Lizard World (29 page)

Chapter XVIII.

A very dark chapter, containing news of the discovery of two corpses,

one modern and one ancient.

Body Found at Local Dump Sparks Legal Battle

Insurance Company Disputes Widow’s Claim

Cyndi Gumpel- Sween

  
A legal battle has broken out over the identity of the mutilated corpse discovered last month at the Lake Hiawatha dump. Nearly three weeks after law enforcement officials voiced alarm over the “butchery of a deranged and cold-blooded killer,” a widow and an insurance company have locked horns over the fate of millions of dollars in benefits.

  
Last month’s grisly discovery, according to Sergeant Schuyler “Skip” Kowalski of the New Jersey State Troopers, was made by a ten-year-old handicapped boy whose family owns the Fusco Salvage Company adjacent to the public landfill. The boy, Floyd Ambrose Fusco Jr., reportedly told police that on the evening of March 31st he had been awakened by barking at approximately 11 P.M., gone outdoors with his flashlight and found a small dog digging up a body. Floyd Jr. is also said to have told police that he remembered seeing footprints in the mud beside the grave, “which might have made a big difference,” said Sergeant Kowalksi, if only we had been notified before it began to rain.” “My boy told me about it just as soon as he could,” said Floyd Jr.’s mother, Mrs. Taffy Clapp Fusco. “But, you know, it isn’t easy on them crutches. Floyd Senior would be very proud.” Sergeant Kowalski told reporters that he had arrived at the landfill shortly after 1:00 A.M., cordoned off the crime scene and examined the terrier’s dog tag, which enabled him to identify the owner as Mrs. Agnes Smedlow of 601 Summit Avenue, Hackensack, New Jersey.

  
But when asked about the identity of the corpse, the police have -- ever since the exhumation -- remained steadfastly noncommital. “The decedent,” repeated Sergeant Kowalski yesterday, “is an obese middle-aged Caucasian male. Otherwise we can make no positive identification at this time.”

  
Nonetheless, Mrs. Smedlow’s assertion that the body is that of her missing husband -- Dr. Max Nathan Smedlow, a family dentist and implantologist -- has now initiated a fierce dispute between Mrs. Smedlow and her husband’s life insurance company. “I know that’s him. I can’t be wrong,” said Mrs. Smedlow on the telephone last Friday. But in a statement issued yesterday by the Bedrock Casualty Company, claims department counsel Wendell J. Skagg, Esq., has questioned Mrs. Smedlow’s judgement and concurred with the police. Noting “the corpse’s general decomposition which makes Mrs. Smedlow’s testimony irrelevant,” Mr. Skagg concludes that, “in the absence of dental records, DNA evidence and of limbs -- without which fingerprinting is impossible -- there is simply no way to determine the decedent’s identity. Therefore Mrs. Smedlow’s claim is premature.”

  
“We’re going to fight this,” said Bruce J. Silver, Esq., a personal injury attorney from Hoboken whom Mrs. Smedlow has hired to represent her. In response to Mr. Skagg’s charge that Mrs. Smedlow has prematurely made a claim upon her husband’s policy, Mr. Silver has accused Bedrock Casualty of waging “a campaign of innuendoes” ever since Mrs. Smedlow “quite correctly” informed the insurance company of the discovery of her husband’s body. “Instead of slurring Mrs. Smedlow,” said Mr. Silver, “why doesn’t someone find the old man and the chauffeur whom Mrs. Smedlow saw driving off with her dog?”

  
When asked about this, the police have stated that they are “actively following up” on Mrs. Smedlow’s testimony that she saw an old man driven by a chauffeur steal her dog just hours before its barking led to the discovery of the body. “We’re taking this very seriously,” said Sergeant Kowalksi. “We’re looking for a black Lincoln limousine with New York plates. It’s part of our ongoing investigation.”

      
“Hell,” said Lemuel Lee, readin’ over the geezer’s shoulder and gettin’ suddenly a trifle nervous about how the cops was on the lookout for the limo, “ain’t you never gonna finish readin’ that goddamn newspaper?”

      
Smedlow tried to stop staring at it. But the little column of newsprint -- the shock and finality of it -- exerted a terrible, paralyzing fascination. He had the sickening feeling that he was looking at his own gravestone. Still there was some miniscule comfort in the fact that the cops had not -- at least not yet -- declared him dead. Yes, yes, that was it: as long as they couldn’t locate his dental records or find samples of his DNA in, for example, some dandruffy old comb or in the hair-clogged blade of his electric razor, there was still some small cause for hope.

      
But somehow he would have to get back home and destroy the evidence before Agnes and that shyster she had hired had a chance to rummage through his things. That would be just like her, he thought, noting that, for all her ostentation of grief, she had wasted no time at all claiming the death benefit -- a miserly practicality which didn’t surprise him in the least, considering the way she never bought new toothbrushes or scouring pads or sponges, the regularity with which she returned soda bottles for the five-cent deposit, and all the Sunday mornings at the breakfast table he had watched her cutting coupons for bathroom spray and chopped meat from the back pages of the local paper. Moreover, it was perfectly obvious that if she could somehow prove that that plundered hunk of flesh was his, she would immediately opt for the economical expedient of cremation: and then there would be nothing whatsoever left of him -- no, not even that butchered carcass they had dug up in the junkyard -- just some box of dust which she would no doubt scatter as food for her hydrangeas.

      
“The Doctor says, Mr. Griswold, Sir, that some a them arteries in yer head is still a mite clogged up.”

      
Smedlow watched the monster woman pause to wheeze and catch her breath.
 

      
“That’s how come you ain’t always been in yer right mind. But he says that pretty soon you won’t even remember you was brainsick. He says you’ll flush that prisoner from yer brain the more you get healed up from yer amnesia.”

      
Leaning over and giving him a nauseating close-up of her cleavage, she placed a familiar black leather suitcase on his table.

      
“Here’s some a yer favorite old-time panties, Mr. Griswold, Sir.”

      
Smedlow (wasn’t he still Smedlow?) did wish that she would stop calling him that. In vain he did his endeavour to keep the hand from reaching toward and opening the case.

      
“Lem! Now go fetch Mr. Griswold here his locket, his gold mirror, his big old fancy cane, and one a them old brown bottles a stinkum. The doctor says all them antique things is gonna help him to remember. And then wheel him so he’s real close up to all them snooty dead folks in them pictures.”

      
“Here’s yer damn stink bottle,” said Lemuel Lee several moments later, slammin’ it down on the table, goin’ off to fetch the other junk, and still feelin’ a trifle queasy about what he’d read in that damn newspaper. Goddamn! If the cops was lookin’ for the limo and anyone had seen him at the wheel, then they was most definitely gonna want to ask him a bunch a questions. And it was most definitely possible, goddamn it, that they was gonna put together two and two if they was to find, for example, some a his spit-out chewin’ gum at the junkyard or maybe his fingerprints on one a them two damn jumbo plastic bags. But wait: the good thing was that (like that newspaper said) the rain had washed away his footprints at the junkyard, and so maybe all that rain had also muddied up them bags. Yep, and maybe -- maybe -- there wasn’t no one at all who’d seen him drivin’ the limo in the first place. Which is what he was startin’ to hope when all of a sudden he remembered that editor-lady’s girl Friday -- that skank Magda who’d brung her out the briefcase when they was pickin’ the editor-lady up in midtown. And that’s just exactly what he was suddenly rememberin’ when he found himself gettin that panicky butterfly feelin’ in his stomach that maybe things was really startin’ to go wrong.

      
“Okay, now, pal,” he said, tryin’ to stay real focused and not to lose his cool, “here’s yer snooty silver cane and yer damn, old fancy hand mirror -- so you can take a real good gander at yer ugly face.”
    

      
Something about the silver cane seemed vaguely, disturbingly familiar. But Smedlow was absolutely certain that he recognized the mirror: its golden backside, its faded, chipped-enamel coat-of arms. He tried to keep the hand from picking it up. But it was useless to struggle against so strong an enemy, fighting against him in the fingers, invading and polluting the inmost sanctums of his thought -- holding up to him the reflected, wrinkled horror of his countenance.

      
And yet, consulting with my looking-glass, I must needs say that my mind was not a little cheered thereby insomuch as I did find my face now much mended and embellished by all my efforts -- viz. capping of my scabs with black patches, filling out of my hollow cheeks with plumpers, beautying of my scars and sores and blisters with paints and powders and pomades, and all the other labours of my toilet which did engage me ere my going to the playhouse.

      
For yester-even there did come to my hand a note from my Lord Viscount Chommeley, acquainting me that all things were in readiness against this Monday next -- when his Lady and the maid being bound for Bath, my rogues would take my charmer from her coach and transport her right directly to the bawdy-house. My Lord Chommeley did much rejoice, said he, at this opportunity to render me good service. Nothing could please him more exceeding well. Indeed, he did desire only that he could even more entirely show me his respects -- wherefore (he and the ladies being to go to the Cockpit theater the next morrow) he did humbly beg the honour of my presence.

      
Indeed I was well pleased. For I doubted not that this fat stinkard durst not cross me now. More better still, now looking at my visage in the glass, I did find it altogether much improved. For tho’ this day ’twas but fortnight since the implantation of my ears, yet the graft did take exceedingly. ’Tis true the toadish flesh upon my gorge did yet somedeal exude, but this was most bravely concealed by my cravatt.

      
And when, moreover, I did observe how admirably my full-bottomed perriwig did hide the pustulous extuberance of my skull, I could not but own myself to be singularly well content. In fine, looking in my glass at these most signal ameliorations of my attire and countenance, I did find myself to become more and more encheered thereby, in such wise that I did straightways determine to go abroad to theatre without my wonted covert of a vizard-mask. Therefore donning my plumed hat, my jessemy gloves and my gold-laced crimson sattin waistcoat, the which I had not worn these five months since, I did presently take coach to Drury Lane.

      
And yet, being come thither, I could not chuse but become most exceeding vexed. Above all I did not, at the first, perceive the maid. And moreover than this there was none almost of the Quality -- save only this fat Chommeley and his tedious sow, one most distastefully ancient, ill-favored marchioness and, more distasteful still (seated in the eighteen-penny gallery amongst the rascallly lot of shopkeepers, prentices and poets) my milksop cousin Fawncey.

      
At the least, to be sure, I was spared the contemplation of his vulgar little friend, that whoreson book-monger Barnaby. But now to be astonied to observe my charmer there -- a-walking at the elbow of my precious cousin, guiding the foot-steps of this blinded asse and discoursing with his set of fellow-rhimesters (who were but shit-abed fools and ragged, common creatures) was a circumstance the which, I do confess, did not a little put me out of order.

      
I, this mean while, must needs sit next this great fat-ars’d coxcomb Chommeley and suffer the foul breath and incessant, prating nonsense of her dullard, ugly aunt. It needeth not to add that the play was nowise to my liking. Yet thinking to have had occasion thereafter for some pleasurable parley with the maid, I did my best endeavour to sit there and endure it.

      
Thus when, at the length, this theatric balderdash was done and all these several cobblers, tripe-dealers and costermongers had made known their vulgar approbation, it liked me not in the leastwise to perceive that my charmer yet did company my milky, mole-blind cousin. Indeed, when I did see her again giving ear to his trifling discourse, paying heed to his every stumbling step, I confess I know not what species of unmanly perturbation did pell-mell overtake me. But straightways I did recover me, chide myself for playing the fool when I might have swived her in the garden and remember me that she would be locked up in Mistress Felsham’s stew this Monday next.