“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 amp; 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.