A Hard Death (24 page)

W
hen the staff began to drift back into the office in the early afternoon, Jenner slipped out through the morgue and crossed into the municipal building. He found Rudge working the phone in Major Crimes; Rudge held up a hand and gestured for him to sit.

The detective thanked the caller and hung up. “Hey, Jenner. Missed you at the memorial.”

He nodded to the phone. “That was Azure Oceanic. Interesting development: I spoke with Sheree Roburn after the service, she told me she'd booked her parents' cruise tickets personally. Azure just confirmed it. Bartley screwed up first time around.”

When Jenner didn't react, he said, “What brings you over here? A little early for dinner…”

Jenner shook his head. He hesitated, then said, “Something weird.”

Rudge leaned back. “And that would be…”

“Your cousin…”

“Reggie?”

“Yes—he ever had any problems?”

Rudge stood. “C'mon, let's get some air.”

They walked downstairs and out into the breezeway, and joined the administrative staff smoking in the shade.

Rudge turned to him. “So, what's this about?”

“Probably nothing. But I noticed something strange that's really picking at me.”

“What?”

Jenner hesitated a second, then said, “Your cousin is transporting a Jewish body up to Chicago. Family objected to autopsy; they'd have
objected to embalming too, and Reggie said she hadn't been embalmed. But the cosmetician said she had, and when I looked at her body, I'm pretty sure she'd been opened up and sewn shut.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don't know.” Jenner sighed. “I'm just spinning my wheels.”

Rudge nodded. “Well, look, Reggie's had some problems in the past, but he's been doing real good down here. He's put his past behind him, built up a great business, doing things right, this time. I'm sure this is nothing—later, we can go by the place, get you another look at her, ease your mind, okay?”

“I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation.” Jenner paused. “So what was Reggie in for?”

Rudge shot him a look. “How did you know?”

“He had his shirtsleeves rolled up, I saw his ink.”

Rudge shook his head. “Doc, it was some stupid shit—he got mixed up with some people slinging meth in DeKalb County, Georgia. Did a five-year bit at Phillips State. But he was just a kid, then. He's really got his act together—you've seen the funeral parlor.”

“I'm sure it's nothing. But can you give him a call, ask him if we can stop by later?”

“No problem. I'll set it up.”

“Thanks.”

Rudge turned to go back into the building, then stopped.

“Hey, Jenner? I'm sorry we're not going to work together much longer.”

“Me too.” Jenner nodded. “You wonder why I'm still pushing this?”

Rudge shook his head. “Nope, not at all—if someone killed one of my friends, I'd never stop looking for them.”

S
mith was edgy. It was a cash month—every fourth month they made a payment in cash, instead of routing the money into laundered external investments or offshore accounts. For the deliveries, he had to babysit the money with Brodie, which meant hours of painful silence waiting in the truck with a man who scared him like no one else did.

He leaned against the pickup, smoking American Spirits and watching the meth cooks emerge from Bunkhouse A, their long shift finally over. They stretched and blinked like moles in an afternoon sun newly bright after midday showers. There were smiles and laughter as they headed toward Bunkhouse B for a shower and some sleep.

At a desk inside Bunkhouse A, Brodie and Bentas were monitoring the money count. A worker ran bills through a pair of whirring mechanical counters, packing them into rubber band–bound two-hundred-bill wads with a practiced flip of the wrist. The standing order was simple: one million dollars, used, unmarked, in two duffel bags, split five hundred thousand in fifties in the larger, five hundred thousand in hundreds in the smaller. Brodie would then hand-count the packets into the bags, and the bags would be reweighed. Every weight was noted and cross-checked.

Finally, the door opened, and Brodie emerged with the bags. Both were navy blue canvas, stenciled
TINA MAYWEATHER
in block capitals, standard laundry bags; together, the two weighed less than fifty pounds.

Smith tossed away his cigarette and climbed in the driver's side, then leaned over to help Brodie slide the duffel bags into the middle of the seat. Brodie climbed in after them and shut the door.

Brodie put on his sunglasses and spat outside the window, then rolled it up and turned to Smith. “What are you waiting for?”

As Smith turned the car, Bentas came out of the bunkhouse and waved with a grin. He had a stick of dynamite in his right hand, and was clutching a fistful of roofing nails in the left. Smith turned to Brodie and said, “What's that about?”

Brodie said, “Turn up the AC.” He exhaled slowly, tipped his head back onto the headrest, and said, “That doctor is getting too nosy.”

Smith nodded: so that was how it was going to be.

He cranked up the air conditioning and kept his eyes on the road. Maybe Brodie would sleep.

J
enner decided to try Maggie Craine one last time. The phone rang five times; when she didn't answer, it defaulted to voice mail.

She was done with him. That night at the Palmetto Court had been it, the beginning and the end of their relationship. She'd warned him; Jenner hated that he still wanted more.

Rudge had arranged for them to visit the funeral home at half past seven. They met for dinner at Red Lobster, an almost silent meal. Rudge was quiet and guarded, bracing for the fallout from a possible disaster. Jenner felt bad about his suspicions—a decent black man, back on his feet after a rough start, and there was Jenner stirring up trouble and suspicion. When the check arrived, Jenner moved to treat, but Rudge pinned it to the table, insisting on paying his share.

They drove to the funeral home in the Taurus, parking under shade trees hoary with Spanish moss; except for a gray Acura, the lot was empty.

Rudge rang the bell, and they waited on the porch in silence. The scrub oaks lining the street formed a gloomy canopy in the gathering dusk; the only sound was the flutter of insect wings in the buzzing overhead light.

Rudge rang again, then walked the length of the porch, peering in the side windows; all the ground-floor rooms were lit but there was no activity inside.

The detective nodded toward the lot. “We can go in through the embalming area.”

The loading bay doors were shut, but the side door was unlocked. Inside, light from the prep area hallway spilled into the bay; in the garage, the hearses were lined up neatly in place.

They found Reggie in the office. A clock radio on a shelf was shrilling
Motown hits; he didn't seem to notice them as they came in.

Rudge said, “Hey, Reggie. We're here.”

Reggie stood up hurriedly, “Dave, doctor, sorry! I didn't hear you—time got away from me.”

He shook hands with Rudge, then slipped on his jacket.

“Look, I'm sorry, but we got a problem…”

Rudge was suddenly grim. “What problem, Reggie?”

His cousin shifted uneasily, looking at the floor.

“There was a mix-up, and…”

“And what? Now no body?”

“I'm sorry. They were rushing to get her up to Chicago; her son was going to ride with her body and wanted to get moving. There was nothing I could've done without offending them.” He looked at Jenner and added, “And you know how people are when they're mourning, doc.”

Rudge was shaking his head. “You should've at least given us a heads-up, Reggie.”

“Dave, what was I going to do? Make the family sit and wait, knowing their mom was rotting in the van? I made a judgment call, and I made it on behalf of the family.”

Reggie looked back at Jenner. “Doctor, what's this all about? I don't understand.”

Jenner said, “I don't even know if it's about anything.” He turned to Rudge. “Give me a ride back to the morgue?”

Rudge said, “Okay. But, seriously, Reggie…you fucked up.”

Jones said, “C'mon, Dave! There's only so much I can do.”

Jenner said, “Actually, mind if I have a look in the embalming room?”

“No problem, doc. Go ahead. We got nothing to hide.”

Rudge and Reggie watched from the doorway as Jenner looked at the table and the cabinets and the shelves. The lights were harsh in the tiled room, and Jenner could smell the same subtle sour-sharp chemical aroma of formaldehyde, and the waxy smell of makeup, but there was nothing to find, and Jenner found nothing.

He wasn't even sure what he was looking for.

But he had the seed of an idea.

A
fter the memorial service, the news cameras around the medical examiner office had evaporated. A couple were out shooting B roll on the Promenade or in the Glades, but now that the cases had stabilized, and there were no fresh leads with live, interview-able witnesses, most crews had been called back to the mother ship.

But not all.

Smiling, Amanda Tucker watched Jenner climb out of the Taurus. It was her last night in Port Fontaine, and she wanted it to count. She tossed the remains of her frappuccino into the bin and called to her producer. They wouldn't catch Jenner before he made it into his building, but perhaps when he left…

But as she watched Jenner make his way across the lot, alone in the dark, something much better occurred to her: apparently, he was staying in some sleazy motel in the cheap part of Port Fontaine. Footage of Jenner in his new habitat would be good TV, she thought—Amanda confronting the ethically tainted doctor in his moldering pile of a hotel. It had been ages since she'd done any attack journalism out in the field, and it always played well.

“Billy, let's get some dinner now, then we'll head over to the doctor's motel. You got the address?”

“Yep, I got it. Great idea, Amanda!”

She smiled. Yes. Yes, it was.

T
he office was deserted; the staff had knocked off early after the memorial, and the investigators took calls from home.

Someone had left a program from the memorial on Jenner's desk. It was tasteful, printed on heavy cream stock, edged in black, a sober typeface for a sad event. Jenner's name was listed among the eulogists.

Down in the mortuary, the lights were now switched to the energy-saver circuit; every quarter of an hour, they'd turn off, and Jenner had to walk to the other end of the autopsy suite to punch the button for another fifteen minutes of light.

Jenner pulled the body intake logbook. He unfolded a copy of Rudge's summary of Roburn's actions on his last day at work, and smoothed it flat on the desktop.

Roburn had said good-bye to Jenner in the morning, booting him out of the office, telling him to enjoy the town until eight p.m., when he'd officially become Acting County Medical Examiner. Jenner had spent the day at the beach.

In the morning, Roburn did an autopsy and an external exam. He ate lunch with Flanagan and Marie Carter in the break room. He'd used his cell a couple of times during the day, both calls to his wife, one shortly before he left the office in the late afternoon. His last call had been to Jenner a little before six thirty p.m., but hadn't connected.

Jenner opened the log and ran his finger down the date column. There was nothing unusual about Roburn's cases—a man in his fifties who'd had a heart attack while jogging, and an elderly woman with a history of metastatic lung cancer. The man had been handled by a funeral home in Port Fontaine, the woman by a Fort Myers funeral director.

He checked the day before; that day, Jenner himself had autopsied two motor vehicle accident victims, and done one external exam.

And then he found what he'd been looking for: his external case had been removed by Jones Brothers, Reggie's funeral home. The decedent had a Jewish surname, Gottlieb, and the register indicated that the removal of the remains had been authorized to “Jones Brothers/JBFS”—the Jewish Benevolent Funeral Service. An uptown Manhattan address was listed for Mr. Gottlieb's home.

Jenner paged back in the log a month, looking for similar entries; he found sixteen cases released to Jones Brothers. Some were external exam only, but most had been autopsied, and a dozen had been cosigned to the JBFS, despite having gentile-sounding names. All those cases in which the JBFS had been involved had home addresses in northeastern states.

Jenner sat back. He thought he had it figured now.

Time to pitch his idea to Rudge.

He walked into the autopsy room to stretch, then sat in the dictation room. He called the detective and asked if he'd heard from Toxicology about the packet from Marty's car.

Rudge said, “Jenner? It's nine p.m. Let it rest a night, eh?”

“I was just wondering if you'd heard.”

There was the sound of rummaging for a couple of seconds, then Rudge said, “Actually, yeah. Message on my desk. Let's see…”

There was a low whistle.

Jenner said, “Let me guess: methamphetamine.”

“Yep. About 95 percent pure.”

“Impressive…”

“That's
dealer
purity.” Rudge paused, then said, “Jenner, I think we're both thinking the same thing…I mean, what regular citizen gets tortured, then killed? What regular guy has a stash of uncut speed? I'm sorry, but Marty Roburn
has
to have been dirty. He was up to his neck in this.”

No
. Jenner walked into the dictating room and sat, leaning back on his chair. “I don't think so.”

But Rudge was right—all the fingers pointed toward Marty. And, after all, it had been a decade since they'd last worked together. People change.

Just not Marty Roburn.

Barely two weeks ago, Jenner had sat with Marty on the lanai, talking late into the night about Marty's plans for retirement—staying in Port Fontaine in the same modest house, and going fishing with Bobbie every day. Nothing extravagant, nothing fancy.

Jenner couldn't believe Marty was dirty. Wouldn't believe it. He said, “There has to be something else.”

“Well, you find it, you show me. Because I'm really going to need to see it for myself.”

“I think I have an idea what this is all about.”

“Oh?”

There was a faint sound in the autopsy room; Jenner had thought he was alone.

Jenner said, “I have to call you back,” and hung up. He stared out into the autopsy room through the large glass pane; he could see nothing.

The room suddenly plunged into darkness as the timed circuit kicked in.

Jenner got to his feet. He could barely see five feet; he stood in the faint moonlight through the clerestory windows, waiting for his eyes to adapt.

There was a clanging crash from the shadows at the far end of the long room, the unmistakable sound of the metal pan from an autopsy scale being knocked to the floor.

Jenner said, “Hello?”

No answer.

“Hello?”

Jenner took another step into the dark, straining to see.

Against the pale far wall, he caught the barely perceptible shifting of shadow on shadow, the form of a man, moving silently toward him across the tiled floor.

“Who's there?”

The figure stopped. Or was it a trick of the dark? Jenner wasn't certain anyone was even there.

He wasn't taking any chances. He moved sideways, edging toward the organ-cutting board by the sink, facing the gloom. The small skylight over the sink let in faint gray light. On the cutting board, Jenner could make out the outlines of his tools, laid out ready for work.

The shadow stayed still, watching him.

Jenner reached over to the cutting board, felt across it. His hand nudged the handle of his autopsy knife, a ten-inch Wüsthof slicer. He held it up.

He went forward again, into blackness so intense it felt as if not just light but also sound had been extinguished.

Another step, and now he was sure someone was there, crouched not twenty feet from him.

He took one more step, and the shadow sprung up and ran for the exit. Jenner hesitated a couple of seconds, then ran after the shape, the big knife in his right hand. He heard the autopsy room door swing open, the sound of a man sprinting full-tilt down the corridor.

He pounded the light switch at the doorway, and the autopsy room lit up brilliantly, dazzling white and spotless.

Jenner pushed out into the hall and hit the corridor switch; the hallway lights flared on in time for him to glimpse a man run around the corner at the far end. Barely a glimpse, but he'd seen enough to recognize the light brown of a standard Douglas County cop uniform.

He stood in the hallway, wondering if he should confront Anders about his spy immediately. And then it occurred to him that this might be something much more sinister.

He jumped at the buzzing on his thigh.

He flipped open his cell and read “DavidSpenceMD”—the senior coroner's pathologist in New Orleans. Spence was a good forensic pathologist working in a tough system. Whenever they were at a forensic meeting together, they'd make the time to have dinner, or at least a drink.

“David?”

“Hey, Jenner. You okay? You sound out of breath.”

Jenner leaned against the wall. “Yeah, I'm fine. The ringer took me by surprise.”

His heart still pounding, he looked at the knife in his hand, then stared down the corridor to the door to the municipal building through which the cop had disappeared.

Spence said, “I was calling to see how you were holding up, son. I'm real sorry about Marty and Bobbie—he was one of the good guys. I know you were close.”

“Thanks, David. It's been rough here. Not much progress, and I can't take a step without someone shoving a TV camera in my face.”

Spence chuckled. “It was a bit like that here after Katrina…” He paused. “How was the memorial? I bet there were a lot of folks there.”

Jenner hesitated, then said, “Yes, a lot of people came out for that.”

He made his way back to the dictation room to sit. There was something going on—Spence wouldn't call just to console him.

Spence said, “Well, there's something else.” He paused. “You probably figured that.”

“What's up, David?”

“You know I'm on the board of the National Association of Medical Examiners, right? I tell you, that thing is a damn spear in my side…Well, this week, the jungle drums have been pounding.”

“Oh?” It didn't surprise him—of course they'd be talking about him again; Jenner had been too busy to think about professional politics.

“There's eleven of us—I think you know most of us. Jerry Carson from Nevada, Blake from Rhode Island. A bunch of guys. Barbie Koppel from Houston.”

“Yep. Some good people there.”

“Sure. Some real old-timers, too.”

Jenner grinned. “I wasn't going to say anything.” He was calm again.

“Probably a good plan, Jenner—there's trouble afoot.”

“I figured.” He leaned back in the chair. “What have I done now?”

“It's the same old stuff. Steve Whittaker has a few pals on the board. He wants you out of NAME. He's got them convinced what you did this winter was cowboy stuff—breaking and entering at the morgue, getting a cop killed, another cop on the critical list.”

“No news there.”

“You seen that
American Crime
stuff?”

Jenner felt his skin start to crawl.

“Yes.”

“Okay, well you know, then. That woman has some kind of major hard-on for you, boy. It's not going away. You see that latest thing? Not your finest hour.”

“Which latest thing?”

“You calling her a bitch.”

So that was out, then.

“Haven't seen that one yet. It's true, though.”

“Yeah, well, of course it's true—we all saw it. Now there's a whole e-mail gossip orgy going on. Next week, we're going to vote on whether or not to revoke your membership.”

“Huh.”

“It's not looking good. Whittaker's crew want to take you down, and they may have the votes. On your side, you got me, your little buddy in San Diego—the blonde with the…uh, curves?”

“Candy Webster.”

“Yeah. Me, her, a couple others. But the numbers don't look good.”

Jenner was silent.

“Your biggest hope is people abstaining because they don't have the facts yet, so now would be a good time for you to stay out of trouble, you hear? Keep your nose clean, and for God's sake, steer clear of Amanda Tucker.”