Death Du Jour_ A Novel Part 28

"A salami sub."

"At ten P.M. P.M.?"

"It was a long day."

"My day wasn't exactly a walk in the park." I heard a match, then a long exhalation of breath. "Three flights, then the drive from Savannah out here to Tara, and then I couldn't even raise this yokel of a sheriff. He was out on some d.a.m.n thing all day, and no one would say where he was or what he was doing. Very hush-hush. He and Aunt Bee probably work deep cover for the CIA."

"Sheriff Baker is solid." I slurped a spoonful of slaw.

"You know him?"

"I spent the day with him."

Hush puppy.

"That chewing sounds different."

"Hush puppy."

"What's a hush puppy?"

"If you chip in I'll get you one tomorrow."

"Yahoo. What is it?"

"Deep-fried cornmeal."

"What were you and Baker doing all day?"

I gave him a brief account of the body recovery.

"And Baker suspects the hookah boys?"

"Yes. But I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Ryan, I'm exhausted, and Baker's expecting us early. I'll tell you tomorrow. Can you find the Lady's Island Marina?"

"My first guess would be Lady's Island."

I gave him directions and we hung up. Then I finished my dinner and fell into bed, not bothering with pajamas. I slept naked and like a rock, dreaming nothing that I could recall for a solid eight hours.

18.

AT EIGHT O'CLOCK ON M MONDAY MORNING TRAFFIC WAS HEAVY on the Woods Memorial Bridge. The sky was overcast, the river choppy and slate green. The news on the car radio predicted light rain and a high of seventy-two for the day. Ryan looked out of place in his wool trousers and tweed jacket, like an arctic creature blown to the tropics. He was already perspiring. on the Woods Memorial Bridge. The sky was overcast, the river choppy and slate green. The news on the car radio predicted light rain and a high of seventy-two for the day. Ryan looked out of place in his wool trousers and tweed jacket, like an arctic creature blown to the tropics. He was already perspiring.

As we crossed into Beaufort, I explained jurisdiction in the county. I told Ryan that the Beaufort Police Department functions strictly within the city limits, and described the other three munic.i.p.alities, Port Royal, Bluffton, and Hilton Head, each with its own force.

"The rest of Beaufort County is unincorporated, so it's Sheriff Baker's bailiwick," I summed up. "His department also provides services to Hilton Head Island. Detectives, for example."

"Sounds like Quebec," said Ryan.

"It is. You just have to know whose turf you're on."

"Simonnet phoned her calls to Saint Helena. So that's Baker."

"Yes."

"You say he's solid."

"I'll let you form your own opinion."

"Tell me about the bodies you dug up."

I did.

"Jesus, Brennan, how do you get yourself into these things?"

"It is my job, Ryan." The question irked me. Everything about Ryan irked me lately.

"But you were on holiday."

Yes. On Murtry. With my daughter.

"It must be my rich fantasy life," I snapped. "I dream up corpses, then poof, there they are. It's what I live for."

I clamped my teeth and watched tiny drops gather on the windshield. If Ryan needed conversation he could talk to himself.

"I may need a little guidance here," he said as we pa.s.sed the campus of USC-Beaufort.

"Carteret will take a hard left and turn into Boundary. Go with it."

We curved west past the condominiums at Pigeon Point, and eventually drove between the redbrick walls that enclose the National Cemetery on both sides of the road. At Ribaut I indicated a left turn.

Ryan signaled, then headed south. On our left we pa.s.sed a Maryland Fried Chicken, the fire station, and the Second Pilgrim Baptist Church. On our right sprawled the county government center. The vanilla stucco buildings house the county administrative offices, the courthouse, the solicitors' offices, various law enforcement agencies, and the jail. The faux columns and archways were intended to create a low-country flavor, but instead the complex looks like an enormous Art Deco medical mall.

At Ribaut and Duke I pointed to a sand lot shaded by live oaks and Spanish moss. Ryan pulled in and parked between a Beaufort City Police cruiser and the county Haz Mat trailer. Sheriff Baker had just arrived and was reaching for something in the back of his cruiser. Recognizing me, he waved, slammed the trunk, and waited for us to join him.

I made introductions and the men shook hands. The rain had dwindled to a fine mist. "Sorry to have to put one through your basket," said Ryan. "I'm sure you're busy enough without foreigners dropping in."

"No problem at all," Baker replied. "I hope we can do something for you."

"Nice digs," said Ryan, nodding toward the building housing the Sheriff's Department.

As we crossed Duke, the sheriff gave a brief explanation of the complex.

"In the early nineties the county decided it wanted all its agencies under one roof, so it built this place at a cost of about thirty million dollars. We've got our own s.p.a.ce, so does the city of Beaufort, but we share services such as communications, dispatch, records."

A pair of deputies pa.s.sed us on their way to the lot. They waved and Baker nodded in return, then he opened the gla.s.s door and held it for us.

The offices of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Department lay to the right, past a gla.s.s case filled with uniforms and plaques. The city police were to the left, through a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Next to that door another case displayed pictures of the FBI's ten most wanted, photos of local missing persons, and a poster from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Straight ahead a hallway led past an elevator to the building's interior.

We entered the sheriff's corridor to see a woman hanging an umbrella on a hall tree. Though well past fifty, she looked like an escapee from a Madonna video. Her hair was long and jet-black, and she wore a lace slip over a peac.o.c.k mini-dress with a violet bolero jacket over that. Platform clogs added three inches to her height. She spoke to the sheriff.

"Mr. Colker just phoned. And some detective called 'bout half a dozen times yesterday with his b.a.l.l.s on fire 'bout something. It's on your desk."

"Thank you, Ivy Lee. This is Detective Ryan." Baker indicated the two of us. "And Dr. Brennan. The department will be a.s.sisting them in a matter."

Ivy Lee looked us over.

"You want coffee, sir?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"Three, then?"

"Yes."

"Cream?"

Ryan and I nodded.

We entered the sheriff's office and everyone sat. Baker tossed his hat onto a bank of file cabinets behind his desk.

"Ivy Lee can be colorful," he said, smiling. "She did twenty with the Marines, then came home and joined us." He thought a moment. "That's about nineteen years now. The lady runs this place with the efficiency of a hydrogen fuel cell. Right now she's doing some . . ." He searched for a phrase. ". . . fashion experimentation."

Baker leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. His leather chair wheezed like a bagpipe.

"So, Mr. Ryan, tell me what you need."

Ryan described the deaths in St-Jovite, and explained the calls to Saint Helena. He had just outlined his conversations with the Beaufort-Jasper Clinic obstetrician and with Heidi Schneider's parents when Ivy Lee knocked. She placed a mug in front of Baker, set two others on a table between Ryan and me, and left without a word.

I took a sip. Then another.

"Does she make this?" I asked. If not the best coffee I'd ever tasted, it was right near the top of the list.

Baker nodded.

I drank again and tried to identify the flavors. I heard a phone in the outer office, then Ivy Lee's voice.

"What's in it?"

"It's a 'don't ask don't tell' policy with regard to Ivy Lee's coffee. I give her an allowance each month, and she buys the ingredients. She claims no one knows the recipe but her sisters and her mama."

"Can they be bribed?"

Laughing, Baker lay his forearms on the desk and leaned his weight on them. His shoulders were wider than a cement truck.

"I wouldn't want to offend Ivy Lee," he said. "And definitely not her mama."

"Good policy," agreed Ryan. "Don't offend the mamas." He flipped the elastic from a corrugated brown folder, searched the contents, and withdrew a paper.

"The number phoned from St-Jovite traces to four-three-five Adler Lyons Road."

"You're right about that being Saint Helena," said Baker.

He swiveled to the metal cabinets, slid open a drawer, and pulled a file. Laying the folder on his desk, he perused its one doc.u.ment.

"We ran the address, and there's no police history. Not a single call in the past five years."

"Is it a private home?" asked Ryan.

"Probably. That part of the island is pretty much trailers and small homes. I've been living here off and on all of my life and I had to use a map to find Adler Lyons. Some of the dirt roads out on the islands are little more than driveways. I might know them to see them, but I don't always know their names. Or if they even have names."

"Who owns the property?"

"I don't have that, but we'll check it out later. In the meantime, why don't we just drop in for a friendly visit."

"Suits me," said Ryan, replacing his paper and snapping the elastic into place.

"And we can swing by the clinic if you think that would be useful."

"I don't want to jam you up with this. I know you're busy." Ryan rose. "If you prefer to point us in the right direction, I'm sure we'll be fine."

"No, no. I owe Dr. Brennan for yesterday. And I'm sure Baxter Colker isn't through with her yet. In fact, would you mind waiting while I check something?"

He disappeared into an adjacent office, returned immediately with a message slip.

"As I suspected, Colker called again. He's sent the bodies up to Charleston, but he wants to talk to Dr. Brennan." He smiled at me. His cheekbones and brow ridges were so prominent, his skin so shiny black, his face looked ceramic in the fluorescent light.

I looked at Ryan. He shrugged and sat back down. Baker dialed a number, asked for Colker, then handed me the phone. I had a bad feeling.

Colker said exactly what I antic.i.p.ated. Axel Hardaway would perform the autopsies on the Murtry bodies, but refused to do any skeletal a.n.a.lysis. Dan Jaffer couldn't be reached. Hardaway would process the remains at the med school facility following any protocol I specified, then Colker would transport the bones to my lab in Charlotte if I would do the examinations.

Reluctantly, I agreed, and promised to speak directly with Hardaway. Colker gave me the number and we hung up.

"Allons-y," I said to the others.

"Allons-y," echoed the sheriff, reaching for his hat and placing it on his head.