Fatal Voyage

I DID NOT GO TO THE SWAIN COUNTY COURTHOUSE ON MONDAY.Instead, I recrossed the mountains west to Tennessee, and by midmorning was approximately thirty miles northwest of Knoxville, approaching the entrance to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The day was wet and gloomy, and my wipers slapped a steady cadence back and forth, clearing two fans on the misty windshield.

Through the side window I could see an old woman and toddler feeding swans on the bank of a small lagoon. At the age of ten I'd had a run-in with an ugly duckling that could have taken out a commando force. I questioned the wisdom of their outing.

After showing ID at a guardhouse, I drove across a vast parking area to the reception center. My host was waiting, signed me in, and we returned to the car. Another hundred yards, and my new ORNL badge and license plates were verified at a third checkpoint before I was allowed to pass through a chain-link fence surrounding the compound.

“Pretty tight security. I thought this was Department of Energy.”

“It is. Most of the work involves energy conservation, computers and robotics, biomedical and environmental conservation, medical radioisotope development, that sort of thing. We maintain security to protect DOE intellectual property and physical equipment. There's also a high-flux isotope reactor on-site.”

Laslo Sparkes was in his thirties but already nurturing a stout paunch. He had short, slightly bowed limbs and a round face, pockmarked on the cheeks.

Oak Ridge began as a World War II wonder baby, constructed in just three short months in 1943. Thousands were dying in Europe and Asia, and Enrico Fermi and his colleagues had just achieved nuclear fission in a squash court under the stands of the football stadium at the University of Chicago. Oak Ridge's mission had been simple: build the atomic bomb.

Laslo directed me through a labyrinth of narrow streets. Turn right here. Left. Left. Right. Except for its vast size, the complex looked like an apartment project in the Bronx.

Laslo indicated a dark brick building identical to a score of other dark brick buildings.

“Park here,” he said.

I pulled over and cut the engine.

“I really appreciate your doing this on such short notice.”

“You were there when I asked for help.”

Years earlier, Laslo had needed bone for his master's research in anthropology, and I'd provided samples. We'd kept in touch throughout his doctoral work and during the decade he'd been a research scientist at Oak Ridge.

Laslo waited while I retrieved a small cooler from the trunk, then led me into the building and up the stairs to his lab. The room was small and windowless, every millimeter crammed with battered steel desks, computers, printers, refrigerators, and a million machines that glowed and hummed. Glass vials, water containers, stainless- steel instruments, and boxes of latex gloves lined the countertops, and cardboard cartons and plastic buckets were stacked below.

Laslo led me to a work space in back and reached for the cooler. When I handed it to him, he removed a plastic bag, peeled off the tape, and peeked inside.

“Give this to me again,” he said, sniffing the bag's contents.

As I explained my trek with Lucy Crowe, Laslo poured dirt from the bag into a glass container. Then he began entering information onto a blank form.

“Where did you sample?”

“I collected where the dog indicated, under the wall and under the stones that had fallen out. I figured that soil would be most protected.”

“Good thinking. Normally the corpse acts as a shield for the soil, but stones would have had the same effect.”

“Does rain create problems?”

“In a protected environment the heavy, mucoidlike secretions produced from anaerobic fermentation bind the soil together, making dilutional factors from rainfall insignificant.”

He sounded like he was reading from one of his articles in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

“Keep it simple, please. This is way off my field.”

“You spotted the decomp stain.”

“Actually, my dog did.” I indicated a plastic vial. “The pupae are what tipped me.”

Laslo withdrew the jar, twisted off the lid, and shook a number of casings into the palm of his hand. Each looked like a miniature football.

“So maggot migration had taken place.”

“If the stain is from a decomp espisode.” I'd had all night to worry over Boyd's discovery. Though I was sure his nose and my instincts were correct, I wanted proof.

“Maggot pupae definitely suggest the presence of a corpse.” He replaced the casings. “I think your dog was right on.”

“Can you determine if it was an animal?”

“The amount of volatile fatty acids will tell us if the body was over one hundred pounds. Very few mammals get that big.”