The Devil's Bones

under me.

She reddened. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I mean. We should have stood by you. I should have stood by you. I was wrong, and I apologize. It might be too little, too late, but it’s all I can do at this point. Even attorneys sometimes need-what was it you said? — understanding and occasional forgiveness. But I was harsh when you were on the ropes, I know, and forgiveness might be too much to ask.” She glanced down at her sleek black pumps, then turned to go.

“Amanda?” She stopped in the doorway and looked back at me. “I understand why you suspended me. I didn’t like it-still don’t-but I do understand it. Now I’ll try to work on the forgiveness part.” I stepped toward her and held out my hand.

She shook it and said, “Thank you.” And then she was gone, leaving only the brisk echo of her heels in the hallway. That and the ghost of Jess Carter in my office.

CHAPTER 3

THREE HOURS AFTER MY EXCHANGE WITH UT’S TOP legal eagle, a hawkish young prosecutor-Constance Creed was her name-looked up from a yellow notepad, adjusted her glasses, and took a step toward the witness box where I sat. “Isn’t it true, Dr. Brockton, that there had been conflict between yourself and Dr. Hamilton for quite some time?”

“I’m not sure I would characterize it as conflict,” I said.

“How would you characterize it, then?”

“I disagreed with the conclusions of one of his autopsy reports,” I said. She waited, seeming to expect me to say something more, so I did. “And I expressed those disagreements.”

She closed the distance between us and leaned forward, her face no more than two feet from mine. I shifted in the straight-backed chair and wished I could not smell the onions she’d eaten at lunch. She wore Coke-bottle glasses, the lenses round and a quarter inch thick at the edges; instead of magnifying her eyes, the concave lenses made them appear small and beady. “You ‘expressed’ those disagreements?” She removed the glasses and glared at me. As nearsighted as she must be, I knew that the gesture was purely for effect, and I wondered how blurry my features appeared to her. I briefly considered making a face at her, to see if she’d even notice, but decided that the outcome of the experiment could get unpleasant if she did notice. Creed’s eyes were an icy blue, and even without the distortion of the lenses her pupils were barely the size of buckshot. “Wouldn’t it be more accurate, sir, to say you destroyed Dr. Hamilton’s reputation as a medical examiner?”

“No, I don’t think-”

“Did you or did you not testify against Dr. Hamilton in the case of Billy Ray Ledbetter?”

“No, I didn’t testify against Dr. Hamilton.”

“No? I have a copy of the hearing transcript, and it quotes you at length. Was that another forensic anthropologist named Dr. William Brockton?”

“No, that was me testifying,” I said, resisting the urge to mirror her sarcasm. “But I wasn’t testifying against Dr. Hamilton; I was describing an experiment. I tried to reproduce what Dr. Hamilton had described as a stab wound that killed Billy Ray Ledbetter. It wasn’t possible to reproduce it-a rigid knife blade couldn’t make the wound he described.” As I spoke, I used one hand to demonstrate the zigs and zags that Hamilton’s theory would have required. “My testimony disproved Dr. Hamilton’s theory, but I wasn’t attacking him. I was just reporting my research results.”

“Just ‘reporting your research results,’” she said sarcastically.

“And were you also just ‘reporting your research results’ when you told the state board of medical examiners that Dr. Hamilton’s conclusions ‘violated the laws of physics and metallurgy’? Would you call that objective, scientific reporting?”

“I probably wouldn’t use that phrase in a peer-reviewed journal article, but the fact remains-”

“The fact I’m interested in,” she interrupted, “is who initiated the contact between you and the board of medical examiners-the board or you?”

I felt myself redden. “I think maybe I did.”

“You think? Maybe? Do you consider it a trivial matter to call a physician’s competence into question? A matter not even worth remembering?”

“No, I-”

“I’ll ask you once more, then. Who initiated the contact, the board or you?”

“I did.”

“So you could ‘report your research results’ to them, too? Are all anthropologists so eager to report their research results?”

Something in me snapped then. “Damn it,” I said, “Dr. Hamilton nearly sent a man to prison for a murder the guy didn’t commit. A murder no one committed, because it wasn’t a murder. That-that-is not a trivial matter, Ms. Creed. And I am not the one on trial for killing Jess Carter.”

She leveled a finger at me, almost as if she were aiming a gun. “But you nearly were, weren’t you, Doctor?”

“Okay, stop right there,” I said.

“You were the prime suspect, weren’t you, Doctor? In fact, initially you were charged with killing her, weren’t you?”

“I said stop!”

“How did it feel, Doctor, to get off the hook for the murder and be able to point the finger at Dr. Hamilton?”

“Enough!” I shouted, leaping to my feet. “I loved Jess Carter, and I will not…How dare you…” My voice failed me, and I put a hand over my eyes.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, warm and steady. “I’m sorry, Dr. Brockton,” I heard her say, suddenly sounding human and pained. “I hate to put you through the wringer. But believe me, this is gentle compared to what Hamilton’s attorney will do next week during the trial. When he gets up to cross-examine you, he will go for your throat like an attack dog. You’re our key witness, so the defense will do everything they can to undermine you, throw you off balance, make you mad.”

I looked up, and she met my gaze steadily, compassionately. Her eyes didn’t look beady now; they just looked tired, from years spent straining to see the world through a wall of glass and the darkness of crime. “God, this is hard,” I said. I fished out my handkerchief, wiped my face, and blew my nose.

“I know,” she said, “and I wish I could tell you it’ll get easier. But it won’t.”

Great, I thought, nothing like an encouraging word.

“Think of this as a scrimmage, or maybe war games, so you’re mentally prepared for the real thing. You were doing great till right there at the end. It’s okay to get sad on the stand. Just don’t get mad. If you get mad, you’re playing their game. They’ll make you look vindictive, and they’ll make him look like a victim.”

“But there’s a recording of him admitting he killed Jess. A recording of him bragging about killing Jess.”

“They’ll try to suppress that. Or undermine it any way they can. Besides, it’s a recording, and a pretty scratchy one to boot. Your testimony will carry a lot more weight with the jurors than that. So roll with the punches and hang on to your temper, for God’s sake. For Dr. Carter’s sake.”

We sparred a few more rounds, the prosecutor and I. Finally, after two hours of rolling with the punches of her mock cross-examination, I was allowed to step down from the witness stand she’d set up in the practice courtroom. I left the City-County Building and headed along Neyland Drive feeling jangled and unsettled. It wasn’t until I found myself taking the Cherokee Trail exit off Alcoa Highway that I realized I wasn’t heading back to my office but to the Body Farm. Even after I realized that, it took a moment longer to grasp why I was headed there.

There were no other cars in the distant corner of the hospital employees’ parking lot that bordered the research facility. The chain-link gate was locked, as was the high wooden gate within. Even so, after letting myself in, I called out to make sure I had the place to myself. When I was certain of that, I locked the gate behind me and