Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1 Page 13

“Hello, Kathryn,” Mr. Wilkins beamed. “What can I get for you today?”

  “I’ll have what he’s having.” She gestured to Nick.

  Mr. Wilkins’s face dropped. “He don’t know what he’s having.”

  “Then I’ll just have a scoop of cookie dough.”

  “What about you?” Mr. Wilkins glowered.

  “Nothing for me, thanks—I was just waiting for the lady. What I would like is to ask you a few questions. I wonder if you would mind joining us for a few minutes,” he glanced around at the empty store, “whenever you can find a free moment.”

  Nick and Kathryn sat down at a round, red Formica table in front of the store window. The chairs had red vinyl seats to match, and the backs and legs were made of thick black wire that twisted and curved to form the shape of hearts. Mr. Wilkins balanced himself uncomfortably on one of these, opposite Dr. Polchak.

  “What’s this all about?” he said.

  “I understand that you are the coroner of Holcum County.”

  “That’s right. Duly elected.”

  Nick smiled.

  “I wanted to have a chance to meet you. I’m Dr. Nicholas Polchak, research entomologist and diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Entomologists.” He leaned forward and extended his hand. “I understand we’re colleagues.”

  Mr. Wilkins smiled vaguely and shook his hand.

  “Haven’t we met before?” Nick continued. “Your name is very familiar. Dr. Wilkins … Dr. Wilkins … Did we meet at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences convention last year? Or perhaps it was the National Association of Medical Examiners.”

  Kathryn kicked him under the table.

  “No matter.” Nick rubbed his shin. “I wanted to ask you some questions about your examination of the body of James McAllister.”

  “I can’t discuss that,” Mr. Wilkins said with a wave of his hand.

  “That’s official business. You understand.”

  “I do indeed,” Nick said, “but as Mrs. Guilford will verify, we’re here under the jurisdiction of Sheriff St. Clair. That makes this an official inquiry. You can call him if you like.”

  Mr. Wilkins tugged again at his collar and shifted awkwardly on his wobbling chair.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Mr. McAllister’s death was unwitnessed, which in most cases makes an autopsy mandatory—yet you declined to request an autopsy. Why?”

  “Because it was definitely a suicide.

  No doubt about it.”

  “No doubt?” Nick arched one eyebrow. “In that case, I’d like to ask you to explain something to me. How do you account for the unusual lividity in the right leg? The right foot and ankle were marked, but not the dorsal surface of the leg itself. That indicates that the leg was supported in an upright position at the time of death and then moved several hours later.”

  Mr. Wilkins blinked hard. “How did you—”

  “I had a chance to examine the body—very briefly.”

  “I never saw that. I never saw the leg.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Well … he had clothes on.”

  Nick looked at him blankly. “Did you make any effort to examine under the clothing?”

  “The body was in no condition for that sort of thing.”

  “That’s because he was dead. That’s sort of the whole point, Mr. Wilkins. As a colleague, may I make an observation? Personally, I find it very difficult to determine the cause of death by looking at someone’s outfit.”

  Mr. Wilkins tugged harder at his collar.

  “There’s something else you missed,” Nick continued. “Something that could be quite important.”

  Kathryn straightened and looked at Nick.

  “The bullet produced two wounds—an entry wound here,” he pointed to his right temple,“ and an exit wound on the opposite side. But there was a third wound—here.” He indicated an area on the forehead just to the left of center.

  “That could have happened when the body fell.”

  “When the body fell backwards?”

  “What difference does it make? We know that his death was caused by the bullet, so what does it matter if there was another wound?”

  “It matters because the wound was infested by larvae. Flies oviposit in traumatized tissues. In other words, they don’t lay eggs on unbroken skin—they look for open wounds. It took quite a blow to open that wound—a blow that could cause a man to lose consciousness. The third wound was not caused by the bullet or the fall. That means that the wound was probably present at the time of death. Now tell me this, Mr. Wilkins”—he leaned back in his chair—“how do you suppose Mr. McAllister injured his head?”

  “How would I know? A body gets pretty banged up lying around in the woods for a week.”

  “Yes it does, but only in certain ways. As the eggs hatch into larvae, they begin to consume the tissues outward from the place of oviposition. That explains why the eye sockets grew larger and the bullet wounds increased in size—but it does not explain how an unrelated wound spontaneously opened in the center of the forehead.”

  Mr. Wilkins said nothing.

  “I’ll give you a hint: The wound must have been caused by an object.”

  “But there wasn’t no object.”

  “You see?” Nick smiled at Kathryn. “This is what happens when two professionals put their heads together. Mr. Wilkins has rightly deduced that, since no object capable of causing the wound was present at the death scene, then something—or someone—must have taken the object away. Now, who would have had motive to do such a thing? Perhaps the one who employed the object to strike Mr. McAllister—perhaps his killer.”

  “But he died from a gunshot wound from his own gun!”

  “An unconscious man makes an easy target, Mr. Wilkins. The sheriff says the gunpowder residue test on Mr. McAllister’s hand proved negative. That can be explained by the clean firing of the gun—but it can also be explained by someone else firing the gun.”

  Kathryn sat open-mouthed, staring at Mr. Wilkins. The combined effect of her probing eyes and Nick’s accusing questions was more than he could bear. His face grew red and hot, and he tugged at his collar until his tie hung low like a noose around his bloated neck.

  “You’re only guessing,” he said. “You don’t know any of this.”

  Nick said nothing for a moment. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “I am guessing. Mr. McAllister could have wounded himself prior to entering the woods. Or perhaps he injured himself in the woods—perhaps he bumped his head on a tree limb on the way to the meadow. I don’t know, Mr. Wilkins. My point is, you don’t know either. Where I come from, we call that doubt.”

  “And where I come from, when a man has a bullet hole through his head and he’s holding the gun, that’s a suicide.”

  “No, Mr. Wilkins, that’s an apparent suicide.”

  “Nobody had any reason to think otherwise.”

  “You had reason—if you had done your job. You didn’t bother to look under the victim’s clothing. You overlooked a wound in the center of his forehead. Did you roll the body over? Did you check for indications of other wounds? If you couldn’t get a blood or urine sample for toxicology screening, did you take a tissue sample?”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job!”

  “Mr. Wilkins,” Kathryn cut in, “we’re not here to criticize you. It’s just that the investigation went so quickly, there were some things left—”

  “I am the duly elected coroner of Holcum County,” he said with all the dignity he could muster. “I work under the authority of the chief medical examiner’s office of North Carolina! I submitted my report to the CMEO, and they saw no reason to question my conclusions.”

  “Your conclusions?” Nick almost laughed. “Almost every county in North Carolina has a medical examiner appointed by the CMEO to a three-year term, appointed from a list of licensed physicians. But a tiny handful of counties—like this one—are still on the old coroner system
, where a coroner is ‘duly elected’ from a list of anybody who wants the job.”

  The front door jingled again, and an older gentleman stepped tentatively inside. He was stooped, and he wore his light gray trousers well above his waist, giving the impression that his black-and-red suspenders exerted tremendous tension. He glanced around the room with a puzzled expression.

  “Krispy Kreme Donuts?”

  “Down the way!” Mr. Wilkins thundered, and the old man muttered something inaudible and shuffled out again.

  The room was ominously silent—the kind of silence that follows the blast of a concussion grenade. Nick spoke first, in a perfectly pleasant tone of voice. “Do you know what item is shoplifted from drugstores more than any other?”

  Mr. Wilkins and Kathryn both stared at him, expressionless.

  “You’d think it would be candy or condoms. Or aspirin. Maybe infant formula or cold medicine. Nope. Know what it is?” He leaned forward and looked at both of them. “Hemorrhoid cream.”

  He sat back in his chair, allowing the profundity of this revelation to have its full impact. Kathryn and Mr. Wilkins continued to stare blankly, waiting—for something.

  Now Nick looked directly at Mr. Wilkins.

  “But you knew that, didn’t you, Mr. Wilkins? You knew that because you own a drugstore. You know all about hemorrhoid cream and insoles and nasal spray and those little foam beverage coolers with NASCAR Racing on the side.” As he spoke he leaned steadily forward until he inclined well over the table in Mr. Wilkins’s direction.

  “But you don’t know diddly-squat about forensic pathology, now do you?”

  Mr. Wilkins jumped up from his chair and sent it clattering across the linoleum floor. He ripped off his apron and threw it onto the table. His face raged red, and the veins that framed his forehead bulged like purple tree roots.

  “I think it’s time to go,” Kathryn said firmly, grabbing Nick by the arm and pulling him toward the door. In the open doorway Nick turned one last time.

  “Is it too late to get a scoop of that butyl rubber royale?”

  Kathryn shoved him through the doorway, and the door jingled shut behind them. She hustled him down the sidewalk as the fading roar of obscenities snapped at their heels.

  “If there’s one thing I can’t stand,” Nick said, frowning, “it’s bad ice cream.”

  Kathryn turned on him. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Every time you talk to someone you almost start a fight!”

  “That’s true. You seem to have a lot of argumentative people down here.”

  “I don’t see what you hope to accomplish this way. What’s the good in giving poor Mr. Wilkins a heart attack?”

  “It could do a great deal of good, if it allows a competent professional to take over Mr. Wilkins’s job. Look, Mrs. Guilford, don’t feel too sorry for poor Mr. Wilkins. What we discovered in our little interview is that he completely botched the original investigation. If that examination had been conducted by a medical examiner, there’s a good chance there would have been an autopsy. They would have noticed the unusual lividity, and they would have taken a good look at that third wound—and you might have gotten the investigation you wanted. As it is, Mr. Wilkins signed off on the death certificate without so much as a second look, and they enbalmed your friend before the ink was dry. I only had time to do a ten-minute examination and to collect a bare handful of specimens. That means that we’re trying to conduct an investigation with almost no evidence and no chance for a second look—all thanks to your ‘poor Mr. Wilkins.’”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before about that third wound? Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

  “That’s the question I keep asking you.”

  Kathryn folded her arms and scowled.

  “Well then,” Nick said, “I guess we’ll both find out what we want to know when we need to know.”

  “If we have almost no evidence and no chance for a second look, then what have we got?”

  “We have doubt,” Nick said. “That’s a start.”

  “Okay, we have doubt—but as you would say, what do we know?”

  “Very good, Mrs. Guilford. You’ve been listening.” He stopped and thought carefully. “We know that the anomalous lividity in the victim’s leg suggests that the body was moved—at least, we’ve been unable to account for it in any other way. We know there was a wound on the victim’s head unrelated to the gunshot wounds that may have required the involvement of a second party. And on top of that, we have specimens from all three wounds—specimens that are approaching adulthood right now in their little puparia back at the lab.”

  “What will they tell us?”

  “Suppose your friend was murdered, with the right leg supported at first in an upright position by some object. Eight hours later, lividity became fixed—and then the body was transported to the site in the woods where it was discovered. That scenario would account for the unusual coloration of the leg.”

  “Okay …”

  “If the body was moved, that means the murder could have been committed anywhere. Across town—in the middle of a city—even in another state. Remember, Mrs. Guilford, different flies are unique to different areas. Calliphora vicina, for example, is synanthropic—it lives with people. It’s found almost exclusively in large cities and towns. But Calliphora vomitoria is found only in rural areas. Now suppose our flies turn out to be vicinas. How did a city fly get on a body that supposedly died miles from the nearest town? The presence of Calliphora vicina would confirm our suspicion that the body was moved—and that would mean that your friend must have been murdered.”

  “But how could we prove who murdered him?”

  “We couldn’t—not with what we have now. But we would have enough evidence to compel Mr. Wilkins to request an order of exhumation—and if he refused, we could go over his head. The remains would be sent to the CMEO where a real, live pathologist who doesn’t sell ice cream on the side could perform a decent autopsy. Who knows what might turn up?”

  “And what if the flies turn out to be normal? What if we only find the species that are supposed to be there?”

  Nick paused. “Then you spent a great deal of money for nothing, and you raised several more questions about your friend’s death that may never be answered.”

  Kathryn stood quietly for a long time. Nick had warned her from the beginning that their investigation might produce nothing. She had known about this possibility all along—but she had never allowed herself to truly consider it before.

  “So what do we do now,” she asked glumly, “just sit around and wait for a bunch of bugs to grow up?”

  “I’m not very good at sitting around. That’s what I’ve got Teddy for. He checks the pupae every hour, and he’ll contact us the moment the adult flies begin to emerge. Our time can be better spent asking some more questions. But essentially, yes—we just sit around and wait for a bunch of bugs to grow up.”

  “Then it all comes down to the flies.”

  “In my business, Mrs. Guilford, it always comes down to the flies.”

  Kathryn stared at the ceiling fan that turned slowly and rhythmically above her, slicing a hole through the thick night air. She lay heavy and still, feeling the throb of exhaustion in every limb. She had dropped her things at the front door and headed directly for the bedroom, not even pausing to turn on the lights or check her messages. Why bother? The flashing red light told her there were four, and they would all be from the bank: Margaret wanting to know the whereabouts of some elusive file or Robert John asking exactly how many days she was taking off—though she had told him a half-dozen times—or Anna asking if she could just take a few minutes to review the so-and-so account.

  She sprawled on top of the covers exactly as she first lay down, her entire body begging her to just stop moving. And so she lay, feeling the warm woolen blanket of sleep begin to creep up over her, mesmerized by the spinning blades above, spinning around the
bright brass hub that gleamed each time it caught the headlights of a passing car through the window. It gleamed and then darkened and then gleamed again. On … and off … and on.

  Kathryn saw herself swing open the screen door and step out onto the porch on a sultry July night almost ten years past. She instinctively banged her fist on the wall below the yellow porch light, which responded by flickering on and then off and then on again.

  “When are we gonna fix this thing, Momma?” she called back into the house. Behind her she could hear the sound of Matlock on the television and the soft hissing sighs of the steam iron.

  “Why don’t you get one of those boys of yours to fix it?” her mother called back. “Maybe they’re not smart enough.”

  “They’re smart enough, all right.”

  “Maybe they don’t want that bright ol’ porch light shinin’ all the time. Maybe they don’t mind a little dark out there on the porch. Maybe they’re too smart to fix it.”

  “If they’re so smart, how come they’re all three leaving me alone on a Saturday night?” She flopped down on the porch swing and sulked, watching the ailing porch light as it periodically flickered off and then on.

  “Where have those boys been to lately? You think they found themselves a couple of Fayetteville sweethearts what stole their hearts away?”

  “Stop it, Momma. Andy says things have been hoppin’ at the Fort ever since those Iraqi boys marched into Kuwait. He says the Airborne might have to go over there and take care of it. They could get called up any day now.”

  “I sure hope not.”

  “They might could. Andy says he wants to go. Says it might speed up his commission.”

  “I don’t like to hear that,” her momma said. “I don’t like to hear that one bit.”

  The screen door opened slowly, and Kathryn’s mother stepped out, pulling an afghan tight around her shoulders. She never seemed to step outside without a covering, even on a muggy summer night. “It’s the night air,” she would always say. She looked older than her forty-five years, and she walked thickly and heavily as if she had physically carried the burden of raising a daughter alone for a decade. She sat down on the porch swing beside Kathryn and began to gently stroke her long, auburn hair.