Death Du Jour

by Kathy Reichs

  Reluctantly, I agreed. I told him what equipment to gather and he said he’d get right on it. I was to be ready at ten.

  For several minutes I stood there, unsure what to do about Katy. I could explain the situation and leave it up to her. After all, there was no reason she couldn’t go with us to the island. Or, I could simply tell her that something had come up and Sam had asked me for help. Katy could spend the day here, or leave for Hilton Head earlier than planned. I knew the second was a better idea, but decided to tell her anyway.

  I ate a bowl of Raisin Bran and washed the dish and spoon. Unable to sit still, I threw on shorts and a T-shirt, and went outside to check the lines and water tank. While there I realigned the chairs on the bridge. Inside again, I made my bed and straightened the towels in the head. I rearranged the pillows on the salon sofa and picked fluff from the carpet. I wound the clock and checked the time. Only seven-fifteen. Katy wouldn’t be up for hours. Putting on running shoes, I quietly let myself out.

  I drove down Route 21 east across Saint Helena to Harbor Island, then Hunting Island, and turned in at the state park. The narrow blacktop wound through a slough still and dark as an underground lake. Palmetto palms and live oaks rose from the murky bottom. Here and there a shaft of sunlight sliced through the canopy, turning the water a honey gold.

  I parked near the lighthouse and crossed a boardwalk to the beach. The tide was out and the wet sand glistened like a mirror. I watched a sandpiper skitter between tidal pools, its long filament legs disappearing into an inverted image of itself. The morning was cool, and goose bumps formed on my arms and legs as I went through my warm-up.

  I ran east beside the Atlantic Ocean, my feet sinking only slightly into the packed sand. The air was absolutely calm. I passed a formation of pelicans bobbing on the gently rolling water. The broom sedge and sea oats stood motionless on the dunes.

  As I jogged I studied the ocean’s offerings. Driftwood, rippled and smoothed and covered in barnacles. Tangled seaweed. The shiny brown shell of a horseshoe crab. A mullet, its eyes and innards gnawed clean by crabs and gulls.

  I ran until my lungs burned. Then I ran some more. When I got back to the boardwalk, my trembling legs could barely carry me up the stairs. But mentally I felt rejuvenated. Maybe it was the dead fish, or even the horseshoe crab. Maybe I’d simply raised my endorphin level. But I no longer dreaded the day ahead. Death occurred every minute of every day in every place on the globe. It was part of the cycle of life, and that included Murtry Island. I would unearth this corpse and deliver it to those in charge. That was my job.

  When I slipped back onto the boat Katy was still asleep. I made coffee, then went to shower, hoping the sound of the pump wouldn’t disturb her. When I’d dressed, I toasted two English muffins, spread them with butter and blackberry jam, and took them to the salon. Friends tell me that physical exertion is an appetite depressant. Not for me. Exercise makes me want to devour my body weight in food.

  I clicked on the TV, surfed the channels, and chose one of the half dozen evangelists offering Sunday morning advice. I was listening to the Reverend Eugene Highwater describe the “endless bounty provided the righteous” when Katy stumbled in and threw herself onto the couch. Her face was creased and puffy from sleep, and her hair looked like one of the seaweed tumbles I’d passed on the beach. She wore a Hornets T-shirt that hung to her knees.

  “Good morning. You’re lovely today.”

  No response from my daughter.

  “Coffee?”

  She nodded, eyes still shut.

  I went to the kitchen, filled a mug, and brought it to her. Katy rolled to a semi-upright position, tentatively raised her lids, and reached for the coffee.

  “I stayed up till two reading.”

  She took a sip, then held the mug out as she stood and folded her feet under her, Indian style. Her newly opened eyes fell on the Reverend Highwater.

  “Why are you listening to that twit?”

  “I’m trying to find out how you get this endless bounty stuff.”

  “Write him a check and he’ll send you a four-pack.”

  Charity was not on the list of my daughter’s early morning virtues.

  “Who was the moron that called at dawn?”

  Nor was delicacy.

  “Sam.”

  “Oh. What did he want?”

  “Katy, something happened yesterday that I didn’t tell you about.”

  Her eyes went to full attention and fixed on mine.

  I hesitated, then launched into an account of the previous day’s discovery. Avoiding details, I described the body, and how J-7 had led us to it, then told her of my phone conversation with Sam.

  “So you’re going back out there today?” She raised her mug to drink.

  “Yes. With the coroner and a team from the sheriff’s office. Sam is picking me up at ten. I’m sorry about our day. You’re welcome to come along, of course, but I understand if you’d rather not.”

  For a long time she said nothing. The reverend blustered on about Jeee-sus.

  “Do they have any idea who it is?”

  “The sheriff is thinking drugs. Traffickers use the rivers and inlets around here to bring stuff in. He suspects a deal went bad and someone ended up with a body to off-load.”

  “What will you do out there?”

  “We’ll remove the body, collect samples, and take a lot of pictures.”

  “No, no. I mean, tell me exactly what you’ll do. I might be able to use it for a paper or something.”

  “Step by step?”

  She nodded and settled back into the cushions.

  “It looks pretty routine. We’ll clear the vegetation, then set up a grid with a reference point for drawings and measurements.” The St-Jovite basement flashed through my mind. “When we’re done with surface collection I’ll open the grave. Some recovery teams excavate in levels, looking for layering and whatnot. I don’t really think that’s necessary in these situations. When someone digs a hole, drops in a body, and covers it up, there isn’t going to be any stratigraphy. But I’ll keep one side of the trench clean so I’ll have a profile as I go down into the grave. That way I can see if there are tool marks in the soil.”

  “Tool marks?”

  “A shovel, or maybe a spade or a pick that’s left an imprint in the dirt. I’ve never seen one, but some of my colleagues swear they have. They claim you can take impressions then make molds and match them to suspect tools. What I have seen are footwear impressions in the bottom of graves, especially if there’s a lot of clay and silt. I’ll definitely check for those.”

  “From the guy that dug it?”

  “Yeah. When the hole reaches a certain depth the digger may jump in and work from there. If so, he can leave shoe prints. I’ll also take soil samples. Sometimes soil from a grave can be matched to dirt found on a suspect.”

  “Or on his closet floor.”

  “Exactly. And I’ll collect bugs.”

  “Bugs?”

  “This burial is going to be lousy with bugs. It’s shallow to begin with, and the turkey vultures and raccoons have partially exposed the body. The flies are having a jamboree out there. They’ll be useful for determining PMI.”

  “PMI?”

  “Postmortem interval. How long the person’s been dead.”

  “How?”

  “Entomologists have studied carrion-eating insects, mostly flies and beetles. They’ve found that different species arrive at a body in regular sequence, then each goes through its life cycle just as predictably. Some fly species arrive within minutes. Others show up later. The adults lay their eggs, and the eggs hatch into larvae. That’s what maggots are, fly larvae.”

  Katy gave a grimace.

  “After a certain period the larvae abandon the body and encase themselves in a hard outer shell called a pupa. Eventually they hatch as adults and fly off to start the whole thing over again.”

  “Why don’t all the bugs arrive at the same time?”

&n
bsp; “Different species have different game plans. Some come to munch on the corpse. Others prefer to dine on the eggs and larvae of their predecessors.”

  “Gross.”

  “There’s a niche for everyone.”

  “What will you do with the bugs?”

  “I’ll collect samples of larvae and pupal casings, and try to net some adult insects. Depending on the state of preservation, I may also use a probe to take thermal readings from the body. When maggot masses form they can raise the internal temperature of a corpse appreciably. That’s also useful for PMI estimation.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll preserve all the adults and half the larvae in an alcohol solution. The other larvae I’ll place in containers with liver and vermiculite. The entomologist will raise them to hatching and identify what they are.”

  I wondered where Sam would come up with nets, ice cream containers, vermiculite, and a thermal probe on a Sunday morning. Not to mention the screens, trowels, and other excavating equipment I’d requested. That was his problem.

  “What about the body?”

  “That will depend on its condition. If it’s fairly intact I’ll simply lift it out and zip it in a body bag. A skeleton will take longer since I’ll have to do a bone inventory to be sure I have everything.”

  She thought about this.

  “What’s the best-case scenario?”

  “All day.”

  “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

  “Longer.”

  Frowning, she ran her fingers through her hair, then tied it into a loose knot on her neck.

  “You keep your appointment on Murtry. I think I’ll hang here then catch a ride to Hilton Head.”

  “Your friends won’t mind picking you up early?”

  “Nah. It’s on the way.”

  “Good choice.” I meant it.

  * * *

  It went as I’d described to Katy, but for one major variation. There was stratigraphy. Below the body with the crab face I was shocked to find a second decomposing corpse. It lay on the bottom of the four-foot pit, facedown, arms tucked below its belly, at a twenty-degree angle to the body above.

  Depth has its benefits. Though the upper remains had been reduced to bone and connective tissue, those below retained a large amount of flesh and soupy innards. I worked until dark, meticulously screening every particle of dirt, taking soil, flora, and insect samples, and transferring the corpses to body bags. The sheriff’s detective took videos and stills.

  Sam, Baxter Colker, and Harley Baker watched from a distance, occasionally commenting or stepping forward for a better look. The deputy searched the surrounding woods with a Sheriff’s Department dog specially trained to alert to the smell of decomposition. Kim looked for physical evidence.

  All to no avail. Except for the two bodies, nothing turned up. The victims had been stripped naked and dumped, robbed of everything that linked them to their lives. And as hard as I studied the details, neither the body positions nor anything I observed in the grave contour or fill revealed if the victims had been buried simultaneously, or if the upper corpse had followed at a later date.

  It was almost eight when we watched Baxter Colker slam the door of the transport van and lock the handle in place. The coroner, Sam, and I were gathered beside the blacktop, above the dock where we’d moored the boats.

  Colker looked like a stick figure in his bow tie and neatly pressed suit, his trousers belted high above the waist. While Sam had warned me of the Beaufort County coroner’s fastidiousness, I’d been unprepared for business attire at an exhumation. I wondered what the man wore to dinner parties.

  “Well, that does her,” he said, wiping his hands on a linen handkerchief. Hundreds of tiny veins had burst and coalesced in his cheeks, giving his face a bluish cast. He turned to me.

  “I guess I’ll see you at the hospital tomorrow.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “Whoa. Hold on. I thought these cases were going to the forensic pathologist in Charleston.”

  “Well, now, I can send these cases up to the medical college, ma’am, but I know what that gentleman is going to tell me.” Colker had been “ma’aming” me all day.

  “That’s Axel Hardaway?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And Dr. Hardaway is going to tell me that I need an anthropologist because he doesn’t know beans about bones. That’s what he’s going to tell me. And I understand Dr. Jaffer, the regular anthropologist, isn’t available. Now, where does that leave these poor folks?” He waved a bony hand at the van.

  “No matter who does the skeletal analysis, you’re still going to want a full autopsy on the second body.”

  Something startled in the river, breaking the moonlight into a thousand little pieces. A breeze had picked up and I could smell rain in the air.

  Colker knocked on the side of the van and an arm appeared in the window, waved, and the van pulled away. Colker watched it for a moment.

  “Those two souls are going to overnight at Beaufort Memorial, today being Sunday. In the meantime I’ll get hold of Dr. Hardaway and see what his preference is. May I ask where you’re staying, ma’am?”

  As I was telling him, the sheriff joined us.

  “I want to thank you again, Dr. Brennan. You did a fine job out there.”

  Baker stood a foot taller than the coroner, and Sam and Colker together did not equal his body mass. Under his uniform shirt the sheriff’s chest and arms looked as if they’d been forged from iron. His face was angular, his skin the color of strong coffee. Harley Baker looked like a heavyweight contender and spoke like a Harvard grad.

  “Thank you, Sheriff. Your detective and deputy were very helpful.”

  When we shook hands mine looked pale and slender inside his. I suspected his grip could crush granite.

  “Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow with Detective Ryan. And I’ll take good care of your bugs.”

  Baker and I had already discussed the insects, and I’d given him the name of an entomologist. I’d explained how to ship them and how to store the soil and plant samples. Everything was now on its way to the county government center in the care of the Sheriff’s Department detective.

  Baker shook hands with Colker and gave Sam a friendly punch on the shoulder.

  “I know I’ll see your sorry face,” he said to Sam as he strode away. A minute later his cruiser passed us on its way to Beaufort.

  Sam and I drove back to the Melanie Tess, stopping for carryout on the way. We spoke little. I could smell death on my clothes and hair, and I wanted to shower, eat, and fall into an eight-hour coma. Sam probably wanted me out of his car.

  By nine forty-five my hair was wrapped in a towel and I smelled of White Diamonds moisturizing mist. I was raising the cover of my carryout box when Ryan called.

  “Where are you?” I asked, squeezing ketchup onto my fries.

  “An enchanting little place called the Lord Carteret.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “There’s no golf course.”

  “We’re to meet with the sheriff at nine tomorrow.” I inhaled the fry.

  “Zero nine hundred hours, Dr. Brennan. What are you eating?”

  “A salami sub.”

  “At ten P.M.?”

  “It was a long day.”

  “My day wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.” I heard a match, then a long exhalation of breath. “Three flights, then the drive from Savannah out here to Tara, and then I couldn’t even raise this yokel of a sheriff. He was out on some damn thing all day, and no one would say where he was or what he was doing. Very hush-hush. He and Aunt Bee probably work deep cover for the CIA.”

  “Sheriff Baker is solid.” I slurped a spoonful of slaw.

  “You know him?”

  “I spent the day with him.”

  Hush puppy.

  “That chewing sounds different.”

  “Hush puppy.”

  “What’s a hush puppy?”

  “If you chip i
n I’ll get you one tomorrow.”

  “Yahoo. What is it?”

  “Deep-fried cornmeal.”

  “What were you and Baker doing all day?”

  I gave him a brief account of the body recovery.

  “And Baker suspects the hookah boys?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ryan, I’m exhausted, and Baker’s expecting us early. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Can you find the Lady’s Island Marina?”

  “My first guess would be Lady’s Island.”

  I gave him directions and we hung up. Then I finished my dinner and fell into bed, not bothering with pajamas. I slept naked and like a rock, dreaming nothing that I could recall for a solid eight hours.

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK ON MONDAY MORNING TRAFFIC was heavy on the Woods Memorial Bridge. The sky was overcast, the river choppy and slate green. The news on the car radio predicted light rain and a high of seventy-two for the day. Ryan looked out of place in his wool trousers and tweed jacket, like an arctic creature blown to the tropics. He was already perspiring.

  As we crossed into Beaufort, I explained jurisdiction in the county. I told Ryan that the Beaufort Police Department functions strictly within the city limits, and described the other three municipalities, Port Royal, Bluffton, and Hilton Head, each with its own force.

  “The rest of Beaufort County is unincorporated, so it’s Sheriff Baker’s bailiwick,” I summed up. “His department also provides services to Hilton Head Island. Detectives, for example.”

  “Sounds like Quebec,” said Ryan.

  “It is. You just have to know whose turf you’re on.”

  “Simonnet phoned her calls to Saint Helena. So that’s Baker.”

  “Yes.”

  “You say he’s solid.”

  “I’ll let you form your own opinion.”

  “Tell me about the bodies you dug up.”

  I did.

  “Jesus, Brennan, how do you get yourself into these things?”

  “It is my job, Ryan.” The question irked me. Everything about Ryan irked me lately.