with a bloody set sometime after that, or if somebody smeared blood on those same sheets after I slept on them.” I thought of something. “That blood didn’t look completely dry to me, Detective. Some of it was still bright red. If Dr. Carter was killed in my bed sometime Saturday or Sunday, the blood would have been dry and brown by Monday night.”
“That’s a good point, Detective,” DeVriess chimed in.
“Not necessarily,” said Evers. “That’s a heavy bedspread. Thick enough to keep in the moisture for days. I’ve seen that happen before.” Evers opened the file folder and pulled out a form I recognized as an autopsy report. I also recognized Garland Hamilton’s handwriting on it. “Dr. Brockton, do you own a handgun?”
“No. I’ve never felt the need to have one. The director of the TBI tried to issue me one once, but I turned it down. When I’m working at a crime scene, I’m usually down on my hands and knees, my butt in the air and my nose to the ground. I wouldn’t see somebody sneaking up on me in time to shoot them. Besides, I’m usually surrounded by armed police officers.”
“What about for protection at home?”
“A lot of people end up getting shot with their own guns. Don’t have one, never have, don’t expect I ever will.”
“So when we search your house-and we’ll have that search warrant within the hour-you’re saying there’s no chance we’ll find the gun that killed Dr. Carter.”
A horrible thought occurred to me, and it must have occurred to DeVriess at the same moment. “Don’t answer that,” he said. “You don’t know what else might have been planted in your home besides that blood.”
“Are you saying we might find other incriminating evidence in your home?”
“Detective, my client can’t speculate about what may or may not have been planted in the house in his absence. If we’re down to hypothetical and rhetorical questions, I think maybe it’s time for us all to go home and get some sleep.”
“Fine, counselor,” he said, “you can go on home. But Dr. Brockton? You can’t. Your house is still secured as a probable crime scene. And we now have a signature on a search warrant.”
“So where am I supposed to go?”
“Not my problem, Doc,” he said. “Just don’t go far.”
I didn’t. As DeVriess and I walked out the front door of KPD for the third time in less than twenty-four hours, I realized that not only did I have no place to go, I had no way to get there. “Damn,” I said. “They’ve stranded me again.”
DeVriess shook his head. “Those bastards. You know they realize they’re doing that. Just one more way to wear you down. You want me to take you to a hotel?” He pointed toward the bluff above the river, where the stepped-pyramid wedge of the Marriott reared against the skyline like some TVA hydroelectric dam that had missed its mark by a quarter mile. “Hell, let’s get you a room there.”
I shook my head. “I’m tired of being in other people’s space,” I said. “You’re going to think I’m nuts, but would you be willing to drop me at my office over at the stadium? I’ve got an old sofa in there that I’ve spent the last twenty years breaking in. I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather try to sleep right now than on that sofa, surrounded by my skeletal collection.”
He laughed. “You’re right, Doc,” he said. “I do think you’re nuts. But come on, I’ll drop you off.”
There was no mistaking which of the handful of cars in the KPD parking lot was Burt’s. Parked beneath one of the sodium vapor lights was a gleaming black Bentley. It looked like what you’d get if you mated a Jaguar with a Rolls-Royce, and I suspected it was worth nearly as much as my house. The seats were upholstered in a butter-soft leather of silvery gray, and the dash was covered in what looked like burl oak, which I could tell, even in the dimness of the night, was not plastic. The door swung shut on what felt like jeweled bearings, and when the engine started, I could barely hear it, but what I heard sounded big and softly powerful. Burt pulled out of the lot and turned onto Hill Avenue, taking the same arched bridge I had crossed on foot a few hours before, on my way to hire him. Crossing the bridge in the Bentley, though, was like cruising in a luxury yacht.
I guided DeVriess through the labyrinthine route along the base of the stadium to the end-zone gate where a stairwell led to my office. Besides my pickup and UT maintenance trucks, few vehicles ever threaded this single lane of asphalt snaking among the girders and pilings; I was quite sure this was the first Bentley to do so, and probably the last. By the time the car stopped, I was half asleep in the leather.
“You want me to make sure you get in all right?” DeVriess asked.
I thanked him but refused. “I’ll be fine,” I said. It wasn’t true-I was far from fine-but getting safely inside wasn’t going to be the problem. It was being inside, and alone, that had me worried, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to fix that.
As I unlocked my office and walked inside, I caught a fleeting glimpse out the window of expensive taillights disappearing into the labyrinth. And then it was dark, and I was alone. Pausing only long enough to step into my small bathroom and pee, then take off my shoes, I crawled onto the battered sofa beneath the bank of dirty windows. Even as I laid my head on the soiled armrest, I felt myself spiraling down into blackness.
CHAPTER 32
JESS WAS STRETCHED OUT
“Dr. Brockton? Are you in there?”
I shook my head and rubbed the sleep from my eyes and the numbness from my face. Sunlight was casting short shadows from the girders of the stadium, which meant I must have slept until midday. Not surprising, maybe, considering the day and the night I’d just had, and the fact that I hadn’t curled up on the sofa until nearly daybreak.
“Dr. Brockton?” As I hauled myself awake, I realized that I was hearing two different voices outside my door. One belonged to Peggy, my secretary; the other was less familiar, but finally I recognized it, and I knew this wasn’t going to be good news.
“Yes, I’m here. Just a minute, please,” I called out. I hurried into the small bathroom and rinsed my face with cold water, then straightened my mangled hair as best I could. Then I went and unlocked the door. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have dozed off for a minute there.”
“I tried your phone,” said Peggy, “but I think you have it set on DO NOT DISTURB.” She was right.
“Bill, we need to talk,” said the woman with Peggy. It was Amanda Whiting, UT’s general counsel.
“Come in, Amanda,” I said, “have a seat. Thank you, Peggy.” Peggy backed out, looking at me with concern and at Amanda with suspicion. “What’s on your mind?”
“I know you’ve had a rough couple of days,” she said, “and I hate to add to your troubles, but we have two major problems. As I feared, this creationist attorney, Jennings Bryan, has filed a civil suit seeking damages on behalf of his client. Your student Jason Lane.”
“I am sorry,” I said. “I wish I could hit REWIND and do that day’s class over again. I hate it that I upset him so badly, and I hate it that UT is now bearing the burden and the expense of defending against a suit like that.”
“That’s…one of the issues we need to discuss,” she said. “As you know, our policy is to defend academic freedom vigorously-when a professor is making a point relevant to the course material. In this case, it’s been called to my attention that a tirade against creationism is not, in fact, pertinent to a class in forensic anthropology.”
“Wait, wait,” I said. “Are you telling me the university might not stand behind me in this?”
“I’m afraid I am,” she said. “The trustees met in special session yesterday. They spoke with Mr. Bryan, and with the president of the faculty senate-who agrees, by the way, that you overstepped the bounds of academic freedom in this instance. In exchange for a letter from the board of trustees expressing a similar position, Mr. Bryan has agreed to drop the university from his suit.”
“But he’s not dropping the lawsuit altogether?”
“No. He now plans to sue you for actual and punitive damages.”
