Body Farm 2 - Flesh And Bone (25 page)

I WAS LUNCHING ALFRESCO—wolfing down a drive-through deli sandwich at a picnic table in Tyson Park, a long strip of grass and trees near the UT campus—when the cellphone rang. The display read BURTON DeVRIESS, LLC. When I answered, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Chloe instead of Burt on the other end. “Dr. Brockton?” My bubble was swiftly burst. “Mr. DeVriess would like to speak with you. Can you hold while I put him on the line?”

“Sure, Chloe,” I sighed, “though I’d rather talk to you.”

“But you need to talk to him. I hope you’re doing well.”

“I’m still a free man, so things could be worse.”

“That’s the spirit. Hold on for Mr. DeVriess.”

I held on. I’d been holding on a lot lately. Mostly by my fingernails. “Bill? It’s Burt. How are you?”

“Ask me at the end of the phone call. What’s up?”

“Can you come in this afternoon? I’d like to go over two pieces of evidence we’ve obtained in the course of discovery.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“It’s good-news and bad-news evidence. Which one you want first?”

“Hell. Give me the bad news first.”

“It’s an exhibit the prosecution will try to make hay with at trial. It’s the video from the surveillance camera on the roof of UT hospital.”

“The one that’s zoomed in on at the gate of the Body Farm.”

“Exactly. About three hours before you called 911, that camera shows what sure looks like your pickup truck driving through the gate and into the facility.”

“I’ll tell you what I told Evers. That’s impossible. I wasn’t there. I swear to you, I was not there.”

“Nevertheless. I’ve looked at a copy, and I have to say, if it’s not your truck, it’s a dead ringer for it. Any chance somebody could have borrowed it that night without you knowing?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “During the daytime I usually leave it in the driveway, but at night I lock it in the garage. And the garage door opener clatters pretty loud—I’m almost certain that would wake me up.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I’m not sure you need to volunteer that part on the witness stand. Anyhow, I’ve got a video and audio expert coming in to examine the original tape, see if he can find any basis for challenging it. Might be good if you were here, too.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said. “I can’t believe how thoroughly this deck is getting stacked against me. So what’s the good news? Instead of the death penalty, they’re only seeking life without parole?”

“Ha,” he said, followed by an actual laugh. “Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor. No, it’s a little better than that. Something we can use to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.”

“What? Tell me.”

“It’s the voice mails Jess got after she was on the TV news sticking up for you and evolution.”

“The ones where some guy threatened to do nasty things to her? I’m surprised she didn’t erase those right away.”

“Maybe she figured she should hang on to them in case he kept harassing her,” he said. “So she could prove to the phone company that these weren’t just typical prank calls.”

“What ever the reason, I’m glad she saved them,” I said.

“Me too. This expert I’m bringing in should be able to compare your voice to the voice mails and establish that it’s not your voice making those threats.” He paused. “Bill, there’s no reason we shouldn’t get him to do that comparison, is there?”

It took a moment for me to grasp what he was implying. “Jesus, Burt, of course not. I did not make those phone calls to Jess.”

“Just making sure,” he said. “I’ve listened to the messages. The voice doesn’t sound like yours, and it’s not your style. They’re pretty strong stuff—sadistic sexual threats, and some pretty sick death threats. If I were a juror and I heard some creep threatening her like this, I’d wonder whether the killer might be this guy instead of the mild-mannered Dr. Brockton.”

“You think jurors think like you?”

“Hell no. Nobody thinks like me. But I’m able to think like jurors when I need to.”

“I hope your crystal ball is right about this.”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “I’ll plant those seeds of doubt and then fertilize like hell.”

I’d seen Grease in action enough times to know what he meant—and know he’d be good at it. “Fertilize how—with a couple truckloads of bullshit?”

“Doc, you cut me to the quick,” he said. “My bullshit’s so incredibly rich it won’t take but a shovelful.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “What time is your expert coming in?”

“Two o’clock. Can you make it?”

“What else have I got to do? I’ve been suspended from teaching, and the police haven’t exactly deluged me with forensic cases since they arrested me for murder.”

“Damned shortsighted of them,” he said. “I’ll see you at two.”

The next two hours passed with excruciating slowness. Finally, at one-fifteen, unable to wait any longer, I headed for DeVriess’s office. Even taking the long way around the UT campus, I pulled into the parking garage beneath Riverview Tower a good twenty minutes early. Too bad, I thought. Worst case, I’ll have to sit in the waiting room for a while. No worse than sitting anywhere else. Maybe better—Chloe’s always nice to me.

As I stepped into the elevator and punched the button for DeVriess’s floor, I noticed a slight man pushing a large, wheeled case in my direction. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize he wouldn’t be using the stairs, so I held the elevator for him. The case—actually two cases, one atop the other—bumped over the sill and into the car. “Thanks,” said the man. He was breathing hard and had broken a sweat. He didn’t look muscular enough to be a deliveryman, and his shirt and tie suggested that he was a professional of some sort. The fact that the tie was a clip-on suggested that the sturdy black cases contained computer gear of some sort.

“That’s quite a load you’ve got there,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Weighs more than I do. Plane fare for it costs more than mine, too, time I pay all the excess baggage charges.”

“Computer hardware?”

“Sort of,” he said. “Video and audio equipment. Plus a computer.”

That would explain why he’d glanced at the elevator console and not pushed a button: he was bound for the same floor I was, and the same lawyer’s office. I was on the verge of introducing myself when it occurred to me that I didn’t know a graceful way to do it. “Hi, I’m Bill Brockton, accused murderer?” Or maybe, “God, I hope you’re good enough to save me from the electric chair?” So instead I decided to focus on him. “What do you use it for?”

“I do forensic video and audio analysis.”

“You mean like enhancing recordings?”

“I’m careful not to call it ‘enhancing’ in court,” he said. “The word ‘enhancing’ makes it sound like I’m adding something to it. What I’m really doing is subtracting—filtering out noise, static, and other interference—to extract the best possible images and sounds from what’s already recorded.”

“How much difference does that make?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Or maybe disappointed, if you watch CSI. On shows like that, video analysis is like magic—they take these really crappy, blurry images and zoom in by about a factor of ten, and hit a button and suddenly the image is razor-sharp. Doesn’t work that way in real life—if you start out with a crappy camera and a worn-out tape, you can’t end up with a great image. But TV makes people think you can.”

“I’ve heard that called ‘the CSI effect,’ I think,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said. “The public—and jurors—now expect miracles from people in law enforcement. They think all this razzle-dazzle, instant-answer technology that some scriptwriter has made up must really exist. And if a prosecutor can’t produce that sort of thing in court, they tend to discount the evidence.”

“What about the defense?”

“Funny thing,” he said. “On TV, it’s nearly always the cops and prosecutors pulling the rabbits out of the high-tech hats. So the jurors expect more bells and whistles from them than they do from the defense.”

This gave me some comfort.

The elevator stopped on Burt’s floor, and I held the door button again while the man levered and bumped his gear over the threshold. Then I squeezed past him so I could open the door to Burt’s suite of offices. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s very nice of you.”

“Maybe you can do me a favor sometime,” I said with a smile.

Chloe looked startled to see me coming in with the video consultant. “Well, hello, Dr. Brockton,” she said. “You’re here early.”

“I am,” I said, “and look who I found wandering around on Gay Street.” She looked confused. “I’m kidding, Chloe,” I said. “We just happened to ride up on the elevator together.”

Her relief was almost palpable. “Hi, you must be Mr. Thomas,” she said. “Welcome to Knoxville. I’m Chloe Matthews, Mr. DeVriess’s assistant. I hope your flight was good?”

“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.”