The Devil's Bones bf-3

by Jefferson Bass

  As I got out, I said to O’Conner, “I see you’ve made some changes around here.”

  He smiled. “A few,” he said. “My cover was blown, so I figured we needed to go ahead and get into the market with this fall’s crop, which’ll be our first. We took some samples to buyers, and we’ve got contracts for all we can produce. Should be several thousand pounds of top-grade ginseng root. We’re not getting quite what the poachers get for the stuff from the national park,” he said, “but close. If we can keep things from drying out in the heat of the summer, we should have several thousand pounds, at almost two hundred dollars a pound.”

  I did the math. “So you’re looking at six figures?”

  “Should be,” he said. “Seven if we get real lucky. But you know what? It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s been an interesting experiment. Maybe it’ll help lessen the demand for the poached ’sang, which would be good. And I’ve got half a dozen people working for me, doing honest jobs, which is also a good thing here in Cooke County. But I don’t really need the money, so if this doesn’t work, I’m not hurting.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I know how big that sheriff’s paycheck is,” I said.

  “Well, yeah, I’m not gonna get rich off that,” he said. “But I’ve got almost no overhead, apart from the ginseng operation here. My car’s provided. I’ve long since owned this farm outright. I live like a monk when I’m not at work. Hell, I don’t even spend everything the county pays me.”

  “You sound like a man whose life is in balance,” I said. “Of course, even when you looked like an outlaw, you seemed pretty balanced and content.”

  “It took me a while to get there,” he said. “But yeah. I mean, you are who you are, you aren’t what you do.”

  He motioned me up toward the wide wooden porch, where a pair of weathered wooden rocking chairs sat side by side, like an old couple.

  “Come on up,” he said. “Sit a spell. You want some iced tea?” I nodded.

  The wooden screen door had been freshly painted, too, but the spring still creaked when O’Conner pulled it open. He grinned.

  “Always did like that sound,” he said. “The guys working on the house replaced the old spring with a new one that didn’t make any noise. I made them take the new spring off and put the old one back on.”

  O’Conner disappeared, then emerged from the kitchen several minutes later, bearing two tall ceramic tumblers. The one he handed me was ice cold and frosted at the top-fresh from the freezer. I took a sip. I’d had O’Conner’s hot ginseng tea once before, but never iced ginseng. I liked it cold. It had the slightly earthy, tangy taste I’d remembered, and hints of honey, plus maybe a little fruit juice in it, too.

  “It’s good,” I said. “You ought to bottle this stuff.”

  He smiled. “It’s in the business plan-year two,” he said.

  “You’ve got a good head for business, Doc.”

  I took another sip. “No, I just know something tasty when I get a swig of it,” I said.

  O’Conner sat in the other chair and began to rock in time with me. A small end table separated the rockers, a remote control rested on the table. O’Conner pressed a button on the remote, and a ceiling fan stirred a breeze down onto us.

  “Another new addition,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Usually there’s a pretty good breeze, but this summer’s been so hot I finally broke down and hauled in some technology. I can’t remember how I did without it. I got a house in town now, but sometimes, if the night’s not too hot, I’ll come up here and sleep on the porch.” He opened a drawer in the end table and pulled out a small silver flask. “You want a little nip of Jack in there?” he said.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “That’s right, you don’t drink,” he said. “You mind if I add a little nip to mine?”

  “Go right ahead,” I said. “I’m not sure you’ll be helping the taste any, but you probably know what you’re doing.”

  “I’ve done rigorous experiments,” he said. “I think I’ve perfected the ratio.” He poured in a small splash-it couldn’t have been more than an ounce-then screwed the cap back on the flask and replaced the flask in the drawer. “Different,” he said, taking a sip and assessing it. “But mighty good.”

  “You gonna bottle that version, too?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Year three. Good thing I’m not trying to keep any trade secrets from you.”

  We rocked until sundown, and beyond, the sheriff and I. As the daylight dwindled, so did our words, and the night wrapped us in a blanket of comfortable silence. After a while I realized that Jim and I were not the only two people present on the porch. Leena Bonds-Jim’s murdered love-was with us, too, somewhere in the darkness beyond him. So was Jess Carter, I realized-with me in the way that everyone you ever love remains with you, no matter what happens to either of you.

  As the rockers creaked and the stars came out, I felt the pain and the fear inside me subside. In their place, I was amazed to find-at least for this moment-peace and a feeling I could only have described as quiet, unexpected joy.

  CHAPTER 21

  IT WAS RARE FOR ME TO STAY UP LATE ENOUGH TO watch the eleven o’clock news, but I was late getting home from Cooke County. Besides, Channel 10 had promised an update on the manhunt for Garland Hamilton. I’d heard through the Knox County prosecutor’s office that the Tennessee Association of District Attorneys General had offered a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to Hamilton’s arrest and capture, and Channel 10 was promising to lead off the newscast with more details. Jess Carter had worked closely with district attorneys, so the D.A.’s had taken a special interest in recapturing her killer.

  The newscast’s theme music had just started when my phone rang. I checked the caller ID display and saw the main number for the UT switchboard. I knew there were no operators on duty this late at night. That meant the phone call could have come from any one of thousands of extensions scattered across the campus.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Dr. Brockton?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Dr. Brockton, this is Officer Sutton from the UT Police calling. We have an alarm going off in the Anthropology Department. Our protocols call for us to notify you when that happens.”

  I lunged for the remote and switched off the television. We’d had the alarms installed only a few months before, after a break-in and the theft of two sets of bones from the forensic skeletal collection.

  “We’ve got alarms in two places,” I said, cradling the phone with my shoulder and jamming on a pair of shoes. “One’s in the collection room, the other’s in the bone lab. Which one’s going off?”

  “I’m not sure it’s either one of those,” he said. “It’s labeled ‘Osteology.’”

  “That’s the bone lab. Damn. I’ll be right there.” I hung up and dashed out the door.

  My tires squealed as I careened around the serpentine streets leading out of Sequoyah Hills. The speed limit here was twenty-five, but tonight I was doing twice that. As soon as I turned onto Kingston Pike and had a straight stretch of road, I dialed Miranda’s cell phone. She’d been planning to stay late and work tonight, whittling away at the backlog of skeletal measurements awaiting entry into the Forensic Data Bank. She didn’t answer, which was unlike Miranda, whom I’d seen juggle four or five calls at once. The fact that I got her voice mail alarmed me.

  “Miranda, it’s Bill. It’s just after eleven. Give me a call as soon as you get this.”

  I skidded around the corner from Kingston Pike onto Neyland and then floored the accelerator. Flying past the sewage treatment plant, I nearly rear-ended a street sweeper that was poking along at twenty or thirty miles an hour. As I yanked the wheel to avoid the machine, I fishtailed into the oncoming lane and nearly hit another car head-on. The oncoming car veered onto the shoulder and fishtailed slightly, too, then corrected and sped away, its horn blaring. Only after the other car was out of sight did it register that I’d
nearly crashed head-on into a yellow SUV. A yellow Nissan Pathfinder, I realized.

  I could see the blue strobes of the police lights long before I threaded my way down the drive to the foot of the stadium. The lights throbbed up through the tracery of girders, transforming the stadium into an ominous set for a suspense movie. Another set of strobes, red ones, was pulsing too, and I nearly threw up when I realized that the red strobes belonged to an ambulance, backed up to the double doors behind a white Jetta. The truck was still skidding forward when I slammed the transmission into Park and leaped out. I left the door open and sprinted the fifty yards to the ambulance.

  A figure in dark blue stepped toward me. “Police!” he shouted. “Stop right there!”

  “It’s Dr. Brockton,” I yelled. “I think I’ve got a student in there. I’ve got to see.”

  “Hold on. Hold on,” he said.

  I kept running. He stepped directly into my path and spread his arms wide.

  “Hold on, Dr. Brockton. Wait just a minute.”

  I tried to sidestep him, but he was too quick. He wrapped both arms around me.

  “I can’t let you in there until I know it’s safe,” he said.

  I struggled to break free of his grip. “I’ve got to check on Miranda,” I said. “I have to see about her.”

  “Dr. Brockton, listen up now. You have got to calm down. You have got to stop struggling, or I will handcuff you, sir. Do you understand me?” He gave me a powerful squeeze. He was no taller than I was, but he was twenty years younger and probably outweighed me by forty pounds, all of it muscle. “Dr. Brockton, please don’t make me handcuff you. Do you understand me?”

  I went limp. “Yes,” I said. “I understand. Tell me what’s going on. Is Miranda in there?”

  “We do have someone in there,” he said. “I don’t know the status. If I can turn loose of you, I’ll radio and ask what’s going on and if it’s all right for you to come in.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “Have you got ahold of yourself?” he asked. “If I let you go, you’re not gonna go charging in there to be a hero, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “If you turn me loose, I’ll step back so you can make the radio call.”

  It wasn’t until he released me, and I was able to breathe again, that I realized how hard he’d been holding me.

  He pressed the “transmit” button on his radio. “This is Markham,” he said. “I’ve got Dr. Brockton out here, just outside the basement door. Is it all right if he comes in there now?”

  The answer came into his earpiece, so I couldn’t hear it, but he nodded and motioned me in. I broke into a run, but he quickly called, “Walk! Don’t run! We’ve got officers with weapons. You go running in, they’re liable to shoot you.”

  I forced myself to slow to a walk. When I reached the metal door leading into the building, I heard Markham say, “He’s coming in the door right now.” A second officer was standing in the stairwell between the exterior door and the bone lab’s door. The metal door to the lab was propped open-a disconcerting sight, as we always kept it closed. The door was steel, fitted with a small window that was kept covered by a piece of paper so no one could look inside. The paper was gone. So was the glass. A smear of blood ran down the door, reaching halfway to the floor.

  I stared around the bone lab, wild-eyed. Two uniformed officers stood to my left, by the desks and the tables where graduate students worked. To the right was the storage area that held row on row of boxed Native American skeletons-several thousand of them-stacked on shelves three feet deep.

  An EMT backed out of the aisle between the rows of shelves, pulling a gurney with him. A motionless figure lay on the gurney; beneath a sheet I saw the contours of feet, legs, torso. I’d seen that body nearly every day for years now in various postures-sitting, standing, crawling on all fours, bending over to pluck a bone from the ground. I’d never seen it lying motionless, but I recognized it instantly as Miranda’s.

  “Dear God,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It’s about time you got here.” Miranda sat up partway, propping herself on her elbows.

  “Jesus,” I breathed, “Miranda! Are you okay? You’re hurt? What happened?”

  “Could you repeat the questions one at a time? On second thought, never mind. I’m okay-I think it’s just a sprained ankle-but there’s a guy out there I don’t want a second date with.”

  “Who? Tell me. Tell me everything.”

  “I was putting measurements into the data bank, over at that table by the windows, using the digitizing probe. I’d just gotten to that really huge skull, and I was halfway through the cranial measurements when I got a creepy feeling, like maybe somebody was watching me. I looked up, but all I could see was my own reflection.”

  “Remind me to get some floodlights put in outside tomorrow,” I said. “Or a video camera. Or an electric fence.”

  “I went back to measuring,” she said, “but a minute later I heard the outside door open and close. I was jumpy already, so I listened closely for the sound of someone going up the steps to the second floor. Nothing. I turned around to look and listen, and I saw a shadow fall across the piece of paper covering the little window in the door. I got a really bad feeling, and it got worse when the knob started to turn, very slowly-first one way, then the other-and the door started rattling and shaking as somebody pulled on the knob.

  “I yelled, ‘We’re closed!’ and the door just started shaking harder. ‘I’m calling the police!’ I said, and it shook even harder. I picked up the phone and dialed 911, but right then the glass shattered and an arm reached through the window.

  “That’s when I panicked. He was coming in the only door to the lab. I thought about trying to get out one of the front windows, but I figured he’d hear me and run back outside just as I got there. I decided I’d have a better chance if I turned out the light and hid in the shelves in the back.”

  “Do you know who it was? Did you see the guy’s face?”

  “No.” She frowned, almost as if she were angry at herself. “All I could see was a man’s hand. Long-sleeved denim shirt. Surgical gloves.”

  “Excuse me?” It was one of the EMTs. Miranda and I both looked at him, startled. I’d been so caught up in the story I’d forgotten there were other people in the room. “How do you know it was a man’s hand, if it was gloved?”

  Miranda looked exasperated. “I’ve only measured a zillion male and female hands over the past four years,” she said. A zillion was an exaggeration, but only a slight one. “I can tell the difference at fifty yards.” That, I felt sure, was not an exaggeration.

  I pointed to the smear of blood on the door. “That’s not yours, is it?”

  “No,” she said, with obvious satisfaction. “That’s his.”

  “Good. The crime lab shouldn’t have any trouble getting DNA out of that.”

  “I’ll claim credit for getting the sample,” she said.

  I looked at her quizzically.

  “When I jumped up to turn out the light, I grabbed a femur that was lying on the table. Just as he got the dead bolt open, I gave him a good whack on the arm. Must have forced his arm down onto the broken glass.” Her coolness astonished me. “If his humerus isn’t fractured, he’s at least got one hell of a bruise.”

  “Probably two,” I corrected. “One where you whacked him and one where his arm hit the door.” She grinned, and I marveled at her bravery.

  “But that didn’t scare him off?”

  “I wish. By then he was yanking the door open. I flipped off the light switch and ran toward the back of the lab.”

  My heart was pounding. “God,” I said, “I know it turns out okay, and I’m still scared to death.”

  “If you’re not peeing your pants, you’re not as scared as I was,” she said. She pointed down at the blue sheet covering her, and I saw a damp stain at the center. “Last time I peed my pants was in first grade,” she said, “on the swings after school one day. My m
om was late picking me up, and I was too shy to go inside and ask Mrs. Downey if I could use the bathroom. I couldn’t think what to do, so I just sat there, swinging back and forth, dribbling arcs of pee on the bare dirt of the playground.”

  The image of six-year-old Miranda peeing on the swing set broke the spell of fear, and I reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “So tell me the rest.”