Dead Duck

by Micheal Maxwell

As the group continued to take in the scene, one of the members of the Forensics team carefully stepped out of the overgrowth of weeds, brambles, and briars behind the tree. His partner followed closely behind.

  “We’ve cast one footprint we found,” the lead guy said. “But I can already tell that it’s probably going to belong to this guy. It’s a footprint, not a shoe print. The heel is pretty much perfect.”

  “Try as we might, we were unable to find any duck footprints,” his partner said.

  Flynt laughed at this right away. As he hiccupped his laugh out, he looked to Steele and Sankaran to make sure he wasn’t the only one. But they were merely smiling.

  “You guys call for the firetruck?” Steele asked.

  “Didn’t need to. Someone at the precinct already did it. It should be here any moment now. Of course, the truck won’t make it down here. A few fighters will probably just bring a ladder down the trail.”

  “This place will be a circus before too long,” Steele commented.

  “This guy could be an acrobat,” Flynt said, testing the waters of humor.

  “Maybe”, Sankaran said. “Though, not a very good one.”

  Flynt laughed again. He knew it was no laughing matter, but he also knew that sometimes he must laugh to keep a morbid scene from twisting into something dark and dreary in his mind. It was a trick Bill, his old partner, taught him.

  “Sankaran, are you okay to hang out here until the fire crew shows up?” Steele asked. “Flynt and I need to head onto campus to get contact information for Carson Butler.”

  “I can handle it. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

  Flynt tried to quickly piece together a joke about the feathers and how maybe the victim could fly away. But before he could come up with anything, Steele was waving him on. Flynt gave Sankaran a wave goodbye and then followed his partner back down the trail just as the sound of an approaching fire engine started to blare from somewhere nearby.

  * * *

  The small community college was built in the mid-sixties and looked it. In the last fifty years haphazard attempts to upgrade the central office were limited to industrial, ocean mist green paint, and new Formica countertops. It looked old and tired, and in need of a studs-deep remodel. The registrar’s office was at the end of a long hallway in the administrative building. A plastic sign next to the door read, Student Services – Registrar.

  It was only 8:47, but the place was fully open and running. The student services office smelled of coffee and an overworked Xerox machine. Three women worked behind the paneled counter. It showed the wear of thousands of students who impatiently kicked the bottom as they waited to enroll, get transcripts, or hand in a request for a grade change.

  Sitting at the counter was a woman that looked like she was installed at the same time as the counter. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. Then, perhaps because of their dour faces or the way they were dressed she seemed to understand who they were. And, as such, why they were there. “Detectives? Police?”

  “Detectives,” Steele said. He held up his badge.

  “Word is already getting around. Someone was found dead on one of those wooded trails. Terrible, just terrible.”

  “It is,” Steele said.

  “Not great for the duck, either,” Flynt added.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Steele said before Flynt could respond. “Ma’am, I’m going to need to get that young man’s contact information. I need to give you the name, of course. For now, I am going to ask that you be extremely discreet and not give the name to anyone else. I imagine it will get out within a few hours, but I need you to keep it to yourself. If you don’t feel you can do that, I need to have someone else help me.”

  “I understand,” the woman said. She leaned forward and asked: “What is the student’s name?”

  “Carson Butler.”

  “Yes, sir.” Like an oft beaten dog, the woman lowered her head and typed the name into the computer.

  Under the counter came the whirring of a printer. The woman retrieved a single sheet of paper and pushed it across the counter toward Steele.

  “On behalf of the faculty and students of Puta Gorda Community College, please express our sincerest condolences to the family of the dearly departed.” She looked up at the detectives with sorrow that was either genuine or the result of exceptionally good acting skills.

  “Tell me,” Steele said. “Would it be any trouble to print out his class schedule and any sort of extracurricular activities?”

  “We really aren’t supposed to.”

  “I understand that. But, with all due respect, what will I do with them? The student in question is already dead. This information could potentially help me find out why. If you can’t do it now, we’ll just have to go to people over us and have them call or pay a visit. You’ll end up giving it out anyway. Please…just save us the time and trouble.”

  The woman frowned, sighed, and then typed something else into the computer. Again, the printer whirred and she handed a sheet of paper over to Steele. He eyed the paper quickly, only glancing over it. Butler was enrolled in three classes and was also a member of the Puta Gorda Community College football team.

  “Thank you,” Steele said.

  “Detectives? Do we…I mean, should we be afraid?”

  “I don’t believe so, though it’s too early to know for sure.”

  They exited the student services office and headed back out into the hallways of the school.

  “Did you like college?” Flynt asked.

  “Hated it. But I blasted through it and managed to get my Bachelor’s in just four semesters. Would have been out sooner than that if it weren’t for American Lit.”

  “Like Shakespeare?”

  “Shakespeare wasn’t American.”

  “Oh,” Flynt said. Then he asked: “Shakespeare or Hemingway?”

  “I’m not a reader…so whoever had more movies made from their books.”

  Steele kept the frustration to himself as they made their way back out to the parking lot. As they got into their car, he saw that Sankaran was right. There were currently three firefighters carrying a long ladder across the other end of the parking lot, onto the trail. The gathered crowd behind the crime scene tape oohed and aahed.

  Steele started the car and peeled out of there, hoping to get to the family before any terribly exaggerated news could.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As far as Steele was concerned, there was only one thing worse than having to shoot and kill someone in his line of work…and that was informing a family that one of their loved ones just died. He and Flynt needed to live through those twenty minutes after leaving the college. Steele must hand it to Flynt; as socially awkward as the man was, there was something soft and accommodating about him. When they broke the news to Carson Butler’s mother, Flynt’s sympathy came off in waves. Steele had never seen anything quite like it.

  The mother’s name was Gardenia Butler. When they knocked on the door at 9:22, she was smoking a cigarette and carrying a comically oversized coffee mug. Her hair was dyed jet black, which made her pale skin look almost translucent. The bright red lipstick only added to the ghoulish appearance. It almost made Steele think of the Elvira TV hostess from the early 80s, only Gardenia didn’t have the figure. Fifteen minutes after she invited them inside—and fourteen minutes after they broke the news of her son’s death—Gardenia was lighting up her third cigarette since. The butts of the other two floated in her coffee cup.

  She owned a small dog, an ugly little Pekinese that yapped constantly. Gardenia insisted he was usually quiet, but he was just upset to hear her crying. Steele wasn’t a pet guy and that dog was making a noise so annoying that it made his fingers itch for his gun.

  While Gardenia Butler cried, sobbed, and wailed, Steele stood as stoically as he could beside her. Flynt knelt on the floor in front of her, offering his shoulder whenever she needed it to cry on. Steele was worried his partner’s hair would catch
on fire as Gardenia puffed away her grief. Steele observed the living room as he waited for the woman to catch her breath and thoughts. He understood grief, as he experienced a great deal of it himself, but the professional in him also knew there was a job to do.

  He looked at the pictures on the walls. There were a lot of them. Some of them were of dogs and cats, scrawny and beaten-looking specimens looking expectantly at the camera. But there were family pictures, too. He saw Gardenia standing with a tall goth-looking girl in front of a college admissions office. The girl with the raven black hair which, Steele assumed, was either in mockery or admiration of her mother. There was also a teenaged boy wearing a cowboy hat, thumb tucked into the pocket of his jeans while he gave an odd stare into the camera.

  A cowboy wanna-be and a goth seductress, Steele thought. Must make for interesting Thanksgivings.

  He saw pictures of Gardenia Butler posed with animals and behind the counter of a place that, according to a placard behind it, was Easton Hills Veterinary Center. A chain-smoking fifty-something woman with a goth daughter and a cowboy son. No husband in any of the pictures. She worked with animals, apparently. The house smelled like a blend of an old bar where smoking was not only allowed but encouraged and the back room of a vet’s office. He wondered if Carson Butler lived here or elsewhere in the city.

  As Steele looked around, he heard Flynt speaking. “Is there anyone we can call for you?”

  Gardenia, managing to take a deep breath and speak rationally for the first time since Steele broke the news, shook her head. “No. No one to call. Not yet. His brother and sister will want to know, but…God. I don’t even know how to—”

  “Where are they?” Flynt asked.

  “Raven is in college,” she said. “UCLA. Malachi is a junior in high school. I have to tell them. Oh God, I have to tell them…”

  Steele sensed another bout of weeping coming on. He hated to do the jerk thing, but he knew he needed to keep her on track before she broke down again. “No extended family? No husband?”

  “No. Their father left home five years ago with a little tramp ten years younger than him. He hasn’t spoken to any of his children in over two years. And there’s no other family, not really. Their uncle on their father’s side lives in Texas somewhere, but he hasn’t seen them in at least six or seven years. No grandparents, no…”

  “Ma’am,” Steele said. “I can’t imagine how difficult this is, but the quicker we get some answers, the better chance we have of finding who did this.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. There was steel in her voice beneath the devastating sorrow.

  “Do you know of anyone at all that held a grudge against your son?”

  Her face wrinkled up and contorted a bit as she shook her head. “No. But I don’t know much about his social life. He moved out last year when he started college.”

  “Were you on good terms?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I saw him three times a week.”

  “But he never mentioned any friends?”

  “No.” She thought about this for a moment and then added, “My God, I guess I didn’t know my son at all.”

  Flynt patted her hand. He gave Steele a look that indicated he thought his partner was pushing a bit too hard. Steele ignored Flynt’s accusing look and continued on.

  “Just a few more questions.” Steele stared as Gardenia Butler was currently lighting up another cigarette. “We found out today that your son was on the community college football team. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, I knew that. Saw him play a few weeks ago.”

  The dog kept yammering from the back of the house. Steele wondered when the other officers would be here to relieve them. There was usually an officer on most police units that specialized in sitting with people after being told a loved one was dead. Steele wasn’t sure who that person was on their force but he knew for sure it was not him. Although, it did seem Flynt possessed a knack for it.

  The dog continued to bark. Steele could easily envision himself putting a bullet into it. He sighed, nearly choked on the cigarette smoke, and got to his feet. He was getting antsy and anxious. He wanted to get out there, he needed to find answers, and he could not watch this poor woman’s heartbreak over the tragic loss of her son much longer.

  Steele heard a knock at the door and answered it for her. He was relieved to see two officers. One was a woman of about forty. She wore a somber look on her face. This, he assumed, was the look of a grief professional.

  He nodded his welcome to them and took a business card out of his pocket. He handed it to Gardenia. She took it, blinking tears away.

  “Mrs. Butler, I am terribly sorry for your loss. If you think of anything in the coming hours or days that you think might be of help, you call me, okay?”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Steele headed for the door. Flynt stayed behind and wrapped the woman in an embrace. She shuddered and started weeping again. Hard sobs seemed to tear out of her throat and straight through Flynt. When the two new officers stepped inside, Flynt subtly handed Gardenia Butler off to the female officer and exited the house right behind Steele.

  “How do you do that?” Steele asked as they reached the car.

  “Do what?”

  “In there, with Mrs. Butler. You were exceptional.”

  I’ve always been good with people who just lost loved ones. They just need someone to be there, a presence, you know? I don’t have to say anything. You just hold their hands when you see they need it. Mostly you just have to be okay with hugging strangers.”

  “You’re comfortable with hugging strangers?”

  “No way. But someone like that…a woman that just lost her son? She’s not a stranger, you know? We all know loss. We all know grief. No one is a stranger when it comes to things like that.”

  My goodness, the levels of this man. Steele thought. Then, before he could delve deeper into his partner’s surprisingly deep thoughts, Flynt brought it to a screeching halt.

  “Steele, would you rather be told someone you love has died through an email or a phone call?”

  “Phone call.”

  “Cell or landline?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Flynt tilted his head and thought about this. “Interesting.”

  They got into the car and before Steele could crank the engine to life, heard a huge chest-wrecking wail of torment from Gardenia Butler come from the house.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For reasons unclear to Steele, Flynt decided to change up the narrator on his GPS. No longer did Mindy seductively and suggestively tell them to keep going faster, faster, faster, they were almost there. Now there was some weird rip off of Joe Pesci’s voice, a thin and grating Italian voice that kept threatening to ice them or dig a hole in the desert for their bodies if they missed the next turn.

  The new narrator’s name was Vic, a Joe Pecsi sound-alike. He led them to Paru Sankaran’s medical examination office with a series of threats and nasty words. Flynt and Steele entered the ME’s office at 11:10. It was still early, but Steele felt like the day was stretching on forever.

  As they entered the building, Flynt took the lead. Flynt confronted and ultimately overcame his fear of autopsies during their last case, and he’d come to find that the entire process was rather fascinating. Steele shifted gears and sped up just to keep up. Flynt knocked on Sankaran’s door and entered without being welcomed.

  Steele followed, a bit more formal and polite. He stood inside the doorway, glancing at the examination table. “Good morning, Doctor.”

  “Detective Steele! Detective Flynt! I have some very interesting news for you.”

  “Well, that sounds encouraging.”

  “I think so. Your camouflage man in the tree? He was not murdered.”

  “That is interesting,” Steele said. “Do tell.”

  “He died of a combination of things. First, cardiac arrest.”

  “A heart attack? He was a top-notch athlete. Birth defect o
r something?”

  “His heart was healthy enough,” Sankaran said. “Of course, I’ve only had the body for about an hour and a half, so this is all preliminary. But with matters of the heart, it’s fairly simple to determine that there seems to be no sign of cardiovascular disease. If I were to venture a guess, I would say it simply exploded.”

  “Exploded?”

  “Boom!” Flynt went from fists to extended fingers to illustrate an explosion.

  “Yes, exploded,” Sankaran replied. “I have seen this a few times. It’s common in cases of people who died of fright. Some say it is a myth to die of fright, but the heart simply beats so hard and fast that it goes into cardiac arrest, causing a heart attack.”

  With a wary eye, Steele looked the body over. Flynt was already at the table, looking at some of the faint markings Sankaran placed on the body during his examination.

  “But this is a young guy. A jock that looks to be in very good physical shape.”

  “Well, as I said, it appears to have been a combination of things. His blood was filled with adrenaline. Fear caused so much to release into his system his heart just blew out.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “That is a nice segue into my next finding,” Dr. Sankaran said, smiling with pride.

  “There’s more?”

  “We are looking at a drug overdose leading to a massive psychotic episode. This guy was so full of mind-altering chemicals. I’m not surprised he died of fright. He was loaded with a number of chemicals, some of which would send you off to another planet for a year.”

  “Like acid or ’shrooms?” Flynt asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I need to run a complete chemical analysis. But there are a few markers in what I’ve seen just from a cursory exam that makes me think it was indeed some sort of psychedelic.”

  “Enough to scare him to death?” Steele frowned. “Why would you take that much?”

  “No clue.”

  “Any way to tell if he was a regular drug user?”

  “I checked for needle marks and saw none. There are also no recent traces of resin from marijuana, and no immediate signs of binge drinking within his liver. Nothing of normal party drugs in his system. Let me stress one more time: I have barely started to really dig into him, no pun intended. But based on the bits I’ve already gathered; this is something I’ve never seen. The elements I’ve found in his blood are sophisticated compounds, which is why I can’t yet identify them. There is one compound that is incredibly similar to alprazolam.”