2

Angola lies 125 miles northwest of New Orleans, near the Louisiana-Mississippi border. Calling from home, Kit arranged to meet the warden in his office on prison grounds the next day at 4:00 P.M. The following afternoon, she left New Orleans at one o’clock, heading toward Baton Rouge, wishing she hadn’t agreed to go.

The city had been without rain for nearly three weeks, so the resurrection ferns growing on the boughs of the biggest oaks looked dead. This was, of course, an illusion. One good deluge and they’d be back again, green and happy. And from the look of the white clouds with promising dark centers filling the sky, that moment might soon be at hand.

By the time she’d left urban clutter behind and started across the marshy edges of Lake Pontchartrain on the long portion of I-10 resting on piers sunk in mud, the clouds had massed in front of the sun, forming a huge dirty cauliflower with luminous edges. Apparently disturbed by the impending storm and unsure of what to do, dozens of egrets crisscrossed high overhead, their white feathers glowing with cold fire in the diffused light.

Then, heat lightning began, pulsing and rippling behind the cloud’s folded contours, one jolt after another, with barely a pause between them, the streaks showing a cloudy substructure not previously visible. On and on it went, the actual lightning trails masked by cloud cover, creating the fanciful illusion that the occupants of an extra-terrestrial transport might be back there engaging in high-voltage mischief.

It was an impressive and diverting performance that lasted for nearly forty miles. Eventually, the cloud dispersed and it became just another day in which the resurrection ferns would sleep awhile longer.

At 3:10 P.M., on the other side of Baton Rouge, following the directions on a small green sign that pointed to Angola, she turned onto the Tunica Trace Scenic Highway. Twenty miles later, she came to another, larger green sign advising her that anyone entering a Department of Correction facility was subject to a physical search that might include an examination of body cavities. Oddly, this made her reluctant to continue, and she remained for several minutes at the sign, appraising the prison entrance fifty yards ahead.

On her side of the requisite chain-link fence topped with razor wire, this consisted of a couple of small single-story yellow brick buildings with burgundy trim, a tower of the same color, and a guardhouse that straddled the road. As she sat there, she thought of the scene in The Silence of the Lambs where Jodie Foster walks past all the occupied cells to get her first look at Hannibal Lecter. The recollection made her wish she’d brought a raincoat and an umbrella.

But this wasn’t getting her job done. She nudged the gas and rolled up to the guardhouse, which disgorged a blue-uniformed trooper type wearing a gray Smokey the Bear hat and sunglasses. His request that she state her business was so cold, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see his breath.

“I’m Kit Franklyn, from the medical examiner’s office in New Orleans. I have an appointment with Warden Guillory.”

“Wait here.”

The trooper went into the guardhouse and picked up the phone.

While he made his call, an eighteen-wheeler came down the road from inside the prison and stopped at the guardhouse. The other trooper on duty made the driver open the cab door. Satisfied no convict was hiding on the floor, the trooper went around to the rear of the truck, opened the back door, and looked inside. Kit wanted to see if he’d use mirrors to look under the truck, but her attention was diverted by the return of her trooper.

“Ma’am, the warden said for you to wait out here. He’s on his way. You can park over yonder.” He gestured to a graveled lot in front of the public toilets.

Kit had expected to be shown in by a guard, so she was surprised at this. Apparently, the warden had overestimated her importance and was giving it the personal touch. She nodded, backed her car up, and put it where the trooper had indicated.

Because the day had grown warm and the trooper’s manner made her uncomfortable, she elected to wait in her car with the air conditioner running. Five minutes later, the yellow metal arm blocking the prison’s exit lane lifted at the approach of a black Cadillac with tinted windows. It stopped at the guardhouse and the driver exchanged words with the trooper she’d spoken with. Seeing the trooper point at her car, she cut the engine and got out.

The Cadillac came to meet her, crunching to a stop a few feet away.

In it were two men. The driver had a broad Cro-Magnon face and dark hair that edged over his forehead in a series of robust commas. The passenger in the backseat was difficult to see.

The rear window rolled down and his face appeared in the opening, allowing the late-afternoon sun access to a thick head of copper-colored hair that reflected the rays like a new penny. His fleshy face spread in a dentured smile.

“Dr. Franklyn?”

Kit moved over to the car, expecting to be invited in and then driven back to the warden’s office. But the door remained closed. Instead, a hand came through the open window. “I’m Warden Guillory. Good to see you.”

Kit shook the hand as best she could with it so high in the air; then it was drawn back into the car.

“I’m afraid we’ve encountered a difficulty,” Guillory said, bringing his face back to the window.

“What kind of difficulty?”

“Last night, the man you came to see had a heart attack and died.”

“I can still get a picture and his prints.”

“Well, you see, that’s the problem. . . . I left clear orders that nothing be done to the body until you arrived. But there was a mix-up and . . . I’m afraid it’s been . . . cremated.”

“How could you do that so fast? Don’t the relatives have to be notified or something?”

“He had no living relatives. Hadn’t had a stick of mail in years. I’m afraid no one cared whether he lived or died.”

“Pretty sad, even for a felon.”

“In such cases, we’re free to move quickly to dispose of the body, and we usually take full advantage of that.”

“What do I do now?” Kit said, thinking aloud.

“There’s nothing you can do but go back to New Orleans and tell Dr. Broussard how sorry I am this happened. If it helps any, I brought this for you.” He turned and picked up a manila envelope, which he handed her through the window. “It contains the photographs of him we took when he arrived, and his fingerprints.”

Kit opened the envelope and examined its contents. The photo was of a man in his late forties.

“How long had he spent here?”

“I believe it was . . . nineteen years.”

“You don’t have a more recent picture?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Can you tell me how he’d changed?”

“His hair had a lot of gray in it and his face showed his age and his years here.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I don’t know what else to say. He was an average-looking old con.”

“Was he thin or heavy?”

“Thin, I can tell you that.”

To return home with only the manila envelope would mean her trip had accomplished nothing but to provide Broussard with data he could have obtained by mail. He’d sent her to do more. But what else was possible? “Where are the ashes from the cremation?”

“At the funeral home where it was done.”

“Where’s that?”

“I hardly think you can learn anything from those.”

“Probably not, but I’d like to see them at least.”

“Of course that’s up to you. The funeral home is about fifteen miles from here in a small town called Courville.” Guillory proceeded to give her directions and she was soon on her way, the warden’s car behind her until, at the road to Courville, they separated.

Died . . . of a heart attack . . . and then cremated. . . . Oh sure, this assignment is a snap. She should have just politely told Broussard, no thanks, and gone back to the photo gallery when he’d brought it up.

She was still whipping herself about this when she saw the tasteful green sign for Courville. A HISTORIC COMMUNITY. That’s all it said—no satellite signs advertising the Rotary Club or the Lions Club or the Optimists, no statement about the population.

About a mile beyond the sign, the houses began—large white structures, mostly wooden, with columned porches and green shutters. They were widely spaced from one another on well-tended grounds dotted with ancient live oaks whose branches curled outward in sweeping arcs, reminding Kit of the trunks on compliant pachyderms.

It was rumored that Spanish moss was becoming endangered and was slowly disappearing from Louisiana trees. Whatever was causing that situation was obviously not operating in Courville, for its oaks were generously shrouded with it, giving the place a timeless beauty.

Two miles down the road, she came to the Courville Funeral Home. Under its name on the sign out front, it advised passersby, TAKE YOUR FINAL TRIP WITH TRIP. The sign made no sense until she saw in smaller letters that the proprietor was Trip Guillory. Guillory was a common Louisiana name, but she was prepared to bet heavily that this one and the warden were related.

She pulled into the oyster-shell drive and followed it to the funeral home, which was housed in a striking two-story brick house with Gothic arches topping the front door and all the windows. There were three gables on the front, each trimmed in white Victorian gingerbread. The Gothic arch theme was repeated on more white gingerbread trimming the columned porch, the roof of which was enclosed by a white picket fence.

She parked in a lot on the right of the house, hoping the absence of other vehicles didn’t mean the place was closed. She checked her watch: 4:35. But who knows what hours they keep out here? she thought.

Despite her eagerness to get on with her business, the wonderful silence that greeted her when she left her car made her pause. For the next minute, the only sound she heard was a sharp creak as her car’s engine cooled. Then a single frog began calling out in a small reedy voice. From a nearby tree, an unseen bird added its chatter, earnestly enjoying its own sweet counsel. A distant crow vocalized its displeasure at something, the sound bittersweet, like being stabbed in the heart with a long-stemmed rose. Struck by the thought that Courville would be a far better place to live than the French Quarter, she headed across the lot toward the house. There was a big mat on the porch and a small sign that asked visitors to wipe their feet, which she did. She tried the front door and found it unlocked.

The foyer floor was covered with an Oriental rug of muted colors and the walls were lined with dark oak paneling the same color as the oak beams on the coffered ceiling.

Coffered . . . Kit let the word roll around in her brain, finding its resemblance to coffin so appropriate.

There were four doors off the foyer, one on each side and two straight ahead, with no signs identifying anything. “Hello . . . is anyone here?”

She listened for an answer but heard none.

She crossed the room and tried a door. It opened into a small chapel with several rows of pews.

“Hello . . .”

She went to another door and found another chapel that was also still and empty.

The door on the left side of the foyer was locked, which left her only one more choice.

That door led to a room with a cement floor and lots of metal cabinets. Over by a metal bench hugging the wall to her left were two stainless-steel gurneys and something called a Porti-Boy, with tubes coming out of it.

She saw a set of double metal doors standing wide open in the far-right corner. The room beyond emitted a whirring sound like the one made by the mechanical mime who’d offered her the flower. She closed the door hard, hoping the sound would announce her presence. The head and shoulders of a red-haired man with pale skin appeared from behind one of the open doors.

“You must be Dr. Franklyn,” he said.

Kit crossed the room and entered a thin cloud of drifting ash. When she reached him, he offered his hand. “I’m Trip Guillory. George said to expect you.”

He was standing turned to the side, and as Kit shook his hand, her eyes went past him to the large green metal oven behind him and the ash and bone inside it.

Noticing her attention was on the oven, Guillory said, “That doesn’t bother you, does it? Since you’re from the medical examiner’s office, I assumed . . .”

“No, it’s fine,” Kit lied, looking him in the eye. “George is . . .”

“My brother . . . the warden at Angola.”

Beyond hair color and complexion, there wasn’t much resemblance between the two men. Whereas George wore his hair long, Trip’s was short. Trip was also about fifteen years younger and thin, with a long face and apparently real teeth.

“George said you’re interested in the cremains of the fellow who came in this morning.”

Cremains . . . another appropriate word, Kit thought. “Are we talking about Ronald Cicero?”

“Right, Cicero. Say, I’m running a little late. Do you mind if I keep working while we talk?”

“Not at all.”

Guillory turned to the wall and reached for something that looked like one of those rakes croupiers use to move chips around a roulette table—only this one had a handle about eight feet long.

“We made a big mistake when we designed this area,” Guillory said, carefully running the handle past her. “If we’d realized how long this cleaning tool is, we’d have laid it out so the retort could be emptied without having these doors open.”

He slid the business end of the cleaning tool into the retort and began pulling the ash and bone into a narrow trough that ran down the center of the retort’s floor. Many of the bones were still intact, but the skull had separated so that its individual elements lay in a disarticulated pile. As the cleaning tool gathered the cremains, the bones broke into smaller fragments.

“Not much left, is there?” Kit said.

“Usually not more than a couple of pounds.” As Guillory worked, the amount of ash in the air increased, settling on Kit’s clothing. The thought that particles derived from a human liver or tongue or toe were settling on her like dandruff was bad enough, but the likelihood she was also inhaling them was just about more than she could take. But she had a job to do, so she held her ground and tried not to breathe so deeply.

“Is that him in there?” she asked.

“Cicero? No, I did him this morning.” Guillory pulled the cleaning tool down the center of the trough, scraping the cremains forward, where they disappeared down a hole.

“What exactly did you hope to accomplish here?” he said, reaching into the ashes and plucking out a metal strap with three screws attached. He tossed it into a nearby trash can.

“What was that?” Kit asked.

“A mending plate. Orthopedic surgeons use them to stabilize fractures. You’d be surprised how much metal comes out of here in a month. Take a look.”

Kit stepped over and peered into the trash can, which contained, in addition to an impressive number of mending plates, a couple of much larger metal replicas of the upper end of a thighbone.

“Those big things in there are artificial hip joints,” Guillory said. “Watch your head.”

He pulled the cleaning tool out of the retort, returned it to the wall, and took down an equally long-handled brush, which he used to sweep out the remaining bone and ash.

“The only kinds of surgical artifacts we have to watch out for are pacemakers—they can explode and damage the lining of the retort—and silicone breast implants—when they melt, they make a helluva mess.”

Kit hadn’t answered Guillory’s question about what she’d hoped to accomplish by coming, because she hadn’t yet figured that out herself. But now, having learned there can be various kinds of surgical artifacts in cremains, as well as some fairly large pieces of bone, it seemed possible that even if Guillory had culled the bigger pieces of metal, Broussard might learn something useful by examining what came out of the retort.

With the retort tidied up inside, Guillory went around to its left side and slid out a large metal drawer that obviously contained the cremains he’d just collected. What happened next made Kit’s heart sink.

Guillory began rummaging through the cremains with a magnet that quickly became bristly with bits of wire and other metal.

“We usually cremate bodies in a cardboard box,” he said. “This picks up all the staples that held the box together.”

As well as any metal artifacts that might be used to identify the body, Kit thought glumly. Then things got worse.

Guillory carried the drawer over to something that looked like a small ice chest and began pouring the cremains through an opening in the top with a plastic scoop. When they were all inside, he shut the door in the chest and flicked a switch that turned on some machinery.

While pistons and gears meshed and groaned, he put the retort drawer back where it had come from, then returned to the chest, which he let grind away for about half a minute, the noise so loud conversation was impossible. When he turned it off, silence had never sounded so good.

He removed a drawer at the bottom of the chest and showed Kit that the machinery had ground and pulverized the bone in the cremains until it all resembled fireplace ash.

He sat the drawer on top of the chest and looked at her. “Did you ever say what you wanted from me?”

The process Kit had just witnessed had probably made the cremains of Ronald Cicero totally useless for identification purposes. But she had been with Broussard long enough to know the old pathologist should never be underestimated, which is why she said, “I’d like to take Cicero’s cremains back to New Orleans with me.”

Up to that point, Guillory’s manner had been open and congenial. Hearing her request, his face hardened. “I don’t know about that. I couldn’t give them to you without George’s permission.”

“Can you call him now?”

“I guess. . . . It’ll take a few minutes, though.”

“I can wait.”

There was a phone on the wall near the Porti-Boy, but instead of using it, Guillory left the room. Figuring the wall phone was probably just some kind of intercom, Kit thought nothing more about it.

While waiting, she went over to the retort and idly looked inside. Seeing nothing of interest, she turned her attention to a recording device in a box on the front.

Some kind of data regarding the retort’s operation were being recorded on a circular piece of paper divided into many concentric circles that she quickly realized represented 50° increments in the retort’s temperature. Lines perpendicular to the concentric circles divided the paper into hours of the day.

At 12:30 P.M., the temperature had risen steeply to 1,700° F. The smooth line indicating this then turned horizontally, became a tight little zigzag for about thirty minutes, then straightened, continuing along the 1,700° line for another ninety minutes. At this point, it dropped to baseline.

Following the time of day around the circle, she saw a similar but not identical heating pattern that had begun at 8:30 that morning—the run for Ronald Cicero.

A few minutes later, the door to the foyer opened and Guillory returned. “George says it’s okay. All you have to do is sign this form.”

They met in the center of the room and Kit took the clipboard Guillory offered. She read the form and signed it with the pen clipped to the board.

“Keep it,” Guillory said, referring to the pen. “We write them off as advertising.”

Even though he’d seen her sign it, Guillory checked her signature as though she might have tried to pull a fast one by signing someone else’s name. Satisfied that everything was in order, he opened a nearby cabinet and removed a circular metal container about a foot long and four inches in diameter and handed it to her.

“Have a nice trip back. I’ll see you out.”

When they parted, Guillory remained on the funeral home’s front porch only until Kit stepped off it. Then he went back inside.

Before getting into her car, Kit brushed the ash off her clothing and checked the metal cylinder to be sure it couldn’t come open during the ride home. Seeing that the screw top was sealed with a bead of solder, she confidently put it on the backseat.

It was now a little after five, which would get her into New Orleans around eight. Cicero, it appeared, would be spending the night in her apartment.

After consulting the rearview mirror and brushing some ash from her hair, she buckled up and turned the key in the ignition. The car remained as quiet as one of the chapels she’d seen. She tried again, with the same results. The third try was no charm. Distinctly less thrilled with silence than she had been earlier, she got out and walked back to the funeral home.

Guillory was in the cremation area, putting the top on a decorative urn.

“My car won’t start. Is there a mechanic nearby?”

“What bad luck. Yeah, there’s one a few miles from here.”

“Will they still be open?”

“I’m sure someone will be there.” He got an idea. “Right across the street from the garage, there’s a really good restaurant. I could drop you off at the garage. You can give them your car key, then have a nice meal while they’re fixing things.”

“Now that you mention it, I am kind of hungry. Sorry to put you out like this.”

“Forget it. I’m finished here, and it’s right on my way. I’ll lock up and we’ll go out the back.”

“I need to get the cremains and some other things from my car.”

“You get them and I’ll come around and pick you up.”

At her car, Kit retrieved the manila envelope and the metal cylinder, locked her doors, and waited for Guillory, who soon appeared from behind the funeral home in a long black hearse.

He stopped beside her and rolled his window down. “Hope you don’t mind riding in the wagon.”

“I never find fault when someone’s doing me a favor.”

She crossed in front of the hearse, got in, and they were on their way.

Accustomed to economy transportation, the plush, quiet ostentation of the hearse made it seem like a traveling church.

“How about some music?” Guillory said.

“I’m just along for the ride. Whatever you want.”

Guillory flicked on the tape player and the hearse was filled with circus music. “It’s a calliope tape I got when I was in Amsterdam last year for the IFDA meeting.” Realizing she might not know what that was, he added, “International Funeral Director’s Association. The calliopes just sit on the street cranking away. Great, isn’t it?”

She didn’t tell him, but even allowing for the New Orleans tradition of jazz funerals, the tape made her uneasy—as if they were committing some kind of blasphemy. The next tune, though, was so infectiously toe-tapping, it would have made even the Pope’s eyes sparkle. So, despite her car troubles and the Cicero situation, she was in good spirits when they arrived at Albert’s Auto Repair.

She was thankful for its existence, but there was no denying the garage was a candidate for EPA superfund cleanup money, for every inch of the dirt drive and the half acre surrounding the place was saturated with grease and oil. There were at least twenty derelict cars and a scattering of rusty farm machinery littered across the front of the operation, which was housed in an unpainted cement-block building with a corrugated metal roof. The dirt drive continued into the garage, where Kit saw a shower of sparks coming from the undercarriage of an old truck.

“I guess you could say the town has a love-hate relationship with Albert,” Guillory said. “He and his people are the best mechanics for fifty miles, but you can see what the place looks like. Ah well . . . what is life but compromise?”

Kit turned her keys over to Albert’s son, Henry, a lanky young man with grease in his hair, under his nails, and probably in his veins, who promised to put a clean cloth over her car seat before he sat in it. Though she doubted there was a clean cloth anywhere in the place, there was little she could do but trust him.

Guillory wrote his home phone number on his card and told her to call him if she needed anything. He then got back in the hearse and continued on his way, the calliope tape making him sound like a Ringling Brothers advance man. Henry followed him out of the driveway in a tow truck and set out for the funeral home.

The restaurant Guillory had touted was called Beano’s. Presumably that was Beano’s face on the giant neon crawfish adorning the big sign out front. With the manila envelope tucked under her arm and the metal cylinder in her hand, Kit crossed the road.

The restaurant, too, was cement block, but it sported a fresh coat of white paint. Its windows were clean and the newly paved and lined parking lot was litter-free. The presence of a dozen vehicles in the lot, mostly pickups, supported Guillory’s opinion of its food.

Inside, it was as cheerful as red-checked plastic tablecloths and a plastic dahlia on each table can make a place. Kit took a booth at the window so she could keep an eye out for the tow truck’s return.

“Hi there. I’m Belle. You got car trouble, right?”

The waitress was a fat girl with curly dark hair. Despite the weight she carried in her face, she was pretty. Knock off forty pounds and she’d be gorgeous.

“I saw you talkin’ to Henry,” she explained. “You break down at the funeral home?”

“You saw me arrive in the hearse?”

“Big front window like this, it’s hard not to see what’s goin’ on. What’s in that metal thing? You an artist?”

Rather than tell her what she was really carrying, Kit thought it best simply to say, “Sort of.”

“You visitin’ somebody at the prison?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Thought so. Never seen you before, so figured it was the prison. Who is it? Husband . . . boyfriend?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“Tell me about it. Me . . . it’s my husband. He’s comin’ up for parole day after tomorrow.” She glanced back at the kitchen pass-through, then leaned closer and dropped her voice. “He gets it, I’m outta here. So, what ya gonna have? We got red beans and rice so good, it’ll make you cry.”

“How could I pass that up? And iced tea.”

“You got it.”

Her food was brought out in just a few minutes and it was indeed very good. Before she’d finished eating, the tow truck returned with her car. Figuring Henry would need some time to figure out what was wrong, she didn’t hurry her meal.

Through the window, she saw Henry lower the car to the ground and move the tow truck out of the way. He came back and fiddled around in the engine for a couple of minutes, then pulled his head out and went into the garage. He returned wheeling some kind of machine with a long cord trailing behind it and spent another few minutes under the hood. Finally, leaving the hood up, he hurried toward the restaurant.

When he came through the door, Kit waved at him, bringing him to her booth.

“Miss, your battery’s shot. I ain’t got one in stock, but I can fetch one from Retreat. And puttin’ it in is easy.”

“How long will it take?”

“Hour maybe.”

“How much will it cost?”

“Depends on the battery.”

“The cheapest one you can find.”

“I can get you runnin’ again for between fifty and sixty dollars.”

“Okay, do it.”

Kit spent the next hour and a half drinking coffee and watching it grow progressively darker and darker through the restaurant’s front window, until night had Courville firmly in its grasp. About the time she’d begun to think something had happened to Henry, the tow truck turned into the garage’s drive. Another ten minutes and he had the new battery installed.

She was so happy to hear the engine start on the first try, the fifty-eight bucks it cost her seemed survivable. The prospect that she’d now arrive home much later than planned was far less objectionable than spending the night in Courville, so as the road stretched away before her headlights, she felt centered and comfortable.

A few minutes later, while listening to Michael Bolton singing “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a pair of headlights suddenly appeared in her rearview mirror. And the idiot had his brights on.

She flicked the mirror to its night setting and tried to keep her eyes on the road. But the lights grew brighter. Checking to see why, she saw that the car was now tailgating her. Then she heard a crash and her car gave a sickening sideways lurch.

She hit the brakes, but her momentum carried the car off the road. It greased across the shoulder and jolted over cobbled terrain. The steering wheel was ripped from her hand and her head was thrown from side to side, rattling her teeth and casting the combs from her hair. Suddenly, the ground dropped away and the car was airborne. A moment later, it returned to earth with a shattering impact. At practically the same instant, it rolled, causing her head to strike the side window, so as the car landed upside down in the waiting bayou and slowly began to sink into its dark waters, she sat limply strapped in her seat, unconscious.