Louisiana Fever

by D. J. Donaldson

  “No.”

  She gestured at Broussard’s plastic apron. “That’s not the way you dress to do an autopsy, is it?”

  He drew himself up to his full five foot ten, pleased that it enabled him to tower over his inquisitor. “It is.”

  “No one else dresses that way?”

  “I’m the exception,” he said somewhat icily.

  “Well, you’re asking for trouble.”

  “I’ve been doin’ my job a good many years dressed like this.”

  “And when you first began, there was no such thing as AIDS, at least not in this country. I’m telling you that AIDS is just the warning salvo in a war that’s soon to erupt between us and the microbes of this planet. So you might want to rethink your position. I’ve got to get upstairs. I’ll be sending a decontamination team down here to clean the hall and that room. I’d also like them to do the room where you performed the autopsies on the two cases. Which one was it?”

  “End of the hall.”

  “And you’ll see that those areas are kept off-limits to your people until that’s done?”

  “We’ll take care of the two bodies; then we’ll clear out.”

  “And you’ll put your protective clothing in this box?”

  “We have our own box. How long before your decon team will be here?”

  “Within the hour.” The little tyrant turned and walked swiftly toward the elevators.

  “What a pistol,” Guy said under his breath.

  “Interestin’ woman,”

  Broussard and Guy went back to the autopsy room and hung a red infectious hazard toe tag on Baldwin’s body, then put him in two heavy-duty zippered plastic bags. They wiped the outer bag with bleach and stuck several biohazard stickers on it. After they’d put him on a tray in the big refrigerator, they pulled Jack Doe out in his single bag and brought him up to the new standards. When they finished, Broussard instructed Guy to take a few hours off while the decon team cleaned things up.

  Riding up to his office, Broussard thought about the hemorrhages in Jack Doe’s cerebrum. Suppose that, given time, the focus of those hemorrhages had spread over the rest of the cortex, destroying higher centers and knocking out rational thought. That could explain why Walter Baldwin had made no call for help. And what if the deeper, limbic system, where the origins of instinctive behavior likely reside, was spared. Where do animals go to recover when they’re hurt? Their dens. It’s instinctive. Walter Baldwin in his closet . . . Natalie under her desk. Speculative to be sure, but intriguing.

  Reaching his desk, he went directly to the phone and called Grandma O. When told what had happened, she was adamant that she wasn’t sick and wouldn’t be getting sick. Despite her feelings on this, he suggested that for her customer’s safety, she take a little vacation and turn the running of the place over to her cook until things settled down. Her response was enthusiastically negative. But in the end, she agreed, an accomplishment he ranked as one of the most impressive of his career.

  A call to Homicide produced the news that Gatlin was out, but the detective who answered the phone agreed to locate him by radio and tell him to call Broussard immediately. While waiting, Broussard called Charlie Franks, the deputy ME, to his office and brought him up-to-date. He reminded Broussard that the rescue team that worked on Jack Doe could also be at risk, and Broussard immediately called the appropriate office and told them of the problem.

  Gatlin reported in just as Franks left, and Broussard briefed him as well, asking him to check on the cop and the apartment manager from the Baldwin case and to arrange to keep Baldwin’s apartment and car locked up until somebody came around to disinfect them.

  He was looking up the number of the city’s Health Department when the phone rang.

  “Broussard.”

  “Andy, Dick Mullen . . .”

  “Dick, I was just about to call you.”

  “Ruth Lamm, the infectious-disease officer over there, says you had a strange couple of cases come through the morgue and that one of your assistants was infected from cutting herself doing the autopsy on one of them.”

  “That’s right. It’s a hemorrhagic disease that seems to precipitate DIC. It starts with a headache, mental confusion, and probably a fever. The victim starts to feel nauseous and may get a nosebleed shortly before they begin to vomit blood. They may also experience a loss of touch and position sense in their hands, so they drop things. Anyone else seein’ this devil?”

  “Yours is the first report. But we’ll be sending out alerts to all hospitals and all physicians in the city. And I’ll relay what you’ve told me up to the state level. Lamm says there’s no data on possible airborne transmission. . . .”

  “We have very little data period. But there is an apartment that needs decontamination—the place where we found one of the victims. There’s blood all over it. And you should also do his car.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Broussard gave him the address.

  “We’ll get on it right away. Can you give me a list of names of anyone you know of who had physical contact with either of the bodies or was in that apartment or car?”

  “I’ve already alerted everybody I could think of.”

  “I’d still like the names.”

  In running down his list, Broussard realized he’d forgotten about Kit earlier and he added her name now.

  “Okay, thanks,” Mullen said. “I’ll be in touch. Let me know if anything else breaks.”

  When the line was clear, Broussard called Kit to let her know what was going on.

  Her phone rang three times and he heard a click, followed by a recorded message saying she was away from her desk. He punched in the number for the main office. “Margaret, is Kit in there?”

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  “Have you seen her this mornin’?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Did she say anything about what her schedule was gonna be today?”

  “I wish I could be more help, but she didn’t.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  As he hung up, he was tweaked by an ugly thought that he dismissed as quickly as it had arrived. Probably, she’d just stepped into the ladies’ room or gone downstairs for a Coke. Just to satisfy himself, he got out of his chair, went into the hall, and walked down to Kit’s office, which was around the corner from his.

  Turning that corner and seeing no light through the frosted window in her door, his pulse quickened and the same ugly thought he’d had a moment ago returned, bulkier and less willing to be ignored.

  He hurried back to his own office and called Kit’s home. There, too, he got the answering machine.

  It wasn’t like Kit to be late without notifying anyone, and she always filed a rough itinerary with Margaret on those days she had people to interview. This wasn’t good.

  He called Charlie Franks and asked him to keep an eye on Ruth Lamm’s decon team when they arrived, then told Margaret he was going out for about an hour.

  Reaching the street, he saw that the sky was overcast, and his nostrils filled with the sweet earthy scent of rain on the way. He’d been parking at the same lot for over twenty years and they knew to keep his car unblocked and ready to go at any time. But the guy who greeted him upon his arrival was new.

  “Yo, where is it?” he asked. He was wearing jeans, a tan army jacket, and a black watch cap with moth holes in it.

  “Up there,” Broussard replied, pointing to one of those elevator racks that allow parking lots to stack one car over another. Not only was his car on the rack; the guy would have to move at least four other cars to get it out.

  “Whoa, that’s gonna take a few minutes,” the guy said.

  “For future reference, I’m the medical examiner and my car needs to be available to me at all times.”

  “Medical examiner . . .” The guy worked on it for a few seconds, then said, “What is that, somebody who gives doctors tests to see if they know everything they should?”

  “When I�
��ve got more time, I’ll explain it to you. Right now, I need my car.”

  “No problemo.”

  While he hustled away to free Broussard’s caged T-Bird, a light rain began to fall, and Broussard stepped into the little attendant’s guardhouse to stay dry.

  Inside, a chipped green stool sat in front of a gray Formica counter, worn through in the center. Playing cards were spread across the counter in a game of solitaire. On the wall was a nude pinup photographed in gynecologic detail. It was nice for a change to see an unclothed body without any wounds on it. He leaned out to check on the attendant’s progress and saw him backing the first blocking car out of its space. Broussard dealt with this unexpected delay by telling himself his concern for Kit was a gross overreaction and that there was a trivial explanation for her . . . He was thinking about it as a disappearance, but at this point it didn’t even merit that designation.

  He checked again and saw the attendant duck his head and get into the second car blocking access to the rack. The rain was now coming harder, its drops slapping loudly onto the blacktop. He looked up at the gray origin of the deluge and wished he had a raincoat or an umbrella.

  Through the rain sounds, from the direction of the rack, he heard an engine turning over and over, and he hoped the attendant wouldn’t flood it.

  Of course Kit was all right.

  The rain and the cramped guardhouse, along with the frustrating sound of an engine that just wouldn’t catch, made him feel trapped. Trying to get his mind off it, he let his eyes again roam the guardhouse. On a narrow shelf holding a thermos and an open package of chocolate cookies, he saw a limp copy of Bendigo Shafter, a Louis L’Amour novel he’d never been able to find. He picked it up and turned to the first page.

  “Okay, there she is. . . .”

  Startled, Broussard looked in the direction of the voice and there was his idling T-Bird, the wipers click-slipping across the windshield. The attendant was hugging the exterior wall of the guardhouse, trying to get under the slight roof overhang. Broussard looked back at the book in his hand and was shocked to see that he’d read ten pages.

  He dug in his wallet and pulled out a five. Holding up the book and the money, he said, “I’ll give you this for the book.”

  “Okay with me. It ain’t even got any dirty parts in it.”

  It took twenty minutes to get to Kit’s house, a trip prolonged by the rain, which at times layered onto the windshield so thickly, he could barely see the street.

  He parked in front of her gates and rolled the window down. With alarm, he saw that Kit’s car was in the parking alcove. If she was home, why hadn’t she answered the phone?

  Maybe she’d been out when he’d called and had just come home. . . .

  Too worried to wait for a lull in the rain, he threw the door open and hustled to the gates, where the parking alcove’s overhang was not deep enough to protect his backside. Through the raindrops on his glasses, he saw that Kit’s car was dry. Unwilling to accept the mounting evidence something was terribly wrong, he reasoned that she could have been out and come home before the rain began.

  He went to the pedestrian gate by the mail drop and found it locked. Above the mail drop was a brass doorbell and an intercom. He pressed the bell hard, silently urging her to answer.

  But the intercom remained silent.

  Illogically, he began pumping the button, but it did no good.

  The sky rumbled and the image he’d been pushing aside broke through: Kit, sitting dazed in a pool of her own blood, the gore caking on her clothes.

  He had to get inside.

  He went back to the car and sped away, the tires slipping on the wet pavement.

  “JUS’ A FEW SECONDS more,” Bubba Oustellette said, bending over the lock to Kit’s pedestrian gate.

  It was still raining, but Bubba had brought a huge orange umbrella, which Broussard held over both of them. But the rain pelting the sidewalk still spattered onto their pants. Suddenly, the gate was open.

  Bubba picked up his toolbox and went inside, followed by Broussard, who had to close the umbrella before he could get through the gate.

  “You know, Ah saw her Saturday an’ she looked fine,” Bubba said.

  “That’s actually a long time ago,” Broussard said. The doorway from the parking alcove onto the courtyard was large enough that Broussard could reopen the umbrella before they both stepped again into the rain.

  The entry to Kit’s house was recessed and there was a small balcony over it, so that when they reached the front door, the umbrella became unnecessary. It took Bubba less than a minute to get the door open. Broussard rushed past him.

  Bubba’s tinkering with the lock had turned on all the inside lights, and in their welcoming brilliance, Broussard’s eyes raked the interior, concentrating mostly on the floor, looking for blood. But everything appeared perfectly in order.

  “Kit. Are you here?” Broussard called out. “It’s Andy and Bubba.”

  No answer.

  “Dere’s an alarm system dat’s gonna call da police in about twenty seconds,” Bubba said. “But she showed me how to shut it off when Ah was helpin’ her move in.” He went to a control panel set into the wall above a small table by the door and punched in some numbers. Meanwhile, Broussard began searching the house.

  “Kit. It’s Andy. Are you here?”

  Ten minutes later, they’d been all through the place, including the closets and the attic. They’d found Lucky in the backyard, but no Kit.

  “You said dis disease causes you to vomit blood?” Bubba asked.

  Broussard nodded.

  “We didn’t fin’ any blood, so you think she’s okay?”

  “Not necessarily. This thing comes on you quickly and it makes you seek a safe, snug place, like a closet or the space under a desk. . . .”

  “So, if she was out for a walk an’ got sick, she’d hide?”

  “The latest victim we found vomited blood for quite a while before he sought out a closet. But Natalie, the morgue assistant who caught it from cuttin’ herself during an autopsy, looked for a place right after the vomitin’ started. So, the time varies with different people.”

  “Andy . . . we gotta fin’ dat girl.”

  8

  “Teddy, this is Andy Broussard. Is Kit there in Bayou Coteau with you?”

  Across Broussard’s desk, Phil Gatlin sat on the edge of his chair, listening to the call on speaker phone, hoping, as Broussard did, that the answer was yes.

  “No, she isn’t,” Teddy said, the worry obvious in his voice. “Why’d you think that?”

  Gatlin slumped in his chair.

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Six o’clock this morning. When I left to come home. What’s—”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Same as always. . . .”

  “No headache or nausea or a nosebleed?”

  “No. What’s going on?”

  Broussard hesitated, trying to decide how to handle this. Did he want to minimize the situation or lay it flatly out there. Deciding that Teddy deserved the truth, he said, “We’ve got a problem here. Did Kit tell you about the man and the roses?”

  “The one who died at Grandma O’s?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Yeah, she did. We spent Saturday morning down at the docks, showing his picture, but didn’t find anyone who recognized him. We thought we had a good lead on one of the ships in port, but the captain wouldn’t give us access to the crew. We talked to the longshoremen who were unloading the ship, then gave up. What’s the problem?”

  “From the autopsy, it appeared that fellow might have been in the early stages of a bleedin’ disease. One of my assistants cut herself while workin’ on him and is now very ill, almost certainly with the same disease. There’s no proof the disease can be transmitted through the air, but it’s possible that people who came in contact with the man could have picked up the causative organism. And Kit didn’t show up for work today. . . .”


  “Oh my God. Has anyone gone over to her house?”

  “Bubba and I did. Her car is there, but she isn’t. This disease causes the victims to vomit blood, but there’s no blood anywhere in her house. So that’s a good sign.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “That’s our concern.”

  “Maybe she got sick out on the street somewhere.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “What’s being done about it?”

  “We wanted to check with you before doin’ anything . . . hopin’ she was there. Phil Gatlin is sittin’ right here in my office. When I hang up, we’re gonna mount a search. We’ve got her home and office Rolodex files and we’ll start by callin’ every local name in ’em, unless you can give us some leads.”

  “Wait a minute,” Teddy said. “I just remembered something. She mentioned that when she talked to her parents and asked them about this guy, they told her they had no idea who he was. But she doesn’t think they were telling the truth. I wonder if she flew home to confront them?”

  “Do you have their phone number?”

  “I’m sure I do. I’ll call them and get back to you.”

  “Let me know somethin’ right away. If they’re not home, we’re gonna start our search.”

  The next few minutes crept by incredibly slowly, with no conversation as the two men waited for Teddy’s call. The silence and the tension brought back memories of the parlor in Broussard’s grandmother’s house, where he’d been raised after his parents died. Its heavy drapes and plush carpet had acted as great sound insulators, so the room was selfcontained, as though it existed unconnected to the outside world. He’d often go in and pull the big sliding doors closed and just sit there, listening to the grandfather clock marking off each passing second. Over twelve feet tall, the clock was made of oak whose stain had turned almost black from a hundred years of sitting in a room warmed in winter by a coal fire. The maker had carved the oak heavily with vines and clusters of grapes, sheaves of wheat and stalks of corn, foxes and pheasants and hunting dogs. His grandmother had given him a home and love, but on those days when he’d felt so alone and afraid of the ease with which life could be turned upside down, listening to the ticking of the big old reliable clock had helped him. And now, waiting for Teddy’s call, he could hear it again, telling him everything was going to be fine. Unfortunately, he was no longer young enough to be comforted by a clock.