Cut to the Bone: A Body Farm Novel bf-8

by Jefferson Bass

  He shifted his grip slightly, propping the statue on the patio as he did, the tips of the wings and the sword forming a temporary tripod. The fall of Lucifer, he thought; then — straightening and lifting once more—Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

  He did a test throw in slow motion, mentally coaching himself through the movements: the swaying windup, then the four-and-a-half spins — the accelerating dervish dance needed to power the flight of the angel, the hammer of God. Halfway through the practice spins, he stumbled and nearly fell, regaining his balance just in time to avoid a noisy crash. Who are you kidding? he asked himself scornfully, but then he heard another voice — a kinder voice: his high-school coach’s voice wafting across a decade, cheerfully scolding him in exactly the same words he’d used a hundred times or more at practice: Turn off your brain, Tyler. It’s like making love, son — if you’re thinking, you’re not doing it right.

  The remembered admonition calmed Tyler; it even made him smile briefly. He drew a long, slow breath, feeling and hearing the air: rushing through his nostrils, flowing down the back of his throat, filling his lungs. He drew another, and a familiar, distinctive mixture of oxygen and adrenaline made its way into his muscles, awakening sensations and skills that lay deep and dormant within him. Turning his back on the window, he began to rock, swinging the statue to and fro, in pendulum arcs that gradually rose higher and higher: left, right, left, right, the wingtips and sword almost grazing the ground at the bottom of each arc. After half a dozen swings, the arc reached shoulder height on each side, and Tyler boosted the angel over the top: above his left shoulder, over his head, and then swooping down to the right. As it swooped he began to spin, shifting the plane of the statue’s motion from vertical toward horizontal. It swung outward now, angling away from his body as he spun. Whirling faster and faster, he leaned back, leaned into the turns, he and the angel counterbalancing one another like skaters or dancers in a dizzying duet — two turns, three turns, four — the winged figure straining to take flight.

  As Tyler completed his fourth turn, the back of his left shoe came down on a pea-sized pebble. Pinched between his heel and the patio, the pebble shot free, pinging against the glass of the sliding door. It hit just as Tyler came out of the turn, whirling toward the house, toward his release point — the point where he would relax his fingers and release the statue; where he would let the angel take flight.

  At the edge of his whirling field of vision, Tyler suddenly saw Satterfield spinning, too: spinning toward Tyler, a nightmarish reflection of Tyler’s own motion.

  Time slowed; Tyler’s vision narrowed, tunneled, excluding all but three things: the sheen of the glass door, the malice on Satterfield’s face, and the pistol in the outstretched, tightening grip.

  CHAPTER 52

  Brockton

  As I watched in horror, Satterfield spun toward Tyler, raised the pistol, and fired.

  The glass exploded — the room itself seemed to explode — and then Satterfield was lifted off his feet. He flew backward, slamming against the far wall of the dining room, hurled there—pinned there — by the angel from the garden. The wing tips pierced his wrists, pinning him to the wall like Christ on the cross, like the woman against the tree. The angel’s head was pressed tightly against Satterfield’s chest, the tip of the sword nestled in the hollow of his throat.

  I glanced across the table at Kathleen, who was staring at the bizarre tableau, her shock at losing her finger momentarily forgotten, it seemed. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed more movement outside. A man — his running shorts and T-shirt seeming surreally out of place here amid the carnage — stepped through the jagged, glass-fringed opening where the sliding door had just exploded. It was Tyler, looking as startled and stunned as I felt.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he gasped. “You’re gonna be okay.”

  “Tyler, thank God,” I said. “Are you hit? Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He knelt beside Kathleen and lifted her dangling, dripping hand. “Jesus. Jesus, Mrs. B, I can’t believe he did that.” He snatched a napkin from the floor and wrapped it around the stump of her finger, then raised the hand and angled it across her chest, resting it on her left shoulder. “Can you hold it here?” She stared, wild-eyed and confused. “Can you hold your hand up like that — just for a minute? — while I find something better to stop the bleeding?” Slowly her eyes focused on his face, and she nodded. “Good. That’s really, really good, Mrs. B. Hang in there. You’re gonna be just fine.” Standing, he scanned the kitchen, then headed to the freezer. He opened the door, and I heard ice clattering as he rummaged in the bin.

  Satterfield groaned and twitched. I was surprised that he was alive; I had thought — and hoped — that the statue had struck him with enough force to crush his chest and stop his heart. But no: Satterfield shook his head and opened his eyes, staring at the angel that pinned him to the wall. I saw him wince as he strained to free his arms, then — to my horror — I saw him lift his feet from the floor, flexing his legs to bring his feet up to the base of the statue, working them underneath it for leverage. “Tyler!” I yelled.

  Tyler turned, the freezer door still open. “Shit,” he said, skidding back across the kitchen in a trail of ice cubes. He scooped up the gun that had flown from Satterfield’s hand when the statue slammed into him. “Stop,” he ordered, raising the gun. Satterfield froze, but he didn’t lower his legs. “I will totally shoot you, asshole,” Tyler added. “Put your feet down—now—or I will gladly shoot your balls off.”

  Satterfield’s feet slid from the statue and his legs eased down to the floor. Tyler kept the pistol trained on him, his hand shaking.

  Suddenly I saw another flicker of movement in the back doorway — a face appearing and quickly withdrawing. Then a man in green military fatigues — a soldier? a cop? — stepped into the opening, dropped into a shooter’s crouch, and aimed a pistol at Tyler’s head. “No!” I screamed again. Tyler stared at me in confusion. I flung my head and shoulders backward, rocking the front legs of my chair off the floor, then jerked forward with all the strength I possessed. The chair bucked onto its front legs; I hung there, balanced at the tipping point, then — with agonizing slowness — toppled forward: toppled toward Tyler, falling against him, my head slamming into his belly just as I heard a gunshot from the doorway, and another, and three more in quick succession.

  Tyler doubled over and collapsed onto me. Facedown on the floor, I could not see if he was alive or dead.

  CHAPTER 53

  Decker

  Decker stepped through the doorway, the gun still raised, wondering what the hell had just happened; wondering what the hell was happening still. Brockton and Satterfield lay tangled together on the floor, thanks to Brockton spoiling his shot, knocking Satterfield down, the guy’s head snapping downward just as Deck was squeezing off the shots. All five rounds had missed; all five had burrowed instead into — what the fuck? — an angel, a goddamned angel, which was holding someone, was pinning someone, against the back wall of the dining room. Someone who had tats on both of his raised forearms; someone who had the face of the suspect, Satterfield. Christ, Deck realized, nearly throwing up when it hit him, I almost shot the wrong guy.

  He stepped to the far end of the table and pressed the muzzle of his weapon against Satterfield’s forehead: the right guy’s forehead this time, no doubt about it. As he did, he heard the keening of sirens, faint at first, their pitch and volume rising as they drew nearer. “This is for Kevin,” Deck said softly, his finger pressing the trigger once more. “My dead brother.”

  “Wait,” urged a voice. Brockton’s voice, from the floor. “Don’t shoot him. That’s not the way.”

  “An eye for an eye,” said Decker. “A life for a life. He owes lots of lives.”

  “It’ll ruin you if you do it,” said Brockton. “It would make you a murderer, too. Just like him.”

  “Not just like him,” said Decker, the g
un still on the guy’s forehead.

  “He’ll go to prison for life,” said Brockton. “Maybe get the death penalty. Let the court do that. It’s too big a load for you to carry.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” Decker answered, his finger tightening.

  “Deck?” He heard another voice speaking now — the voice of the watch commander, Captain Hackworth, calling his name softly from the shattered glass door. “Hey, Deck, I’m coming in,” Hackworth said evenly. “How about you let me take your sidearm now, okay?” Decker felt a hand on his shoulder, then saw another hand reaching in, fingers encircling the barrel of the gun. “You got him, Deck,” the captain said as he gently raised the barrel and then freed the gun from Decker’s grasp. “You got him. It’s over.”

  “It’s not over till I say it’s over,” Decker heard Satterfield hiss. “I’ll be back to finish this.”

  Decker felt his fingers clench, and wished the gun were still in his hand; still pressed to Satterfield’s forehead.

  PART 3

  After the Fall

  And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

  Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

  — GENESIS 3:22–24

  JANUARY 1993

  CHAPTER 54

  Brockton

  “I still can’t believe it,” Jeff squawked, for the third time — or was it the fourth? — since we’d sat down in Calhoun’s. “That guy really needs to fry.” He punctuated his opinion by licking a blob of barbecue sauce from his thumb.

  “Jeff.” Kathleen’s voice was soft, but it carried an unmistakable motherly reprimand — one she underscored by wagging a finger at him. It was her pinky finger — an eighth-inch shorter than before, its range of motion still limited, but on the mend, thank God. “We’re here to celebrate,” she added,” not second-guess the jury.”

  “I know. Sorry, Mom; sorry, Dad,” he said. Through the plate-glass window behind him, I watched a towboat bulling a raft of barges upriver, the wake angling out from the stern and rushing toward the pilings on which the restaurant rested. Jeff plucked a French fry from his plate and raised it toward his mouth, then began gesturing with the potato, like a symphony conductor with a baton. “But he killed six people — six people that we know of — including his own mother and stepfather. If a guy like that doesn’t deserve to die, I don’t know who does. They sure didn’t deserve to die.”

  “They didn’t,” agreed Kittredge, “but it’s not just about whether he deserved it.” The KPD detective had joined us for the post-sentencing lunch; so had Janelle Mayfield, who’d fought Satterfield for her life and had won. With Kittredge’s support, Janelle had been hired by KPD as an advocate for victims of sex crimes — a brave move on the part of both KPD and Janelle, I thought. “If he’d gotten a death sentence, he might never be executed anyhow,” Kittredge went on. “There’d be appeals — years and years of appeals. Millions of dollars worth of appeals. Maybe it’s just as good, and a lot cheaper, to lock him up and throw away the key.”

  I checked my watch; it was twelve forty-five. “Roxanne, what time’s your flight?”

  “Not till three thirty,” she said. “If Tyler and I head for the airport by two thirty, we’ll be fine.”

  “Are you kidding?” I teased. “The way he creeps along in that truck? You should’ve left forty-five minutes ago. Be quicker to walk.”

  “Ha ha,” said Tyler. “You’re just jealous because I won’t sell it to you.”

  “What, that old thing?” I retorted. “No shoulder harnesses, no air bags — that thing’s a death trap, man.” I grinned, but then I felt a pang. I was going to miss Tyler — miss his work, and miss his company. “You sure you don’t want to rethink, now that your thesis is done? Maybe take the spring and summer off, then decide?”

  “Bill.” Kathleen’s voice was soft — even softer than it’d been with Jeff a moment before. I knew when to shut up, and the time was now.

  “Another thing,” said Jeff, taking advantage of the momentary lull. “How come Satterfield gets a free lawyer? A really mean free lawyer? That guy DeVriess—‘Grease’—man, he was fierce. Made it sound like Dad was the scumbag on trial.”

  “Jeff.” This time Kathleen’s voice made no pretense at softness. This time even Jeff got the message. Across the table, Jenny’s hand reached for Jeff’s, her fingers giving his a squeeze. Chiding, or affectionate? Maybe both, I realized, when Jeff looked at her with a sheepish smile. Their communication — much of it conveyed by looks and touches — seemed surprisingly evolved for a pair of high-school kids. Was that because they’d had a brush with death? Or was it just because they were smart, good-hearted, and happy with one another? Whatever the reason, I was pleased for them.

  “Show them,” Jeff said to her.

  “Now?” Jenny blushed, suddenly looking shy.

  “Sure, why not? Show ’em.”

  “Show us what, sweetheart?” asked Kathleen.

  “Oh, nothing, really,” she said. “Just… a couple of sketches I did in the courtroom today.” Jeff nudged her, and she reached down beside her chair and retrieved a small leather portfolio, setting it in her lap and opening the flap. She took out two pieces of drawing paper. “Janelle, one’s for you.”

  “For me?” Janelle looked nervous. “Why?”

  Jenny smiled. “You remember the drawing I did that day at the police department?”

  “How could I forget?” said the woman. “Scared the crap out of me when I saw that awful face staring up from the page.”

  “Not the drawing of him,” said Jenny. “The drawing of you.”

  “Honey, I am talking about the drawing of me,” Janelle replied, drawing a good laugh from all of us. Then her face turned serious. “Sure, I remember the drawing you did of me. I looked pretty bad, too.”

  “Not bad,” said Jenny. “Scared. Hurt. Sad. Mad.”

  Janelle nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “Today I drew you again.” Jenny handed her the top sketch. I couldn’t have said which sprang to Janelle’s face first, the smile or the tears. She tried to speak, but quickly gave up. Instead, she laid one hand on her heart; with the other, she held up the drawing so we could all see it. There were still traces of hurt — more lines around the mouth and eyes than a woman her age should have, and a zigzag scar across the cheekbone — but mostly, the face gazing out from the page radiated courage and confidence.

  “That is beautiful,” said Kathleen. “A perfect likeness.”

  Jenny beamed at Kathleen and Janelle, then looked at me. “Dr. B, the other one’s for you.”

  “Me? Why’d you waste a perfectly good piece of paper drawing me?”

  “It’s not of you,” she said. “It’s for you.” She handed me the drawing, facedown. I hesitated, then turned it up.

  It was like nothing I’d ever seen: A girl’s face — the unidentified strip-mine girl’s face — turned upward, toward the sky. Her features were serene, almost beatific; underneath them, the skull shone through, faintly but distinctly, in a way that somehow did not diminish or detract from the beauty of the face. She was shown in profile, one eye open wide, the other hidden by the bridge of the nose. But from that other, unseen eye grew a tree: a miniature but fully formed tree, its crown luxuriant with leaves and blossoms and songbirds. In the background, and on all sides, other trees grew, from ground that had once been scarred and barren, but had long since softened and gone to green. Beneath the ground, the trees were linked by a web of roots — roots that entwined delicately, seamlessly, with the girl’s golden hair; roots that somehow were the girl’s golden hair. Amid death, the image seemed to suggest �
� in spite of death, or perhaps even because of death, in some mysterious way I did not yet understand — there was life.

  Even life abundant.

  Author’s Note: On Fact and Fiction

  Those of you who are astute at arithmetic may have noted that Dr. Bill Brockton, our fictional hero, is slightly younger — by some thirty years — than Dr. Bill Bass, who turned a remarkably youthful eighty-five in August 2013. Making Brockton so much younger has much to recommend it, fictionally speaking, as it allows Brockton (and us!) to be still employed, rather than retired.

  But all choices have consequences, and in this book’s case — specifically, the case of the Body Farm’s genesis — Brockton’s relative youth has required us to fudge the birth year of the real-life research facility. In Cut to the Bone, we give that year as 1992. In real life, it’s considerably earlier, as well as more complex. The sow barn described in the book is quite real, but it was back in 1971 that it became the location for the Body Farm’s first incarnation: a distant, smelly place where decomposing bodies could be stashed before they were processed into clean skeletal remains.

  The Body Farm’s second incarnation — its metamorphosis, to borrow an entomological term from the realm of blowflies and maggots — didn’t occur until a decade later. In the spring of 1981, the first research project began in a new sixteen-by-sixteen-foot chain-link cube at the facility’s current location, behind the University of Tennessee Medical Center, on the south shore of the Tennessee River. That project, which commenced with donated body 1-81, was a pioneering study of insect activity in human corpses. Corpse 1-81 and its successors (2-81, 3-81, and 4-81) served as the research subjects for a master’s degree thesis by Dr. Bass’s student William Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s pioneering research, documenting the relationship between the insects’ activity and the cadavers’ decay rates, remains a classic — one of the most frequently cited studies in both forensic anthropology and forensic entomology.