Flesh and Bone: A Body Farm Novel

cocked her head, studying my face. “I think I’ll call you Dr. Bill. I don’t usually enjoy receiving doctor bills, but I feel myself inclined to make an exception in your case.”

She talked like a character out of some Tennessee Williams play, but the dramatic flourishes seemed to fit somehow. I wasn’t sure what all she meant by “receiving,” and I didn’t have the nerve to ask, so I waved the pictures to remind her that I’d asked about them. “So how about it, Miss Georgia,” I said, “do you recognize either version of this fellow?”

She frowned. “No, I can’t say as I do,” she said. “Mind you, he’s not the sort of boy who would catch my eye. I prefer my men to have a little more maturity and experience under their belts.” She looked at me suggestively; in response, I tried raising one eyebrow at her-I’d been practicing Jess’s trick, with occasional success. The half-guilty knowledge that Jess was barely twenty feet away, also armed with the sketch artist’s renderings, made it harder to achieve the needed muscle isolation.

“What about this version, where he’s in drag?”

“Honey, I know I ain’t seen that li’l bitch,” she said, “if you’ll ’scuse my French. Look at that cheap-ass Dolly Parton wig. And that S amp;M bustier? Tha’s some kinda white-trash ho getup. Miss Georgia wouldn’t be caught dead in that.”

“Well, he was,” I said. “Somebody murdered him a couple weeks ago, and we’d like to find out who he was and who killed him.”

“I’d like to find out why he wearin’ that trashy getup,” she said. “He probably killed by the fashion police. A crime of fashion in the first degree.” She laughed again, the peals ringing out above the din of the bar. Just then the lights in the place flickered, briefly, and she glanced at her watch, then laid a hand on my forearm. “Baby, you gots to ’scuse me for just a little bit. Don’t you go ’way, though. I want to come back and hear all about your Ph.D. and your arthropology.”

“Anthropology,” I corrected, but she was already headed through a doorway at the end of the bar.

Suddenly the lights flashed again, then dimmed, and the noise level in the room dropped by a good ten decibels. “Ladies and gentlemen,” an amplified voice boomed from speakers in the ceiling, “Alan Gold’s is proud to present Chattanooga’s favorite entertainer, the one and only Miss Georgia Youngblood!” Many of the people in the bar whistled and whooped and clapped as my new friend, microphone in hand, strutted onto a small stage occupying one end of the room. She curtsied deeply, bending over far enough to expose plenty of cleavage-and to incite a fresh round of cheers. As she straightened up, she half hid her face behind one bare shoulder, feigning shyness. The crowd responded again. She clearly knew what they liked, and she clearly liked giving it to them. Then she shushed them, and I heard a recording of violins fade up on the sound system. A spotlight flicked on, causing Miss Georgia’s mocha skin and glossy hair to glow, and then she began to sing. Her voice started out delicate and tentative, then quickly grew powerful and poignant. “Don’t…know…why There’s no sun up in the skyStormy weather/Since my man and I ain’t together,” she sang. Her voice rang with sadness and longing-a tragic version of the bell-pealing laugh she’d let loose only minutes before.

Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Jess, who had edged through the crowd to me. “Isn’t he great? Most of them just lip-sync, but this one’s really belting it out, isn’t he?”

“He?” I looked at Jess and I saw disbelief, amusement, and pity flash across her face in quick succession. Then the amusement won out over the other expressions.

She leaned close so she could speak softly in my ear. “Oh, Bill. You really didn’t know you were talking to a she-male?”

“A she-male?”

“She-male. Transvestite. Female impersonator. Miss Georgia there has been a local celebrity ever since she burst onto the scene a year or so ago. People drive all the way up from Atlanta to see her.” Jess hoisted an eyebrow at me. “She seemed to be taking quite the shine to you, by the way,” she said. “You must have set your charm-phaser to ‘stun.’ I was about to come over and scratch her eyes out.”

“Oh, stop,” I said. “I was just trying to find out if she’s seen your murder victim.”

“And?”

“Apparently not. She said version A wasn’t the sort of guy she’d notice, and that she had definitely never seen version B’s ‘cheap-ass wig and trashy ho getup,’ if I’m quoting her correctly, on anybody around here. Said he was probably executed by the fashion police. No, sorry: the fashion police,” I corrected myself.

“Miss Georgia does seem to have a good knowledge of the laws of fashion,” Jess said. “She’s a knockout in that gown.” Jess looked down at her own outfit, which consisted of her usual black jeans, topped by an elegant blouse of what I guessed to be blue silk. “Her tits are better than mine, aren’t they? Come on, tell me the truth-I’m a big girl; I can take it.”

I stared at her. Had I had been living in suburbia and the ivory tower far too long? This evening had gotten way too surreal for me.

Up on the stage, Miss Georgia’s torch song was flickering out, her voice getting small again and breaking a bit. “Can’t…go…on/ Everything I had…is gone…” she quavered, sounding as if she meant it from the bottom of a broken heart. “Keeps raining all the time/Keeps raining all of the time.”

The violins faded, and Miss Georgia hung her head and let the microphone drop to her lap. The crowd applauded and cheered wildly. I hesitated, still embarrassed and confused by my stupid mistake. I looked at Jess; as she clapped, she grinned at me and rolled her eyes and shook her head. I found myself grinning back, then laughing out loud at my silliness. Then I found myself clapping so hard my hands hurt.

Miss Georgia performed several more numbers, ranging from a booty-shaking, foot-stomping rendition of “R- E-S-P-E-C-T” to a haunting blues lament. “She cries alone at night too often,” she sang. “He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all/Only women bleed/Only women bleed/Only women bleed.” Somehow those words seemed to take on an added layer of poignancy, coming from a young black man who envisioned himself, for what ever reason, as a woman. On the inside, at least, he was surely bleeding, too.

I still couldn’t claim to understand why a man would want to dress in drag. But I could now intuit at least some of the pain involved in taking that drastic step. My bewilderment was tempered by compassion. And I could even, at least in Miss Georgia’s case, appreciate the stunning results that a willowy frame, a flair for fashion, and an outsized personality could yield.

At the end of the set, the spotlight switched off and the lights in the bar came back up, though not all the way. The gray noise of a hundred conversations ramped up as well, but also to a more subdued level than before. Something about the songs, and the singer, seemed to soften the tone of the entire bar.

“I’m gonna go work the other side of the room,” said Jess. “If you can get your mind off Miss Georgia for a minute, how about talking to these folks around the bar?” Without waiting for an answer, she threaded the crowd and began at a table in the far corner.

I made my way from patron to patron. I got a lot of odd looks, a few lewd propositions, and one pinch on my butt, which was swiftly followed by one of the lewd propositions. Taking a moment to collect myself after that, I scanned the opposite side of the room. I saw Jess engaged in an animated conversation with none other than Miss Georgia. Jess pointed at Miss Georgia’s chest and then at her own, laughing and shaking her head. Then, as I watched in astonishment, Jess reached up and cupped Miss Georgia’s breasts in her hands, giving them an appraising squeeze and admiring nod. A moment later, Miss Georgia returned the gesture, squeezing Jess’s breasts, then fanning herself dramatically.

I didn’t know whether to be amused or jealous. The truth was, I was both.

I checked my watch. It was 2 A.M.-a good three hours past my usual bedtime. It suddenly felt much later. It suddenly felt too late for me.

CHAPTER 14

THE CHATTANOOGA MEDICAL EXAMINER’S office occupied a small building on Amnicola Highway, several miles northeast of downtown. Unlike the Regional Forensic Center in Knoxville, which was part of UT Medical Center, Jess Carter’s facility was a freestanding structure, a nondescript, discreetly labeled rectangle of