The Bone Thief (Body Farm 5)

I nodded.

Above his mask, through the face shield, I saw Garcia’s brows furrow. “Even if the surgery opened the door to the infection, it might be impossible to pinpoint the source. It could be improperly sterilized instruments, contaminated saline, strep or staph bacteria floating around in the hospital’s ventilation ducts. But let’s take some samples of tissue from the neck. If we can identify the bacterium that’s responsible, we have a better chance of finding the source.” We took tissue samples from the neck’s tissues, including bone — slivers that required the Stryker saw to cut. Finally I took a sample of fluid, inserting a syringe between the third and fourth vertebrae to draw fluid from the spinal canal.

Garcia leaned down to take another look at the fused section of spine, with its dully gleaming bracket of titanium and the small block of added bone.

“Do you want it?” he asked.

“Want what? The orthopedic hardware?”

“The entire cervical spine. Would it be useful as a teaching specimen, once you’ve cleaned off the soft tissue?”

“Sure,” I said. Gripping the mandible with my left hand, I tipped the head back as far as I could, slicing the ligaments that held the skull to the first cervical vertebra — the washerlike bone called the atlas — and then severing the spinal cord. Then, with the Stryker saw, I cut the seventh cervical vertebra from the first thoracic vertebra. The oscillating blade buzzed easily through the disk, the spinal cord, and the bony prong of the spinous process, which jutted from the back of the vertebral body. The cervical spine was now detached at both ends. Setting aside the saw, I used the scalpel to cut through the last of the tendons that linked the bones to the muscles in the neck. Then, sliding both my hands beneath the five-inch column of bones, I lifted. The cervical spine pulled free of the body with one brief slurp.

An hour later, after cutting slices of Lowe’s major organs for Garcia to inspect and preserve in his “save jar” of formalin, I was nearly finished — and almost done for. Using a curved needle to sew baseball-style running stitches, I closed up her body — her Roked-out, virtually decapitated body — for shipment to a Crossville funeral home, which would doubtless be dismayed by the hollow-hulled, thin-necked, floppy-headed husk they received.

In the morgue’s changing room, I shucked off my blood-and tissue-spattered surgical garb, showered, and put back on my morning’s khakis and soft flannel shirt. On my way out of the morgue, I checked to see if my souvenir was simmering yet. I had set the cervical spine in a steam-jacketed kettle — essentially an oversize Crock-Pot — in the decomp processing room, a lab devoted to removing the last bits of soft tissue from skeletons that had decayed at the Body Farm. The steam-jacketed kettle, its thermostat set slightly below the boiling point, would cook off the tissue without harming the bones. To speed the process and improve the smell of the cleaned bones, I tipped a capful apiece of Biz detergent and Downy fabric softener into the pot.

I turned out the fluorescent lights and closed the door of the decomp room, leaving the hot water, Biz, and Downy to do their work in the dark.

Some people launder money, I thought. I launder bones.

CHAPTER 16

My son answered on the third ring. I hadn’t called Jeff the day I’d learned of Isabella’s pregnancy, not the next, nor the day after that. I’d put it off for a week, in fact. Now, although I was exhausted from the autopsy — or perhaps because I was exhausted from the autopsy — I realized I couldn’t avoid the conversation any longer. “Hey, Dad,” he said, “what’s up?”

“Oh, not much,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Well, today’s April first. How do you think it’s going?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s why I asked.”

“Christ, Dad, April fifteenth is only two weeks away,” he said irritably. Crap, I thought, I forgot about my taxes. Jeff was an accountant with a small but growing practice in Farragut, an affluent bedroom community twenty miles west of downtown Knoxville.

“So you’re sort of busy.”

“Sort of. The way the pope is sort of Catholic. The good news is, I’ve got ten percent more clients than I had last year. The bad news is, I’ve got ten percent more clients than last year, and some of my new clients have really complicated tax returns. Speaking of which, when do you envision bagging up your financial debris and bringing it to me?”

“Soon, son. Very, very soon. I’m sorry to be such a bad client.”

He sighed wearily. Every year since he’d opened his accounting practice, he’d done my return, and every year he’d had to nag me to gather up my records and bring them in. “I’ve got to have your stuff by Monday, Dad. No kidding.”

“Sure.” I hesitated. “So this probably isn’t a great time to get together for a drink, huh?”

“A drink? You don’t drink. Why would we get together for a drink?”

“Well, I don’t, but I know you do every now and then. I thought maybe you might want to meet somewhere in Farragut on your way home and just catch up a bit.”

“I’ll be working till midnight, Dad. I just called Jenny to tell her that I couldn’t meet her and the boys for pizza. I don’t even have time to breathe, much less to hang out, until April sixteenth.”

“Oh. Sorry. Of course not. I didn’t mean to impose.” They were the same words Eddie Garcia had said to me when I hesitated to perform the autopsy for him. Had he felt as stung by my reaction as I now felt by Jeff’s?

A long silence hung in the air. Finally he said, “Dad, is something wrong? Are you in trouble again?” The “again” made me wince. I’d turned to Jeff for help when I was wrongly accused of murdering Jess Carter. He’d stood by me unquestioningly then, and he’d never made me feel like it had been a burden. But the fact that he’d said “again” just now embarrassed me; I felt like a kid who’s gotten into trouble at school one too many times.

“No, I’m not in trouble,” I said. “I’m not.”

“Are you sick? My God, Dad, are you sick?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I’m fine. Well, not ‘fine,’ exactly, but not sick.”

“What’s on your mind? Is something troubling you?”

“I…” I felt my throat tightening. “It’s just that there’s something important I need to talk to you about, Jeff. Face-to-face.”

There was a pause. “Okay, Dad. Sure. Tell you what. There’s a Panera Bread pretty close to my office, out in Turkey Creek. Do you know it?”

“Is that the one that’s inside the big Target store?”

“No, that’s Starbucks. Panera is across from the movie theaters. Kinda near Borders Books.”

“Oh, I remember,” I said, though I didn’t, actually — Turkey Creek was a huge, sprawling retail development, hundreds of stores and restaurants strung out along a two-mile, traffic-snarled boulevard. I avoided

it whenever possible, which, luckily, was virtually always. I figured I could call Panera on my cell phone for directions if I had trouble spotting them amid the thicket of shops and signs.

“I forgot to bring anything to eat,” Jeff was saying, “and they’ve got decent soups and sandwiches. How about I meet you there in an hour? Well, let’s say fifty minutes; that would be seven-thirty. The dinner crowd will have slacked off by then.”

Forty minutes and two cell-phone calls later, I spotted the striped awnings of Panera and pulled into one of Turkey Creek’s gargantuan parking lots. Turkey Creek my foot, I thought. They should call this place Asphalt Acres. Then, Yeah, and they should call you Grumpy Old Man. I sat in the truck with the radio on — Sirius had a channel with 1940s big-band music I’d gotten hooked on lately — and watched for Jeff. Twenty minutes went by, and I was just about to call and check on him when his hybrid SUV whipped into the parking lot and lurched to a stop. Jeff jumped out, talking rapidly on his cell, and ended the call as we converged at the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “One of my clients is a surgeon, and, being a surgeon, he assumes he’s my most important client. So when he wants to discuss the draft tax return I e-mailed him, he assumes I’m at his beck and call.”

“No worries. I know you’re scrambling, and I appreciate your taking time to grab a bite with me. Let’s order. I’m starving.”

Jeff, health-conscious guy that he was, ordered a salad with grilled chicken; I got a chicken chipotle sandwich. At its center was grilled chicken like Jeff’s, but it was drenched in a tangy, unhealthy sauce and served on crusty, buttery grilled bread. For his side item, Jeff chose an apple; I chose potato chips. The young cashier handed me what looked like a square plastic coaster. I must have appeared puzzled, because she explained, “It’ll buzz when your order’s ready.” I had barely collected my change when the coaster practically leaped out of my hand, vibrating fiercely and flashing with enough red LED lights to serve as a road-hazard sign.