Page 23 of The River We Remember

“Ruth had everything in order, right down to the hymns she wanted sung at the service. The funeral’s on Thursday. I imagine a good part of Jewel will attend, a lot of us who were her students.”

Brody thought about James Patrick Quinn and wondered who would turn out for that burial.

Brown, as if reading his thoughts, said, “And I imagine there will be a lot of people at Jimmy’s service, too. He supported Saint Ignatius pretty substantially. A good portion of our parish will undoubtedly feel obliged.”

Brody interpreted this as a diplomatic way of saying that Quinn had bought himself a crowd of mourners.

“Here they come,” Brody said.

“Do they know?” Brown asked.

“Know what?”

“That Jimmy was shot?”

“I haven’t told them yet, no. I’d appreciate it, Fred, if you didn’t say anything either.”

“As you wish.”

The car was a two-tone Chrysler Imperial, white and robin’s egg blue, new within that year. James Patrick Quinn, Jr., was at the wheel. He pulled into the parking lot and got out. He wore a dark blue suit and tie, as if this were church or some other formal occasion. He walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and helped his mother climb out. She, too, was dressed formally, all in black. She leaned heavily on her son’s arm as they came up the front steps of the funeral home.

Brown opened the door. “Marta, J.P. Won’t you come in?”

Sometimes her illness made Marta Quinn look far older than her late thirties. This day, however, she had carefully prepared herself, put on makeup and fixed her hair, and Brody saw that despite her ailment and the hardship of the current situation, she was still a beautiful woman.

After the greetings were made, the mortician said, “This way.”

He led them down a long corridor to a room near the back and opened the door. He slipped inside, turned on a light, and moved away so the others could enter.

They found themselves in an immaculate preparation room that smelled of bleach. Brody had been there on several occasions, because it was the room where all official autopsies for Black Earth County were conducted. Since completion of the new hospital three years earlier, the autopsies could have been done there, but Brown had a long-standing contract with the county, and Doc Porter was comfortable with the working relationship.

On the ceramic table at the center of the room, a sheet had been draped over the body. Brody was amazed that the sheet was so white, so completely unstained, and he figured that Brown must have placed some kind of barrier between the great raw hole in Jimmy Quinn’s torso and the material that now cloaked it.

Brody said, “Marta, I need to warn you. When he was in the water, your husband was chewed on a good deal by fish. His face is not pretty.”

Marta Quinn thought this over, then gave a ghost of a nod.

Brown reached to the top of the sheet and drew it back, only enough to expose the head. In the antiseptic glare of the ceiling lights, Quinn’s widow and son took in the face that was hardly human anymore—the eyes and eyelids and nose eaten away almost entirely, the skin pale and puckered, the teeth and gums exposed in a kind of snarl where the catfish had feasted on Quinn’s lips. It was a mask from a horror movie, and Marta Quinn, when she saw it, fainted dead away.

“HOW DID HE die?”

A breeze came through the window screens in Brown’s office. On a telephone wire outside, two cardinals sat, a brilliant red male and a drab female, calling to each other with a few lilting notes. Randy Swope, the boy Brown paid to keep the grounds neat, was cutting the front lawn. As the reel of the push mower spun and paused and spun, the rhythmic sound reminded Brody of breathing. To folks in Black Earth County, the seasons were living things, and each had its own peculiar voice and smell and personality. Early summer in Jewel was a season that usually breathed promise.

Brody replied, “We located your husband’s pickup last night, Marta, parked on Inkpaduta Bend. It appears that’s where Jimmy went to do his fishing Thursday evening.”

Quinn’s widow spent a moment taking this in, then asked, “What was it like?”

Brody wasn’t sure what she was asking. “You know Inkpaduta Bend?”

“Of course,” Marta said. “I mean, could you tell what happened?”

“I won’t know the exact cause of death until after the autopsy.”

“Autopsy?” she said.

“In any death in which the cause is uncertain, an autopsy is required, Marta. It’s the law.”

“You have no idea how he died?” She seemed surprised. “You said you found him in the river. He didn’t drown?”