The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 36

We’re supposed to meet Max Maldonado at Prideaux’s Eat Place. It’s an upscale restaurant in the countryside outside New Iberia, a pretty town a few miles from Morgan City. We’re escorted to a table by the window, where a small gray-haired man bounces out of his seat at our approach. This is Maldonado, “seventy-five years young,” as he later puts it. The compression of age, familiar to me from the ongoing shrinkage of my father, seems only to have concentrated this man’s energy.

“Pinky!” he says, with an enthusiastic pump of the hand. “It’s been way too long, baby.”

Pinky introduces us.

“Pleased to meetcha, pleased to meetcha. And this quiet fella here” – he indicates a black-haired Asian man to his left – “this is Sam Harami.” Harami raises his glass in acknowledgment.

“Would you like a drink?” the waitress asks.

“Absolutely,” Pinky tells him. He orders a Jack on the rocks. I ask for a draft beer.

“So… Byron Boudreaux,” Maldonado says. “Remember when that son-of-a-bitch got out, Sam?”

Harami nods.

“We all took a deep breath when he got popped loose, I can tell you that. Checking our backs.”

“That guy scared me,” Harami says, his voice a strange combination of Deep South and Far East. A Japanese drawl. “And I don’t scare easy.”

“He did come right back to Morgan City, soon as he got out. That’s had us worried,” Maldonado says. “But he didn’t stay long. Spent a week with that witch doctor, and that was it. Haven’t heard a peep about him since.”

We order dinner – a process that takes at least fifteen minutes because Maldonado has so many inquiries about ingredients and preparations.

“He drive me crazy,” Sam Harami says. “Worse than a woman choose her wedding gown.”

Finally, I get to ask what’s on my mind. “What can you tell me about Boudreaux that might help me track him down?”

Sam Harami shrugs. “Not sure. What kind of thing you have in mind?”

“Just talk,” Pinky says, throwing back his whiskey. “What’d you know about him? Not just the case with his daddy, although that, too. Anything. Everything. You never know what’s going to help.”

“Well, he never came across my watch,” Maldonado says, “until that thing with the puppy. You know what I’m talking about?”

“Yeah,” I say. “We heard from people at the trailer park.”

“Most of what I heard was after Claude died,” Maldonado says, “so you really can’t trust it. I mean, you show someone a baby picture of Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler and they’re bound to nod and say, ‘Yeah, there was always something strange about old Jeff.’… But that thing with the puppy – it about turned that boy into a pariah.”

“I believe it,” Pinky says.

“It put him on my map, I’ll tell you that. People looked back at the way his brother drowned and it had to make you wonder. You remember, Sam?”

Harami raises his eyebrows, which are perfect crescents. “I wasn’t here yet, Max. I get here only in eighty-six, right out of Tulane. What I know about Byron only goes back to when he killed his father.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Maldonado says. “Well, the next thing happened – after the dog – was Marie died. Got that ovarian cancer, that’s a killer.”

I nod. “I heard she died.”

“Yeah. Byron was fifteen years old. A fine woman, Marie. Some people thought maybe that’s what sent Byron over the edge – when she passed – because word was she doted on that boy. Anyway, a few months after she died, Claude gets hurt in an oil-rig accident. Messed up his back big-time. He’s gonna be in a wheelchair for months. When he gets out of the hospital, Byron’s the one who’s goin’ to ‘take care’ of him.” The reporter makes quotation marks in the air.

“Joke,” Harami explains.

“Let’s just say he took care of him all right,” Maldonado adds.

The waitress arrives with gumbo and oysters, and the food silences us for a while. Finally, Maldonado picks up the thread of the story. “So where was I?”

“Claude in a wheelchair, Byron taking care of him.”

“Right! So anyway, here’s old Claude, slowly making progress after this operation. Spinal fusion, I think it was.” He looks at Harami.

“That’s right.”

“And then, for no apparent reason, he gets real sick one afternoon. He’s in front of the tube, in his wheelchair, watching NASCAR with his friend Boots.”

“At this time, I am admitting doctor at the ER in New Iberia,” Harami says. “It’s my residency, you know. My English not so good now, but then?” He shakes his head and makes a face. “Very bad. And Claude – the man can hardly talk by the time he gets to the hospital.”

“Yeah,” Maldonado jokes, “he can’t talk and you can’t talk.” He smiles and shakes his head.

“But he has friend with him,” Harami continues. “Boot. So Boot, he tell me what happens. They watch the race together, drinking beer. Plenty beer. All of a sudden Claude tell his friend the room is…” Harami makes a circular motion in the air above his head. He frowns. “Turning?”

“Spinning, Sam.”

“Ah, right. Spinning. Claude, he feel light-headed. The friend make some joke about how he is lightheaded, he not exactly mental heavyweight.” Harami points to his head. “But then Claude start screaming. He telling Boot that his mouth numb, stomach hurt. Boot – he call nine-one-one.”

“They come in record time!” Max says. “Had to be a record. Traffic’s light and they get to the hospital pretty damn quick, too.”

“This right,” Harami says. “They get here very fast. Otherwise, Claude would be DOA and maybe I never figure out what happen to him. Anyway, they get here and I can’t understand very much Claude saying, because by this time, he talks in a mumble. But okay – between Boot and the paramedics and the nurse, they sort of get what Claude is saying, and they tell me what happen. First, Claude dizzy and light-headed, then his lips and tongue numb. Boot say Claude very happy for short time, then gloomy. Boot, he say: ‘Like a thundercloud sitting on his head. Really got the blues, Doc.’ Then Claude vomits in ambulance. In ER, he tell me he feeling stiffer and stiffer by the minute, like he get arthritis all of a sudden.”

The waitress arrives with our entrees and deals them off her left arm like a round of cards.

“Oh, boy,” says Maldonado, “they know how to do crawfish étouffée here.” He digs in.

Harami lets his Laotian catfish special sit for a minute. “I’m native of Japan,” he tells us. “And I am” – he hits his forehead – “my mind blown away by my patient, Claude Boudreaux.”

I can’t imagine where he’s going with this, why the fact that he’s Japanese has any relevance to Claude Boudreaux. Pinky tosses me a look, equally perplexed.

“I have patient in front of me,” Harami says, “and I tell myself: ‘It can’t be.’ I go over list of symptoms again.” Harami counts them off on his fingers: “Stomach pain. Paresthesia. Aphonia. Euphoria. Depression. Paralysis – ”

“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “What’s paresthesia?”

“And aphonia?” Pinky adds.

“Paresthesia is… creeping sensation on skin. Aphonia – you can’t talk.”

I nod. “So he has these symptoms?”

“Yes, and by now he finding it very hard to move, hard to breathe. He can no longer talk at all. I order him intubated. I order his stomach pumped; I start intravenous hydration. We administer activated charcoal.”

“Doc knew he’d been poisoned,” Maldonado says.

“It does not work,” Harami continues, excited now. “Two more hour, Claude is dead.”

“Here’s the thing,” Maldonado says. “On the death certificate, Doc writes: ‘Respiratory arrest – fugu poisoning.’”

“Fugu poisoning?” Pinky sputters. “Isn’t that what you get from eating some kind of fish?”

“In Japan,” I add.

Harami nods, taking a bite of his dinner.

“That was a corker,” Maldonado says with glee. “I wrote an article about it later. See, this is a death that normally befalls only Japanese gourmands. Crazy types, practicing what might be termed a form of culinary Russian roulette.”

Harami nods. “This is true.”

“These guys gotta feel risk is quite a flavor enhancer. So every year, fifty or so Japanese diners crash into their plates, struck down while indulging in the delicious taste of fugu sashimi. It’s a puffer fish, fugu is, and it’s a highly prized delicacy. The one serious drawback is that its skin, liver, and gonads are highly toxic.”

“You rely on the chef skill,” Harami says. “But sometimes…”

“All it takes is a little nick of one of these no-no regions by a sushi chef’s knife to deliver a lethal dose of poison.”

“Tetrodotoxin,” Harami says.

“See, the thing is Claude comes into an emergency room in Louisiana,” Maldonado says. “Most doctors would not have recognized the symptoms. But Sam, he’s sure.”

Harami nods. “This man Claude Boudreaux? Classic symptoms. I know I’m right. I never doubt, even when autopsy shows deceased stomach contents not contain puffer fish. No seafood at all.”

“All Claude ate was a couple of Slim Jims and some chips,” Maldonado explains. “That and some beer. And that’s all the autopsy shows in old Claude’s tummy. The conclusion is that Sam was wrong.”

“I know I’m not wrong,” Harami says. “They want me change death certificate, but they can’t tell me what make Claude stop breathing.”

“So they do a test,” Maldonado says, “just to shut Sam up. Gas chromatograph. And sure as shit, old Claude’s bloodstream was saturated with tetrodotoxin.”

“But none in his stomach,” I say.

“The police were baffled,” Maldonado says. “How can you get fugu poisoning without eating fish? Were there other sources of the toxin?”

“I don’t know this answer,” Harami says. “So the medical examiner refer the question to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Soon, answer comes back. California newt and Eastern salamander both sources of tetrodotoxin.”

“But so what?” Maldonado says. “Right? Claude Boudreaux didn’t eat any newts or salamanders. He ate a couple of Slim Jims. So how did the poison get into his bloodstream? By now, the M.E. is just as intrigued as Sam here. They get on it. Was it something he inhaled? Maybe so. Because we do find a source for the stuff. Turns out tetrodotoxin powder is a poison used in voodoo rituals. Zombie dust.”

“So we think we got something now,” Harami says. “M.E. pulls out deceased and does more tests. But no – Boudreaux’s nasal passages and respiratory system show no trace of toxin. None.” His hands fly up. “A real mystery. Finally we do another gas chromatography test. Focus on victim’s bloodstream. This time” – Harami nods vigorously – “we get answer. In addition to tetrodotoxin, Boudreaux’s blood contained traces of latex and dimethyl sulfoxide.” He smiles. “‘Ahhhh,’ we say.”

Pinky and I look at each other.

“DMSO,” Maldonado says. “It’s a solvent. Byron mixed DMSO with tetrodotoxin and smeared it on the tires of his daddy’s wheelchair. So old Claude, he rolls from room to room and this lethal cocktail of fugu poison and DMSO passes directly from the tires into his bloodstream.”

“A transdermal delivery system,” Harami says.

“Like the nicotine patch,” Pinky says.

“From there, it didn’t take long to figure out that Byron was the one who did it,” Maldonado says. “Everybody knew he’s hanging out with that voodoo witch doctor down by the cemetery. That’s where he got the poison. And he ordered the DMSO mail order, through some weight-lifter catalog. Didn’t even try to cover his tracks. But why would he? He was sooo unlucky. If the ambulance didn’t make record time. If any other doctor in Louisiana had been on duty in the emergency room… If his interest in voodoo hadn’t been so well known…” Maldonado throws up his hands.

“His goose cooked,” Harami says, with a laugh. “I cook it. That’s why I’m nervous when they release him. Why release this man? Someone like that – kill his father, so sneaky, so clever. Man like this – he not get better. And now we see.” He looks at me with an expression of commiseration. “I am sorry. I hope you find your sons. How long they gone?”

“Since May thirty-first.”

“I hope you find them,” Harami repeats, then lowers his eyes from mine because – as I think he knows – he does not look hopeful.