Public Anatomy Page 12

  On Highway 78 toward Holly Springs, Mississippi, he passed the town of Byhalia. Just off the highway, he looked for a double-wide trailer at the edge of a parking lot. The rural medical clinic appeared the same as when Eli was a second-year medical student and worked there one summer, providing hypertension and diabetes care for the underprivileged. The only improvement was a new sign over the cinderblock steps that announced the Byhalia Free Clinic.

  Past Holly Springs, on Highway 7, as the miles flowed behind him, so did past decades. Ahead of him, the Mississippi landscape unfolded and a crossroads came into view, a grove of trees stood on one side, a green Dumpster on the other, paper trash scattered between. Beside the Dumpster on the two-lane road, a man sat on a discarded recliner. He leaned forward, smoking a cigarette, and watched cars pass while his dog sniffed and scratched in the rubble. Beside him sat a lonely straight-backed chair as if recently vacated by a lost companion.

  This image of the man and the dog and the empty chair stayed with Eli as he neared the town of Oxford. He wondered how he would find Professor Salyer or if he even still lived in Oxford. It had been over ten years since Eli last saw the man. The professor would be well into his late sixties now, if not seventies. Salyer could be retired, in a nursing home, or dead, for all he knew. It’s not as if someone would have called to tell me if the old man died. Salyer had no family that Eli knew of. He’d probably pissed them off at some point. He could be dead and no one would care.

  On the outskirts of Oxford, Eli passed St. Peter’s Cemetery. He liked to enter Oxford by the cemetery where the creator of Yoknapatawpha County was buried. Traveling this route, with its representative literary history, seemed to ground him. He stopped at the roadside across from the historical marker that told of Faulkner’s Nobel Prize. The author’s gray headstone lay a few paces away.

  The smell of cut grass lingered in sunlight that reflected off grave markers scattered on the rolling hillside. Across the road, newly constructed condominiums revealed progress for Oxford, Eli guessed. He pulled his car forward slowly, past the gravesites, and wondered what Faulkner would think about his hometown of Oxford today, new con-dos beside his grave. Eli zigzagged over to Lamar and gained speed toward downtown. Oaks and magnolias prayed over the sidewalks in front of magnificent homes with wraparound porches and spacious yards.

  He circled Oxford Square with the majestic old courthouse as centerpiece. Tidy shops lined the streets with antiques and fine women’s apparel, a bookstore on the corner so inviting Eli had to resist temptation to saunter in and browse. Second-story balconies with open railings beckoned for sipping coffee or stiff cocktails while the lazy flow of traffic circled the square.

  At the edge of the Ole Miss campus, he crossed the deep gorge with its train track at the bottom, transportation for students of the university in the early 1900s. He entered the Ole Miss campus and passed the Grove, a small stand of trees in the center of campus that was transformed each fall into an outdoor cocktail party with fancy hors d’oeuvres, tabletop candelabras, and women decked out in formal attire. Tailgating in the Grove—an occasion to be interrupted only by a fleeting game of football with their beloved Rebels.

  Eli felt homesick for a simpler time, before the long nights of hospital call and constant pressure to excel as a surgeon. A time before his father’s integrity was in question, before Eli had fallen, somehow, toward the dark side of medicine.

  Near the entrance to the Circle, he stopped at the newly restored Confederate monument, the slender white stone base supporting a young, saluting soldier at its peak. Only a few students walked the campus in mid-summer, likely student athletes or grad students taking summer semester classes. Eli parked in front of Ventress Hall, its Gothic design and central tower unique among buildings on campus. Salyer was one of the few faculty members who’d been assigned an academic office there. The administration might have believed they could keep a closer watch on him if he were under their noses.

  Little did they know.

  He remembered Salyer’s office to be on the second floor, with a long window facing the Circle. It was noon now and if the old man was still alive, he would be departing for his daily excursion. Salyer’s routine was to walk to the downtown square most every day and take a long lunch, leaving Eli behind to work on a paper or prepare the professor’s notes for class. During Salyer’s absence, Eli not only had a great view of the coeds through the professor’s window as they sunned on the lawn, but he could also see Salyer ambling down the sidewalk on his way back from town, so that he could appear studious when the professor walked through the door.

  Since his graduation, the campus had been landscaped and several academic buildings restored. He climbed the stairwell to the second floor of Ventress Hall, wondering if any semblance of the professor remained there. Narrow hallways led past a series of closed office doors. Eli was relieved to see “A. Salyer” stamped on the professor’s door. It was cracked open and Eli gave it a gentle push.

  The office was just as Eli remembered it—a mess. Papers were stacked on the desk in haphazard piles, books strewn about the place, many lay open faced and probably hadn’t been moved in months. At the long window, a young man looked out. Eli paused as if seeing a younger version of himself.

  “Hello,” Eli said.

  Startled, as though he had missed the professor’s return, the student turned, obviously relieved to see someone other than Professor Salyer standing at the door.

  “Is Salyer in?” Eli asked, knowing full well he was not.

  “No. He stepped out for a while.”

  Eli smiled. The same old drill. Have a graduate student cover so Salyer could frequent the square each day. He approached the student, shook his hand, and they both stood looking out the window. No students were currently on the lawn, just the Confederate monument baking in the sun.

  “Does he still pose the dissections?”

  Surprised, the student glanced at Eli, then back out the window. “Oh, yeah.”

  “How about salt in the snuffbox?”

  “That’s everyone’s favorite.”

  “Still with the little shot glasses of tequila?”

  The student nodded.

  Eli pictured the students pouring salt on their wrists. Taking it to their mouths. Then shooting the tequila from their personal shot glass which Salyer handed out at the beginning of the course. Back then, most students were of legal drinking age. Not so today.

  “How does he get away with it?”

  “The students would never tell. His class is the best-kept secret on campus. There’s always a waiting list.”

  It was so Salyer. The renegade. What the Ole Miss administration didn’t know.

  “What year were you here?” the student asked Eli.

  “Early nineties.”

  Eli looked at a door near the corner of the room. A heavy wire screen covered the top, a faint light emanating from behind it. Eli knew the door was always locked. Salyer checked it frequently.

  “Does he still go to Magnolia’s?”

  “No, that place closed a few years back.” The student didn’t offer more information. That was one responsibility of the position, protecting the professor while he took his lunch.

  “It’s okay,” Eli told him. “I had this job a few years ago.”

  “He’ll be at the Rebel Yell. He walks there. But I always pick him up at one fifteen.”

  Eli decided to walk to the square, reminiscing on the familiar sites as he went. He stopped on the bridge over the gorge with the railroad track nearly one hundred feet below. Kudzu covered both sides. Amid all the brown and dying grass rampant across the Mid-South during the drought, kudzu seemed to thrive, crawling the bank on either side like a green carpeted monster. Eli looked at the railroad track deep below and imagined students arriving for the winter semester by train adorned in long woolen coats befitting the time.

  When Eli arrived five minutes later, the square in downtown Oxford was roasting hot. No air moved nor wer
e many people present. A pickup truck with a busted muffler circled the stately courthouse. A sleek gray Range Rover followed impatiently behind, an Ole Miss alum sticker on the bumper. In an odd sort of way, this contrast between social classes endeared Oxford to Eli.

  On a side street off the northwest corner of the square, Eli stopped at the entrance to the Rebel Yell. Part bar and part new southern cuisine restaurant, the Yell’s door was painted with a fresh coat of rebel red. Inside, however, the lights were cut low against a dark wood interior. Only a few of the tables were occupied. No waiter greeted him. Eli walked straight to the saloon-length bar that lined the back wall. A pyramid of liquor bottles effaced a floor-to-ceiling mirror.

  Professor Salyer sat at the bar, dead center, arms resting on the counter. All the other spots were empty. The bartender stood at the opposite end reading a copy of the day’s Oxford Eagle.

  Salyer wore a tan-colored suit, the hem of his jacket hung over the bar stool. In the mirror, Eli saw the old man’s reflection. His graying hair seemed longer, unruly, as he leaned over a bowl of soup. Salyer noticed Eli’s movement in the mirror, studied it for a moment, then picked up a glass half-full with brown liquor. As if the image deceived him, he shook his head at the glass, then took another drink.

  Eli took a seat on the bar stool next to him. Without turning his head, the professor launched into soliloquy: “Eli Branch, 1991 to 1993, first author on the seminal paper ‘Function of the Platysma Muscle in Equinus: Comparison to Homo Sapiens,’ accepted for fellowship in comparative anatomy at University College London—”

  Eli began to smile. This was classic Salyer, recounting historical aspects of a person before properly greeting them. It was charming, even if Salyer was slurring a few words.

  “To medical school, surgical residency, teaching awards, research awards—” his voice trailed off. He admired the glass again, tipped it sideways to unsettle the ice. “A guy like that doesn’t just walk into a bar, middle of the day,” he said, and took another drink.

  Eli continued to watch him, intrigued by the way his mentor chose to scold him for his absence all those years.

  Salyer held the glass rim against his lips as if talking into a microphone. “Not so much as a phone call.” He drained the glass.

  Eli put his hand on the man’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you again, Professor.”

  At this, Salyer summoned the barkeep from his daily paper. “Would you kindly pour me another,” he said, pushing the empty glass to the bar’s edge. “And one for my friend, Dr. Branch, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Eli said, trying to wave off the bartender. But the man had already tipped a bottle of George Dickel, a smooth swirl of liquor filling one glass, then the second.

  Salyer picked up his glass, turned to Eli. “The water of life, my friend.”

  Eli recognized this as both acknowledgment of his presence and the origin of a toast. Their drinks met in a gentle push, the deep clank of thick glass ringing pure.

  “To Tennessee,” Salyer said, his glass held at face level. “Coffee County in fact. Maple charcoal and oak barrels,” Salyer added, referring to the distillation of distinct Tennessee whiskeys.

  This defines Salyer, Eli thought. His creed, in fact. If something was worth knowing about, it should be appreciated in fine detail, whether distinctive whiskey distillates or the sixteenth century description of human anatomy.

  “You ever been there?”

  “Where, sir?”

  “To the George Dickel distillery, of course. What do you think we’re talking about here?”

  “No sir, I’ve never been.”

  Salyer looked astounded. “All those years in Nashville and you didn’t make it down to Tullahoma?”

  Eli shook his head.

  “To Cascade Hollow,” Salyer said as he lifted his glass. “That place is fantastic.” He took a sip in commemoration.

  “Eli,” Salyer said, as if they had been reunited for hours now, “do you know the difference between bourbon and whiskey?”

  Just like old times, Eli thought. Ever the teacher. “No sir, I can’t remember.”

  Salyer thought a moment. “Hell, neither can I, but I prefer the latter.”

  The bartender settled down with his newspaper again. A few lunch guests filtered into the Rebel Yell. In an awkward transition, Salyer expressed sympathy to Eli for the loss of his father. He was a good man. One of the best.

  Eli sipped his liquor and listened to a recounting of the friendship the two men had cherished, a relationship dating back to when they’d been graduate students together at Emory.

  When Salyer spoke of how he and his father shared appreciation for Vesalius and the classical anatomists, Eli took the opportunity and stopped him.

  “That’s the reason I’m here, professor. The Fabrica.”

  Now he had Salyer’s full attention.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “What about the Fabrica?” Salyer asked, already turned square on his bar stool to face Eli.

  “It’s still in your possession, I presume?”

  With a skeptic’s gaze, Salyer proclaimed, “I would never part with it, you know that.”

  Eli did know that. For a scholar in the history of anatomy, the Fabrica is considered the most important scientific work in the discipline.

  In the sixteenth century, the understanding of human anatomy was largely based on the teachings of Galen. As the leader in medicine around 100 A.D., Galen acquired his knowledge of anatomy based largely on the dissection of dogs. And the canine dissections needed to obtain this knowledge were performed by a prosector while Galen himself watched from a perch above, and described to his audience of students what he observed. No intimate contact occurred between the anatomist and his subject.

  That was about to change.

  At the dawn of the Renaissance, a man from Brussels named Andreas Vesalius grasped the future of human anatomy and medicine in his hands, literally.

  In 1543, Vesalius published his illustrated tome of anatomy based on his personal dissections of the dead: De Humani Corporis Fabrica—The Fabric of the Human Body.

  The sixteenth-century manuscript, composed of seven books, is thought to be one of the most important medical works in print. Few well-preserved first editions of the Fabrica remained in existence, one of which Salyer possessed. Based on its age and rarity, Eli had always assumed the manuscript to be very valuable. And Salyer protected the document as if national security were at risk. For Salyer, the mere mention of Vesalius’s masterpiece was more than enough to cut through the whiskey.

  Before Eli could explain why he was asking about the rare work, they were interrupted.

  “Are you ready, Professor?”

  Eli glanced at the clock behind the bar.

  One fifteen.

  Salyer’s graduate student was right on time.

  Even though Salyer was distracted, he waited for Eli to continue.

  “I need to look at Vesalius’s first illustration, Book One.”

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

  “Yes.” Eli gestured to help Salyer off his bar stool. “In your office.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Detective Lipsky drove an unmarked squad car south on I-55. He had just crossed the state line into Mississippi and felt relieved at the geographic transition. Maybe it was the magnolias painted on the state welcome sign. Maybe it was getting the hell out of the garbage-ridden, flesh-melting pothole of Memphis for the afternoon.

  So what if he was en route to investigate another strange death. More body parts on display. At least it was not in his downtown. Lip-sky planned just to take a look and assess any possible relation to the recent murders. Then he would let the local crew clean up the mess.

  He settled back, found an oldies station, and the song took his mind back to a high school dance and a particular grinding with Mary Elizabeth Delbechio. Smack in the middle of a slow dance with Mary ‘Lizbeth, his radio crackl
ed to life.

  “Detective Lipsky, what’s your twenty?”

  He shook his head. “Damn, Basetti. I had her all the way back under the bleachers.”

  “Who’s that, boss?”

  “Never mind. What do you want?”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Do you have to know every time I take a piss?”

  “No. Just in the interesting places. Heard you were going to Tunica.”

  “If you already knew, why you asking me?”

  “Strange time of day to go down and shoot craps. You got a gambling problem?”

  “No, I got a Basetti problem. And I feel like shooting him.”

  “Just thought you’d want to know about our pro wrestling fan.”

  “Who?”

  “You know, tongue lady.”

  “Oh yeah, what about her?”

  “Happens that she was a nurse. Another Gates Memorial employee, dead.”

  Casinos and high-rise hotels in Tunica sprout from the Mississippi delta like bastard offspring from Las Vegas. With over a dozen casinos, Tunica boasts America’s third largest gambling destination, all in the midst of flat cotton fields and a stone’s throw from the mighty Mississippi.

  Lipsky turned into the entrance of Spankin’ Rich, the latest member of an ever-branching family tree of Tunica-based gambling establishments. The parking lot was smoking hot, wavy lines warping his view of the casino as though in a mirage. He parked next to a Nissan Altima with Lafayette County tags. Retirees over from Oxford, he thought, in for some mid-morning blackjack.

  Off to the right, well away from the entrance, a couple of Tunica County police cars sandwiched an ambulance. Apparently, casino management wanted to keep this debacle as low key as possible so as not to disturb the customers. Dead bodies tended to slow down action at the slots.