4

With his autopsy on the second victim completed, Broussard returned to his office. Pausing now by his desk to make sure he wasn’t going to charge off to the Hyatt and forget something he needed, his eye fell on the brochure a salesman had left for chain-metal autopsy gloves. He sniffed in disdain at the thought of what the profession was coming to. Across the country, the autopsy attire adopted by the younger examiners consisted of surgical hood, plastic eye protector, plastic apron over a surgical gown, waterproof sleeve protectors, disposable plastic boots tied closed with twist-’ems and two pairs of disposable latex gloves. Some had even bought the salesman’s metal gloves to keep from cutting themselves.

Metal gloves.

If you exercised proper care and had a modicum of coordination, you wouldn’t be cutting yourself. And all that other paraphernalia just encouraged sloppiness. If you knew what you were doing, a plastic apron and two pairs of rubber gloves were enough. He allowed himself these thoughts to give his mind a break from thinking about that blasted hair.

He glanced at his watch—ten to noon, just enough time to make it to the Hyatt. He put a half dozen lemon balls from the bowl on his desk into his pants pocket and rang his secretary.

“Margaret, I’m going to the hotel and from there to Grandma O’s for lunch. After that, I’ll be back at the hotel. Anything new comes in, give it to Charlie. If Phil Gatlin calls, beep me on my pager.”

Usually, he looked forward to his conversations with Gatlin because they consisted largely of Gatlin listening attentively while Broussard dispensed enlightenment. But this time would be different.

At the Hyatt, he found Crandall Brooks standing by the message board.

“How was the workshop?” Broussard asked.

“A little on the elementary side. But I enjoyed it.”

Broussard scanned the small groups conversing in the foyer.

“Who you looking for?” Brooks asked.

“Leo Fleming.”

“He left with Jason Harvey a few minutes ago.”

“Guess I’ll have to catch him later,” Broussard said, sorry to have missed Fleming but happy to have avoided Harvey. “Let me just leave him a note.” He scribbled a few lines on a piece of paper provided for messages, folded it, wrote Fleming’s name on the front, and stuck it on the board. “If you don’t mind a little walk, I thought we’d have lunch at Grandma O’s.”

“Sounds good. How is she? Still as crusty as ever?”

“That’s a given in a changing world.”

Brooks took off his meeting ID badge, which had been on a cord around his neck, and put it in his Forensic Academy tote bag. Broussard’s ID was still in his shirt pocket, where he’d put it before the autopsy.

They left the hotel and set out on foot down Poydras, toward the river. Except for an observation or two from each of them about the weather and Brooks’s comment about Mardi Gras being almost here when he saw some grandstands going up on an intersecting street, they talked very little.

Grandma O’s was where Broussard ate lunch so regularly, she always held the largest table open for him even if the place was jammed, which it usually was. Today, Broussard saw a number of tables with Forensic Academy tote bags on the floor by the occupants. Grandma O came steaming toward them like an icebreaker, her black taffeta dress rustling like locusts in a wheat field, a broad grin showing the gold star inlay in her front tooth.

“City Boy, Ah see you brought me somebody Ah don’ get to feed too often.” Her smile faded and her eyes grew sad. “Dr. Brooks, Ah was real sorry to hear ’bout . . . what happened.”

“Well,” Brooks said, “it’s a fact of life we all have to deal with sometime.”

“Dat’s sure true . . . but it don’t make it any easier. . . . Come on back.”

She led them to Broussard’s table and stood with the Cajun shack-on-stilts menus against her large bosom while they got seated. “City Boy, Ah know you don’ need a menu. How ’bout you, Dr. Brooks?”

“Do you still have alligator chili?”

“Everyday.”

“I’ll have a bowl of that, a catfish poor boy, and iced tea.”

“Same for me,” Broussard said.

Grandma O went off to the kitchen, leaving the two men to sit in awkward silence, Susan Brooks’s death hovering over the table.

“Guess you noticed I’ve gained a little weight,” Brooks said finally.

“It looks good.”

“After Susan died, I lost interest in running. . . . I don’t eat any more than I ever did, but the pounds keep piling on. Guess my metabolism is different now.”

“Brookie . . . how are you doing?”

Brooks looked at Broussard for a moment without answering. In the depths of his eyes, Broussard saw a wistful longing that twisted at his own heart. Finally, Brooks said, “Sometimes I think I’ve got it licked, that it’s all behind me.” He shook his head slowly. “But it’s not gone. It’s just hiding under a thin skin waiting for a weak moment . . . then for a few minutes it’s like the first days again. . . .” He sighed, making a faint sound like a far-off wind blowing across a desolate plain. “But it’s not happening now as often. . . .”

Searching Brooks’s eyes, Broussard saw behind the longing and the pain a glimmer of something else—a spark of the old Brookie, intense, goal-oriented. . . . Thus, when Brooks said, “So I’m getting there,” Broussard believed him.

But the conversation lapsed again and Brooks picked up his bread knife and began running it in and out of the tines on his fork, his attention wandering in directions Broussard thought it shouldn’t. Fortunately, the food came and he seemed to rally, to where after he’d made serious inroads into his meal, he even initiated a new topic of conversation. “How’s Kit been doing?”

“Okay until Saturday.”

Brooks worried his brow and started to ask what had happened, but Broussard was ahead of him.

“She came home and found that someone had poisoned her dog.”

“That’s terrible. I didn’t know she had a dog.”

“Took him in as a stray some time ago.”

“I know she’s going to miss him,” Brooks said, the hollow look in his eyes returning.

Broussard felt like an idiot for bringing up such a subject and he saw that it was going to be tough to keep his comments around Brookie properly edited. “They think he’ll make it,” he said quickly, happy to end the topic on an upbeat note. “But they’re keepin’ him at the vet’s for a few days.”

“That’s great. I’m glad. And professionally . . . how’s she doing there?”

“Quite well, although she sometimes doesn’t think so. When she gets a hold of a problem, she’s like a bull alligator, won’t let go until she’s worked it through. And she’s fearless, which sometimes gets her in over her head. One time she—”

“You like her a lot, don’t you?”

Above his beard, Broussard’s skin reddened. “I like all my people.”

“But she’s special.”

Broussard thought about this a bit and finally said, “If things had been different and I hadn’t . . .” Realizing that this, too, was taking the conversation into a touchy area, Broussard made his point without preamble. “She’s the kind of woman any man would be proud to have as a daughter.” But this didn’t work, either, and Brooks seemed to wilt, probably thinking about the fact he and Susan had never had children.

For the next few minutes, they ate in silence so awkward Broussard considered knocking his tea over just to break its grip. In life, Susan Brooks had loved people and the situations that brought them together. Over the years, Broussard had attended numerous dinner parties at the Brooks’s home in Albany. Where some hostesses might strive for common interests in their guests, at Susan’s you might meet an opera star, a farmer, and a manufacturer of disposable diapers all in the same night. And Susan was the spark that made it work, adding the right word here, a question there. So it was ironic that in death she should have made conversation between Broussard and Brookie so difficult.

Still groping for something to say, Broussard noticed a serious-looking fellow with straight brown hair and a heavy five o’clock shadow heading their way.

“Andy,” he said, “I’m glad I ran into you. I wonder if you’d do me a favor.”

It was Zin Fanelli, ordinarily someone he’d go out of his way to avoid. But under the circumstances, he’d have welcomed anyone.

“Zin, my boy. Have a seat.”

Broussard’s effusive greeting took Fanelli by surprise and he took a small step backward, acting like one of Broussard’s cats when he’d try to get close enough to grab them for a bath.

“Thanks, but I’m with some people,” Fanelli said warily.

“Brookie, this is Zin Fanelli. He trained with me a few years ago. Zin . . . Crandall Brooks, ME in Albany.”

They exchanged a handshake and Fanelli turned back to Broussard. “Hate to bother you while you’re eating, but sometimes you can go for days at these meetings and never see people you’re looking for.”

Broussard doubted that Fanelli had any misgivings whatever about disturbing his meal. “What can I do for you?”

“Jason Harvey’s looking for an assistant and I’ve applied for the job. Would you write me a letter of reference and send it to him?”

Fanelli’s request was a surprise. Considering the many arguments they’d had over Fanelli’s irresponsibility when he was in training, he had to know Broussard didn’t think much of him. The fact he’d managed to get his present position without a letter showed he did know. So why was he asking for help now?

Then his reasoning became clear. Fanelli had to know about the Vanzant trial—Broussard testifying for the prosecution, Harvey flown in for the defense. It had been necessary to destroy Harvey’s analysis from the witness stand and Harvey’d taken it hard. So that now, about the only way Harvey would hire a Broussard trainee was if Broussard had a low opinion of him, all of which would make this an easy letter to write. “Be glad to,” Broussard said pleasantly, thinking that Harvey and Fanelli deserved each other.

Brooks started to say something but was interrupted by Broussard’s pager.

“Hold that thought, Brookie. Zin, I’ll be right back.”

Broussard checked the number displayed on the pager and headed for the cash register, where Grandma O was making change for a couple of well-scrubbed guys in three-piece suits. Without being asked, she brought the phone up from under the register and plopped it on the counter.

He punched in the number he’d been given and reached Gatlin in the middle of the first ring. “Phillip . . . Andy.”

“Anything useful develop on that night clerk?” Gatlin asked, his voice barely audible over the restaurant noise.

“You gonna be free around one-thirty?”

“I could be.”

“Come on by my office and we’ll discuss it.”

Returning to the table, Broussard found only Brooks.

“Fanelli had to leave. He said to give you his thanks. No crisis, I hope.”

“No more than usual. I do need to get back, though.”

“No problem. I’m finished.”

Seeing that Grandma O was being kept busy at the register, they didn’t wait for the check but went to her instead.

“You two tryin’ to get out before Ah see if you ate everything?” she asked, her dark eyes hooded. Not finishing your food at Grandma O’s was a sin worse than any Moses brought down from the mount.

“Our plates are so clean, you might not even have to wash ’em,” Broussard said, getting out his wallet.

Grandma O fished in her apron for the checks. “City Boy, you owe me seven dollars an’ fifty cents.” Looking kindly at Brooks, she added, “Dr. Brooks, Ah don’ seem to have one for you.”

Upon reaching the hotel, Brooks said, “Think I’ll go to my room and look over the program and read some abstracts. Made any plans for dinner?”

“I’ve agreed to go with Leo Fleming. But you’re welcome to come along. In fact, I wish you would.”

Despite the uncomfortable lunch they’d had, Broussard was not about to start ignoring his old friend. Besides, with Leo present, there’d be no long silences.

“Okay, sure, why not.”

“We’re gonna meet here at six.”

“Right . . . see you then.” Brooks took a few steps toward the elevators, then stopped abruptly and came back, his hand going to his inside jacket pocket. “Almost forgot. I brought this for you.”

He handed Broussard a textured white folder. In it was a picture of a younger Crandall Brooks in a tux and, beside him, Susan Brooks, wearing a low-cut black dress, her blond hair softly framing her face. Behind them were some friends, glasses raised in a toast.

“Considering that you knew Susan even before I did, I thought you might like to have this to remember her. It was taken at a party celebrating our twentieth anniversary. I thought she looked particularly beautiful that night.”

Broussard stared at a Susan Brooks that looked so healthy and so vital, it was hard to believe wayward cells could ever get a foothold in her. Swallowing hard, he said, “It was good of you to think of me. I do want it.”

He watched until Brooks disappeared into the elevator alcove. He then opened the folder and looked again at Susan Brooks’s picture. Though he dealt with death every day, he was no more equipped to accept it in relatives and friends than anyone else and he began to tick off a list in his head: Aubry and Miriam, his parents; Estelle Broussard, the grandmother who had raised him after his parents were killed; Alston Bennet, his forensic pathology mentor; Dick Rails, his gross-anatomy partner in med school; Brad Dunbar, the best radiologist he ever knew and the one who had sponsored his membership in the Greater New Orleans Gourmet Society; Claude and Olivia Duhon; Kurt Halliday; Arthur Jordan . . . and now Susan Brooks. The list was growing steadily longer . . . growing too long . . . growing too fast. With each of these deaths, he’d lost a part of himself. How much could a man lose and still have enough left to keep getting out of bed in the morning?

Suddenly, he felt hemmed in . . . by the hotel, by his life, by events he couldn’t control. Finding the atmosphere in the lobby stale and oppressive, he made for one of the front doors and moved out into the fresh air, except under the huge portico, the air wasn’t so fresh, but was tinged with taxi and limo exhaust fumes. He walked down to the edge of the portico and stepped out into the open, breathing deeply, tired of thinking, tired of responsibility, wanting just to be.

For a while, he watched some sparrows coming and going in the shrubs planted along the hotel, envying them their freedom and their small brains that surely did not bother them with old memories. Eventually, unable to ignore matters at hand, he reluctantly returned to the hotel, where, feeling very lonely, he went up the escalator to the Regency Foyer, hoping that Leo had found his note.

His spirits lifted when he saw Leo by the message board, talking to Hugh Greenwood, the ME from Indianapolis, who was also part of the faculty for the aircraft-accident workshop. Greenwood was clean-shaven, with a hairline rapidly going north. More notably, he had a lacework of fine scars over the lower half of his face that pulled the corners of his thin lips into a look of perpetual disapproval that often made people who didn’t know him uncomfortable. It was his personality that made people who did know him uncomfortable.

“Hello, Andrew,” Greenwood said. “I see from the paper you had an interesting day Saturday.”

“You mean that murder?”

“Scrabble letters, the article said. That’s a new twist.”

“And we had another one this mornin’.”

“Same guy?” Fleming asked.

“Looks like it. He left us some more letters.”

“Now you see, it’s just like I was telling Leo before you walked up. You’re a lucky guy.”

“How so?”

“Your jurisdiction is one of the most interesting cities in the country and now you’ve got the rarest of criminals . . . a serial killer with a genuine sense of theater.”

“Why don’t I feel lucky?”

“Because you’re caught up in the moment. If you could step back and view it, you’d appreciate the drama . . . the human spectacle.”

Broussard did not answer right away, but spent a moment trying to figure out if Greenwood was pulling his leg. With him, you could never be sure. Unable to decide, he simply said, “You still gonna be here Wednesday?”

“Sure, why?”

“That’s when the psychiatry and behavioral science folks’ll be havin’ their business meetin’ and I was thinkin’ I’d get ’em to examine you before they got started.”

Greenwood grinned, his scars making it look more like he’d pinched his finger in a car door.

Broussard looked at Fleming. “Leo, I wonder if you’d have time to come over to my office and give me your opinion on somethin’ related to the case?”

“Now?”

“If you’re free.”

“Am I gonna have to come back and testify when it comes to trial?”

“Way too soon to know. I’ll try to keep you out of it, but if the defense wants to challenge your conclusion—whatever that’s gonna be—I . . .”

“No, no. I want to come back. I like this town.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“You have things to discuss, so I’ll leave you to it,” Green-wood said.

Fearing that Greenwood might feel as though he’d been brushed off, Broussard said, “Hugh, if you don’t have plans, come to dinner with us tonight.”

“I’d like to, but an old college chum of mine lives here and he and his wife are taking me out.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“All right. I’m sure I’ll see you around. We’ll fill in the details later.”

Broussard and Fleming started for the escalator. Green-wood headed for a telephone. As he passed a potted bamboo a few steps from where they’d all been talking, someone without an ID badge stepped out and said, “Excuse me, who was that with Broussard?”

“Leo Fleming,” Greenwood said.

“What does he do?”

“He’s a forensic anthropologist.”

“Thanks.”

Watching him walk away, Greenwood shook his head. A ponytail . . . on a grown man.