The Bone Thief bf-5

by Jefferson Bass

  “It did,” I agreed, adding, “You’ve done your homework.”

  “I generally do, when we’re planning to invest half a million dollars in a research project.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Is that what you’re planning to invest here?”

  “Could be.” The tripod with the camera caught his eye; he glanced from the equipment to the corpse of Maurie Gershwin. Most of the skin was gone from her skull, neck, and hands now; the fabric of her clothing hung loose and dark-stained on the bones of her torso and limbs. “Tell me about this?”

  “Nothing too fancy,” I said. “Just using time-lapse photography to document this woman’s decomp. She’s been out here for about two weeks now. If this were August, she’d be bare bones by this point. But the blowflies are dormant if the temperature’s below fifty degrees, so there’s less insect activity in winter and spring. And the bacteria and enzymes that digest the body work slowly at lower temperatures.”

  “Sure. Biochemistry 101: Heat accelerates almost every chemical reaction.”

  I pointed toward a lower corner of the fence. “There’s some interesting research down this way,” I told him. “You see these concrete pads?” There were five of them, each measuring seven or eight feet square.

  “I recognize those,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve seen those. From space.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “They show up in satellite images,” he explained. “I peeked over your fence on Google Earth. It’s amazing what you can see in those satellite images. These concrete pads show up very clearly.” Pointing at a rumpled white body bag, which was draped atop a corpse, he added, “You can also see a couple of those. And I think maybe a body or two, but that might have been wishful thinking on my part.”

  “Amazing. But I’m not sure I like the idea that just anybody can look over my fence from up in the sky.”

  “You can only see it if you know where to look and what to look for. What sort of research is being done with those pads? Are there bodies buried underneath them?”

  I nodded. “One of our graduate students was studying ground-penetrating radar and how the radar image — the signature — of a body changed as it decomposed. So she buried bodies at various depths, camouflaging some of them with debris, and then poured these concrete pads on top. She ran the radar rig across the pads once a week for several months. Looked sort of like she was using a floor polisher out here in the woods, but she was looking through the concrete, not cleaning the top of it.”

  “How’d the images change?”

  “To be honest,” I said, “to me they looked like clouds on a weather radar screen. Because I already knew they were bodies, I could see the outlines, and I could tell that they were collapsing as they decayed. But if I hadn’t already known what I was looking at, I’m not sure I’d’ve known what I was looking at.”

  “Like me looking at the Body Farm from space,” he observed. “Research is tough. If you already knew what you were going to find out, you wouldn’t need to do the research. Sure does help to start out with an educated guess.”

  We’d reached one of the lower corners of the facility. “Here’s our longest-running research project.” I pointed to a cluster of small stainless-steel pipes projecting slightly above the leaves and dirt. One of my former Ph.D. students, Arpad Vass — now a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — had spent the past six years analyzing the cornucopia of chemicals given off by decaying bodies, I told Faust. He’d buried three bodies in this corner of the facility, running a grid of perforated pipes through the graves. To collect and analyze the chemicals, Arpad used a vacuum pump to draw gases out of the pipes and through a gas chromatograph — mass spectrometer.

  “And what’s he found, after six years?”

  “A lot.” I stooped down to disentangle a strand of Virginia creeper from one of the pipes. “I figured maybe he’d pick up thirty or forty different compounds, but so far he’s identified more than five hundred. Interestingly, some of the most prevalent ones are carcinogenic: cancer-causing organic compounds like toluene and benzene. Things the EPA regulates as hazardous chemicals when they’re used in factories or chemical plants.”

  “And is this basic research he’s doing by analyzing these postmortem compounds, or does he have an application in mind?”

  “Oh, very applied,” I assured him. “He’s recently developed a ‘sniffer,’ he calls it — a handheld instrument that looks a lot like a metal detector — to locate buried bodies and clandestine graves. Just a couple months ago, he used it to help me with an old case — we found the bones of a soldier who’d been killed and buried in Oak Ridge back in 1945, during the Manhattan Project. He also used it on a modern case down in Florida — Caylee Anthony, the two-year-old who went missing in Florida. Arpad was able to show that the carpeting in the trunk of the car contained chemicals from a decaying human body.”

  “That reminds me of your electron-microscope case,” he said. “Using high-tech science to solve real-world crimes and real-world problems. That’s what I find most rewarding about my job. Well, that and the chance to fly that airplane every now and then.”

  I laughed. I liked Faust. He was funny, smart, and unpretentious.

  I checked my watch. “Uh-oh. I need to get you to Engineering. You’ve got an eleven o’clock meeting there, don’t you?” He nodded, so I steered him toward the gate and locked it behind us.

  On the drive across the river to the main campus, I worked up my nerve. “Mind if I ask your advice about something?”

  “My advice? Sure, ask away. Just remember, though, it’s worth what you pay for it.”

  I hesitated, unsure how much background to give. “I have a colleague here,” I began. “A pathologist — the medical examiner, actually. He suffered traumatic injuries to his hands recently. He lost the thumb, index finger, and middle finger of his right hand and all of his left hand.”

  He nodded. “I remember reading about this. Gamma-radiation burns, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I was surprised; he really had done his homework.

  “That’s a shame. Devastating blow for a physician. Would’ve been worse if he were a surgeon, though. At least he can’t do any harm to his patients, since they’re already dead.” He made a face. “Ouch, that sounded harsh. I apologize. What I meant—”

  I waved the apology aside. “It’s okay. I’ve had the same thought a dozen times. I’ve even thought, ‘Too bad he’s not a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist could get by without hands.’”

  “Could be,” he said, “but every psychiatrist I know is already pretty strange. Can you imagine how it would mess with the mind of a shrink to lose his hands?”

  I tried picturing it — a Freudian analyst on his own couch, staring at the empty cuffs of his tweed jacket — and in spite of myself I laughed. “We are both bad men,” I said. “Both going to hell.”

  “If a little gallows humor is a burning offense, we’ll have lots of company,” he responded. “So tell me about your pathologist friend and about the sort of advice you think I might be able to give.”

  “One of the options he’s considering is a prosthesis called the i-Hand,” I said. “A bionic hand. If you take off the rubber skin, you can see a metallic version of bones through the fingers. They’re made of some high-tech engineered plastic, and they’re rigged to flexors and extensors and little motors that mimic the tendons in a living hand.”

  He nodded. “I’m familiar with the i-Hand,” he said. “It’s a good prosthesis, but I do have one thing against it.”

  My heart sank on Garcia’s behalf. “What do you have against it?”

  “The fact that we don’t hold the patents on it.” He laughed. “Kidding. Mostly. But myoelectric prostheses are a multimillion-dollar revenue stream, and the embarrassing truth is, this itty-bitty company got out of the gate ahead of OrthoMedica with a better product, and we’re still playing catch-up.” His expression sober
ed. “It’s not just about money, of course — it’s about need. Worldwide, thousands of people every year lose hands and feet and arms and legs. Did you know that in some parts of the world — Afghanistan, for instance — kids are used as human land-mine detectors? Taliban commanders send kids through areas they think might be mined, and if the kids don’t get blown up, the soldiers know the area’s clear. If the kids do get blown up, the soldiers send more kids through, till they’ve set off all the mines.” He shook his head sadly. “A bionic hand or a carbon-fiber leg isn’t an option for those kids in Afghanistan,” he went on. “They get a cauterized stump and a crutch, maybe a hook in place of their hand, if they’re lucky.” He gave his head a harder shake. “But your friend Dr. Garcia, he’s got some pretty good options, and the i-Hand might just be the best, at least for now.”

  “Why ‘for now’—will his options be better later?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Prosthetic technology’s always advancing. Today’s prostheses — including the i-Hand — are controlled by consciously twitching various muscles in the arm. It works, but it’s an extra step. Think about it: When you want to pick up a glass of water, you don’t have to tell your muscles, ‘Arm, extend. Now stop. Fingers and thumb, contract.’ Your brain thinks, ‘I want a drink,’ and all the other steps follow automatically. Right now the Pentagon’s putting a lot of R&D money into developing hands and arms that’ll be wired into the brain like that. So a year or two from now…”

  “Might be too long for Dr. Garcia to wait,” I finished. “There’s nothing else on the market now you’d recommend above the i-Hand?”

  “For his left hand, that’s about as good as it’ll get. For his right, a toe-to-thumb transplant is probably the way to go. Have you heard of it?” I nodded. “It’s an autograft, not an allograft — the toe comes from his own body, not a deceased donor’s — so there’s no risk of tissue rejection. And it doesn’t burn any bridges to do the procedure, apart from making one of his feet look a little odd.”

  “But for his left hand, you’d recommend the i-Hand?” I pulled up in front of Engineering — housed in a modern building that put Anthropology’s makeshift quarters to shame — where two of the Biomedical Engineering faculty awaited Faust at the curb.

  He hesitated. “I’m not the doctor or the patient here, so I’m in no position to say. Any advice I offered would be worth exactly what you paid for it. Maybe less.”

  “But if you were the patient,” I persisted, “what would you do, knowing what you know?”

  “Knowing what I know?” He gave a slight, enigmatic smile as he opened the door and got out. “Knowing what I know, I’d get an i-Hand, and I’d get it pretty damn quick.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The ground-floor door of the stadium stairwell banged shut, and thirty seconds later the second-floor door, just outside my office, noisily followed suit. The maintenance department still hadn’t fixed the hydraulic mechanism, and my M&M’s were long since gone.

  This time the nearer slam was followed by a brisk knock on my door. Unlike the slam, the knock startled me. The identity of the two people in my doorway startled me even more. Angela Price was a supervisor in the Knoxville field office of the FBI, and Ben Rankin was an agent I knew from a case involving murder and corruption by officers in the Cooke County Sheriff’s Office. Rankin’s undercover investigation of a massive cockfighting ring in Cooke County had earned him the colorful nickname “Rooster,” and it fit: He was a small man with a big strut, like a bantam fighting bird.

  Rooster’s boss and I had gotten off to a frosty start in the Cooke County case. I’d contacted Price when it appeared that the sheriff might be shielding a murderer, but she initially treated me as a meddler. Our professional relationship later thawed, but it had never entirely warmed. I was all the more surprised, therefore, when she smiled as she reached out to shake my hand. “Dr. Brockton, so good to see you. I hope we’re not catching you at a bad time.”

  I’d been just about to devour a sandwich, because I’d skipped breakfast and was feeling ravenous. The thought of postponing my lunch gave me a pang of disappointment that was nearly as sharp as my pangs of hunger. “It’s a great time, Agent Price,” I fibbed.

  “Please,” she said, “call me Angela.”

  I nearly laughed at the irony of that. Shortly after we’d met, I’d said almost the same thing to her: “You can call me Bill.” Her response at the time had been a curt, “You can call me Special Agent Price.”

  I smiled and bowed slightly, acknowledging the compliment she was paying by finally allowing the first-name collegiality. Nevertheless, I remained apprehensive. “And what brings y’all deep into the bowels of Neyland Stadium today, Angela?” My fear was that they were bringing bad news about Isabella, or maybe unhappiness about the way I’d handled things in the Oak Ridge case. My stomach rumbled with a mixture of hunger and anxiety.

  She held up a finger to pause the conversation, then eased my office door closed and spoke in a lower voice. “We’re hoping you might be able to help us with an investigation.” She smiled nervously.

  I felt a measure of relief, and the next growl from my stomach was just plain hunger. “I’m always glad to help the Bureau,” I said, and I meant it. “Is there something you need me to look at? A body? Some bones?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. Her nervous smile now gave way to a look of frank discomfort. “Actually, we need some bones and bodies from you.”

  I looked from her to Rankin and back again; neither of the agents seemed inclined to explain. “I’m not sure I follow,” I said. “We’ve already planned this year’s evidence-recovery class, and if I remember right, we’re providing three bodies this time.” Every spring, new members of FBI Evidence Recovery Teams from around the country came to the Body Farm for a week of training in unearthing buried bodies and finding scattered bones. “Are you talking about that, or do you need another training in addition?”

  “No, it’s not a training. It’s more complicated than that.” She looked at Rankin and nodded.

  Rankin cleared his throat slightly. “Dr. Brockton, I know I don’t need to tell you this,” he began, “but the human body can be remarkably useful even after death.”

  “Indeed it can,” I said. “It’s kept me gainfully employed for decades now. And it’s landed me in this lavish office.” I made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the battered filing cabinets, the ancient desk, the filthy windows, and the grimy trusswork that supported the stadium.

  “Good one.” He smiled mirthlessly, then went back to his briefing. “There are roughly thirty thousand organ transplants every year in the U.S. — kidneys, hearts, lungs, liver, pancreas.”

  I couldn’t resist tweaking him. “Me, I’m on the list for a brain transplant,” I deadpanned.

  This time he didn’t even pretend to smile. Instead he fired back, “And who could be more deserving?” I had to laugh; he’d skewered me with my own joke. Price shot him a reproving look, though, so he got back to business. “Right. Of the thirty thousand organs transplanted, about three-fourths — roughly twenty-two thousand — come from deceased donors.”

  “Kinda hard for a living donor to give somebody a heart,” I pointed out. Now Price shot the reproving look at me. “Sorry,” I said. “Please go on. I’ll quit interrupting.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “As you probably know, the demand for donated organs far exceeds the supply. Over a hundred thousand people nationwide are on the waiting list for organ transplants; some of them will die before a matching donor is found for them. Almost half the kids who need transplants never get a matching donor in time.”

  For once I had a legitimate reason to interrupt. “There was a movie about that a few years ago, wasn’t there? About a dad who takes everybody in a hospital hostage so he can force them to give his son a new heart?”

  “Right. John Q, I think it was called. Kinda hokey, especially at the end, but they did a decent job of dramatizing the parents’ anguish. So the po
int I’m making, in a roundabout way, is that the wait for an organ can be agonizing but the organ-transplant process itself — matching needy recipients with suitable donors through the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network — is meticulous and rigorous. The donor and the recipient are scrupulously documented. It’s illegal in the U.S. to buy, sell, or trade human organs for transplant. In short, human organs are closely monitored. That’s not the case, though, with other forms of human tissue.”

  My stomach rumbled again, and I wished he hadn’t just spent five minutes making a point that was really no more than throat clearing set to words. “You’re talking now about corneas, tendons, and so on.”

  “Corneas, tendons, ligaments, blood vessels, skin, bone,” he itemized. “There’s very little oversight, especially in terms of where those tissues come from. The same is true, with all due respect, to donated bodies.”

  I felt my anxiety ratcheting up once more. Years before, a brief but intense political controversy had erupted when a Nashville television station reported that the bodies of low-income Vietnam veterans were being treated disrespectfully at the Body Farm. Nobody had told us that those particular men had been veterans; when we found out, we offered to send their bodies back to the Veterans Administration or to family members for military burials. A handful of state legislators proposed curtailing our postmortem research, but then a bunch of district attorneys rushed to defend the importance of our forensic work, so the storm blew over. I’d considered that issue long since dead, but perhaps it had merely been hibernating. I looked Price in the eye. “Is the FBI concerned about where we get our bodies for the Body Farm?”

  “Not at all, Dr. Brockton. We have the utmost confidence in your program and in your professional and personal integrity. We’re here because we hope you can help us bring down some people who are not as honest and ethical as you are.”

  “And how could I help you do that?”