Bad Karma In the Big Easy Read online

  “What do you mean?”

  “You hardly said anything during lunch and you just generally seemed disengaged.”

  “Guess I am. The hunt for the killer of those women was all that was keepin’ me goin’. Now that it’s over, all I see is my own wanin’ abilities and a destroyed city with an uncertain future.”

  “As for your waning abilities, you were the one who found the freezer, located the building where it was stored, and discovered Night Demon. On the physical side, there’s the way you handled those thugs and jumped on that gator.”

  He tossed a sugar packet across the table. “Okay, I had a few good moments. Now, can you fix the city?”

  Kit stood. “Let’s take a ride.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They went to the parking lot and got into Kit’s car.

  “How far is this place?” Broussard asked.

  “Don’t be so impatient.”

  Broussard managed to hold his tongue for most of the trip. But when they got to Caffin Street, he said, “What’s goin’ on?”

  “I brought Teddy down here yesterday to show him where Marion kept the bodies and I noticed something you should see.”

  They turned onto LeDoux. She drove another half block and stopped the car. Pointing at one of the dead trees Broussard had lamented over after visiting the Hendrins, she said, “Look at that first big branch.”

  Broussard’s eyes followed the direction she indicated. He craned his head around, looking at the branch from various angles while Kit waited for his reaction. Finally, he looked at her and grinned. “It’s growin’ new leaves.”

  “A lot of them are.”

  “You know the sayin’: it ain’t over ‘till the fat man sings...”

  “Isn’t it fat lady?”

  “I’m makin’ a point here.”

  “Which is...”

  “I may have to cancel my vocal debut.”

  ACROSS THE RIVER AT the Three Pines nursing home, there was a knock on Jimmy Bolden’s door.

  “Yeah... come in.”

  The door was opened by one of the male attendants. He was carrying a small white sack. “This just came for you.”

  “What is it?”

  The attendant crossed the room and put the sack on Jimmy’s dresser. He unrolled the fold in the sack and looked inside. He took out a deli container and opened it. “Looks like rice pudding.”

  Jimmy managed the best smile he could, his first attempt to do so in weeks. “Who brought it?”

  “A little Cajun guy with a beard. Said he was delivering for a friend of yours. Also said you’d be getting one of these from now on every Thursday.”

  Epilogue

  When Broussard got home after Kit had taken him down to the Ninth and shown him the budding tree, he went to his study and pulled his Webster’s dictionary from his bookshelf. He took the book to his reading chair and sat down. Phillip had called him an intellectual snob. He opened the dictionary and turned the pages until he found the entry for snob: One who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge or taste.

  He thought about all that had happened and the mistake he had made in not seeing the tattooed eyeliner. Maybe it was time to admit he was getting old and accept that for most of his life he had been a snob. Perhaps he should simply admit he was fallible and sometimes might no longer be the most observant person in the room... stop trying to be so perfect. He had great colleagues and friends... all very intelligent and capable. There was certainly no shame in being their equal. No one could call him a snob then. Wouldn’t that be a comfortable way to live out his remaining professional years?

  He ruminated over these things for a while then got to thinking... the definition of snob implied that a snob didn’t have the goods, he merely acted as though he did. So... if a person was really always the most observant or smartest or most cultured person in any group, then being a snob was in the eye of the beholder...

  It was clear what he needed to do.

  He’d just have to tighten up and quit making mistakes.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  At the time this book was written, three-dimensional tubes of living tissue had actually been created using a desk-top printer equipped with cell suspensions rather than ink. Will this ultimately lead to production someday of entire organs on demand as some believe? I for one, hope so.

  With regard to the title, I’ve use BAD KARMA in the sense of the general feeling of a place. As in: I’m getting really creepy vibes from this town.

  About The Author: Photo/ Credit: Jennifer Brommer

  D.J. Donaldson

  I grew up Sylvania, Ohio, a little suburb of Toledo, where the nearby stone quarries produce some of the best fossil trilobites in the country. I know that doesn’t sound like much to be proud of, but we’re simple people in Ohio. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree at the U. of Toledo, I became a teacher of ninth grade general science in Sylvania, occupying the same desk my high school chemistry and physics teacher used when he tried unsuccessfully to teach me how to use a slide rule. I lasted six months as a public school teacher, lured away into pursuit of a Ph.D. by Dr. Katoh, a developmental biologist I met in a program to broaden the biological knowledge of science teachers. Katoh’s lectures were unlike anything I’d ever heard in college. He related his discipline as a series of detective stories that had me on the edge of my chair. Stimulated to seek the master who trained Katoh, I moved to New Orleans and spent five years at Tulane working on a doctorate in human anatomy. Stressed by graduate work, I hated New Orleans. When Mardi Gras would roll around, my wife and I would leave town. It wasn’t until many years later, after the painful memories of graduate school had faded and I’d taught microscopic anatomy to thousands of students at the U. of Tennessee Medical school in Memphis (not all at the same time) and published dozens of papers on wound healing that I suddenly felt the urge to write novels. And there was only one place I wanted to write about... mysterious, sleazy, beautiful New Orleans. Okay, so I’m kind of slow to appreciate things.

  Practically from the moment I decided to try my hand at fiction, I wanted to write about a medical examiner. There’s just something appealing about being able to put a killer in the slammer using things like the stomach contents of the victim or teeth impressions left in a bite mark. Contrary to what the publisher’s blurb said on a couple of my books, I’m not a forensic pathologist. To gear up for the first book in the series, I spent a couple of weeks hanging around the county forensic center where Dr. Jim Bell taught me the ropes. Unfortunately, Jim died unexpectedly after falling into a diabetic coma a few months before the first book was published. Though he was an avid reader, he never got to see a word of the book he helped me with. In many ways, Jim lives on as Broussard. Broussard’s brilliant mind, his weight problem, his appreciation of fine food and antiques, his love for Louis L’Amour novels... that was Jim Bell. When a new book comes out, Jim’s wife always buys an armful and sends them to Jim’s relatives.

  My research occasionally puts me in interesting situations. Some time ago, I accompanied a Memphis homicide detective to a rooming house where we found a man stuck to the floor by a pool of his own blood, his throat cut, and a big knife lying next to the body. Within a few minutes, I found myself straddling the blood, holding a paper bag for the detective to collect the victim’s personal effects. A short time later, after I’d listened to the cops on the scene discuss the conflicting stories they were getting from the occupants, the captain of the general investigation bureau turned to me and said, “What do you think happened?” The house is full of detectives and he’s asking my opinion. I pointed out a discrepancy I’d noticed in the story told by the occupant who found the body and next thing I know, he’s calling all the other detectives over so I can tell them. Later, we took this woman in for questioning. I wish I could say I solved the crime, but it didn’t turn out that glamorous. They eventually ruled it a suicide.

  Other Books by D.J. Donal
dson

  * Published by Astor + Blue Edition- www.astorandblue.com

  *Louisiana Fever

  *New Orleans Requiem

  *Sleeping With The Crawfish

  Cajun Nights

  Blood On The Bayou

  No Mardi Gras For The Dead

  Do No Harm

  The Judas Virus

  In The Blood

  Amnesia