Basket Case Page 8

  The belly of the seaplane is hot. It smells of fuel, grease and sweat. We're fanning ourselves with rolled-up magazines, but I'm not as jumpy about flying as I usually am.

  I like the concept of an aircraft that floats. It makes a world of sense.

  Janet Thrush says, "I've never been on one a these contraptions."

  I can barely hear her over the racket of the propellers. She's sitting across the aisle, wearing a yellow sleeveless pullover, cutoff jeans, sandals and a floppy canvas hat. She looks perhaps a bit too ready for the islands.

  Through the window I see the indigo rip of the Gulf Stream behind us. The waters ahead are turning clear and brilliant, a silky dapple of gemstone blues. Janet leans closer. "I love it here. I used to visit Jimmy all the time till he hooked up with Cleo."

  "She keeping the place in Exuma?" I practically shout.

  "Who knows." Janet shrugs. She slips into the same cheap shades that she wore last night as Rita the Meter Maid. "Hey, Jack," she says, "did my brother leave a will?"

  "You're asking me?"

  "Hey, you're the one writin' the story."

  The plane splashes down gaily and skims the wake of a cruise liner in Nassau harbor. We clear Customs without incident and I hail a cab. Police headquarters is downtown, across the big toll bridge. I've phoned ahead to make sure Sergeant Weems is on duty today, hut that doesn't mean he'll hang around to welcome us to the commonwealth. I warn Janet that we might be in for a wait but she seems determined and calm. The only sign of jitters is the prodigious wad of chewing gum she's been chomping.

  "It's either that or Camels," she says.

  Incredibly, Police Sergeant Cartwright Weems is at his desk when we arrive. He is young and upright and courteous. His desk is exceptionally tidy. I introduce myself first, and then Janet as "the sister of the deceased."

  Weems says he's sorry about her brother's death. Janet says, "Jack, tell him why we're here."

  "Certainly. It's about the autopsy."

  Weems folds his arms, giving the appearance of polite interest.

  "Actually," I say, "we have reason to think there wasn'tan autopsy."

  "Why do you say that?" the sergeant asks.

  "Because there were no stitches in the body."

  "Ah." Weems sits forward and turns open the file folder on his desk. Inside is the official police report about the drowning of James Bradley Stomarti.

  "When you say autopsy," Weems says, scanning the file papers, "of course you're thinking of how things are done in the States. Forensically speaking." He smiles, then looks up at us. "Here in the Bahamas we don't have the resources or the manpower to conduct what you might call a textbook postmortem on every accident victim. Unfortunately."

  His accent is more British than that of most Bahamians, and I'm guessing he was educated in London.

  "May I ask—do you use pathologists?"

  "Whenever possible, Mr. Tagger," Weems says. "But as you know, we have seven hundred islands in the commonwealth, spread over a very large area. Sometimes we're able to get a trained pathologist on scene in a timely fashion, and other times we're not."

  He turns to Janet and drops his voice. "Because of the hot climate here, we often have problems—and I don't mean to be graphic, Ms. Thrush—but we often have difficulties preserving the remains in tragic cases like this. Air-conditioning is, well, a luxury on some of the out-islands. Supplies of ice are very limited—again, I don't wish to belabor the point but on more than one occasion we've resorted to using fish freezers for body storage."

  My notebook remains pocketed because Sergeant Weems would clam up if I started jotting down what he said. Cops are the same everywhere.

  "What about my brother?" Janet asks through the bulge of the chewing gum. "Holy shit, don't tell me you stuck him in a fishbox." She has removed the shades and the hat but the cutoffs are difficult to ignore, though Weems is trying. His eyes shoot back to the file on his desk.

  "In Mr. Stomarti's case, we were able to retrieve his body fairly quickly and transport it here, to Nassau. But my point," says Weems, "is that we are stretched thin. On the day of your brother's diving accident there was a bad crash in Freeport. A waterbike ran into a conch boat—two tourists were killed. We flew our top pathologist over there immediately."

  "So who did the work on my brother?" Janet asks.

  "Dr. Sawyer. Winston Sawyer. He is a very capable fellow."

  "May we speak with him?" I say.

  "Certainly. If he chooses." The sergeant's tone is meant to remind me that foreign journalists have no juice whatsoever in a place like Nassau. Dr. Sawyer is perfectly entitled to tell me to fuck off.

  Then Janet pipes up: "Can I get a copy of the police report?" She remembered, God bless her.

  For the first time, Sergeant Weems is unsettled. He twists his butt in the chair, as if he's got an unscratchable itch.

  "Well, let me—"

  "It's my brother, after all," Janet cuts in. "The people at the embassy said I'm entitled."

  Excellent—exactly as we rehearsed. Of course we haven't spoken to a soul at the U.S. Embassy.

  "Certainly, certainly." Weems is re-reading the report with renewed urgency, in the event it requires expurgating on the stroll to the copy machine. Rising slowly (and still reading), he says, "I'll be right back, Ms. Thrush. Give me a moment, please."

  As soon as he departs, I signal Janet with a congratulatory wink. Upon the young sergeant's return, she accepts the Xeroxed police report and reads through it. Weems and I share the uneasy silence.

  When Janet finishes, she folds the document and slips it into her handbag. Tearfully she stands and excuses herself. This is no act.

  I wait a few moments before saying to Weems: "She's having a tough time accepting this."

  "Yes, I can understand."

  "You're confident it was an accident?"

  He nods with grave assuredness. "We took statements from both witnesses, Mrs. Stomarti and a Mr. Burns, I believe it was. The details matched up," Weems says. "I'm afraid her brother got disoriented underwater and couldn't make it back to the boat. This sort of thing happens too often, believe me—with experienced divers, as well. You'd be surprised."

  "Do you find it odd that Mr. Stomarti didn't ditch his tank and try to swim to the surface?"

  Weems leans back in the chair. Stiffly he says, "Not really, Mr. Tagger. Some people wait too long. Others panic. These tragedies seldom reflect a clarity of thought." The sergeant's suddenly chilly monotone signals he is done with me.

  Standing, I thank him for his courtesy. "By the way, who interviewed Mrs. Stomarti?"

  "I did, sir."

  "On the boat?"

  "Yes, but later. After they docked at Chub."

  "She happen to say anything about a premonition she had that morning? Did she mention begging her husband not to dive on the plane wreck?"

  Weems shakes his head skeptically. "No, she didn't. I'm quite sure I would have remembered."

  "She said nothing about Mr. Stomarti being sick?"

  Weems looks intrigued. "Sick how?"

  "Food poisoning," I say. "Fish chowder."

  Chuckling, Weems rises. "No, sir. Where did you hear that?"

  "What's so funny?"

  "That's what Mrs. Stomarti was having for dinner while I interviewed her on the boat," he says. "Fish chowder. She even offered me a bowl."

  We've got two hours to kill until Dr. Winston Sawyer will see us, so Janet and I order rum drinks and grouper sandwiches at an outdoor joint a block off Bay Street. Somehow we end up talking about death, a subject on which we hold vastly different philosophies. Janet says she believes in reincarnation, which is how she's held herself together after Jimmy's death. In a nutshell, she believes her brother will come back as a dolphin, or possibly a Labrador retriever.

  I, on the other hand, believe death is the end of the ride. Death travels on the caboose.

  "What about an afterlife?" Janet inquires.

  "Don't hold your br
eath," I say. "On second thought, do."

  "You believe in heaven?"

  "From all I've read, it sounds pretty tedious. Frankly, your reincarnation program seems more intriguing—except with my luck I'd come back as Shirley MacLaine."

  "Don't make fun."

  "Or a mullet."

  "What's that?" Janet asks.

  "A fish whose only purpose in life is to be devoured by bigger, hungrier fishes."

  "Jack, you don't understand. The way it got explained to me, whatever happens on earth, your spirit remains safe and whole. Whether you're a fish or a butterfly or whatever."

  I gnaw crossly on a pickle. "All right. Say I get reincarnated as a lobster—"

  "Let's not talk about this anymore."

  "First day of lobster season, some bubble-blower nails me with a speargun. You're saying I won't feel a thing? Even when they drop my tasty red ass into a pot of boiling water, my spirit will feel A-OK? You honestly believe that?"

  "Can we get the check please."

  Dr. Winston Sawyer is eighty-seven years old, the same age as Jacques-Yves Cousteau when he died. Says Dr. Sawyer: "I've delivered more babies than any other poysin in all da Bahamas."

  Janet and I had braced ourselves for such news. The man's waiting room was packed with pregnant women.

  "We're here about my brother," Janet says.

  "Ah," Dr. Sawyer nods. He continues nodding. "Indeed, indeed."

  Janet glances anxiously at me. I am burning this scene into memory in case I need to write about it later in the newspaper.

  "The American who died in the diving accident," I remind Dr. Sawyer. "Last week at Chub Cay?"

  "Ah." The doctor smiles warmly. I am impressed by the old man's dentition, which is flawless and luminously white.

  I say, "Perhaps we're looking for another Dr. Sawyer."

  "I understand your confusion," he says, "but be assured dat I'm fully qualified, fully qualified. The police call me occasionally on such matters, occasionally as I say, due to my long years of experience ... "

  I ask why there were no stitches on the body of Janet's brother.

  "Stitches." The doctor blinks drowsily.

  "As are commonly used in autopsy procedures, yes," I say, "to close the chest cavity."

  Janet sighs. The color has seeped from her cheeks. She extracts the lump of chewing gum from her jaw and lobs it into a wastebasket.

  Dr. Winston Sawyer raises a bony finger the color of polished teak. "You say autopsy, well, I must tell you, sir—and you, madam—dat dere wasn't need for an autopsy. Dat is why you saw no sutures! I was merely ast to attend by the police, who call me on such matters, due to my experience ... "

  The doctor trails off. The upraised finger curls and uncurls.

  "Go on," I say. "You were asked by the police ... "

  Dr. Sawyer's chin snaps up. "Indeed. I was ast to examine the body, which I did, and subsequently certified the death as accidental. Subsequent, as I say, to a postmortem examination."

  "But a visual examination only." I take out my notebook and uncap a pen. Blessedly, Dr. Sawyer fails to notice.

  "Understand dat I've had occasion to see many drowning victims over dese many years. This was quite routine," he says, directing his words toward Janet, "not that any such tragedy is 'routine,' madam. But in the medical sense, you understand, it was. Drownings are not uncommon here in the Bahamas, not uncommon. Sadly to say."

  Numbly Janet asks, "So, how did Jimmy look?"

  Dr. Sawyer grunts helplessly. The sage finger is withdrawn.

  "I mean," says Janet, "you see any bruises? Any sorta ... you know, Jack, what's the word?"

  "Trauma."

  "Yeah. Any trauma?"

  "None," the doctor says. "Not a scratch, madam, I give you my woid. Your brother died from drowning. Dere was no need to cut—oh goodness, no need for a complete autopsy procedure."

  "You saw nothing at all unusual?" I ask. "You didget him out of his wetsuit at least?"

  Dr. Sawyer squints in fierce concentration, moving his mottled lips like a cow. Then he explodes in a jolly boom: "Haw! Now I know what this mon be gettin' at! The tattoo. The snake tattoo! Oh goodness, I never see anyting like datbefore, not in eighty-seven years! Gawd, please!"

  The doctor is wheezing, he's laughing so hard. Pretty soon Janet cracks up, too. Then I join in. How could anyone not like the old guy?

  "That tattoo, wheeeee, it's like a woik of art," Dr. Sawyer is saying. "Tell you trute, I'm glad I didn't have to mess dat up. Woulda made me plenty sad to do such a ting! Who was the pretty lady with dat snake, if I may ast?"

  "Some stripper Jimmy was dating," Janet says, giggling at the memory. "In real life she had a terrible overbite."

  "Dat's okay. I hear da same 'bout Mona Lisa."

  As the doctor cordially leads us to the door, I tell him I've got one more question.

  "Anyting, sir," he says.

  "I was wondering if you've had any formal forensic training?"

  "Certainly, sir." He tilts his wizened head and peers at me like an ancient turtle. "I woiked as a pathologist right here on New Providence. Nassau Town."

  "When was that?"

  "Nineteen ... well, let me tink. Forty-two it was."

  "And part of '43. Before I took up da practice of obstetrics." Dr. Sawyer beams. "I've delivered more babies than any other poysin in the commonwealth!"

  The seaplane is late. Janet and I wait on a peeling wooden bench in the broken shade of some coconut palms. She lets me skim through the police report—I was hoping for some notation that might trip up Cleo Rio, but there's not much there. The Bahamians kept it simple.

  I find myself asking Janet when her father died.

  "Nine years ago," she says.

  "How old was he?"

  "Fifty-two."

  "Wow," I say. The same age as Harry Nilsson.

  "Too young," Janet adds.

  "Does it worry you?"

  She eyes me curiously. "No, Jack. It makes me sad. I loved my old man."

  "Of course you did. What I meant was, doesn't it make you wonder about your own ... timetable?"

  The question is unforgivably insensitive, which I realize the instant it leaves my lips. This is one aspect of my obsession that aggravates not only my mother but my friends as well.

  But Janet's look dissolves into one of understanding. "Oh," she says. "Sure. Dying young and all."

  "Not just dying young," I slog on, "but dying at the exact same ageas a parent or a friend or even a famous person you admire."

  "You mean, like, fate? Don't tell me you believe in fate?"

  "Not fate. Black irony. That's what I believe in."

  Janet whistles. "Ever thought about changing jobs?"

  "Can I ask what happened to your father?"

  "He was screwing one of his students when her boyfriend showed up. It was, like, her nineteenth birthday. My father jumped out the dormitory window to get away, but six stories is a long way down. Too bad he taught English lit and not physics." Janet smiles ruefully. "That's why I'm not too worried about checking out at fifty-two."

  "Gotcha," I say.

  "I mean there's fate, Jack, and then there's just plain stupidity."

  10

  Midnight.

  The old days, a newsroom at this hour reeked of coffee and cigarettes and stale pizza.You'd hear the wire machines chittering and the police scanners gabbling and the pasteup guys snorting at dirty jokes.

  But like most papers, the Union-Registerswitched to early deadlines to cut costs, so there's hardly a soul around at this late hour. If a plane goes down or the mayor has another coronary, come daybreak we're sucking hind tit to the TV stations.

  These days we buy the loyalty of readers with giveaways and grocery coupons, not content. This makes for less clutter, so our newsroom is as spiffy as a downtown Allstate agency, complete with earth-tone carpeting. Every editor and reporter has a personal cubicle with padded pressboard walls and a computer station and a file draw
er and a phone with a headset. Some days, we might as well be selling term life.

  Nobody barks or shouts anymore, they "message" each other from their terminals. The old days, phones in a newsroom never quit ringing even after the final edition was put to bed. Tonight, as most nights, the place is oppressively silent except for torpid electronic bloops from the PCs (most editors favor the tropical aquarium screen-saver option, while the reporters go for intergalactic warfare motifs).

  Still, these desolate gaps in the news cycle can be useful. Emma isn't here to circle like a kestrel, and young Evan, the intern, isn't around to dart in and pepper me with questions. Actual fact-gathering is possible. Addictive new technology allows one to sit at a desktop and browse tax rolls, real estate transactions, court files, arrest records, driver's licenses, marriage licenses and divorce decrees, as well as current periodicals, medical journals, trade publications, corporate reports—the bottomless maw of the Internet.

  Also accessible are the library banks of other newspapers, large and small; a treasure trove. The only problem is that many papers have come online only within the last decade, and they don't always backfile the morgue stories into computer memory. Consequently, the odds are not so good of locating information about a man who died, say, at least twenty years ago.

  But my mother claimed she read it in a newspaper, my father's obituary. And I've nothing better to do than go hunting.

  On the keyboard I tap out T-A-G-G-E-R, J-A-C-K.

  The joke's on me. Within moments the screen flashes a directory of thirty-six stories, all too familiar. The search engine seems to have locked onto my byline, resulting in an instant and unwanted sampling of my own work. Scrolling through past glories, written before my time on the obit beat, I'm amused to see that several of the Orrin Van Gelder stories popped up, all the way from Gadsden County. Evidently that stands as the pinnacle of my journalism career, at least in electronic dataland. Maybe Jimmy Stoma can change that.

  At the moment, though, it's the other Jack Tagger that keeps me plodding through the search directory. But he's nowhere to be found, my father, evidently having died pre-Web. Any record of the event must therefore exist as a yellowed clipping in a musty old folder in some musty old newspaper warehouse. It's likely my mother herself saved a copy, although I doubt she'd admit it. This is some fucked-up game she's playing.