Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

“It was pretty good. I’m high on the second-year entry. They’ve got it now.”

“So do you.” Shaker patted her, then opened the door, stepping into a stiff wind.

Gray drove to the house. “I’ll drop you at your door. Shaker forgot to tell me which grave was messed up.”

“Jemima Lorillard, 1761 to 1847. A good long life.”

“One of the white Lorillards. You know, I think we may be the only family where the white Lorillards are buried with the free black Lorillards as well as the slave Lorillards. It’s quite a history, our family.”

“Most people think Jemima is a black name. It was quite popular in England and here in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Pretty name, really.” She stopped. “Gray, I know you can’t tell me details. But let me tell you what I think, since you’re sitting in the middle of it down there at Aluminum M.” She shortened Aluminum Manufacturing to “M.”

“Okay.” Gray said only that.

“Iffy is missing. I expect she’s been milking money out of the company for years. I suggested to Ben that he get an order to exhume Angel Crump’s body.”

“What?” Gray’s eyebrows darted up. “That will upset Garvey as much as everything else.”

“Well, let me go on here. Angel thought little of Iffy. Iffy hated Angel. I expect Angel caught on. At any rate, Iffy’s disappeared.”

“Looks like she got away with it.”

“That’s just it, Gray. What if she didn’t get away with it?”

CHAPTER 22

Awall calendar, new, large pages as yet uncurled on the bottom, hung in the coroner’s office. Lyle Aziz, MD, liked his work but wished for more pay, a common desire among state employees. However, as a teaching physician in the pathology department down in Richmond at the Medical College of Virginia, he made enough to support his family. Better yet, he would never return to Egypt.

One of the dangers of people coming to the United States to study was that they might not return to their former countries, especially if those countries seethed with internal dissent. As a Christian Lyle never felt secure. But he missed the ways of his country, the warmth of everyday encounters, the raucous gossip. He realized that living in the American South he was as close as he could get to these qualities among peoples of European descent, colder peoples than his own.

“She is in such good condition,” he enthused over the state of Iffy’s body.

Only a pathologist would make such a statement. Anyone else viewing human remains unceremoniously buried in a shallow grave for four days would feel otherwise. Thanks to the cold and the three feet of dirt she had been under, Iffy still had her nose. Her extremities, swollen and discolored, blood pooled there, contained all her digits. Patches of decay showed in spots, and gases filled her, but she could have been much worse. No flies in the winter. She remained intact, if not a cover girl.

A single shot to the head had sent Iffy to the hereafter.

Ben always carried a small jar of Vicks VapoRub in his jacket. As Iffy thawed he made use of it.

“Looks simple enough.”

Lyle, gloves on, carefully inspected the wounds. The gun had been placed at her right temple. The bullet exited on the other side of her head. “True, but my father used to say, ‘Suspect a trap where the sand is smoothest.’”

Tattoo markers dotted the left side of Iffy’s chest where radiation had been administered, square blocks within. Any physician or cancer patient would recognize the markers.

“I’ll leave her in your capable hands,” said Ben.

“Even though she’s missing part of her skull where the bullet exited, how do you know she wasn’t slowly poisoned? She could have shot herself in despair over her sickness. You never know until the evidence is in. Every autopsy is a detective story.” Lyle’s black eyes met Ben’s. “Were these more primitive times, if I didn’t have a state lab at my disposal, slow though it is, I’d go with cause of death is gunshot. Not self-inflicted. No powder burns. Her arms are short. She couldn’t have held the gun far enough away to produce this wound. If you’re going to do yourself in, you put the muzzle smack up to your temple or your mouth. She was murdered.”

“I figure Saturday night, early Sunday morning.” Ben was a good judge of a corpse’s condition and the time it took to reach that condition relative to season. “Thirty-six. Suffering from lung cancer.”

Lyle nodded then said, “Well, I’ll start in. If I find anything unusual, I’ll call you.”

“Thanks for coming in. I know this isn’t your regular day.”

“I teach only Tuesdays and Thursdays. Friday’s no problem. I’ll get right to work.”

Three hours later, Ben’s cell phone beeped. “Sheriff Sidell? Lyle here.”

“Yes.” An expectant note rang in Ben’s voice.

“Iffy Demetrios did not have lung cancer. When I found no tumors, to be certain I sectioned out quite a bit of both lungs. This isn’t to say there might not be a cancer cell that the lab will pick up, but you said she had lung cancer. I found no evidence of disease in her lungs.”

A long, long pause followed. “Lyle, that’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard in this new year.”

Within fifteen minutes, Ben stood in front of Jason Woods. As it was his office day, Jason had graciously agreed to see the sheriff immediately.

“You treated Iphigenia Demetrios for lung cancer. Correct?”

“I did. She was responding beautifully. We caught it early.”

“May I see her records?”

Jason balked for a moment, then said, “Under normal circumstances one must ask the patient or next of kin.”

“These aren’t normal circumstance.” Ben’s voice conveyed authority.

“Of course.” Jason buzzed his secretary, who brought in a color-coded file. “Let’s start with the x-rays.” Without being asked, Jason walked to a wide metal file cabinet and pulled open a drawer much like those used in graphic arts businesses. Flipping through large manila envelopes, he pulled out Iffy’s and then put it up on the light box. “Note the small but discernible mass right here, lower portion.”

“Yes. I see it.”

“This was the first x-ray. Naturally, I ran a battery of tests, although I’ve seen enough of these to feel I can recognize a malignant tumor. Still, one must be prepared for the anomaly.” He pulled out another x-ray. “Here is the lung after her last series of treatments.”

“Which were?”

“The first protocol involved radiation and chemo. The side effects troubled her. Once started, you must finish the exact number of treatments. She did. In view of her adverse reaction, I gave her more time to regain strength. Three months later she submitted again to radiation and chemo. I do the treatments here, which makes it much easier for the patient. This is the result.” He pointed to the area where the tumor had originally been diagnosed. It had vanished.

“Remarkable.”

“Like I initially said, early detection was critical. However, each day we make progress. As you may know, this is the third most common form of cancer. I’m proud of my success rate, and apart from aggressive treatment I think putting a patient on the chemo IV here in more pleasant surroundings raises a patient’s spirits. I’m involved with them. My nurses offer support. It makes a huge difference.”

“What are the odds of the lung cancer returning?”

“Well”—Jason stroked his chin—“the rule of thumb is if it doesn’t recur in five years, you’re home free. My feeling is the cancer may not return to the original site. It can migrate. Sometimes a tumor will send out seeds, if you will. The patient celebrates the five-year mark, yet three years after that the cancer manifests itself in a new site. We know when a patient comes in that if the cancer has metastasized into the lymph nodes that’s usually the end of the journey. What we don’t know is why some tumors create other cancers in other parts of the body and some don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t know if we can conquer cancer, say in the way we have conquered TB. But we may advance to where cancer is a chronic condition that can be managed. A patient can enjoy a good life.”