by BJ Bourg
She thanked him and garbed out. The first thing she did was a complete and systematic x-raying of the entire body, including very detailed shots of the teeth for positive identification. Once she and her assistant completed the x-ray process, she examined each film carefully and, when done, announced that there were no bullets or other foreign objects inside the body.
As Doctor Wong worked, we told her some of what we knew about the scene and the events leading up to the incident. Throughout it all, I kept my eye on her attendant. He couldn’t be older than twenty, but he acted like an old veteran of autopsies. He never flinched and his facial expression remained fixed. I was impressed.
When Doctor Wong was done two hours later, she removed her mask and turned toward Susan and me. “Well, he was definitely alive when the fire happened. Why didn’t he try to escape?”
“It looked like the killer threw a Molotov cocktail through each front side window, through the back windshield, and across the front windshield,” I explained. “I guess he was boxed in and it got so hot so fast that he wasn’t able to do much.”
“Extreme heat would make it difficult to do much of anything, and a gasoline and oil fire will certainly produce extreme heat.” She tossed her gloves in a biohazard container. “Most fire victims die from carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation, but Mr. Beaman died from the flames.”
I scowled. “It takes a sick bastard to do that to someone.”
“You’re correct, and I hope y’all find whoever it is soon, because it’s terrifying to think this person is still running around town.” Before we left, she told me to find out the name of Lance’s dentist so she could obtain his dental records. “Unless you have known samples of his DNA, it’s the only way we’ll positively identify him.”
Once Susan and I were outside in the bright sunlight, I called Justin and told him what we’d learned from the autopsy. He had just left the crime lab in Baton Rouge and was heading back to Mechant Loup.
“I should be there in about four hours,” he said. “I need to stop by my house and pack up some clothes. I talked to my supervisor and he authorized me to camp out in town until this investigation is complete. Can you recommend a place to stay?”
“We’ve got a bed and breakfast in town that serves the best eggs Benedict on either side of the Mississippi. I’ll make arrangements with them and get you set up in their best room.”
Once I’d ended the call, I asked Susan if she wanted to bring me to the sheriff’s office to get our commissions and badges. “I can get my own cruiser,” I said, “but if you feel like spending more time with your new husband…”
“I do.” She smiled and the dimple that I’d come to love appeared on her left cheek. “I know I’ll be married to you for the rest of my life, but the more of that time we spend together, the happier I’ll be.”
CHAPTER 11
Melvin Saltzman’s residence
“Where the hell have you been?” Claire’s voice was shrill and it caused Delilah to look up from where she was playing on the living room floor.
“I had to make contact with a potential suspect,” Melvin said in a low voice, hoping to help change the tone of the conversation.
“I had to be at work an hour ago, and you knew it!”
“I’m sorry, Honey, but I called and left a message saying I’d be late. I couldn’t help it.”
“Oh, you could’ve helped it—you could’ve easily said you had to come home and watch your daughter so your wife could go to work. You know, it really is that simple, but do you know what the problem is? The problem is you think your job is more important than my job.”
“Sweetie, I know your job is important and I respect what you do. It’s just that I had to do this. Someone was murdered and I—”
“Oh, right, someone was murdered.” Claire folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. “You think I’m just some useless bank teller while you’re like a super hero in a uniform. A murder happened so to hell with Claire’s job. She can lose it for all I care.”
“That’s not it at all and you know it.” Melvin took a step closer to Claire and frowned. “Look, I had a horrible night and I don’t want to fight. I’m really sorry I made you late. If it’ll help, I can call your boss and explain that it’s my fault, and I’ll talk to Susan and let her know that I have to leave work on time from now on.”
Without responding, Claire snatched her purse from the table and stormed out the door. Melvin’s shoulders slumped and he sank to one of the four chairs around the kitchen table.
“Daddy, is Mommy mad?” Delilah asked, not looking up from the baby doll to which she was trying to force feed a fake plastic chicken leg.
Melvin quickly stood and strode to the living room, where he squatted beside Delilah. “No, Deli, everything’s just fine. What’re you doing?”
“I’m feeding Princess. She’s hungry.”
“Okay, why don’t you bring her in your room so Daddy can change out of his uniform?”
Delilah looked up and her face scrunched into a ball when she saw the condition of her dad’s uniform shirt. “You’re dirty, Daddy.”
“Yeah, Deli, I had to work hard last night.”
“Yeah, you worked hard.”
Melvin stood and walked with Delilah to her room, where he secured her child gate in place. When Delilah was first born, Claire had insisted on making three rooms in the house childproof, and she’d made Melvin install child gates and an intercom system so they could always know where she was located in the house and hear what she was doing. For Delilah’s third birthday, Melvin tried to convince Claire to let him take down the child gates, saying she was old enough to roam around the house.
“She’s been doing hard time for three years,” he had said when complaining about what he thought was overkill. “Don’t you think it’s time she gets out on good behavior? She should at least get trustee status, where she’s allowed to walk around the house during the day. I mean, I was playing in the swamps by the time I was one and I drove my first boat when I was her age.”
Claire wasn’t having any of it, and he was still forced to confine Delilah to her room when he was in the bathroom. He grabbed the intercom and told Delilah to holler if she needed him. She didn’t even answer, as she’d plopped down on her bed and went right back to forcing the piece of chicken into the doll’s face.
Melvin walked into his bedroom first and removed his pistol from his holster. After unloading it—something he’d never done before Delilah was born—he locked it in his fireproof gun safe. It was a nice safe—could hold a dozen rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and as many handguns as he could squeeze onto the shelves—and it was one he could never afford. Not long after Delilah had been born, Clint had shown up one day with a dolly and a giant box in the back of his pickup. He’d called Melvin out to the truck to help him and they rolled the beauty into his bedroom.
“Why on earth would you do this?” Melvin had asked.
“Because every cop needs a fireproof safe,” was Clint’s simple response.
“But what’s the occasion? Why would you do this for me?”
“I’m celebrating our friendship,” Clint had said, then left as quickly as he had arrived.
After his weapon was secured in the safe, Melvin made his way to the bathroom and placed the intercom on the cabinet. He stared at his face in the mirror. He felt anxious and realized it must be about the argument with Claire. He didn’t like arguments, especially if it was between him and his wife. He almost pulled out his phone to call her, but he knew he’d better give her some time to cool off. He certainly didn’t want to make things worse.
Melvin pushed the zipper down on his uniform shirt and winced when he caught a whiff of burnt flesh. He quickly stripped it off and rolled it into a ball. He brought it straight to the laundry room, where he tossed it in the washer. He held his breath and stripped off his T-shirt and uniform pants, throwing them in the washer behind the shirt. After putting way
too much detergent in the machine, he turned it on, wrapped himself in a towel from the top shelf of the laundry room, and then headed back to the bathroom.
As hard as he tried, he couldn’t get the images of Lance Beaman’s body burning out of his head, and he kept hearing the agonizing moans of the man as he suffered. Once in the bathroom, he cursed silently when he realized the smell of burning flesh was back. What if there are soot deposits in my nostrils?
Thinking quickly, Melvin stepped into the shower. He twisted the water on and turned his head upward, allowing the cool liquid to flow down into his nose. Ignoring every warning he’d heard on the news about the brain-eating amoeba, he snorted the water straight through his nostrils and into his throat, gagging violently as he did so. He bent over, choking and gasping for air. His eyes were blurry from the tears that had formed. After heaving for a few minutes, he was able to catch his breath and he stood to snort more water.
When he was too exhausted to snort more, Melvin took a quick shower and dried off. He pulled on some shorts and a T-shirt and then squirted toothpaste on his toothbrush. As soon as he put the toothbrush to his mouth, he lurched forward and gagged—the toothpaste tasted like burnt flesh. He gagged again, more violently, and then vomited all over the sink.
He fell to his knees, trembling. He was sweating profusely, but he felt cold and afraid. He couldn’t catch a deep breath and panic began to set in. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he said out loud. “What’s going on?”
CHAPTER 12
Mechant Loup Town Hall
Susan and I stopped outside of Mayor Cain’s office and I smiled at her secretary. “Is the mayor in?”
She nodded and buzzed Pauline. “Ma’am, Chief Wilson and Detective Wolf are here to see you.”
Before Susan could correct the secretary about her new last name, the door burst open and Pauline waved for us to get inside. She closed the door behind us and we stood there watching as she moved behind her desk. She didn’t take her seat. Instead, she started pacing back and forth, her hands folded into a teepee in front of her face. “What’s going on with the murder? Do you know anything yet? Who are we thinking did this?”
“Well, as you know, ma’am,” I began slowly, “this is a sensitive issue. We, at the police department, have to be careful that we don’t appear biased.”
She stopped pacing and stared at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise to you, but there are some who think you might have had a hand in this.”
Pauline threw her head back and began laughing. When she glanced back at me and saw my expression, the smile faded rapidly from her face. “Wait—you’re not joking?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Let me get this straight…someone thinks I want this job bad enough to set a man on fire for it?” She scoffed. “On most days, I want to set myself on fire, thanks to having to deal with the childish members of our town council.”
“Well, just so we can move forward with the investigation, we have to ask you some formal questions.”
Pauline’s face was blank. She took her seat and spread her hands across her desk. “Go ahead, then, and ask your formal questions. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
I walked to one of the chairs across from her and sat down. Susan followed my lead.
“Okay, can we start with what you did yesterday?” I asked. “Say, beginning about noon and working your way through the day until this morning?”
“Sure. It was a nice day, so I decided to work in my yard. Since I let Stephen go, I’ve been doing most of my own landscaping. I weeded the flowerbeds all morning—I know you told me to start at noon, but I’ll just give you the rundown of my whole day. Um, so, it was about noon when I took a break for lunch. I drove out to Bad Loup Burgers and got a hamburger, a fry, and a lemon aid. I went back home and ate it on my back patio—”
The desk phone rang and she answered it, told her secretary to take a message. “Okay, where was I?” She scrunched her lips, then began talking again. “Yeah, I ate lunch on my back patio and then I finished the front flowerbeds. I then took a shower, got dressed, and went to the grocery store. It must’ve been about four o’clock by then. I bought a bottle of wine, some cheese and crackers, and a ribeye steak. I then came back home, cooked dinner, ate, and went to bed. I didn’t wake up until you came knocking on my door this morning.”
“How long did you stay at the grocery store?”
“Um, thirty minutes at the most.”
“What time was it when you got home?”
“No later than five, five-thirty.”
“Did you stop anywhere before going back home?”
“No, I went straight to my house.”
I nodded slowly, studying the notes I’d taken while she was talking. “Was anyone with you last night? At your house?”
“No. As you know, I’m a widow and I live alone.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’ll just help if we can verify as many aspects of your statement as possible.”
“And why is that? Am I a suspect?”
I wanted to tell her I didn’t think for a second that she was involved, but I couldn’t. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation, I had to treat her just as I would any other suspect. “Well, if I’m looking at this thing objectively, I’ve got to consider who has the most to gain from Lance’s death.”
“I already told you that I’d rather set myself on fire than keep this job.”
“Yet, you’re running an aggressive campaign trying to defeat him in what’s become a very close election. If he were to disappear—or burn to death—it would sure make things easy for you.”
“This is true, and I do see your point, but I hope you believe I had nothing to do with his murder.” She grabbed her shoulders with opposite hands and shuddered. “The sheer violence of it scares the crap out of me.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter what I believe.” I asked her a few more questions, then turned to Susan. “Anything?”
“Since the incident at the debate, have you and Lance come into contact with each other again?”
Pauline shook her head.
“What was that all about, anyway?”
I wanted to kick myself in the gut for forgetting to ask about the “incident”. Susan and I had attended the debate, but neither of us witnessed the exchange in the parking lot. According to two eyewitnesses, Lance was walking to his car when he saw Pauline exit the building. He stepped away from his car and waved Pauline over. When she got close to his car, the witnesses claimed he said something, but they couldn’t hear exactly what it was. Pauline cursed him out, but he just laughed, saying, “I bet your husband is turning over in his grave right now.”
Pauline had raised her voice and told him to go to hell, to which Lance had responded, “It’s all going to come out, Pauline; you just wait and see.”
But nothing had come out and no one ever spoke about the incident again. It had happened so long ago that I didn’t even think to connect it to the investigation. Are my subconscious biases already interfering with the investigation? Will I overlook some small detail because I already think I know that Pauline is innocent? I smiled to myself as I watched Susan questioning Pauline. Thank God for Susan, because she won’t overlook a damn thing.
“No, we never really spoke again after the debate. I mean, we’ve run into each other at public events, but we were always cordial to each other.”
“What do you think he was talking about?” Susan pressed. “When he said your husband would be turning over in his grave—what do you think he was referring to?”
I saw the lines tighten around Pauline’s eyes. “I mean, pick your lie. The man has told so many lies about me that it’s hard to keep track of them all. I’m certainly not going to dignify his every lie by trying to defend them.”
“Didn’t you wonder what he meant when he said it would all come out?”
Pauline shrugged. “My life’s an op
en book. When Hays was murdered, the townspeople went through my closet and dragged everything out for the whole world to see. I’ve got no more secrets—no more skeletons.”
Susan was thoughtful, then turned to me and nodded to let me know she was done. I thanked Pauline and we walked outside, where a few clouds had started rolling in from the Gulf.
“Think it’ll rain?” I asked once we were back in her vehicle.
“I don’t know, but I need some food.”
We made a quick stop for lunch at M & P Grill, then we headed for Mechant Groceries to corroborate Pauline’s account of her activities. The store was located at the corner of a large sugarcane field on the southern end of town and was directly off of Main Street. When we stepped through the sliding doors, I recognized the manager on duty. Her name was Cassandra Billiot and she’d helped me with surveillance footage before with an incident that happened at the store. She greeted us with a smile and a wave.
“How’s the lucky couple?” Her face was beaming.
“We’re great,” Susan said. “We just got back from our honeymoon, but we’re already hard at work.”
“How’d you know about the wedding?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Everyone in town knows about the wedding.” Cassandra smirked. “You didn’t think you could sneak off and have a cruise ship wedding and we not find out about it, did you?”
“I…I guess not,” I said.
“Everyone in town is talking about it. All of the men are jealous that you snagged Susan and all of the women are mad that they weren’t invited to the wedding.”
Hating to be the center of attention, I turned the conversation to the business at hand. “We need to look at some surveillance footage from yesterday. Mainly, the front entrance and the parking lot.”
Cassandra looked at Susan. “Is he all business all of the time, or does he let his hair down?”
Susan winked. “He knows how to have fun.”
I didn’t like the way she said it, because it got Cassandra looking at me all funny and weird.
