6

Kit had parked her rental car near Charity Hospital, where Broussard had his offices. She’d walked to Grandma O’s after learning from Broussard’s secretary that he was there. Going back, she rode with him in his T-Bird. Gatlin followed in his aging Pontiac, which he preferred over a departmental car because it was home to fewer cockroaches.

Nothing had happened on Kit’s Angola trip to change her mind about her competence to conduct an investigation, unless it was to undermine it further. Some triumphant return—ruined the camera, lost her car, and never even got a look at Cicero. Better she’d stayed at the gallery.

She glanced at Broussard, molded against the T-Bird’s interior like foam-fill insulation, wondering how this man had gotten to her so thoroughly that she’d once lived only for his approval. It had been her shameful secret—a grown, self-sufficient woman with an advanced academic degree pining for a pat on the head from her boss. It was absurd even when she’d believed herself to be self-sufficient and valuable. Now, realizing the truth, it was simply sad.

She should just go back to being a clerk—but not yet. She hadn’t wanted to be involved in this puzzle, but now that she was, she couldn’t walk away, especially if there was a possibility the Guillorys and the sheriff were responsible for nearly killing her.

Ten minutes later, they were all in the morgue. Guy Minoux, one of Broussard’s morgue assistants, had used a soldering gun to free the top on the metal cylinder and it was now open.

Gatlin looked inside. “Jesus, how are you going to tell anything from that?” He crossed himself for saying “Jesus.”

“Maybe we can’t,” Broussard replied. “First thing to do is X-ray it. Any bits of metal will show up clearly on the films. Often there are clues there—an eyeglass screw, a surgical clip, or a piece of a dental fillin’ . . . that’s really the best. If you can match an object in the cremains to a fillin’ on a set of dental X rays, that’s as good as it gets.”

“Fillings don’t melt during cremation?” Gatlin asked.

“Amalgam does. Porcelain crowns just sag a little. Dental gold and silver aren’t affected at all.”

“And being nonferrous, they wouldn’t be picked up by the magnet funeral homes use on the cremains before packaging them,” Kit said.

“Exactly.”

“You got any dental films of this guy Cicero?” Gatlin asked.

“Arrived this mornin’ from the military records depository in St. Louis.” Broussard looked at his assistant. “I need a chest X-ray cassette and a piece of posterboard about the same size.”

When Kit had worked for Broussard, the morgue was a place she avoided. She was there today only because she just had to know who was in the metal cylinder. During the interlude, while Minoux rounded up the requested items, the faint odor of Clorox crept up her nose and tickled her throat. Looking now at the morgue’s stainless-steel benchtops, sinks, and human-sized drain boards, she saw that washable was the watchword here, right down to the ancient yellow tile on the walls. And they kept it uncomfortably chilly, at least for those still capable of feeling. But it probably did keep the odors down. She looked at the pitted concrete floor with its coat of shiny green paint and wondered if it was slippery when wet. Broussard had once said that when two surfaces come in contact, something of each is transferred to the other. What would she carry away from the morgue on the soles of her shoes?

Minoux returned with the things he’d gone to find.

Broussard put the cassette on a stainless gurney and laid the posterboard on top of it. He donned a plastic apron and a pair of rubber gloves and picked up the cylinder holding the cremains. Taking the cylinder to the gurney, he poured the contents onto the posterboard and carefully spread them until they were evenly distributed.

Understanding what Broussard wanted next without being told, Minoux rolled a portable X-ray machine over to the gurney and swung the arm holding the X-ray source over the cremains. He adjusted the height of the arm and looked at Broussard, who nodded his approval.

Minoux briefly turned the power on, then off.

“One more to be sure,” Broussard said.

He lifted the posterboard so Minoux could turn the cassette over and expose another film. When that was done, Minoux took the cassette away to develop the pictures.

“This is gonna take a few minutes,” Broussard said. “Might as well wait down by the snack machines.”

The vending machines were just inside the entrance where bodies were delivered. For seating, it contained four dingy orange vinyl sofas. On one cement-block wall was a faded print of a flower-filled mountain valley.

While Gatlin and Broussard perused the offerings of the vending machines, Kit found the cleanest cushion on the sofas and sat down.

“Didn’t you two just eat?” she said.

“Window-shoppin’,” Broussard replied.

The elevator doors opened and Charlie Franks got off. “Look at this,” he said, “the whole brain trust in one place. What’s going on?”

“It’s a long story,” Broussard replied.

Franks looked at Kit. “Does this mean you’re coming back, I hope?”

“We don’t know what it means,” Kit said. “But I wouldn’t think it means that. It’s good to see you, though.”

Franks turned his attention to Gatlin. “Hey, Phillip. How’s it going?”

“My blood pressure’s up, I got a case of athlete’s foot I can’t cure, and there’s a varicose vein as big as a sausage sticking out of my ass. Otherwise, great.”

“And how’s the wife? On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t know.” He turned to Broussard. “We got that body out of the cement.”

“Didn’t take long.”

“Once we got started, we were able to follow cleavage planes between the cement and the victim’s clothing. We found the chain saw used to cut him up in there, too. They’re dusting it for prints even as we speak.”

The buzzer at the door sounded. “There are the remains now.”

He went to the double doors and unlocked them, then looked back. “You all might want to hold your breath.”

He opened the doors and two uniformed men wheeled in a gurney with a body bag on it.

“Room two,” Broussard said. “We’re workin’ in one.”

Kit held her breath until the gurney had passed through the swinging double doors leading to the autopsy rooms. In doing so, she was transported back to Snake Bayou, back to the moment when the seat belt had her shoe and the bayou was about to pour into her mouth and nose. She gasped for air, drawing curious stares from the two men.

“You all right?” Broussard asked.

“I just held my breath too long.”

Gatlin sat on the sofa against the wall opposite Kit. He stretched his legs out and rubbed his face with his big mitt, fuzzing his eyebrows. He checked his watch.

Hands in his pockets, Broussard paced.

“I can’t wait much longer,” Gatlin said.

“Go on, then. . . . I’ll keep you informed,” Broussard said.

“A little longer maybe.”

Five minutes later, Gatlin slapped his thighs and stood up, giving every indication his patience was exhausted. Before he could speak, Guy Minoux’s voice came over the intercom.

“Dr. Broussard, those X-rays are ready.”

When they reached the autopsy room, Minoux already had the film clipped to a view box. With Kit close on his heels, Broussard went to the view box and perused the film.

Amid a hazy background of crushed bone fragments, half a dozen sharp images stood out. In the upper-left corner was a staple Kit recognized as one like those Trip Guillory had said were from the cardboard box the bodies were cremated in. Kit pointed this out and Broussard grunted in reply.

She saw two more staples, but refrained from saying anything. In the lower-right corner were two round objects that looked metallic.

“Ha.” Broussard pointed at an image, slightly right of center. “That’s the kind of thing I’m lookin’ for.”

Kit and Gatlin moved in for a closer look. Broussard was referring to a forked object about three millimeters wide and five long, with one leg shorter than the other.

Broussard again donned his apron and a pair of rubber gloves. He picked up a pair of forceps from a porcelain tray on the counter, slipped a pair of jeweler’s magnifying lenses over his head, and returned to the X-ray. After a quick refresher on the location of the forked object, he went to the cremains, nudged the magnifying lenses down over his glasses, and began picking through the ashes with the forceps in the general area where the film had located the forked object.

In less than a minute, he found it and put it in his palm. Moving to where the light was better, he examined the object briefly, nudged his magnifiers up, and looked at Kit and Gatlin, obviously pleased. “This is a pin-and-post castin’—to hold a crown on a multirooted tooth,” he said. “It’s an important find for two reasons: The first is its distinctive shape. No two castin’s from different teeth can be identical. The second is that castin’s are not done much anymore. Most pins these days are little threaded rods commercially made in a variety of sizes that come with matchin’ drill bits. So this was likely done a long time ago.”

“Oh, I get it,” Gatlin said. “If that casting is on the army X-rays upstairs we’ll have proof that’s Cicero in the can.”

“Exactly,” Broussard replied.

“But it can’t be Cicero,” Gatlin continued. “So it won’t be on the X-rays. And what are we to make of that?”

“Let’s just get the results and worry later about what it means,” Broussard said. He turned to Minoux. “We’re goin’ up to my office. Now that the X-ray machine is workin’ again, I’d appreciate it if you’d get our mystery man out of the fridge and make me a full set of dental films. I’ll want to see ’em soon as they’re ready.”

Broussard put the casting in a small snap-top vial. He shucked all his gear, put the vial in his pocket, and pulled the X-ray from the view box. “Let’s go.”

Reaching his office, Broussard went directly to the view box behind his desk and hung the film he’d brought from the morgue. He retrieved the dental files from the military records he’d received and hung them, as well.

Not wanting Gatlin to see anything before he did, Broussard made sure he blocked Gatlin’s view of the films while he gave them a quick once-over. It took only a few seconds to spot a familiar forked object. Not believing his eyes, he took another look at the film from the morgue, then glanced back at the military dental film. Deep in thought now, he wandered away from the view box and began to pace.

With him out of the way, Gatlin and Kit studied the films for themselves. Seeing what Broussard had seen, Gatlin said, “I’ll be damned.” He looked at Broussard. “I’d have bet you a hundred bucks we wouldn’t find that casting on the military films.”

“So the guy who was cremated at Angola really was Ronald Cicero,” Kit said.

“That would seem to be the case,” Broussard replied.

“Which means everything is on the up-and-up over there. And your suspicions that my misadventure was choreographed are wrong.”

Broussard stared at the bookcases on the wall, his thumb under his chin, his finger rubbing the bristly hairs on the tip of his nose. Knowing he was now too far away to reach, Kit looked at Gatlin for a reply. But he just turned his palms to the ceiling and shrugged.

This little tableau was brought to an end by a knock at the door.

It was Guy Minoux, looking shell-shocked.

“You didn’t bring those X-rays,” Broussard said, stating the obvious.

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The mystery man’s body is gone.”