The Devil's Bones

CHAPTER 13

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 amp; 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 amp; 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.”