Chapter 15
AFTER LUNCH THEY RETURNED to their computers.
Chambers discovered that, in their absence, his had crashed, so he moved over to the spare computer and logged in.
As he was waiting for the menu to load, he had the idea of cross-checking his list of near-misses against each other, using in-state as well as out-of-state files.
Ten minutes later, he got a bite.
“Pendergast,” he said, “come take a look.”
The pale man rose and leaned over his shoulder to stare at the screen.
Chambers scrolled with his mouse, pointing out specifics.
Earlier, he had come across an unsolved homicide in which a badly decomposed body had been found—minus an arm and both legs—in Bayou Gauche.
It was identified by dental records as a small-time gangster named Jimmy Socks, and numerous bite marks made it obvious that alligators had been feasting on the remains.
It had been marked down as a gangland hit—a turf war flared up late the previous year—and was now sitting in the cold case file.
But when Chambers had pulled up organized crime files from surrounding states, he discovered that a decomposing arm had been found in Alabama several days earlier than the body in the swamp.
“So nobody investigated whether this arm belonged to Jimmy Socks?” Pendergast asked.
“Apparently not.”
“Did they take fingerprints from the arm? If Jimmy Socks was a gangster, surely they’d have those on file.”
“They couldn’t,” said Chambers, “because the arm was missing its hand. It was found in a dumpster in Gadsden, Alabama—a place I wouldn’t drive through with a tank. Lots of drug activity.”
“Can you find pictures of the body and the arm, and compare them side by side?”
This sounded like an easy request, but it turned out to be a major hassle that took almost half an hour.
Finally, Chambers had two official photographs up on his screen, appropriately sized: a shot of the severed arm from Alabama’s Drug Enforcement Division, and a disgusting photograph of the corpse, courtesy of the NOPD Organized Crime Unit.
They contemplated the two photos, side by side, for several minutes. “May I?” Pendergast finally asked.
“Be my guest.”
Pendergast sat at the computer screen and began fussing with the images. After a few false starts, he managed to zoom in on both, focusing on the amputated areas on the shoulder and the arm.
“Same size, same musculature, same approximate build,” he said, peering closer.
“Note the spot on the Gadsden arm where it was severed from the body. Even after it suppurated for a few days, you can see it looks like a clean cut. And those bluish edges of the skin appear to be freezer burn.” He pointed toward the enlarged photo from Bayou Gauche.
“The missing limbs have been lacerated by alligators—but if you look closely at the spot where the right arm was severed from the body, you can see the same precise cut.”
Chambers leaned in, squinting at the screen. What was left of Jimmy Socks resembled a giant, half-chewed plug of tobacco. He couldn’t be sure if Pendergast was right or wrong: the screen resolution was not fine enough to show the necessary detail.
He sat back. For a moment, both men were silent.
“Do we know what happened to the body and the arm?” Pendergast asked.
“Most of Mr. Socks was returned to his family and cremated. As for the arm… well, who knows? It’s gone one way or another. Evidence like that wouldn’t be kept around for more than a week. They might have kept some tissue samples under glass, but when the case went cold—sayonara.”
“And I presume neither NOPD nor the Gadsden police would have evidence other than what we have here?”
“I think you’re looking at it.” Chambers shook his head.
“Even though this particular connection was mine, I’m not sure it’s worth pursuing.
The Diamondhead arm was found with the body.
It was slashed to pieces. Except for the missing hand, this one wasn’t slashed.
And the distance between the body parts violates your thirty-mile rule. ”
Pendergast said nothing.
“What are you thinking?” Chambers asked at last.
“I was thinking there are a great many swamps and bayous around here, in which a great many body parts—including arms—could have disappeared into the bellies of carnivorous reptiles.”
“Tell me about it.” The swamp was a favorite excuse for local law enforcement when a body was missing. They would say it had turned into “gator guano.”
“I’d be curious,” Pendergast said, “to see the storage facility where Mr. Drakos’s body was found. Shall that be tomorrow morning’s assignment?”