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home?” the detective asked.
    I was essentially lost. I decided to just come clean with the detective. “Look, I’m new out here. What do you need me to do?”
    He didn’t seem that surprised. I was like a calf looking at a new gate— what now?
    The detective turned out to be a good guy and told me the coroner usually examines the body, turns it over for them to take some pictures, gets the ID off the deceased, and calls the funeral home. Then the next day the office calls the police and tells them when the autopsy is going to be done. That’s it. The expectations on the part of the police of the coroner were limited, to say the least.
    Even to my naïve way of thinking, that didn’t seem to be what coronering was all about. But I went through the motions and called the funeral home—white funeral home for white victims, black funeral home for black victims. The funeral home would take the body to the Charity Hospital for autopsy. I later found out that I was to call the pathologist at Charity to get a time. I was not to call him at night—rather strange, but hey, that’s the gig, Jack!
    The victim had a gunshot wound to the right side of his head. There was no exit. That’s about the extent of what I had to offer.
    The police would later chalk the motive of this murder up to a woman. Police, who knew the deceased, Jerry David Dixon, twenty-two, picked up the suspect, Robert Lee Duke, not long after. Duke said he shot Dixon in the head after Dixon confronted Duke and his girlfriend, Ann Marie Tuccio, in a pickup truck on Airline Highway. Dixon had a former relationship with Tuccio, police said.
    Duke was charged with second-degree murder in the slaying, but a jury convicted him in 1994 on the lesser charge of manslaughter. He is currently awaiting his appeal.
    An interesting side note that came out during the trial was that Tuccio, in her testimony, reported having nine separate personalities. These ranged from that of a five-year-old girl to that of a topless dancer. After Duke’s conviction, she was charged with being an accessory after the fact. She pleaded not guilty.
    That was my first murder in Baton Rouge, but I knew that I would be better prepared next time around. There were many next times, for Baton Rouge would live up to its gory name.

THREE
    Forensics 101

DO THE RIGHT THING
    I felt I had a handle on the mental health duties of the job, but the realm of death investigation was intimidating. I was still smarting from the lesson in humility I’d gotten out on Airline Highway. To correct that deficiency, I attended every training seminar I could find and afford. I read forensics textbooks voraciously and went to just about every homicide crime scene in Baton Rouge.
    One of the most helpful things I learned was crime-scene etiquette. A pearl of wisdom came from an older homicide detective, now retired. It had been passed down to him years before by his senior partner. “When you go through a crime scene for the first time, keep your hands in your pockets.” He laughed when he said it, but it was no joke. “That does two things: it shows you’re not stealing anything or planting evidence, and it shows you’re not contaminating the scene.”
    That makes sense.
    I sought out experts in every forensics field, and I was a sponge for their knowledge and experience. The crime-scene officers taught me how to collect evidence and examine latent fingerprints from corpses. We used alternative light sources to look for trace fibers and hairs as well as body fluids. I also learned about forensic photography and how to take casts of shoeprints.
    Dr. C. Lamar Meek, a forensic entomologist and renowned mosquito expert who happened to teach at LSU, coached me on the valuable information insects can tell us, and the best ways to collect them. I was amazed to learn that maggots from a corpse can be put into a blender and made into a slurry—pathologists