Bad Karma In the Big Easy

by D. J. Donaldson

  “Hi there,” she said. “I’d like the carpet in my car replaced with a green shag the color of a Leprechaun’s hat. How long would that take?”

  Broussard looked up. “Next time you see that Leprechaun, grab him for me, will you? I could use some luck.”

  “Couldn’t we all.”

  “Actually, the scales tipped a bit in my direction last night. On the way home I got a call from my friend at VICAP. They’ve identified one of the victims I told you about at the party.”

  “That is a break. What do we know about her?”

  “Her name was Jennifer Hendrin. She was a student at Louisiana Technical College in Houma. Her parents reported her missin’ thirteen months ago. I was about to head over to Thibodaux, where they live, and talk to ‘em.”

  “Forgive me for saying this, but isn’t that a bit beyond our sphere of responsibility since the evidence points to homicide?”

  “I spoke to Phillip this mornin’. Homicide is so short handed and focused on sortin’ out seven incidents where policemen shot civilians durin’ the storm they’d welcome our help. Phillip has been assigned the case and will step in when he’s able. Meanwhile, we’re to keep him informed of anything we learn.”

  Kit had never known Broussard to move so clearly beyond the defined role of a medical examiner in a case. He’d always detested murderers, but had confined his efforts to providing the forensic evidence that would bring them down. This was something different.

  Coupled with his impassioned comment at the party last night about making sure the killer of those women paid for what he did, Kit believed there was more going on here than she could see, more than Broussard simply lending Homicide a helping hand. Out of respect for his privacy, she didn’t ask for an explanation, but simply said, “Do the Hendrins know their daughter’s been found?”

  “Not yet. Police chief over there thought he could get someone out to tell ‘em later today. I can’t wait that long.”

  “So you’re going to do it.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then who...?” Suddenly getting it, she threw up her hands. “Oh no. Yesterday, I had to tell Jude Marshall’s brother and wife about him. I like to spread that sort of thing out. Say, do it twice every lifetime. Oh, that means I’m all caught up. How do you know someone will even be home? It could be an hour’s drive for nothing.”

  “Chief in Thibodaux said her father’s an architect who works out of his house.”

  “Doesn’t mean they’ll be there. Call now and see.”

  “Can’t do that without gettin’ into what we know. Rather not tell ‘em that kind of news over the phone.”

  “Sometimes you can be sooo stubborn.”

  “Like someone else I know. Help me out here. This requires a woman’s touch. I need you.”

  Kit had so much respect for Broussard, she regularly longed to hear him say things like that. Technically, all he’d just said was he needed a woman’s touch, not specifically hers. But it was close enough. “Okay... I’ll do it.”

  He handed her a manila envelope. “Here’s a copy of the report that was filled out when the Hendrins contacted the police about their missin’ daughter. The Houma PD sent it over electronically a few minutes ago. I just printed it out. You can read it on the way. Won’t take long. It’s pretty sketchy.”

  Kit accepted the folder. “They didn’t send any notes of the subsequent investigation?”

  “They been havin’ some computer problems. Said we’re lucky to have that.”

  Riding somewhere with Broussard meant Kit could see in detail the technique he used to get so much bulk into such a little car. But it was always like watching a great illusionist. You saw the results, but had no idea how the trick was done. Securely wedged now behind the wheel, Broussard plucked two cellophane-wrapped lemon balls from his shirt pocket and offered one to Kit. He used to carry unwrapped ones he bought in bulk, but after realizing she found those unsanitary, he’d begun carrying imported wrapped ones just for her. With that history, how could she not take one when offered? Thus, they got underway each with similar lemony bulges in one cheek.

  “Did the Houma PD send over any pictures of this girl?” Kit said when she’d finished reading the report a few minutes later.

  “They did. I just didn’t print ‘em.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Blonde... attractive.”

  “There’s no mention in here of her pregnancy. Wonder if her parents even knew about it?”

  “We’ll ask ‘em.”

  KATRINA, AND LATER, RITA had each dealt Thibodaux only a glancing blow. Even so, the storms knocked down a lot of trees and left a number of homes with damaged roofs now covered with blue tarps. The Hendrins lived in a two story red brick Georgian with an oval portico. Their roof and all their trees appeared intact, but the obviously professional landscaping was very unkempt and overgrown. It looked like a place of sorrow so great living with the pain was a full time job.

  “I’ll ring the bell and do the introductions,” Broussard said as they stepped up onto the porch. “Then you take over. Ready?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He pressed the doorbell and from inside they could hear a two note chime.

  Kit hadn’t yet decided what she was about to say, so she spent the time waiting, going over a few more possibilities.

  They heard a key turning. The door opened and a nicely dressed matronly woman with silver hair and sloping, heavily-lidded eyes looked out at them through the storm door.

  “Good Mornin’,” Broussard said. “I’m Dr. Broussard and this is Dr. Franklyn. We’re from the Orleans Parish medical examiner’s office. I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.”

  Her face sagged noticeably. She opened the storm door. “Is it about my daughter?”

  Broussard looked at Kit.

  “May we come in?” Kit asked.

  The woman moved back and opened the door.

  As they stepped inside, a voice came from a room beyond the French doors off the foyer. “Who was at the...”

  A balding man with double dark bags under his eyes appeared in the interior doorway.

  “James,” the woman said, emotions flickering over her face like candle light. “It’s about Jennifer.” Her lower lip began to quiver. “They said it’s bad news.”

  James turned and disappeared. As he departed he said, “I don’t want to hear this.”

  The woman went after him, but remained where Kit and Broussard could see her. She called out angrily to her husband. “James... you will not make me bear this alone. Come back here.”

  She stared in the direction her husband had gone. Soon, he joined her and wrapped his arms around her. They stood there hugging each other for a long time, while Kit and Andy waited patiently for them to gather the strength to continue. Finally, they released each other and turned to hear what else had to be said.

  “We should all sit down,” the woman said. “Sitting would be better.”

  Andy and Kit followed her and her husband across a large reception hall decorated with French gilded furniture and fake palm trees into a comfortable parlor with the feel of a fine English antique shop. The woman motioned Andy and Kit into matching striped chairs on either side of a huge mahogany secretary. The couple then sat together holding hands on one end of a long sofa upholstered in a nappy red fabric. The room smelled of dust and felt as though it had not held any occupants for a very long time. To Kit the entire place reeked of hopelessness and she imagined that the private parts of the house were a shambles.

  The woman spoke first. “You haven’t actually said the words. We’re ready now.”

  Kit responded. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Jennifer is dead.” Inwardly, Kit cringed. After considering dozens of ways it might be said, she’d decided simple and direct was the best. Hearing the words aloud, her choice seemed cold.

  James threw his head back and closed his eyes. His wife just stared at Kit. Oddly, her eyes
were dry. But there was no mistaking her grief.

  She took a breath, then said, “Do you remember that film, I forget the title, where this entire town has no color in it? All the houses, the people, everything in it is black and white. Then these two kids arrive and gradually transform the place, so that things start to have color, just a little at a time, until finally the whole place is vibrant and beautiful. That’s how Jennifer was. Until she arrived we were black and white. She brought us color.”

  As Kit looked at the sad couple, she could almost see the color drain away from them, not just from their faces, but even their clothes and the sofa they sat on, seemed to fade to gray.

  “She must have been a wonderful girl,” Kit said.

  James wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “How did she die?”

  This part was going to be even harder. Since the direct approach hadn’t worked so great a moment ago, Kit chose to camouflage the truth. “It appears her life was taken.”

  “I don’t understand,” James said. “What does that mean?”

  Now she had to deliver. “Indications are she was murdered.”

  The news seemed to accelerate the color sink around the grieving couple.

  “Who would do such a thing?” James said.

  “We don’t know,” Broussard chimed in. “But I aim to find out.”

  “Where was she found?” James asked.

  “In a pile of brush that collected in New Orleans floodwaters.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t drown?”

  “Positive.”

  “Then how...?”

  “That’s less clear.”

  “When did it happen?”

  Broussard leaned forward, put his forearms on his thighs, and folded his hands. “I don’t know.”

  James shot to his feet. “What the hell do you know? You come in here and tell us our daughter’s dead, our only child, and you can’t answer any questions about what happened. Why should we even believe she’s really dead?”

  “Mr. Hendrin,” Kit said. “Don’t take refuge in our ignorance about the circumstances. That’ll just hurt you more and keep the wound fresh.”

  “You don’t know anything about me. What makes you think I could hurt more?”

  “Sit down, dear,” Mrs, Hendrin said, putting her hand gently on her husband’s arm. “They’re just trying to help.”

  Reluctantly, James returned to the sofa. “I’m not asking you to tell me the exact minute she died, or the hour. I can understand how that might be difficult to determine. The day... what’s your best guess as to the day?”

  Broussard looked him in the eye. “Mr. Hendrin, in murder cases, there are always facts that must be withheld, so when a suspect is taken into custody, those unreleased details can be used to determine if the suspect is guilty. Sometimes they help to obtain a confession. In this instance, one of the facts in that category has caused us to have no idea at all when your daughter died.”

  “Are you saying Jennifer’s body was...”

  Broussard interrupted. “Please don’t probe me about me that. As I tried to explain, I can’t talk about it.”

  “I have to know... was she... complete?”

  Broussard hesitated. Then, seeing the haunted look in James Hendrin’s eyes, he caved a bit. “She was complete.”

  To help get the conversation off that sensitive point, Kit said, “Do you feel up to answering a few questions about Jennifer that might help the investigation?”

  “I think we’d rather be alone right now,” Mrs. Hendrin said.

  “I do understand, but the quicker we talk, the sooner we can find the person who took her life.”

  “Then we’ll talk,” James said. Apparently anticipating an objection from his wife he looked hard at her. “We will talk.” He turned to Kit. “What do you want to know?”

  “I understand from the missing persons report that she was attending Louisiana Technical School in Houma at the time she disappeared.”

  “It was actually a month before she was to begin her second year. She wanted to be a practical nurse. Some would say she was setting her sights too low. In fact, a few people we thought were our friends have said it, right to our faces. I didn’t see it that way. She was doing what she wanted, and it was an honorable ambition.”

  “She had her own apartment in Houma...”

  “Yes. She wanted to be independent. She could have commuted, but she wouldn’t hear of it. And wouldn’t take any money from us. Wanted to earn her own way. That’s the kind of child we have...” His face fell as he considered the verb tense he’d used. “... The kind of child we... had.” His eyes became vacant as he looked inward. Under his breath he said, “But we don’t have her any more... not any more...”

  “How often did you see her when she lived in Houma?” Kit asked.

  James was still lost somewhere inside himself and didn’t seem to hear the question. So his wife answered.

  “At least once a week. She’d always come to Sunday dinner. And sometimes I’d drive over to Houma and we’d go shopping.” Now her eyes glazed over. Voice dropping almost to a whisper, she said, “I didn’t know it then, but those were some of the best times in our lives.”

  “Then you knew about her pregnancy.”

  Mrs. Hendrin didn’t appear to hear the question, but it snapped her husband out of his conversational vacation. “Unselfish, that’s what it was. Sure, she got paid for it, but the service she provided some lucky couple was worth far more than what she earned.”

  “You didn’t mention any of that to the police...”

  “It didn’t seem pertinent. They were mostly interested in ways to identify her. She had the child three weeks before she went missing. So that was no longer a part of her. And she hardly gained any weight from it. Still looked like her pictures. Were we wrong to leave that out?”

  “Not at all. But I am curious about it now. You’re probably aware she had to undergo some hormonal preparation in order to be implanted...”

  Mrs. Hendrin had apparently rejoined the proceedings, because she nodded and said, “She mentioned that.”

  “Do you know where she went for the treatments?”

  “Somewhere not far away, I think,” Mrs. Hendrin said.

  “Can you remember the name of the place?”

  Mrs. Hendrin searched her mind. “I don’t think Jennifer ever said.” She looked at James. “Did she?”

  “I never heard her say so. I would have remembered. It was a fine thing she did for them though. I know that. A fine thing...”

  Kit said, “The report mentions that Jennifer’s best friend was Cindy Babineaux. Do you think she would know where the clinic is?”

  “I have no idea,” Mrs. Hendrin said. “But they did a lot of things together. Jennifer may have spoken to her about it.”

  “There was no address or phone number for Cindy in the report. Do you have either of those?”

  “We never knew them, or we would have given them to the police. But now that you ask, I think Jennifer once mentioned that Cindy worked for a vet in Houma.”

  “Do you recall which one?”

  “It had something to do with a nursery rhyme...” Mrs. Hendrin bowed her head and looked at the floor, as though the name was stitched somewhere into the carpet. “Jack Horner veterinary,” she said, lifting her head.

  “There was no mention of a boyfriend in the report...”

  “Pretty as she was, she didn’t date much,” Mrs. Hendrin said. “Probably because her standards were so high. Young men these days have a lot wrong with them.”

  “You’ve got to catch the person who did this,” James said. “He took our little girl... ripped the heart out of our lives. People shouldn’t be allowed to do that.” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I can’t talk about this any more. I’m sorry.” He got up and left the room.

  “We need to be alone now,” Mrs. Hendrin said.

  “Of course,” Kit said, standing.

  “Whe
n can we pick up our daughter’s... remains... for the funeral?”

  Broussard struggled out of his chair. “There are some details yet to be arranged. I’ll call you as soon as they’re complete. I’m so sorry to have brought you such pain.”

  “You didn’t,” Mrs. Hendrin said. “Jennifer’s killer did that.”

  “WHY AREN’T YOU READY to release the body?” Kit asked Broussard when they reached the car.

  “There’s somethin’ about it that bothers me and I can’t figure out what. I want a little more time to think about it.” He started the car and they set out for Houma to find Cindy Babineaux.

  “I feel so bad for the Hendrins,” Kit said a few minutes later. “But at the same time I envy them, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The love they had for their daughter... What happened was horrible, but to have experienced that kind of bond with a life you brought into the world. There can’t be another feeling like that.”

  “Maybe not just like it, but there are many kinds of love.”

  This was not a subject Kit had ever heard Broussard expound upon. And she was greatly interested in what he had to say, mostly because over the years, she had grown to love him like a father. She was pretty sure he thought of her as the daughter he’d never had. Otherwise, why would he have started carrying cellophane-wrapped lemon balls just for her, instead of those old dirty ones that used to rattle around in his pocket with all the lint? Why had he gone so far out of his way to restore her confidence after she’d been humiliated by those two bottom-feeding kidnappers? The time he had her office painted to make her feel wanted... that was significant. And she wasn’t the only one to sense his feelings for her. Even that killer who left scrabble letters on his victims had gone after her because he wanted to take someone Broussard loved.

  But none of those events proved anything. They were merely signs subject to interpretation. What she needed was to hear it directly from the source. Today, seemed like the day that might finally happen.

  She waited a moment for him to follow up on his comment about there being many kinds of love, but he gave no indication he had any intention of continuing.

  Pressing the issue, she said, “It’s customary when one puts forth such a statement as you just did, to provide some examples.”