The Devil's Bones bf-3

by Jefferson Bass

  Morgan nodded glumly.

  “How old was the guy?”

  “Sixty.”

  “Any history of heart disease?”

  “You’d have made a good physician,” Morgan said. “Or a good police interrogator. Vetter had a pacemaker put in a couple of years ago.”

  “I thought the whole idea of the pacemaker was to prevent a heart attack.”

  “Me, too,” he said, “so I called and asked Dr. Garcia that same question. Garcia told me that if your heart stops, the pacemaker will jump-start it. But if your coronary arteries clog up, a pacemaker won’t save you. It’s like getting a new battery for your car-if the fuel line clogs, the battery’s no help.”

  “Did Dr. Vetter have partners?”

  Morgan shook his head. “Solo practice,” he said. “A hygienist and a receptionist, that was it.”

  “Couldn’t one of those get the records for you?”

  “Not there to get,” he said. “They couldn’t find the file.”

  “Hel-lo,” said Miranda, looking up from her sandbox, “how convenient is that? The dentist codes just before you come calling, and the crucial records vanish into the ether?”

  I didn’t like the sound of that much myself. “Did Garcia do an autopsy?”

  “No,” said Morgan. “The widow objected. She said he wouldn’t eat right and he wouldn’t exercise. She tried telling him he was headed for a heart attack, but he wouldn’t listen. Sounds like she thinks he got what he had coming to him.”

  “Sounds like maybe she’s at the ‘anger’ stage of the grieving process,” I said.

  “Sounds like maybe he died in the arms of a girlfriend,” said Miranda. “Isn’t that what tends to send you old codgers over the edge, myocardially speaking? That would explain the heart attack and the widow’s anger.”

  “Hey, he wasn’t old,” I squawked. “Sixty is the new fifty-nine.”

  “He didn’t die in the heat of passion,” said Morgan. “Not unless the hygienist was under the desk while he was dictating records. The receptionist found him slumped over his desk, microphone in his hand.”

  “But he wasn’t slumped over Garland Hamilton’s chart?”

  Morgan shook his head again.

  “And Hamilton’s dental records are nowhere to be found?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Damn,” I said. “That’s going to make it hard to match these teeth. Can you check for other medical records? Any healed fractures we should be looking for? Any cranial X-rays that might show us some teeth?”

  “I already left a message for Mrs. Vetter,” said Morgan, “asking for a list of his doctors. I’ll try her again later this afternoon. Sorry for the delay.”

  I sighed. “Well, it’s not like we’re sitting here twiddling our thumbs. We’ll be at this for a while yet. As you can see, we’ve got about a thousand more pieces to glue back together.”

  “Aha!” Miranda exclaimed. With a pair of tweezers, she reached down and plucked a small fragment of bone from the unmatched pieces. The piece was shaped like the continent of Australia, as were three or four hundred other pieces, as best I could tell. But she tucked it into an Australia-shaped gap in the forehead of the second skull, and it seemed to fit.

  “Only nine hundred ninety-nine more pieces,” I said to Morgan. “Better get moving, Steve. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  THE PHONE in the bone lab rang just after Morgan left. It was Darren Cash’s boss, District Attorney Robert Roper. “We’re holding a press conference this afternoon at four, but I wanted you to hear this from me first,” he said. “Stuart Latham just pled guilty to murder.”

  “First degree?”

  “No, second,” he said. “He wanted involuntary manslaughter, but we wouldn’t settle for that.”

  “What’s his story? His new one, I mean.”

  “He claims they were arguing about selling the farm. They’d both had a lot to drink, and things got out of hand. He hit her, and she fell backward and cracked her head on the kitchen floor. He thought she’d passed out-at least that’s what he claims-and he carried her to the bed. When he woke up the next morning, she was dead. He swears he never meant to kill her, but once he realized she was dead, he panicked.”

  “Sure,” I said. “And two weeks ago, he swore he’d kissed her good-bye the morning he caught that plane to Vegas, too. If it was an accident, why’d he plead to second-degree murder, then?”

  “Because we had him by the short hairs. It’s possible-barely possible-he’s telling the truth. But even if he didn’t mean to kill her, we could probably convince a jury he did. Besides, even with his new story, we had him nailed on evidence tampering, obstruction of justice, and desecration of a corpse. That last one alone could get him twenty years.”

  He didn’t have to remind me of the penalty for mutilating a body-the state legislature had passed that law early in my career, after I’d detailed the way a killer had hacked his victim to pieces, then fed the remains to his Doberman.

  “What made Latham start to crack,” Robert continued, “was when Darren told him how he did it-how he put the ice under the car and how many hours that gave him to get to Vegas. Darren showed him pictures of those two little burned circles you found in the grass near the barn.”

  Actually, I’d found only one of the two, but I didn’t want to interrupt Roper to correct him.

  “Then I took over,” the D.A. went on, “pointing out how those research experiments would be the nail in his coffin on the issue of premeditation.” Roper chuckled. “Hell, I’d no sooner said the words ‘death penalty’ than he started crying and begging to plead out.”

  “So how long will Latham serve?”

  “If the judge approves the deal, he’ll get a ten-year sentence. Could be out in five.”

  “Five years-that’s not much for killing your wife and burning her body,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “But it’s a lot more than zero. And then there’s the fine.”

  “What fine?”

  “His twenty-five-million dollars that just went up in smoke.”

  CHAPTER 29

  I REACHED ART JUST AS HE WAS FINISHING LUNCH, judging by the smacking sounds on the other end of the line. “If you needed a body,” I said, “where would you get one?”

  “Gee, let me think,” he answered. “Who do I know that has a body or two lying around?”

  “Okay, smart aleck. If you needed a body and you couldn’t get it from the Body Farm, where would you get it?”

  “Down in Georgia. They’re stacked up like cordwood down there.”

  “Too late,” I said. “The GBI had those under lock and key by the time Garland Hamilton escaped.”

  “In that case,” he mused, “maybe I’d try a funeral home. Buy a fresh body off an unscrupulous undertaker.”

  “How would he explain the empty coffin to the grieving family at the viewing or the service?”

  He thought for a moment. “Maybe he wouldn’t have to. Wait till after the viewing, then swap the body for two or three concrete blocks, so the pallbearers don’t get suspicious.”

  “Why wouldn’t this undertaker report you to the cops?”

  “Because he’s unscrupulous?”

  “So unscrupulous he’s going to help a notorious killer who’s just escaped? That seems mighty risky,” I said.

  “Okay, I give up,” he said. “You’re fishing for an answer that I’m not coming up with. What is it you’re after?”

  I told him the idea that had occurred to me, the way I might try to procure a standin if I were trying to fake my death.

  “That could work,” he said finally.

  “Could you check missing-persons reports, see if there’s anything on file?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Oh, and Bill?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remind me never to turn my back on you in a dark alley.”

  I laughed as he hung up.

  A half hour later, he called me back. “Only one new report in
the past two weeks,” he said. “Teenage girl-a runaway. You sure those burned bits of skull are male?”

  “The pelvic bones are in pretty good shape,” I said, “so it’s definitely male. And we’ve got two fully erupted third molars in what’s left of the mandible and maxilla, so he was at least eighteen. Harder to estimate the age because of the condition of the bones, but I’m thinking I see some signs of osteoarthritis on the vertebrae, which suggests he was middle-aged.”

  “That could fit with your theory,” he said, “though it sure doesn’t prove it. I called Evers and ran it past him. The good news, sort of, is that he said it’s possible.”

  “The bad news?”

  “He said it sounds like the ultimate wild-goose chase. Even if somebody saw something, they’re not likely to tell the cops.”

  “Well, damn.” I was saying that a lot lately, I noticed. I thanked Art and hung up. But I wasn’t ready to let go of the idea. I dug out the phone book and looked for a number.

  “Public Defender’s Office,” said the woman who answered the phone.

  “Is Roger Nooe in?” His name, despite the double o, rhymed with “Chloe,” not “kablooey,” I realized while I was on hold. The thought of Chloe and her speed dating made me smile, and I wondered if she’d met any good prospects.

  Roger had taught for years in the UT College of Social Work; he’d retired several years before, but when he did, he took a job in social services at the Public Defender’s Office. The PD’s clients were the polar opposite of the well-heeled criminals represented by Burt DeVriess: Roger’s work put him in daily touch with people who were poor, unemployed, and often impaired by alcohol, drugs, or mental disorders-the kind of people who were falling through the widening gaps in America’s safety net by the millions in recent years. The challenges facing Roger and his colleagues seemed grim and insurmountable to me, but grimness is in the eye of the beholder; over the years-always to my surprise-I’d spoken with many people who regarded my own work as grim, too. I’d seen Roger a few times since he’d joined the PD’s office, and he’d seemed energized by the chance to develop programs and services to keep low-income defendants-and their families-from spiraling downward through poverty, crime, and imprisonment.

  We played catch-up for a few minutes, as longtime colleagues and friends do when it’s been a year or so between conversations. We traded progress reports on our grown children and speculated about UT’s prospects in the upcoming football season-iffy, we agreed, given how many of the team’s key players had graduated the prior spring. Roger didn’t mention Jess’s murder or Garland Hamilton’s escape, and I appreciated that, even though I was about to bring up the subject myself. By letting me steer the conversation, he allowed me to frame things forensically rather than personally, and that made it easier for me. “Roger, you know more about street people and homelessness in Knoxville than anybody else in town,” I began.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, “but I can probably bore you with statistics for a few hours.” Roger was being characteristically modest, I knew-at the request of the city mayor and the county mayor, he’d led a ten-year study of homelessness, and his group had gone on to develop an ambitious plan to tackle the roots of the problem.

  “If I needed a body,” I said, “would it be fairly easy to kill a homeless person and get away with it?”

  He didn’t say anything at first; when he did speak, he sounded taken aback-shocked, even-by the callousness of the idea or the bluntness of the question. “Let me think about that for a minute,” he finally said.

  “Here’s why I’m asking,” I said. “I’ve got two burned skeletons down in the osteology lab under the stadium. We know who Skeleton Number One was-a guy named Billy Ray Ledbetter. Skeleton Number Two might be Garland Hamilton’s.” If Roger was puzzled by what I was saying, he didn’t let on, so I assumed he’d been reading the newspapers. I described what we’d found in the basement of the cabin in Cooke County-one skeleton that appeared to have been defleshed before the fire and a second set of bones, clearly from a fresh body. “We’re thinking-and I’m very much hoping,” I admitted-“that Hamilton died while trying to fake his death with Billy Ray’s skeleton. But we’re having trouble making a positive identification. But maybe Skeleton Number Two isn’t Hamilton either-maybe it’s a double fake. You follow?”

  “Just barely,” he said. “We social-work types aren’t as devious as you forensic types. We tend to worry about how to save people, not kill ’em.”

  “This isn’t actually how I normally think either,” I said. “I’m just trying to think like Hamilton, which isn’t easy, since he’s either psychotic or pure evil. But I’m hoping you can tell me whether a homeless person might be a fairly easy target, if Hamilton were looking for someone to abduct and kill as a standin.”

  “Tell you what,” he said. “If you’ve got an hour or two, we could do some field research. I’ll drive you around a little, you can take a look through the eyes of a potential killer, and then decide for yourself.”

  “Sounds great. When?”

  “You free late this afternoon, early this evening? There’s something going on tonight you might find interesting, if you don’t already have dinner plans.”

  “My dinner plans revolved around the carousel in the microwave,” I said. “I had a hot date with Healthy Choice.”

  He laughed. “Well, I don’t promise anything that fancy, but I can offer you a meal along with whatever data you can get.”

  “Roger, you’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse,” I said. “Where should I meet you, and what time?”

  “Do you know where our offices are?”

  “You’re on Liberty Street, aren’t you?”

  “We are,” he said. “Considering how often our clients end up behind bars, that seems either wildly optimistic or cruelly ironic. But the street name was here before we were. You want to come by around four?”

  A few hours later, I bumped across the railroad tracks between Kingston Pike and Sutherland Avenue, took a left at the concrete plant, and headed west along Sutherland, past the playing fields and group homes of the John Tarleton Home for Children, and then turned right up Liberty Street. The Public Defender’s Office was in a modern building of red brick and green glass. Roger opened the front door to let me in. “The receptionist has gone for the day,” he said. “Have you ever been in our new building?” I said I hadn’t, and he invited me in for a quick look around, starting with the lobby and reception area, a high, semicircular glass atrium. The space looked stylish and cheerful-not the dreary, dilapidated quarters I’d have expected the public defender to be relegated to. At the back of the building was a gymnasium, which doubled as a meeting room where clients and families could participate in support groups and connect with social-service agencies. The building-like Roger-seemed to reflect hope, energy, and considerable thought.

  Leading me out the door and across the parking lot, Roger offered to do the driving. Since I had no idea where we’d be going, that sounded like a good idea. He had a Honda SUV, and it wasn’t long before we went off-road. Behind a freestanding, glass-fronted building with a sign that said LABORREADY, he pulled onto a graveled area that bordered the railroad tracks and Third Creek. A footpath led into the trees and bushes lining the creek, and I saw shirts and pants hanging from the limbs-nature’s clotheslines. LaborReady, Roger explained, was a place where employers could hire day workers-and a place where homeless or transient people could get a job. “Is it a nonprofit agency,” I asked, “or a business?”

  “Very much for profit,” he said. “At the end of the day, the employer pays LaborReady about twelve dollars an hour for the person’s work; then LaborReady pays the worker minimum wage. So they’re taking a fifty-percent commission.” It wasn’t exactly altruism, but it also wasn’t that different from the way UT paid me and other professors out of student fees, after subtracting a larcenous overhead tax. As we backed into the street and then headed for downtown, Roger pointed to the
railroad tracks just behind the business. “For the homeless, the railroad tracks are a pretty good way to get from one place to another,” he said.

  “They’re straight and flat; they often follow creeks, so there’s a source of water; and there are plenty of places where people can set up camps.” I glanced down the tracks, and sure enough, a wide swath of trees and bushes bordered the creek and right-of-way-and the rails ran directly to downtown, a broad, bumpy freeway for people bumping through life on foot.

  As Roger threaded the Honda downtown through intersections and around corners, I was struck by how much longer and less efficient our route was than the railroad tracks. We could almost have walked the mile in the ten minutes it took to traverse it by car. We passed the gutted shell of an old warehouse along Jackson Avenue, which had been destroyed a year or two before in a huge, spectacular fire. Prior to the fire the building had occasionally been inhabited by squatters, who would settle in for a few weeks or months, before being rousted-also for a few weeks or months-by the police, acting on the pleas of downtown merchants. Just up the block, near the corner of Jackson and Gay-Knoxville’s main street-Roger stopped in front of a storefront called the Volunteer Ministry Center. Peering inside, I glimpsed a couple of scruffy men and a young woman working at a computer. “This is the dayroom,” Roger said. “People who need a meal or someplace to just spend the day can hang out here. Or they can sign up for a program that helps them deal with drug or alcohol dependency.”

  “Not many people in there,” I said. “Looks pretty small.”

  “There’s a lot more to it than what you can see through the window,” he said. “They have a big dining room in back and a huge basement and courtyard down below. There might be fifty or a hundred people in there you can’t see from here.”

  The young woman glanced up from her computer and studied the SUV stopped in front of the dayroom. She looked at me, then over at Roger, and her face broke into a smile of recognition. Even through the soot on the glass, I saw a pair of world-class dimples in her cheeks. She waved, then pushed back from the desk and came outside, leaning down to speak to Roger through my open window. She wore an ID badge with her picture, her name, and the letters VMC.