Flesh and Bone

by Jefferson Bass

  We hadn’t gotten more than fifty feet up the hillside before I broke a sweat in the chilly morning. I could tell Miranda was straining, too, but I knew she’d collapse before she complained. That was okay by me; I was willing to whine for both of us. “You wanna rethink that first tree? Sure would be convenient.”

  “Hun-uh,” she grunted through gritted teeth, shaking her head for emphasis.

  “Okay,” I gasped, “you’re the boss. If I stroke out before we get up the hill, use me for some especially spectacular research.”

  “Gladly,” she huffed.

  We stopped twice to catch our breath and mop our brows, but even with the rest breaks, we were half dragging the bag by the time we reached the pine near the upper fence. Still, as I opened the long, C-shaped zipper running around three sides of the bag, I had to agree that a secluded location was much more appropriate for this particular experiment.

  We had prepared the body in the morgue, so I knew what to expect, but even so, I took a sharp breath when I folded back the flap to expose our subject. The blond wig had shifted a bit, sliding down over the face and concealing much of the trauma I’d inflicted, but what remained visible was strong stuff. According to Jess, most of the bones of the victim’s face had been shattered by blunt-force trauma—she was guessing something fairly big, maybe a baseball bat or a metal pipe, rather than something smaller, like a tire iron, which would have left sharper, more distinctive marks in the bone. I couldn’t bring myself to wale away on a donated body with such violence, so I’d settled for cutting through the zygomatic arches—the cheekbones—and the lower jaw in several places with an autopsy saw, then smearing a liberal amount of blood on the skin in those areas to simulate the bleeding that perimortem trauma would have induced. Miranda, being more skilled in the art of makeup, had applied base and rouge to the cheeks, plus violet eye shadow and a pair of long false eyelashes. I doubted that the makeup would affect the decomp rate, but I didn’t want to throw any unnecessary variables into the equation.

  Procuring the leather corset that we’d cinched around our subject’s torso had proved far easier than I expected. Less than twenty-four hours before, Miranda had spent five minutes Googling and web surfing, then demanded my UT credit card. A few more keystrokes and she announced, “Done. One extra large bustier arriving at six A.M., First Overnight, thanks to the efficient teamwork of FedEx and Naughty&Nice.com.” I foresaw some red-faced explaining to the UT auditors once the American Express bill arrived, but such was the occasional price of original research.

  “Have you got the rope,” I asked, “or do I need to go back to the truck and get it?” Miranda was wearing a black jumpsuit that bristled with pockets.

  “No, I’ve got it,” she said. She reached down and unzipped a big pocket just above her left knee and fished out a package of nylon cord and a big, military-looking pocketknife. With one twist of her thumb, she flipped open a wicked serrated blade.

  “Whoa, that’s some serious cutting power,” I said. “What is that, a six-inch blade?”

  She snorted. “Do men really believe that’s what six inches looks like? Try three and a half.” With the tip of the blade she deftly flicked off the package’s plastic wrapper, then unspooled about six feet of cord—or was it three and a half?—and cut it with a swift stroke. “You wanna tie his hands while I do his feet?” I took the piece of rope and began to bind the corpse’s wrists in front of him. Miranda sliced off another length of cord and lashed the ankles together. The rope snagged on the fishnet stockings as she cinched it taut above the stiletto heels. “I’ve never understood the appeal of cross-dressing,” she said, “either for the guys who do it or for the people who go to drag shows. But I also can’t understand how anybody could get so enraged about it that they’d beat a guy to death for putting on a wig and some slutty clothes.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “The one thing I understand, after all these years and all these murders, is that there’s a lot I don’t understand about human nature.”

  Once our stand-in was trussed up like the Chattanooga victim, the next task was to tie him to the tree. “Jess said his hands were up over his head,” I remarked, half to Miranda and half to myself. “Hard to get ’em up there without a ladder, though.” I spied a low branch. “Maybe if I throw a rope over that limb, we can use that like a pulley to hoist him up.” Miranda whacked off another length, which I tossed across the branch where it joined the trunk. Then I tied one end to the wrist bindings, and together we hauled on the line. The nylon cord was thin, so it bit into our hands as we pulled, but once we had him upright, the friction of the rope on the branch helped support his weight.

  “You think you can hold him,” I asked, “while I fasten his legs to the tree?”

  “Yup,” said Miranda, taking a turn of rope around one hand.

  Kneeling at the base of the tree, I pulled the feet close to the trunk and began tying them there. A yellowjacket circled my still-sweaty face, and with one hand I waved it away. Suddenly I heard a sharp exclamation—“Dammit!”—followed by a slapping sound. Then: “Oh, shit, look out!”

  With a thud, the corpse toppled forward, draping himself over my head and shoulders and knocking me flat. Wriggling like some giant bug, I lay trapped at the base of the tree, pinned by the garishly dressed corpse. “I am so sorry,” Miranda said, and then she began to snicker. But the snicker died suddenly, and I soon saw why.

  A pair of rattlesnake boots, topped by black leather jeans, entered my peripheral vision and planted themselves a foot from my face. I knew, even before she spoke, that the snakeskin boots were coiled around the feet of Dr. Jess Carter. After a moment, her right toe began to tap, slowly and, as best I could tell, sarcastically.

  “Don’t let him get you down, Brockton,” she finally said. “I think you can take him. Best two out of three?”

  “Very funny,” I said. “Y’all mind getting this guy off of me?”

  Jess reached down and grabbed the rope around the dead man’s wrists; Miranda seized a leg. Together they gave a heave that rolled the corpse onto his back beside me. I regained my feet and as much of my dignity as I could. Jess winked at me with the eye Miranda couldn’t see. I would have blushed, but my face was already red.

  “This wasn’t one of the questions you asked me to research,” I told her, “but I’m thinking maybe more than one person was involved in the murder. Pretty tough to tie his arms that high on the tree without some help.”

  “I see what you mean,” she said, “but the forensic techs couldn’t tell. Ground’s pretty rocky around there, and we had a dry spell for a couple weeks, so nothing useful in the way of footprints.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t in town when he was found,” I said. “My secretary said you called right about the time my plane was taking off for Los Angeles.”

  “Damned inconsiderate of you to help the LAPD with a case,” she said. “We may need to fit you with one of those electronic ankle monitors to make sure you don’t leave Tennessee.”

  “Can’t do it,” I said, pointing to my faded jeans and work boots. “It would spoil my fashion statement.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “Word is, Martha Stewart’s coming out with a designer line of corrections apparel and accessories. I’m sure the Martha anklet will look fabulous on you.” Jess handed me the rope. “Shall we try this again?” This time, once we’d hoisted the subject upright, I took the precaution of knotting the rope to the branch immediately. I tied off the legs, Jess pronounced herself satisfied with the positioning, and Miranda trimmed the loose ends of the rope.

  “The strange thing is, the head and neck were in better shape than I’d expected,” she said. “Lots of trauma, but not much decomp, considering how much blood there was to draw the flies. That would lead me to think he wasn’t out there all that long, except there was almost no soft tissue left on the lower legs.”

  “You think maybe carnivores did that? Coyotes or foxes or raccoons?”

  “Maybe,” she s
aid, “but I didn’t see a lot of tooth marks. I’d like you to take a look at him, though, see if maybe I missed something.”

  “Sure,” I said, “I could probably come down to Chattanooga later in the week. One thing I was wondering about, though: Why are you even working the case? I checked the map, and Prentice Cooper State Forest is across the line in Marion County, isn’t it?”

  She smiled. “I bet you were a whiz at map-and-compass back during your Boy Scout days, weren’t you?” I grinned; she was right, even if she was just joking. “Cops got a report of an abduction from the parking lot of Alan Gold’s one night a couple weeks ago. Alan Gold’s is a gay bar in Chattanooga. Has the best drag show in East Tennessee. A female—or female impersonator—fitting the victim’s description was seen being forced into a car and speeding away. We’re working on the theory that the crime began in Chattanooga.” She paused briefly, as if considering whether to say something else. “Besides,” she said, “Marion County is rural and has a small sheriff’s office. They just don’t have the forensic resources to work this.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Okay, I think we’re ready to let nature take its course here. We’ll check this guy every day, track the temperatures. The forecast for the next fifteen days—if AccuWeather can be believed—calls for temps about like what you’ve had in Chattanooga over the past couple weeks. So the decomp rate here should track the victim’s pretty closely. Once this guy’s condition matches your guy’s, we should know how long he was out there before that poor hiker found him.”

  Jess took another look at the corpse tied to the tree. “There’s one more detail we need to make the re-creation authentic.” I looked puzzled. “I didn’t tell you about this,” she said. “You were already skittish about the trauma to the head and face, so I figured this would send you clear over the edge.” Reaching down to her belt, she unsheathed a long, fixed-blade knife from her waist. She stepped up to the body, yanked down the black satin pan ties and stockings we’d tugged onto him, and severed his penis at the base.

  “Good God,” Miranda gasped.

  “Not hardly,” said Jess. “I’d say this was more the devil’s handiwork.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Bill, you sure this guy is clean?”

  I struggled to speak. “Well, I can tell you he didn’t have HIV and he didn’t have hepatitis. That’s all we screen for, though. I can’t promise he didn’t have syphilis or a case of the clap.”

  She eyed the penis. “I don’t see any obvious symptoms,” she said. With that, she peeled off her left glove, dabbed her bare thumb on the severed end of the organ, then carefully rolled a print onto the shaft. As Miranda and I stared in disbelief and horror, she pried open the corpse’s jaw and stuffed the penis into the mouth.

  “There,” she said. “Now it’s authentic.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “KNOXVILLE POLICE.”

  I pulled the telephone receiver away from my ear and stared at it dumbly, as if KPD were the last place on earth I’d have expected to reach when dialing criminalist Art Bohanan. Art and I had collaborated on dozens of cases over the past twenty years. Besides being remarkably eagle-eyed at murder scenes, Art had shown himself to be a whiz in the crime lab as well, teasing out clues from minuscule bits of carpet fibers, upholstery, bullet trajectories, and random (to me, though not to him) spatters of blood. He had also become one of the nation’s leading fingerprint experts, devising equipment and techniques that even the FBI’s crime lab had adopted to reveal latent prints—including seemingly invisible ones on the skin of a body.

  “Knoxville Police Department. Can I help you?” The guy on the other end of the line—I pictured an aging, overweight sergeant easing toward his pension—sounded annoyed, despite his offer of help.

  “Oh, sorry,” I stammered. “I was trying to reach Art Bohanan. I expected either him or his voice mail.”

  “Sir, he’s not available. Can I take a message?”

  “Do you know when he’ll be in?”

  “No, sir, I do not. All I know is that he’s unavailable. Do you wish to leave a message or not?”

  “Uh, yes. Please. Tell him—ask him—to call Dr. Brockton when he gets a chance, if you would.”

  “Dr. Brockton? Hey there, Doc.” Suddenly the guy was all warmth and cheer. “This is Sergeant Gunderson. I was the one found that guy under the Magnolia Avenue viaduct about ten years ago. You ’member that case?”

  “I sure do,” I said, smiling at both the memory and my deductive powers. Gunderson was indeed a fat sergeant coasting toward retirement. One reason the case had been memorable was that it featured Gunderson in the unlikely act of running. “You were chasing a burglar that night, if I remember right?”

  He chuckled. “Was, till I tripped over that damn body and went ass-over-teakettle. Scared the hell out of me. I ’bout messed my britches. Fellow I was chasing let out a yell just before I went sprawling, so he musta seed it, too.”

  “Pretty scary thing to stumble across in the moonlight,” I agreed. The body turned out to be one of the local winos. Judging by the advanced state of decomp—his skull was nearly bare, though a fair amount of soft tissue remained on his torso and limbs—he’d been ripening beneath the viaduct for about a week of midsummer nights and days. His outline was traced with greasy precision on the concrete by the dark fatty acids that had leached from his corpse, marking the splay of his arms and legs, even the spread of his fingers. There was heated speculation among the officers on the scene about who might have wanted him dead, and what sort of bludgeon had shattered his skull with such devastating force. Then I pointed to an uncapped empty bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 perched on the rail of the viaduct above us—a bottle Art later found to be covered with prints from the dead man’s hands and lips. I often used my slides from that case in police trainings, to underscore the importance of looking all around, and up and down, at death scenes.

  “Art’s on special assignment right now, Doc,” Gunderson said, “but I’ll page him and have him call you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Good to talk to you, Sergeant. Watch your step. You never know where the bodies are.”

  He chuckled again. “I’ve got a pretty good fix on where most of ’em are buried here at KPD, though. See you, Doc. Don’t be a stranger.”

  Two minutes later my phone rang. “Bill? It’s Art.”

  “Art Bohanan, Man of Mystery?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Who wants to know?”

  “Nobody, now that I think about it,” I said. “You available for a quick fingerprint consult?”

  “I’ve gotten sorta sidetracked, but I could spare a few minutes. You got something really gross, as usual?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of bringing you anything less.”

  “Got a pen?” I surveyed my cluttered desktop, finally found a nub of a pencil. “Close enough. Why?”

  “2035 Broadway. Come inside.”

  “Why? Where are you, anyhow? What are you doing?”

  “Can’t talk right now. Oh, you got a boom box there in your office?”

  I wouldn’t have called it a boom box—I kept it tuned to the UT public radio station, which played classical music, and the volume was cranked down so low it was almost subliminal—but I said yes.

  “Bring it.”

  “What for?”

  Art didn’t explain; he’d already hung up.

  For the second time in two phone calls, I found myself staring stupidly at the receiver in my hand. Then I hung up, too. My boom box was sitting atop a file cabinet just inside the door of my office. The cord, shrouded in cobwebs and dust, disappeared behind the cabinet, which was snugged tight against the wall, or tight against the plug, at any rate. Curling both hands behind the back of the filing cabinet, I gave a tug. It did not budge; many years and many pounds’ worth of papers had accumulated in it since I had plugged in the radio and shoved the cabinet back in place.

  I shifted my grip, crossing my wrists, which somehow seemed to equalize the force I co
uld apply with each arm. Then I hoisted my left foot up onto the doorframe, nearly waist-high, where my hands clutched the cabinet, and strained to straighten my leg. With a rasping sound that set my teeth on edge, the cabinet scraped forward by six inches. Triumphantly I reached into the gap I had created, wiggled the plug free, and extricated the cord and my arm, both covered with cobwebs and grime. “This had better be good, Art,” I muttered.

  CHAPTER 3

  A CENTURY AGO, BROADWAY had been one of Knoxville’s grand avenues, lined with elegant Victorian mansions on big, shady lots. The street had long since gone to seed, though, especially in the vicinity of the address Art had given me. Heading north from downtown, I passed two of the city’s homeless missions. The missions didn’t open their doors for the night until five o’clock, so for most of the day their clientele roamed Broadway; some hung out, or passed out, in nearby cemeteries. A few neighboring streets, buffered from Broadway’s blight by a block or so of rental houses, had made a comeback over the past couple of de cades. Those pockets of gentrification, sporting pastel houses with gleaming gingerbread, were poignant reminders of how lovely Old North Knoxville had once been, before I-40 had cut a swath through its heart and Broadway itself had become a commuter artery lined with liquor stores and pawnshops.

  I was having trouble pinning down the location Art had summoned me to. “Dammit,” I groused to myself, “why don’t people put numbers on their buildings anymore?” I passed the turnoff to St. Mary’s Hospital—where my son Jeff had been born during a blizzard, back in the de cades before the planet’s thermostat had ratcheted upward—and finally spotted a number on one of Broadway’s few remaining mansions. It was now a funeral home, one that had sent a fair number of the Dearly Departed to the Body Farm.