Reichs, Kathy - Death Du Jour

“I won’t even ask.” I heard cellophane crinkle. “This zit is pretty gross.”

“It, too, will pass. How is Cyrano?” Katy had two rats, Templeton and Cyrano de Bergerat.

“He’s better. I got some medicine at the pet store and I’ve been giving it to him with an eyedropper. He’s pretty much stopped that sneezing thing.”

“Good. He’s always been my favorite.”

“I think Templeton knows that.”

“I’ll try to be more discreet. What else is new?”

“Not much. Went out with a guy named Aubrey. He was pretty cool. Sent me roses the next day. And I’m going on a picnic tomorrow with Lynwood. Lynwood Deacon. He’s first-year law.”

“Is that how you pick them?”

“What?”

“The names.”

She ignored that. “Aunt Harry called.”

“Oh?” My sister’s name always made me slightly apprehensive, like a bucket of nails balanced too close to an edge.

“She’s selling the balloon business or something. She was actually calling to find you. Sounded a little weirded out.”

“Weirded out?” On a normal day my sister sounded a little weirded out.

“I told her you were in Quebec. She’ll probably call tomorrow.”

“O.K.” Just what I needed.

“Oh! Dad bought a Mazda RX-7. It is so sweet! He won’t let me drive it, though.”

“Yes, I know.” My estranged husband was undergoing a mild midlife crisis.

There was a slight hesitation. “Actually, we were just going out to grab a pizza.”

“What about the zit?”

“I’m going to draw ears and a tail on it and claim it’s a tattoo.”

“Should work. If caught, use a false name.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too. Talk to you later.”

I finished the rest of the Turtles and brushed my teeth. Twice. Then I fell into bed and slept eleven hours.

I spent the rest of the weekend unpacking, cleaning, shopping, and grading exams. My sister called late Sunday to say she’d sold her hot air balloon. I felt relieved. I’d spent three years inventing excuses to keep Katy on the ground, dreading the day she’d finally go up. That creative energy could now be turned elsewhere.

“Are you at home?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Is it warm?” I checked the drift on the windowsill. It was still growing.

“It’s always warm in Houston.”

Damn her.

“So why are you selling the business?”

Harry has always been a seeker, though her grail has never been in focus. For the past three years she’d been gung-ho buggers over ballooning. When not floating safaris over Texas, she and her crew packed an old pickup and zigzagged the country to balloon rallies.

“Striker and I are splitting.”

“Oh.”

She’d also been gung-ho buggers over Striker. They met at a rally in Albuquerque, married five days later. That had been two years ago.

For a long time no one spoke. I cracked first.

“What now?” I asked.

“I may go into counseling.”

That surprised me. My sister rarely did the obvious.

“It might help you get through this.”

“No. No. Striker’s got Kool-Aid for brains. I’m not crying over him. That just makes me puffy.” I heard her light a cigarette, draw deeply, exhale. “There’s this course I’ve heard about. You take it, then you can advise people on holistic health and stress relief and stuff. I’ve been reading about herbs and meditation and metaphysics and it’s pretty cool. I think I’ll be good at this.”

“Harry. That sounds a little flaky.” How many times had I said that?

“Duh. Of course I’ll check it out. I’m not flat-ass stupid.”

No. She was not stupid. But when Harry wants something, she wants it intensely. And there is no dissuading her.

I hung up feeling a little shaken. The thought of Harry advising people with problems was unnerving.

Around six I made myself a dinner of sautéed chicken breast, boiled red potatoes with butter and chives, and steamed asparagus. A glass of Chardonnay would have made it perfect. But not for me. That switch had been in the off position for seven years and it was staying there. I’m not flat-ass stupid either. At least not when I’m sober. The meal still beat the hell out of last night’s soda crackers.

As I ate, I thought about my baby sister. Harry and formal education have never been compatible. She married her high school sweetheart the day before graduation, three others after that. She’s raised Saint Bernards, managed a Pizza Hut, sold designer sunglasses, led tours in the Yucatán, done PR for the Houston Astros, started and lost a carpet-cleaning business, sold real estate, and, most recently, taken up riders in hot air balloons.

When I was three and Harry was one, I broke her leg by rolling over it with my tricycle. She never slowed down. Harry learned to walk while dragging a cast. Unbearably annoying and totally endearing, my sister offsets with pure energy what she lacks in training or focus. I find her thoroughly exhausting.

At nine-thirty I turned on the hockey game. It was the end of the second period and the Habs were losing four-zip to St. Louis. Don Cherry blustered about the ineptness of the Canadiens management, his face round and flushed above his high-collar shirt. He looked more like a tenor in a barbershop quartet than a sports commentator. I watched, bemused that millions listened to him every week. At ten-fifteen I turned off the TV and went to bed.

The next morning I got up early and drove to the lab. Monday is a busy day for most medical examiners. The random acts of cruelty, senseless bravado, lonely self-loathing, and wretched bad timing that result in violent death accelerate on weekends. The bodies arrive and are stored in the morgue for Monday autopsy.

This Monday was no exception. I got coffee and joined the morning meeting in LaManche’s office. Natalie Ayers was at a murder trial in Val-d’Or, but the other pathologists were present. Jean Pelletiér had just returned from testifying in Kuujjuaq, in far northern Quebec. He was showing snapshots to Emily Santangelo and Michael Morin. I leaned in.

Kuujjuaq looked as if it had been flown in and assembled the night before.

“What’s that?” I asked, indicating a prefab building with a plastic outer layer.

“The aqua center.” Pelletiér pointed to a red hexagonal sign with unfamiliar characters above, Arrêt below in bold white letters. “All the signs are in French and Inuktitut.” His upriver accent was so heavy, to my ear he might have been speaking the latter. I’d known him for years and still had trouble understanding his French.

Pelletiér pointed at another prefab building. “That’s the courthouse.”

It looked like the pool, sans plastic. Behind the town, the tundra stretched gray and bleak, a Serengeti of rocks and moss. A bleached caribou skeleton lay by the roadside.

“Is that common?” asked Emily, studying the caribou.

“Only when they’re dead.”

“There are eight autopsies today,” said LaManche, handing out the roster. He went over them all. A nineteen-year-old male had been hit by a train, his torso bisected. It happened on a barricaded trestle frequented by teens.

A snowmobile had gone through the ice on Lac Megantic. Two bodies recovered. Alcohol intoxication suspected.

An infant had been found dead and putrefied in its bed. Mama, who was downstairs watching a game show when authorities arrived, said ten days earlier God told her to stop feeding the baby.

An unidentified white male was found behind a Dumpster on the McGill campus. Three bodies were recovered from a house fire in St-Jovite.

Pelletiér was assigned the infant. He indicated that he might request an anthropology consult. While the baby’s identity was not in question, cause and time of death would be tough.