Page 37 (1/2)
CHAPTER 1
THE CHAIN-LINK GATE YOWLED like an angry toht of dawn Once rease for the hinges next tiet, I chided myself, just as I had each of the past half dozen times I’d mentally made and mislaid that same damn note
It wasn’t that , or so I liked to believe It was just that every tiy Research Facility, as the University of Tennessee preferred to call the Body Fars like the experi with the body in the pickup truck Miranda was backing toward the facility’s gate
It never ceased to amaze me, and to frustrate me, that the Body Farm remained the world’s only research facility devoted to the systematic study of post, with failings and vanities, I did take a measure of pride in the uniqueness of h-a “bone detective” who had branched out into seeking clues in decaying flesh as well-I looked forward to the day when our data on decomp rates in the moist, temperate climate of Tennessee could be compared with rates fros, the high desert of Albuquerque, the rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula, or the alpine slopes of the Montana Rockies But every tiue in one of those ecosyste a counterpart to the Body Farm, the university in question would chicken out, and ould remain unique, isolated, and scientifically alone
Over the past twenty-five years, ed hundreds of hus and scenarios to study their postraves, concrete-capped graves Air-conditioned buildings, heated buildings, screened-in porches Automobile trunks, backseats, travel trailers Naked bodies, cotton-clad bodies, polyester-suited bodies, plastic-wrapped bodies But I’d never thought to stage anything like the gruesome death scene Miranda and I were about to re-create for Jess Carter
Jess-Dr Jessaa For the past six ional Forensic Center as well She’d been proht word, to this dual status by virtue of a spectacular screwup by our own ME, Dr Garland Ha what no one but Hamilton himself would have described as an autopsy, he had so badlya superficial accidental cut as a “fatal stab wound”-that an innocent bystander ended up charged with ht, Hamilton was promptly relieved of his duties; now, he was about to be relieved of his ht Meanwhile, until a qualified replace the hundred-a to Knoxville anytime an unexplained or violent death occurred in our neck of the Tennessee woods
The co for Jess as it would have been for enerally covered the hundred miles in fifty otten a quick gliency of heron the interstate’s shoulder The second unfortunate officer, a week later, got a verbal vivisection, followed by scorching cellphone calls to the highway patrol’s district commander and state commissioner She had not been stopped a third time
Jess had phoned at six to say she’d be in Knoxville this aour way now, closing like a cruise et the body in place by the time she hit Knoxville
As Miranda eased the UT pickup toward the fence, the backup lights helped ate was part of an eight-foot wooden privacy fence, erected to detercoyotes and squeainally we’d had only the chain-link fence, but after a couple of years, a few complaints, and a handful of thrill seekers, we topped the chain-link with barbed wire and lined the entire half-mile perimeter with the wooden barrier It was still possible for nimble critters and deter
The padlock securing the wooden gate sprang open with a satisfying click I unhooked one end of the chain froate inward As the opening widened, the chain began snaking into the hole bored near the gate’s edge, like sousto Sucked into the ht Is that a e best kept to myself?
As I held the wooden gate open, Miranda threaded the narrow opening with ease, as if she made deliveries to death’s ser vice entrance on a daily basis She practically did For the past three years, thanks to a spate of television documentaries and the popularity of CSI-a show I’d watched only one incredulous ti list (as I called the ranks of the living who had promised us their bodies eventually) now nu out of room; already, in fact, it was hard to take a step without sturound where a corpse had recently decomposed
About half the bodies were siht out here to skeletonize It was a little slower but a lot easier to let tis-do theflesh and bone Thanks to nature’s efficiency at reclai her dead, all that remained for us to do after a body’s residence at the Farm was to scrub off and deodorize the bones, take detailedthose into our forensic database, and tuck the skeleton into our growing collection The University of Tennessee now possessed the world’s largest assee, sex, and race That was ihts, but because it gave us a huge and continually evolving source of comparative measurements for forensic scientists to consult when confronted with the skeleton of an unknown murder victim
The body in the back of the truck, though, was destined to contribute ht on an unanswered forensic question About fifty bodies a year were used in faculty or student research projects, usually exploring so the rate of decomposition One recent experiment, for instance, de cheun to think of as “organic” or “all natural” bodies Che rese, which was not a particularly co notion
Once Miranda had cleared the opening, I closed the gate behind her and fed the chain back through its hole, leaving the padlock open so Jess could get in when she arrived Miranda was already out of the truck, unlatching the caate She turned the latches slowly and opened the back of the truck alhtful in the peaceful un arriving in the adjoining parking lot, so the only traffic noise was the distant drone of cars on Alcoa Highway, a mile away on the west side of the medical complex Tennesse
e aking up softly, with just enough chill in the early March air to cloud our breath I also noticedfrom several of the fresher bodies-not froots feasting on them It pleased e that feeding was exotherot Few things in science were as black and white as ter, if the cheestive tracts produced the heat, or ifmuscles armed them up Maybe someday I’d explore that
Above the innu the hillside were beginning to leaf out In their branches, a chorus of cardinals and birds chirped and trilled A pair of squirrels played chase up and down the trunk of a ninety-foot loblolly There was life abundant out here at the Body Far about in various stages of disrepair
Miranda and I stood in silence awhile, soaking up the birdsong and the golden early light One of the frolicking squirrels began to fuss at the other for breaking soame, and Miranda sht me by surprise, blindsided me, like a two-by-four upside the head
Miranda Lovelady had been raduate assistant for four years now We worked well as a teae of sohway fatality or raphed, our unspoken communication akin to telepathy But lately I worried that I’d crossed sorow too attached to h she was technically still a student, Miranda wasn’t a child by any means; she was a smart, confident woman of twenty-six noas it twenty-seven? — and I knew the ivory toas chock-full of professors who had taken up with protégées But I was thirty years older than Miranda, and even if that difference ine it would remain so forever No, I reminded myself, I was amore And that was best for both of us
I reached into the back of the truck and busied hts back to the experiment ere here to set up “Jess-Dr Carter-should be here soon,” I said “Let’s find a good tree and start tying this fellow up”
“Ah, Dr Carter” Miranda grinned at ht you seemed a little nervous Are you intimidated, or infatuated?”
I laughed “Probably a little of both,” I said “She’s sh Funny, too, and easy on the eyes”
“All true,” said Miranda “She’d sure keep you on your toes About time you found somebody to do that, you know”
I knew all too well My wife of nearly 30 years, Kathleen, had died of cancerfros of interest and desire Those stirrings had been kindled, I was embarrassed to recall, when a student ily, the kiss had been cut short by Miranda’s appearance in the doorway of my office Shortly after that inappropriate but e-none other than Dr Jess Carter-to have dinner with h she had to cancel at the last a I hadn’t worked up ain, but the notion occurred tocases-her fresh hoht us into contact