Outfoxed

CHAPTER 50

Walter Lungrun stood over the coroner—towered is more like it, for the county coroner, Gaston B. Marshall, stood five feet five inches in his shoes. Combative, shrewd, and careful, Marshall had the full confidence of the sheriff.

Peter’s scalp was pulled down over his face as the tiny saw bit through his skull. Gaston would harvest tissues, peering into the miraculous body, finally stilled. He never lost his respect for the organism although he often had little respect for the soul that had inhabited it.

“Damn good shape for an old man. Usually this generation, liver’s shot. Booze fueled social life. Still does, I guess.”

As Gaston snipped and clipped, Walter observed with detachment. He had loved Peter but as far as he was concerned Peter had already vanished or gone to the next sphere. He wasn’t really sure and wisely kept it to himself. Patients feel more secure if they think their doctor believes in God.

After the autopsy, Gaston scrubbed up.

“Appears natural,” Walter said.

“Yes. A heart attack pure and simple. I doubt the pain lasted for longer than a second or two. You saw the left ventricle.”

“What’s left of it.”

“Still, I treat each autopsy as though a murder may have been committed. Keeps me on my toes and we both know there are drugs that can create, if you will, a natural-appearing death. Each time there’s a medical advance there’s also an advance in murder—for the more intelligent. The less intelligent, the stone, bone stupid will bludgeon, crush a skull with a rock, splatter with a baseball bat. The next level up of the primates prefers a sharp instrument, a slit throat, a stab through the abdominal cavity. A grade above that I’d say that pistols are the preferred weapon. It’s when we start dancing with the poisoners that the game changes. And quite often those safecrackers that leave few fingerprints are women.”

“I thought women killed less than men.”

“Well, I think that’s true but I suspect they kill more than we know. We just don’t catch them. Remember the famous Alfred Hitchcock episode? Oh, hell, you’re too young, Walter, but maybe you saw it on TV as a rerun. You know the one where the husband has been killed with a blunt instrument. The wife is all worry and concern. She had a shank of lamb in the oven and decides not to waste it, so she feeds it to the policemen. Oh God, that’s a good one. Killed him with the frozen lamb, don’t you see?”

“I have seen that one. Hitchcock was twisted.” Walter laughed.

“I wonder. Maybe we all are.”

“Gaston, you’re in a business where you see the worst. You and Ben Sidell. I guess criminal lawyers do, too. Has to affect your worldview.”

“Yes, it does. When you see a five-year-old child whose face has been battered to pulp, she’s been strangled, raped, and then the corpse has been abused, you do kind of lose your faith in the goodness of man. Although if anyone could have restored my faith in the goodness of men it would have been Peter Wheeler. A gentle man, a gentleman. He probably saved more children than the Red Cross. Unwanted kids from rich families, unwanted kids from poor families, he’d teach them to ride, teach them to hunt. Today people don’t do that anymore, especially men. I guess they’re afraid someone will accuse them of being a child molester. Pretty much we’ve gotten away from taking care of one another.”

“We’ll not see his like again,” Walter agreed. “He was good to me. He was good to everyone.”

They strolled down the well-lit corridor to Gaston’s office filled with African violets.

“Thank you for allowing me to observe.”

Gaston’s smile, crooked, was nonetheless appealing. “Just wanted to see if you knew your stuff, kid. Last time I remember you you were staking out the end zone as your private domain.” As Walter smiled Gaston continued: “I want you to look at something.” He reached under his desk, pulling out a plastic bag. “Just took this out of the cooler.”

Walter opened it. Reynard was inside. He carefully removed the fox, stitched up after his autopsy.

Gaston explained, “Ben Sidell was going to give him to Amy Zolotou”—he mentioned the vet—“but I asked that she come here so we could examine him together. You know, very little work has been done on foxes because they’re considered vermin. Vets don’t know much. . . . I mean they’re canids.” He used the proper medical term, not “canines.” “But they aren’t identical to dogs. We have a lot to learn about these little stinkers.”

“He’s beautiful.”

“Healthy. Stomach was full of corn. He’d just eaten. Either heading back to his den or just in it.”

“Be awfully hard to bolt a fox from his den unless the killer had a Jack Russell.”

“So whoever it was waited for him to return. Sat up in the early-morning hours.”

“Upwind. If he’d smelled a human he’d have scampered off. Damn shame.” Walter stroked the glossy head.

“He’d been cooled but not frozen. I don’t think he was dead more than six to seven hours before he was dragged.”

“Have you talked to Jane Arnold?”

“Yes. She said in order for the scent glands to be effective—she said on his pads and by his anus—he’d have to be fresh. If he went into rigor mortis, a hound could smell the fur, of course, but the scent really comes from the pads and especially the anus or urine. I never knew that.”

“She’d know. The killer knew, too.”

“Put in the refrigerator, I’d say. Then hidden and picked up somewhere during the hunt. Might even have been packed in ice to ensure freshness but not frozen. It’s a damned queer thing.”

“Does Ben want to keep him for evidence?”

Gaston shook his head. “No. He’s got our report. Photos. Amy Zolotou was good, by the way. Good vet. His head and his brush are in pretty good condition, considering he was dragged.”

“Do you mind if I take him?”

“No. What are you going to do with him?”

“Go to the taxidermist. Thought he could mount the head and the brush.”

“You might not want to identify this fox, Walter.”

“I won’t.” His eyebrows lowered a moment. “But seems a crime to waste a good fox.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Gaston put Reynard back in the bag. “I’d say that this fellow was my most unusual subject.”