“We’re up here, Miss Georgia,” I called. “Follow the path through the woods. And watch your step!”
A minute later Miss Georgia wobbled into view, her stiletto heels sinking slightly into the ground at each step. “Dr. Bill, you need you some sidewalks out here, baby,” she said. She fanned herself with an embroidered hanky. “Not to mention a crop-dustin’ with some air freshener. Land sakes, this place got a powerful aroma.”
“Sorry,” I said. “We don’t get many ladies of your caliber out here. Where your men friends?”
“They be along directly. They restin’ halfway up. That thing they carry ing be heavy. Least, they say it be heavy.”
I introduced Miss Georgia to Art and Miranda.
Miranda shook Miss Georgia’s hand. “Thanks for coming to Dr. B.’s rescue,” she said.
Miss Georgia smiled, but I saw her sizing up Miranda at the same time. “You in love with Dr. Bill, too, girlfriend?”
Miranda smiled back. “I just pretend to be, so I’ll get good grades. Truth is, I’d hate to lose my dissertation advisor this late in the game.”
Miss Georgia laughed. “We gon’ get along fine,” she said.
I heard a snapping of twigs and a chuffing of breath, and Burt DeVriess and Detective John Evers staggered off the trail in our direction, a large square of black granite swaying between them. “Damn, Doc, I hope you know CPR. This sucker’s heavy.”
“I told ’em to make it extra thick, once you said you’d pick it up for me,” I joked. “You can set it down right there. Bend your knees, not your back.” He and Evers set the slab down, and as they straightened up, DeVriess groaned and puffed out several breaths in a row.
“Babycakes, you be needin’ some mouth-to-mouth resussification?” Miss Georgia took a hopeful step in his direction, but Burt waved her off with a laugh.
“Thanks, Miss Georgia, but I think I’ll pull through on my own.”
Evers swapped handshakes with Art, then introduced himself to Miranda, who said, “I might still be mad at you for arresting Dr. B.”
Evers shrugged. “Hey, I’m just a dumb cop,” he said. “You have to admit, though, he looked like a killer and quacked like a killer.” Miranda nodded grudgingly. “Would it help any if I told you I testified to the grand jury yesterday, and single-handedly persuaded them to indict Dr. Hamilton for first-degree murder and attempted murder?”
Miranda beamed. “That helps. Be sure to tell me when the trial is so I can come throw rotten vegetables at him.”
DeVriess cleared his throat in my direction. “Just so you know, Hamilton asked me to represent him,” he said. I looked away. The news itself didn’t particularly surprise me; after all, Grease was the most aggressive defense attorney in Knoxville, and he was my choice when I was the one charged with Jess’s murder. What shook me was how betrayed I felt. “Doc,” he said quietly, “I turned him down.”
“What?”
“I said no.” This, this was surprising. He grinned as a smile dawned across my entire face. I felt it wrap all the way around to the back of my head, and from there down my neck, into my shoulders.
“Why, Grease,” I said, “you’ve restored my faith in humanity. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had rejoined the human race.”
He held up a hand in protest. “Now, don’t go thinking I’ve turned soft,” he said. “It’s an unwinnable case. For starters, there’s your testimony about what he told you the night he tried to kill you. And you, by the way, are a wet dream of a witness for the prosecution. Not just a forensic legend, but a wrongly martyred and freshly redeemed one, too. There’s the blood they found on the floor of his wine cellar. There’s even a receipt for the gun, which he bought at a pawnshop on Broadway.”
“On Broadway?” asked Art. “That wouldn’t be Broadway Jewelry & Loan, by any chance?”
“I think so; why?”
“Because,” I laughed, “if he bought it there, he bought it from Tiny, who’s an undercover cop. So there’s another good witness against him.”
“He’s getting some karmic payback, that’s for sure,” said DeVriess. “But what really nails him to the cross is the confession Miss Georgia here captured on, um, her cellphone.”
I noticed Art studying DeVriess with a glint in his eyes. Clearly he was not feeling as forgiving as Miranda. “Well, here’s a case I’m sure you’ll want,” he said. “I just arrested a forty-year-old Scout leader. Online solicitation of a minor for sexual purposes. He promised to teach little Tiffany all the joys of love. When we searched the car he drove to the rendezvous, we found handcuffs, a gag, a digital Nikon, and a broadcast-quality video camera.” Art shook his head in disgust. “His name’s Vanderlin,” he said to DeVriess. “We just booked him an hour ago, so I’m sure you could still nab him as a client.”
DeVriess shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said. Art stared at DeVriess, then at me.
“What’s the matter, Burt,” I teased, “is this case unwinnable, too?”
“Oh, I’m sure I could win it,” he said, “but I’ve got my hands full right now. I’ve agreed to represent Bobby Scott in the murder of Craig Willis.”
This was news, too. A year earlier, DeVriess had gotten Willis off the hook for molesting Scott’s own son. “None of my business,” I said, “but can they afford you? I had the impression they were pretty tapped out from all the therapy bills.”
“We…worked something out,” he said sheepishly.
“You’re taking the case pro bono,” I marveled, “aren’t you? Tell me again how you’re not going soft.”
“I’m not. Really,” he said. “Just think how much publicity I’ll get for winning this case. ‘Vengeful Dad Goes Free,’ the headlines will say. ‘Homicide Was Justifiable.’ Hell, I’ll probably be able to double my hourly rate once I get him acquitted.”
“Burt, don’t ever take the witness stand yourself,” I said. “You’re a shitty liar.”
He looked slightly embarrassed. And immensely gratified.
I took Art’s shovel from him and began scooping out a flat, shallow depression in the freshly spread earth, in a space we’d left amid the creeping juniper and laurel bushes. When I had the spot to my liking, I tore open a bag of pea gravel I’d brought. I poured a thin layer of gravel across the bottom of the circular hole, then a thicker layer around the rim. Then I bent down and lifted one edge of the granite plaque DeVriess and Evers had lugged up the hill, so it was standing vertical. Art and Evers stepped forward to help me, but I shook my head. “Thanks,” I said, “but I’d like to do this myself.”
Rocking the stone slab up onto first one corner, then another, I walked it over to the bed of gravel I’d laid. I fussed with the stone’s placement, lining up the bottom edge so that the corners would be equidistant from the rim of the circle, then eased it down to horizontal. I rotated it a fraction of an inch clockwise, then a smaller fraction back the other way, squaring it up with the pine tree and the plantings. Then I knelt down and spread more of the pebbles around it so the rough-hewn edges jutted up by about an inch all the way around.
I stood up and stepped back for a better look. As I did, Miranda came and stood close beside me on my right. I felt her take my right hand in her left, and then felt Art put an arm around me from the other direction. Evers and DeVriess and Miss Georgia Youngblood stepped forward, forming a circle around the marker, and I noticed hands clasping all around, heads bowing toward the inscription chiseled into the granite.
IN MEMORY OF DR. JESS CARTER
WHO WORKED FOR JUSTICE
WORK IS LOVE MADE VISIBLE
“Sleep well, Jess,” I whispered for the third time in as many weeks.
We stood in silence. Somewhere overhead I heard the high, sweet song of a mockingbird.
The spell was broken by the beep of a pager. Hands came unclasped and reached into pockets, fumbled at belts. “I’m sorry; it’s mine,” said John Evers. He stepped away, and a moment later I heard him talking quietly on his
cellphone. When he returned, he caught my eye. “That was Dispatch,” he said. “Fisherman just found a floater under the Henley Street bridge. Pretty ripe, apparently.”
“Suicide?”
“Not unless the guy shot himself in the back of the head on the way down. Could you come take a look?”
My adrenaline spiked even before he finished asking. “Let’s go,” I said, starting down the path toward the gate. After a few steps, I stopped and looked back. Evers drew alongside me and turned, too. Miranda, Art, Burt DeVriess, and Miss Georgia Youngblood remained circled around Jess’s marker—around Jess herself, it somehow seemed. At the same time, I felt their presence—friendship, maybe even love—encircling me as well. And not theirs alone: I felt Jess, too, around me and deep within me. The force of it—the gift of it—made my breath catch.
“You okay, Doc?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
Reprinted from Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual (fourth edition), by William M. Bass. © Missouri Archaeological Society, Inc., 1995.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Advances in the science of forensic anthropology, which plays a crucial role in the cases in this series, would not have been possible without the research and experimentation by my many graduate students. To them, I offer my greatest respect.
After the publication of Carved in Bone, I was surprised at the number of people who bonded with the characters in that first novel. Now, though, as we’ve worked on this second one, I’ve become much more attached to our characters, too—so much so that I miss those who are not around. As I shed tears for one of them, I reflected that I could not have found a better writer to collaborate with than Jon Jefferson.
To my wife, Carol, who has difficulty separating the fiction from the facts in the Body Farm novels, I offer my sincere thanks for her support. Carol claims she knows who the student is that Dr. Bill Brockton kissed in Carved in Bone. I say, “Carol, this is all fiction.” She says, “Art Bohanan is not fiction.”
—Dr. Bill Bass
My forensic discussions with Bill Bass, and my lunches with Bill and Carol, rank high on my list of life’s delights. It’s always fun when the discussion in our restaurant booth makes nearby heads turn…or makes Carol’s cheeks go crimson. Art Bohanan—real-life fingerprint expert and children’s advocate—has been remarkably gracious about letting us borrow from his cases and his causes, and we’re proud to dedicate this book to the memory of his son.
Knoxville Police Department investigators Tom Evans and Tim Snoderly shared their time and insights generously, as did the staff at the booking and detention facility of the Knox County Sheriff ’s Office, especially Sgt. Robert Anderson.
From one side of the courtroom, criminal defense attorney David Eldridge—as smart as Burt DeVriess, but far less slippery—coached me on defense strategy; from the opposite side, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Welch helped me untangle the Gordian knot of criminal-court procedures.
Forensic technology is getting more sophisticated all the time; for sharing their time and technical expertise, I thank forensic audio and video consultant Tom Owen as well as Doug Perkins and John Laycock of Ocean Systems.
Elaine Giardino, parish administrator of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, kindly escorted me through the nooks, crannies, and staircases of her lovely church. I explored the nooks and crannies of the Hamilton County medical examiner’s facility thanks to Tom Bodkin, the staff forensic anthropologist there (another of Dr. Bass’s bright and successful protégés), and his boss, Medical Examiner Frank King, M.D. In Knoxville, at the Regional Forensic Center, I also owe a debt of gratitude to Knox County Medical Examiner Sandra Elkins, M.D., who drives a sports car but does not, as far as I know, resemble Jess Carter in any other personal respects.
For insights into the Scopes trial, I extend my gratitude both to University of Missouri law professor Douglas Linder (who has a fascinating series of websites about great trials) and to Richard Cornelius, a Scopes historian and the curator of the Scopes Evolution Trial Museum in Dayton, Tennessee.
I’m grateful to JJ Rochelle, John Craig, David Brill, and Sybil Wyatt, dear friends and true; to my sister Sara, for seeing me through a move to Baltimore; and to sweet, smart, sassy, and ever-capable Cindy.
Our agent, Giles Anderson, continues to do a spectacular job of keeping us off the streets and happily writing. We have a wonderfully supportive team at William Morrow: Sarah Durand, editor extraordinaire; crack publicists Seale Ballenger, Eryn Wade, and Buzzy Porter; marketing geniuses Rachel Bressler and Kevin Callahan; and sales wizards Brian McSharry, Michael Morris, Mike Spradlin, and Carla Parker. We’re also grateful to everyone who succeeded in getting us off those shelves, including booksellers who have recommended us and—especially—readers who have responded so warmly to Dr. Bill Brockton, Art, and their sundry partners in crime.
Finally, profound gratitude to Seabiscuit, who galloped through these pages with me and helped make them smarter and better. What a beautiful, brilliant ride.
—Jon Jefferson
About the Author
JEFFERSON BASS is the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, founded the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility—the Body Farm—a quarter century ago. He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career at the Body Farm, Death’s Acre. Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, honored as National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Jon Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Popular Science and broadcast on National Public Radio. The coauthor of Death’s Acre, he is also the writer and producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm.
www.JeffersonBass.com
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CARVED IN BONE
Credits
Jacket photograph © by Todd Vinson / Arcangel Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
FLESH AND BONE. Copyright © 2007 by Jefferson Bass, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2007 ISBN: 9780061827440
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bass, Jefferson.
Flesh and bone : a Body Farm novel / Jefferson Bass.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-075983-4
ISBN-10: 0-06-075983-6
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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