Flesh and Bone

by Jefferson Bass

  Two technicians occupied the room. One instructed me to stand with my back to one wall—“Put your back against the X,” he said, “and look at that X on the opposite wall.” That X was fastened to the top of a camera which snapped a photo that soon appeared on a computer screen.

  “I don’t have to hold a sign with an inmate number on it?”

  “No, sir,” he said in a tone that implied I’d asked the dumbest question he’d heard in a long while. “Computer puts that in automatically now. Okay, now turn and face the X on that wall,” he said, pointing to my right. “And now turn and face the X on this wall.” And so, in a matter of seconds, I had mug shots on file.

  The other technician belonged to the guild of fingerprinters. It was a guild that had gone high-tech. The sheriff ’s intake facility had two computerized fingerprint scanners, labeled CROSS MATCH. The fingerprint technician had me lay the four fingers of my left hand on the scanner’s glass—a print he called a “four-finger slap,” then the four fingers of my right hand, then each thumb. Then he rolled each of my ten digits across the glass, some more than once, when the Cross Match computer informed him the print was unacceptable because of a “vertical gap.” After he’d printed all my fingers, he removed a black cover from a clear plastic cone located to the left of the flat glass plate. Through the plastic, under the wide base of the cone, I saw wires leading to a small black rectangle that was emitting green light. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Palm scanner.” He had me wrap my palms around the cone, one hand at a time, the tip of the cone rising up between my thumb and forefinger. Beneath the cone, the scanning head—the rectangular box—rotated around a central axis as the green light brightened, illuminating the ridges of my palms. I thought I was finished then, but next he had me lay the edge of each hand on the cone—my “writer blades,” he called them.

  “That’s very thorough,” I said. “Now you send these off to the TBI and the FBI to see if I’m already in their criminal database?” He nodded. “My friend Art Bohanan says he can get an answer in an hour or less. Is that right?”

  “Oh, often in ten minutes or less,” he said, “at least from the TBI.”

  “The wonders of modern technology,” I said. “We done now?”

  He looked a little sheepish. “No, sir, not quite. We also have to do what’s called a ‘major crimes package’ on you, Doc.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means we have to break out Old Betsy here,” he said, pointing at a large and dusty wooden box that was shoved underneath the counter where the mug-shot computer sat.

  “What’s Old Betsy? You fixing to shoot me?”

  “Naw. Old Betsy is an old-fashioned ink-on-deck fingerprint kit. Besides the scans, we have to take ink impressions—slaps, rolls, tips, palms, writer blades, and wrists.”

  “How come? You’ve already scanned most of those. Anyhow, I thought the fingerprints were what really mattered.”

  “Funny thing,” he said. “A lot of criminals are really careful about not leaving prints from their fingertips. But they don’t think anything about the edge of their hand, or their wrist. These ink impressions will be sealed in an envelope and hand-delivered to the lead investigator. They’ll give the investigators and forensic techs more to look for at a major crime scene.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. “I just wish they knew where the crime scene was. Where Dr. Carter was murdered.” Suddenly he, too, looked uncomfortable. I seemed to be having that effect on people a lot these days. He didn’t say much as he took the prints in ink, and when he’d finished and handed me some moistened towelettes to clean my hands and wrists, he seemed relieved to turn me over to my next handler, a pleasant female clerk who asked a series of routine questions—my name, address, age, date of birth, Social Security number, some basic medical information, and the like—and typed in my answers in a clatter of keystrokes. She also transferred some information from the arrest warrant Detective Evers had handed over upon our arrival.

  As she typed, I noticed a fairly steady stream of uniformed personnel passing through the intake area, in ones and twos, with no apparent purpose. Finally it dawned on me that they were sightseeing, and that I was the sight they had come to see. The thought made me flush with a mix of humiliation and anger, but I did my best to act nonchalant. Eventually I started nodding and saying hello, and that seemed to even the scales: the sightseers, caught gawking, now looked as ashamed as I felt.

  After the intake clerk had finished her flurry of typing—producing more keystrokes, in less time, with fewer visible results, than anyone except maybe an airline ticketing agent—she looked up and smiled at me. “Okay, I think we’ve got it. I believe Sergeant Anderson will be here for you shortly. Would you mind having a seat in this room over here?” She indicated a small side room separate from the larger intake room. I pointed at the main room, where three prisoners in stripes lay sprawled on stainless steel benches.

  “You don’t want me where those other guys are?”

  “No, sir,” she said. “They told us you’re a ‘high-profile.’ That means you’re segregated from the other prisoners.” She gave me another smile, and it seemed genuine. Even here, in the seamy underbelly of society, there was a class system, and DeVriess had negotiated me into the upper crust.

  “Well, thank you for your kindness,” I said. “It’s good to know I’m a VIP among murder suspects. Just so you know, I really didn’t kill Dr. Carter.”

  Now she, too, turned crimson and ducked her head. Damn, I thought, me and my big mouth again.

  I slunk to the bench and sat down. Within five minutes Sergeant Anderson appeared. “Dr. Brockton, your bond has been posted and we’re going to be releasing you from custody now. If you’ll follow me, we’ll step across the hall and get you going.”

  An automated glass door at one side of the intake area slid open, leading to an elevator and a staircase. Beyond those, another door slid open before us, admitting us into an area labeled RELEASE. Release was virtually a mirror image of Intake except for the lack of the mug-shot and fingerprint stations. Another clerk at a computer desk—also a pleasant blond woman—handed over my possessions, along with a Sharpie marker. I used the Sharpie to sign the line at the bottom of the bag, indicating that all my property had been returned to me. It took some strength to pull open the top of the bag, and when I did, I noticed that a series of thin red stripes along the top got ripped to hell. Even our jails had adopted tamper-evident packaging. That was a good thing, I supposed; it could be the reason my TBI badge wasn’t going to show up on eBay during my murder trial.

  I put on my shirt, watch, and badge, and Andrews led me out a glass door and into the sally port. The door, likewise labeled RELEASE, mirrored the Intake door some fifteen feet away. Anderson raised his radio to his mouth. “We need one-sixty-two,” he said, and I heard an electronic lock click open in a steel door set into the wall beside the garage door. He ushered me out, blinking, into the brilliant Tennessee sunshine, where DeVriess sat idling in his car. On the embankment above, at the edge of the facility’s parking lot, I saw a thicket of television cameras, and I guessed that one of the sightseeing deputies inside had tipped off a cousin or girlfriend who worked at one of the stations. I got in with as much speed and dignity as I could combine, and Burt backed down to a spot where he could turn around. Then we retraced our route along Maloneyville Road, Washington Pike, and the expressways until we pulled into the garage beneath Riverview Tower once more. Burt dropped me at my rental car. As I opened the door of the Bentley, he reached over and took my arm to keep me there a moment longer. “Those reporters will probably show up at your house in a few minutes,” he said. “You might want to go back to the cabin for another night or two.”

  “Damn. You’re probably right.”

  On the drive back to Norris, I mentally replayed the experience of being booked for murder. Aside from the extra set of prints for the “major crimes package,” nothing about the process se
emed to have any relation to the terrible outrage inflicted on Jess. I might just as well have been getting booked for shoplifting. For that matter, it wasn’t that different from the paperwork for a minor surgical procedure at an outpatient clinic; a proctoscopy sprang immediately to mind. The criminal justice system—like my own forensic work—contained relatively few moments of high drama, I realized, widely spaced by long intervals of boredom and drudgery.

  During my hour and ten minutes as an inmate—I had been promised I’d be out in an hour, but I figured I’d asked at least fifteen minutes of questions along the way—I had moved along a carefully orchestrated assembly line, like a car chassis moving through the factory. I had traced a big U, with one side of the U corresponding to Intake and the other side to Release, with a short hallway connecting the two at the base. Some of the procedures seemed silly, such as surrendering and inventorying my personal effects only to reclaim them a mere seventy minutes later. But there was an elegant symmetry to the process, too, a satisfying sense of ceremony or ritual.

  I’d gone in one side, stripped of almost everything I had, and had come out the other, where everything was restored to me. I wondered if there was any hope of that same symmetry holding true in the rest of my life. I couldn’t see it yet. I hoped that was merely because I was still locked on the “Intake” side of the nightmare.

  CHAPTER 35

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER I’D gotten dressed up for my arrest, I put on the same outfit once more and climbed into the Taurus. I felt odd and conspicuous—ashamed, almost—to drive through the rustic cabins and campground wearing a coat and tie, especially two days in a row. The fancy getup seemed as inappropriate here in the woods as shorts and a T-shirt would have seemed at a symphony concert. But once I got to the funeral, I would blend right in.

  I had not known Jess was religious; for that matter, I still didn’t, but the location of her memorial service—St. Paul’s Episcopal Church—suggested that either Jess or whoever arranged her funeral was. How strange, I reflected as I approached the outskirts of Chattanooga yet again, to know someone’s flesh as intimately as I had recently come to know Jess’s, yet to know nearly nothing about their spirit, or at least their beliefs. So many things I’ll never get the chance to learn about her, I thought, and the realization sent me spinning down another dark spiral of grief.

  St. Paul’s was located in downtown Chattanooga, three blocks from the convention center and practically alongside U.S. 27, the elevated expressway that skirted the western edge of the business district before crossing the Tennessee River and angling northeast up the valley of the Tennessee River. I took the second downtown exit, which fed me north onto Pine Street; I was early, so I was able to park at a meter directly across the street from the church’s main entrance.

  St. Paul’s was set above street level, and the entrance was beside a tall bell tower of red brick, rising from a gray limestone base. Episcopalians, I’d observed, tended to have a flair for architecture, along with the money to indulge it. As I crossed the street to the front steps, I noticed several police cars at the curb. Technically, Jess wasn’t part of the police department, but she was part of the extended family of law enforcement, and the code of honor extended to her: You turn out to honor your fallen comrades. The unwritten, darker corollary, I’d noticed over the years, was that the more shocking the death, the bigger the turnout, as if a show of posthumous solidarity might somehow make up for the tragedy that had struck down one of their own—or prevent the next one.

  As I topped two flights of steps and reached a brick plaza just below the double wooden doors into the nave, I noticed two uniformed officers flanking the entrance. I thought perhaps they were giving out programs, but their hands were empty, so I decided they were simply some sort of honor guard. One of the officers looked my way; I made eye contact with him and nodded somberly. He stepped forward to meet me. “Dr. Brockton?”

  “Yes, hello there,” I said, holding out my hand and reading the name MICHAEL QUARLES on a brass bar on his chest. “Have we worked together before, Officer Quarles?”

  “No, sir,” he said, “we haven’t met. Dr. Brockton, I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed here.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not allowed to be here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said, sir. You’re not allowed to enter the church; in fact, you’re not allowed anywhere on the church property, so I’ll have to ask you to go back down these steps.”

  “This is Dr. Carter’s memorial ser vice, isn’t it?” He nodded once. “She was a colleague and a friend of mine,” I said.

  “Maybe so,” he said, “but there’s a restraining order, signed by Judge Avery, that bars you from entering this church or setting foot on this property today. So I’m asking you—no, sir, I’m telling you—to leave the property now.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Who requested this restraining order?”

  “Assistant District Attorney Preston Carter.” Jess’s ex-husband.

  “This is not right,” I protested. “He has no grounds for this.”

  “Way I hear it, you’ve been charged with her murder,” he said. “I’d call that pretty solid ground. In any case, we’re here to enforce a restraining order that bars you from this property. I’ll give you to the count of three to comply; if you do not, I will take you into custody, sir.”

  “Who can I talk to about this?”

  “One.”

  “I need to be in there.”

  “Two.”

  “Please. I am begging you.”

  “Three.” He stepped forward and took my arm. I shook off his grip; without taking his eyes from mine, he reached to the back of his belt, where I knew police carried their handcuffs. Holding up both hands, I began backing down the stairs. He allowed me to retreat. A small group of onlookers who had gathered at the foot of the steps parted to let me pass. Some of them glanced at me furtively; others stared openly.

  I noticed Jess’s receptionist at the edge of the group, her eyes rimmed in red. “Amy,” I said, “please see if you can get me in there.” She ducked her head and hurried up the stairs, and the rest of the small crowd followed suit.

  The two policemen were still watching me. I looked from one unyielding face to the other, then finally shook my head and walked across the street to the Taurus. As I pulled away from the curb onto Pine Street, I rolled down my window and stopped to give the officers a long last look, which they returned without expression. Then I took my foot off the brake and eased north on Pine, toward the STOP sign at Sixth Street. As I turned right onto Sixth, I took a final look back at the church and I thought I saw Officer Quarles speaking into the radio mike that was clipped to his shoulder.

  Two blocks east, Sixth intersected Broad Street, the main boulevard through the heart of downtown. A right on Broad, followed by another right onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, would take me back to highway 27, and from there to I-75 North, and to Knoxville. But I did not turn right; instead I turned left onto Broad Street, away from my route home. I parked at the first meter I came to, fed in five quarters I fished from the change tray, and started walking toward St. Paul’s. Then I turned back to the car; I took off my suit coat and my tie and put a UT cap on my head. My clothes—black pants, a blue shirt and tie, and black wingtips—looked too dressy for the cap, but I hoped I could pass for a tourist or casual passerby if a policeman didn’t look too closely.

  Where Sixth met Pine, I looked left toward the front of the church. I didn’t see any police on the sidewalk, but just to be on the safe side, I continued down Sixth, past a high-rise nursing home named St. Barnabas, then doubled back through an alley that ran between the nursing home and the back of the church. An iron gate behind the church opened onto a small playground; to one side of the playground, a door led into what looked like a wing of classrooms. I tried the gate and found it locked. Looking around, I saw no one, and I gripped the uprights and prepared to scale it. Then
I thought of all those windows in St. Barnabas, and all those rooms filled with elderly people whose chief entertainment might consist of staring outside in search of something interesting. I hurried up the alley to Pine, and turned onto the sidewalk bordering the church.

  Ten yards down, I came to a side entrance to the classroom wing. A pair of wooden doors, up half a dozen stairs, was set into a deep archway sheltered from the view of anyone near the main entrance. I trotted up the stairs and studied the doors. They were an old-fashioned kind that met in the middle, with no pillar between them. The lock was in the right-hand door; my hope was that the church custodian had forgotten to engage the vertical bolt that anchored the left-hand door to the floor. If that was the case, a good tug might be enough to swing both doors outward and apart, even if the crash bar was locked. As it turned out, I got even luckier than that. I smelled the aroma of fresh varnish on the wood, and I noticed that a small wedge had been placed between the doors to keep one slightly ajar so the wet varnish wouldn’t glue them together. I opened the wedged door just enough to slip between the varnished edges, then pulled it quickly shut behind me.

  My educated guess, my educator’s guess, had been right—I was in a wing of classrooms which I hoped would connect with the nave. I set off down the hallway to find that connection. The hall smelled of musty wax and dirty paper wrappers, the unmistakable scent of crayons that had been gripped by countless little hands. A large puppet theater was tucked into an alcove in the hall, beside a poster of Noah’s ark, jammed with animals. The door of the first classroom featured a poster of Jesus, with the caption “Let the little children come unto me.” Inside the room were miniature wooden chairs and tables, as well as something that resembled a wooden rowboat on rockers. With a jolt, I suddenly remembered one exactly like it from my own childhood, and the tune “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” popped into my head from fifty years before, sung in the voice of Miss Eloise, my sweet-tempered kindergarten teacher.