Jupiter’s Bones

“I’m not sure.” Decker pulled out the videotape. “Maybe this’ll help us find out.” He dropped it into a plastic bag.

“Where’d you get that, Loo?” Oliver asked.

“I’ll return it. Don’t worry.” Quickly, Decker changed the subject. “What time did Venus find the body?”

Marge said, “Pluto said around five in the morning.”

“Pluto said,” Decker stated. “Has anyone talked to Venus?”

“I’ve tried but she’s been in seclusion,” Oliver said. “Incommunicado until she took her place at the processional.”

“She’s going to have to be interviewed.” Decker rubbed his eyes. “So all the information about Jupiter’s death is via Pluto?”

Oliver nodded. “He’s the official spokesperson.”

“I don’t know about that.” Decker explained the cult’s pecking order, mentioning that there were three other privileged attendants. He told them about Bob.

Oliver said, “So who are the other two?”

Decker said, “Count the purple vests.”

“Venus was wearing a purple vest,” Oliver stated. “That leaves one more. Want me to go out to the processional and take a look, Loo?”

“Are you done here?”

Oliver shut the dresser drawer. “I’m done. I don’t know about Detective Dunn.”

Decker turned to Marge. “Find anything to suggest that this was anything other than a suicide?”

“Nothing at first glance, at least.” She consulted her notes. “Empty fifth of vodka under the bed, empty vial of … let me get the exact name …” She paged through her notes. “Nembutal sodium capsules … twenty milligrams per capsule. Vial was empty, prescribed originally for ten capsules, no refills. I also bagged a vial of diazepam—”

“Valium,” Decker said. “Diazepam is the generic name.”

Marge looked up. “Whatever you say. I don’t use that stuff. I found an empty vial prescribed for twenty tablets, also twenty milligrams per tablet.”

“Ganz’s name on the labels?”

“Not Ganz, Father Jupiter.”

Decker said, “The label read ‘Father Jupiter’?”

“Yes.”

Decker said, “Where’d you find the empty vials?”

“On his bed stand,” Marge said. “All the vials were dusted and bagged. To me, it plays out like a typical case of mixing drugs and alcohol.”

“What about anything injectable?” Decker asked.

No one spoke for a moment. Then Marge asked why.

“Because the ME found recent IM needle marks in his arm and butt.”

Oliver smiled sheepishly. “Uh … there’s a slew of shit in his medicine cabinet. I wrote it all down, but I didn’t bother to dust or bag it. Not with the two empty vials at his bedside.”

“I’ll bag it,” Decker said.

“It’s not that I screwed up—”

“Who said you screwed up?”

“You’ve got that look on your face, Deck.”

Oliver had screwed up, but Decker let it go. “Go out and find the remaining guru—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Oliver muttered, stepping over the crime tape. Deck wasn’t a bad guy. He never lorded his position over those in his command, and he didn’t buddy up to the brass. Begrudgingly, Oliver was forced to admit that Deck probably made it to the position on merit.

“Come back here when you’re done, Scott,” Decker called out.

“Fine, fine,” Oliver answered.

When he had left, Marge asked, “Needle marks?”

“Yep.”

“Self-inflicted?”

“In the arm, maybe. But in his butt?”

Marge regarded his face. “The empty fifth of vodka … the pills. Everything’s too neat. You have doubts, don’t you? So do I.”

“I just don’t like it when the crime scene has been altered. It would have been one thing if someone had tried to revive the body—moved it just enough to do CPR. But to move a corpse in order to place it in a shrine before contacting authorities? I find that odd. People are usually nervous around dead bodies.”

“The group’s strange. Maybe they have odd ideas about death and bodies.”

“Even so, Marge, someone should have known better. Then you have the fact that the death wasn’t called in by anyone in the group. It was called in by Ganz’s daughter. So how did she find out about it? And if no one in the Order of the Rings called the police, what exactly were they planning to do with the corpse?”

“Bury it on the grounds?” she suggested. “They seem antiestablishment enough to do something like that.”

“That’s certainly true.” Decker slipped on a pair of latex gloves. “We have two immediate tasks.”

“We have to talk to Venus,” Marge said.

“Exactly. Do you want to do it? Might be better woman to woman.”

“Sure. I’m just about done here, so I can do it now. Unless you want me to bag the vials in the bathroom.”

“No, I’ll bag ’em. The second thing we need to know is—”