A Hard Death

by Jonathan Hayes

  Onscreen, the first body was being lifted onto an airboat, and now they were pulling a third body bag out of the trees. Adam wondered how many there were, wondered what the people inside the body bags looked like. Wondered if he’d ever seen them, if he even maybe knew them.

  But, of course, that was unlikely. His Spanish was fucking pathetic, and Adam had avoided fieldwork as much as he could. He’d showed up late at the office, skipped most evening meetings, avoided the farm inspections whenever he could. The fact was, Adam hadn’t even really tried. He’d gone through the motions, done the bare minimum to get the credit. Ricky probably thought he was a prick, just another over-privileged college kid faking commitment to social service to boost his résumé. He’d supposedly been there to help these people, and his only achievement had been parroting the message of where to find the bodies.

  Adam turned to a sniffling sound to his left, and saw that two of the women were crying. Then the old man to his right pulled down the brim of his grubby Britney Spears baseball cap and turned away from Adam, but the bobbing of his head was unmistakable, and soon everyone was sobbing. Under the TV, the owner bowed his head and cried into his hand, and then Adam was the only person in the room who was even listening to the news anchor’s enthusiastic commentary about the bodies.

  The helicopter dipped closer to nail a tight shot of the fourth body bag being loaded onto an airboat. Gusts from the chopper combed the grass into scudding waves that raced to the island, battering the bushes on the hammock until they threshed wildly. The airboats listed drunkenly back and forth, the water kicking up to spray the cops as they struggled to balance the body. A female park ranger in green and a tall man in a dark blue rain slicker stood on the bank, angrily waving back the chopper.

  Adam looked around him at the people he’d pretended to help. He watched them huddle and hold each other as they cried, watched their shaking shoulders and clenched fists, their threadbare, dusty clothes and their leathery skin.

  Now he knew why he was here. He could help them. It was Adam’s turn to help, to really help, this time. He’d stop being a pussy, he’d go to the cops, tell them what he knew. And then the investigation would begin.

  But would it? Rick said when people got killed in Bel Arbre, the cops did the minimum possible. Dealing with a migrant population was hard: many potential witnesses were in the area for a month or two only, most spoke no English, and no one wanted to speak to the police for fear of reprisals or deportation. In Bel Arbre, when someone died violently, everyone who’d seen or known anything about it disappeared within hours.

  Adam shook his head. No, the cops would do their thing, but this time, he would be the person who got things done. He had started it, and he would see it through to the end.

  This was on him.

  CHAPTER 24

  They brought the bodies by airboat to the Coast Guard substation in the South Beaches Marina. Jenner drove down to meet Flanagan and Calvin Major and the morgue wagon; they waited by the boat ramp, drinking vending machine Cokes and watching the French and German vacationers climb into the tour boats at the commercial dock, off to look at manatees and dolphins.

  The afternoon Mangrove Meander tour was almost fully boarded when the airboats came into view, buzzing under the low bridge and swinging wide into the harbor. The tour boat captain shut down his engine, climbed back onto the dock, and stood peering into the south. The tourists chatted obliviously, passing around bottles of water and sunscreen. A handful of Coast Guard crew members ambled out of the dormitory to watch.

  The airboats surged into the marina, the roar of Chevy engines and huge propellers drowning out all other sound. On the tour boat, the passengers covered their ears, and took photos and videos of the unfamiliar craft, still unaware of the load they carried.

  Then someone pointed and said something in German, and suddenly all the cameras were aimed at the biggest airboat and the black bags heaped against the first row of seats. The sheriff stood at the very front, next to the body bags, hand on the front railing, looking like a big game hunter boasting over his kill. Since Jenner had last seen Anders on the hammock, he’d managed to find a cowboy hat, which he wore tipped back on his head.

  Flanagan tapped his shoulder, and Jenner turned to see a white TV news van, the insignia of the local FOX affiliate on its side, pulling into the parking lot; the members of the camera crew started bailing out even before the van had come to a full stop.

  Jenner scowled. He tapped Flanagan’s shoulder and yelled, “I’ll see you at the office!”

  Flanagan gave him the thumbs-up, and shouted back, “Okay, doc. We got it here.”

  As Jenner left, he passed a CNN van pulling into the lot; over at the FOX truck, the mast with the microwave transmission dish was already rising.

  CHAPTER 25

  Things were worse at the office. Driving down the scrub oak allée that led to the municipal buildings, Jenner saw a thicket of mobile transmission masts outside the morgue buildings. There were a half-dozen news vans—Port Fontaine, Fort Myers, Miami, even a second CNN van—lined up along the compound’s wall. In front of the CNN truck, a reporter gestured to the county medical examiner’s office sign, already broadcasting to the nation.

  Jenner drove past them, around to the back entrance, where bodies were received. A small cluster of men waited in the shade along the fence; spotting him, they jumped to their feet to record his arrival with shoulder-mounted cameras. Security buzzed him in, the gates pulling back slowly to let him pass. The cameramen set their equipment back down to wait for the real show.

  In the loading area, everything looked surprisingly ready. After an airplane crash had caused total chaos in the office the previous summer, Marty had initiated quarterly disaster drills; these clearly had paid off. The technicians had set up two intake stations by the mortuary entrance; the bodies would be immediately weighed, measured, photographed, and X-rayed while still inside the body bags.

  Bunny and Bucky Rutledge sat side by side at the morgue entrance, dressed in scrubs, chain-smoking. Next to them, he recognized Marie Carter’s husband, David, a pathologist at Port Fontaine General, who occasionally helped out with forensic cases. Behind Carter was a dark, plump, bald man with a thick black mustache and glasses, whom Jenner didn’t recognize.

  The only open parking space had a stenciled black-and-white sign M. ROBURN MD, CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER, DISTRICT 112; conscious that they were all watching, Jenner pulled into Marty’s spot.

  He nodded at the techs, thanked Carter for coming, and was introduced to Dr. El-Bashir, the odontologist. El-Bashir’s hand was fleshy and cool; he smelled faintly of rosewater. His speech was elegant and precise, with the whispered trace of an English accent.

  “A pleasure, Dr. Jenner. I am sorry that we meet only now; Dr. Roburn has said many wonderful things about you.”

  Jenner said he’d heard good things about El-Bashir too; he had a vague feeling they’d met at a forensics meeting, in Denver, maybe.

  “I’m delighted to be of service in any way that I can.” El-Bashir paused, then said, “I wanted to see you in person to tell you I have finished the charting and the comparison, and…” He tried to find a way to phrase it delicately, but couldn’t. “I’ve confirmed that those are the bodies of Marty and Bobbie.”

  He nodded solemnly, then added, “But I think you already know this.”

  “Believed rather than knew. Thank you, doctor.”

  They followed Jenner through the entryway and into the autopsy room. He sat on a stainless steel stool, and leaned back against the tiled wall with a sigh of relief. They looked at him expectantly.

  “Okay…We’ve got four of them, all look like adult males.” His voice rattled in the airy space, bouncing off the stainless steel and tile. “Two are pretty much skeletons, been there months, I’m thinking. The other two are pretty putrefied, two, three weeks gone. All four were hanged; at least two were tortured first.

  “All four are unidentified, and there won�
��t be ID on the bodies. Hanging is the likely cause of death for all four; all homicides.

  “One thing: this case is already all over the TV, and nationally—CNN sent a chopper out to the Glades to blow our crime scene around. This will be a total media orgy—reporters in front of the building, reporters in the lobby, maybe even reporters coming up to you when you’re out walking the dog. They’ve got cameras by the back entrance, so be careful when you’re out there, whether you’re bringing a body in or just having a smoke. I trust you completely, but please spread the word: if anyone leaks word one of this investigation to anybody, I’ll fire them on the spot.”

  Their faces were grave; they knew he was serious. “And I do mean to anybody, including the cops—I don’t want some idiot deputy rushing off to the press with some random juicy tidbit he’s half-heard. We’re going to run a professional murder investigation, not some circus sideshow. I can’t stop the sheriff’s office from screwing the pooch, but it’s not going to be us, okay?”

  He glanced around them as they nodded.

  CHAPTER 26

  Just after three p.m., they heard the sirens.

  Jenner went out onto the loading zone with Carter. Through the mortuary gate, they saw a patrol car, turret lights blazing, a deputy leaning out to shout into the entry point microphone. The gates opened, the patrol car entered, closely followed by the morgue wagon and another patrol car. The lot was too small for all three vehicles, and it took several minutes to get the wagon into position. Outside the gates, the cameramen jockeyed for position, shoving their cameras through the gate slats to capture the action.

  Flanagan wheeled two hospital privacy screens out into the lot, pushing them behind the wagon to block the cameras. Calvin Major and Bucky Rutledge bundled the body bags out of the wagon and onto gurneys; from the ease with which the men handled them, Jenner could spot the body bags with the skeletons.

  He had Calvin process the fresher bodies first, since the autopsies would be longer and more involved than the initial examination of the skeletons. The office didn’t have a staff anthropologist, but sent skeletons to the Maples Center up in Tallahassee; Jenner didn’t have time—he’d examine the skeletonized remains himself, then consult with anthropologist friends, if necessary.

  They moved smoothly. Jenner designated an order: the larger of the two fleshed bodies first, then the smaller one, then the skeletal remains. While Calvin and Bucky did the intake work, Jenner, Carter, and Flanagan set up in the autopsy room.

  Jenner looked over at Carter, who was setting out scalpels and forceps by the autopsy table. He’d never worked with Carter before, and was aware he’d never been formally trained in forensics. He called over to him, “David, tell you what—rather than splitting up the cases, why don’t you work with me on each case. I’m pretty much toast now; I could use an extra set of eyes.”

  By the time they’d changed into scrubs, Flanagan had moved the first body onto the table. El-Bashir, wearing a disposable paper smock, had started charting the teeth. He turned to Jenner and said, “Don’t worry, Dr. Jenner: I have touched nothing but the lips. I will wait for you before I open the mouth fully.”

  Jenner nodded. “Let’s get him photographed first, Bunny. Then we’ll undress him.”

  He put on gloves and opened the mouth wide; the front teeth were revolting, blackened and broken, skewed like tombstones dislodged in a graveyard flood. Behind them, the molars had been ground down almost to the gum. He turned and said, “Dr. El-Bashir, can I help you chart the teeth while Bunny gets set up?”

  They swapped places, and for five minutes, El-Bashir leaned over the body, muttering to himself in Arabic as he moved the stainless steel mirror and dental probe around the mouth, pausing occasionally to adjust the overhead light and call out findings for Jenner to mark on the dental chart.

  Jenner said, “I was thinking he’s a young guy to have such awful teeth. Could this be methamphetamine?”

  “Certainly a good possibility. He’s a pretty big fellow—sleep problems with nighttime grinding might cause these problems with the back teeth, but his front teeth are completely rotted out, bad recession of the gums, which would go along with methamphetamine abuse. Cocaine, also.”

  Finally, El-Bashir put down his instruments and turned to face Jenner. “You know, I think you could be right, doctor. We’ve been seeing a lot more meth in Douglas recently, and this looks just like the meth mouths I see when I volunteer at the prison.”

  Jenner handed him the chart. In the corridor, Calvin was waiting by the second body. Jenner did a cursory exam of the mouth, gave El-Bashir the go-ahead, then went back into the autopsy room, where Bunny Rutledge was photographing the larger body with a digital camera.

  Under Deb Putnam’s watchful eye, they’d swept the snails off the bodies at the scene. The clothing was streaked and worn from weeks of intermittent rain, and soaked in body fluids. Bucky helped Jenner remove the filthy shirt, covered with thick brown stains on the front, with less blood staining on the back. Holding it up to the light to look for defects, Jenner found a hole on the back right panel. He turned to the body, asked Bucky to roll it to the left; there was a fairly well-preserved stab wound in the right flank.

  Jenner had Bunny photograph the wound, then, as he measured the location, size, and shape of the stab wound, Bunny took close-ups of the shirt. The other clothing was unremarkable.

  Jenner finished his general external examination, Bunny photographing his findings. The victim’s hair was jet black and straight, and the man’s scruffy beard was beginning to slip off because of the decay. In life he’d been overweight, but decomposition had swelled his belly so that it ballooned out, tight and smooth.

  Jenner could see cuts on the chest, but the shirt had been opened before the man had been carved up. The wounds seemed shallow, just cuts into the skin, enough to cause pain and bleeding and terror, but not fatal by themselves.

  Just like Marty.

  There were splits in the scalp, where the man had been battered repeatedly with something heavy. There were scrapes on the knees, and bruises on the arms and flanks barely visible amid the decay—probably from being dragged to the chair, from fighting his executioners. There were no injuries that would indicate the cause of death as anything other than hanging.

  They rolled the man over fully, and eased his body facedown onto the autopsy table. Across his back was a big, ugly tattoo of the Virgin Mary, the lines beaded and crude, the ink blue-gray—standard jailhouse ink, the design clumsily sketched out with a pen or marker, then punctured into the flesh with a pin or sharpened guitar wire. The Virgin of Guadalupe, intended to protect the bearer from gang-rape in the prison showers.

  They turned him onto his back, putting the block between his shoulders to prop him up for autopsy. Jenner spotted a homemade tattoo of the letter G on the left forearm, faded and uneven; the man had probably done it himself. He imagined the man young, maybe in high school, spiking the glistening black ink into his arm with a safety pin. His initial? His girlfriend’s? Probably his, particularly if he did it when he was young.

  He finished writing his notes, then stepped back and looked the body over one last time before beginning.

  So, Hispanic, then. First or last name likely starts with a G. Probable prison time. Not much help with Douglas’s largely Latino population of migrant workers. A speed freak, or maybe cocaine. If he’d been busted by the cops here for possession or some crime committed under the influence, Immigration would have sent him out on the next plane, so chances were the U.S. authorities didn’t have him on file. Mexican? Dominican? Guatemalan? Christ, he could be from almost anywhere.

  He nodded at Bucky, and picked up his scalpel.

  A deputy appeared at the door, tapping sheepishly at the jamb.

  Jenner looked up, then said, “Come in, deputy.”

  The deputy hesitated, clearly upset by the smell. Jenner put down his scalpel and walked over.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Dr.
Jenner, the sheriff asked me to tell you he’s still talking with the press. He said you are not to perform the autopsy until he is present.”

  Jenner nodded. The deputy scampered off, obviously relieved.

  Jenner, shaking his head, closed the autopsy room door behind him, turned to Rutledge, and said, “Bucky, God protect us from fuckwits.”

  He picked up his scalpel with a scowl, and made his first incision.

  CHAPTER 27

  In the makeup chair, Amanda Tucker had finally had enough of holding still while Gina dusted powder onto her cheeks. She batted the makeup artist’s hands away, and said, “God, Gina, you’re literally suffocating me! I feel like I’m trapped in a dust storm…Enough!”

  Careful not to spill powder onto her suit, Amanda tugged the bib off her neck and held it out to Gina as gingerly as if it were a loaded diaper. Gina folded a paper towel around her collar to protect her shirt, then Amanda freed herself from the chair.

  She endured the makeup ordeal twice daily—once before her three p.m. Update and Preview spot, and then a quick touch-up before the main event, Amanda Tucker’s American Crime Prime Time, broadcast live across the country on the Current Event Network, and syndicated internationally. At first she’d enjoyed the primping and the fussing—a reflection of her significance. But she’d been doing it for five years now, and her numbers were big, and she got all the affirmation she needed from the mid-seven-figure salary that followed the big numbers—and from the Saturday Night Live parodies that followed the big salary.

  Amanda left Gina to tidy, and walked back to her office. She stood in the window, peering out over Madison Square Park, watching the halting flow of buses and taxis as they shuffled down Fifth Avenue past the Flatiron Building.

  Even the view bugged her. A fantastic view, sure, but pretty much the same view she’d had since her show began to pull in the numbers, and they’d bumped her from an office near the elevators up to one that looked out onto Fifth, and then finally to her big corner office, with its views of the park, and Fifth, and her beloved Flatiron.