Flesh and Bone: A Body Farm Novel

air had turned almost opaque with steam, almost solid, despite the exhaust fan I had switched on. When the effort to stand became too much, I switched off the water, wrapped my bright pink self in an oversize towel, and staggered into the bedroom. I fished a fresh pair of boxers from the top drawer of my dresser, sat heavily onto the bed, and laboriously threaded my feet through the waistband and leg openings. It took everything I had to stand back up and pull the shorts to my waist. As I bent to fold back the bedspread and top sheet, I could feel my eyelids drooping lower and lower.

And then I came wide awake, as heart-poundingly awake as I had ever been in my life. My white pillowcase was covered with blood. I stared at it, then yanked back the covers all the way to the foot of the bed. Both sheets were drenched in blood as well-mostly dried, but not entirely. And in the center of the bed was a pair of women’s pan ties.

Even before the thought coalesced into words, I knew they were Jess Carter’s pan ties. I also knew that I was about to be arrested for her murder.

I stumbled out to my living room and hit the REDIAL button on the phone there, which I had used to call Evers before my shower. “Evers,” he answered.

“This is Dr. Brockton again,” I said. My voice sounded distant and thready to me. “I think you need to send a forensic team out here to my house right now.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Doc, but I’m not sure there’s any point,” he said. “If we’re really lucky, we might be able to lift a latent print from that rock or the note. But that’s a long shot. Beyond that, I doubt there’s anything for us to find.”

“This isn’t about the rock,” I said. “Or the note. There’s blood in my bed. A lot of blood. And a pair of women’s pan ties.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Then Evers said, “Where are you now? Are you still in the bedroom?” I told him I had come into the living room to call him. “You stay right where you are,” he said. “Sit down and don’t move.”

“Okay, I won’t,” I said, and he hung up.

I needed to think, but I didn’t feel capable of it on my own. Call Art, was all I could come up with. When he answered, I told him about the bloody sheets and the pan ties, and about the homicide detective and forensic team racing toward my house right now. He was silent.

Finally he said, “Somebody is setting you up big-time.” He paused again. “Did you talk to DeVriess?”

“Yes. I just left his office an hour or two ago.”

“Did he give you his cell number?”

“I think it’s on the card he gave me.”

“Call him. You should’ve called him first.”

“My instincts just took over. The police were my first instinct. You were my second. Art, will they arrest me to night?”

“Doubt it. Not to night. You’re going to be kinda hot for them to handle, being a forensic legend and all. They’ll take this to the DA, and the DA will take it to the grand jury. But the Knox County grand jury meets three times a week, so they could take it to the grand jury tomorrow, and there could be a warrant for your arrest within a couple days. You were in a relationship with her; you were the one who found her body-at your locked research facility, no less; and now, there’s blood and clothing at your house that suggest she was killed there.”

“That’s not all,” I said miserably. “Evers claims to have a surveillance videotape that shows my truck entering the facility three hours before I found the body and called the police.”

He was silent for an agonizingly long time. “This looks bad, Bill. The dumbest cop on the force could persuade a grand jury there’s probable cause at this point. And Evers ain’t the dumbest cop on the force. Hang up and call Grease right now.”

I did. He cursed when I told him the police were on their way. “Dammit, Doc, I wish you’d called me first. We could have figured out a better way to handle this. Okay, they’re going to ask for your consent to search your house. Do not consent. You probably need to allow them to enter and retrieve the sheets from your bedroom, but tell them that’s all they’re allowed to do without a warrant. They won’t have any trouble getting a warrant, but at least it holds them off for a few hours. They’re also gonna want to question you pretty hard. Tell them I’ll meet you downtown at KPD. Do not-do not, not, not-answer any questions without me by your side. Promise me you will not.”

“Okay. I promise.”

“See you there.” And then he hung up.

Moments later I heard the siren. It gave voice to something inside me-a rising wail of grief and rage and fear. The siren crescendoed as beacons of blue light began strobing through my windows, and then it died away. But the wail inside me did not.

CHAPTER 31

IT WAS 4 A.M., and I was so exhausted my entire body seemed to be humming like a high-voltage power line. DeVriess and I had been cooling our heels for two hours in the same KPD interview room where I’d already spent several hours earlier today. Only “today” had blurred into “yesterday.” Or “tomorrow” had smeared into “today.” It was as if I were trapped in a nightmare from which there was no waking. I imagined Rod Serling’s metallic voice narrating how even the most respectable life could unravel in a heartbeat… here…in the Twilight Zone.

Finally the door banged open and Evers walked in carry ing a file folder. He was still wearing the same outfit he’d worn eighteen hours ago-so was I, for that matter-but the starch had gone out of his shirt, and the man himself looked as rumpled and tired as his clothes did.

He went through the usual routine with the tape recorder, then said, “Tell me about the sheets. Whose blood is that on the sheets? Whose pan ties are those?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but my guess is, Jess Carter’s.”

“The blood, or the pan ties?”

“Both, I suspect. Again, I’m just guessing, but I’d say they’re probably from the same person. And my guess is they’re from Jess.”

“You say you guess they’re hers. Do you know they’re hers?”

“No, I don’t. But I do know that somebody killed Jess and put her body at my research facility, and I know that somebody put bloody sheets on my bed. Adding those two things together, I figure somebody’s trying mighty hard to make me look guilty.”

“Any idea why somebody might want to do that?”

“I’ve helped put a lot of people behind bars,” I said. “Could be somebody just got out of prison and wants to get even with me. Jess has helped-Jess had helped-put a lot of people behind bars, too. Could be somebody wanted to kill Jess, and I just happen to be a convenient scapegoat. Maybe Mrs. Willis, who attacked Jess in my office. Maybe Jess’s ex-husband. Maybe somebody from that creationist group-whoever threatened Jess last week and threw a rock through my window today.”

“So what you’re saying is, people are lining up to frame you for murder, is that right, Dr. Brockton? The whole world’s out to get you?”

DeVriess spoke up. “Detective, you asked my client why somebody might want to make him look guilty. He has given you a reasonable answer to that question. If you’re going to start browbeating him, we’re out of here.”

Evers sighed like a long-suffering saint. “All right, tell me the exact sequence of events when you arrived home this evening. Last night, rather.” I did. “Where did you sleep the night before-the night after Dr. Carter’s body was discovered?”

“At home. In my bed.”

“On those sheets?”

“I don’t know. The sheets I slept on two nights ago weren’t bloody. I don’t know if somebody replaced those