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“Me, I would have paid money to see that.”
“So you’re not mad at me after all?” Annie ventured.
He made a noncommittal sound as he cut her a glance, his eyes hidden by the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses. The jury was still out.
In the center of the driveway leading up to Our Lady of Mercy hospital, a pristine white statue of the Virgin Mary greeted all comers with open arms. A groundskeeper knelt at her feet, using a hand clipper to trim the low ring of boxwood that circled her base. Built in the seventies during the oil boom, the L-shaped two-story hospital was still the pride of Partout Parish, with its manicured gardens and broad, oak-studded lawn sweeping down to the bayou, the one institution that had withstood the economic roller-coaster rides of every decade since.
Nick pulled the SUV into a parking spot reserved for sheriff’s office vehicles near the entrance to the ER and cut the engine.
“Come here,chère,” he said, leaning toward her. She met him halfway, and he kissed her softly, sweetly.
“I love you,” he murmured.
She sensed abutcoming at the end of that sentence, but he didn’t voice it, and she decided to take that as a positive for the moment.
“Let’s go get this over with,” he said.
The small flock of reporters loitering outside the ER entrance jumped to attention as Annie and Nick approached. They all cackled at once, parroting the same question: “Detective Fourcade! Do you have an ID on the body?”
“Not yet,” Nick said, not slowing down. “You’ll know as soon as I do.”
“Are there any leads?”
“What about missing persons?”
“Is this drug related?”
A uniformed deputy stepped forward to clear the way for them to pass through the glass doors. The noise died by half as the doors swished closed behind them.
—
They passed through the emergency room waiting area, where half a dozen people of varying ages and maladies sat looking miserable as they waited their turn—an elderly man holding a bloody rag to his forehead, a teenage girl with a tearstained face clutching an injured arm against her body.
One woman caught Annie’s eye as familiar—someone she’d dealt with on a domestic call. The woman quickly turned her face away, embarrassed, ashamed, not wanting the attention of a cop. That was part of the job—not being a welcome sight, people avoiding eye contact in public. Also part of the job: automatically assuming the worst, wondering if a black eye or a broken arm was the result of violence.
“Someone you know?” Nick asked as they turned down the hall that led to the morgue.
“Yeah. Just another reluctant customer.”
“At least they’re out front and not back here,” Nick said as he pulled the morgue door open.
The room was all white tile and stainless steel, sterile and silent. A twentysomething man in purple scrubs with a shock of red hair sat using a gurney as a desk, his nose buried in a book as he scribbled notes. He glanced up as Nick spoke his name.
“Caleb, we need to have a look at that body,s’il vous plaît.”
“Sure thing.” He stuck his pen in his textbook and hopped off his stool. He was built like a fireplug, with the muscular arms of a man who spent too much free time in the gym. An easy smile split his square face. “Hey, Annie, how you?”
“Hey, T-Rouge, I’m good,” Annie said. “How’s your mom and them?”
His family were cousins to the Doucets by marriage. Annie had known Caleb McVay all his life.
“Mostly good. Nonc Claude, he’s got the shingles on his face,” he said, going to a wall of small stainless steel doors. “I told him before to get the vaccine, but he wouldn’t listen. Why listen to the medical professional in the family when you can get your medical advice from conspiracy nuts on the Internet? He thinks vaccines are a government plot to install tracking devices in everyone. Meanwhile, he’s walking around with a cell phone twenty-four/seven.”
“What can you do?” Annie asked with a shrug.
“Well, you can’t pick your relatives,” Caleb said with a laugh, opening a door and rolling out their murder victim. “Here you go. We got everything done you needed done ASAP—fingerprints, photos, X-rays, pulled blood, fluids. The only personal effects was his jeans and his socks. Detective Stokes bagged that stuff and took it.”
“Autopsy when?” Nick asked.
