No Mardi Gras for the Dead

by D. J. Donaldson

  POACHED QUAIL EGG, GEORGIA CAVIAR, AND MARYLAND

  CRAB CAKE

  ON TOASTED BRIOCHE

  . . .

  FRESH SEA URCHIN CONSOMMÉ WITH SEA URCHIN FLAN

  AND MULTICOLORED NOODLES

  . . .

  SEAWEED SALAD MACERATED IN GINGER WITH

  CROUSTILLANT OF

  SEA SCALLOPS AND GINGER EMULSION

  . . .

  ROCKFISH SAUTÉ, CRISPY SKIN; TOMBÉE OF TOMATOES,

  OLIVE, AND

  BASIL; JULIENNE OF DRIED SHAD ROE AND LEMON CONFIT

  . . .

  FILET MIGNON OF MILK-FED LAMB WITH SPICES, CHEESE

  GNOCCHIS,

  AND SOUTH CAROLINA GRITS

  . . .

  CROUSTILLANT OF PINEAPPLE AND NECTARINE CONFIT IN

  HONEY-ALMOND

  ICE CREAM WITH PEACH COULIS

  Instead of the busy china already on the table, each course was served on a simple white plate with a blue stripe around the outer edge, giving the chef a blank canvas on which to place his creations, which he did so artfully that with each course, Kit’s first approach with knife or fork made her feel like a Visigoth about to pillage the Louvre.

  This guilt was quickly forgotten with the first bite and she lapsed into the same silent reverence that Broussard and three of her other dinner companions were also experiencing. Arthur Jordan and Kurt Halliday, though, seemed to be eating mechanically, with no real appreciation for the meal. Occasionally, they glanced meaningfully at each other across the table.

  When the meal was over, Browning left the room and brought back a slim fellow with long blond hair and gold wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a white smock that buttoned far to one side. “Members and guest,” Browning said, “I give you our chef, Molinar.”

  The others rose and began to applaud. Kit followed suit, wondering whether Molinar was his first, last, or only name. The chef bowed and the applause continued. He bowed again and withdrew. They all returned to the great room for brandy and more conversation, everyone mellower now and less inclined to controversy. In all, it was an extremely pleasant evening and everyone parted on good terms.

  The chef and his assistant left an hour after the guests and Broussard slipped into bed around 1:00 A.M. By 1:15, he was sleeping soundly. At two, he began to dream. It was a simple dream. There was an explosion and then the image of a long black metal bar sailing upward, like a rocket, against a cloudless blue sky. When he woke the next morning, he remembered the dream vividly but gave it little thought.

  *

  * *

  While working on her report for Gatlin the afternoon before the Gourmet Society meeting, Kit had called Lester Thomas at the aquarium to arrange to see Paul Jarrell’s office. Not fully understanding her relationship with the police, he had been uncooperative at first, but after checking with Gatlin, he had agreed to let her in the next morning at 8:30, before they opened to the public. He was waiting for her at the administrative entrance.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” he asked as they walked to Jarrell’s office.

  “To be honest, I don’t really know.”

  “Does your appearance here mean that Paul’s death was not accidental?”

  “We’re not sure yet what happened.”

  Gatlin had sealed Jarrell’s office with yellow POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS tape. Thomas unlocked the door, then stood aside. “Maybe you should be the one to break the seal.”

  Kit peeled the tape back and went in, Thomas following. She looked back at him. “I’d prefer to do this alone.”

  “All right. When you’re ready to leave, pick up the phone there and dial five three seven. I’ll come and show you out.”

  Jarrell’s tiny office had no windows and was spare and functional. Straight ahead, occupying nearly the entire wall, was a metal desk. On the left wall was a short bookcase filled with texts that appeared to have been well used. A similar bookcase against the opposite wall held a variety of seashells. On the top were two plastic-embedded fish skeletons sitting on wooden stands.

  She began by studying the entries on Jarrell’s calendar: “staff mtg., call the Shed Aq., pick up Af. cich., order meth. blue….” Finding none of this useful, she opened the middle drawer of his desk and surveyed the contents: a roll of peel-off red dots, a small pair of needle-nose pliers, an orange Hi-Liter, a AA battery, half a roll of Life Savers, a spoon wrapped in brown paper, a small tube of silicone adhesive, a pebbled rubber thumb cover, and lots of paper clips. But no clues.

  What appeared to be three drawers on the right side of the desk was actually a file drawer. She scanned the file indexes: Outstanding Purchase Orders, Old Purchase Orders, Suppliers, References, Correspondence…. She removed the correspondence file and went through it, replacing it a few minutes later, unenlightened. She closed the file drawer and turned to the top drawer on the other side of the desk. There, she found Paul Jarrell’s checkbook.

  Flipping through the check register, she came to one bearing a familiar name. On the first of May, Jarrell had written a check for $350 to Clay Peyton, the abrasive ENT guy she’d met at the gourmet dinner. It seemed a peculiar thing to find—since Paula Jarrell had said that Paul’s health was fine. And there was something else. She thought back to the previous night’s conversation, to when the cardiologist, Kurt Halliday, had brought up Jarrell’s death. She distinctly remembered him calling Jarrell by name. Then, Clay Peyton had joined in, pressing her hard about the circumstances that had brought her to the aquarium, not once letting on that he had known Jarrell.

  Very interesting.

  She put the checkbook back where she’d found it and made a quick inspection of the remaining drawers, which contained nothing of interest. What she wanted now was a talk with Clay Peyton.

  14

  Kit looked up Peyton’s office number in the Yellow Pages and called from Jarrell’s phone. She got a woman who said that Peyton did not see patients on Tuesdays. When asked for Peyton’s home phone number, she refused to give it, a futile gesture, since Kit found it easily in the White Pages. Peyton told her to come on over and didn’t even ask what she wanted.

  Peyton lived in a large beige stucco two-story with a clay tile roof and an oval-topped, columned portico. The house was set well back from the road and had a nice lawn. The area next to the house was landscaped with palmetto and yucca. Her ring was answered by a tall redhead wearing a pale green Scheherazade outfit with a halter that crisscrossed over her chest, leaving the lower third of her ample breasts exposed.

  Kit introduced herself. Getting no reaction of recognition, she added, “Dr. Peyton is expecting me.”

  “Oh yeah,” the woman said, her good looks ruined by a whiny voice. “He’s inna back, with his latest toy.”

  “May I see him?”

  “Inna back, I said. Follow the walk.” She shut the door.

  Kit stepped off the porch and followed the sidewalk to a small structure of similar architecture as the house. She knocked and went in without waiting for anyone to answer.

  Clay Peyton was standing on a large patch of fake grass, a golf club in his hand. On each side, he was enclosed by netting that ran from floor to ceiling. Ahead was the image of a fairway rear-projected onto a giant movie screen.

  “Ever see anything like this?” Peyton said. “Watch.”

  He teed up a ball and made a few practice approaches with his club before taking a hefty swing. The ball squibbed off the club head and smacked into the upper-right corner of the screen. The real ball fell onto the fake grass, but its image appeared on the screen exactly where the real one had hit. With the projected scene following, the imaged ball flew through the air and angled into some weeds bordering the fairway.

  “I did that to show you how the system deals with hooks and slices,” Peyton said.

  From the vessel pulsing at his temple, Kit did not believe that he had bungled the shot on purpose. Peyton leaned down and pulled at the fake grass with his fingers, coming away w
ith a piece about a foot square. He replaced it with a square of material that looked like a shag carpet. “Simulated rough,” Peyton said. “Held in place with Velcro.”

  He retrieved the ball, set it on the simulated rough, and whacked at it with a mashie or a niblik or whatever they call those clubs with the tilted metal heads. The ball hopped feebly and barely touched the screen, which shifted to show the ball still in the weeds.

  “Anyway, you get the idea,” Peyton said, the vein pulsing again.

  There were a couple of aluminum lawn chairs nearby, but Peyton did not invite her to sit. “Why’d you want to see me?”

  “I just came from Paul Jarrell’s office, where I found that last month he wrote you a check for three hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “Who’s Paul Jarrell?”

  “The man who died at the aquarium late Sunday night. Are you saying you didn’t know him?”

  “First time I ever heard the name.”

  “Kurt Halliday mentioned it last night when he was telling us all how he’d heard the story on the news.”

  “I wasn’t paying that much attention to catch the name.”

  “Why then do you suppose Jarrell wrote you a check?”

  “How the hell do I know?” The vein at his temple was throbbing furiously. “I don’t think I like the direction you’re going with this. Are you trying to implicate me in some way with this case?”

  “Not at all. I’m just trying to find out about that check.”

  “Sure, in the same way that you were just coincidentally at the aquarium Sunday night. I gotta tell you, if this is any indication of your abilities as an investigator, you’re in the wrong line of work. If you’re looking for suspicious circumstances, ask Kurt Halliday how he happened to remember the name of the guy that died after hearing it the one time on the news. Who’s able to do that? And how about the way Jordan and Halliday were looking at each other across the table at dinner. What was that all about? You want more… I’ll give you more. Ask Haley Dagget where he was Sunday night. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.”

  When the door had closed behind Kit, Peyton reset his ball on the simulated rough. With his hands gripping the club too tightly, he chopped at the ball and missed. Growling, he threw down his club, snatched up the square of simulated rough, and threw it against the door.

  On the way to her car, Kit congratulated herself for a very promising interview.

  *

  * *

  Through his receptionist, Haley Dagget agreed to squeeze Kit in for a few minutes between appointments. Arriving at his office, she found it packed with patients engaging in the usual waiting-room rituals of staring at the wallpaper and thumbing through magazines they’d never read at home. Apart from a woman whose mouth drooped noticeably on one side, they did not look like a collection of people with defective nervous systems. Their numbers seemed to back up Dagget’s boast at the gourmet dinner that he was an exceptional doctor.

  She identified herself to the nurse behind the check-in counter and was shown into Dagget’s office, with the assurance that he would be with her shortly.

  Dagget breezed in a few minutes later, equally as interesting-looking in a white coat as he had been in a tux. He extended his hand. “Hello, Kit, this is a surprise.”

  They shook hands and he went behind his desk. He sat down and folded his hands on the glass covering the desktop. “What can I do for you?”

  Knowing how her question was going to sound, Kit tried to soften the impact by setting it up with a disclaimer. “I want to ask you a question, but before I do, you should understand that I’m merely gathering background material. I’m not trying to suggest anything.”

  Dagget leaned back in his chair and folded his arms in front of him, a subconscious gesture of protection. He adopted a wary expression. “I’m listening.”

  Reluctantly, Kit pulled the pin. “Could you tell me where you were between twelve and one Sunday night?”

  Frost settled in Dagget’s cool gray eyes. “Why ever would you want to know that?”

  Realizing that she couldn’t expect anyone to answer such a question without knowing why it was being asked, Kit said, “Someone has mentioned your name in connection with the death of that fellow at the aquarium.”

  Dagget rocked forward in his chair, looking genuinely shocked. “That is absolutely ridiculous. Who mentioned my name?”

  “I can’t tell you. You should know that at this point it’s a totally unsubstantiated offhand comment. But I do have to check it out. I hope you understand.”

  Dagget seemed to relax a little. “All right… since you put it that way, but I’d still like to know who mentioned me.”

  “Sorry.” She waited for him to answer the question.

  “Sunday night… between midnight and one, you say?” His brows knitted in thought. “I was at Parkside Hospital checking on two patients I operated on earlier that day. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be at the hospital that late, especially after a day of surgery, but these were difficult cases and I was concerned about them, especially in their first few hours after coming off the table.”

  “Do you often operate on Sunday?”

  “Rarely, but these folks couldn’t wait until Monday.”

  “Would it take an hour to examine two patients?”

  “Parkside is about twenty minutes from my home. I was including the drive over and the drive back.”

  “Parkside is in Kenner, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you live in…”

  “Harahan.”

  “I see by your ring that you’re married.”

  “What does that—”

  “Your wife… she could verify the time you left and the time you returned?”

  “When I left, yes, but she was asleep when I got back. Listen, I don’t want you bothering…”

  Kit waved her hand in dismissal of his concern. “There’s no need for me to see her. You’ve told me what I needed to know. Harahan and Kenner are a long way from the aquarium. You’re covered, just as I knew you would be.” She stood up. “Sorry to have bothered you, especially with so many patients waiting.”

  Dagget stood as well. “Don’t mention it, I’m glad to have things straightened out.”

  *

  * *

  Parkside Hospital had recently fertilized all their flower beds, and the halls on the ground floor smelled of cow manure. Kit stepped up to the admissions and information window. “Could you tell me where the rooms for Dr. Dagget’s patients would be?”

  “What’s his specialty?” the clerk asked.

  “Neurosurgery.”

  “Fifth floor. The elevators are down there.”

  Kit followed a middle-aged woman carrying a potted plant onto the elevator and they rode in silence to the second floor, where they had to make room for two hundred pounds of registered nurse and a gurney carrying a toothless old woman hooked up to an IV bottle. Kit often rode with similar cargo at Charity Hospital but had never grown comfortable with being this close to a flickering life. She dealt with it now as she always did, by keeping her eyes and her mind elsewhere. On three, she and the woman with the plant had to move farther to the rear to let on two young men in incredibly wrinkled green scrubs.

  The nurses’ station on five was right in front of the elevator. Kit stepped to the counter and the young nurse behind it looked up. She was Asian and basically pretty, but with an asymmetric pout on her upper lip that gave her a permanent sneer. It seemed like something that could be fixed, but surely she would have done it if that were true. “May I speak to the head floor nurse please,” Kit said.

  The girl picked up a microphone. “Gwen Nix, please come to the nurses’ station. Gwen Nix to the nurses’ station.”

  Kit was surprised at her perfect diction.

  A short, stocky woman in white came out of a room down the hall, steamed toward them, and presented herself. Expecting from her walk that Nix would be a cold woman who believed
that a little pain never hurt anybody, Kit found herself looking into a friendly face with warm hazel eyes.

  Kit introduced herself and said, “I’m investigating a case for the New Orleans police. Is there a place where we can talk?”

  “Down here,” Nix said. She led Kit to an examining room behind the nurses’ station. Kit went in first and Nix followed, closing the door behind her and leaning against it, hands in the pockets of her lab coat.

  “When a doctor visits a patient on this floor,” Kit began, “does he sign in or anything?”

  “No. They come and go with no restrictions.”

  “If a doctor was on the floor, would you know about it?”

  “Not necessarily. They could come in while I’m busy in one of the rooms and leave without my ever having seen them. Who are we talking about?”

  “Before I mention any names, you should understand that this is just a background check. He’s not being charged with anything and, in fact, probably has nothing whatever to do with the case I’m investigating.”

  “Understood,” Nix said crisply.

  “It’s Haley Dagget. He told me that he was here Sunday night between twelve and one checking on two patients he operated on earlier in the day.”

  “The part about him having two fresh cases on the floor that night is certainly true. They’re still here and doing fine. He’s a good surgeon.”

  “Could we ask them if he was here Sunday night?”

  “First, you’d have to okay it with the chief administrator. We always try to protect our patients’ privacy. But in this case, I wouldn’t bother. They wouldn’t have been in any shape to know when or even if their doctor visited them. There may be another way, though. Wait here.”

  Nix left the room and returned shortly with two metal clipboards thick with papers. She laid one on the examining table and flipped through the sheets on the other. She studied one of the pages for a few seconds and shook her head. “No record here of a visit from Dr. Dagget.” She laid that board down and picked up the other. Finding the sheet she wanted in that one, she ran her finger down it. “Nothing here, either.” She showed Kit the page. “This is the progress chart of one of Dr. Dagget’s patients. Here you can see an entry made by one of the nurses at eleven o’clock. Here”—she slid her finger down two lines—“is another entry at one o’clock, by the same nurse. No entry by Dr. Dagget. It’s the same on the other chart.”