Death Du Jour tb-2

by Reichs, Kathy

  “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?”

  “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 i
t?”

  “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 in 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.

  18

  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.

  “But you were on holiday.”

  Yes. On Murtry. With my daughter.

  “It must be my rich fantasy life,” I snapped. “I dream up corpses, then poof, there they are. It’s what I live for.”

  I clamped my teeth and watched tiny drops gather on the windshield. If Ryan needed conversation he could talk to himself.

  “I may need a little guidance here,” he said as we passed the campus of USC-Beaufort.

  “Carteret will take a hard left and turn into Boundary. Go with it.”

  We curved west past the condominiums at Pigeon Point, and eventually drove between the redbrick walls that enclose the National Cemetery on both sides of the road. At Ribaut I indicated a left turn.

  Ryan signaled, then headed south. On our left we passed a Maryland Fried Chicken, the fire station, and the Second Pilgrim Baptist Church. On our right sprawled the county government center. The vanilla stucco buildings house the county administrative offices, the courthouse, the solicitors’ offices, various law enforcement agencies, and the jail. The faux columns and archways were intended to create a low-country flavor, but instead the complex looks like an enormous Art Deco medical mall.

  At Ribaut and Duke I pointed to a sand lot shaded by live oaks and Spanish moss. Ryan pulled in and parked between a Beaufort City Police cruiser and the county Haz Mat trailer. Sheriff Baker had just arrived and was reaching for something in the back of his cruiser. Recognizing me, he waved, slammed the trunk, and waited for us to join him.

  I made introductions and the men shook hands. The rain had dwindled to a fine mist. “Sorry to have to put one through your basket,” said Ryan. “I’m sure you’re busy enough without foreigners dropping in.”

  “No problem at all,” Baker replied. “I hope we can do something for you.”

  “Nice digs,” said Ryan, nodding toward the building housing the Sheriff’s Department.

  As we crossed Duke, the sheriff gave a brief explanation of the complex.

  “In the early nineties the county decided it wanted all its agencies under one roof, so it built this place at a cost of about thirty million dollars. We’ve got our own space, so does the city of Beaufort, but we share services such as communications, dispatch, records.”

  A pair of deputies passed us on their way to the lot. They waved and Baker nodded in return, then he opened the glass door and held it for us.

  The offices of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Department lay to the right, past a glass case filled with uniforms and plaques. The city police were to the left, through a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Next to that door another case displayed pictures of the FBI’s ten most wanted, photos of local missing persons, and a poster from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Straight ahead a hallway led past an elevator to the building’s interior.

  We entered the sheriff’s corridor to see a woman hanging an umbrella on a hall tree. Though well past fifty, she looked like an escapee from a Madonna video. Her hair was long and jet-black, and she wore a lace slip over a peacock mini-dress with a violet bolero jacket over that. Platform clogs added three inches to her height. She spoke to the sheriff.

  “Mr. Colker just phoned. And some detective called ’bout half a dozen times yesterday with his balls on fire ‘bout something. It’s on your desk.”

  “Thank you, Ivy Lee. This is Detective Ryan.” Baker indicated the two of us. “And Dr. Brennan. The department will be assisting them in a matter.”

  Ivy Lee looked us over.

  “You want coffee, sir?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Three, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cream?”

  Ryan and I nodded.

  We entered the sheriff’s office and everyone sat. Baker tossed his hat onto a bank of file cabinets behind his desk.

  “Ivy Lee can be colorful,” he said, smiling. “She did twenty with the Marines, then came home and joined us.” He thought a moment. “That’s about nineteen years now. The lady runs this place with the efficiency of a hydrogen fuel cell. Right now she’s doing some . . .” He searched for a phrase. “. . . fashion experimentation.”

  Baker leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. His leather chair wheezed like a bagpipe.

  “So, Mr. Ryan, tell me what you need.”

  Ryan described the deaths in St-Jovite, and explained the calls to Saint Helena. He had just outlined his conversations with the Beaufort-Jasper Clinic obstetrician and with Heidi Schneider’s parents when Ivy Lee knocked. She placed a mug in front of Baker, set two others on a table between Ryan and me, and left without a word.

  I took a sip. Then another.

  “Does she make this?” I asked. If not the best coffee I’d ever tasted, it was right near the top of the list.

  Baker nodded.

  I drank again and tried
to identify the flavors. I heard a phone in the outer office, then Ivy Lee’s voice.

  “What’s in it?”

  “It’s a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy with regard to Ivy Lee’s coffee. I give her an allowance each month, and she buys the ingredients. She claims no one knows the recipe but her sisters and her mama.”

  “Can they be bribed?”

  Laughing, Baker lay his forearms on the desk and leaned his weight on them. His shoulders were wider than a cement truck.

  “I wouldn’t want to offend Ivy Lee,” he said. “And definitely not her mama.”

  “Good policy,” agreed Ryan. “Don’t offend the mamas.” He flipped the elastic from a corrugated brown folder, searched the contents, and withdrew a paper.

  “The number phoned from St-Jovite traces to four-three-five Adler Lyons Road.”

  “You’re right about that being Saint Helena,” said Baker.

  He swiveled to the metal cabinets, slid open a drawer, and pulled a file. Laying the folder on his desk, he perused its one document.

  “We ran the address, and there’s no police history. Not a single call in the past five years.”

  “Is it a private home?” asked Ryan.

  “Probably. That part of the island is pretty much trailers and small homes. I’ve been living here off and on all of my life and I had to use a map to find Adler Lyons. Some of the dirt roads out on the islands are little more than driveways. I might know them to see them, but I don’t always know their names. Or if they even have names.”

  “Who owns the property?”

  “I don’t have that, but we’ll check it out later. In the meantime, why don’t we just drop in for a friendly visit.”

  “Suits me,” said Ryan, replacing his paper and snapping the elastic into place.

  “And we can swing by the clinic if you think that would be useful.”

  “I don’t want to jam you up with this. I know you’re busy.” Ryan rose. “If you prefer to point us in the right direction, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  “No, no. I owe Dr. Brennan for yesterday. And I’m sure Baxter Colker isn’t through with her yet. In fact, would you mind waiting while I check something?”

  He disappeared into an adjacent office, returned immediately with a message slip.