Carved in Bone

by Jefferson Bass

  She looked startled at the swiftness of my departure. It was customary down South to spend a half-hour or more saying good-bye, but I myself had never embraced the extended leave-taking, what I called the “Southern good-bye.” I thanked her for her time and hustled down the stairs.

  She hesitated at the screen door, as if to make sure I was really leaving. As I turned back to wave, I noticed something I’d missed earlier. A faint path led from the back of the house, which probably contained the kitchen, a back door, and a utility porch. The path hugged the treeline at the base of the hill, and it led straight to the blasted entrance of the cave.

  CHAPTER 31

  DISTRICT ATTORNEY BOB ROPER looked like he hadn’t slept in three days. Burt DeVriess looked like he’d just won the lottery. We were convened in the chambers of Judge Barr to review the exhumation results. “Gentlemen, let’s proceed,” said the judge. “This is most unusual, but given that Mr. Roper asked for this conference, and Mr. DeVriess agreed, I’m willing for us to have an informal discussion about this case. I’ve got a hearing in ten minutes, so we need to cut straight to the chase.”

  DeVriess was happy to oblige. “Your Honor, I think the exhumation results speak for themselves,” he crowed.

  “Then why are you talking, Mr. DeVriess? Kindly be quiet.” I suppressed a grin, or at least tried, halfway. “Dr. Brockton, I’ve read your report, along with Dr. Carter’s; thank you for your quick and thorough examination.” I nodded, figuring I shouldn’t speak unless asked to. “Mr. Roper, have you read the report?” Roper nodded miserably. “And what is your response? Does your forensic anthropologist take issue with Dr. Brockton’s conclusions?”

  Roper hedged. “Your Honor, much as we respect Dr. Brockton and Dr. Carter, there is other evidence in this case that strongly corroborates the state’s case.”

  The judge pounced on him. “Such as?” Roper drew a deep breath, like a man about to take a long swim underwater, but the judge cut him off. “For God’s sake, Bob, cut your losses. The ME blew the autopsy and you know it. Unless Dr. Hamilton has something on you that could ruin your career or wreck your marriage, just bite the bullet and drop the charge. It’s embarrassing, but not as humiliating as losing in court would be. I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t win this one, and you lay yourself open to a malicious prosecution lawsuit. On the other hand, if you drop the charge and apologize to the defendant, you look like the good guy. You get to talk about how truth and justice have prevailed, and you get to celebrate the vindication of an innocent man. It’s the best damn deal you can walk out of here with.”

  Roper swallowed hard; it was a big dose of medicine he was being handed. “Your Honor, in light of new evidence, the state respectfully withdraws the charge, apologizes to the court and to the defendant, and thanks Dr. Brockton and Dr. Carter for bringing important exculpatory facts to light in this case.”

  The judge smiled. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? You file the paperwork and I’ll order the defendant’s release. I’m also ordering his record expunged. Unless, of course, defense counsel has some objection?”

  DeVriess smiled a smug smile. “Well, Your Honor, the defense was eagerly anticipating a jury trial…”

  “Just shut up, Grease,” snapped the judge as he stood and strode toward his courtroom, “before I change my mind.” DeVriess reddened, Roper brightened, and I smiled to myself.

  The rest of us stood to leave by way of the door to the judge’s outer office. Roper shook my hand with a rueful smile. “Bill, you did the right thing, unfortunately for me.”

  I clapped his shoulder with my left hand. “Don’t take it too hard, Bob. You based your case on the autopsy report; not your fault it was bad. The one who’s got something to answer for is the medical examiner. I wouldn’t be surprised if the state tries to yank Garland’s medical license over this. It’s not his first screwup, you know.”

  “I know. But it’s his last screwup on a case for me—I’ve already made arrangements to contract out my autopsies to Dr. Carter and her staff down in Chattanooga.” I’d heard as much already from Jess, but I acted as if it were news, and welcome news, coming from the DA. “Bill, if the state moves to pull Dr. Hamilton’s medical license, I hope you’ll testify as candidly in Nashville as you did here.”

  I nodded. “I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “He needs to be put out to pasture. If this case helps bring that to pass, I guess it’s worth the humiliation.” I was glad to hear him looking ahead. “Thanks for what you did, Bill. I didn’t enjoy it, but I do appreciate it.”

  DeVriess leaned in. “Hey, how about sharing the love? I’m the one that cried foul.”

  “Go to hell, Burt,” said Roper. “Bill, I look forward to working with you again. With you. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I smiled. “See you.” He nodded and started down the marble hallway. “Oh, and Bob?” He looked back. “Thanks for what you said about Kathleen the other day. It’s been rough, and I’m not good at talking about it, but it helps to hear from folks who care.” He smiled and walked away.

  “Bastard,” muttered DeVriess. “Dr. Brockton, I’ve got somebody who really wants to meet you.” I had a class to teach, I protested, but he persisted. “This’ll just take a second, and I think you’ll be glad.” I relented, and he led me away from the judge’s chambers office and into a part of the court building where I’d never been before. A uniformed guard buzzed us through a security door; DeVriess opened a door marked “Dock” and led me into a bare white room. A scrawny man in faded jeans and a white shirt rose from a plastic chair. “Eddie, I want you to meet Dr. Brockton. Doctor, this is Eddie Meacham, the man whose name you just cleared. The man who just got his life back.”

  Meacham stared as if I were some alien species, then flung himself at me and wrapped me in a bony hug. I patted him on the back a few times, then extricated myself so I could breathe again. Meacham made several attempts to speak. Finally he whispered, “Thank you. Thank you.” That was all he managed to get out. But it was enough. I nodded, moved myself, and backed out of the room.

  DeVriess had been right—I was glad. Glad I’d met his client; glad I’d taken the case—taken the bait that Grease, pervert-protecting bastard that he was, had lobbed my way that day over lunch. Miranda was right: “Strange bedfellows indeed,” I murmured as I pushed open the courthouse door and stepped into the early October sunshine.

  CHAPTER 32

  I WAS STILL BASKING IN the glow of the sunshine and Meacham’s gratitude when a man fell in beside me on the sidewalk. “Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he hissed. I stopped in midstride and turned toward him, and found myself facing Dr. Garland Hamilton. “Think you’re hot shit, don’t you?”

  “Hello, Garland,” I said to the medical examiner whose credibility I had just destroyed. “I’m sorry this played out the way it did. It wasn’t personal, you know.”

  “Wasn’t personal? Wasn’t personal? You sanctimonious son of a bitch. It’s sure as hell personal to me. Try losing your career and your reputation, and then tell me it’s not personal.” He jabbed a finger into my chest to punctuate his words. “You have destroyed me. And I take that very, very personally.”

  I took hold of his finger; he yanked it away in fury. I wanted to punch him, but I knew that absolutely no good and probably lots of trouble would come of it—lurid headlines and a huge lawsuit. “Look, Garland, you botched the exam, not me. If I hadn’t pointed it out, somebody else would have.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “You and Jess Carter put your heads together and came up with a perfect scheme to get me out of the way. Ironic, isn’t it—turns out I’m the one who really got stabbed in the back in this case.” I just shook my head; there was no point trying to argue with him. “Jess has wanted to take over the forensic center here ever since she got divorced,” he continued. “Did she screw you, Bill? Is that how she got you to help her screw me over?”

  “Not true, Garland
. Dr. Carter and I have never had anything but a professional relationship.”

  “Dr. Carter and I,” he mocked. “You make me sick.”

  “Frankly, Garland, I don’t give a damn,” I said. “There’s nothing between Jess and me, never has been, never will be. She’s happily lesbian, in case you didn’t know.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right. Tell that to the guy I saw her wrapped around in the bar of the Hilton last week in Chattanooga.”

  I tried not to be surprised at that. “Good-bye, Dr. Hamilton.” I turned and began walking away.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” he yelled. “I’m not finished with you!” I kept walking. “Do you hear me? I’m nowhere near finished with you!”

  CHAPTER 33

  THE PHONE ON MY desk jangled, startling me from a daydream that mostly involved Miranda, Sarah, and Jess Carter, with occasional nightmarish interruptions by a deranged medical examiner hell-bent on revenge.

  “Dr. Brockton?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is David Welton.” I struggled to place the name. “The FBI’s district counsel.”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry.”

  “No problem. Listen, I may have some good news for you.”

  “I can always use some.”

  “Angela Price and I were talking about your Cooke County homicide case. As you know, we’re up against a sort of catch-22 on obstruction of justice, and that’s frustrating.”

  “Frustrating for the FBI, or frustrating for me?”

  “Both. Despite what you may think, Price is a dedicated agent, but she has to work within fairly strict protocols. Also, there’s a lot more politics involved in law enforcement than most people realize, especially in places like Cooke County. Nearly everybody up there is related to everybody else in some way or other, and they have their own notions of justice, as you’re painfully aware.”

  “Right. And even the TBI can’t touch them, sounds like.”

  “Well, that’s a little cynical, but it is true that an obstruction case would be really tough for the state to win up there.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the good news you mentioned.”

  “Sorry, I’m just getting to that,” he said. “We might have more options than we thought. I was trying to figure out some creative way for us to turn this into a federal offense, and I remembered a pretty creative maneuver the Bureau used a few years ago to prosecute one of our own guys.” He had my attention. “The name JJ Smith mean anything to you?”

  “No, ’fraid not. Should it?”

  “If you worked for the Bureau, it sure would. JJ Smith was an FBI agent in Los Angeles who was handling Chinese spies.”

  “Their spies, or our spies?”

  “Exactly. Thereby hangs the crux of the matter,” he said. “Or the crotch of it, you might say. Smith was giving one of his female assets, code-named ‘Parlor Maid,’ some very special handling. They would meet and have sex, and sometime in the course of those encounters, she would take classified papers from his briefcase, copy the information, then relay it to Beijing.”

  “Sounds like Mata Hari,” I said.

  “Very like. There’s a name for a female spy who uses her charms to seduce sources and obtain secrets. She’s called a honey pot.”

  “Hmm. My grandpa used to call my grandma that. Although the only secrets he had were the bottles of Jack Daniels he had tucked away in the barn, and I’m pretty sure she never seduced those away from him.”

  “Well, then, your grandma wasn’t as shrewd as this Chinese agent, ’cause she plucked JJ Smith like a turkey. We were having one hell of a time building an espionage case against him, though. The thing we finally got him for was mail fraud.”

  “Which spelling of the word are we talking here?”

  He laughed. “The mail fraud statutes make it a crime to use the U.S. mail, radio, telephone, or other communications over an interstate carrier to commit fraud. And fraud is defined very broadly—so broadly, it can include simply depriving a person of what’s called the ‘intangible right of honest service.’ In JJ Smith’s case, having hot sex with a Chinese spy, on the Bureau’s clock and at taxpayer expense, hardly counts as ‘honest service.’ Sounds like grasping at straws, but it worked.”

  “Sort of like Al Capone eventually serving time, not for murder or bootlegging but for tax evasion?”

  “Exactly. If Plan A doesn’t work, switch to Plan B.”

  “And how does this relate to Sheriff Kitchings? We send Price up there in something by Victoria’s Secret?”

  “Whoa. If she ever even suspected you’d said something like that, you’d need emergency admission to the Witness Protection Program.”

  “Sorry. The ‘dishonest service’ charge just seems a little vague.”

  “It is,” he conceded. “That’s why I’m hoping to relegate that strategy to Plan B.”

  “Does that mean you’ve got a Plan A?”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “I’m looking at a map of Cooke County right now. Think you can steer me to the cave where the woman’s body was found?”

  I described the route east from Knoxville on I-40, directing him to the Jonesport exit and then taking him along the winding river road. “Okay, about six or eight miles upriver, look for a right-hand turn that heads up into the mountains,” I said.

  There was a pause. “Okay, got it. Now what?”

  “Go three or four miles up that, then look for a road to the left. Cave Springs is another mile up that road.”

  “Hang on. Let me make sure I’ve got this. Yes, I see it.” I could hear the excitement rising in his voice. “Bingo,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “The law giveth, and the law taketh away. If a crime is committed on federal land, it can be prosecuted in federal court. Doesn’t make the crime federal—your Cooke County murder is a state crime, and always will be. But if it happened on U.S. land, we can make a federal case out of it.”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that. Years before, some of my students were arrested for consuming alcohol in Great Smoky Mountains National Park—four of them shared a bottle of wine at a picnic beside Abrams Falls—and the entire Anthropology Department had shown up in federal court to lend moral support. I was vaguely familiar with the legal framework he was erecting here, so I hated to bring it crashing down. “Listen, I’m not sure I gave the directions quite right,” I said, hoping to let him down easy. “The body was found eight or ten miles north of I-40. The national park is all way to the south side of the interstate. I hate to say it, but it looks like we’re stuck with Plan B.”

  “Your directions were fine, Dr. Brockton,” he said cheerily. “Cave Springs Church is shown on this map. And it’s just inside a beautiful green strip of federal land.”

  “But the national park—”

  “I’m not talking about the park, Dr. Brockton. Your victim’s body was found a mile inside the boundary of Cherokee National Forest.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’d stake my orienteering merit badge on it.”

  “Hot damn,” I said. I could already hear the hoofbeats of the federal cavalry. “Hello, Plan A.”

  “Hello, Plan A,” he echoed. “There is one thing you need to understand, though, Dr. Brockton.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Plan A: it won’t happen overnight.”

  “Oh, I understand. These things can take weeks, even months, can’t they?”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. “Dr. Brockton, you’re not going to want to hear this. The average duration of an interagency task force involving undercover agents is two years, start to finish.”

  “Two years?”

  “Two years.”

  I thanked Welton for his interest, wished him happy hunting, and laid the receiver to rest, along with my hopes for Plan A.

  My hand had scarcely left the receiver when the phone rang again. It was Peggy, the Anthropology Department secretary. She sounded upset. “Did you
take my spare keys again?”

  “No, why?”

  “They’re not in my desk drawer.”

  “They’ll turn up,” I said.

  “You’re the only one who ever takes them.”

  “When did you notice they were gone?”

  “Last week,” she said. “It was the same day someone broke into your office. You don’t think…?”

  I did think, and I got a very bad feeling.

  I hung up the phone and unlocked the door to the skeletal collection room. Accessible only through my office, the collection room housed all our forensic specimens—row upon row of metal shelves filled with cardboard boxes like the one stolen off my desk last week. Flipping on the fluorescent lights, I began scanning the shelves. The foot-square ends of the boxes presented themselves like books in a library—a library of murder mysteries, all of them carved in bone.

  Whoever had pried open my office had not broken into the collection room—of this I was certain, for a TBI technician, the university police officer, and I had all checked the door, finding it undamaged and securely locked. Or maybe carefully relocked, I now realized.

  As I reached the section of shelves containing the most recent years’ cases, my knees went weak. There was a one-foot-square gap in the boxes, and I knew without even checking which box should have been there.

  Billy Ray Ledbetter’s bones were gone.

  With a heavy heart, I called Steve Morgan’s TBI pager and reported the additional theft to him. “This complicates the picture,” he said, echoing my own thoughts exactly. It might mean that the theft of Leena’s bones was just a smokescreen, and the mangled outer door was just for show. It might also mean that Dr. Garland Hamilton, a disgraced and very angry medical examiner, hadn’t been making idle threats when he confronted me outside the courthouse.