Without Mercy

by Jefferson Bass

  “There you go. You, too, might qualify as a race traitor, Dr. Brockton. Better watch your back.” I sensed that she was joking. Or hoped so, at any rate.

  “Takes one to know one,” I countered, and she chuckled. Whistling past the graveyard, I thought. Both of us. I also thought, Takes a graveyard whistler to know a graveyard whistler.

  After I finished talking with Laurie, I dialed Sheriff O’Conner. He answered after the first ring. “Sheriff, it’s Bill Brockton,” I said. “I’ve got some interesting news. Two ways of skinning the same cat. First, I reconstructed a femur from our victim, using the pieces I fished out of the scat Waylon brought me.”

  “And you were able to put it back together? I’m impressed. I figured he was like Humpty Dumpty and couldn’t be fixed.”

  “It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough to shed some light. The femur’s shape differs slightly from one race to another. In Native Americans and Asians, the front of the bone tends to be curved. Also in whites, though not as much. But in blacks, it’s almost straight. From that Confederate coin, I would’ve bet that this one would be straight. But I think I just lost that bet.”

  “So you’re saying our victim wasn’t black?”

  “I can’t be sure—there’s plenty of room for individual skeletal variations, and this is just a reconstruction, so I wouldn’t put a huge amount of faith in its accuracy. But there’s a second thing. A measurement from another bone—a shinbone—also seems to tip the scales toward white. So just guessing, which is all I can do at this point, I’d guess we’re not looking at a white-on-black hate crime.”

  O’Conner was silent a long while. Finally I heard him take a deep breath, then blow it out. “Well, looks like we’re back to square one,” he said. “I’ll tell Morgan and Waylon. And we’ll go back to beating the bushes on the white side of the tracks.”

  “A whole lot more foliage on that side,” I said. “Up in Cooke County, anyhow.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Tell me about it, Doc.”

  I hung up, more frustrated than I could remember feeling in a long time. It was maddening, not knowing something as simple as the race of our victim—and not being likely to know for nearly eight weeks. In my mind’s eye, I saw the bone sample I had sent to the TBI crime lab sitting, overlooked and forgotten and gathering dust, while other samples, and other cases, raced ahead.

  Patience, Brockton, I counseled myself. Eight weeks isn’t that long. It’ll go by in the blink of an eye.

  Bullshit, retorted a far less serene, far more honest version of myself.

  CHAPTER 11

  “DELIA ANSELMETTI,” ANSWERED A WARM VOICE.

  “Good morning,” I said. “It’s Dr. Brockton. How’s my newest assistant professor?”

  “I’m good. Mostly settled in, except for some of the lab equipment, and enjoying my students.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Are you in your dingy old office, or your shiny new lab?”

  “I’m in the office. If you shout, I can probably hear you even without the phone.”

  That was true; Delia’s office was only a half-dozen doors down from my administrative office, where I’d started my day. “I’d hate to shout at you, since I’m asking for a favor. Can I pop in and see you for a minute?”

  “Sure. I have to teach a class in ten minutes, but come on down. Even if we don’t get to finish, we can at least get started.”

  “I’m on my way.” I hung up the phone, made a quick exit from my office, and took a right turn down the corridor.

  Sometimes Stadium Hall reminded me of the interior of a space station, its curving hallway—bent by the arc of Neyland Stadium’s grandstands, beneath which a wedge-shaped building had been shoehorned—calling to mind the gigantic space wheels spinning through the fantasies of sci-fi films and early NASA visionaries.

  At other times, though, the building’s lopsided configuration, with rooms lining only one side of the corridor, called to mind the image of a giant brain that was lacking one of its hemispheres. Since I was walking counterclockwise from my office—from south to north, along the stadium’s southeastern rim—it appeared to be the brain’s left hemisphere that had been removed, leaving behind only a solid wall of reinforced concrete, whose vast beige expanse was enlivened only by a few outdated bulletin boards and large, fading academic posters, dense with text, graphs, and tables.

  On my way to Delia’s, I passed three of these posters, which had been presented at academic conferences by job-seeking graduate students in recent years. “Morphological Variations in the Acromium Process” was the first thrilling title. “Weight Gain in Third-Instar Maggots at the Anthropology Research Facility,” offered the second poster. Or, Eating More and Enjoying It Less, I mentally subtitled that one. “Synthetic Training Aids for Cadaver Dogs,” read the third one. “What Is the Optimal Ratio of Cadaverine and Putrescine?” Doggone if I know, I silently responded.

  Just beyond the third poster was Delia’s office, the door ajar. I knocked, heard “Come in,” and did as I was told.

  Delia Anselmetti had the olive complexion, dark hair, and dark eyes that her Italian name seemed to call for. Even her office seemed Mediterranean: unlike most of the drab, beige walls in Stadium Hall, Delia’s were a warm reddish orange, as if by stepping through her doorway, I had suddenly been transported to a room in Venice or Florence. Delia’s education and expertise were exotic, too, at least to me. A molecular anthropologist, she had focused on biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, statistics, and computer modeling—courses that only slightly overlapped my own background and interests in archaeology, anatomy, osteology, skeletal trauma, and forensics. Scarcely older than Miranda, and only just embarking on her career, Delia represented a new generation of anthropologists, a generation I admired for their scientific savvy, even as I struggled to keep up with their conversations and publications.

  “Your office looks great,” I said. “I didn’t realize the Physical Plant folks offered any colors but hospital beige and UT Orange.”

  She flushed slightly. “Actually, I painted it myself—my husband and I—the weekend I moved into the office. Seemed crazy to move everything in, then have to move everything out again so they could paint it later. And duller.”

  “I approve,” I said. “You want something done right—or done fast—you sometimes have to do it yourself.” I got straight to the point, not wanting to make her late for class. “Except when you can’t do it yourself. Which is why I’m hoping you can help me. I’m wondering if you could run a DNA analysis for me.”

  She frowned. “I’d be glad to, but the forensic DNA lab isn’t finished yet. They’re still installing the air-handling equipment. It’s almost like we’re building a clean room for NASA. The standards for forensic work—”

  I held up a hand to interrupt her. “I’m not after something that would be admissible in court,” I explained. “Here’s my problem. I’ve got a murder victim that I can’t identify. I can’t even tell what race he was.”

  If possible, she looked even more uncomfortable. “When you say race, do you mean geographic and genetic ancestry, or cultural identity?”

  Oh, crap, I thought, here we go again, remembering Miranda’s discomfort with my mention of “race” at the death scene. The three-race model still struck me as simple and useful—useful to me, and useful to law enforcement. In recent years, however, “race” had come to be hotly debated among anthropologists, and in some circles, simply saying the word was like waving a red flag, an invitation to a shouting match or a shaming.

  “Let me ask another way,” I said. “I can’t identify this young man—I know his sex and his approximate age, but nothing else. I’ve got no skull; I don’t even have an intact femur. When I log onto the Department of Justice website and search the Missing Persons database, DOJ tells me that thirteen hundred young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five are missing. Two-thirds of those are described by DOJ as ‘white,’ one-sixth are listed as ‘black’ or �
��African American,’ a few dozen as Asian, another few dozen as Native American, and a couple hundred as ‘other’ or ‘unsure.’ My initial guess had been that my victim would be categorized as black, because the murder shows some signs of being a hate crime.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “We found a Confederate coin at the scene. We suspect it belonged to the killer, so we’re thinking—or we were thinking, until just now—that he might belong to the Klan or some other white-supremacist hate group. Now, though, I’m not at all sure that the victim is African American. So it would help us a lot—me, the TBI, and the poor little Cooke County Sheriff’s Office—if we didn’t have to chase down all thirteen hundred of those missing-person leads.” She nodded slowly. “So could you run a quick DNA test, Delia? Maybe narrow it down to one of those missing-person categories—white, black, Asian, whatever way you can match the genetics with the law enforcement descriptions? Again, it’s not for court. Just to help focus the investigation.”

  “If that’s all you need, I probably can. If the DNA’s not too degraded. Can you spare a tooth? That would give me the best shot at an intact, uncontaminated sample.”

  I shook my head. “No skull, remember? And no scattered teeth. But I could cut a cross section from a long-bone shaft—a femur, or a humerus. That’s next best, right?”

  “Actually, no.” She hesitated, as if she felt awkward about correcting me. “If you’ve got a tarsal or metatarsal or phalange—any little bone from the hands or feet—that’s probably a better source.” Seeing my surprise, she shrugged. “I know, I know, the conventional wisdom used to be that heavy cortical bone—the shaft of a femur or humerus—would protect the DNA better than anything except tooth enamel. But turns out it doesn’t.” Still dubious, I raised my eyebrows, so she went on. “That’s something we learned from the team that identified victims from the World Trade Center after 9/11. They analyzed something like twenty thousand fragments for DNA—many of them not even an inch in size—and the best DNA recovery rate came from finger bones and toe bones.”

  “I’ll be,” I said. “Live and learn.”

  Delia’s phone gave a soft chime. “Oh dear,” she said, “I’m late for class.”

  “Sorry to keep you,” I said, backing through the doorway. “Blame it on your boss.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.” She smiled, which I took as a sign that she wouldn’t be too harsh in assigning blame.

  “There’ll be a finger bone in your mailbox before your class lets out,” I said, as she emerged and closed her door. “Special delivery. And thanks.”

  “Happy to help the team.”

  I started toward my office, and she headed the opposite direction. “Happy to have you on it,” I called over my shoulder. “Even if you make me feel like a dinosaur.”

  CHAPTER 12

  I WAS FINALLY NEARING THE BOTTOM OF MY IN-BOX, having spent all afternoon sorting, signing, rerouting, delegating, and shredding, interrupting my labors periodically to grouse through the doorway at Peggy, to whom I jokingly—or half jokingly—assigned the blame for all the drudge work.

  Miranda appeared in the doorway of my administrative office. “You look miserable,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” I snarled. “I’m having the time of my life.”

  “Here,” she said, sliding a large red-and-black envelope across the desktop. “Maybe this’ll cheer you up.”

  “What is it? A new, condensed version of your dissertation? Not your resignation, I hope?”

  “Neither,” she laughed. “It’s a Netflix DVD. The Revenant.”

  “You own this?”

  She gave me a puzzled look. “What century do you live in? No, I don’t own it. It’s Netflix.” She saw the blank look on my face. “Oh, good grief. Netflix. It’s like . . . son of Blockbuster and FedEx. By way of Match.com.”

  “Huh?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. Forget all that. Let me start over. Netflix is an online movie service. You pay a monthly fee, you order movies off the website, and they show up in your mailbox the next day.”

  “How can they do it so fast?”

  “The wonders of technology. You do know what a DVD is, right?” I scowled. “And you have the means to play a DVD?”

  “Depends on the format,” I said. “Is it a clay tablet, or carved in stone?”

  “Point taken,” she said, turning and waving good-bye on her way out. “Enjoy.”

  I opened the envelope and slid out the silvery disk. Unlike the DVDs I had at home—Shakespeare in Love and The Princess Bride and a handful of others Kathleen had bought years before for herself or for “us” (she claimed) or for the grandkids—this was not encased in hard plastic. Instead, it was simply tucked into a slippery Tyvek sleeve. Was that enough to protect it from the abuses of the U.S. Postal Service? It didn’t appear broken or scratched, so perhaps so. Was the disk itself just like the highly packaged ones in my living room, or was this some new format that my aging DVD player wouldn’t be able to handle? I had no idea.

  I heard a rustle in the outer office. “Peggy? Are you still here?”

  “Just leaving,” she said, appearing in the doorway, one arm through the sleeve of her jacket.

  “Do you know about Netflix?”

  “I do,” she said. “And the automobile, and the aeroplane, and Mr. Bell’s telephone.”

  “You’re as bad as Miranda,” I grumbled.

  “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she beamed.

  “Do you belong, or subscribe, or whatever?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” She raised her eyebrows. “I mean, everybody under ninety-five?”

  “Ha ha. So this is just a regular old DVD, right? I can play it in the antique DVD player I have at home?”

  “Sure. Or you can play it in your computer, if you’d rather.”

  “My home computer?”

  “Your home computer. Your work computer. Any computer with a DVD drive.”

  I looked at the monitor sitting on my desk. “I can watch movies on this?”

  “I wouldn’t make a habit of it—you’re always behind on your paperwork as it is—but yes, of course,” she said. “Just pop it in the drive, and the DVD player should boot up automatically.”

  “Are you sure?” Instead of answering, she simply gestured at the machine, a try-it-and-see look in her eyes.

  Bending beneath the desk, I touched a button on the computer’s housing, and a thin tray slid open. Placing the disk in the tray’s circular recess, I nudged the drawer gently and it slid shut. A moment later, I heard the disk spooling up and saw the computer monitor go black, then bright green, with white words:

  THE FOLLOWING PREVIEW HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR APPROPRIATE AUDIENCES BY THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC.

  “Amazing,” I said.

  “What’s the movie?”

  “The Revenant. Fun with bears and Indians, apparently.”

  “So I hear,” she said. “Shall I go put some popcorn in the microwave?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, sure,” I said, leaning down to eject the disk.

  “Don’t start without me,” she said. “I’ll be back in three minutes.”

  I looked up, surprised, my finger poised above the eject button. “Sorry, what?”

  “I said don’t start without me. The popcorn takes three minutes. I’ll grab some Cokes, too.”

  “Oh.” This was a wrinkle. I hadn’t planned to watch the movie here; I’d planned to watch it at home, in my comfortable recliner. In my comfortable, empty house. Alone. Oh, what the hell, I thought. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll pause it when the FBI copyright warning comes up. Wouldn’t want you to miss that.”

  “I’ve seen some movies where that was the most exciting scene,” she deadpanned as she headed toward the hallway to fetch the refreshments.

  “LOOKS LIKE A RAIN FOREST,” PEGGY REMARKED AS the film’s opening scene began, the camera tracking hunters sloshing through swampy woodlands, gloomy b
eneath towering conifers. “I thought you said the Arikara lived in the Great Plains.”

  “They did,” I said. “At least, the ones I dug up did. South Dakota and North Dakota. This looks more like Montana. Or Oregon.”

  Soon, the shot widened to show us that the sloshing hunters were white men, one of them a bearded, filthy, but recognizable Leonardo DiCaprio. “Maybe the hunters are lost,” Peggy offered. “Or maybe they track their prey all the way to the Plains.”

  “Shh,” I said.

  A few minutes later, the Arikara made their entrance, which they announced by shooting an arrow through the back of a running white man—a running white man who was, for some reason, buck naked. Peggy started and gasped when the arrow plowed into him and emerged halfway from his chest, just before he fell. An instant later, an Indian war party on horseback, whooping and unleashing a hail of bullets and arrows, galloped down a slope and surrounded the band of white trappers, unleashing swift, brutal death. “I thought you said the Arikara were farmers,” Peggy said. “And sedentary.”

  “They were,” I said. “At least, the ones I dug up.”

  “I thought you said they didn’t have horses or guns.”

  “Artistic license,” I said. “Now shh.”

  Miraculously, DiCaprio—or, rather, ace wilderness scout Hugh Glass, whom DiCaprio was portraying—managed to survive the slaughter, along with a dozen other men, including Glass’s half-Pawnee son. Racing to their boat, hauling heavy bundles of animal pelts, they pushed off and beat a hasty retreat downriver, the Indians continuing to lob arrows at the boat until it was out of range.

  But we were only ten minutes into a three-hour movie, so clearly the trappers weren’t out of the woods yet. Knowing the Indians would surely race downstream to ambush them, Glass persuaded them to ditch the boat and head overland instead, angling toward the nearest fort. The battered group made camp, and Glass went hunting alone, seeking food for the group. That’s when his troubles began, for Glass had the misfortune to come between a mother grizzly and her two cubs. Distracted by the cubs, Glass didn’t see the mother charging until it was too late to get off a shot.