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Put that way-reduced to a botto scene in the woods sounded insignificant “But I bet there are more,” I said “Maybe a lot more”

“There would have to be,” she said “I hate to break it to you, Dr Brockton, but we’d need ten times that many bodies in the woods to justify a federal wire-fraud investigation”

“You’re saying you’d need a thousand bodies? You’ve got to be joking”

“I don’t joke, Dr Brockton” She had a point there, I realized

“My white-collar-criht now-multimillion-dollar cases You reer County? They were selling stolen-car parts throughout the South, to the tune of sevenfriends in Cooke County? Illegal ga-hundreds of thousands of dollars every day those birds were pecking each other to death” Technically, I wanted to point out, the roosters spurred or slashed each other to death, but I didn’t seePrice just to correct her description of cockfighting “I don’tenough for us Did you call local law enforcement?”

“No,” I said “This a rural county in Podunk, Georgia They don’t begin to have the forensic resources to deal with this”

“If the locals request assistance, we could send in an Evidence Recovery Team”

“There’s a whole lot of evidence to recover,” I said “Why not just send in the cavalry now? Eliminate the middleman?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” she said “We help if we’re asked-it’s called ‘domestic police cooperation’-but we have to be asked And despite what you see on television, we consider the ‘cooperation’ part important Call the locals”

“That’s all you’ve got for me-‘call the locals’?”

“’Fraid so,” she said “Sorry that’s not what you wanted to hear Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I guess not,” I said “Thanks”

She clicked off without saying good-bye

Angela: that was her naela,” I said to the dead receiver

Call the locals? I didn’t even knoho the locals were I had an atlas in ot it and traced a down into the northwest corner of Georgia It didn’t take long to pinpoint what county the creenius to track down the nu, resisting the idea of calling 411 As I took a mental step back and analyzed the reasons for my hesitation, it came clear Over the years of my work, I had come to know and respect many sheriffs in rural Tennessee But within the past year, I had survived a couple of near-death experiences with deputies in Cooke County, where Chief Deputy Orbin Kitchings was a regular at the cockfights-and where Deputy Leon Williams had used dynamite to entomb Art Bohanan and me in a cave On the one hand, I had no reason to suspect that the sheriff in northwest Georgia was looking the other way as bodies piled up in the woods But then again, I had no particular basis for confidence either And if the sheriff did happen to be in cahoots with the creer a quick cleanup and a ht, the less I wanted to call the locals

But if not the locals, then who could I call?

I glanced idly at the atlas again, and aze strayed southward, to Atlanta “Sean Richter,” I said out loud “I can call Sean”

Sean Richter was one of ree, he had spent a year in the reraves and identify victi in Atlanta as the staff forensic anthropologist for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation As an interstate wire-fraud case, the creht be too sia fraud case, it h to interest the GBI And I was certain it would interest Sean, with its similarities to the mass-fatality identifications he’d done in Kosovo I fished out my pocket calendar, which had a small address book tucked in the back, and looked up his number

“Anthropology lab, this is Richter”

“Sean, this is Bill Brockton”

“Dr Brockton, how are you?”

“I’ ue now, notme Bill”

“I’ll try,” he said “That’s gonna be a tough habit to break, though Once a forensic god, always a forensic god”

“Well, once you break this case wide open,” I said, “you’ll be a legend yourself”

“What case?”