It was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. “So tell me more about how you killed Jess,” I said.
“With plea sure,” he said. “Pun intended. Where shall I begin?”
It was the same question I’d put to Burt DeVriess the night I’d hired him. “At the beginning of the end,” I said. “When you abducted her, or broke into her house, or what ever you did when you made your move.”
“Hmmmm,” he said, as if savoring a fond memory. “It was that night the two of you had dinner at By the Tracks. That row of shops facing the restaurant? I was on the sidewalk, behind one of the columns, right in front of her car. Jess came out of the restaurant alone. She hit the remote to unlock her car and got in. I stepped out from behind the column and got in with her. It was so easy.”
“Then what? Where did you take her? Your house?”
“I have a large wine cellar in my basement-a concrete room within a concrete basement. Very secure, and very quiet. No sound gets in; no sound gets out.”
I thought I should ask for more details about Jess’s death, but my courage failed me; I couldn’t bear to hear the details of her suffering. “The hair and fibers-my hair, my carpet, my bedspread-how did you get those onto her body before the autopsy?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I wrote them into the autopsy report, but I didn’t collect them until the next day. That rock through the window of your front door?” I nodded; the note had an antievolution message on it, so I’d assumed it was thrown by one of the creationist protesters. “My little Trojan horse. The broken window let me reach in and unlock the door, put blood and some of Jess’s hair on your sheets, then collect some of your hair and tell the police I found it on Jess’s body. The police had no reason to doubt me.”
I was just about to ask where he’d found a truck so nearly like mine for transporting Jess to the Body Farm when a series of low beeps sounded from the bookshelf beside him. It was the low-battery warning on my cellphone, and I kicked myself for not having charged it in the car earlier in the day. Hamilton whirled in the direction of the sound, and his eyes spotted the blinking light on the cell. Keeping the gun pointed at me, he sidled over, picked up the phone, and held it to his ear. Then he flipped it closed. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “Time’s up.” He stepped toward me and raised the gun to my right temple.
Just then the front doorbell rang. Hamilton and I both jumped, and I was surprised his trigger finger had not reflexively tightened enough to fire the gun. “Now what?” I asked.
“Now nothing,” he said. “Stand still and don’t make a sound or I’ll shoot you.”
“You’re going to shoot me anyway,” I said. “Why shouldn’t I make you do it when there’s a witness within earshot?”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” he said. “No matter what, I walk away clean. You called me on the phone, distraught and suicidal. I raced over and tried to talk sense into you. Just as I was about to persuade you to hand over the gun, someone rang the doorbell, and you panicked and pulled the trigger. There is no scenario I cannot explain.”
There was a loud knock on the door. “Bill? You awake?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Bill?” The volume was getting louder. “Hey, Bill-come on, let’s go!”
At the word “go,” the living room window closest to us shattered, and then the world seemed to explode. I seemed to be falling, but curiously-even as I felt myself hit the floor-the image that remained frozen in my gaze was of my front door, and of Garland Hamilton standing beside me, his hand and the stock of a pistol just visible in my peripheral vision.
And suddenly my vision unfroze, just in time for me to see a squad of police officers, wearing body armor and carry ing automatic weapons, pouring through my front door. One of them flung himself over my body, and two of them grabbed Garland Hamilton, who appeared as dazed as I felt. Two more pointed weapons at Hamilton’s chest.
One of the policemen spoke into a shoulder-mounted radio mic. “All clear in the house,” he said. “Suspect is restrained. No casualties.”
A moment later, Detective John Evers-whose voice it was I’d heard at the door-strode in. He surveyed the bizarre scene, studying Hamilton for a long moment, then reached down to help me up. “You okay?” he said.
“I guess maybe I am,” I said. “I thought I’d been shot in the head. Evidently not.”
He laughed. “Stun grenade. It’s nice when they work like they’re supposed to.”
“Where the hell did all you guys come from?”
“You have some character calls herself ‘Miss Georgia Youngblood’ to thank for the cavalry,” he said. “She heard you and Hamilton on her cellphone, called 911 on a landline from somewhere at UT Medical Center. Gave the dispatcher your name and my name, then held the cellphone up to the mouthpiece. The dispatcher patched me in, and I pulled the SWAT guys in pretty quick.”
“Amazing,” I said. “You got here just in the nick.”
“Looks like I owe you an apology, Doc,” he said.
I smiled. “Nice to hear you say that,” I said, “but actually, you don’t. Any good homicide detective would’ve come to the same conclusions you did. Hell, even I was beginning to suspect myself. And you just saved my neck. I just hope you can build as strong a case against this piece of shit as you were building against me.”
“I think we can manage that,” said Evers. “All 911 calls are recorded. So we’ve got Hamilton’s confession on tape.”
“Does this mean the murder trial is off?”
“Yours is off,” he said. “His is on.” Evers grinned, and for the third time in a week, I heard him reciting the Miranda rights. Only this time, he was reciting them to Hamilton, not to me.
EPILOGUE
MY ARMS AND LEGS ached from wrestling the wheelbarrow up the trail that led from the Body Farm’s main clearing to the spot where I’d found Jess’s body that unforgettable morning. This was my third load of topsoil, and I’d lugged up a load apiece of sand, lime, and peat moss. The ground at the base of the pine tree had been stained nearly black by the volatile fatty acids leaching from the research body; that meant the soil was so acidic no vegetation would grow there for at least a year, maybe two, without some help. And I wanted vegetation to grow there.
I’d come close to cutting down the tree, knowing I would never be able to look at it without remembering the sight of Jess’s body, without feeling the loss of her. “You
It had taken me a while to process that. Eventually, though, I realized that what Miranda said was right, and important. Surprisingly wise, too: How could someone half my age possess twice my wisdom? She had shrugged off that complimentary question when I put it to her. “I wasn’t as close to her as you were,” she said. “That makes it easier for me to see this clearly-to see her, and see you, and see you in relation to her. That’s all. You know this stuff, too; you just don’t realize you know it yet, because there’s still too much pain heaped on top of it.” Again I’d marveled at her insight.
“Woof,” I groaned as I staggered the last few steps toward the base of the pine tree. I let the wheelbarrow topple sideways, and half the dirt spilled out into a small pile, alongside the other piles of soil, sand, and peat moss. A pair of shovels reached into the barrow to scrape out the rest.
“I offered,” said Art, who was wielding one of the shovels, “but would you let me? Oh no. You had to do it all yourself.”
“He needs the exercise,” said Miranda, wielding the other shovel. “And his demons need exorcising.”
Art looked me up and down. “I can see how you might benefit from the workout. You got demons need exorcising, too?”
“That might be a bit dramatic,” I said. “It does help to do something physical. Maybe to overdo it, too-maybe sore muscles will take the place of the ache inside. Distract me from it, anyhow.”
Art and Miranda began turning the dirt, mixing the piles of topsoil with the other ingredients. Then they began raking it around the bases of the creeping juniper and mountain laurel we’d positioned around the pine tree.
