Sleeping With the Crawfish

by D. J. Donaldson

  In any event, the food wasn’t an issue on this flight because the plane covered what would have been an all-day car trip in less than an hour, seemingly starting its approach to the Memphis airport practically as soon as it had reached cruising altitude.

  Broussard wanted to get his inquiry under way before Hunter was buried. Fortunately, the funeral had been delayed until three o’clock today to accommodate Hunter’s brother, who was flying in from New Zealand. That had allowed Broussard to avoid coming up here on the weekend, when nobody would have been where they were supposed to be. Still, that decision had left him with a small window of opportunity.

  As soon as they reached the gate and the seat belt light flicked off, he claimed his forensic satchel and flight bag from the overhead and made for the terminal.

  Inside, he scanned the few people obviously waiting to greet arrivals, looking for a man who fit Gatlin’s description of his friend in Homicide.

  To his right was a couple in their eighties. On his left, two teenage girls stood distinctly apart from a young man clutching a bouquet of spring flowers. A Rubenesque woman nicely dressed in a black jersey pullover under a gray plaid blazer with matching slacks waited by the newspaper racks. No homicide detective.

  Thinking he ought to stay by the gate for at least a few minutes before concluding his contact wasn’t coming, he headed for a spot where he’d be out of the way.

  “Are you Dr. Broussard?”

  Turning, he saw that it was the woman in the plaid outfit. He acknowledged his identity.

  “I’m Sergeant Noell, Memphis Homicide.” She offered no hand. “Lieutenant Garza intended to meet you, but something important has come up, so I’m to be your liaison while you’re here.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t. As the only woman in the squad, I generally get the details no one else wants. To put it in terms my male colleagues might, you’ve been lateraled off. They’re big on football analogies. Are those your only bags?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. It takes forever for luggage to get to the claims area. Come on.”

  Broussard was not in the market for a woman. He didn’t window-shop for them or engage in fantasies about those he saw on the street. He was a self-contained man who found all the satisfaction he needed in good food, fine wine, old master oil paintings, Louis L’ Amour novels, shoes that didn’t make his feet sweat, and making sense out of death. Women were not part of his life. But when he’d first seen Noell by the newspapers, he’d felt a puff of interest against his sails. Hearing her sharp tongue, that little breath moved on.

  She was a fast walker, and when they got to her car, Broussard was puffing. He dumped his bags in the trunk.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “The Peabody.”

  “Hope you like ducks.” She got into the car and unlocked his door.

  When he was inside and settled, she said, “Garza gave me a little background on what you want to do while you’re here. You understand we don’t have any file on this death, don’t you?”

  “Since it was ruled natural causes, I didn’t think you would. And I believe he lived and died in Mississippi, which means it’s out of your jurisdiction, anyway.”

  “That’s where my remarks were headed. Just so you realize we can’t demand anything over there. We can ask and that’s all.”

  “Believe me, I know what you mean.”

  “This guy lived in Coldwater, which is about twenty-five miles south. Your hotel is ten miles north. You want to see where the body was found before you check in?”

  “I’d like to talk to the coroner who handled the case.”

  Noell shook her head. “Can’t . . . at least not face-to-face. He had to go down to Belzoni to check on construction of some new ponds for his catfish farm. Thought he’d be back late tomorrow. But I talked to him before he left and he filled me in. I would have gotten you a copy of his death report, but he hadn’t written it yet.”

  “You’re very efficient.”

  “For a woman you mean?”

  “I’ve found that, like ineptitude, neither sex has a monopoly on competence.”

  “You’re a man ahead of his time. Death scene or hotel?”

  “Death scene.”

  She started the engine and backed out of the parking space. At the collection booth, she shook off the five he offered and they were soon on the expressway, headed for Coldwater.

  Accustomed to living below sea level and being surrounded by swamp, Broussard found the Tennessee and Mississippi countrysides dry and dull. And without Spanish moss in them, the trees here looked incomplete. He suspected that to get crawfish on the dinner table, they had to be imported.

  Shortly before they reached Coldwater, his opinion of the area rose as they passed a stretch of swamp that bordered both sides of the highway. There were even some cypress trees in it, though they bore no moss.

  But the swamp didn’t last and the highway again was flanked by cornfields and pasture. Noell left the highway at an exit marked by a stand of fine old pine trees and continued on a two-lane country road. After a mile or so, they turned onto an even more rural road, which wound through a sparsely populated area of hills and valleys that harbored hobby farms with a few horses and occasionally some cows. The only water here was in ponds formed by damming the outlet of a valley, resulting in muddy little pools reliant on runoff to keep them filled. Their numbers showed that even people who don’t live in Louisiana long for the water. Not many vehicles passed, but whenever one did, the occupants waved.

  A small woods came up on their left. “The house where the deceased lived is just beyond these trees,” Noell said.

  When they cleared the woods, Broussard saw quite a different setting from the rugged rural simplicity enjoyed by Hunter’s neighbors. For at least a quarter of a mile ahead and a couple hundred yards deep, the road was flanked by what looked like a park. Sitting royally in the center of this verdant oasis, like a pearl on a velvet cushion, was a large-columned antebellum home.

  “Looks like professors do all right here,” Broussard said.

  “I hear his wife’s an investment banker. That’s probably where the house came from. It’s the oldest in the county. The columns are hexagons. The story is that when the Union army came through here, the owner hid in one of them for three days.”

  “Good thing they weren’t Sherman’s troops.”

  “I hate Sherman for what he did to southern architecture. It’s a damn disgrace.”

  Because her views on this subject paralleled his own, Broussard moved her to a higher position on the multiphasic personality profile he was constructing of her.

  There were four late-model cars in the home’s circular driveway, all freshly washed—friends and relatives gathering to say good-bye to Anthony Hunter and comfort his wife.

  Once they’d passed the house, Noell gave the car a little more juice. They drove only for another minute, that time taking them beyond the far border of Hunter park and into unkempt terrain.

  She pulled off the road onto the weedy shoulder. “He was found right here—facedown, stiff as a carp, one leg in the road.”

  “What time did this happen?”

  “A little after six A.M. He ran two miles every morning before breakfast.”

  “So he’d come directly from home?”

  “That’s my understanding. He’d been gone about thirty minutes when his wife got a knock on the door from a neighbor who’d found him.”

  Broussard’s brow furrowed. “You said ‘stiff as a carp.’ Is that right? He was in rigor?”

  “Well, I don’t actually know if he was when the neighbor found him, but the coroner said he was when he got there around seven-thirty. I know that seems kind of quick for rigor to begin, but didn’t I hear somewhere that physical exertion immediately before death hastens its onset?”

  “That’s true. How was he dressed?”

  “Jogging shorts, sweatshirt, runni
ng shoes.”

  “How’d this fish farmer coroner decide it was a heart attack?”

  “He didn’t see any gunshot or stab wounds, so he figured, guy drops dead jogging. What do you think?”

  “Did he make this decision on the spot? I mean, did he take the body anywhere and examine it unclothed or get medical input?”

  “Decided right here.”

  “Makin’ a judgment like that by lookin’ over your thumb leaves room for mistakes. Do you know what funeral home has the body?”

  “It’s in Memphis.”

  “Mind takin’ me over there?”

  “You’re what I’m doing today.”

  Thirty-five minutes later, they were waiting for someone to answer the bell at the back door of a sprawling white building accented with a lot of Chinese Chippendale fretwork. After a short delay, the door was opened by a bearded young man in a blue scrub suit.

  Noell flashed her shield. “I’m Sergeant Noell, Memphis Homicide, and this is Dr. Broussard, the New Orleans medical examiner. We’d like to talk to you about the body of Anthony Hunter.”

  “You don’t want to talk to me,” the guy said. “You want Janie. Come on.”

  Broussard and Noell followed him through a cold-looking room whose walls and floor were covered with pale green ceramic tile and then into a carpeted hallway. After running a rat maze that allowed them some quick looks at the public part of the funeral home, they were led through a door into a restricted area marked FUNERAL HOME ASSOCIATES ONLY.

  Here, the world was gray, and except for the hum of a small pump and the voice of a woman who seemed to be on the phone, the room was underlain by a cottony hush.

  Their guide ducked his head into an open doorway to the right. “Janie, when you’re finished, there are some people out here to see you.” Then to Broussard and Noell, he said, “She’ll be with you in a minute. Sorry we don’t have any chairs. Most people who end up back here can’t sit. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some work to do.”

  He went to a nearby gurney and began dressing the corpse of a slim white man whose lower torso and legs were in such a state of decomposition, it had been necessary to outfit him with a pair of plastic pants and booties to make sure leaking fluid wouldn’t soil his clothing. In contrast to his damaged body, the cadaver’s face looked healthier than most living men his age.

  Just beyond Janie’s office was a large room with a wide doorway, through which Broussard could see another man in blue scrubs working at a porcelain table. He was using a long trochar to probe the body cavities of an obese white male. As the probe found the various liquid-filled viscera and punctured them, their contents went down the drain via a large transparent plastic container holding four inches of red fluid topped by a pink froth.

  Meanwhile, the fellow dressing the body slipped a pair of socks over the plastic covering the cadaver’s feet. He then slit a pair of pants from the waist to the crotch and threaded them over the legs. He cut a T-shirt up the back and down the arms and placed it over the chest. Noticing a weeping abrasion on the cadaver’s neck, he removed the T-shirt and sprayed the spot with a liquid adhesive. He briefly fanned the abrasion with a piece of cardboard, then, satisfied with the result, resumed his duties as valet to the dead.

  Beyond the cadaver being dressed lay four more, partially under sheets, their gray-haired heads facing the far wall, blocks under their necks. To their right, on a gurney turned sideways, another cadaver was all dressed and ready to go. Instead of a sedate dark suit befitting the sad occasion, he was wearing a yellow shirt, a bright green sport coat, brown pants, and white shoes. He hadn’t yet been posed for viewing, so his feet were widely parted and his arms were spread at his sides. The total effect was so surreal and unexpected that before the thought could be screened, Broussard pictured him as a huge St. Patrick’s Day balloon. It was such a disrespectful, uncharacteristic thing to have done, it made Broussard ashamed of himself.

  As he was dealing with this, Janie finished her phone call and came out to meet them.

  Broussard had expected an older woman whose skin had been pickled by all the fixatives she had to work around. But she was young and pretty, with a soft complexion that couldn’t be produced by even the skill of those who could make the dead appear to be merely resting. It was apparent from Noell’s introductory remarks to Janie that they hadn’t previously met. After telling her who Broussard was, Noell let him take over.

  “Janie, I understand you have the body of a man named Anthony Hunter.”

  “He’s upstairs.”

  “I realize this man’s death certificate says he died of natural causes, but some facts have come to light in New Orleans to make me think that judgment may be wrong. Would it be possible for me to examine the body?”

  “You don’t mean just step up and look at it.”

  “No. I was hopin’ I could see it unclothed.”

  “Well, that’s just not possible. I’ve got the family and friends coming in here this afternoon, and he’s already up there waiting for them. And I’ve got more to do here than I can handle. I just can’t help you.”

  “It’s possible this man was murdered,” Noell said. “Do you want a murderer to go unpunished?”

  “It happens all the time,” Janie said, “for one reason or another. You want to examine him, dig him up.” She turned to Broussard. “I don’t even know you. You don’t have any jurisdiction here. Show me a legal paper.”

  “Could I at least see the embalmin’ report?” Broussard asked.

  Janie thought about this for a moment, then turned and went back into her office.

  Broussard looked at Noell to see if she knew what this meant, but she merely shrugged. Before they had to make any decision about it, Janie came back out of the office and handed Broussard the report he’d requested.

  The entry that interested him, a description of any wounds on the body, was near the top. But it listed only some small stone punctures on the forehead and a scrape on the left knee, all of which were surely acquired as Hunter fell. He glanced over the rest of the form, then looked at Janie. “The only wounds you’ve listed were on the forehead and one knee. Was that all you saw?”

  “If that’s what I wrote down, that’s it.”

  Broussard was not sure what to do now. He hadn’t wanted to talk to Hunter’s wife without at least one fact to support his suspicion that Hunter’s death had been engineered. He obviously wasn’t going to find that here.

  He handed the report back to Janie with his thanks and added, “I’m not sure we can find our way out.”

  The fellow with the beard volunteered to help and the three of them filed back into the hall. Before they’d gone ten feet, the door to the embalming area opened and Janie stepped into the hall, her face flushed.

  “I . . . I just remembered. There was a wound I didn’t write on the report. Don’t know how I could have forgotten.”

  Eagerly, Broussard went back to hear what she had to say. The others followed.

  “After I took off his right shoe and his sock, I found a bandage on the sole of his foot. It covered a small skin puncture.”

  “Was the gauze on the bandage bloodstained?” Broussard asked, trying to ascertain how deep the wound went.

  “A little.”

  “Exactly where on the sole was this wound?”

  “Just behind the middle two toes.”

  “Do you still have the shoes he was wearin’?”

  “We gave them to his wife when she came in last night for a private viewing.”

  Broussard thanked her again and he and Noell followed their guide to the back door.

  On the way to the car, Noell said, “Coldwater again, right?”

  “Afraid so.”

  When they were under way, Noell said, “It’s funny, I’ve been in Homicide six years and have seen over a hundred dead bodies. But the first time it really sank in that we’re all headed that way was last summer on a tour I took of England. We stopped at the cemetery where Win
ston Churchill is buried. He’s not in Westminster Abbey like you’d think, but in a little churchyard in a sleepy out-of-the way village where they mow the grass with a hand mower. He doesn’t have a big fancy monument, just a minimal little marker in the grass. The inscription doesn’t even mention he was prime minister. There was something about that simplicity that hammered me. He was a historical figure, yet there he was under our feet, his stone saying little more than that he lived and he died. I thought about it for weeks, trying to figure out why the deaths I see in my job don’t affect me like that.”

  “What did you decide?”

  “That I’ve been hardened. I can’t even remember my first case or how I felt about it. You’d have to be a prime minister now before your death would affect me. I don’t like that.”

  Remembering his own reaction to the corpse in the green jacket, Broussard said, “I’m havin’ the same trouble.”

  13

  A dark-haired woman in a black silk dress opened the door. She phoned in a smile and waited for an explanation.

  Noell repeated the routine she’d given Janie at the funeral home, and then it was Broussard’s turn.

  “We’re lookin’ for Mrs. Hunter.”

  “I’m Val Hunter.” Her smile wavered.

  “Mrs. Hunter, I know this is a bad time for you, but there are some questions about your husband’s death. . . .”

  “What kind of questions?”

  From behind her, a female voice said, “Val, Dad’s blood sugar is low and he’s getting the shakes. He needs to eat.”

  Val looked over her shoulder. “There’s all kinds of food in the kitchen from the neighbors. You all go on and help yourselves. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  When she looked back at Broussard, he attempted to answer her question. “There’s a chance your husband’s death wasn’t natural.”

  “Not natural,” Val repeated. She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Someone may have caused it.”

  “How do you cause a heart attack?”

  “It may not have been a heart attack.”

  “Could you please get to the point. I’m not up for this.”