“It was fine,” he said. “We circled Atlanta quite a while-a thunderstorm had blown through, and the planes were stacked up-so it was nice to be up in first class.” I raised my eyebrows at Chloe but she ignored me. “I had just enough time to make my connection to Knoxville,” Thomas was saying. “Fortunately, my gear made it, too. I wouldn’t be much good here without it.”

“And you’ve already met Dr. Brockton,” she said.

“Not exactly,” I said. “On the ride up, we just talked about TV and reality, and the difference between the two.”

“Oh, then let me introduce you,” she said. “Dr. Brockton, this is Owen Thomas, our forensic audio and video expert. Mr. Thomas, this is Dr. Bill Brockton. He’s…” She floundered here.

“…the reason you’re here,” I said.

“He’s a famous forensic scientist,” she said. “That’s how I was going to describe you.”

I smiled. “Chloe, you’re not a very good liar. Mr. Thomas, I’ve been charged with a crime. A murder, in fact. The prosecution says a surveillance video shows me and my pickup truck delivering the body to the place where it was found. I’m hoping you can prove them wrong.”

Thomas looked uncomfortable, and I couldn’t say as I blamed him. “I’ll do my best to clarify the tape,” he said. “What ever it shows, it shows. Like I told Mr. DeVriess, I don’t really think of myself as working for the defense, or for the prosecution; I think of my role as clarifying the truth.”

“Good for you,” I said. “That’s my philosophy, too. You know, when I’m not on trial for murder. As a forensic anthropologist, I usually get called by the prosecution, but not long ago I testified for Gre-for Mr. DeVriess-and helped him clear an innocent man of murder charges. I’m hoping he can do that again this time.”

Burt DeVriess turned a corner of the hallway and strode into his reception area. “You guys having this meeting without me?” He shook my hand and then introduced himself to Thomas.

“Let’s go back to the conference room,” Burt said. “That’ll be better than my office. My office is too bright for looking at video.”

The conference room was on the opposite side of the hallway from Burt’s office; it was an interior room, with no windows except for a wall of Burt’s trademark frosted glass along the hallway. A fair amount of daylight bled through from Burt’s window and frosted-glass wall, but he lowered a set of blinds in the conference room, and the daylight vanished. “That dark enough?”

“Oh, plenty,” said Thomas. Burt flipped on a set of Art Deco wall sconces, and the room took on a high-design feel, with the light itself looking like something sculpted. Between the Bentley, the first-class airfare, and the décor, I began to suspect that my $20,000 retainer was likely to be merely the first of several installments.

“How long do you need to set up?” Burt asked.

“Seven minutes,” Thomas said. The clip-on tie was not just for effect.

“Okay, we’ll be right back. Bill, come across the hall with me and let’s talk trial strategy.” I followed him into his office, where the bank of windows revealed a rain squall moving up the river channel in a wall of solid gray. As it advanced, it enveloped the railroad bridge, the graceful arches of the Henley Street bridge, and the bright green trusswork of the Gay Street bridge, Knoxville’s favorite venue for suicidal jumpers.

I watched, mesmerized, as the storm seemed to obliterate the river itself, the banks, and Knoxville’s very downtown. It was as if the storm marked the edge of the earth-an edge that was drawing closer with every passing second. Suddenly sheets of rain began to lash the office tower; the force of the water and the gusts driving it made the plate glass tremble. I stepped back, close to the door. “You ever get nervous up here during a big storm?”

Burt looked out at the window just as a streak of lightning arced across the hills lining the river’s far bank. A smile creased his face, and I could hear him counting the seconds-“one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi”-until the thunder rattled the windows. “Naw,” he said, “I love the storms. Wish I could bottle some of that energy and carry it into court with me.”

“I think maybe you do,” I said. “You’ve pretty nearly fried my hair during a cross-examination or two.”

“Come on, Doc,” he said. “I have always handled you with kid gloves on the witness stand.”

“Then you’re the iron fist in the kid glove.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Just wait and see what I do to some of the witnesses in this case. Then you’ll appreciate how gentle I’ve been with you.”

“So who do you plan to tear into? Do you know who the prosecution will be calling yet?”

“Some; not all. They’ll use Evers pretty hard. He usually does a good job on the stand. He’s thorough, he looks good-that matters, believe it or not-and it’s hard to get him rattled. They’ll call a couple of hair and fiber people to talk about finding your hair in Dr. Carter’s house, in her bed. Finding her blood and hair on the sheets from your house.” The sheets still seemed like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. “Probably the thing that will do the most damage, though, is Dr. Garland’s testimony about the autopsy. She suffered a lot before she died, and the jury will want to make somebody pay for that.”

“And I’m the only option they’ve got.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “for this particular office, you’re running unopposed. Unless that wasn’t your semen.”

“So how do we counter all that? Hell, at this point, if I were on the jury, I’d probably vote to convict me.”

“We stipulate to the things we can’t fight, and we whittle away at everything else. We stipulate to your hair and fibers in her bed. We stipulate to your semen in her vagina.”

“But that wasn’t related to her death,” I protested. “That was a night of pure…” I stopped; the words would have made it sound cheesy or corny, like the mass-produced sentiment on a Valentine’s card.

“All they need to do is make it look related,” he said. “Their theory of the crime is a three-act play: Act one, you have a fling with her. Act two, she dumps you for her ex. Act three, you kill her in a jealous rage. It’s very simple, and it plays well with juries. The DA will drive home any evidence that appears to support that version of events. By not contesting some of that evidence during the prosecution’s case, we give it less airtime in the courtroom, so it carries less weight with the jurors.”

“And what about when it’s our turn?”

“When it’s our turn,” he said, “we’ll offer up a multitude of other explanations, other people who could have wanted to kill Dr. Carter. Her ex. Relatives of people she helped send up for murder. Whoever was leaving her nasty voice mails. Hell, by the time it’s over, I’ll have the jurors wondering if the DA or the judge might have done her in. Remember, we don’t have to prove who actually did it; all we’ve got to do is create reasonable doubt that you did.” He checked his watch-a European-looking thing that probably cost half my retainer-and said, “Let’s go see if this video guy is worth his three thousand a day.”

“Three thousand a day? That’s a lot,” I squawked. “Hell, that’s twice what I charged you to clear Eddie Meacham.”

He smiled. “And half what I’m charging you. You’re right-it is pretty high.” DeVriess’s phone intercom beeped. “Yes, Chloe?”

“There’s a police officer here.” I must have looked panicky, because I noticed Grease making soothing motions at me with one hand.

“Ask him to have a seat; tell him we’ll be with him as soon as we finish double-checking the video equipment.” After Chloe clicked off, he answered my unspoken question. “He brought over the tape from the surveillance camera. Can you believe it? KPD wouldn’t trust me with the tape.”

I laughed. “That elevates my opinion of KPD’s judgment quite a b

it.”

He stuck out his tongue at me-not the sort of gesture one expects from a high-priced attorney in pinstripes-and led me across the hall to the conference room.

Half the tabletop was now covered with equipment. I recognized a Panasonic VCR and a computer keyboard, but the keyboard appeared connected to a clunky television set. Also connected to that was a slim vertical gizmo, about the size of a hardback book, whose brushed-silver housing sprouted a thicket of cables from the back. It was labeled AVID MOJO. There was also a microphone on a stand.

“Before we look at the video,” said DeVriess, “let’s get the doctor’s voiceprint.” Thomas nodded.

“What voiceprint?” I asked.

“We’ve obtained the threatening messages that were left on Dr. Carter’s voice mail,” said Grease. “We’ll want to suggest that whoever left those messages could be the one who killed her. We need a sample of your voice, saying the same things, in the same way, so we can rule you out. This should carry a fair amount of weight with the jury.”

Burt nodded at Thomas, and Thomas played the first message, one sickening phrase at a time. Jess had said they were graphic, but she had spared me the details. “I can’t say that,” I said.

“You have to,” said Burt. “We need an apples-to-apples comparison-your voice saying the exact same words, same inflections, same pacing. Don’t worry, we won’t play this in court.”

“Is there any chance the prosecution could play it?”

“I’d object strenuously to that,” said DeVriess. “I think I could block that. It would be irrelevant and prejudicial.”

“I’m really not comfortable doing this,” I said.

“You’ll be a hell of a lot less comfortable if the jury votes to convict you, Doc,” he said. “Besides, these messages could point to whoever really killed Dr. Carter. By proving you didn’t leave the messages, maybe we encourage the police to investigate other possibilities.”

I still didn’t like it, but I cooperated. Each of the messages took me several tries-I stumbled over some of the words and phrases, they were so repugnant-but I got through it. The messages began as litanies of sexual perversions; by the last couple, they were vicious, misogynistic death threats. “Yuck,” I said when it was over. “I feel like I need to bathe in Lysol now. I hate to think how Jess must have felt when she heard these.”

Tags: Jefferson Bass Body Farm Mystery
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