Jefferson Bass - Flesh and Bone - A Body Farm Novel

“Let me go !” she cried. “Let me go or I’ll scream. I’ll scream bloody murder, and they will haul you away in handcuffs. ”

She had a point there. I could imagine the lead-in to the nightly newscast: “He’s already on trial for one murder. Did Dr. Bill Brockton try to commit another today?” I let her go, but as I did, I placed a foot on the pruning shears lest she grab them and use them more effectively this time. “Don’t you care who killed your son, Mrs. Willis?”

She glowered at me, her chest heaving, tears beginning to run down her face. “Of course I care,” she said, “but nobody else gives a good goddamn. You think I don’t know how the police feel about…people like Craig?”

It was an admission of sorts. “No matter what they think,” I said, “they’ll still try to solve his murder.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the cop that arrested him was the one that killed him.”

I was startled that she’d thought that through, although I suppose I shouldn’t have been. She’d undoubtedly spent far more time turning over the possibilities in her mind than Art and I had. “Who else could have?”

She gave me a look of undisguised contempt. “Gee, Mr. Fancy Ph.D., let’s think about that.” She shook her head. “It’s done. Nobody will ever be caught. Get the hell out of here and don’t come back. If I see you again, I’m calling 911. In fact, if you’re not gone in thirty seconds, I’m calling 911. Maybe even if you are.”

I bent down and picked up the pruning shears. Suddenly she looked frightened. With an underhanded toss, I lobbed them over the hedge and up near her front porch, just in case she was still inclined to take another run at me. Then I held up one hand and backed away, across the street, and got into the Taurus. I locked the doors first, then started the engine. As I eased away from the curb, I glanced back just in time to see Mrs. Willis hurling the pruning shears in my direction. They hit the trunk lid with a scraping clatter that I knew had left a nasty gouge. At least it’s a rental, I thought. Then I remembered that I had declined the supplemental insurance.

Once I was safely out of the neighborhood, I paged Art. He rang me right back. “Hey, how’d it go with Mrs. Willis?”

“Not so good,” I said.

“You mean she didn’t confess?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“What’s another way?”

“Let’s just say that if all you’ve got is a pair of pruning shears, everything looks like a hedge.”

“Oh, that good?”

“That good.”

“You lose any body parts?”

“No. Only the last of my dignity. You get a chance to talk to the guy that caught Craig Willis in the act?”

“Not yet. He’s kinda hard to reach.”

“Because?”

“Because he’s been in Iraq for the past four months. He’s in the Guard, and his unit got called up right after the Willis thing.”

“Damn. So I guess that clears him, huh?”

“See, I knew you had a knack for detective work,” Art said. “You got a Plan C?”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I don’t much like it. Tell me what you think.” I laid it out for him.

Art didn’t much like it either, but he agreed we needed to grit our teeth and give it a try at the end of the day.

I WAS LUNCHING ALFRESCO-wolfing down a drive-through deli sandwich at a picnic table in Tyson Park, a long strip of grass and trees near the UT campus-when the cellphone rang. The display read BURTON DeVRIESS, LLC. When I answered, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Chloe instead of Burt on the other end. “Dr. Brockton?” My bubble was swiftly burst. “Mr. DeVriess would like to speak with you. Can you hold while I put him on the line?”

“Sure, Chloe,” I sighed, “though I’d rather talk to you.”

“But you need to talk to him. I hope you’re doing well.”

“I’m still a free man, so things could be worse.”

“That’s the spirit. Hold on for Mr. DeVriess.”

I held on. I’d been holding on a lot lately. Mostly by my fingernails. “Bill? It’s Burt. How are you?”

“Ask me at the end of the phone call. What’s up?”

“Can you come in this afternoon? I’d like to go over two pieces of evidence we’ve obtained in the course of discovery.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“It’s good-news and bad-news evidence. Which one you want first?”

“Hell. Give me the bad news first.”

“It’s an exhibit the prosecution will try to make hay with at trial. It’s the video from the surveillance camera on the roof of UT hospital.”

“The one that’s zoomed in on at the gate of the Body Farm.”

“Exactly. About three hours before you called 911, that camera shows what sure looks like your pickup truck driving through the gate and into the facility.”

“I’ll tell you what I told Evers. That’s impossible. I wasn’t there. I swear to you, I was not there.”

“Nevertheless. I’ve looked at a copy, and I have to say, if it’s not your truck, it’s a dead ringer for it. Any chance somebody could have borrowed it that night without you knowing?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “During the daytime I usually leave it in the driveway, but at night I lock it in the garage. And the garage door opener clatters pretty loud-I’m almost certain that would wake me up.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I’m not sure you need to volunteer that part on the witness stand. Anyhow, I’ve got a video and audio expert coming in to examine the original tape, see if he can find any basis for challenging it. Might be good if you were here, too.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said. “I can’t believe how thoroughly this deck is getting stacked against me. So what’s the good news? Instead of the death penalty, they’re only seeking life without parole?”

“Ha,” he said, followed by an actual laugh. “Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor. No, it’s a little better than that. Something we can use to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.”

“What? Tell me.”

“It’s the voice mails Jess got after she was on the TV news sticking up for you and evolution.”

“The ones where some guy threatened to do nasty things to her? I’m surprised she didn’t erase those right away.”

“Maybe she figured she should hang on to them in case he kept harassing her,” he said. “So she could prove to the phone company that these weren’t just typical prank calls.”

“What ever the reason, I’m glad she saved them,” I said.

“Me too. This expert I’m bringing in should be able to compare your voice to the voice mails and establish that it’s not your voice making those threats.” He paused. “Bill, there’s no reason we shouldn’t get him to do that comparison, is there?”

It took a moment for me to grasp what he was implying. “Jesus, Burt, of course not. I did not make those phone calls to Jess.”

“Just making sure,” he said. “I’ve listened to the messages. The voice doesn’t sound like yours, and it’s not your style. They’re pretty strong stuff-sadistic sexual threats, and some pretty sick death threats. If I were a juror and I heard some creep threatening her like this, I’d wonder whether the killer might be this guy instead of the mild-mannered Dr. Brockton.”

“You think jurors think like you?”

“Hell no. Nobody thinks like me. But I’m able to think like jurors when I need to.”

“I hope your crystal ball is right about this.”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “I’ll plant those seeds of doubt and then fertilize like hell.”