by Kathy Reichs
“You’re referencing my plant on the Maybank Highway?”
“Yes, sir.”
Firm nod. “It sounds like an admirable endeavor. Don’t understand the lifestyle, but you can count me in.”
“Thank you, Dr. Huger.” More caffeine, then Vislosky switched tack. “I’m thinking of buying property on James Island. Do you like living out there?”
“I do, indeed.” A note of surprise that Vislosky had researched his home address.
“Why?”
“I’ve got acreage, a fine water view, and my own fishing dock. What more could a man ask?”
“Is there a Mrs. Huger?” Casual.
Huger laughed, as though nothing could be more amusing. “No, detective. There is no Mrs. Huger.”
“I understand you own a company called GeneFree.”
“Among others.”
“What’s the pitch?”
“Sorry, ma’am?”
“What do you sell?”
“Online DNA testing.”
“Testing for what?”
“We analyze a user’s genetic code to offer optimal dietary choices.”
“Quick tune-up, then soak ’em for protein powder and dried seaweed.”
“The process is far more complex than that.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“I’m beginning to suspect this is not about stickers.”
Vislosky set down her mug. “Did you sustain much damage from Hurricane Inara?”
“Lost part of my pier.”
“Not too bad.”
“No. Why am I here, detective?”
“The storm tossed a container ashore down by the battery.”
“Storms do that.” Smile holding but a little less warm. “They’re famous for it.”
“The container held two bodies.”
I watched Huger for signs of agitation. Muscle tensing. Flushing. A twitching lower lid. Saw nothing beyond the normal repugnance one would expect when faced with such news.
“Two kids,” Vislosky continued, giving minimal detail. “Both murdered.”
The balletic hand rose to Huger’s throat. “Sweet baby Jesus in heaven. What brand of monster kills children?”
Vislosky opened the folder. Took a moment to read something. Or to pretend to do so.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of forensic genealogy.”
Huger nodded, expression now somber and serious.
“We did that, sir. It turns out one of the victims is related to you.”
“What? That’s impossible! How?” Huger looked and sounded genuinely appalled.
“You know how it works, you being fluent in double helixes and all.”
“That wasn’t my meaning.”
“We extracted DNA from the victims’ bones—”
“Bones?”
“Yes.”
“How long were they dead?”
“I can’t reveal details of the investigation.”
“How did they die?”
“Same answer.”
“What can I do?” Huger’s aquamarine frown level on Vislosky.
“A critical first step in any homicide investigation is to ID the victims.”
“I have no idea who these poor dead children might be.” Huger looked and sounded sincerely mystified. If he was faking it, his performance was Oscar-level.
“Your DNA was in GEDmatch. Why?”
The manicured brows arced up, puzzled. “I had myself sequenced years ago. Of course. It’s what I do. I must have authorized use of my profile by that database.”
“Let’s talk family.”
“I’ll be honest with you, detective. It may seem cold, but family has never been important in my life.”
“You didn’t hatch from an egg.”
Huger’s chin dipped in acknowledgment of her point. He let out a small sigh. Then, “My parents are both dead. I have no living siblings. No offspring.”
Vislosky said nothing, hoping Huger would keep talking. He did.
“My father was an only child.”
“His name?” Sliding a pen and tablet from her pocket.
“Jordan Sullivan Huger.”
“J. S. Huger?”
Huger nodded.
“There’s a building named for him at the College of Charleston?”
“Daddy made a rather large contribution to the school.” A hint of bitterness leaking through. “Then proceeded to lose everything via ill-advised investments in fast-food franchises.”
“I had a buddy got stung that way.”
Huger said nothing.
“Your mother’s name?”
“Cheryl Leigh Hinkes.” He spelled the names. “She had one brother, Farley. Farley died in Vietnam.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. You said you had no living siblings.” Stated as a question.
“My older brother, Shelby, drowned when he was eight. Just about destroyed my parents. I remember little about him.”
There was a long moment of silence. Vislosky broke it.
“Let’s spread out, Dr. Huger. Grandparents? Second cousins?”
“I’m afraid we’re not a prolific clan, detective. My grandmother—my mama’s mama—had one sister, Zara. She married a man named Eden France. They had one son, Digby.”
“Did Digby have kids?”
“Maybe one daughter. I’m unsure.”
“Her name?”
“I’ve no earthly idea.”
“Where can we find this relative of yours, Digby?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“I may have met Digby once as a very small child. I think he may have come to Shelby’s funeral. The memory is vague. I recall a large man with whiskey breath and frightening facial hair. According to my mother, who clearly didn’t care for her cousin, Digby was a musician of some sort.”
“Anything else?”
Huger spread his hands, fingers splayed. “I wish I could be more helpful.”
“So do I.”
Huger didn’t reply.
“The younger victim could be your cousin.”
“That thought breaks my heart.”
“She was shot and then dumped like garbage.”
“I will pray for her soul.”
“You do that. In the meantime, please leave me your current contact information.”
“I am an open book, detective.”
Vislosky slid the pen and the tablet to Huger. He scribbled, returned them.
“May I go now?”
Vislosky handed Huger a card. “If you think of anything, call.”
“Of course.”
Both rose.
Huger headed for the door.
“And, doc?”
Huger turned.
“You can sign for that sticker at reception.”
* * *
An hour after cutting Huger loose, Vislosky and I were at our laptops twelve hundred miles apart, discussing Uncle Digby via FaceTime. Though France’s cyber footprint was smaller and less current than that of his nephew, like everyone alive today, he had one.
“The Digger France Band.” To the phone propped beside my Mac.
“Never heard of them,” Vislosky said.
“Are you into country and western?”
“Yeah.” Derisive snort. “Like I’m into hippo sweat sunscreen.”
“That’s a real thing?”
“It is.”
“I like some C-and-W.” Actually, I like a lot of it, but given Vislosky’s negative attitude, I didn’t share that.
“Looks like the group was big from the late ’sixties until the early ’nineties,” Vislosky said.
“Mostly in the Southeast.”
“Mostly in a five-mile radius of Nashville.” Vislosky snorted again. She really had it down.
“They made one album.”
“Christ in a cornfield. Do you believe these song titles? ‘Hungover with Love for Jesus.’ ‘Hand Me a Beer and Tie Up the Dog.’ ‘All I Need I
s the Lord and My Refried Jeans.’ ”
“Poetry of the people,” I said.
“What the hell are refried jeans?”
“Run France? See what pops?”
“Roger that, when I get a break. The town’s going apeshit with some kinda outbreak involving dogs.”
“Capnocytophaga?” I recalled Herrin’s frazzled comments.
“Sounds right. Got the public arming themselves to the teeth.”
“Why?”
“Half want to shoot every hound they see. Half swear they’ll defend Old Yeller to the death.”
“It’s that bad?”
“People are dying.”
“And nerves are still raw since COVID-19.”
“Nothing an AK-47 can’t fix.” Dripping with sarcasm.
And she was gone.
It took an eon for Vislosky’s next call.
“France has a sheet but nothing major. Drunk and disorderly, pissing in public, typical macho shit.”
“Anything recent?”
“His last bump was in ’ninety-seven.”
“Think he’s still alive?”
“I found a car registration in the name of Digby Nelson France listing a Nashville address.”
“Did you find a phone number?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a very gifted detective.”
“I used the Nashville white pages. The listing was dropped five years ago.”
“Time to give Mr. France a ring?”
“I did. The number is disconnected.”
“That’s not good.”
“No.”
* * *
Late that afternoon, despite my disapproval, Ryan insisted on walking to his favorite grocery, Fou d’Ici, roughly a mile to the east on boulevard de Maisonneuve. The store’s inventory is eclectic, and its takeout menu changes daily, so I couldn’t imagine what he’d bring home.
Ryan had barely left when Claudel called from the lobby.
“Ryan’s gone, but he should be back in an hour.”
“I prefer to speak with you.”
“It might be better—”
“Now, s’il vous plaît.”
Fearing Detective Delightful might take a bite out of Sylvain, the doorman, I buzzed him up.
Claudel’s nose and cheeks were red from the cold. The cant of his brows suggested bad news.
“May I take your coat?” I asked, extending a hand.
“I will not stay long.”
“Would you like to sit down?”
A tight shake of the head, then he launched in with typical Claudel brusqueness. “The driver of the car was not Zeke Hoag.”
“Really.” That surprised me.
“Hoag was in the hospital at the time of the assault.”
“Might he have—”
“Hoag has stage-four colon cancer. He is dying. His intent was not to defraud his mother. He’d arranged for the insurance money to go directly into her account.”
“Why not say so?”
“He wanted the payment to be a surprise.”
“Now what?”
“Detective Charbonneau and I are reconsidering our approach.”
Cop-speak for we were on the wrong track. I waited.
“We can think of no motive for an attack on Detective Ryan.”
“Former detective.”
“Précisément. Ryan is involved in nothing that might prompt such a violent threat to his person.”
I waited.
Claudel’s eyes drilled into mine.
“We believe the intended target was you.”
21
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10
To keep my mind off Claudel’s bombshell, I got online and did some digging on capno. I learned the following.
Capnocytophaga canimorsus is a bacterial pathogen found in the saliva of healthy dogs and cats. Though rare, the organism can cause illness in humans. Transmission occurs via bites, scratches, or licks.
A capno infection can lead to severe sepsis and fatal septic shock, gangrene of the digits or extremities, high-grade bacteremia, meningitis, endocarditis, and thoroughly messed-up eyes.
At increased risk of serious illness are persons who have undergone a splenectomy, persons who abuse alcohol, and persons with weakened immune systems, including those with HIV.
Online images of mottled and swollen limbs, inflamed eyes, blackened digits, and pus-oozing abscesses confirmed that the capno organism is a supremely nasty little bugger.
The case-fatality rate of the disease is roughly twenty-six percent.
My romp through the medical literature triggered flashbacks of the corpse Klopp had autopsied the day of our skeletal analyses at the hospital in Charleston. And sparked questions about the situation there. Primary among them, why the sudden spike in capno cases?
I glanced up from my laptop to find Birdie stretched full length on the table beside me. When I shifted in my chair, he raised his head and fixed me with a look I couldn’t interpret. Apprehension? Annoyance? Or maybe the cat was still half asleep.
“It’s mostly from dog bites,” I said, a bit defensively.
Birdie said nothing.
“And capno is very uncommon.”
Still no response.
“Fine. There’s some sort of outbreak in Charleston. But I’m not worried.”
Birdie repositioned his chin on his paws. Satisfied with my explanation, I assumed.
Ryan returned with poke bowls, one tuna and one salmon, each with enough toppings to sink a passenger ferry. I could identify beets, carrots, mangoes, and avocados. The rest, not so much.
As we ate, I told Ryan what Claudel had said. I saw his jaw muscles bulge and his eyes light up in anger. An instant later, he seemed to be grimly calm.
“What’s their thinking?” he asked, voice flat.
“You know what I know.”
“What’s your thinking?”
“I undertipped an Uber driver?”
“Hilarious.” Ryan speared and ate what might have been an edamame bean. “What have you been working lately?”
“Seriously?”
Ryan nodded.
I listed all my recent LSJML files. The farmer in Saint-Félicien. The pharmacist in Trois-Rivières. The tweaker in the culvert in Val-d’Or. The legs from Lac Saint-Jean. “But my involvement in those cases isn’t public knowledge.”
“What else?”
“Before leaving Charlotte, I did a couple of private client consults.”
“The Silver-Russell syndrome adoptee.”
“You have an excellent memory, detective. Yes. Tereza Deacon. I also agreed to look into Polly Beecroft’s missing ancestor, but I haven’t really followed through on that.”
“Unlikely someone would try to off you because of an old death mask.”
“Very. Besides, those are North Carolina issues.”
Ryan and I had the same thought at the same moment. He voiced it.
“The container cases. The older Charleston girl is related to the Montreal vics.”
“Vislosky has been pushing hard on the South Carolina end. But that’s a thousand miles from here. And the Quebec murders took place at least fifteen years ago.”
We finished our meal in silence. Ryan got up and began to clear the table, his face a stone mask that frightened me.
“Claudel and Charbonneau are on it, Ryan. They’ll find the guy. If there is a guy.”
Ryan set down the empty bowls and took my hands, his smile of reassurance forced and unconvincing. “I have no doubt about that. But until they do, you need to be cautious.”
“I’m always cautious.”
“This asswipe’s going to wish he’d never been born.”
* * *
Vislosky still hadn’t phoned by nine. I wondered if she’d been sidetracked by the capno situation. Or if she’d hit a wall tracking cousin Digger.
I worked my laptop, searching for mention of a missing kid with the surname France. Found nothing.
&nbs
p; Antsy and unable to relax, I decided to construct a kinship chart based on the info Vislosky had obtained during her interview. Using circles for females, squares for males, and solid lines to indicate blood relationships, I started with Aubrey Sullivan Huger, then moved back a generation to his parents, J. S. Huger and Cheryl Leigh Hinkes, then further back to Cheryl Leigh’s mother. Moving sideways to Cheryl Leigh’s mother’s sister, who’d apparently married a man named France, I then worked downward to Digger.
When finished, I studied my crude diagram, puzzled. If Digger had a daughter, as Huger thought, she’d be too old to be the girl in the container. If he had a granddaughter, would she be a second cousin to Huger? Third? Something once removed?
I gave up in frustration, hating the exercise as much as I had when forced to take ethnology classes in grad school.
Ryan reappeared at ten thirty to say he was turning in. I joined him but sat propped against the bed pillows, iPhone in hand, wasting time with social media.
By eleven, I was resigned to the fact that Vislosky wouldn’t call that night. After turning off the lamp, I pulled the covers to my chin and snuggled against Ryan. Did I mention that he keeps the bedroom thermostat on the polar ice cap setting?
My brain was a maelstrom of visuals. Suppurating lesions. Algae-coated bones. Blinding headlights. Blue polypropylene sheeting. A child’s plastic ring.
A half hour of tossing and turning, then I gave up. I quietly closed the bedroom door behind me, went to the kitchen, and made myself a cup of chamomile tea. Again seated at the dining-room table, I opened my Mac and entered the name Digger France.
The Digger France Band came right up. Active from the ’sixties into the ’nineties, the group performed mostly Christian country and cover renditions of classic C&W and bluegrass songs. Digger France played guitar and was the lead singer throughout the group’s existence. Otherwise, membership fluctuated. The sole female vocalist changed often. One named Joy Sparrow seemed to have lasted the longest.
The band’s single recording was with MCA Records. I found a link and listened to the first cut on the album, called “All I Need Is the Lord and My Refried Jeans,” one of the titles that had so delighted Vislosky. Lots of banjo, harmonica, washboard, and multipart vocal harmony. A style I could only describe as twangy.
The images I found were fuzzy and dated. Some were promo shots. Others were candids snapped during live performances, most of which seemed to have taken place in bars. Digger always wore a T-shirt, jeans, boots, and round wire-rimmed shades. His hair and beard were long and auburn, the former ponytailed, the latter cinched with bright elastic binders at two levels.
