“Any good close-ups of unburned grass?”
“Well, we weren’t actually focusing on the grass as a murder weapon,” he said. “We took close-ups of the burned cigarette butts under the driver’s window, but the grass in that area was burned, obviously.” He frowned, then he brightened. “We do have wide shots that show the whole circle of burned grass, including the unburned grass around the edges. Come to think of it,” he added, “one of them shows a uniformed officer standing in the field. The grass comes up about yea high on him.” He bent down and sliced a hand across his lower leg, midway between the knee and the foot. As he did, the tops of the Ag field’s grass grazed his fingers.
I grinned. “Jason, you took a bunch of pictures of the first couple experiments, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yessir, Dr. B.,” he said. “I’ve got probably three hundred. I filled up the memory card on my camera, and it holds a gigabyte.”
“A jury’ll like this,” I said.
“I sure like it,” said Cash.
CHAPTER 18
THE PHONE RANG THE NEXT MORNING, JUST AS I WAS hoisting a spoonful of Raisin Bran to my mouth. I had the newspaper open to the comics; the combination of crisp cereal and corny cartoons was my favorite way to start the day. I looked at the clock on the wall above the stove; it read seven-thirty. “Well, damn,” I said-not because it was early (I’d been up since six) but because the cereal was sure to be soggy by the time I got off the phone. I figured it must be Jeff, Miranda, or Art calling.
“Turn on CNN right now,” said Art, and hung up.
I stared at the phone as if further enlightenment might be forthcoming from the dead receiver in my hand. When none came, I went to the living room and switched on the TV, flipping to channel 22, CNN. The screen was filled with an aerial view of a patch of pine forest, filmed from a circling helicopter. The woods framed a clearing containing a brick ranch house, a garage, a couple of ramshackle sheds, and a small garage-type building with a rusted flue projecting from the roof. The clearing was filled with law-enforcement vehicles, a few black-and-white cruisers and SUVs, but mostly the unmarked Town Cars and Crown Victorias favored by the FBI and their state-level counterparts. The caption crawling across the bottom of the screen read, “
I found the scrap of paper where I had written Burt DeVriess’s cell-phone number-a number he’d never given me when I was his client, only after I took his Aunt Jean’s case. He sounded sleepy and pissed off.
“Hello?”
“Burt, Bill Brockton. Turn on CNN right now,” I said. Then I hung up with a smile, probably just as Art had.
My phone rang five minutes later, just after CNN cut to a commercial break. It was DeVriess. “Damn, Doc,” he said, “when you take a case, things happen. I should’ve teamed up with you years ago.”
“You were too busy busting my chops on the witness stand,” I said. “Anyhow, maybe now that it’s out in the open, those folks will be held accountable.”
“I can promise you they’ll be held accountable,” he said. “I’m dedicating the full resources of this law firm to holding them accountable.”
The full resources of the firm, as far as I knew, were Burt and Chloe. But then again, the full resources of the firm had rounded up the video expert who’d cleared me of Jess’s murder. Even so, Burt’s declaration struck me as odd. “You’re a criminal defense attorney, Burt, not a prosecutor,” I pointed out. “You
“Mostly,” he said. “But I’ve decided to branch out-try my hand in the civil courts, as a plaintiff’s attorney.”
“Plaintiff’s attorney? You’re going to start suing people?”
“I believe so,” he said. “And now seems like a good time to dip a toe in the water.”
“You’re going to sue the crematorium for not cremating your aunt?”
“My aunt and a whole bunch of other folks.”
A lightbulb flickered on above my head. “Ah. A class-action lawsuit. But how you gonna track down all the families of these people?”
“I won’t have to,” he said. “They’ll track me down.”
“How will they know to do that?”
“You forgetting what a master of the media I am, Doc?”
I had a quick flashback to the press conference Burt had held-had orchestrated, scripted, and choreographed-the moment the video expert had found the evidence that cleared me of Jess’s murder. “Silly me,” I said. “What was I thinking? You’ll probably be on
“Before you do,” Burt said, “can I ask you for another favor?”
“You can always ask,” I said.
“I know you must have called in some markers to set those wheels in motion down in Georgia,” he said.
“I’ve helped a few people in law enforcement over the years,” I said. “They’re pretty willing to help me in return, if they can. Besides, it was the right thing to do.”
“Whatever string you pulled down there to blow the lid off that thing-any chance you could tug on it one more time?”
I felt my guard go up, knowing he was probably already laying plans for a class-action suit that could net him millions in contingency fees. “What do you want, Burt?”
“I want my Aunt Jean, Doc,” he said. “I know she’s one of those three hundred bodies they’re hauling out of the woods. It’s gonna kill my Uncle Edgar to find out how she was treated. If there’s any way you can go back down there and find her, so we can get her home and try to set this thing right, I’d be forever grateful.”
The request surprised me, and impressed me. “I’ll see, Burt,” I said, “but I can’t promise anything. Everybody who ever sent a loved one there is going to be clamoring to get in, you know.”
“I know,” he said. “But you’re the guy who uncovered the truth.”
“I’ll see, Burt,” I repeated. “That’s all I can do.”
“I understand. Thanks, Doc. I ’preciate you.”
CHAPTER 19
WHEN I DIALED SEAN RICHTER, I GOT HIS PAGER, which didn’t surprise me. Sean would have his hands full, and then some, for quite a while. During their first day’s search of the woods surrounding the crematorium, the GBI and FBI evidence teams had found nearly three hundred bodies and skeletons. Recovering them could take weeks; identifying them could take months, if not years. DMORT had brought in a couple of inflatable morgues, and the GBI had trucked in a small fleet of refrigerated trailers to house the bodies while they figured out how to process them. My guess was they’d end up building a massive new morgue and DNA lab dedicated to this one case.
The gruesome scene in the Georgia backwoods was the lead story on every major television network, wire service, and Internet news site in the country. It was also, I learned from the stack of printouts Miranda had put on my desk, the topic of dozens of international headlines-variations on the theme of “Americans are barbarians,” many of them. Atop the stack Miranda had left a sticky note:
Sean returned my page within ten minutes, which did surprise me. “I didn’t think you’d get a chance to call me back for…oh, about ten or twenty years.”
“It’s a zoo,” he said, “and it’ll stay that way for a long time. But since you’re the one who steered us to this, I figure if you page me, I return the call. You’re number three on my priority list, right after the GBI director and my
