The Devil's Bones

by Jefferson Bass

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to be rude,” O’Conner said. “Here, let me clear a spot for you to sit down.” He stood up and came around the desk to remove another stack of papers and files from the one chair in the office. That’s when he saw the box. He looked from the box up to my face, just as I’d done when Steve Morgan brought it into my office at UT. I read the question in his eyes. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “TBI found this when they were searching a storage unit Garland Hamilton had rented.”

  The sheriff sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, then started grabbing armfuls of folders and setting them in the corner.

  After he’d cleared off one end of the desk, I set the box down and stepped back to give him space, physically and emotionally. He reached out, folded up the lid, and eyed the bones with a mixture of sorrow and tenderness that thirty years seemed to have done little to diminish. One by one, he picked up the bones and turned them over in his hands. A femur. A hip bone. A handful of ribs. His eyes got a faraway look in them.

  “Funny thing,” he said. “She’s been gone so long. These bones aren’t her, but they were her. Part of her, anyhow. I couldn’t pick these out of a lineup. I mean, I can’t tell one skeleton from another. But because you say this is her, I know it’s true, and that brings the whole thing back. Does that sound strange?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I’ve seen hundreds of people react this way. We humans seem to have a deep need for closure when somebody we love dies. That’s why when a child goes missing, the parent can never finish their grieving unless or until the body’s found. We want our stories to have endings, even if the endings break our hearts.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he nodded, his eyes glistening. Then he noticed the paper bag nestled in one end of the box. He hesitated, but only briefly, then unrolled the top and peered inside. He looked up at me and said, “Do you mind?”

  I picked up the bag and gently tipped its contents into his cupped hands: the tiny bones of a half-formed baby, which Leena had been carrying when she was killed. The biggest of the bones, the femur, was smaller than a chicken drumstick. “Damn it, Doc,” he said. “I don’t know who to hate more, her aunt for killing her or her uncle for getting her pregnant.”

  “I’m not sure there’s a lesser of those two evils,” I said. “And it probably doesn’t change the equation that the uncle’s dead and the aunt’s in prison.”

  “Not a bit.”

  “You said a while back that if we ever recovered these bones, you’d like to bury them with the skull. You still feel that way?”

  He nodded.

  “What about the fetal bones—do you want to bury those with Leena’s bones?”

  “Of course,” he said. “This was Leena’s baby.” He paused.

  “Even if it was fathered by a hypocritical, abusive son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He drew another deep breath and then shook himself. He looked at the clock on the wall over his door. “I’m thinking maybe that now would be a good time to call it a day,” he said. “It’s after five, and I don’t think my heart’s in this paperwork anymore for today. You got to hurry right back to Knoxville?”

  “I’m not in a big rush,” I said.

  “Come on up to the farmhouse with me.”

  “I was hoping you’d ask.”

  “You want to ride with me, or would you rather follow me up?”

  “I’ll follow you,” I said. “That way you don’t have to drive me back to town.”

  We walked out together, past the bench, past the whittlers. This time O’Conner had the box of bones under his arm.

  “Evening, Sheriff,” said Whittler Number One. Either O’Conner ranked higher in their esteem than I did or they were sufficiently curious to speak first.

  “Evening, fellas,” he said.

  “Are them there that girl’s bones?”

  O’Conner didn’t say anything at first. I could see a couple of different emotions working in his face, then it smoothed out, and he said, “Yes, sir. They are. We’re going to give her a decent burial finally.”

  “That’s good,” said the old man. “That was a shame what them Kitchingses done to her. She deserves a decent burial.”

  “You all have a good evening,” said O’Conner. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Night, Sheriff,” the two men chorused together.

  O’Conner placed the box in the backseat of a black-and-white Jeep Cherokee that had a seven-pointed star on the side.

  I got into my truck, and together we backtracked along River Road a couple of miles back toward I-40, then turned up a gravel road through dense forest, along a small stream that fed into the river on the other side of the blacktop. My first trip up this gravel road, I’d been blindfolded and bound with duct tape—shanghaied by a giant mountain man named Waylon—and brought up this road to see Jim O’Conner. I hadn’t known what lay along either side of the gravel at the time. My second trip up, I’d been able to see, and I had seen the gravel end at a wall of vegetation—or seem to end. In fact, it plunged beneath a cascade of kudzu vines. We had snaked through a tunnel of kudzu and then emerged into a small hanging valley, where O’Conner was conducting a secret experiment in agriculture. Not marijuana, as I had suspected at one point, but ginseng: he’d found a way to replicate wild black ginseng, the sort prized by poachers, the sort that commanded top dollar in Chinese markets. This trip, I noticed that the road had recently been regraveled. It looked slightly wider, and a film of dust on the weeds alongside hinted at heavy traffic. When we got to the kudzu tunnel, I saw that the vines hiding the tunnel’s mouth had been cut back, transfering what had once been a secret entrance to O’Conner’s little valley into a shaded arbor. The vines had been thinned, which took some frequent attention, I knew, given kudzu’s prodigious ability to grow by several feet a day. Sunlight filtered through. It still wasn’t cool under here, but it was a brief respite from the baking sun of the late-summer afternoon. When we emerged out the other side, into a large clearing with a frame farmhouse at one end, I was surprised at the transformation. Half a dozen vehicles, pickup trucks, and late-model cars were tucked into a small parking lot of gravel. The kudzu vines that had wrapped the back of the house—forming another tunnel connecting with the giant ginseng patch—had also been trimmed back, and the house had been freshly painted. I saw a small satellite dish and junction boxes, where underground telephone wires and television cable emerged from the ground.

  As I got out, I said to O’Conner, “I see you’ve made some changes around here.”

  He smiled. “A few,” he said. “My cover was blown, so I figured we needed to go ahead and get into the market with this fall’s crop, which’ll be our first. We took some samples to buyers, and we’ve got contracts for all we can produce. Should be several thousand pounds of top-grade ginseng root. We’re not getting quite what the poachers get for the stuff from the national park,” he said, “but close. If we can keep things from drying out in the heat of the summer, we should have several thousand pounds, at almost two hundred dollars a pound.”

  I did the math. “So you’re looking at six figures?”

  “Should be,” he said. “Seven if we get real lucky. But you know what? It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s been an interesting experiment. Maybe it’ll help lessen the demand for the poached ’sang, which would be good. And I’ve got half a dozen people working for me, doing honest jobs, which is also a good thing here in Cooke County. But I don’t really need the money, so if this doesn’t work, I’m not hurting.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I know how big that sheriff’s paycheck is,” I said.

  “Well, yeah, I’m not gonna get rich off that,” he said. “But I’ve got almost no overhead, apart from the ginseng operation here. My car’s provided. I’ve long since owned this farm outright. I live like a monk when I’m not at work. Hell, I don’t even spend everything the county pays me.”

  “
You sound like a man whose life is in balance,” I said. “Of course, even when you looked like an outlaw, you seemed pretty balanced and content.”

  “It took me a while to get there,” he said. “But yeah. I mean, you are who you are, you aren’t what you do.”

  He motioned me up toward the wide wooden porch, where a pair of weathered wooden rocking chairs sat side by side, like an old couple.

  “Come on up,” he said. “Sit a spell. You want some iced tea?” I nodded.

  The wooden screen door had been freshly painted, too, but the spring still creaked when O’Conner pulled it open. He grinned.

  “Always did like that sound,” he said. “The guys working on the house replaced the old spring with a new one that didn’t make any noise. I made them take the new spring off and put the old one back on.”

  O’Conner disappeared, then emerged from the kitchen several minutes later, bearing two tall ceramic tumblers. The one he handed me was ice cold and frosted at the top—fresh from the freezer. I took a sip. I’d had O’Conner’s hot ginseng tea once before, but never iced ginseng. I liked it cold. It had the slightly earthy, tangy taste I’d remembered, and hints of honey, plus maybe a little fruit juice in it, too.

  “It’s good,” I said. “You ought to bottle this stuff.”

  He smiled. “It’s in the business plan—year two,” he said.

  “You’ve got a good head for business, Doc.”

  I took another sip. “No, I just know something tasty when I get a swig of it,” I said.

  O’Conner sat in the other chair and began to rock in time with me. A small end table separated the rockers, a remote control rested on the table. O’Conner pressed a button on the remote, and a ceiling fan stirred a breeze down onto us.

  “Another new addition,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Usually there’s a pretty good breeze, but this summer’s been so hot I finally broke down and hauled in some technology. I can’t remember how I did without it. I got a house in town now, but sometimes, if the night’s not too hot, I’ll come up here and sleep on the porch.” He opened a drawer in the end table and pulled out a small silver flask. “You want a little nip of Jack in there?” he said.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “That’s right, you don’t drink,” he said. “You mind if I add a little nip to mine?”

  “Go right ahead,” I said. “I’m not sure you’ll be helping the taste any, but you probably know what you’re doing.”

  “I’ve done rigorous experiments,” he said. “I think I’ve perfected the ratio.” He poured in a small splash—it couldn’t have been more than an ounce—then screwed the cap back on the flask and replaced the flask in the drawer. “Different,” he said, taking a sip and assessing it. “But mighty good.”

  “You gonna bottle that version, too?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Year three. Good thing I’m not trying to keep any trade secrets from you.”

  We rocked until sundown, and beyond, the sheriff and I. As the daylight dwindled, so did our words, and the night wrapped us in a blanket of comfortable silence. After a while I realized that Jim and I were not the only two people present on the porch. Leena Bonds—Jim’s murdered love—was with us, too, somewhere in the darkness beyond him. So was Jess Carter, I realized—with me in the way that everyone you ever love remains with you, no matter what happens to either of you.

  As the rockers creaked and the stars came out, I felt the pain and the fear inside me subside. In their place, I was amazed to find—at least for this moment—peace and a feeling I could only have described as quiet, unexpected joy.

  CHAPTER 21

  IT WAS RARE FOR ME TO STAY UP LATE ENOUGH TO watch the eleven o’clock news, but I was late getting home from Cooke County. Besides, Channel 10 had promised an update on the manhunt for Garland Hamilton. I’d heard through the Knox County prosecutor’s office that the Tennessee Association of District Attorneys General had offered a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to Hamilton’s arrest and capture, and Channel 10 was promising to lead off the newscast with more details. Jess Carter had worked closely with district attorneys, so the D.A.’s had taken a special interest in recapturing her killer.

  The newscast’s theme music had just started when my phone rang. I checked the caller ID display and saw the main number for the UT switchboard. I knew there were no operators on duty this late at night. That meant the phone call could have come from any one of thousands of extensions scattered across the campus.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Dr. Brockton?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Dr. Brockton, this is Officer Sutton from the UT Police calling. We have an alarm going off in the Anthropology Department. Our protocols call for us to notify you when that happens.”

  I lunged for the remote and switched off the television. We’d had the alarms installed only a few months before, after a break-in and the theft of two sets of bones from the forensic skeletal collection.

  “We’ve got alarms in two places,” I said, cradling the phone with my shoulder and jamming on a pair of shoes. “One’s in the collection room, the other’s in the bone lab. Which one’s going off?”

  “I’m not sure it’s either one of those,” he said. “It’s labeled ‘Osteology.’”

  “That’s the bone lab. Damn. I’ll be right there.” I hung up and dashed out the door.

  My tires squealed as I careened around the serpentine streets leading out of Sequoyah Hills. The speed limit here was twenty-five, but tonight I was doing twice that. As soon as I turned onto Kingston Pike and had a straight stretch of road, I dialed Miranda’s cell phone. She’d been planning to stay late and work tonight, whittling away at the backlog of skeletal measurements awaiting entry into the Forensic Data Bank. She didn’t answer, which was unlike Miranda, whom I’d seen juggle four or five calls at once. The fact that I got her voice mail alarmed me.

  “Miranda, it’s Bill. It’s just after eleven. Give me a call as soon as you get this.”

  I skidded around the corner from Kingston Pike onto Neyland and then floored the accelerator. Flying past the sewage treatment plant, I nearly rear-ended a street sweeper that was poking along at twenty or thirty miles an hour. As I yanked the wheel to avoid the machine, I fishtailed into the oncoming lane and nearly hit another car head-on. The oncoming car veered onto the shoulder and fishtailed slightly, too, then corrected and sped away, its horn blaring. Only after the other car was out of sight did it register that I’d nearly crashed head-on into a yellow SUV. A yellow Nissan Pathfinder, I realized.

  I could see the blue strobes of the police lights long before I threaded my way down the drive to the foot of the stadium. The lights throbbed up through the tracery of girders, transforming the stadium into an ominous set for a suspense movie. Another set of strobes, red ones, was pulsing too, and I nearly threw up when I realized that the red strobes belonged to an ambulance, backed up to the double doors behind a white Jetta. The truck was still skidding forward when I slammed the transmission into Park and leaped out. I left the door open and sprinted the fifty yards to the ambulance.

  A figure in dark blue stepped toward me. “Police!” he shouted. “Stop right there!”

  “It’s Dr. Brockton,” I yelled. “I think I’ve got a student in there. I’ve got to see.”

  “Hold on. Hold on,” he said.

  I kept running. He stepped directly into my path and spread his arms wide.

  “Hold on, Dr. Brockton. Wait just a minute.”

  I tried to sidestep him, but he was too quick. He wrapped both arms around me.

  “I can’t let you in there until I know it’s safe,” he said.

  I struggled to break free of his grip. “I’ve got to check on Miranda,” I said. “I have to see about her.”

  “Dr. Brockton, listen up now. You have got to calm down. You have got to stop struggling, or I will handcuff you, sir. Do you understand me?” He gave me a powerful squee
ze. He was no taller than I was, but he was twenty years younger and probably outweighed me by forty pounds, all of it muscle. “Dr. Brockton, please don’t make me handcuff you. Do you understand me?”

  I went limp. “Yes,” I said. “I understand. Tell me what’s going on. Is Miranda in there?”

  “We do have someone in there,” he said. “I don’t know the status. If I can turn loose of you, I’ll radio and ask what’s going on and if it’s all right for you to come in.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “Have you got ahold of yourself?” he asked. “If I let you go, you’re not gonna go charging in there to be a hero, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “If you turn me loose, I’ll step back so you can make the radio call.”

  It wasn’t until he released me, and I was able to breathe again, that I realized how hard he’d been holding me.

  He pressed the “transmit” button on his radio. “This is Markham,” he said. “I’ve got Dr. Brockton out here, just outside the basement door. Is it all right if he comes in there now?”

  The answer came into his earpiece, so I couldn’t hear it, but he nodded and motioned me in. I broke into a run, but he quickly called, “Walk! Don’t run! We’ve got officers with weapons. You go running in, they’re liable to shoot you.”

  I forced myself to slow to a walk. When I reached the metal door leading into the building, I heard Markham say, “He’s coming in the door right now.” A second officer was standing in the stairwell between the exterior door and the bone lab’s door. The metal door to the lab was propped open—a disconcerting sight, as we always kept it closed. The door was steel, fitted with a small window that was kept covered by a piece of paper so no one could look inside. The paper was gone. So was the glass. A smear of blood ran down the door, reaching halfway to the floor.

  I stared around the bone lab, wild-eyed. Two uniformed officers stood to my left, by the desks and the tables where graduate students worked. To the right was the storage area that held row on row of boxed Native American skeletons—several thousand of them—stacked on shelves three feet deep.