Without Mercy (Body Farm 10)

“Three guys, all of them racist Rambo wannabes. Two are in prison, one’s holed up in a fortified hollow in the mountains. One of the jailbirds is released, and two weeks later, the other one busts out. And a few days after that, the mountain man’s murdered, and his shed full of weapons and bomb-making ingredients gets cleaned out.”

I heard a ruminative grunt. “Meffert here. Let me see if I follow you, Agent Kidder. You thinking Satterfield busted out of prison to team up with Stubbs? Start some kind of race war?”

“Could be,” Kidder said. “But these Far Right nuts are always talking big about race war. Never quite happens, but they keep hoping. They could be starting a new militia group. Lotta those folks are pissed off by the way that latest Bundy thing turned out—the takeover of that wildlife refuge out in Oregon. I don’t know what these guys are up to, but I do think the timing is important. Satterfield never made an escape attempt in more than twenty years—is that right, Agent Meffert?”

“That’s right,” said Bubba.

“But then, two weeks after his buddy gets out, bam! Satterfield busts a move.”

“Could be. Oh, sorry—Steve Morgan, TBI. But then what about Shiflett? You think Satterfield and Stubbs turned on him? Why would they kill their buddy?”

“Decker, KPD SWAT team. Maybe they wanted some of his stash, and he didn’t want to share. Maybe they wanted to blow up a black church, and he got cold feet. Wouldn’t be the first time bad guys turned on one another.”

“This is Dr. Brockton,” I chimed in. “Shiflett had his driveway monitored, and he’d booby-trapped the gate, with a shotgun rigged to a trip wire. And he died of a broken neck.”

“Go on, Dr. Brockton,” Price nudged. “Connect those dots.”

“Shiflett was killed by somebody standing right behind him. Somebody he knew and trusted. Somebody he let in. The killer was strong, and he’d been trained to kill. Could’ve been either Satterfield or Stubbs. Or both.”

“No, it couldn’t. This is Brubaker, by the way.”

“Couldn’t what, Pete?” asked Price. “Couldn’t be both? Couldn’t be either—as in somebody else altogether?”

“I’m saying it was Satterfield. Only Satterfield.”

“Why?” Price persisted.

“Because Shiflett stole Satterfield’s prize possession.”

“This is one very confused Meffert here. Stole what?”

“You told us yourself, Agent Meffert,” said Brubaker. “Satterfield comes up with the perfect way to get revenge on Dr. Brockton. Chain him to a tree, torture him, feed him to a bear. But then Satterfield makes a mistake. He brags about his bright idea to his buddies, and then one of the buddies—Shiflett, the dumb shit—has the nerve to use the idea himself. Squanders the brilliant, magnificent plan on some pissant little foreign kid. Steals the precious gem that Satterfield spent twenty long years honing and polishing. To someone like Satterfield, that’s unforgivable. A killing offense.”

“Meffert here. Brubaker, you’d’ve made one hell of a preacher,” Bubba said.

“How’s that?”

“’Cause right now, you’re makin’ a believer out of me.” I heard Meffert breathe deeply. “Well, shit, folks,” he said. “I guess I got to pay a call on the charming Mr. Stubbs now. And I guess I’d best take a bit of backup with me, in case he’s keepin’ bad company.”

CHAPTER 31

STILL RATTLED BY THE CONFERENCE CALL— especially by Brubaker’s reminder of how implacably Satterfield hated me—I decided to stretch my legs and get some air. Peggy gave me a searching look as I passed her desk, but I waved her off. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I just need some air.” Ducking into the stairwell, I headed down to the bone lab. Just as I reached the door, I heard what could have been a war cry from one of my Arikara Indians, if my Arikara had not all been dead. The whoop was followed by a “Yes! Hell, yes!” in what seemed to be Miranda’s voice. On drugs. Specifically, the drug called ecstasy.

Peering through the small window in the door, I saw my assistant jumping and waving her arms, in the exuberant, awkward combination of movements she called her Happy Dance. She capped the dance with a series of exaggerated pelvic thrusts, which I devoutly wished I had not witnessed. When I opened the door, the metallic rasp caught her attention and she looked in my direction, frozen, her hips still thrust forward. “Keep it down,” I said. “Some of us are trying to nap.” I waved a hand vaguely in the direction of her contorted torso. “By the way, a chiropractor might be able to help you with that.”

Straightening up and rushing to me, she flung her arms around my neck. “I got it, Dr. B! I got it!”

“Can you get rid of it? A double dose of antibiotics, perhaps?”

“I got it,” she repeated, unwinding herself and stepping back. “The FBI job!”

“Miranda, that’s . . . great,” I said, wishing I felt as happy as I was supposed to. “Congratulations!”

“It was your phone call, or e-mail—or whatever it was you did or said or sent that you keep pretending you didn’t. I’m sure that’s what tipped the scales. So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. Me and my big mouth, I thought. “When do they want you to start?”

“January second—two months! Can you believe it?”

“Of course I can believe it. They’re lucky to get you.”

She gave a slight frown. “There’s one condition attached to the offer. It’s contingent on my finishing my Ph.D.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Inter-esting. And how much did you say you’ll be depositing in my Cayman Islands account, the day you defend your dissertation?”

She raised not one but both middle fingers at me. And both corners of her mouth, in the biggest smile I’d ever seen.

“ONE MOMENT, DR. BROCKTON,” SAID THE PROVOST’S secretary. “He just walked in. I’ll transfer your call now.”

I heard a double beep, followed by the electronic ring tone and then by the provost’s voice. “Hello, Dr. Brockton,” he said coolly. It had been years since he’d addressed me so formally. “Looks like you’ve been trying to reach me for quite a while—I see half a dozen notes on my desk saying you called.” He paused briefly. “All of them within the last thirty minutes. Is there a crisis in Anthropology?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. My graduate assistant has a job offer from the FBI Laboratory.”

“Well, I can understand how that might throw you for a loop,” he said with exaggerated cheerfulness, “job offers in anthropology being virtually nonexistent.”

“Not funny,” I snapped. “This is the best Ph.D. candidate we’ve ever had. She’s a huge asset to our forensic program. She runs the osteology lab and the Body Farm donor program. I don’t want to lose her.”

“Then don’t. Put her on staff. A lab tech or instructor or something.”

“Won’t work,” I said. “I’ve got to be able to offer her a tenure-track job.”

“You can’t. UT policy is very clear on that. We don’t hire our own Ph.D.s—not until they’ve held a tenure-track position at another university first.”

“I need an exception to the policy,” I said. The phone went dead. “Hello?”

“I’m still here,” he said. “I’m just thinking about this. Let me see if I have this right. You’re asking us to trample on a policy that’s crucial to our academic strength and integrity . . .”

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘trample’—” I began.

“I would,” he snapped. “And yet you don’t want to do this institution the simple courtesy of showing up to accept an award, at a ceremony that would be a big boost to our reputation?”

“Oh, come on,” I protested. “You’ve got to help me out.”

“No,” he said. “Actually, I don’t.”

And then the phone went dead for real. The university provost—my dean’s boss; my boss’s boss—had just hung up, ending the call, and ending my hopes.

CHAPT

ER 32

IT MUST BE STRANGE TO BE MY NEIGHBORS thought. At the end of my driveway, where I’d ambled to pick up the morning paper, I waved at the FBI agent in the black sedan that was parked across the street. He raised an index finger an inch off the steering wheel—an extravagant gesture, in my experience with these guys—and I considered pushing my luck and striking up a chat.