felt chastised. Okay. It could have been a woman but statistically you’d be hard pressed to find many that kill like this. Crime of passion in a domestic dispute. A husband slain with a knife or gun. But the corpse is a woman. Men kill women, not women, statistically speaking kill men… and I don’t know of a woman mutilating another woman. Pulley pressed his lips into a thin line and bounced his head feeling he had stood his ground, female killerwise.

Murphy shrugged. I defer to your extensive knowledge of murders by gender, Detective Pulley but consider motive. However, a woman might be so enraged by her lover or husband taking up with another younger woman that she took action. Much easier to murder a woman than some big, hulking guy. Wouldn’t you agree? Or two lesbians have a row over something that leads to murder. Both are possible motives for you to consider in your investigation, Detective Pulley.

Pulley felt chastised again. Dr. Murphy was making him uncomfortable. He crossed his arms and repeated a little defiantly, I have yet to know of a woman who murdered with dismemberment. But in polite consideration of her comments he added, Points to consider, Dr. Murphy. Please get me the results of your autopsy when you have them. Perhaps you can come to definite conclusions and rule her being a prostitute in or out at the minimum. That would be very useful at this point. Pulley thought he had retaken control of the conversation.

Dr. Murphy made a wry face. She wasn’t ready to let Detective Pulley have the last word. She added, Of course anal sex is not illegal for men or women. My sense is that it is more common than many suspect. She raised a hand. Although I have to admit, I have seen no patients with torn anuses…yet…here in Blanton. Then, there is always tomorrow. And for the record, I am not necessarily speaking from personal experience.

Pulley thought the word ‘necessarily’ oddly inserted leaving the door open to his imagination.

Dr. Siobhan Murphy was an attractive woman by any standard, but she had a tongue like sulfuric acid. He could dismiss her on that basis since being nice was important to him. Yet Pulley was unexpectedly attracted to her on two levels: she was physically attractive and obviously smart judging by her educational achievements. Two qualities he found immensely appealing but spending time with her so far was far from satisfying. Standing next to her, a foot or so apart and within his usual comfort zone, affected him. If she had been a man, he would have separated himself by another two feet, but he remained close to Dr. Murphy. For her part she seemed oblivious to his conflicted feelings about her.

After completing her preliminary examination, she stood, pulled down the mask, removed the disposable examination gloves, backed a few steps, removed the footies, and tossed both on the surrounding garbage heap. I need to get back. I assume you’ll hang around until the meat wagon comes to bag the body. Tell them to bag the body parts separately and to wear different gloves for each bagged body part. Possible, more than one victim is represented. She had noticed that the nail polish was different on the feet than the hands. Women, in particular young women, were creative in its application in her experience. Not conclusive, she thought but possibly indicative of more than one individual. Murphy wore no nail polish and little makeup.

Pulley blinked. I hadn’t considered that.

DNA will confirm it. Talk about a psychopath with a freezer full of body parts and heads but that is unsubstantiated speculation on my part. I’ll let you know, detective. The DNA assay will take some time. Closest lab available to me is in St. Louis. Being a criminal case will push it to the front of the list, I hope.

Pulley called for the ambulance and one of their officers, Starr, to come and string the crime scene with yellow tape and photograph the body. He’d wait until the body had been removed to travel back to the station.

A small hospital, Blanton Hospital, sat at the edge of town but none of three doctors with resident privileges were from Blanton, only Dr. Murphy as number four. And none had any pathology training except her. Hers was not a degree in forensic pathology but she knew the human body. One was a dermatologist, one a neurologist and one a Ph.D. in Psychology. The people of Blanton especially the area farmers had various skin conditions, brain injuries from farm accidents and suffered, especially the women, from depression and mental abuse. Physical abuse in the form of cracked and broken bones, contusions and subcutaneous hematomas fell to Dr. Murphy to treat. In her short tenure, she had persuaded two farm wives to take their young children and seek protection in a woman’s shelter in Grayson, the largest town in the county and the county seat. She had driven both.

Have the body taken to Blanton Hospital. That’s our official morgue. I’ll slice and dice the body parts there, Murphy had said before she left.

Pulley cringed inwardly at the thought of what an autopsy entailed.

After Dr. Murphy left, Detective Pulley waited until the ambulance, its only ambulance, from Blanton Hospital arrived. The two young paramedics were experiencing their first collection of a body and made squeamish faces as they fitted the body parts into separate bag changing gloves as Pulley instructed.

One of them asked of Pulley, Do you see a lot of this? We haven’t picked up a body like this before, not in pieces.

Pulley replied, No. This is quite unusual. He considered his reply. Unique, actually.

What’s with the changes of gloves?

Could be more than one victim represented. Cross contamination of DNA.

The young man nodded and added, Do you know who the body or maybe bodies is, are…was?

No. My investigation is just beginning.

The pair walked toward the ambulance to get replacement gloves and more bags.

Pulley shook his head and stared into the distance toward where most of the body still lay thinking somewhere parents or a husband was worried over a missing child or wife.

With the body parts hoisted on a gurney positioned as close as possible to the garbage, both young men gasped at the stench unsure if it was the decaying body or the garbage. They left hurriedly with directions from Pulley to make sure Dr. Murphy’s office was notified that the body had arrived.

Pulley decided to have a conversation with Al Oakes, the driver of the front-end loader after Officer Starr arrived. He found him on the other side of the mountain of garbage continuing to increase the height of the pile by reducing its circumference. Pulley wondered what difference it made. At some point, hopefully soon, the county would judge the landfill full and site a new one or move half of what was present to a new site and keep both. But moving tons of garbage would be expensive. Covering it with imported soil might be the cheaper solution to closing it creating the only hill in the otherwise flat topography of the area. He mused, Call it Garbage Hill, And chuckled at the thought. Pulley didn’t know much about landfill practices but the town would be grateful for its closure.

Pulley drove around the perimeter of the monstrous pile and stopped near Al in the giant machine. He raised a hand, standing by the car until Al stepped from the cab and strode toward him, stepping high on the loose refuse.

Al, I need you to come to the office today and make a formal statement of what you found.

I’m not off till six. I told your girl everything on the phone. Saw the body pieces and called it in. Not much more to say, Stan.

I’ll square it with Dave. Won’t take long. Is he in the shed?

You mean now?

Uh-huh. Just routine, Al.

Okeydokey if that’s the way it has to be. Dave should be in the shed.

Minutes later, Pulley arrived back at his office to see Evelyn’s widened eyes.

Do you know who she was?

With her head missing, no way to say if she was local or not.

Was she really cut up like Al said?

Uh-huh.

Where was her head?

No idea. Not with the body.

So, the killer kept her head?

No way to know at this point.

Pulley realized he didn’t want to discuss the condition of the body but Evelyn was wanting to talk about it, obviously both repulsed and fascinated.

Nothing like this has ever happened in Blanton that I know of. What’s your first step, Stan?

Pulley walked toward his desk. Find out who she was? He stopped and turned to her. If we can. He felt the need to say more. I’ll begin by looking for missing persons from the area. Has anyone called in to say a daughter or wife was missing?

No calls, Stan. That makes sense. A daughter or wife goes missing would be reported pretty quick.

True, but if the girl was from Grayson, we wouldn’t get the call. I’ll be checking with them and let me know if anyone calls.

He called the Grayson PD, but no missing person reports had been recently filed. The desk sergeant checked and stated two girls were apparent runaways but that was almost a month ago. One returned; the other was still listed as missing. The girl that returned was fifteen and the one still missing was sixteen. That seemed too long to Pulley. He’d find out from Murphy tomorrow the estimated age of the corpse, but he guessed she was older than sixteen. Next, he called Dr. Murphy at her office. The body is probably at the hospital by now. You should have been informed.

I got a call. I’ll do the autopsy tonight. Creepier that way. No moon tonight. Murphy laughed. Wanna come watch, detective? Just joking but you can watch if you want to, she added peremptorily.

No, thanks anyway, but I would appreciate a copy of your report as soon as possible.

Sure thing. I’ll have it written up tomorrow morning but the DNA will take longer, maybe a week as I said.

Can we meet to discuss it? Pulley made the request without pre-consideration, blurted it out. He wasn’t sure why he asked. Maybe it was to get the report quickly although he could easily have offered to pick it at her clinic. Or maybe he wanted a reason to see her again not at her work place or his.

Meet? Why meet? Where? Here? You want to stop by the clinic tomorrow?

Pulley was trying to think fast. I’m thinking it will save getting a lot of my questions answered when we’re both not distracted with your workplace or mine. That seemed a plausible reason. He had no other.

I’m very thorough, Detective Pulley.

I didn’t mean to imply you aren’t but I’m new at reading autopsy reports. That’s all.

Okay. Where? Murphy was thinking that was pretty thin in the ‘why’ department but Pulley was fun to tease and didn’t seem to be overly thin-skinned. She guessed he’d been teased as a kid for his red hair.

How about Tibbs Café? It’s that or the McDonald’s next to Walmart.

You mean like for coffee or a burger and soda? Another laugh from Murphy.

If it’s around noon, I guess we could eat something?

You buying, detective? You sure your expense account can handle cheeseburgers?

The food at Tibbs isn’t too bad. Their meatloaf with mashed potatoes is pretty tasty."

Is that where you cops hang out for free donuts?

Pulley stiffened. We pay for what we order.

Pulley could hear Murphy’s grin through the phone. Don’t get your Hanes in a knot, detective. Sounds like a professional date. I’ll call you when I have the report. That work for you?

I await your call tomorrow morning.

The call ended with Pulley feeling both chagrined and uncertain about why he had invited her to lunch. It was true that he had never seen an autopsy report and it was also true that he was sure pages of medical descriptions would be incomprehensible to him. Yet, he was looking forward to seeing Dr. Siobhan Murphy again.

___2___

The Blanton Police Department consisted of three police cruisers, one unmarked car that Pulley drove, four uniformed officers and the captain/chief named Clarence Wood who did not have an assigned vehicle. Wood did have an office with a door. Pulley had a desk outside and the uniformed officers gathered in a room where their daily assignments were announced each morning. Pulley attended the morning briefings. The mayor and city council had informed Wood upon his hiring that his title would be changed from captain to chief after six months if all went well. A nice pay increase would accompany the promotion. Wood was three months into the probationary period.

The following morning apart from assignments for traffic duty, the conversation centered on the body found in the landfill. The questions came in overlapping bunches. Finally, Captain Wood answered with raised hands.

We have experienced a murder the likes of which Blanton has not witnessed. Detective Pulley is in the beginning stages of the investigation. We don’t have the autopsy report yet. You will be briefed and assigned as more information is available. Every effort will be made to identify the woman that was dismembered and her killer apprehended. Report anything you hear from residents especially missing young women. The violence perpetrated upon this woman implies the killer is violent. Be careful. That’s all, men. Get on with your day.

Pulley returned to his desk. The body in the landfill was his only case of significance. Rapping his fingers on the worn laminate surface, he waited. This he did for nearly an hour lost in thoughts of how best to begin before his phone rang.

Got Dr. Murphy on the line for you, Stan, said Evelyn.

Put her through, Evie.

Pulley took a second to clear his throat and spit out the gum he was chewing.

Detective Pulley.

Come on, detective. Your secretary told you it was me, didn’t she?

She is our dispatcher and yes she did. Pulley’s face reddened.

So, why the Detective Pulley nonsense? We’re going to meet, aren’t we?

Yes…ah, well, habit, I guess. We are. Tibb’s okay, then?

Not much choice and I don’t eat fast food unless there is no alternative. Eleven-thirty. Don’t be late, detective, I have to get back. Sick people just piling up. The late spring flu, I guess. Murphy sighed into the phone. Good for my income on the bright side.

One way to look at it. Eleven-thirty on the dot at Tibb’s.

Pulley had two hours to kill. Without the autopsy report he didn’t have a thing to go on. No one had called reporting a missing woman of any age and Grayson PD was alerted to let him know if they did. He glanced at the photos taken at the crime scene of the body, but they didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. He’d distributed the photos to the Grayson PD but the body was not recognizable without a head and maybe not with one. Leaning back in his chair, he realized that in his six years on the force no murders had been committed. Most of his work involved runaways, domestic disputes and arguments between landowners. Blanton was a quiet town and he knew he was out of his depth. Captain Wood had come from another somewhat larger town police department three months ago after Chief Harold Caspian had retired. Nobody on the Blanton force had personal experience with murder cases. He wondered if Wood had. So far, Wood had not given him much guidance but in fairness little time had passed. At that moment the autopsy report from Dr. Murphy was his best hope for a lead and that was perhaps unrealistic.

The victim or victims had been murdered in a most violent manner. He hoped all the body parts were from one woman. Somehow, that seemed to simplify the investigation. She had been a young fit looking woman in life based on the appearance of the dismembered corpse but the body was bloated and purple in color. Still, she had not been obese or of strange proportions. Apart from the bruises on her neck and her dismembered limbs she appeared untouched. She had not been cut with a knife, bludgeoned or shot with a gun that he could determine at the landfill or from the photos.

The morning dragged on until it was time to leave to join Dr. Murphy at Tibb’s Café. Pulley entered promptly at 11:30 AM. Glancing about the room he saw that she had not arrived and took a table dropping his fedora on a chair. Marge, the waitress and Pudge Tibb’s wife stepped to the table.

Pulley said. Coffee for me but I’ll wait to order until the other person gets here.

You got a date, Stan?

No. Professional meeting. Pulley couldn’t prevent his face from reddening.

Marge grinned and said, You sure about that, Stan? As she turned from the table.

A few minutes later, Dr. Murphy entered, saw him and moved to a chair across from him. Pulley stood but couldn’t get around the table fast enough to pull out the chair. His shoe caught on its metal table base.

Murphy sat. Pulley sat.

Here I said to be on time and I’m ten minutes late. Sorry, detective. Patients. Well, a patient. One that needs to tell me the same life story at each visit.

Man or woman?

Woman. Men are less chatty in my experience. More like what’s wrong and can you fix it. Not my life is a mess. My husband doesn’t love me anymore since I put on thirty pounds and the kids are gone and busy with their own lives. I don’t know what to do. Murphy began pulling a document from a briefcase and set it on the table. Marge approached with menus.

Pulley said, This is Marge, Pudge’s wife. Marge? This is Dr. Siobhan Murphy, our relatively new doctor in town. Pulley wasn’t sure how to pronounce her first name that he had never heard before so he took a