The Devil's Bones bf-3

by Jefferson Bass

  “Jason, this is Darren Cash,” I said, “an investigator with the Knox County D.A.’s Office. Darren, Jason Story.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Jason,” said Cash.

  “You, too,” Jason said, not making a move. “Sorry if I seem rude. I need to keep a pretty close eye on this thermocouple monitor.” I was just about to ask Jason what the readout was saying when a series of earsplitting beeps came from beneath the car.

  Jason snatched at a lanyard hanging around his neck and grabbed a stopwatch, then punched a button. “Wow, that is right on time,” he said. He lurched out of the chair, hoisted the fire extinguisher, and discharged a cloud of vapor at the underside of the Lexus. Then he flung open the driver’s door, hopped in, and pulled the car forward about twenty feet.

  When he did, he exposed a still-smoking circle of burned grass about two feet in diameter, along with a partially melted smoke detector lying near one edge and a pair of wires stretching to the thermocouple monitor now lying beside the chair. Jason shut off the car and clambered out, then gave the grass another shot with the extinguisher. He consulted the stopwatch dangling from his neck again. “Seven hours, forty-three minutes,” he said proudly.

  I turned to Cash. “Seven hours, forty-three minutes. You think that gives your guy enough time to get to Las Vegas?”

  “He flew direct on Allegiant,” Cash said. “Flight’s four hours and a quarter,” he said. “Thirty-minute drive to the airport; check-in and boarding takes another thirty, if you shave it close. I’d say it would.” He studied the charred circle, studied the Lexus, and then studied Jason.

  “Okay, I give,” he said. “How’d you do it?”

  “Take a look in the grass,” I said.

  He squatted down beside the blackened circle, then dropped to one knee and leaned forward, almost like a football player on the line of scrimmage. He plucked something from the ground and held it up between his left thumb and forefinger. It was a piece of heavy steel wire, cinched tight around a ruffle of ragged plastic.

  I nodded at it. “Recognize that?”

  He scrutinized it. “It’s like the thing you found in the burned grass at the Latham farm,” he said, “but this plastic stuff is different.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It’s not melted. That’s because we put the fire out before the car burned.”

  “I hate to say it, but you’ve still got me,” he said. “What is it?”

  “That,” I said, “is the end of an eight-pound bag of ice.”

  “A bag of ice?”

  “A bag of ice,” I said. “I realized what it was the other night when I picked up a bag on the way to my son’s house. It’s how Latham delayed the fire. He dumped a bag of ice on the grass, drove the car so the catalytic converter was right over the ice, then skedaddled for the airport.”

  He looked dubious. “Come on, Doc. How’s he gonna control that? How’s he gonna know it’ll work at all, and how’s he gonna know how much time it buys him?”

  “You remember that smaller burned oval in the grass at the Lathams’ farm, the one near the barn?”

  He nodded. “Actually,” he said, “we found two more of those after you pointed out the first one.”

  I could see the light beginning to dawn. I pointed at the scorched grass, frosted with powder from the fire extinguisher.

  “We’re not the only ones who do experiments. Stuart Latham might’ve made a good scientist.” I turned to Jason. “You want to summarize the data for Mr. Cash, Jason?”

  Jason cleared his throat nervously. “Well,” he said, “we’ve only got six data points-actually, seven now-so statistically the data set isn’t robust. In fact, if you remove the two outliers-”

  “Jason,” I interrupted, “just cut to the chase. Tell the man what you found.”

  “Okay, sorry,” he said. “On average, it takes the ice about ninety minutes to melt, plus or minus ten percent, depending on how consolidated the ice remains and how close to the catalytic converter it is. But then the grass is wet and the ground’s cold, so it takes about another six hours for everything to dry out, and another fifteen minutes or so for the grass to reach its flash point and catch fire.”

  “In the seven runs you’ve done,” I asked, “how much variation did you see in the total elapsed time between parking the car and seeing the grass catch fire?”

  “Less than thirty minutes,” he said. “It’s surprisingly consistent. Now, if the grass were shorter or taller or a different type or-”

  “Thank you, Jason,” I interrupted again. I regarded Cash.

  “Does this look pretty similar to the grass in the pasture at the Latham farm?”

  “If I were a cow,” he said, “I’d think I was eating at the same restaurant.”

  “And you’ve got pictures of the Latham’s pasture, taken the day the car burned?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Dozens.”

  “Any good close-ups of unburned grass?”

  “Well, we weren’t actually focusing on the grass as a murder weapon,” he said. “We took close-ups of the burned cigarette butts under the driver’s window, but the grass in that area was burned, obviously.” He frowned, then he brightened. “We do have wide shots that show the whole circle of burned grass, including the unburned grass around the edges. Come to think of it,” he added, “one of them shows a uniformed officer standing in the field. The grass comes up about yea high on him.” He bent down and sliced a hand across his lower leg, midway between the knee and the foot. As he did, the tops of the Ag field’s grass grazed his fingers.

  I grinned. “Jason, you took a bunch of pictures of the first couple experiments, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, yessir, Dr. B.,” he said. “I’ve got probably three hundred. I filled up the memory card on my camera, and it holds a gigabyte.”

  “A jury’ll like this,” I said.

  “I sure like it,” said Cash.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE PHONE RANG THE NEXT MORNING, JUST AS I WAS hoisting a spoonful of Raisin Bran to my mouth. I had the newspaper open to the comics; the combination of crisp cereal and corny cartoons was my favorite way to start the day. I looked at the clock on the wall above the stove; it read seven-thirty. “Well, damn,” I said-not because it was early (I’d been up since six) but because the cereal was sure to be soggy by the time I got off the phone. I figured it must be Jeff, Miranda, or Art calling.

  “Turn on CNN right now,” said Art, and hung up.

  I stared at the phone as if further enlightenment might be forthcoming from the dead receiver in my hand. When none came, I went to the living room and switched on the TV, flipping to channel 22, CNN. The screen was filled with an aerial view of a patch of pine forest, filmed from a circling helicopter. The woods framed a clearing containing a brick ranch house, a garage, a couple of ramshackle sheds, and a small garage-type building with a rusted flue projecting from the roof. The clearing was filled with law-enforcement vehicles, a few black-and-white cruisers and SUVs, but mostly the unmarked Town Cars and Crown Victorias favored by the FBI and their state-level counterparts. The caption crawling across the bottom of the screen read, “Hundreds of bodies found in Georgia woods.”

  I found the scrap of paper where I had written Burt DeVriess’s cell-phone number-a number he’d never given me when I was his client, only after I took his Aunt Jean’s case. He sounded sleepy and pissed off.

  “Hello?”

  “Burt, Bill Brockton. Turn on CNN right now,” I said. Then I hung up with a smile, probably just as Art had.

  My phone rang five minutes later, just after CNN cut to a commercial break. It was DeVriess. “Damn, Doc,” he said, “when you take a case, things happen. I should’ve teamed up with you years ago.”

  “You were too busy busting my chops on the witness stand,” I said. “Anyhow, maybe now that it’s out in the open, those folks will be held accountable.”

  “I can promise you they’ll be held accountable,” he said. “I’m dedicating the full resources
of this law firm to holding them accountable.”

  The full resources of the firm, as far as I knew, were Burt and Chloe. But then again, the full resources of the firm had rounded up the video expert who’d cleared me of Jess’s murder. Even so, Burt’s declaration struck me as odd. “You’re a criminal defense attorney, Burt, not a prosecutor,” I pointed out. “You defend people like this.”

  “Mostly,” he said. “But I’ve decided to branch out-try my hand in the civil courts, as a plaintiff’s attorney.”

  “Plaintiff’s attorney? You’re going to start suing people?”

  “I believe so,” he said. “And now seems like a good time to dip a toe in the water.”

  “You’re going to sue the crematorium for not cremating your aunt?”

  “My aunt and a whole bunch of other folks.”

  A lightbulb flickered on above my head. “Ah. A class-action lawsuit. But how you gonna track down all the families of these people?”

  “I won’t have to,” he said. “They’ll track me down.”

  “How will they know to do that?”

  “You forgetting what a master of the media I am, Doc?”

  I had a quick flashback to the press conference Burt had held-had orchestrated, scripted, and choreographed-the moment the video expert had found the evidence that cleared me of Jess’s murder. “Silly me,” I said. “What was I thinking? You’ll probably be on Larry King, and I should hang up so you can start working the press and taking phone calls.”

  “Before you do,” Burt said, “can I ask you for another favor?”

  “You can always ask,” I said.

  “I know you must have called in some markers to set those wheels in motion down in Georgia,” he said.

  “I’ve helped a few people in law enforcement over the years,” I said. “They’re pretty willing to help me in return, if they can. Besides, it was the right thing to do.”

  “Whatever string you pulled down there to blow the lid off that thing-any chance you could tug on it one more time?”

  I felt my guard go up, knowing he was probably already laying plans for a class-action suit that could net him millions in contingency fees. “What do you want, Burt?”

  “I want my Aunt Jean, Doc,” he said. “I know she’s one of those three hundred bodies they’re hauling out of the woods. It’s gonna kill my Uncle Edgar to find out how she was treated. If there’s any way you can go back down there and find her, so we can get her home and try to set this thing right, I’d be forever grateful.”

  The request surprised me, and impressed me. “I’ll see, Burt,” I said, “but I can’t promise anything. Everybody who ever sent a loved one there is going to be clamoring to get in, you know.”

  “I know,” he said. “But you’re the guy who uncovered the truth.”

  “I’ll see, Burt,” I repeated. “That’s all I can do.”

  “I understand. Thanks, Doc. I ’preciate you.”

  CHAPTER 19

  WHEN I DIALED SEAN RICHTER, I GOT HIS PAGER, which didn’t surprise me. Sean would have his hands full, and then some, for quite a while. During their first day’s search of the woods surrounding the crematorium, the GBI and FBI evidence teams had found nearly three hundred bodies and skeletons. Recovering them could take weeks; identifying them could take months, if not years. DMORT had brought in a couple of inflatable morgues, and the GBI had trucked in a small fleet of refrigerated trailers to house the bodies while they figured out how to process them. My guess was they’d end up building a massive new morgue and DNA lab dedicated to this one case.

  The gruesome scene in the Georgia backwoods was the lead story on every major television network, wire service, and Internet news site in the country. It was also, I learned from the stack of printouts Miranda had put on my desk, the topic of dozens of international headlines-variations on the theme of “Americans are barbarians,” many of them. Atop the stack Miranda had left a sticky note: “How come you couldn’t have found this in Tennessee instead of Georgia? Jealous Junior Anthropologist.”

  Sean returned my page within ten minutes, which did surprise me. “I didn’t think you’d get a chance to call me back for…oh, about ten or twenty years.”

  “It’s a zoo,” he said, “and it’ll stay that way for a long time. But since you’re the one who steered us to this, I figure if you page me, I return the call. You’re number three on my priority list, right after the GBI director and my wife.”

  “She outranks me now? You’re obviously not under my thumb anymore,” I said.

  “Yet here you are,” he said good-naturedly, “still pulling my strings.” He took a deep breath and puffed it out. “You’re not calling to tell me about another big batch of bodies somewhere in Georgia, I hope?”

  “How’d you guess?” I laughed. “No, not today. I’m calling to ask a favor-to see if you can pull a string or two for me.”

  “You want us to just ship everything up to the Body Farm, right?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I said. “But now that you mention it, I’d love to add another three hundred skeletons to the collection. Can you have ’em here tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” he joked, “piece of cake.” We both knew that eventually-once the bodies were identified-they’d need to be returned to their families, or to whoever had sent them to be cremated.

  “Anything else on your wish list?”

  “This might be nearly as difficult to arrange,” I said, “but if you can’t bring the mountain of bodies to Mohammed, how about if Mohammed comes down to the mountain? I’d love to take a quick look around. Not just for curiosity,” I hastened to add. “You know the woman whose bogus cremains caused me to start poking around in the woods? I’m wondering if you’d be able and willing to let me take a quick look for her.” I was pretty sure Burt’s Aunt Jean was one of the hundreds of bodies chilling in those refrigerated trailers, but it might be months before Sean got to her. To him she was just one among hundreds, but to me-and to Grease, who’d asked whether I could get into the makeshift morgue and find her fast-she was a priority.

  “Ah,” he said. “I understand. I’d certainly have no problem with that. But it’s not my call. This is the highest-profile case anybody around here can remember, and the director and the public-affairs people are pretty touchy. So far, access is limited to the GBI, FBI, and DMORT teams. Hell, we even turned away the governor, who wanted to come up and hold a press conference in the woods with that grungy crematorium in the background.” He paused, and in the distance I could hear the hum of refrigeration units, the beep of a truck backing up, and the squawk of a public-address announcement asking somebody or other to report to the command post.

  “Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d give it a shot at least,” I said.

  “Could save you a little time and money,” I added. “If I find her, that’d be one less person for you to ID. One less DNA test to pay for.”

  “Good point,” he said. “We’re at three hundred twenty-seven bodies already, and we haven’t finished searching. Can you maybe help us ID another fifty or sixty?”

  “If I say yes, does that give me a better shot at getting in to look for Aunt Jean?”

  “You bet,” he said.

  “I’d love to pitch in for a week or two,” I said, “but I want to stay close to home until Garland Hamilton’s back in custody. It’s not like I’m out beating the bushes myself, but I do want to stay near the phone.”

  “I understand,” he said. “Dr. Carter was a good M.E.-she worked with us on a couple of cases that crossed jurisdictional lines-and I was sorry to hear she’d been killed.” There was an awkward pause, and then he added, “I was also sorry to hear the police suspected you at first.”

  I appreciated Sean’s sentiments, but I suddenly wished the conversation hadn’t taken this particular turn.

  “Listen, Sean, I bet you’ve got half a dozen people clamoring for you,” I said. “I’d better let you get back to work. Call if you get the okay
for me to come down in the next couple days.”

  “I will,” he said. “I’ll give it my best shot.”

  His best shot must have been pretty good, because two days later a Georgia state trooper swung open the gate and waved me into the driveway of the Littlejohn property. The watchdogs inside the fence were gone, replaced by a pack of television crews patrolling the outer perimeter. Several cameramen jogged toward my truck, cameras bobbing on their shoulders, but by the time they reached the gate, I was already crunching down the driveway in a cloud of dust.

  After threading through the pines for a quarter mile, the driveway emerged into a yard the size of a football field. To the left was a pond measuring maybe fifty yards across; to the right was a single-story brick ranch house with a small front porch at the center, framed by two white columns. I’d probably passed a dozen such houses, I realized, flanking the thirty miles of two-lane highway between Chattanooga and here. Next came a small prefab wooden building, roughly ten feet square-the sort of thing that might house a snow-cone stand for a few months in the summer. Beyond that was a big, barnlike shed. Inside, I glimpsed a tractor, a bushhog mowing attachment, a battered old pickup, and-the first indication that this was anything other than an ordinary rural farmstead-a handful of concrete burial vaults.

  The next odd thing I saw, as I passed the shed, was the row of stainless-steel refrigerated trailers parked behind it, their cluster of diesel generators and compressor motors combining to produce a roaring, clattering chorus. From here on, the driveway was lined with police vehicles-county, state, and federal cars, marked and unmarked-plus crime-lab vans and DMORT trucks. The final building was tucked beside a large turnaround area at the end of the drive. This building resembled a dilapidated garage with a rusty metal flue at one end, and I recognized it as a smaller, shabbier cousin of the immaculate crematorium I’d visited in Alcoa. Beside it, I noticed with a jolt, was a huge barbecue grill.