Office of the Coroner, Saint Tammany Parish
As the three friends walked into the coroner’s office, Jana turned and jabbed Kyle in the stomach.
“Ouch, what was that for?”
“I told you not to assume it was a man,” she said as she pointed to a sign on the wall. The sign read,
St. Tammany Parish
Office of the Coroner
Rosa M. Canray, MD
“Okay, you were right. It’s a woman. You know when I said “him,” I wasn’t trying to be a bigoted, racist, segregationist womanizer, right?”
“Hey,” Cade said to Jana, “remind me not to piss you off any more than I already have, okay?”
“Just trying to keep you boys in line.”
Kyle said, “You think all this superhero FBI-agent stuff is going to her head?”
“I’m not going to touch that one,” Cade said.
“What, are you scared? She doesn’t hit that hard,” Kyle said.
Jana grinned as they open the door. “I didn’t hit that hard because I didn’t want to dent your delicate sensibilities, Kyle.”
“Who told you I had delicate sensibilities?”
“I did,” Cade said.
Jana flashed her credentials to the receptionist.
“We would like to see Dr. Canray, if she has a few moments.”
The receptionist did a double take at the credentials.
“Yes, one moment.” A minute later she was back. “Yes, you can go through that door, she’s in the middle of an autopsy, but you are welcome to speak with her.”
“Autopsy?” Cade said. “I’m not going into any autopsy.”
“Oh come on,” Kyle said. “You big baby.”
“Yeah,” Jana said. “You think we enjoy this? Come on, it comes with the territory.”
Cade threw up his arms but kept walking.
“Comes with the territory? It might come with your territory, but there’s nothing about being an NSA analyst that includes being overwhelmed with the smell of formaldehyde.”
Kyle pulled him through the door. “Don’t worry big guy. I’ll catch you in case you faint. And as a special treat, we’ll go out for fried-oyster po-boy sandwiches later. I get so hungry after these things.”
“Hungry? I doubt I’ll want to eat for a week,” Cade said.
Upon entering the lab, the smell hit them head on. The odor was a mixture of formaldehyde, rotted chicken, and a stale McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with fries. Cade stopped cold.
“Come on, buddy,” Kyle said.
The doctor’s back was to them and her hands were wrist-deep in the chest cavity of a deceased male whose pasty-white skin was offset against the ebony of hers.
“Dr. Canray, we are with the—” Jana started.
“FBI, I know,” the doctor said without looking up. “What can I help you with?”
Cade’s eyes fixated on the ghostly white corpse.
“We really do hate to disturb you,” Jana said. “We’re here investigating the murder of Sheriff Chalmette.”
“Murder? Since when does the FBI get involved in murder? Are you with behavioral sciences?”
“No, ma’am. Ma’am? Can we speak confidentially?”
For the first time the doctor looked up.
“What do you think I am a . . . of course we can talk confidentially.” The doctor continued her work then said, “You’re that FBI agent, aren’t you? The one that stopped the bomber in Kentucky.”
Jana did not answer.
The doctor continued. “Your mother raised you to be very direct, didn’t she? My mother was tough as nails, she was. And what other way to be is there?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was raised to be direct. My grandfather saw to that.”
“And this one standing behind me,” she said, referring to Kyle. “A real lady killer I bet. But that one over there, he doesn’t look so good.”
Jana looked at Cade. “Well you’re right about Cade. He’s turning a lovely shade of green. Not exactly accustomed to this type of thing. But Kyle here? No, ma’am. He’s not a lady killer. Instead, he reminds me of an old hand that worked on my grandpa’s farm.”
“How so?”
“He’d been kicked in the head by a mule, twice,” Jana said.
Kyle shook his head. “I’ll not grace that with a response.”
“What we’re interested in is any ballistic evidence that was recovered. We understand the shell casing was found at the scene, but was there a bullet as well?”
“Will Chalmette and I had worked together for years.” She stopped a moment. “I hated doing that autopsy. In my job, I enjoy the luxury of almost never knowing the people I work on. No, no bullet was recovered. Will was shot in the head. The shell casing found at the scene indicated a caliber of 7.62 mm. But we were unable to make a match against any known crimes. A bullet like that travels so fast, it just passed right through.”
The color retreated from Cade’s face and he put his hand over his mouth.
“Believe me,” the doctor said, “they searched high and low for the bullet that struck him, or any fragments. But found nothing.”
“Don’t you find that strange?” Kyle said. “It would seem unusual that they couldn’t locate any part of the bullet.”
The doctor did not look up from her work. “Yes, I would’ve expected those baby-blue eyes of yours to ask that question.”
Jana shook her head. “But you barely glanced at him. How did you know Kyle had blue eyes?”
“Don’t know. I’ve always known things about people. I guess he just sounds like he has dreamy blue eyes. Like this guy on the table here, Calvin Johnston, age seventy-eight. Found him in his house. No one really knew how he died. That’s where I come in. But I could’ve told you he had brown eyes before I checked. Anyway, getting back to the bullet, the forensic investigators will tell you that sometimes a bullet changes direction after it strikes its target. The bullet could have angled off its initial trajectory. It likely angled up and flew past the sheriff’s department, off into the woods. It could be a quarter mile from the scene. No, I’m sorry. We’ll never find that bullet. I might have something that can help you though. But now that we’re on the subject, tell me why you’re so interested in the bullet in particular. After all, finding the shell casing was a lucky break. Lucky in that the killer left it behind, that is. That shell casing amounts to a fingerprint of the firearm. I’m assuming you had hoped that if we recovered the bullet, we could match it against another murder?”
Jana said. “Yes, ma’am. In fact, we have some other questions about the bullet, but if there is no way to locate it, I don’t think we’ll ever get an answer to those.”
For once, the doctor turned and looked at her. “What other questions?”
“As I said, ma’am, this information needs to stay between us. This conversation can’t leave this room. Ma’am, it appears that there is a direct relationship between this murder and the murder of FBI Director Stephen Latent. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but certain evidence recovered at both scenes ties the two together, without a doubt. One thing I can share with you is that, in the case of Director Latent, the arrow that was used to kill him was fired from a crossbow. The broadhead of the arrow was removed and examined. It had been hollowed out and some evidence purposely stuffed inside. What we’re wondering is if evidence would have been embedded inside the bullet in this case as well.”
“I’ve covered a lot of murders. I’ve never heard of anything like that. But like I said a moment ago, I might be able to help you. We may not have the bullet that killed Will Chalmette, but we do have the one that killed the truck driver.”
“The truck driver?” Kyle whispered to himself. “There was a bullet recovered from his body? Why didn’t you tell us?”
She looked at him. “You didn’t ask. But not from his body, from the driver’s side door of the truck. The bullet passed through the passenger door and entered the lateral thoracic wall at number eight, his rib cage. Anyway, then it angled down and stopped in the driver’s side door. Forensic analysis didn’t yield a match to any known or unsolved murders on record.”
Cade averted his gaze, but said, “When were you going to tell us about this? We just got finished talking about the sheriff’s murder. Why didn’t you mention it then?”
The doctor smirked. “Oh, don’t worry. I was just waiting to see if blue eyes over here was going to get around to asking about it. I like the way he talks. He’s got that kind of south Georgia accent going on, you know?”
“You really are one of a kind, aren’t you?” Jana said. “So where is the bullet now?”
“Oh it’s back here somewhere. Came back this morning from the forensic lab in New Orleans. They didn’t find anything unusual. Want to take a look?”
“Yes, please,” Jana said.
The doctor removed her rubber gloves and draped them across the body, then walked to a storage area. When she reemerged, she held a small paper bag with an evidence label on the side. She walked to a lab table, opened the bag, and poured the contents out. A single bullet spilled into a sterile dish.
The bullet was characteristic of one having been fired from a high-powered rifle. Groove marks were etched into its side from where it traveled down the barrel. The front half of the bullet formed into a mushroom shape after having expanded upon impact with the truck and its driver. The bottom half of the lead bullet was encased in heavy brass.
Jana said, “Do you have a dissecting microscope we could look closer with?”
“Sure, honey. Now you’re talking my language.”
Jana examined the bullet under the high-powered magnification, followed by Kyle.
“See,” the doctor said, “there’s nothing unusual.”
Kyle said to Jana, “Sometimes the brass casing around the base of a bullet gets separated. But not in this case.”
The doctor said, “Yes, sometimes. It typically happens in less expensive ammunition. High-grade stuff like this though, you never see separation.”
Jana said, “The casing sometimes gets separated? Wait a minute. Looking at the base of the bullet, there is obviously no hole drilled into it, but what if the killer first separated the brass from the lead, and drilled into just the lead portion of the bullet, then put the two pieces back together before firing?”
Kyle nodded. “That’s a great question.”
“Doctor, can we separate the brass base from the lead body of the bullet?” Jana knew that if the answer was no, she would simply commandeer the evidence and take it to the FBI crime lab for immediate analysis. But getting to the answer quickly was more important than bulling her way past a local official.
“It’s a highly unusual request,” the doctor said. “But, this bullet has already gone through forensic analysis. They always record digital images of all evidence, so I suppose it couldn’t hurt. In doing this, we are definitely going to damage the evidence, but I think, with the photographic documentation already in place, we should be fine.” From a drawer she withdrew two pairs of stainless-steel, surgical-grade pliers. “We normally use tools like these to remove a bullet from a body, not separate one in half.”
They watched as the doctor applied both sets of pliers to the bullet and began to twist. Within a moment, the lead portion of the bullet separated from the brass base and a few items spilled into the petri dish.
“Look at that!” Cade said.