The Body Farm ks-5

by Patricia Cornwell

  "It's the nylon," our friendly mad scientist said with pure delight as he knelt by the body and leaned close to Ferguson's pulled-down panties.

  "You know, it's a good surface for prints because of the tight weave. He's got some kind of perfume on." He slipped the plastic sheath off his Magna brush, and the bristles fell open like a sea anemone. Unscrewing the lid from a jar of Delta Orange magnetic powder, Katz dusted a very good latent print that someone had left on the dead detective's shiny black nylon panties. Partial prints had materialized around Ferguson's neck, and Katz used contrasting black powder on them. But there wasn't enough ridge detail to matter. The strange frost everywhere I looked made the room seem cold.

  "Of course, this print on his panties is probably his own," Katz mused as he continued to work.

  "From when he pulled them down. He might have had something on his hands. The condom's probably lubricated, for example, and if some of that transferred to his fingers, he could have left a good print. You're going to want to take these?" He referred to the panties.

  "I'm afraid so," I said. He nodded.

  "That's all right. Pictures will do." He got out his camera.

  "But I'd like the panties when you're finished with them. As long as you don't use scissors, the print will hold up fine. That's the good thing about Super Glue. Can't get it off with dynamite."

  "How much more do you need to do here tonight?" Wesley said to me, and I could tell he was anxious to leave.

  "I want to look for anything that might not survive the body's transport, and take care of what you found in the freezer," I said.

  "Plus we need to check the basement." He nodded and said to Marino, "While we take care of these things, how about your being in charge of securing this place?" Marino didn't seem thrilled with the assignment.

  "Tell them we'll need security around the clock," Wesley added firmly.

  "Problem is, they don't got enough uniforms in this town to do anything around the clock," Marino said sourly as he walked off.

  "The damn bastard's just wiped out half the police department." Katz looked up and spoke, his Magna brush poised midair.

  "Seems like you're pretty certain who you're looking for."

  "Nothing's certain," Wesley said.

  "Thomas, I'm going to have to ask for another favor," I said to my dedicated colleague.

  "I need you and Dr. Shade to run an experiment for me at The Farm."

  "Dr. Shade?" Wesley said.

  "Lyall Shade is an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee," I explained.

  "When do we start?" Katz loaded a new roll of film into his camera.

  "Immediately, if possible. It will take a week."

  "Fresh bodies or old?"

  "Fresh."

  "That really is the guy's name?" Wesley went on.

  It was Katz who answered as he took a photograph.

  "Sure is. Spelled L-Y-A-L-L. Goes all the way back to his great-grandfather, a surgeon in the Civil War."

  5

  Max Ferguson's basement was accessible by concrete steps in back of his house, and I could tell by dead leaves drifted against them that no one had been here for a while. But I could be no more exact than that, for fall had peaked in the mountains. Even as Wesley tried the door, leaves spiraled down without a sound as if the stars were shedding ashes.

  "I'm going to have to break the glass," he said, jiggling the knob some more as I held a flashlight. Reaching inside his jacket, he withdrew the Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol from its shoulder holster and sharply tapped the butt against a large pane in the center of the door. The noise of glass shattering startled me even though I was prepared for it, and I half expected police to rapidly materialize from the dark. But no footfall or human voice was carried on the wind, and I imagined the existentialist terror Emily Steiner must have felt before she died. No matter where that might have been, no one had heard her smallest cry, no one had come to save her.

  Tiny glass teeth left in the mullion sparkled as Wesley carefully put his arm through the opening and found the inside knob.

  "Damn," he said, pushing against the door.

  "The latch bolt must be rusted." Working his arm in farther to get a better grip, he was straining against the stubborn lock when suddenly it gave. The door flew open with such force that Wesley spilled into the opening, knocking the flashlight out of my hand. It bounced, rolled, and was extinguished by concrete as I was hit by a wall of cold, foul air. In complete darkness, I heard broken glass scrape as Wesley moved.

  "Are you all right?" I blindly inched forward, hands held out in front of me.

  "Benton?"

  "Jesus." He sounded shaky as he got to his feet.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Damn, I can't believe this." His voice moved farther away from me. Glass crunched as he groped along the wall, and what sounded like an empty paint bucket clanged dully as he knocked it with his foot. I squinted when a naked bulb went on overhead, my eyes adjusting to a vision of Benton Wesley dirty and dripping blood.

  "Let me see." I gently took hold of his left wrist as he scanned our surroundings, rather dazed.

  "Benton, we need to get you to a hospital," I said as I examined multiple lacerations on his palm.

  "You've got glass embedded in several of these cuts, and you're going to need stitches."

  "You're a doctor." The handkerchief he wrapped around his hand instantly turned red.

  "You need a hospital," I repeated as I noticed blood spreading darkly through the torn fabric of his left trouser leg.

  "I hate hospitals." Behind his stoicism, pain smoldered in his eyes like fever.

  "Let's look around and get out of this hole. I promise not to bleed to death in the meantime."

  I wondered where the hell Marino was. It did not appear that SBI Agent Ferguson had entered his basement in years. Nor did I see any reason why he should have unless he had a penchant for dust, cobwebs, rusting garden tools, and rotting carpet. Water stained the concrete floor and cinderblock walls, and body parts of crickets told me that legions had lived and died down here. As we wandered corner to corner, we saw nothing to make us suspicious that Emily Steiner had ever been a visitor.

  "I've seen enough," said Wesley, whose bright red trail on the dusty floor had come full circle.

  "Benton, we've got to do something about your bleeding."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "Look that way for a moment." I directed him to turn his back to me. He did not question why as he complied, and I quickly stepped out of my shoes and hiked up my skirt. In seconds, I had my panty hose off.

  "Okay. Let me have your arm," I told him next.

  I tucked it snugly between my elbow and side as any physician in similar circumstances might. But as I wrapped the panty hose around his injured hand, I could feel his eyes on me. I became intensely aware of his breath touching my hair as his arm touched my breast, and a heat so palpable I feared he felt it, too, spread up my neck. Amazed and completely flustered, I quickly finished my improvised dressing of his wounds and backed away.

  "That should hold you until we can get to a place where I can do something more serious." I avoided his eyes.

  "Thank you, Kay."

  "I suppose I should ask where we're going next," I went on in a bland tone that belied my agitation.

  "Unless you're planning on our sleeping in the helicopter."

  "I put Pete in charge of accommodations."

  "You do live dangerously."

  "Usually not this dangerously." He flipped off the light and made no attempt to relock the basement door. The moon was a gold coin cut in half, the sky around it midnight blue, and through branches of far-off trees peeked the lights of Ferguson's neighbors.

  I wondered if any of them knew he was dead. On the street, we found Marino in the front seat of a Black Mountain Police cruiser, smoking a cigarette, a map spread open in his lap. The interior light was on, the young officer behind the wheel no more relaxed than he had seemed
hours earlier when he had picked us up at the football field.

  "What the hell happened to you?" Marino said to Wesley.

  "You decide to punch out a window?"

  "More or less," Wesley replied.

  Marino's eyes wandered from Wesley's pantyhose bandage to my bare legs.

  "Well, well, now ain't that something," he muttered.

  "I wish they'd taught that when I was taking CPR."

  "Where are our bags?" I ignored him.

  "They're in the trunk, ma'am," said the officer.

  "Officer T. C. Baird here's going to be a Good Samaritan and drop us by the Travel-Eze, where yours truly's already taken care of reservations," Marino went on in the same irritating tone.

  "Three deluxe rooms at thirty-nine ninety-nine a pop. I got us a discount because we're cops."

  "I'm not a cop." I looked hard at him. Marino flicked his cigarette butt out the window.

  "Take it easy. Doc. On a good day, you could pass for one. "

  "On a good day, so can you," I answered him.

  "I think I've just been insulted."

  "No, I'm the one who's just been insulted. You know better than to misrepresent me for discounts or any other reason," I said, for I was an appointed government official bound by very clear rules. Marino knew damn well that I could not afford the slightest compromise of scrupulosity, for I had enemies. I had many of them. Wesley opened the cruiser's back door.

  "After you," he quietly said to me. Of Officer Baird he asked, "Do we know anything further about Mote?"

  "He's in intensive care, sir."

  "What about his condition?"

  "It doesn't sound too good, sir. Not at this time." Wesley climbed in next to me, delicately resting his bandaged hand on his thigh. He said, "Pete, we've got a lot of people to talk to around here."

  "Yeah, well, while you two was playing doctor in the basement, I was already working on that." Marino held up a notepad and flipped through pages scribbled with illegible notes.

  "Are we ready to go?" Baird asked.

  "More than ready," Wesley answered, and he was losing patience with Marino, too. The interior light went off and the car moved forward. For a while, Marino, Wesley, and I talked as if the young officer wasn't there as we passed over unfamiliar dark streets, cool mountain air blowing through barely opened windows. We sketched out our strategy for tomorrow morning. I would assist Dr. Jenrette with the autopsy of Max Ferguson while Marino talked to Emily Steiner's mother. Wesley would fly back to Quantico with the tissue from Ferguson's freezer, and the results of these activities would determine what we did next. It was almost two a. m. when we spotted the Travel- Eze Motel ahead of us on U. S. 70, its sign neon yellow against the rolling dark horizon.

  I couldn't have been happier had our quarters been a Four Seasons, until we were informed at the registration desk that the restaurant had closed, room service had ended, and there was no bar. In fact, the clerk advised in his North Carolina accent, at this hour we would be better off looking forward to breakfast instead of looking back at the dinner we had missed.

  "You got to be kidding," Marino said, thunder gathering in his face.

  "If I don't get something to eat my gut's going to turn inside out."

  "I'm mighty sorry, sir." The clerk was but a boy with rosy cheeks and hair almost as yellow as the motel's sign.

  "But the good news is there's vending machines on each floor." He pointed.

  "And a Mr. Zip no more'n a mile from here."

  "Our ride just left." Marino glared at him.

  "What? I'm supposed to walk a mile at this hour to some joint called Mr. Zip?" The clerk's smile froze, fear shining in his eyes like tiny candles as he looked to Wesley and me for reassurance. But we were too worn out to be much help. When Wesley rested his bloody panty-hose wrapped hand on the counter, the lad's expression turned to horror.

  "Sir! Do you need a doctor?" His voice went up an octave and cracked.

  "Just my room key will be fine," Wesley replied. The clerk turned around and nervously lifted three keys from their consecutive hooks, dropping two of them to the carpet. He stooped to pick them up and dropped one of them again. At last, he presented them to us, the room numbers stamped on the attached plastic medallions big enough to read at twenty paces.

  "You ever heard of security in this joint?" Marino said as if he had hated the boy since birth.

  "You're supposed to write the room number on a piece of paper which you privately slip to the guest so every drone can't see where he keeps the wife and Rolex. In case you ain't keeping up with the news, you had a murder real close to here just a couple weeks back." In speechless bewilderment the clerk watched Marino next hold up his key as if it were a piece of incriminating evidence.

  "No minibar key? Meaning forget having a drink in the room at this hour, too?" Marino raised his voice some more.

  "Never mind. I don't want no more bad news." As we followed a sidewalk to the middle of the small motel, TV screens flickered blue and shadows moved behind filmy curtains over plate-glass windows. Alternating red and green doors reminded me of the plastic hotels and homes of Monopoly as we climbed stairs to the second floor and found our rooms. Mine was neatly made and cozy, the television bolted to the wall, water glasses and ice bucket wrapped in sanitary plastic. Marino repaired to his quarters without bidding us good-night, shutting his door just a little too hard.

  "What the hell's eating him?" Wesley asked as he followed me into my room.

  I did not want to talk about Marino, and pulling a chair close to one of the double beds, I said, "Before I do anything we need to clean you up."

  "Not without painkiller." Wesley went out to fill the ice bucket and removed a fifth of Dewar's from his tote bag. He fixed drinks while I spread a towel on the bed and arranged it with forceps, packets of Betadine, and 5-0 nylon sutures.

  "This is going to hurt, isn't it." He looked at me as he took a big swallow of Scotch.

  I put on my glasses and replied, "It's going to hurt like hell. Follow me."

  I headed into the bathroom. For the next several minutes, we stood side by side at the sink while I washed his wounds with warm soapy water. I was as gentle as possible and he did not complain, but I could feel him flinch in the small muscles of his hand. When I glanced at his face in the mirror, he was perspiring and pale. He had five gaping lacerations in his palm.

  "You're just lucky you missed your radial artery," I said.

  "I can't tell you how lucky I feel." Looking at his knee, I added, "Sit here." I lowered the toilet lid.

  "Do you want me to take my pants off?"

  "Either that or we cut them." He sat down.

  "They're ruined anyway." With a scalpel, I sliced through the fine wool fabric of his left trouser leg while he sat very still, his leg fully extended. The cut on his knee was deep, and I shaved around it and washed it thoroughly, placing towels on the floor to blot bloody water dripping everywhere. As I led Wesley back into the bedroom, he limped over to the bottle of Scotch and refilled his glass.

  "And by the way," I told him, "I appreciate the thought, but I don't drink before surgery."

  "I guess I should be grateful," he answered.

  "Yes, you should be." He seated himself on the bed, and I took the chair, moving it close. I tore open foil packets of Betadine and began to swipe his wounds.

  "Jesus," he said under his breath.

  "What is that, battery acid?"

  "It's a topical antibacterial iodine."

  "You keep that in your medical bag?"

  "Yes."

  "I didn't realize first aid was an option for most of your patients."

  "Sadly, it isn't. But I never know when I might need it." I reached for the forceps.

  "Or when someone else at a scene might-like you." I withdrew a sliver of glass and placed it on the towel.

  "I know this may come as a great shock to you. Special Agent Wesley, but I started out my career with living patients."

&nbs
p; "And when did they start dying on you?"

  "Immediately." He tensed as I extracted a very small sliver.

  "Hold still," I said.

  "So what's Marino's problem? He's been a total ass lately."

  I placed two more slivers of glass on the towel and stanched the bleeding with gauze.

  "You'd better take another swallow of your drink."

  "Why?"

  "I've gotten all of the glass."

  "So you're finished and we're celebrating." He sounded the most relieved I had ever heard him.

  "Not quite." I leaned close to his hand, satisfied that I had not missed anything. Then I opened a suture packet.

  "Without Novocain?" he protested.

  "As few stitches as you need to close these cuts, numbing you would hurt as much as the needle," I calmly explained, gripping the needle with the forceps.

  "I'd still prefer Novocain."

  "Well, I don't have any. It might be better if you don't look. Would you like me to turn on the TV?" Wesley stoically stared away from me as he answered between clenched teeth! "Just get it over with." He did not utter a protest while I worked, but as I touched his hand and leg I could feel him tremble. He took a deep breath and began to relax when I dressed his wounds with Neosporin and gauze.

  "You're a good patient." I patted his shoulder as I got up.

  "Not according to my wife."

  I could not remember the last time he had referred to Connie by name. On the rare occasion he mentioned her at all, it was a fleeting allusion to a force he seemed conscious of, like gravity.

  "Let's sit outside and finish our drinks," he said. The balcony beyond my room door was a public one that stretched the entire length of the second floor. At this hour the few guests who might have been awake were too far away to hear our conversation. Wesley arranged two plastic chairs close together. We had no table between us, so he set our drinks and bottle of Scotch on the floor.

  "Do you want more ice?" he asked.