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suicide attempts. During this dawning era of designer drugs, angel dust, or PCP, was plentiful, and drug overdoses and “bad trips” were also commonplace.
    Unfortunately, my own propensity for “all-or-nothing” behavior resulted in a short time in therapy, to get my own head back on straight. It was a good thing. I have been free of addiction for twenty-six years now. In addition to being one of the founders of the Physician Health Plan for Louisiana, I am also the consulting medical director for the state’s Office of Addictive Disorders. I hope my experience helped break the family curse.
    Though my official title was Physician Executive in Charge of Medical Affairs for the Psychiatric Division, I stayed active in the actual practice of medicine.
    One day I took a break from rounds for a cup of coffee in the doctors’ lounge of the Baton Rouge General Hospital, when I was approached by a doctor with the unusual name of Hypolite Landry. He was the coroner for East Baton Rouge Parish, and he needed a deputy coroner. During our talk, he reminded me that in Louisiana, the coroner is responsible not only for death investigations but also for mental health commitments. I liked the mental health part, or so I thought at the time, and took the job as deputy coroner right there on the spot.
    My expectations burst one morning in June 1993, at about one A.M., a few days after I had impulsively taken the job. The answering service called me to report a death. I picked up on the second or third ring—years of being on call made me a light sleeper. At first I thought it was the hospital calling me about one of my patients. No—this was the coroner’s office service. I was informed that no one else was answering their pages, so it fell to me. I ran out the door completely unprepared for what I would see next.
    The deceased was a gunshot victim out on Airline Highway, which runs north-south through Baton Rouge and continues another hundred miles down to New Orleans. My directions were simply that it was near the fairgrounds. I was almost out of the parish by the time I came upon the flashing blue lights. When I arrived at the scene I had to identify myself. The “gatekeeper” looked somewhat puzzled and responded as such:
    â€œWhat got you out, Doc? Nobody else around? It’s down there. Which funeral home you want me to call?”
    Now it was my turn to be puzzled. I had no idea about which funeral home to call. So I was flagged through to where the body lay. Once I got within range of the body, a detective began waving his arms and yelling for me to stop. Again I was puzzled. When I got out of the car he told me which path to take to the body.
    He was trying to make sure I didn’t bumble into the scene and mess up the evidence. That feeling of being ill prepared was rapidly turning into embarrassment, and I started to feel really dumb. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy—nor are you in Colfax, Lou! I was getting my first lesson in crime-scene etiquette. It would be the first of many.
    I introduced myself to the detective and then we just sort of looked at each other. Obviously there was some expectation here.
    He broke the silence. “Hell, just a hundred more yards and he’d be in the next parish and I’d be having breakfast at the Waffle House. I guess it’s too late to drag him across the line.”
    I stared at him. He pointed to the corpse.
    That was a joke, dumb-ass.
    â€œLooks like a gunshot to the head. We pretty much know what happened. Shot over the P-word,” he said, referring to the vernacular for the female-gender-specific body part. It was an accepted truth in this business: men tend to shoot other men over women. It’s an ego issue, often exacerbated by alcohol, and it goes by a lot of names—possessiveness, insecurity, lust, love, pride, false pride, male stupidity, power trip.
    â€œYou want me to dispatch a funeral