Jefferson Bass - Flesh and Bone - A Body Farm Novel

I shook my head. “I’ve already hired one.”

“Who is it? Somebody good?”

I shrugged. “Yes and no. Burt DeVriess.” He groaned. “I know, I know-he’s the best of lawyers and the worst of lawyers. Believe me, I’m painfully aware what a Faustian bargain I’m making. But somebody has done a damn good job of making me look guilty. Now’s not the time to be squeamish about Grease.”

“Okay, I understand. You need a place to stay?”

“Yeah. I imagine KPD’s forensics unit has moved into my house. And a small fleet of TV trucks has taken up residence in the street.”

“Damn,” he said, “I’m sorry. I know how painful this must be.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” I said. “Even I can’t quite comprehend how awful this is.”

He looked frustrated, and I saw him biting back something, and I felt bad for snapping at him in self-pity. “You’re right, I don’t,” he said, “but I’d like to help. Let’s figure out someplace quiet you could go, someplace off the grid.” He thought for a moment. “You don’t really need computer access or television, do you?”

“No,” I said. “In fact, I’d prefer to be as far from TVs as possible.”

“Here’s an idea,” he said. “What about a cabin up at Norris Dam State Park? Remember that week you and Mom and I spent up there, back when I was about ten? Paddling a canoe around the lake, hiking the trails in the woods? That was great.”

“It was,” I agreed. “Cheapest vacation we ever took. Maybe the best, too.”

“Jenny and I took the boys up there one weekend last fall. I don’t think they’ve done a thing to those cabins since I was ten.”

“Still lit by kerosene lanterns? Nothing but grills to cook on?” He smiled and nodded. “Sounds nice,” I said. “But I probably need to be someplace with a phone. And I can’t use my cellphone-I switched it off after the hundredth media call.”

“That’s easy,” he said. “I’ve got an extra cell at the office; the seasonal tax accountants use it when they’re working off-site at clients’ locations. We can run by and get it, make sure there’s a car charger for it. I’ll go to the grocery store with you, if you want, help you load up a cooler with milk and cereal and sandwich fixings and stuff you can grill.” He seemed to be building genuine enthusiasm for the idea, and I felt at least a bit of that energy flowing into me.

“I like it,” I said. “Do me some good to get out of Knoxville and walk in the woods. Let’s go.”

He went inside to confer with Jenny. Five minutes later Jeff and I pulled our cars into the parking lot of his office, and in another ten we were cruising the aisles of Kroger, arguing the relative merits of hot dogs versus hamburgers, mesquite chicken versus honey ham, whole wheat bread versus seven-grain, and Honey Nut Cheerios versus plain. A hundred fifty bucks after that, we loaded the trunk of the Taurus with a cooler laden with sandwich meat, milk, mayo, mustard, and pickles; bread and cereal; fruits and berries; and various members of the crunchy, salty food group. I thanked Jeff for the idea and the cellphone, and left the suburban McMansions of Farragut for the rustic cabins of Norris.

Jeff had called Norris Dam State Park on the way to the grocery store, and by great good fortune had snagged the only cabin available, which had just come open because of a last-minute cancellation. As I left Knoxville behind, I felt a bit of the weight drop from my heart. I found myself looking forward to a quiet week in a cabin where I could divide my time between revising my book and wandering trails beneath towering oaks.

Between Chattanooga and Knoxville, I-75 angled northeast; beyond Knoxville, though, it veered northwest, forsaking the Tennessee Valley for the Cumberland Plateau. And just at the edge of the plateau where the green waters of the Clinch River threaded deep wooded valleys, TVA had built the first of its network of hydroelectric dams in the 1930s, bringing electricity and industrial jobs to a region of rural subsistence farmers. Norris Dam State Park straddled the slopes on either side of the dam; the south side boasted modern chalets and a swimming pool; the north side, which I greatly preferred, had a rustic tearoom and primitive cabins. Mine, it turned out, was at the back of the loop road, right at the base of a trail leading up the hill into a huge, pristine watershed. I unloaded my groceries, brought in my bulging briefcase, and set off up the hill. By the time I returned two hours later, darkness was falling, my legs were spent, and I crawled into bed without eating a bite.

Next morning at six, I awakened to birdsong, and by seven I was immersed in my revisions. Papers sprawled across the entire top of a picnic table, anchored against the breeze by rocks that sparkled with quartz and glossy black streaks of coal.

DeVriess called at ten; I’d phoned him on the drive up the evening before and left the cellphone number on his voice mail. “I’m heading into court on a bank fraud case,” he said, “so I only have a minute. But I wanted to pass along what I just heard by way of the grapevine. I was wrong about your friend Bob Roper, the DA.”

“You mean when you said he’d prosecute me even if I were innocent, long as he thought he could win.”

“Something like that. I underestimated Roper. He’s recusing himself and his staff from your case-says it represents an irreconcilable conflict of interests and loyalties for the entire office.”

“That’s good news,” I said. “Mighty decent of Bob.”

“Maybe,” said Grease. “Or maybe, next time he’s up for reelection, he just doesn’t want the voters of Knox County to remember him as the guy who nailed Dr. Brockton to the cross.”

“Burt, you’re too cynical.”

“I defend the scum of the earth. Present company excepted, of course. Not a job for an optimist.”

“Point taken. Practically speaking, what does this mean?”

“For starters,” he said, “it means the Tennessee Conference of District Attorneys General has got to scout around and find some other DA to handle the case. Preferably somebody who hasn’t worked with you.”

“They might have to go to Middle Tennessee or even West Tennessee for that,” I said. “I think I’ve testified for all the DAs here in East Tennessee.”

“So depending on how long it takes to find somebody, we could be in limbo for a while. Weeks, maybe months.”

“Ah. Then that’s not such good news after all,” I said. “I hate limbo. I’m suspended from my teaching job, I’m holed up in a state park, my grandkids think I’m a monster, and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“I’ll press the court for a speedy trial, Bill, but I don’t know that I have any influence.”

“Well, do your best.”

“Okay. I’ll call you whenever there’s news.”

I forced myself to refocus on my revisions, and soon I was immersed again. I spent the rest of the morning combing through five years’ worth of research papers on the pubic symphysis-the joint at the midline of the pelvis, where the left and right pubic bones meet-and updating my textbook’s discussion of how features and changes in the bone at that junction could be used to estimate the age of a female skeleton with remarkable accuracy. After lunch, I switched to cranial fractures; one of the department’s graduate students had just completed a fascinating thesis describing a series of experiments with skulls and a “drop tower” in the Engineering Department: a platform attached to a vertical slide which allowed her to subject the skulls to measurable, precisely controlled impacts and compare the results. It was doubtful that a living person would ever be strapped to the drop tower and smashed to death-unless intradepartmental rivalries were far worse in engineering than in anthropology-but the data from the thesis could prove extremely useful in helping determine whether the force inflicted by, say, a baseball bat or a fall down a staircase was sufficient to cause a fatal fracture.