by Alec Peche
Mrs. Cheval looked with deep worry at her son’s retreating back. He looked ill. She looked over at the jug and decided to bleach it out again just for good measure and went to work.
The next day Julien was only slightly nauseous as he drove to the monster truck field on the way to work. He wanted to grab a sample as quickly as possible to avoid another interaction with the monster truck. He would stop and snip two samples and throw them in two already labeled specimen bags, and then he would leave the field. He anticipated sixty seconds max which would allow him to avoid any dust cloud caused by the monster truck wheels. His survey method went as planned and as he drove away from the field he looked in his rearview mirror and saw an ominous dust cloud behind him. He continued to watch it, but he didn’t see the truck as he hit the freeway on-ramp on his way to the office. He smiled, feeling confident that good times were in front of him. He’d collected that sample, the truck hadn’t caught him and he had a clean water jug on the back of his truck, so no more nausea. His day went as planned and he was in a cheerful mood when he picked up his son after work.
He had a great evening with his mom and son and had a great appetite. He helped the boy with his homework and got a snack from the kitchen thinking maybe he could put some weight back on now. After a good night’s sleep, he dropped his son off at school and returned to work determined to get back out in the field. It was his last good day on earth.
When he returned to the field the next day, it was another hot and humid day and he drank water all morning feeling confident to do so with his clean jug. He soon found himself nauseated when he returned to the office. On his way home that night his driving was erratic and it was only a lack of cars to hit that likely kept him safe on the road. He texted a co-worker to see if he could hitch a ride with him the next day and when he reached home he vowed to never again drink water from the jug on the back of his truck. After a brief conversation with his mother, he declined dinner, and went to his room. Throughout the evening he saw people and animals in the shadows of his bedroom.
His mother stopped in his room when she heard him talking, “Julien love, would you like some of that Ginger soup to settle your stomach?”
He declined and said, “Mama, I‘m not feeling well and grandpa is talking to me in the corner,” pointing to the empty corner of the room.
“Oh baby, grandpa died in the hurricane, there’s nobody in the corner,” with fear in her voice. “Do you need to go to the hospital? You’re seeing things that aren’t there, you’re not eating, and you’re feeling terrible.”
“No mama, I’ll feel better in the morning, I just need to rest. I’ve got a co-worker driving me to work tomorrow.”
“That’s good Julien, but you should stay home.”
“Go away mama, love you.”
Mrs. Cheval closed the door and leaned against the wall. What should she do? He was a grown man so she couldn’t force him to do anything. She checked on him through the night but she couldn’t see a need to call an ambulance and force him to the hospital.
Julien got ready to leave the next morning and found a bottle of ginger ale sitting on the counter for him with a note from mama. He took it as he exited the door to meet his coworker. He still felt terrible and he opened the bottle and took some sips of the soda. Even that didn’t help and he had to ask his friend to pull over so he could heave. He told his friend to continue into the office and he’d get a ride home after calling in sick.
The friend looked out the car window debating what to do. Then he looked at his watch and realized he would be late if he didn’t get moving. He couldn’t have a third tardy this month, or he might be fired. He took one last look at his co-worker and called out to him to see if he needed help or if he needed him to call someone but Julien just waved him off. So he put the car in motion and sped towards Baton Rouge. He would never see him again. He got to work anxious as he’d nearly been late and forgot about Julien for a few hours.
Chapter 3
Julien remembered after the friend went down the road that he'd left his work bag and soda behind in the car as he stumbled outside. Oh well, the ginger ale wasn’t helping anyway. He really felt awful, ready to heave some more and he was seeing things again. Was that his grandfather down the street? He stumbled straight ahead trying to get closer to images on the horizon, while he squinted against the sun. Man was it bright! He felt his pockets for sunglasses but couldn’t find them. He knew he was swaying on his feet and so he wondered what the neighbors might think of his behavior.
After another half block or so, Julien knew that time was running out in more ways than one. He was running out of street, running out of energy as he hadn't dared eat much food in the last six days; he felt like he was running out of time but couldn't focus on where he needed to be.
He was both nauseated and dizzy, one compounding the other. Each step forward felt like he had twenty pounds of mud on each leg. He paused to see a shimmering horizon in front of him.
Was he in the desert? He shook his head as though to clear his vision. No, he wasn’t seeing an oasis in the desert, he was in New Orleans and it was a sweltering hot and humid day. It was the city of his birth and re-birth after Hurricane Katrina. He was in the French Quarter he thought. It looked old with wrought iron balconies and he didn't see lots of trees like he'd be in the Garden District. What street was he on? What day was it? What time of day was is? He remembered he thought he hadn’t eaten in a while, so maybe it was late afternoon, but where were all the people? The Quarter was always full of tourists.
Covertly, a figure was tailing Mr. Cheval. The man was weaving and stumbling, looking like any other drunk in the French Quarter and therefore he drew little notice from the few early morning people going to work. The figure anticipated the man would drop to the ground in about half a block and he wanted to make sure to direct that fall into an alley. It would take longer in the alley for people to realize that he wasn’t sleeping off alcohol and that really, he was dead.
Julien came to a stop holding on to a lamppost squinting at the buildings around him. Was he on Bourbon Street or St. Charles? He looked around for familiar landmarks and saw none. Maybe he should ask for help from the next person passing by him. Surely a stranger wouldn’t hurt him? He was sure that people had been following him the last couple of weeks, but if he asked for help from someone walking his way wouldn’t that mean they weren’t following him?
Again he squinted and watched a woman approach. He was sure he hadn’t seen her before so he put a hand out and said something, but she stepped away from him, frowning. He realized that his words had come out slurred. She probably thought he was drunk. He felt drunk and the mud around his legs was making it increasingly hard to lift each foot. Where had the mud come from? He looked at his pants but couldn’t see any mud. He held on tighter to the lamppost thinking he might heave. The wave passed and he let go planning on moving down the street until he found an open door. Weren’t businesses supposed to be open? All he saw was closed doors and blurring outlines. He found he needed more support and headed for a wall to lean against. He hit it hard with his shoulder misjudging where it actually was. Maybe he’d sit down for a while until he felt better.
The figure watched Mr. Cheval slide down the wall figuring he wouldn’t be getting up. He leaned nonchalantly close by trying to decide when he was ready to drag the figure into the alley that was about five feet away. A few people passing him on the street assumed Mr. Cheval was his friend and gave him looks that said ‘he needed to find new friends’. He would shrug as they moved past him. When no one was looking, he nudged the man with his shoe and got no response. He waited for a break in potential witnesses and quickly pulled the man the five feet into the slender space between two houses. The man barely roused as the stranger grabbed him by the arms. The killer could tell Mr. Cheval was within an hour of death if he could just die in the peace and quiet of the side yard, then it would be a win for him. After he settled the man behind him, he took up
post at the space to block anyone seeing the man lying on the ground. Studying his cell phone he adopted the posture of someone waiting for a ride and killing the time by reading emails.
The time gave him an opportunity to glance around for cameras on the building exteriors and his luck was with him, as Mr. Cheval had wandered down St. Philip Street which was mostly filled with older houses lacking high tech cameras that might have recorded his actions. Kudos to Mr. Cheval for choosing such a convenient place to die thought the man with a small smile on his face. He might not be discovered for a few days if he threw some debris over him.
Chapter 4
Alicia Hudson leaned back in her desk chair puzzling over the autopsy results of Julien Cheval. What had killed the young man? He was thin, but hadn’t died from starvation or dehydration. His heart was fine, there was no trauma to his body, other than a few rat bites as he’d been chewed on by the local vermin by the time of discovery of his body. At that point, he'd likely been dead for three to four days. His stomach contents were a mess as the decomposition process interfered with the analysis. The toxicology screen showed nothing unusual and no illegal drugs.
She ran her eyes over the folder on her desk checking to see if she missed some fact. The family thought that evil spirits had killed the young man according to the police; Alicia didn’t believe in such a thing. She wasn’t a native to the Big Easy, New Orleans’ nickname. Where she had grown up in Ohio, people had little time for Caribbean religions like Santeria, Kuminia, or Voodoo. These folk religions believed in some degree of magic for everyday occurrences. Alicia had been raised in a Christian faith and all of her science training for medical school had taught her to have no faith in magic.
She sat there scratching her head and pulling on her long red hair. How did she rule this death? Her training aimed her toward 'undetermined'. She hated using that term and usually fought to find an absolute ruling in a death. She thought about asking her fellow pathologists for their opinions, but they were natives to the area and were at times intellectually lazy and likely willing to swallow the claim of evil spirits so they could move on to the next case. Alicia knew her supervisor, the coroner of New Orleans would want her to move on. He wasn’t a pathologist by training but instead had been elected as the coroner from a law enforcement background. He lacked the medical education for her to consult with him on the technicalities of the deceased.
Who else could she ask for help? She was tired as she had been mulling over the case in her head while tossing and turning last night. She looked up and caught one of the plaques on her wall showing her completing her medical training in pathology in a hospital in Southern California. She thought back to her training days and the other residents she trained with. She respected all of them and they had kept in touch during the first five years after their fellowships and then drifted apart to different parts of the United States. She began looking at her training partners to see if any of them were in the southern part of the United States. None were. She looked at what some of her classmates were doing and then lingered over Jill Quint. They had enjoyed each other’s company during training and then she began reading about Jill. Wow, she had solved some unusual cases and now she worked as a consultant according to her website. She'd be perfect for this job, but she knew the coroner wouldn’t support paying an outside expert on this case. She felt strongly about getting an answer for this man. Jill was always a good sport and loved intrigue. Maybe she would consult for free if she could offer her a free plane ride that she would pay for and offer her a bedroom in her house? She had nothing to lose by asking so she picked up the phone and made the call.
Jill was outside in her vineyard trimming the vines as they were beginning to lose their leaves due to fall. She heard her phone ring and pulled it out to look at it; her phone indicated that the call was from New Orleans. Jill debated answering as she’d been getting a lot of robot calls recently. Then she decided to answer as most robot call computers gave up after the third ring.
“This is Jill Quint.”
“Hi Jill, it's Alicia Hudson.”
Jill's brain in a matter of milliseconds traveled from her vineyard back to her medical school days, “You’re a voice from the past and now you’re in New Orleans or at least that’s what my phone says. Are you working as a pathologist for Jefferson Parish?”
Alicia chuckled remembering Jill’s tendency to combine several thoughts into a few sentences. Yes, it was the same old Jill.
“Yes I am. How about you? How’s the consulting business?”
There was a laugh on the other end of the phone as Jill replied, “Either my life is in danger or I’m in my vineyard cutting dead shoots off my grapevines.”
“Those are some extremes,” Alicia replied with a grin in her voice. "So you own a vineyard? Are you producing wine yet and if so what’s the name?”
“I bought a vineyard six years ago and I’m in my second year of production and you wouldn’t have heard of me as I’ve only sold locally, but the name is Quixotic Winery. How are you enjoying New Orleans? The weather’s a far cry from Southern California.”
“It took a while to get used to the humidity and walking in and out of air conditioning all day. I think I spent the first six months dealing with inflamed allergies from air conditioning and mold, but now I’m used to it. There are a bunch of cultural things that people do in this region that I enjoy and the people are nice and friendly.”
“So I’m thinking you called me for a reason. What can I do for you?”
“I have a body in my morgue and I've been unable to account for his death. The family says that evil spirits took him over and killed him. Since I don’t recall a chapter in our residency about 'death by evil spirits', I’ve looked for a more solid explanation and haven’t found one."
"That sounds intriguing. How old is he, where was he found dead, and what were your unusual findings?"
"He's thirty-three, he was found in an alley in the residential area of the French Quarter. There are no markings on his body and his tox screen came back clear. I'd like to fly you to New Orleans, but my budget won't pay for anything more than your flight here. You could stay with me. Doesn't that sound more interesting than pruning grapevines?"
Jill laughed at her final comment and had to admit she was right; she loved a good mystery. She had no consulting jobs on the horizon, but then usually she didn't have more than one job a month and it was last minute calls like this one that often brought her into cases.
"You know Alicia, your case sounds interesting and your terms are satisfactory. Let me check out a few things here and get back to you in say, an hour. Okay?"
"That great news! What's been your oddest death case so far?"
"I've had nothing but odd cases and remind me to tell you about them when I arrive."
"Okay; look forward to talking to you in an hour," Alicia said as they ended the call. Alicia thought that it sounded like Jill was mostly convinced to come.
Jill looked around the vineyard for Trixie, her Dalmatian dog as usually she could see the dog's spots through the vines. After her second 360 degree turn, she spotted the dog digging a hole. She sighed and walked through the vineyard to the dog looking for evidence of rodents, but didn't see any.
“Com’on Trixie girl, let’s go get some lunch while mom figures out if she should fly to Louisiana.”
Looking at her schedule for the next few days, she picked up the phone to call Nathan, her partner of the past three years.
“Hey babe, how’s it going?” she heard him ask.
“I’m enjoying the dullness of pruning vines.”
“Sure beats avoiding being pushed over a castle wall,” referring to her most recent case in Scotland.
“Exactly my thought! Hey I just got a phone call from an old classmate in New Orleans and she would like my help on a case. I was the Chief Resident during her first year of residency, then I stayed on and did further training in toxicology so our paths crossed a lot over those two
years. I like the context of the problem in NOLA,” a nickname for New Orleans. “A young man was found dead and his family believes that evil spirits killed him. I’d love to dispel that kind of theory.”
“Really? Evil spirits? Even I, as a completely non-medical person, would find that hard to swallow as the cause of death. Does your old college friend believe that?”
“Not in the least, but she hates to label the death as 'undetermined'.”
“So you’re going to go. Will Angela, Marie, and Jo be joining you?”
“No, she can only afford my flight. No per-Diem day rate, no hotel – she plans to put me up at her house.”
"Wow, that’s two unpaid jobs in a row. Not a great way to grow your business!"
"Fortunately, as a world famous vintner I can afford a few unpaid jobs," Jill said with irony in her voice.
"Hey don't be hard on yourself, you doubled your grape production this year and you've already sold out!" Nathan replied knowing the details of Jill's vineyard.
"Yeah, at least I'm making a tiny profit now instead of pulling on my savings. Yes, it is a bummer that my time won't be paid, but if I can figure out the cause of death, at least it will bulk up my resume and perhaps give me a reputation in the southern United States."
"If you're there longer than three days, I'll join you. There are some interesting distilleries there and I would like to view their marketing."
Jill thought for a moment of the Caribbean influence on the area and asked, "Rum?"
"Yes, and gin and vodka."
"That sounds interesting."
"Yeah, like I said they have some interesting marketing to attract people as you don't naturally associate vodka with New Orleans. You want me to watch Trixie? If I decide later to come then I'll give Lucy a call and see if she's available to care for Arthur and Trixie," Nathan said referring to his cat.