Death Du Jour (35 page)

“Why did you have to be there? I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry, Bird.”

I lay my head on the blotter and sobbed.

T
HURSDAY WAS DECEPTIVELY PLEASANT.

In the morning I had two small surprises. The call to my insurance carrier went well. Both repairmen I phoned were available and would start work immediately.

During the day I taught my classes and revised the CAT scan paper for the physical anthropology conference. Late in the afternoon Ron Gillman reported that the Crime Scene Recovery unit had found nothing useful in the debris from my kitchen. No surprise there. He’d asked patrol to keep an eye on my place.

I also heard from Sam. He had no news, but was becoming increasingly convinced the bodies had been dropped on his island by dope dealers. He was taking it as a personal challenge and had dug out an old twelve gauge and stashed it under a bunk in the field station.

On the way home from the university I stopped at the Harris Teeter superstore across from the Southpark Shopping Center and bought all of my favorite foods. I worked out at the Harris YMCA and arrived at the Annex around six-thirty. The window had been fixed and a workman was just finishing sanding the floor. Every surface in the kitchen was coated in fine white dust.

I cleaned the stove and counters, then fixed crab cakes and a goat cheese salad and ate them while watching a rerun of “Murphy Brown.” The Murph was tough. I resolved to be more like her.

During the evening I revised the CAT scan paper again, watched a Hornets’ game, and thought about my taxes. I resolved to do that, too. But not this week. At eleven I fell asleep with the copies of Louis-Philippe’s journal spread across the bed.

Friday was scripted by Satan. It was then I got my first inkling of the horror about to unfold.

*   *   *

The Murtry victims arrived from Charleston early in the morning. By nine-thirty I was gloved and goggled and had the cases spread out in my lab. One table held the skull and bone samples Hardaway had removed during his autopsy of the lower corpse. The other held a full skeleton. The technicians at the medical university had done an excellent job. All the bones looked clean and undamaged.

I started with the body from the bottom of the pit. Though putrefied, it had retained enough soft tissue to allow a full autopsy. Sex and race were evident, so Hardaway wanted my help only in assessing age. I left the pathologist’s report and photos until later since I didn’t want to bias my conclusions by knowing his.

I popped the X-rays onto the light box. Nothing unusual. In the cranial views I could see that all thirty-two teeth were erupted, their roots fully formed. There were no restorations or missing teeth. I noted this on a case form.

I walked to the first table and looked at the skull. The gap at the cranial base was fused. This was not an adolescent.

I studied the rib ends and the surfaces where the halves of the pelvis join in front, the pubic symphyses. The ribs had moderately deep indentations where cartilage had connected them to the breastbone. Wavy ridges ran across the pubic symphyseal faces, and I could see tiny nodules of bone along the outer border of each.

The throat end of each collarbone was fused. The upper edge of each hip blade retained a thin line of separation.

I checked my models and histograms, and wrote down my estimate. The woman was twenty to twenty-eight years of age when she died.

Hardaway wanted a full analysis on the subsurface burial. Again I started with the X-rays. Again they were unremarkable, except for the perfect dentition.

I already suspected this victim was also female, as I’d told Ryan. As I’d laid out the bones, I’d noted the smooth skull and delicate facial architecture. The broad, short pelvis with its distinctly feminine pubic area confirmed my initial impression.

This woman’s age indicators were similar to those of the first victim, though her pubic symphyses showed deep ridges across their entire surfaces and lacked the little nodes.

I estimated this victim had died slightly younger, probably in her late teens or early twenties.

For the question of ancestry, I returned to the cranium. The mid-face region was classic, especially the nasal features: high bridge between the eyes, narrow opening, prominent lower border and spine.

I took measurements that I would analyze statistically, but I knew the woman was white.

I measured the long bones, fed the data into the
computer, and ran the regression equations. I was entering a height estimate into the case form when the phone rang.

“If I stay here one more day I’m going to need complete linguistic retraining,” Ryan said, then added, “y’all.”

“Catch a bus north.”

“I thought it was just you, but now I see it’s not your fault.”

“It’s hard to overcome one’s roots.”

“Yo.”

“Have you learned anything new?”

“I saw a great bumper sticker this morning.”

I waited.

“Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.”

“Is that what you called to tell me?”

“That was the bumper sticker.”

“We are a religious people.”

I looked at the clock. Two-fifteen. I realized I was famished and reached for the banana and Moon Pie I’d brought from home.

“I’ve spent some time observing Dom’s little ashram. Not very useful. Thursday morning three of the faithful piled into a van and drove off. Other than that I saw no traffic in or out.”

“Kathryn?”

“Didn’t see her.”

“Did you run the plates?”

“Yes, ma’am. Both vans are registered to Dom Owens at the Adler Lyons address.”

“Does he have a driver’s license?”

“Issued by the great Palmetto State in 1988. No record of a previous license. Apparently the reverend just walked in and took the exam. He pays his insurance
right on time. In cash. No record of claims. No record of traffic arrests or citations.”

“Utilities?” I tried not to crinkle the cellophane.

“Phone, electric, and water. Owens pays cash.”

“Does he have a Social Security number?”

“Issued in 1987. But there’s no record of any activity. Never paid in, never requested benefits of any kind.”

“Eighty-seven? Where was he before that?”

“An insightful question, Dr. Brennan.”

“Mail?”

“These folks are not great correspondents. They get the usual personal greetings addressed to ‘Occupant,’ and the utility bills, of course, but that’s it. Owens has no box, but there could be a drop under another name. I staked the post office briefly, but didn’t recognize any of the flock.”

A student appeared in the doorway and I shook my head.

“Were there prints on your key chain?”

“Three beauties, but no hits. Apparently Dom Owens is a choirboy.”

Silence stretched between us.

“There are kids living at that place. What about Social Services?”

“You’re not half bad, Brennan.”

“I watch a lot of television.”

“I checked with Social Services. A neighbor called about a year and a half ago, worried about the kids. Mrs. Joseph Espinoza. So they sent a caseworker out to investigate. I read the report. She found a clean home with smiling, well-nourished young’uns, none of which was of school age. She saw no cause for action, but recommended a follow-up visit in six months. That was not done.”

“Did you talk to the neighbor?”

“Deceased.”

“How about the property?”

“Well, there is one thing.”

Several seconds passed.

“Yes?”

“I spent Wednesday afternoon going through property deeds and tax records.”

He went quiet again.

“Are you trying to annoy me?” I prompted.

“That piece of land has a colorful history. Did you know there was a school out there from the early 1860s until the turn of the century? One of the first public schools in North America established exclusively for black students.”

“I didn’t know that.” I opened a Diet Coke.

“And Baker was right. The property was used as a fishing camp from the thirties until the mid-seventies. When the owner died it passed to her relatives in Georgia. I guess they weren’t big on seafood. Or maybe they got fed up with the property taxes. Anyway, they sold the place in 1988.”

This time I waited him out.

“The purchaser was one J. R. Guillion.”

It took a nanosecond for the name to register.

“Jacques Guillion?”

“Oui, madame.”

“The same Jacques Guillion?” I said it so loudly a student turned in the corridor to peer in at me.

“Presumably. The taxes are paid . . .”

“With an official check from Citicorp in New York.”

“You got it.”

“Holy shit.”

“Well put.”

I was unnerved by the information. The owner of the Adler Lyons property also held title to the burned-out house in St-Jovite.

“Have you talked to Guillion?”

“Monsieur Guillion is still in seclusion.”

“What?”

“He hasn’t been located.”

“I’ll be damned. There really is a link.”

“Looks that way.”

A bell rang.

“One other thing.”

The hall filled with the commotion of students passing between classes.

“Just to be perverse I sent the names out to Texas. Came up empty on the Right Reverend Owens, but guess who’s a rancher?”

“No!”

“Monsieur J. R. Guillion. Two acres in Fort Bend County. Pays his taxes . . .”

“With official bank checks!”

“Eventually I’ll head out that way, but for now I’m letting the local sheriff snoop around. And the gendarmerie can flush Guillion. I’m going to hang here a few more days and turn the heat up on Owens.”

“Locate Kathryn. She called here, but I missed her again. I’m sure she knows something.”

“If she’s here, I’ll find her.”

“She could be in danger.”

“What makes you say that?”

I thought of describing my recent conversation about cults, but since I’d only been fishing I wasn’t sure if I’d learned anything relevant. Even if Dom Owens was leading some type of cult, he was not Jim Jones or David Koresh, of that I was certain.

“I don’t know. Just a feeling. She sounded so edgy when she called.”

“My impression of Miss Kathryn is that all her lobes may not be firing.”

“She is different.”

“And her friend El doesn’t look like a candidate for Mensa. Are you keeping busy?”

I hesitated, then told him about my own attack.

“Sonofabitch. I’m sorry, Brennan. I liked that cat. Any idea who did it?”

“No.”

“Have they put a unit on your place?”

“They’re doing drive-bys. I’m fine.”

“Stay out of dark alleys.”

“The cases from Murtry arrived this morning. I’m pretty tied up in the lab.”

“If those deaths are drug-related, you could be pissing off some heavy characters.”

“That’s breaking news, Ryan.” I tossed the banana peel and Moon Pie wrapper into the trash. “The victims are both young, white, and female, just as I thought.”

“Not your typical trafficker profile.”

“No.”

“Doesn’t rule it out. Some of these guys use women like condoms. The ladies might have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yes.”

“Cause of death?”

“I haven’t finished yet.”

“Go get ’em, tiger. But remember, we’re going to need you on the St-Jovite cases when I nail these bastards.”

“What bastards?”

“Don’t know yet, but I will.”

When we disconnected I stared at my report. Then I got up and paced the lab. Then I sat. Then I paced some more.

My mind kept throwing up images from St-Jovite. Doughy white babies, eyelids and fingernails a delicate blue. A bullet-pierced skull. Slashed throats, hands scored with defense wounds. Scorched bodies, their limbs twisted and contorted.

What linked the Quebec deaths to the point of land on Saint Helena Island? Why babies and fragile old women? Who was Guillion? What was in Texas? Into what form of malignancy had Heidi and her family stumbled?

Concentrate, Brennan. The young women in this lab are just as dead. Leave the Quebec murders to Ryan and finish these cases. They deserve your attention. Find out when they died. And how.

I pulled on another pair of gloves and examined every bone of the second victim’s skeleton under magnification. I found nothing to tell me what caused her death. No blunt instrument trauma. No gunshot entry or exit. No stab wound. No hyoid fracture to indicate strangulation.

The only damage I observed was caused by animals scavenging on her corpse.

As I replaced the last foot bone, a tiny black beetle crawled from under a vertebra. I stared at it, remembering an afternoon when Birdie had tracked a June bug in my kitchen in Montreal. He’d played with the creature for hours before finally losing interest.

Tears burned my eyelids, but I refused to give in.

I collected the beetle and put it in a plastic container. No more death. I would release the bug when I left the building.

O.K., beetle. How long have these ladies been dead? We’ll work on that.

I looked at the clock. Four-thirty. Late enough. I flipped through my Rolodex, found a number, and dialed.