by Tim Downs
“Yeah. I figured that out.”
Special Agent Turlock waded into the empty laboratory and looked around the room. It was late afternoon, and the room was already deep in shadow. He saw a table in the center of the room with two black body bags lying side by side, and a shattered window beyond.
“We sent word as soon as we discovered them,” the doctor said. “Our phones are still out; we had to shout a message to some National Guard people passing by in a boat. I know there’s a lot going on right now, but we thought somebody ought to know.”
“You did the right thing.” Turlock stepped to the window and looked out; he could feel the glass crunching under his thick rubber boots. Why didn’t the fools mention the window? He could have brought his boat directly around to the room.
“I’m a little surprised they sent the DEA,” the doctor said.
“Yeah, well, everybody’s pulling double duty right now.”
“At first I thought the bodies might have come from our own morgue. I thought maybe somebody found them and put them in here to get them out of the water—but the body bags are made of some kind of mesh. They’re not the kind we use here.”
“They’re for pulling bodies out of water,” Turlock said.
“Well, they don’t contain the smell very well.”
“No, they wouldn’t.”
Turlock began to draw the long zipper on one of the bags.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I’m sure.” He opened the flaps and laid them aside, exposing the entire body. He found both hands covered in brown paper sacks rubber-banded at the wrists.
“What are the bags for?” the doctor asked.
“Beats me,” Turlock said—but he knew exactly what they were for: It was a standard crime-scene technique to preserve forensic evidence from the fingers and nails. The sacks were wrinkled and spotted with grease; he looked across the room at a counter and saw a pile of sandwich bags and rotting fruit.
He moved around to the counter to take a closer look. He found a row of plastic containers of differing shapes and sizes; each one had a coffee filter stretched across its mouth. He lifted one container and shook it a little; he saw a handful of milky white maggots wriggling on a chunk of rotting meat. He checked a second container, then a third—they were all the same.
“What is all that?” the doctor asked.
“Nothing,” Turlock said. “Just somebody’s rotten lunch.”
He heard the sound of the metal fire door opening at the end of the hall, followed by a heavy thump and a muttered curse; he turned to see his colleague standing in the doorway, shaking water from his dripping hands.
“There’s junk all over the floor,” the man said. “Can’t see the stuff underwater.”
Turlock glanced at the doctor. “Doc, this is an associate of mine—Special Agent John Detwiler of the DEA.”
Detwiler ran a hand over his sandy red hair and nodded a quick greeting.
Turlock frowned at his partner. “Took you long enough.”
“It’s a long way by boat, Frank. I came as soon as you called.”
“Called? Are cell phones working again?” the doctor asked.
“Satellite phone,” Turlock said.
“Can we get one for the hospital?”
“We got ours in Dallas.”
Turlock waited while his colleague made his own quick study of the room. Detwiler followed the same path that Turlock had taken: first the window, then the bodies, then the counter along the wall. Turlock handed his partner one of the plastic containers; Detwiler held it up to the afternoon light and peered inside.
He looked at Turlock and nodded.
“Who would do this?” the doctor asked. “Do you have any idea?”
Turlock took the doctor by the shoulder and turned him toward the door. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Doc. The truth is, we’ve got bodies everywhere right now—on sidewalks, on rooftops, even floating in the streets. People pull them out of the water, maybe throw a blanket over them—they’re just trying to help. That’s probably what we’ve got here—just some good Samaritan trying to lend a hand. He saw the open window, and he probably figured, ‘Why not? It’s a hospital after all.’ We’ll figure it all out later—right now the important thing is to take these bodies off your hands.”
“I’d appreciate that,” the doctor said. “We’ve got patients on the floor above, and some of them are starting to panic.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”
He waited until the doctor reached the stairway, then turned and glared at his partner.
“It’s Polchak, all right,” Detwiler said sheepishly.
“You think so? You were supposed to be following this guy.”
“I did—he must have done this after dark.”
“So what? We’re not working 9 to 5 here, John—we can’t afford that right now. You should have followed him anyway.”
“How could I, Frank? I have to keep my distance—otherwise he’ll spot me.”
Turlock ripped the coffee filter off one of the containers and flung the contents across the room.
Detwiler grimaced. “What is all this?”
“They’re maggots from the bodies,” Turlock said. “Polchak is a forensic entomologist. He knows how to read these things—that’s what he does. Here, help me get rid of this stuff—toss it out the window.”
He turned back to the body bags. He unzipped the second one and folded back the flaps; the stench was almost unbearable.
“Recognize them?” he asked.
Detwiler pressed one hand over his mouth and nose and squinted. “I can’t tell anymore.”
Turlock pointed to the faded tattoo that encircled the first man’s arm.
“Crap,” Detwiler muttered. “How did Polchak manage to find him?”
“That’s what he does, John—that’s what I keep trying to tell you. What about the other one?”
Detwiler looked; the condition of the body was even worse. “I can’t tell if it’s him or not. Maybe.”
“Probably,” Turlock said. “If Polchak pulled him out of the water, he must have had a reason.”
“C’mon, Frank, you can’t even recognize these guys—how much could Polchak really know?”
Turlock pulled the paper sack off one of the hands; he found ink stains on each of the fingertips.
Detwiler let out a groan.
Turlock took a minute to think. “Have you really been following this guy?”
“Every minute of the day—I swear it. I took pictures, too, just like you said.”
“Is he working with anybody else?”
“He has a partner—another guy from DMORT. His name is Jerry Kibbee; he’s a funeral director from somewhere in Indiana.”
“Anybody else?”
“Just a boy.”
“What boy?”
“Some black kid, maybe ten or twelve. He rides in the boat with them every day.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you get the boy’s name?”
“Not yet.”
“Get it.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s with Polchak every day, that’s why. These are the people he talks to—whatever he knows, they might know. What about DMORT?”
“What about it?”
“Who does he associate with there? Who does he talk to? Who does he room with? Find out, John. Somebody’s helping Polchak, and we need to know who it is.”
“How do you know?”
“He took prints, didn’t he? They won’t do him any good unless somebody can run them through the system. He can’t do it through regular channels; somebody’s got to be helping him on the inside.”
Detwiler gestured to the bodies. “What do I do with these two?”
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do: You’re going to bring your boat around to this window, and I’m going to help you load them in. Then you’re going to take them and
dump them someplace where Polchak won’t find them again. After that, you’re going to find Polchak—and you’re going to put an end to this.”
“That won’t be easy, Frank. He’s working the Lower Nine; there are boats all over the place now.”
“He’s made it easy for us; he’s working nights now. A lot of bad things happen in this city at night.”
“But it’s almost dark now. I won’t be able to find him until morning.”
“Get back to St. Gabriel and wait for him there; he has to go back to DMORT eventually. When he does, follow him—and look for an opportunity.”
“Kibbee too?”
“Kibbee too. No loose ends.”
“What about the boy?”
“Did you hear what I said? No loose ends. Now get going.”
Detwiler started for the doorway.
“And John,” Turlock called after him.
“Yeah?”
“Get it right this time. If he works at night, you work at night. No excuses; get it done. I don’t have to tell you what happens if this guy screws things up.”
“I’ll get the boat.”
Turlock looked out the window; the sun was already beginning to set. He shook his head. “I knew this guy was going to be trouble.”
23
Beth angled the spotlight up at the trees. The old bald cypresses surrounding the bayou were draped in Spanish moss that hung down over the water like a witch’s fingers.
“Keep the light on the water,” Nick said. “We’re not sightseeing here.”
“Sorry,” she grumbled, directing the spotlight in front of the boat again.
Nick sat at the boat’s tiller, using his GPS receiver to guide the boat down the narrow, winding channel. “Let’s try not to run into anything, shall we? I had to put down a month’s pay for the security deposit.”
Beth looked down at the flimsy wooden hull. “What a bargain.”
“Hey, there’s a shortage of boats out here. We were lucky to find one at all.”
“I thought you already had a boat.”
“But no trailer. I couldn’t exactly drag it behind your car.”
They were several miles southeast of the city now, in a section of the Barataria Basin where civilization ended and solid ground gave way to marshy bogs overgrown with cordgrass, vines, and palmettos. Massive cypress stumps protruded from the water, blackened and chewed-off at the ends, their bulging knee roots spreading out around them like skirts. The water was coffee black but still looked clear—not like the muddy green water that filled the city of New Orleans.
There was a pole-mounted spotlight in the bow of the boat, attached to an old Autolite battery with a pair of alligator clips. Beth swung the spotlight from side to side, illuminating the area just ahead of the boat with an eerie blue-white light. She caught glimpses of snapping turtles silently slipping from logs; she saw something long and black drop from a tree limb into the water with a quiet splash.
“Nick—stay in the middle.”
“I will if I can find it. You keep giving us the Woodland Creatures Tour.”
A heavy mist lay across the water like strips of cotton batting. Beth shivered. “I’m cold. How can I be cold when it’s almost ninety degrees?”
“It’s the humidity,” Nick said. “It has a chilling effect, like an evaporative cooler.”
“I didn’t think it would look so—dark.”
“It’s night. What did you expect?”
“I don’t mean that kind of dark. I mean—you know—creepy.”
“You thought it would look like Pirates of the Caribbean. Sorry, this is a real bayou.”
“Why did we have to come out here at night?”
“You didn’t give me any choice.”
“Me?”
“I didn’t get back to DMORT until after dark—that’s when you told me what you found out at LSU. This is the first chance I had.”
“We could have waited for daylight.”
“Some people work during the day. We’re not rich psychiatrists.”
“Some people never stop working—that’s how psychiatrists get rich.”
“Stop complaining—you didn’t have to come, you know.”
“Nick, you asked me to come.”
“What else could I do? Jerry wouldn’t come—he wanted to sleep. I couldn’t bring J.T. along—I had to leave him with Jerry. That only left you.”
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s nice to be wanted.”
“I can’t follow the GPS and steer the boat and point the spotlight all at the same time. Women expect you to do everything.” Nick looked at her. “So—why did you come?”
She twisted around and looked at him. “Because I pictured us driving down here in my climate-controlled Lexus and maybe taking a nice walk down some quiet country road.”
“I like that Lexus.”
She glared at him. “What if we run out of gas? What if this spotlight goes out? What if the batteries go dead in that GPS receiver and we can’t find our way back?”
“Are you always so cheery? No wonder you’re still single.”
She slapped at her neck; the mosquitoes were having a field day with the exposed skin of her neck, wrists, and ankles. “What exactly are we looking for, anyway?”
“The caddis-fly cases contained bits of cypress wood and flakes of copper; there’s only one area around New Orleans where you could find both in one place. If we can find that old copper mine, we’ll know where that body came from—and probably the body I found the other day as well. It had caddis-fly cases on it, too, but I didn’t take samples before I turned the body in. I’m betting both men were originally killed out here, and their bodies were hidden in the shallow water—that’s how the caddis-fly larvae were able to collect on them. After the hurricane, somebody dredged them up and dumped them in the Lower Nine.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To cover up the real cause of death.”
“Who do you think did it?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know.”
“How are we going to find a copper mine at this time of night? You can’t see a thing out here.”
“We don’t have to see it; it’s probably underwater anyway. It’s a good thing they could give you the GPS coordinates at LSU.”
Beth paused. “I met Dr. Benedetti today.”
“So you said.”
“I didn’t know Dr. Benedetti was a woman.”
“Really? I could tell the first time I met her.”
“She said you met on a camping trip.”
“Not at all; it was a legitimate nature study.”
“She said her tent fell down.”
“That was a nature study too.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, I find it really annoying when you—”
“Be quiet.”
“I beg your pardon? I have every right to—”
“Be quiet.” Nick shoved a switch on the old outboard motor; it made one last cough before the low, chugging sound sputtered to a stop. Suddenly the bayou seemed deafening, as if every living thing for miles around was closing in on their boat.
“Listen,” Nick said. “Do you hear anything?”
“What?”
“I keep thinking I hear another engine.”
“Maybe it’s just an echo.”
“I don’t think so. Kill the spotlight.”
“What?”
“Turn off the light, Beth.”
She twisted one of the clips from the battery terminal and the light went out. Beth blinked wide-eyed in the darkness; they were lost in an infinite sea of black. The boat was drifting with the water; they had no way to know how close they were coming to the shore on either side.
They waited.
“Why did we have to turn off the light?” she whispered.
“The only way someone could follow us is by our spotlight.”
“You think someone is following us?”
“I don’t know. I wa
s listening for an engine to stop.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“I’m not sure,” Nick said. “The cicadas and tree frogs are drowning everything out. I can’t tell if—”
Suddenly Nick fell silent again.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking.”
“What?”
“There’s a piece of rope back here. I wonder how you would have reacted if I’d tossed it across your shoulder.”
Beth grabbed the spotlight cable and shoved it back onto the battery post; she spun the spotlight around and shone it directly into Nick’s eyes.
“Hey! What’s the big idea?”
“Do you think this is funny?”
“I did until a second ago—now I’m blind.”
“This is not one of your camping trips, Nick, and I’m not the woman in the tent next door. We’re in the middle of a bayou at night, and I don’t mind telling you I’m scared. There are snakes and crocodiles all around us, and you want to play practical jokes?”
“Alligators,” Nick said.
“What?”
“This is North America. We have alligators here.”
“I don’t care! For once in your life, would you please try to have a little compassion? Just because you’re comfortable with bugs and death and darkness, that doesn’t mean everybody else is! Think about how normal people might feel!”
“You’re normal?”
“Compared to you, everybody is normal!” She turned the spotlight forward again and left Nick sitting in the darkness. “What am I even doing out here?” she grumbled. “I must have been out of my mind.”
“That’s not the kind of thing you like to hear your psychiatrist say.”
“When have I ever been your psychiatrist?”
“You’re the only one I see.”
“You only see me because you have to—and you never listen.”
“I listen. I don’t always agree, but I listen.”
“Then listen to this: You only slept three hours last night.”
“So what? So did you.”
“I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t—did you even try? I took a nap during my break today—did you? And right now, I’m thinking about how good it would feel to be back in my bed again—even that lousy cot in the DMORT dormitory. What about you, Nick? Are you even thinking about getting some rest tonight? Or will this day just blend in with the next one, and the next one after that? This is how it always starts for you; this is the way you become self-destructive.”
