Deadly Decisions_ A Novel Part 32

"C'est ca. Yesterday workers opened the last of the containers and found a body. The captain thinks the deceased is probably a stowaway, but has no explanation beyond that."

"Where is the ship registered?"

"Malaysia. I've begun the autopsy, but the remains are so badly decomposed I'm not going to be able to do much. I'd like you to take a look at them."

"I'll be down shortly."

When I hung up and crossed to the lab I found Jocelyn the temp bending over my worktable. Ms. Charm School wore fishnets and a leather skirt that rode high enough to show dark at the top of each stocking. At the sound of the door she straightened and turned.

"Dr. Morin asked me to give you this."

She extended an arm, and her earrings oscillated like tiny school-yard swings. Each hoop was large enough to perch a finch.

I crossed to her and took the request form, wondering why Morin hadn't left it on my desk.

"Killer haircut." She spoke in a low, monotone voice, and I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic. Her face looked more pallid than normal, her eyes red-rimmed and underlined by dark commas.

"Thank you, Jocelyn." I hesitated, not wanting to pry. "Are you all right?"

She reacted as though the question totally confused her. Then she hitched a shoulder and mumbled, "Allergies kick me around in the spring. I'm fine."

With one last puzzled look, she scurried out of the lab.

I reboxed the Osprey remains and spent the rest of the morning with the Malaysian stowaway. Morin had not exaggerated. The bulk of the soft tissue in the body bag belonged to maggots.

At noon I went back upstairs to find Kit seated in my chair, boots crossed on the windowsill, a Frank Sinatra fedora on the back of his head.

"How'd you get onto this floor?" I asked, trying to hide my surprise. I'd totally forgotten the lunch date we'd arranged via the refrigerator door.

"I left my driver's license with the guard and he let me come up." He flipped the blue visitor's pa.s.s that was clipped to his collar. "I was sitting in the lobby, then a lady took pity and brought me here."

He swung his feet down and swiveled toward me.

"Whooaa! Let me get a bead on that."

He must have seen something in my face.

"Don't take me wrong. That is one rad haircut." He leveled two index fingers at me. "Makes you look younger."

"Let's go," I said, retrieving a sweater from the hall tree. I'd had more than enough comments on my hair.

Over bra.s.serie subs and fries my nephew described his Sunday with Lyle Crease, the highlight of which had been the purchase of the fedora. No Madonna or fishing lures. After returning to Montreal, they'd dined on smoked meat at Ben's, then Crease took him to the newsroom.

"What do you two talk about?"

"The dude's really heads-up." m.u.f.fled through cold cuts and cheese. "It's awesome how much he knows about broadcasting. And he's pretty tight on cycles, too."

"Does he ask you a lot of questions?"

I wondered how much Crease was using Kit to get information about my cases. The biker war was hot news just now.

"Some."

Kit yanked a paper napkin from a metal box at the end of the table and wiped grease from his chin.

"About what?"

He bunched up the napkin and reached for another.

"All kinds of stuff. Lyle's amazing. He's interested in everything."

Something in his voice told me my nephew had begun to worship Lyle Crease. O.K., I thought. I can live with that. Oily as the guy is, he beats the Preacher sight unseen.

After lunch Kit insisted on returning with me to the lab. Though anxious to get back to my skeletal autopsy, I obliged him with a short tour. I could be heads-up, too.

During our rounds Kit made only two comments. I would recall them later, and chastise myself for taking no notice.

"Who's the freak show?" he asked, after pa.s.sing Jocelyn at the Xerox machine.

"She works in records."

"Bet that's a head full of slash and burn."

"She has allergy problems."

"Right. Nasal spray."

The other remark was made in the ballistics section. He called their collection of firearms "sweet."

When Kit had gone I went back to the stowaway. By four-thirty I'd finished my preliminary examination, concluding that the remains were those of a male in his late twenties. I'd dissected out the bones and sent them upstairs for boiling. Then I'd washed up, changed, and returned to my office.

I was reaching for my sweater when I noticed a color print centered squarely on my blotter.

Oh, great, I thought. Here's something new. I haven't scoped a photo in at least two hours.

I reached for the picture, thinking that perhaps it belonged to Claudel.

It didn't.

Though the snapshot was old, and a network of cracks marred its surface, the color and focus were relatively good. It was a group shot, taken in a camping or picnic area. In the foreground a crowd of men and women milled around wooden tables jammed together to form a U. The earth was littered with empty cans and bottles, the tables heaped with backpacks, coolers, bundles, and paper bags. Loblolly pines rose in the background, truncated by the picture's upper border.

One large bag lay upright against a table leg, its print square to the camera lens. The logo caught my attention.

"-ggly Wiggly."

I flipped to the back of the print. Nothing.

I rehung the sweater, dug out a magnifying gla.s.s, and sat down to examine the image. Within seconds I found confirmation on a gorilloid oaf in denim vest and fingerless leather gloves. An arm wider than a state highway reached across his chest, displaying swastika, lightning bolts, and the poetic acronym "F.T.W." While Kong's upper limb obliterated part of his T-shirt, the bottom words were fully legible.

"Myrtle Beach."

Barely breathing, I began a close inspection of the persons pictured. Slowly, I worked the lens across the image, checking each face as it took form.

Within seconds I found her. Half hidden in a sea of caps and bushy heads, a frail figure leaned against a tree, little twig arms wrapped around her waist. Her head was tipped, and a ray of sunlight flashed off one of the huge lenses dwarfing her features.

Savannah Claire Osprey.

While I couldn't read her expression I could sense the tension in her body. From what, I wondered. Excitement? Fear? Self-consciousness?

I moved on.

The man to Savannah's right looked like a character from The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald. He had shoulder-length hair and a beard that hung to mid-chest. Cormac was caught with chin raised, a can of Miller pressed to his lips.

The companion on her other side was very tall, with short hair and scraggly beard and mustache. His face was obscured in shadow, making his belly the most conspicuous trait. It had the tone of a used Ace bandage, hanging in fleshy rolls over a large, oval belt buckle. On it I could see letters. I raised and lowered the lens trying to make out the message, but too much was obscured by paunch.

Frustrated, I slid the lens up the torso and studied the face, hoping something would click. No go. I dropped back to the buckle and brought my face close to the gla.s.s.

A random synaptic firing, and there it was. Back to the face. Could it be?

No. This man was much larger.

But maybe. I couldn't tell. I'd gotten there too late. Too much damage.

Yet, there was a resemblance.

Had George Dorsey known something after all?

Heart pounding, I reached for the phone.

29.

WHEN C CLAUDEL ANSWERED I I IDENTIFIED MYSELF AND DIVED IDENTIFIED MYSELF AND DIVED right in. right in.

"There's something I didn't tell you. Spider Marcotte wasn't the only one Dorsey mentioned. He claimed to have information about Savannah Osprey."

"The young girl we found in St-Basile-le-Grand?"

"Yes. I think he may have been telling the truth."

"Dorsey's trademark."

I ignored the sarcasm.

"Did you leave a picture on my desk?"

"No."

"Someone did. It's an old snapshsot taken at a biker gathering."

"Probably a prayer meeting."

"It looks like a picnic or camp-out."

"Uh-huh."

I took a deep breath to steady my voice.

"Savannah Osprey is there."

"She is?" His tone told me he didn't believe it.

"Absolutely."

"What does that have to do with Dor-"

"The picture was taken in Myrtle Beach."

"How do you know?"

"At least one of the believers is wearing a Myrtle Beach T-shirt."

"My son has a Kansas City Chiefs' shirt."

"I know honeysuckle and kudzu when I see it. And I recognized a Piggly Wiggly logo on one of the grocery bags."

"What's a Piggly Wiggly?"

"It's a chain of supermarkets, with several in the Myrtle Beach area."

"Why would anyone call a supermarket Piggl-"

"And one of the picnickers may be Cherokee Desjardins."

There was a moment of dead air.

"What makes you think that?"

"He's wearing a belt buckle that says 'Cherokee.'"