“You think you can hold him,” I asked, “while I fasten his legs to the tree?”
“Yup,” said Miranda, taking a turn of rope around one hand.
Kneeling at the base of the tree, I pulled the feet close to the trunk and began tying them there. A yellowjacket circled my still-sweaty face, and with one hand I waved it away. Suddenly I heard a sharp exclamation-“Dammit!”-followed by a slapping sound. Then: “Oh, shit, look out!”
With a thud, the corpse toppled forward, draping himself over my head and shoulders and knocking me flat. Wriggling like some giant bug, I lay trapped at the base of the tree, pinned by the garishly dressed corpse. “I am so sorry,” Miranda said, and then she began to snicker. But the snicker died suddenly, and I soon saw why.
A pair of rattlesnake boots, topped by black leather jeans, entered my peripheral vision and planted themselves a foot from my face. I knew, even before she spoke, that the snakeskin boots were coiled around the feet of Dr. Jess Carter. After a moment, her right toe began to tap, slowly and, as best I could tell, sarcastically.
“Don’t let him get you down, Brockton,” she finally said. “I think you can take him. Best two out of three?”
“Very funny,” I said. “Y’all mind getting this guy off of me?”
Jess reached down and grabbed the rope around the dead man’s wrists; Miranda seized a leg. Together they gave a heave that rolled the corpse onto his back beside me. I regained my feet and as much of my dignity as I could. Jess winked at me with the eye Miranda couldn’t see. I would have blushed, but my face was already red.
“This wasn’t one of the questions you asked me to research,” I told her, “but I’m thinking maybe more than one person was involved in the murder. Pretty tough to tie his arms that high on the tree without some help.”
“I see what you mean,” she said, “but the forensic techs couldn’t tell. Ground’s pretty rocky around there, and we had a dry spell for a couple weeks, so nothing useful in the way of footprints.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t in town when he was found,” I said. “My secretary said you called right about the time my plane was taking off for Los Angeles.”
“Damned inconsiderate of you to help the LAPD with a case,” she said. “We may need to fit you with one of those electronic ankle monitors to make sure you don’t leave Tennessee.”
“Can’t do it,” I said, pointing to my faded jeans and work boots. “It would spoil my fashion statement.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Word is, Martha Stewart’s coming out with a designer line of corrections apparel and accessories. I’m sure the Martha anklet will look fabulous on you.” Jess handed me the rope. “Shall we try this again?” This time, once we’d hoisted the subject upright, I took the precaution of knotting the rope to the branch immediately. I tied off the legs, Jess pronounced herself satisfied with the positioning, and Miranda trimmed the loose ends of the rope.
“The strange thing is, the head and neck were in better shape than I’d expected,” she said. “Lots of trauma, but not much decomp, considering how much blood there was to draw the flies. That would lead me to think he wasn’t out there all that long, except there was almost no soft tissue left on the lower legs.”
“You think maybe carnivores did that? Coyotes or foxes or raccoons?”
“Maybe,” she said, “but I didn’t see a lot of tooth marks. I’d like you to take a look at him, though, see if maybe I missed something.”
“Sure,” I said, “I could probably come down to Chattanooga later in the week. One thing I was wondering about, though: Why are you even working the case? I checked the map, and Prentice Cooper State Forest is across the line in Marion County, isn’t it?”
She smiled. “I bet you were a whiz at map-and-compass back during your Boy Scout days, weren’t you?” I grinned; she was right, even if she was just joking. “Cops got a report of an abduction from the parking lot of Alan Gold’s one night a couple weeks ago. Alan Gold’s is a gay bar in Chattanooga. Has the best drag show in East Tennessee. A female-or female impersonator-fitting the victim’s description was seen being forced into a car and speeding away. We’re working on the theory that the crime began in Chattanooga.” She paused briefly, as if considering whether to say something else. “Besides,” she said, “Marion County is rural and has a small sheriff’s office. They just don’t have the forensic resources to work this.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Okay, I think we’re ready to let nature take its course here. We’ll check this guy every day, track the temperatures. The forecast for the next fifteen days-if AccuWeather can be believed-calls for temps about like what you’ve had in Chattanooga over the past couple weeks. So the decomp rate here should track the victim’s pretty closely. Once this guy’s condition matches your guy’s, we should know how long he was out there before that poor hiker found him.”
Jess took another look at the corpse tied to the tree. “There’s one more detail we need to make the re-creation authentic.” I looked puzzled. “I didn’t tell you about this,” she said. “You were already skittish about the trauma to the head and face, so I figured this would send you clear over the edge.” Reaching down to her belt, she unsheathed a long, fixed-blade knife from her waist. She stepped up to the body, yanked down the black satin pan ties and stockings we’d tugged onto him, and severed his penis at the base.
“Good God,” Miranda gasped.
“Not hardly,” said Jess. “I’d say this was more the devil’s handiwork.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Bill, you sure this guy is clean?”
I struggled to speak. “Well, I can tell you he didn’t have HIV and he didn’t have hepatitis. That’s all we screen for, though. I can’t promise he didn’t have syphilis or a case of the clap.”
She eyed the penis. “I don’t see any obvious symptoms,” she said. With that, she peeled off her left glove, dabbed her bare thumb on the severed end of the organ, then carefully rolled a print onto the shaft. As Miranda and I stared in disbelief and horror, she pried open the corpse’s jaw and stuffed the penis into the mouth.
“There,” she said. “Now it’s authentic.”
CHAPTER 2
“KNOXVILLE POLICE.”
I pulled the telephone receiver away from my ear and stared at it dumbly, as if KPD were the last place on earth I’d have expected to reach when dialing criminalist Art Bohanan. Art and I had collaborated on dozens of cases over the past twenty years. Besides being remarkably eagle-eyed at murder scenes, Art had shown himself to be a whiz in the crime lab as well, teasing out clues from minuscule bits of carpet fibers, upholstery, bullet trajectories, and random (to me, though not to him) spatters of blood. He had also become one of the nation’s leading fingerprint experts, devising equipment and techniques that even the FBI’s crime lab had adopted to reveal latent prints-including seemingly invisible ones on the skin of a body.
“Knoxville Police Department. Can I help you?” The guy on the other end of the line-I pictured an aging, overweight sergeant easing toward his pension-sounded annoyed, despite his offer of help.
“Oh, sorry,” I stammered. “I was trying to reach Art Bohanan. I expected either him or his voice mail.”
“Sir, he’s not available. Can I take a message?”
“Do you know when he’ll be in?”
“No, sir, I do not. All I know is that he’s unavailable. Do you wish to leave a message or not?”
“Uh, yes. Please. Tell him-ask him-to call Dr. Brockton when he gets a chance, if you would.”
“Dr. Brockton? Hey there, Doc.” Suddenly the guy was all warmth and cheer. “This is Sergeant Gunderson. I was the one found that guy under the Magnolia Avenue viaduct about ten years ago. You ’member that case?”
“I sure do,” I said, smiling at both the memory and my deductive powers. Gunderson was indeed a fat sergeant coasting toward retirement. One reason the case had been memorable was that it featured Gunderson in the unlikely act of running. “You were chasing
a burglar that night, if I remember right?”
He chuckled. “Was, till I tripped over that damn body and went ass-over-teakettle. Scared the hell out of me. I ’bout messed my britches. Fellow I was chasing let out a yell just before I went sprawling, so he musta seed it, too.”