Where There's Smoke

One

I went to see Abner Boone only because his urgent phone call seemed to promise something mildly interest­ing. I arrived at his place of business on Hennessy Street at nine o’clock on a Monday morning in September. Abner was an undertaker dressed in his customary weeds—black suit, black shoes and socks, black tie, white shirt. He led me through the front of his cheerful establishment, past two viewing rooms and a chapel, and then opened a door that led to a room in which a pair of closed coffins rested on sawhorses. Two windows with drawn shades were on one wall of the room. On the other wall, there was a door that had obviously been forced open with a crowbar; there were fresh scars and jagged splinters on the wooden jamb. No professional, this thief. “I’m glad you could come, Lieutenant,” Abner said. “If word of this—”

“Abner,” I said, “excuse me, but I’m no longer a lieutenant”

“But you still investigate crimes,” he said.

“Hardly ever,” I said.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “this is a crime of great enor­mity.”

“Have you contacted the police yet?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Lieutenant,” he said, “I couldn’t take that chance. Suppose a newspaper reporter got wind of this? I’d be the laughingstock of the profession. I called you immedi­ately.”

“You woke me up,” I said.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said.

“All right, tell me what happened.”

“Someone has stolen a corpse,” Abner said.

“I know that. When?”

“Last night sometime.”

“Where was the corpse the last time you saw it?”

“In the casket behind you.”

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“Clothed or naked?”

“Fully clothed.”

“Wearing what?”

“Blue pin-striped suit, white shirt, dark-blue necktie, blue socks, black shoes.”

“Embalmed?”

“Yes, of course. I always do that at once. Certainly within the first two hours.”

“When was the body delivered to you?”

“At eight o’clock last night. It came directly from the hospital. Saint Augustine’s, on Third and Sussex.”

“How’d the man die?”

“In an automobile accident on the Harbor Highway. He broke his neck on impact when his car crashed into a con­crete pillar.”

“Give me his name.”

“Anthony Gibson.”

“Age?”

“Forty-two.”

“Height?”

“Five feet eleven, I would say.”

“Weight?”

“A hundred eighty-five, more or less.”

“Color of hair?”

“Brown.”

“Eyes?”

“Brown.”

“Any identifying marks, scars, tattoos?”

“None.”

“Except for your embalming incisions, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Over the course of twenty-four years on the force, I’d had ample opportunity to observe a great many corpses, those recently deceased as well as those exhumed for au­topsy. Most of the exhumed bodies had already been em­balmed, of course, and it doesn’t take much time to learn exactly where a mortician makes his incisions. To draw out the contents of the stomach, intestines, and bladder (forgive me, ma’am, but police work sometimes entailed a bit more than typing up a burglary report), the embalmer normally makes a small puncture in the upper middle region of the abdomen and then inserts a large hollow needle attached to a suction apparatus. This tro­car, as it’s called, is also used to drain the body of its blood, the embalmer’s incisions for this purpose being made over large blood vessels in the neck, the groin, and the armpit. Embalming fluid—a solution of formalde­hyde that causes coagulation of protein—is then injected by trocar or tube into the vascular system and the body cavities. On the off chance that Abner might have used a different technique (we all have our idiosyncrasies), I asked him exactly where he’d made his incisions.

“Neck, groin, armpit, epigastrium,” he said.

“Who contacted you regarding funeral arrangements?”

“His wife. Rhoda Gibson. She called me from the hos­pital at about seven.”

“And did she come here when the body was deliv­ered?”

“Yes. She and her son.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jeffrey Gibson. Big fellow with a red beard, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two years old.”

“Where do they live?”

“1214 Matthews Avenue.”

“And you say the body was delivered at eight last night?”

“Yes.”

“And you embalmed it immediately.”

“Well, as soon as the family left.”

“What time did you leave here?”

“At about midnight.”

“And what time did you open the place this morning?”

“I was here at seven-thirty. I called you the moment I discovered the theft. Will you help me, Lieutenant?’

“Maybe,” I said. “Any jewelry on the corpse? Rings, watch, identification bracelet?”

“Nothing.”

“All right, Abner, do you have any personal enemies or business rivals?”

“None who would do something like this.”

“Are you fooling around with anyone’s wife, mother, sister, or cousin?”

“I’m a happily married man.”

“Have you received any threatening telephone calls or letters?”

“Never.”

“Can you think of anyone who might want to cause you professional embarrassment?”

“Not a soul.”

“Have you had any recent arguments or disputes with families for whom you’ve made funeral arrangements?”

“None.”

“Have you been dunning anyone for non-payment of bills?”

“No.”

“What about your employees? Do you get along with them?”

“I work alone, except for my drivers. This is a very small operation.”

“Any of your drivers ask for a raise recently?”

“No. Lieutenant, why would anyone want to steal a dead body?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there no longer any respect for the dead?”

“There never was, Abner. Anything else stolen? Be­sides the body?”

“Nothing. Will you help me?”

“Yes,” I said.

Maybe I was rising to the bait too quickly.

The Penal Law in this state is specific about the theft of dead bodies. The pertinent section is appropriately if unimaginatively titled Body Stealing, and it reads:

Sec. 2216. A person who removes the dead body of a human being, or any part thereof from a grave, vault, or other place where the same has been buried, or from a place where the same has been de­posited while awaiting burial, without authority of law, with intent to sell the same, or for the purpose of dissection, or for the purpose of procuring a re­ward for the return of the same, or from malice or wantonness, is punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both.

When you cut through the verbiage, the law pretty well describes what it considers to be the only possible mo­tives for stealing a corpse. Those are love, money, or lu­nacy. In fact, no matter what the criminologists will tell you, those are the only possible motives for any crime: love, money, or lunacy. The lunacy aspects of Section 2216 are defined in the word “wantonness” and in the phrase “for the purpose of dissection,” which was proba­bly a carry-over from the time of Dr. Frankenstein and his ilk; there were very few mad scientists running loose in the city these days. Still, there were many bedbugs in this vast metropolis for which I’d once been a public servant, and whereas they didn’t normally come out of the mat­tress in September (preferring the dog days of July and August), the possibility did exist that one of them had unseasonably surfaced, swiped a stiff, and then gone back to a snug hiding place in the bedsprings. If a lunatic had committed the crime, I wasn’t interested. Lunatics bore me.

Love as a motive was defined in the section with the simple word “malice,” which together with spite or re­venge form the other side of the love coin. Perhaps this was simply a case of someone with a grudge against the family of the deceased, someone who’d stolen the corpse in an attempt to make tragedy even more painful than it had to be. If so, I was equally uninterested. If anything’s more boring than a bedbug, it’s someone with a petty grievance.

As for money, the section spelled it out with the words “with intent to sell the same,” and “for the purpose of procuring a reward for the return of the same.” I wasn’t aware of a lively market in corpses these days, and whereas I’d handled three or four kidnappings during my years on the force, I’d never had a case in which a ran­som demand had been made for a stolen body. In fact, I’d never had a case of body snatching in twenty-four years of police work, and I guess this was what caused me to tell Abner on the spot that I’d find his missing Mr. Gib­son.

“But how much will you charge?” Abner asked. “For getting the body back to me by ten tomorrow morning?”

“Why ten?” I asked.

“That’s when the family will be here. That’s when they expect to find the body ready for viewing.”

I didn’t know what to tell him regarding a fee. In this city, you don’t need a license to be a private detective provided you don’t charge anything for your services.

There is, after all, no law against being an unpaid snoop. My four previous clients had gifted me lavishly after I’d successfully concluded investigating their cases, and frankly I’d felt justified in accepting presents from them—but only because the disappointment of having solved yet another case seemed ample reason for com­pensation. Could I now tell Abner that not finding Mr. Gibson’s corpse would make me a very happy man? Could I tell him that if I failed (hope springs eternal), I would not accept even a token of appreciation from him, but would instead take him to dinner in one of the city’s best restaurants, where we’d drink champagne till dawn and toast the superiority of the criminal mind?

“I’m not permitted to charge a fee,” I told him. “Let’s simply see what happens, shall we?”

Full of perhaps childish expectations, I began.