CORMAC WATTS WAS the best coroner we ever had, more cop than pathologist. I always liked him. He was gay and imaginative and happy and, like many gay people, at peace with the world even though the world had often not been kind to him. If he had any professional fault, it was his tendency to extrapolate an encyclopedic amount of information from a fingernail paring, which sometimes did not help his credibility. He called me at the office on Wednesday afternoon. “Ready for the breakdown on Frenchie Lautrec?”
“I thought death by strangulation was death by strangulation,” I said.
“That’s the cause of death, all right. But we’ve got some issues.”
“I can’t tell you how much I hate that word, Cormac. I rank it with ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing.’?”
“You want to hear what I’ve got or not?”
The truth was, I didn’t want to hear it. The sun was shining while the rain was falling, and there was a huge rainbow that dipped out of the clouds into the middle of City Park.
“Yes, please tell me about Lautrec’s corpse,” I said.
“I think he faked his own murder.”
“His wrists were taped behind him.”
“Think back,” Cormac said. “When you found him, the roll was barely wrapped around the left wrist. He could have gotten loose.”
“Not if he was unconscious.”
“His blood was clean. There are no injection marks on the body. No fresh bruises or abrasions from somebody lifting him up. He kicked the chair into the wall.”
“How do you know?”
“His right loafer was on the floor. Part of a toenail was inside the sock. He was right-handed. He kicked the chair with his right foot and chipped the nail.”
“That could have happened if someone else kicked it out from under him,” I said.
“Nope, the weight would have been going away from him. It’s unlikely the blow would have broken the nail.”
I rubbed my temples. “Lautrec had no feelings about anything or anyone except himself. I don’t see him as a suicide.”
“About ten days ago I saw him in my insurance agent’s office. He was there with his daughter.”
“I didn’t know he had one.”
“She lives in Biloxi. My agent said Lautrec bought a life insurance policy. My agent wanted to sell me one, too.”
“Can we stay on the subject, Cormac?”
“Lautrec could be a menacing presence. My agent was about to have a coronary. I don’t think he wanted to insure Lautrec.”
“Why not?”
“Because Lautrec got his way or he made other people miserable?”
“I’ll give your insurance agent a ring,” I said. “Anything else?”
“Lautrec had a Maltese cross tattooed inside his calf.”
“That bothers me,” I said.
“You think we’re dealing with a cult?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this.”
I called Cormac’s insurance agent. Lautrec had bought a three-hundred-thousand-dollar policy that did not cover suicide. His daughter was the beneficiary.