The Murder Artist

by John Case

  “You’re sure?” Diment asks me.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then come back at midnight.”

  “Tonight?”

  Diment nods, and then he gets up and heads for the door. As we weave a path through the poor souls hunkered down in the heat and darkness, Diment asks a question that seems to come right out of left field. “What size you wear?”

  “What size?”

  “Yes!” He seems annoyed. “What size do you wear?”

  “Forty-two regular,” I tell him.

  “Ahhhh,” Diment says. “That’s perfect.” He pulls the beads aside. Pinky and I step through into the front yard, and the beads fall closed behind us with a kind of liquid rustle.

  It’s like leaving a matinee. I’m blinded. An image from Diment’s altar seems to float before me in the sun haze: a painted icon showing two boys, each with a golden orb around his head, each holding a feather quill. Twins. I wonder what that means. I’ll have to ask Diment. Pinky’s car emits a little beep, and I hear the mechanical thunk as its door locks pop open.

  “Whoa,” Pinky says, once we’re inside. “I’m not sure I’d be keeping any future appointments with Doctor D. there.”

  “I don’t know. What was that question about my size?”

  “I doubt he’s gonna kill you for your Gap khakis, but who knows?” Pinky says, turning the key and rolling down the windows. We lurch forward. “The guy looks like a death’s head! Don’t that worry you, pardner? And why’s he want to know what size you wear? And that stuff about ‘a puppy is just a chicken with a tail’? What’s he mean by that, huh? I’m thinking he means that anything alive is nothin’ but a life force, something that could be sacrificed. What if he’s feelin’ that way about you?”

  “Yeah,” I say. But the truth is, it’s hard for me to work up any fear about Doctor Diment. Or worry about anything that might happen to me. I’m all played out on the fear front.

  “You’re not really going there?”

  I shrug. “I’m thinking about it.”

  All the way back to the Holiday Inn, Pinky tries to talk me out of it. “It’s crazy! You don’t know this guy – or what crazy thing he might do. That lip, man. I can’t believe you, drinkin’ that rum! You see how skinny he was? Who knows what he’s got? His eyeballs looked yellow to me. You’re talking AIDS, hep C, who knows? And voodoo – it’s nothin’ you want to mess with. Not at all. It’s all blood and drugs and bullshit… I say let’s see what Maldonado says. Look, you can always go back to this guy if you have to.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” I tell Pinky.

  Pinky has a service called OnStar, which he calls his “traveling concierge.” He punches it on, secures Maldonado’s number, and then instructs the machine to call the reporter.

  “Hey!” Maldonado’s voice booms from the dashboard. “Good news, Pink. I called up the doctor who admitted Claude when the ambulance brought him in. Sam Harami. If not for Sam, Byron would have got away with murder. The death probably would have gone down as ‘natural causes.’”

  “You saying what, Max?”

  “I’m saying this is the guy really figured out old Claude had been poisoned. He’s a friend of mine and he’s ready to join us for dinner if you’re buying.”

  “My pleasure,” Pinky tells him.

  While they go back and forth, figuring out where to meet for dinner, I’m thinking about how I’m going to get out to Chez Diment later tonight. Even though Pinky thinks it’s a bad idea to go, maybe he’ll lend me his car or give me a ride. If not, I guess I can take a taxi.

  But I’m definitely going. I think of the dimes, the bowls of water, mementos left to me by Boudreaux. Somehow I know that if I’m going to find him, the man with the death’s head face will be the one to point the way.

  CHAPTER 36

  We’re supposed to meet Max Maldonado at Prideaux’s Eat Place. It’s an upscale restaurant in the countryside outside New Iberia, a pretty town a few miles from Morgan City. We’re escorted to a table by the window, where a small gray-haired man bounces out of his seat at our approach. This is Maldonado, “seventy-five years young,” as he later puts it. The compression of age, familiar to me from the ongoing shrinkage of my father, seems only to have concentrated this man’s energy.

  “Pinky!” he says, with an enthusiastic pump of the hand. “It’s been way too long, baby.”

  Pinky introduces us.

  “Pleased to meetcha, pleased to meetcha. And this quiet fella here” – he indicates a black-haired Asian man to his left – “this is Sam Harami.” Harami raises his glass in acknowledgment.

  “Would you like a drink?” the waitress asks.

  “Absolutely,” Pinky tells him. He orders a Jack on the rocks. I ask for a draft beer.

  “So… Byron Boudreaux,” Maldonado says. “Remember when that son-of-a-bitch got out, Sam?”

  Harami nods.

  “We all took a deep breath when he got popped loose, I can tell you that. Checking our backs.”

  “That guy scared me,” Harami says, his voice a strange combination of Deep South and Far East. A Japanese drawl. “And I don’t scare easy.”

  “He did come right back to Morgan City, soon as he got out. That’s had us worried,” Maldonado says. “But he didn’t stay long. Spent a week with that witch doctor, and that was it. Haven’t heard a peep about him since.”

  We order dinner – a process that takes at least fifteen minutes because Maldonado has so many inquiries about ingredients and preparations.

  “He drive me crazy,” Sam Harami says. “Worse than a woman choose her wedding gown.”

  Finally, I get to ask what’s on my mind. “What can you tell me about Boudreaux that might help me track him down?”

  Sam Harami shrugs. “Not sure. What kind of thing you have in mind?”

  “Just talk,” Pinky says, throwing back his whiskey. “What’d you know about him? Not just the case with his daddy, although that, too. Anything. Everything. You never know what’s going to help.”

  “Well, he never came across my watch,” Maldonado says, “until that thing with the puppy. You know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We heard from people at the trailer park.”

  “Most of what I heard was after Claude died,” Maldonado says, “so you really can’t trust it. I mean, you show someone a baby picture of Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler and they’re bound to nod and say, ‘Yeah, there was always something strange about old Jeff.’… But that thing with the puppy – it about turned that boy into a pariah.”

  “I believe it,” Pinky says.

  “It put him on my map, I’ll tell you that. People looked back at the way his brother drowned and it had to make you wonder. You remember, Sam?”

  Harami raises his eyebrows, which are perfect crescents. “I wasn’t here yet, Max. I get here only in eighty-six, right out of Tulane. What I know about Byron only goes back to when he killed his father.”

  “Ah, that’s right,” Maldonado says. “Well, the next thing happened – after the dog – was Marie died. Got that ovarian cancer, that’s a killer.”

  I nod. “I heard she died.”

  “Yeah. Byron was fifteen years old. A fine woman, Marie. Some people thought maybe that’s what sent Byron over the edge – when she passed – because word was she doted on that boy. Anyway, a few months after she died, Claude gets hurt in an oil-rig accident. Messed up his back big-time. He’s gonna be in a wheelchair for months. When he gets out of the hospital, Byron’s the one who’s goin’ to ‘take care’ of him.” The reporter makes quotation marks in the air.

  “Joke,” Harami explains.

  “Let’s just say he took care of him all right,” Maldonado adds.

  The waitress arrives with gumbo and oysters, and the food silences us for a while. Finally, Maldonado picks up the thread of the story. “So where was I?”

  “Claude in a wheelchair, Byron taking care of him.”

  “Right! So anyway, he
re’s old Claude, slowly making progress after this operation. Spinal fusion, I think it was.” He looks at Harami.

  “That’s right.”

  “And then, for no apparent reason, he gets real sick one afternoon. He’s in front of the tube, in his wheelchair, watching NASCAR with his friend Boots.”

  “At this time, I am admitting doctor at the ER in New Iberia,” Harami says. “It’s my residency, you know. My English not so good now, but then?” He shakes his head and makes a face. “Very bad. And Claude – the man can hardly talk by the time he gets to the hospital.”

  “Yeah,” Maldonado jokes, “he can’t talk and you can’t talk.” He smiles and shakes his head.

  “But he has friend with him,” Harami continues. “Boot. So Boot, he tell me what happens. They watch the race together, drinking beer. Plenty beer. All of a sudden Claude tell his friend the room is…” Harami makes a circular motion in the air above his head. He frowns. “Turning?”

  “Spinning, Sam.”

  “Ah, right. Spinning. Claude, he feel light-headed. The friend make some joke about how he is lightheaded, he not exactly mental heavyweight.” Harami points to his head. “But then Claude start screaming. He telling Boot that his mouth numb, stomach hurt. Boot – he call nine-one-one.”

  “They come in record time!” Max says. “Had to be a record. Traffic’s light and they get to the hospital pretty damn quick, too.”

  “This right,” Harami says. “They get here very fast. Otherwise, Claude would be DOA and maybe I never figure out what happen to him. Anyway, they get here and I can’t understand very much Claude saying, because by this time, he talks in a mumble. But okay – between Boot and the paramedics and the nurse, they sort of get what Claude is saying, and they tell me what happen. First, Claude dizzy and light-headed, then his lips and tongue numb. Boot say Claude very happy for short time, then gloomy. Boot, he say: ‘Like a thundercloud sitting on his head. Really got the blues, Doc.’ Then Claude vomits in ambulance. In ER, he tell me he feeling stiffer and stiffer by the minute, like he get arthritis all of a sudden.”

  The waitress arrives with our entrees and deals them off her left arm like a round of cards.

  “Oh, boy,” says Maldonado, “they know how to do crawfish étouffée here.” He digs in.

  Harami lets his Laotian catfish special sit for a minute. “I’m native of Japan,” he tells us. “And I am” – he hits his forehead – “my mind blown away by my patient, Claude Boudreaux.”

  I can’t imagine where he’s going with this, why the fact that he’s Japanese has any relevance to Claude Boudreaux. Pinky tosses me a look, equally perplexed.

  “I have patient in front of me,” Harami says, “and I tell myself: ‘It can’t be.’ I go over list of symptoms again.” Harami counts them off on his fingers: “Stomach pain. Paresthesia. Aphonia. Euphoria. Depression. Paralysis – ”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupt. “What’s paresthesia?”

  “And aphonia?” Pinky adds.

  “Paresthesia is… creeping sensation on skin. Aphonia – you can’t talk.”

  I nod. “So he has these symptoms?”

  “Yes, and by now he finding it very hard to move, hard to breathe. He can no longer talk at all. I order him intubated. I order his stomach pumped; I start intravenous hydration. We administer activated charcoal.”

  “Doc knew he’d been poisoned,” Maldonado says.

  “It does not work,” Harami continues, excited now. “Two more hour, Claude is dead.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Maldonado says. “On the death certificate, Doc writes: ‘Respiratory arrest – fugu poisoning.’”

  “Fugu poisoning?” Pinky sputters. “Isn’t that what you get from eating some kind of fish?”

  “In Japan,” I add.

  Harami nods, taking a bite of his dinner.

  “That was a corker,” Maldonado says with glee. “I wrote an article about it later. See, this is a death that normally befalls only Japanese gourmands. Crazy types, practicing what might be termed a form of culinary Russian roulette.”

  Harami nods. “This is true.”

  “These guys gotta feel risk is quite a flavor enhancer. So every year, fifty or so Japanese diners crash into their plates, struck down while indulging in the delicious taste of fugu sashimi. It’s a puffer fish, fugu is, and it’s a highly prized delicacy. The one serious drawback is that its skin, liver, and gonads are highly toxic.”

  “You rely on the chef skill,” Harami says. “But sometimes…”

  “All it takes is a little nick of one of these no-no regions by a sushi chef’s knife to deliver a lethal dose of poison.”

  “Tetrodotoxin,” Harami says.

  “See, the thing is Claude comes into an emergency room in Louisiana,” Maldonado says. “Most doctors would not have recognized the symptoms. But Sam, he’s sure.”

  Harami nods. “This man Claude Boudreaux? Classic symptoms. I know I’m right. I never doubt, even when autopsy shows deceased stomach contents not contain puffer fish. No seafood at all.”

  “All Claude ate was a couple of Slim Jims and some chips,” Maldonado explains. “That and some beer. And that’s all the autopsy shows in old Claude’s tummy. The conclusion is that Sam was wrong.”

  “I know I’m not wrong,” Harami says. “They want me change death certificate, but they can’t tell me what make Claude stop breathing.”

  “So they do a test,” Maldonado says, “just to shut Sam up. Gas chromatograph. And sure as shit, old Claude’s bloodstream was saturated with tetrodotoxin.”

  “But none in his stomach,” I say.

  “The police were baffled,” Maldonado says. “How can you get fugu poisoning without eating fish? Were there other sources of the toxin?”

  “I don’t know this answer,” Harami says. “So the medical examiner refer the question to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Soon, answer comes back. California newt and Eastern salamander both sources of tetrodotoxin.”

  “But so what?” Maldonado says. “Right? Claude Boudreaux didn’t eat any newts or salamanders. He ate a couple of Slim Jims. So how did the poison get into his bloodstream? By now, the M.E. is just as intrigued as Sam here. They get on it. Was it something he inhaled? Maybe so. Because we do find a source for the stuff. Turns out tetrodotoxin powder is a poison used in voodoo rituals. Zombie dust.”

  “So we think we got something now,” Harami says. “M.E. pulls out deceased and does more tests. But no – Boudreaux’s nasal passages and respiratory system show no trace of toxin. None.” His hands fly up. “A real mystery. Finally we do another gas chromatography test. Focus on victim’s bloodstream. This time” – Harami nods vigorously – “we get answer. In addition to tetrodotoxin, Boudreaux’s blood contained traces of latex and dimethyl sulfoxide.” He smiles. “‘Ahhhh,’ we say.”

  Pinky and I look at each other.

  “DMSO,” Maldonado says. “It’s a solvent. Byron mixed DMSO with tetrodotoxin and smeared it on the tires of his daddy’s wheelchair. So old Claude, he rolls from room to room and this lethal cocktail of fugu poison and DMSO passes directly from the tires into his bloodstream.”

  “A transdermal delivery system,” Harami says.

  “Like the nicotine patch,” Pinky says.

  “From there, it didn’t take long to figure out that Byron was the one who did it,” Maldonado says. “Everybody knew he’s hanging out with that voodoo witch doctor down by the cemetery. That’s where he got the poison. And he ordered the DMSO mail order, through some weight-lifter catalog. Didn’t even try to cover his tracks. But why would he? He was sooo unlucky. If the ambulance didn’t make record time. If any other doctor in Louisiana had been on duty in the emergency room… If his interest in voodoo hadn’t been so well known…” Maldonado throws up his hands.

  “His goose cooked,” Harami says, with a laugh. “I cook it. That’s why I’m nervous when they release him. Why release this man? Someone like that – kill his father, so snea
ky, so clever. Man like this – he not get better. And now we see.” He looks at me with an expression of commiseration. “I am sorry. I hope you find your sons. How long they gone?”

  “Since May thirty-first.”

  “I hope you find them,” Harami repeats, then lowers his eyes from mine because – as I think he knows – he does not look hopeful.

  CHAPTER 37

  On the drive back to Morgan City, Pinky’s OnStar phone rings. The system is hands-free and broadcasts over the BMW’s sound system.

  “This is Pinky.”

  “Mr. Streiber?”

  “Jez – is that you? The fair lady of Plaquemines?”

  “C’est moi.”

  “I’ve got Alex Callahan in the car with me, so don’t talk dirty.”

  “Hello, Mr. Callahan. Matter of fact, I’m calling about you.”

  “Hello, Jezebel. What’s this about?”

  “Mr. Streiber asked me to look and see if I could find the discharge order concerning Byron Boudreaux. ’Course, I couldn’t. It went up in flames when the courthouse burned down. But I found the next best thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who’s that. A psychiatric nurse who worked out at the asylum. Worked there eight of the years Byron was there. Knew all about him.”

  “Jezebel, you are a wonder,” Pinky says.

  “Oh, yikes, it wasn’t hard,” Jezebel says. “I just asked my daddy and he asked his girlfriend and she asked her stylist. Anyway, like that. Finally I get to this person.”

  “So who is she? You got her number?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. She’s a little bit afraid of Byron. So I’m not supposed to disclose her name. I promised.”

  “Jezebel-”

  “I won’t tell you, so you might as well save it. A good reporter can’t disclose her sources. Place like this, nobody’s ever gonna talk if you give ’em out.”

  “You’re not a reporter, Jez.”

  “Well, I will be. I’m in training. Anyway, you interested in what I found out? Or not. Because I want to watch Sex and the City. It’s on in ten minutes.”