Jefferson Bass - Flesh and Bone - A Body Farm Novel

So there I stood, rooted to the spot, for an instant that was also an eternity. Finally I felt one hand close around something hard in my hip pocket, and I pulled it out to see what it was. It was small and oblong and silver; I stared at it as if it were a mysterious artifact from some ancient or interplanetary civilization; finally I recognized it as my cellphone. Clumsily I pawed it open, struggling to remember and press the numbers 9 and 1 and 1 again. Nothing happened. I fought to recall how I had once used this device, in a former life; gradually I became dimly aware of the SEND button, and willed myself to press it. When I heard a female voice say “911,” I nearly dropped the phone.

I stared at it dumbly. “This is 911, do you have an emergency?” What was I supposed to say-how and where could I begin to describe what I had, what I beheld? “Hello, can you hear me? Do you have an emergency?”

“Yes,” I finally managed to say. “I do. Help. Oh God, please help.”

The phone fell to the ground, and I sank to my knees, and I heard and saw nothing more, or at least noticed nothing more, until a strong pair of hands raised me to my feet. A police officer maneuvered his face directly in front of mine and said, “Dr. Brockton? Dr. Brockton? Tell us what happened here.”

THE UNIFORMED POLICE OFFICERled me down the path to the main clearing, just inside the gate of the Body Farm. A warped, weathered picnic table sat askew under a tree at one edge of the clearing; the patrolman took me there and set me on one of its benches. “Do you mind waiting here while we secure the scene and get some more people here?” I shook my head. “Are you all right?”

“Not really. But I’ll manage. You do what ever you need to do.”

I heard a series of sirens approaching, at least half a dozen in all. Someone had already stretched crime scene tape across the open gate; through the opening, I saw a fast-growing throng of officers-city police, UT campus police, and Medical Center security guards-as well as EMS personnel and firefighters. Heads leaned in through the gate, over the tape, peering at the facility. Peering at me.

After a while, a stylishly dressed man in a lavender dress shirt and yellow tie ducked under the tape and walked toward me. “Dr. Brockton?” I nodded. “I’m Sergeant John Evers,” he said. “I’m an investigator in Major Crimes. Including homicides.” He held out a suntanned hand and shook mine firmly, then handed me a business card. I pulled out my wallet and tucked it inside. “Can I get a brief statement from you here while things are fresh?”

“Of course.”

“We’ll want to talk to you in more detail downtown, since you’re the one who found the body. But for now, just some basic information.” He pulled out a pen and a small note pad, which he centered on one of the cupped boards of the tabletop. He took down my name, address, phone number, where I worked, and other data, then got to the particulars of where we were, and why. “What time did you arrive here this morning?”

“I think about eight,” I said. “I was listening to the news on the radio, so it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes after that.”

He nodded. “And what were you doing here?”

“I work here,” I said. “This is my research facility. The Anthropology Department’s research facility, I should say.”

“Yes, sir, of course. I meant, specifically, why had you come out this morning?”

“I came out to check on some research. To see what condition the body-the male body up there tied to the tree-was in by now.” I explained how we had staged the research subject, and why. “I was doing the research for the Chattanooga medical examiner,” I said. “Jess-Dr. Jessamine-Carter. I found her body when I went up there to check on my research subject.”

“So you recognized the victim?” I nodded. “You knew Dr. Carter personally?”

“Yes. We had worked together on several cases over the past few years. And we were collaborating on a current case, involving a murder victim whose body was found tied to a tree down near Chattanooga. That’s the death scene we were replicating here, so we could pinpoint the time since death more accurately for Dr. Carter.”

“Did you see anybody else out here this morning when you arrived, either inside the fence or out in the parking lot?” I shook my head. “Driving away from the parking lot?” Again I shook my head.

“Was the gate open or closed when you got here?”

I had to think for a moment; my arrival seemed a lifetime ago. “It was open,” I said. “That was the first thing out of the ordinary.”

“It’s normally locked?”

“Yes, with two locks-one on the chain-link gate, one on the wooden gate.”

“What else was unusual?”

“There was a note for me on the inner gate.” I suddenly remembered it was in my pocket. I reached for it, then caught myself before I touched it. “I’ll let one of your evidence technicians get it out of my pocket and bag it. It’s a note from Dr. Carter. Or at least, supposedly from Dr. Carter. Saying, ‘I’m inside. Come find me.’ It’ll have my fingerprints on it, from when I pulled it off the gate and read it. But maybe it’ll have the prints of whoever put it there, too.”

He nodded, and drew a box around the word NOTE, with arrows pointing at each corner of the box, for extra emphasis.

“So when you found the note, what did you do?”

“I came inside and looked around, called Dr. Carter’s name. I went down that way first”-I pointed to the lower area, where Jess sometimes put bodies to skeletonize-“and then I walked up that path leading to the research project. And that’s when I found her. Her corpse. Tied to the other one.”

“What did you do when you saw her?”

“Nothing, at first. I just stared. I couldn’t process it; I couldn’t think. Finally-I mean, it was probably only a minute or two, but it felt like forever-I called 911.”

“And after you made the call, what did you do? Did you approach the body? Did you ever touch the body?”

I shook my head. “No. I know better than to disturb a death scene.”

“How close were you?”

“Six feet. Maybe eight or ten.”

“So how did you know she was dead?”

I looked up at him; met his gaze for the first time, really. “Detective, I’ve spent the past twenty-five years studying the dead. I’ve seen corpses by the hundreds. I recognize the vacant, clouded eyes. I know the difference between shallow breath and no breath; between an unconscious person and a lifeless body.” I could feel my voice starting to rise, but it seemed to be someone else’s voice, not my own; a voice that was beyond my control. “I know that when blowflies are swarming around a woman’s bloody corpse, crawling in and out of her open mouth, I don’t need to feel for a pulse to tell me that woman is dead.”

Evers’s eyes were locked on mine in horror and fascination. In my peripheral vision, I became aware of other eyes staring at me as well. I glanced toward the gate and saw a dozen people looking in my direction, their expressions all registering various degrees of shock. I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes and forehead. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This is very upsetting.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Evers. “No need to apologize. Listen, I need to go up the hill to the scene. And we’ll probably be tied up here most of the day. But I’d like to talk to you in more detail tomorrow, if you wouldn’t mind. Get more background on Dr. Carter, her colleagues, her activities. Okay?”

“Of course,” I said. “Anything I can do to help. What time do you want me there?”