The Mezzo Wore Mink (30 page)

“
I’m hardly that.”

“
Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll take the truck.”

•••

The crematorium was located about five miles out of town on Old Chambers Road. We rumbled up the dirt driveway and stopped in front of a large, ugly cinderblock building with two large chimneys jutting from the center of the roofline. There was no sign or office that we could see. A set of metal double doors looked to be the only point of egress. I looked at the lock—a heavy deadbolt—as we opened the doors and entered the building.

There were florescent shop lights hanging throughout the large, open room, but about half of the bulbs were out with another two or three flickering desperately. The twelve-foot high walls were flecked with soot and the sunlight tried in vain to break through the dirt-covered panes of the four large windows placed high on the walls. The effect was that of permanent dusk, and it took a moment for our eyes to adjust.

“
Maybe I’ll get those lights fixed,” said Ruby. “And wash those windows.”

As our eyes adjusted, we saw two men at the far end of the room. If they knew we were there, they didn’t look up from their card game. Just behind them we saw two stainless steel ovens, gleaming modern appliances in the midst of 1950s dereliction.

“
Hey there,” I called out. “Hayden Konig. Police.”

“
C’mon in,” said one of the men without looking up. “I cain’t git up right now. If’n I look away, Panty’ll cook the deck. He cheats like a stinkin’ weasel.”

I knew the two men who worked here. Everyone in town knew them, although they rarely ventured into town. Dale and Panty Patterson were brothers. Some folks said they were twins, but I don’t think that even Dale or Panty knew for sure. If they were twins, they weren’t identical. Panty was an albino. Dale had a high forehead and fine blonde hair, but he had some color in his skin. Both of them had very small, piggy features. Panty had webbed fingers on his left hand. They were, together, a very disquieting pair. I’d put their ages somewhere between forty-five and dead. It wasn’t easy to tell. Both were dressed in overalls, white, collared shirts buttoned all the way up, and work boots.

They’d been working up here at the crematorium since long before I’d come to St. Germaine. I’d heard that they had a house somewhere in the hollers, but no one that I knew had any first hand knowledge of their living arrangements. No one was that curious.

We walked over to the two brothers. They were playing a game of “War,” flipping over cards as fast as they could grab them, and Panty was getting the better of Dale.

“
Could you boys hold up for a couple minutes?” I asked. “We have to talk to you.”

Dale looked up at us and when he did, Panty grabbed a handful of his discards with a whoop.

“
See what you did?” Dale said, throwing down a card in disgust. “Now I gotta buy him an ice cream.” Panty gave us a gapped grin.

“
Well, what’chu want?” Dale spit something unrecognizable onto the floor in front of Nancy.

“
We need to see Davis Boothe,” said Nancy, her eyes narrowing.

“
Like I
tole
you,” said Dale, full of venom. “He’s already burnt.”

“
Now, boys,” said Ruby gently, “you remember me?”

Dale and Panty both eyeballed her in the dim light, recognition crossing both their squinty visages at the same time.

“
Yes’m,” they both muttered, hanging their heads.

“
I’m the boss, right?”

“
Yes’m,” came the reply.

“
So you help these police officers any way you can, okay?”

“
Yes’m.”

“
So, Dale,” I said, “could you show me the ashes?”

Dale nodded and got to his feet. Panty followed his lead. They pushed their chairs under the table and walked the few feet over to the cremators. The two doors were both closed and there didn’t seem to be a handle that I could see.

“
How do you open it?” I asked.

Dale shrugged. “Panty’s in charge of that. He runs the pooter.”

I looked over at Panty. He nodded and grinned again.

“
I run the computer,” he said in a soft southern drawl. “Dale helps me with the rest.”

We all blinked. Not one of us had ever heard Panty Patterson speak.

“
Would you like me to show you how the crematorium operates?”

We nodded dumbly.

“
It’s almost all computerized now.” Panty pointed to a console beside the ovens. “We had one of the first automated systems in the country. Of course, in the early days, I had to do the programming. When we started, there wasn’t any software. Now, all the ovens come with software already installed.”

I finally found my voice. “You have some…umm…education,” I managed.

“
Yessir. I have a Masters in computer science from Georgia Tech.”

“
And Dale?” I asked.

“
I been clean through the second grade,” said Dale, proudly.

“
Forgive the charade. I just don’t have much use for people most of the time,” said Panty. “And someone has to take care of Dale.”

“
I understand,” I said. And I did. “If you’d show us the operation, we’d appreciate it.”

Panty nodded and walked over to the console. He pushed some buttons and the door to the oven slid up revealing a stainless steel tray containing Davis’ cremated remains.

“
The cremator,” explained Panty, “is basically a furnace capable of generating temperatures up to eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I can monitor the furnace during cremation and, if necessary, control the temperature. The computer won’t open the doors until the cremator has reached operating temperature and once the body is in, we can’t open it back up until everything has cooled. The entire process usually takes about two hours for cremation and another four hours to cool down.”

“
Do you cremate the remains in a coffin?” asked Ruby.

“
Depends,” said Panty. “Usually in a wooden casket, but Davis was in a cardboard box. Most coffin manufacturers provide a line of caskets specially built for cremation.”

“
What happens next?” asked Nancy.

“
We can show you, if you’d like,” said Panty. “We were just getting ready to finish up when you called.”

•••

Panty and Dale slid the tray out of the oven and moved it onto a stainless steel table with raised edges. They emptied the contents onto the table and Dale spread them out with a metal dustpan. All that was left of Davis was dry bone fragments.

“
Where’re the ashes?” asked Nancy.

“
There aren’t any,” answered Panty. “During the cremation process, most of the body, especially the organs and other soft tissue, is vaporized and oxidized due to the heat. All that’s left is about six pounds of bone.”

“
What’s Dale doing?” Ruby asked.

“
I’se lookin’ fer metal,” said Dale.

“
When we get the bodies,” Panty explained, “the jewelry’s already been removed. Pacemakers, too, if the deceased had one, because they’re likely to explode. But sometimes the body contains other metals. Teeth fillings are the most common, but these days we find titanium hips, surgical pins, even bullets. Some of it will have melted.”

“
And you sift it out?” I said.

“
Gots to,” said Dale. “Wrecks the grinder.”

Panty smiled and put a hand on Dale’s shoulder. “After we sift through the bone fragments, we put them into the cremulator. A grinder, really. It pulverizes the bones into powder. What comes out is known as cremains. It has the appearance of ash and sand. If we miss a bit of metal and it gets ground up with the bones, we catch it when we sift the cremains after the process is complete.”

“
So, it’s not really ashes,” Ruby said.

“
Not really.”

“
Did you find any metal?” I asked.

“
Not a lick,” said Dale.

“
May I look?”

“
Hep yerself.”

I motioned to Nancy and we both bent over the table and poked through the remains. I used Dale’s dustpan. Nancy used her pen.

“
May I ask what you’re looking for?” asked Panty, looking over my shoulder.

“
Metal,” I said.

“
Maybe he didn’t have any.”

“
Nancy,” I said, “did you bring those medical files?”

“
Right over there.” Nancy walked over to the card table where she’d laid her folder.

“
Get out Davis’ x-ray, will you. The one that showed the embolism.”

Nancy came back over holding a transparent film in her hand. “There’s the embolism,” she said. “Kent circled it.”

“
Look at this though. Seven…no, eight fillings and a whole lot of metal bridge work. Three pins in his jaw and a metal plate in his palate. From the wreck.”

Nancy looked confused. “So this isn’t Davis?”

“
It’s Davis, all right,” said Panty. “I knew Davis Boothe. I checked him when they brought him in.”

“
When did they deliver him?” I asked.

“
We’re here every day at three o’clock. If there’s going to be a delivery, we’ll get a call by four. Deliveries—including Davis—come by five. We check them in, look for jewelry and get them ready for cremation.”

“
Then you cremate them?” asked Nancy.

“
No, we wait until two a.m. There’s a bit of an odor, but no one complains in the middle of the night. We finish up the next afternoon when we come in.”

“
You stay here all that time?”

“
No, we go home after all the deliveries. Around dinner time usually. We come back after midnight. Then we leave again around four a.m. after the cremations. We very rarely have more than a double header and, as you can see, we have two ovens.”

“
Did you check Davis before you cremated him?”

“
You mean after we got back?”

“
Yes.”

Panty shrugged. “No need. The box was already on the trolley ready to be rolled in.”

“
So someone switched the body?” Ruby asked.

“
Maybe,” said Nancy. “But if they did, there had to be at least two of them. Davis was a big boy—one hundred and eighty pounds. One person couldn’t have done it alone.”

“
I’m guessing you lock up when you leave,” I said.

“
Of course.”

“
And who has a key?”

“
Just us,” said Panty. “Me, Dale, and Miss Ruby here.”

“
I don’t have a key,” said Ruby.