The Devil's Bones

by Jefferson Bass

  I STILL FELT CAUGHT IN THE SAME UNDERTOW OF feelings the next morning when I walked into the bone lab and saw Miranda poring over brochures extolling the virtues of metal knees and ceramic hips. She glanced up, but only briefly. “I think you should have one of each kind implanted,” she said. “Metal bearings on the left side, ceramic on the right. Make a personal investment in your research.”

  I pointed to a flyer from Smith & Nephew, one of the titans of the artificial-joint industry, and tapped on the word “Oxinium,” the company’s trademarked name for oxidized zirconium. The term sounded high-tech and exotic—not hokey, the way “cremains” did. Smith & Nephew had probably paid millions for focus-group research on various names for the material, which the brochure said combined the toughness of metal with the hardness and smoothness of ceramics. “I’d rather have Oxinium everywhere.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “It’s not in the budget.”

  “Darn. I suppose as Phase Two of the research project you’ll be wanting to cremate me?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s essential.” She paused ever so briefly. “Oh, I had Dr. Garcia and his family over for dinner last night,” she said casually.

  “That was nice of you.” I kept my eyes on the photos of gleaming Oxinium joint surfaces.

  “Carmen, his wife, is really funny—she’s like this over-the-top, self-mocking version of the fiery Latina. She acts out the stereotype, and then she steps back from it and laughs at herself. She’s like a surfer, zipping up and down the face of a giant wave.” She smiled. “And their baby—that has got to be the world’s cutest baby.”

  “Make you want to have one?”

  She looked at me sharply. “Good God, no,” she said. “Made me want to babble for an hour or two a week, though. I made them promise to let me baby-sit every Thursday night.” She straightened the stack of brochures. “You weren’t over in North Hills last night by any chance, were you?”

  “Me? What would I be doing in North Hills?” My question wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it sure wasn’t the truth.

  “I don’t know. I just wondered.” Did Miranda have ESP? Was she that attuned to me? “I went out to pick some mint for the tea, and I heard a car start up. Then a truck like yours did a U-turn and drove past.”

  “Huh,” I said as casually as I could. “Lot of trucks like mine in Knoxville.”

  “Guess so. I called your name—I was going to invite you to come in and join us. You’d have enjoyed it.”

  “Maybe we can all get together sometime,” I told her. Serves you right, I told myself. “Listen,” I said, retreating to a safer ground, “I could use your computer-research skills on something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m trying to get in touch with the Trinity Crematorium, which is somewhere near Rock Spring, in northwest Georgia. It’s the place where Burt DeVriess’s aunt was sent to be cremated.”

  “Did you call 411?”

  “I did. There’s no listing for them.”

  “Hmm. That seems odd, unless they’re trying to run themselves out of business.”

  “It gets odder. Guy who runs it is named Littlejohn.” I’d gotten the name from Helen Taylor, who’d all but spit when she said it.

  “Little John? Like Robin Hood’s sidekick?”

  “That’s his last name, not two names. First name is Delbert.”

  “Delbert—that’s odd, all right.”

  “Let me finish,” I said, relieved that she was back in bantering mode. “Delbert Littlejohn has an unlisted number.”

  “Ooh, I like this,” she said. “It smacks of skullduggery.”

  “What is skullduggery anyhow? I’ve heard the word tossed around,” I said, “but I’ve never been sure what it means. Something to do with digging up skulls, I reckon, but what? And how come it’s ‘duggery,’ not ‘diggery,’ or even ‘digging’?”

  “What do I look like,” she said, “The Oxford English Dictionary?” She swiveled her chair around to face the desk, and her fingers played a fast sonata on the computer’s keyboard. “Hmm,” she said. “Bizarrely, it has nothing to do with either skulls or digging. According to Dictionary.com, the word comes from an obscure Scottish obscenity meaning ‘fornication,’ and it means ‘trickery’ or ‘deception.’ Both of which, I suppose, are often involved in fornication.”

  “So young, and yet so cynical,” I said.

  “I’ve always been precocious.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “back to the question at hand. You reckon you could bang around on those keys some more and find out how I could reach this mysterious Mr. Littlejohn, so I can ask him a few questions about Aunt Jean?”

  “Shucks, I reckon,” she mocked. “I’ll call you when I get something. Or when I strike out.”

  “You never strike out,” I said. By the time the door whammed shut behind me, the keys were already clattering.

  MY OFFICE phone rang an hour later. Miranda had dug deep into her bag of Google tricks without finding any trace of Trinity Crematorium. She’d also tried AnyWho.com and MapQuest, she said, in a vain effort to track down an address or phone number. “And I’m sure you’ll be shocked, shocked, to know that Rock Spring, Georgia, doesn’t have an online database of property-tax records.” She’d hit a stone wall with the records clerk in the county courthouse but finally hit pay dirt by calling the post office and pretending to be a UPS driver in need of help finding the Littlejohn house. “And,” she announced triumphantly, “I got a phone number.”

  “Miranda,” I said, “you are a Jedi master of skullduggery.”

  But if I thought my quest was over, I was wrong. When I dialed the number she gave me, a machine answered. There was no greeting or announcement, just a beep. I hadn’t mentally prepared a message, so I hung up. After collecting my thoughts, I called back, ready to say who I was and simply ask for a return call. Once again I was taken by surprise. “Hello,” said a flat, guarded male voice.

  “Oh, hello,” I said. “Is this Delbert Littlejohn?”

  There was a pause. “He’s not available right now. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Dr. Bill Brockton,” I began. “I’m a forensic anthropologist at the University of Tennessee. I’ve been asked to take a look at some cremains that came from your crematorium—a Tennessee woman named Jean DeVriess. I’m hoping—”

  The line went dead. I hit redial, and I got the machine again. I hung up and tried again; again I got the machine. This time I left my name and number. I called once more, and this time the line was busy—or the phone was off the hook.

  My next call was to Burt DeVriess. I told Burt about Miranda’s near-fruitless research and my unsuccessful phone calls. “This smacks of skullduggery,” I said in conclusion. I liked the way it sounded; I could see why Miranda had grinned as she’d said it.

  “You’re right,” he said, “sounds like this place is screwing people over.”

  Damn, I thought, how’d he know that?

  “You willing to keep digging, Doc? Or duggering, or whatever?”

  “Keep digging how, Burt?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, Doc—you’re the one who’s the forensic genius. Maybe go down there, poke around some, see what you stir up?”

  I considered the request. I could make a six-hour round-trip to the boonies of Georgia, not knowing if I’d fare any better in person than I’d fared on the phone…or I could sit around Knoxville waiting for the phone to ring with news about the search for Garland Hamilton.

  “I’ll go dugger around,” I said.

  “Might be a good idea to take somebody with you,” he said.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, “but Miranda might find it interesting.”

  “I was thinking maybe somebody who could watch your back,” he said.

  “You’re thinking it might be dangerous?”

  “You never know,” he said, “seeing as how it smacks of skullduggery and all.”

  ART DIDN’T hesitate when I asked if he’d be willing to
accompany me to Georgia. “When you want to go?”

  “Whenever you can,” I said. “I was supposed to be testifying this week at Garland Hamilton’s trial, but that particular engagement seems to have been postponed for now. And UT doesn’t start fall classes for another couple weeks. How short a leash are you on with this Internet assignment?”

  “If we left early in the morning and could get back by late afternoon, I can probably swing it,” he said. “The chat rooms don’t start heating up till around three or four, and they stay pretty lively till bedtime. Tiffany needs to be in school all day anyhow—that’s where innocent little fourteen-year-olds are supposed to be between eight and three-thirty. Unless it’s the weekend, and then they’re sleeping late.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “How ’bout I pick you up around six-thirty? That would put us down there around eight.”

  “How ’bout five-thirty,” he said, “so we’ve got time to grab breakfast at a Cracker Barrel down Chattanooga way?”

  “Deal,” I said. “I’ll buy.”

  “I think your buddy Grease should pick up the tab.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “Grease’ll buy.”

  “Be good for you to get out of town for a day,” he said, “and away from the Hamilton stuff.”

  He was right about that, too.

  CHAPTER 14

  FRIDAY MORNING DAWNED HOT AND BRIGHT, AND BY the time it dawned, Art and I had been on the road for an hour already. At seven we bailed off the interstate at the Ooltewah exit, about ten miles north of Chattanooga. The acres of asphalt outside Cracker Barrel were virtually empty.

  “This parking lot is nearly as big as Neyland Stadium’s,” I said.

  “An hour from now, it’ll be full,” said Art. “You’d have to wait thirty minutes to get a table.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t have to?”

  “Wouldn’t wait,” I clarified. “I love the food here. Great breakfast, great vegetables. But I’m not willing to wait half an hour to get it.”

  “Me neither,” said Art. “I might be, though, if they’d ever get the biscuits right.”

  “You’re boycotting them over their biscuits?”

  “Not boycotting, exactly,” he said, “but less likely to fight the crowd on account of ’em. You’d think a place that prides itself on southern country cooking would make a decent biscuit, but theirs are sorry. Heavy and doughy, too much baking powder, or maybe they’re even using Bisquick. The ones at Hardee’s are ten times better. Golden and crispy on the outside, light as air on the inside.”

  “Hardee’s does make a better biscuit,” I agreed. “We should point that out to Cracker Barrel. In the spirit of constructive criticism, of course.”

  “I have,” he squawked. “I do. Every blessed time I eat at a Cracker Barrel, I fill out one of those customer-comment cards. ‘Your biscuits are sorry,’ I say.”

  “That’s your idea of constructive criticism?”

  “It gets more constructive after that. ‘Make better biscuits,’ I tell ’em. ‘Hire a biscuit maker from Hardee’s.’ You’d think they’d get the message. But they never do—not unless they’ve been hiring folks from Hardee’s and then making them follow the same sorry Cracker Barrel biscuit recipe. I’ve pretty much given up now. Always get the corn muffins instead.”

  “The corn muffins aren’t bad,” I said.

  “They’re not,” he said, “but at breakfast you really want a good biscuit. And anyhow, you’d think—”

  “Yeah, you’d think,” I said. “This world is a vale of tears, Art—rife with injustice and disappointment.”

  “And sorry biscuits,” he said.

  The peach pancakes were delicious, and the smoked sausage was worth every deadly glob of cholesterol. But I couldn’t help wishing for a decent biscuit, soaked in butter and honey, for dessert. I reached for the customer-comment card and wrote. Art did the same.

  AFTER CLIMBING East Ridge and dropping down into the broad valley that cradled Chattanooga, we took the Rossville Boulevard exit and headed south on U.S. 27, through the town of Fort Oglethorpe and then the well-tended lawns and woods of Chickamauga Battlefield, where the Army of the Confederacy had won a stunning victory, only to lose the bigger prizes of Chattanooga and then Atlanta not long afterward. South of Chickamauga the highway ran mostly straight and flat through stretches of pinewoods and pastures, punctuated by service stations, hair salons, and Baptist churches. We passed the crossroads of East Turnipseed and West Turnipseed roads, and a few miles beyond those we turned off the highway onto the blacktop road Miranda had marked on the map. The road was a lane and a half wide, with no centerline. Art and I both watched for a crematorium sign, but there wasn’t any. When we got to the end of the road, I knew we’d missed it. I turned and retraced the blacktop route, partly because I was determined to find the place and partly because there was no other way back to civilization.

  About a quarter mile after doubling back, I saw a gravel driveway on the left. The drive was blocked with a metal farm gate, the kind that resembles a ladder that’s four feet high and ten feet wide, the rungs made of tubular galvanized steel. A stout chain and padlock fastened the gate to a fat wooden fence post. A battered mailbox was nailed to the top of the post, and when I looked closely, I made out the name LITTLEJOHN in small, hand-painted letters.

  Fastened to the posts at both ends of the gate were large No Trespassing signs. Underneath each of those was another sign, adding Private Property. Under each of those was one that ordered Keep Out.

  “Not a very welcoming establishment,” I said to Art.

  I pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the road, not that there was much risk of traffic, as best I could tell. Art and I clambered out and stood at the gate, peering down a tunnel of trees and underbrush lining the gravel drive. We could see about fifty yards down the narrow drive before it entered a gradual curve and the view was blocked by a wall of trees. I listened for sounds of human activity, but all I could hear was the chittering of cicadas in the summer heat.

  “Hello,” I called, tentatively at first. When I got no answer, I called again, louder. “Hello there. Can you hear me? Anybody there?” Still no response. I tried once more, this time at the top of my lungs. Nothing. I went to the truck, leaned in the open window, and honked the horn three times. I waited a minute, then laid on it awhile.

  “I could be wrong,” said Art finally, “but I’m thinking either they’re not home or they don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Could be they’re deaf,” I said. I studied the six signs posted on either side of the gate. All six encouraged me not to enter the property, but I’d driven three hours to get here and I was seeking answers to what I considered disturbing questions. I looked at Art. “Shall we?”

  “Age before beauty,” he said, waving me toward the gate. Using the bars of the gate as a ladder, I climbed over, turned around, and descended the other side.

  My foot had scarcely touched the ground when I heard a low snarling sound. I spun. Rocketing down the driveway toward me, mouth agape and teeth bared, was the biggest, meanest-looking pit bull I’d ever seen. He moved remarkably fast for such a big animal, and I found myself moving with surprising swiftness, too, back up the bars of the gate, over the top, and down the other side. I’d just removed my hands from the top bar when a pair of jaws snapped shut like a bear trap, an inch away from my fingers. The dog was too big to get more than his muzzle through the bars, but that didn’t stop him from lunging and snapping. I remembered a documentary I’d seen once on Animal Planet, in which a shark attacked the bars of a protective cage so ferociously that it gradually began bending the bars aside, nearly consuming the human quivering inside. Fortunately, this gate was made of sterner stuff; it rattled and strained against the chain, but it held.

  Eventually the dog’s fury subsided a bit, but not the sense of menace it conveyed, and I decided we’d reached an
impasse. I suspected that someone had let him out in response to my honking and calling, since he’d probably have arrived considerably sooner if he’d already been outdoors on guard duty. “Well, I guess that’s that,” I said. “Sorry we made the trip for nothing.” I fished out my handkerchief and mopped my face and neck. Some of the sweat probably came from the adrenaline rush the dog had provoked, but the morning was already remarkably hot. “Let’s stop at the nearest gas station and get a cold drink.”

  Just as I said it, I felt the air stir a bit, whispering from the south—from the woods inside the fence. When it did, I caught a whiff of something familiar, and for a moment I thought I’d had some lapse in consciousness—a blackout that had lasted until I was back in Knoxville, back behind the UT Medical Center. When I realized my mistake, the hairs on my arms and my neck stood up, and I felt a jolt like electricity shoot through me. I was inhaling the stench of death—wholesale human death, Body Farm scale of death—not in Tennessee but here in Georgia, as it drifted lazily across the gate of the Trinity Crematorium.

  CHAPTER 15

  “I THINK HIS BARK IS WORSE THAN HIS BITE,” ART said. He took a step toward the gate, and the dog lunged at him, roaring and snapping.

  “I think we can’t afford to test your theory,” I said.

  “You’re right,” he said. He bent down and fiddled with the left leg of his pants, and when he straightened up, I saw a gun in his right hand. He squatted down and aimed through the bars of the gate. “Jesus, Art, you can’t just shoot—” I began, but then I saw his finger twitch. Instead of a bang, I heard a loud click; for an instant I thought the gun had misfired, but then the dog crumpled to a twitching heap in the gravel. A pair of thin wires ran from the dog’s body back to the barrel of the weapon.

  “What the hell…?!”

  “Taser,” said Art. “Think of me as Captain Kirk from Star Trek, with my phaser set to stun.”

  I stared at the dog sprawled out in the road. “You sure you had that on stun?”