The Bone Yard (27 page)

Authors: Jefferson Bass

BOOK: The Bone Yard

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A
s with Dr. Brockton, so with us: this book represents our first fictional foray into Florida’s Panhandle. Amid the live-oak forests and cottonmouth creeks, we’ve found a generous and informative group of local informants. First of all, sincere thanks to Michael Peltier, the journalist friend who planted the seed for this novel. Thanks also to Mark Russell and Teddy Tollett for sharing insights about the Dozier School for Boys and about Florida’s juvenile justice system.

Florida State University criminologist Dan Maier-Katkin provided valuable perspective on the links between juvenile justice (or injustice) and human rights, as well as a radical and inspiring vision of the better futures we might aspire to offer disadvantaged young people. FSU social-work professors Stephen Tripodi and Eyitayo Onifade shared helpful background information on juvenile-justice problems and potential solutions. FSU law professor Sandy D’Alemberte—a human rights crusader, former legislator, and former FSU president—graciously shared his knowledge of north Florida, past and present, including his contagious appreciation of the Shell Oyster Bar.

Floy Turner—a retired special agent of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (and a continuing warrior in the battles against child abduction and human trafficking)—generously shared her knowledge of FDLE and local law-enforcement in Florida. Brittany Auclair, an FDLE crime-scene and crime-lab analyst, contributed both technical knowledge and insightful literary suggestions; and forensic guru Amy George—whose father, Paul Norkus, helped bring to the United States the use of superglue-fuming to reveal latent fingerprints—deserves much credit for whatever is accurate and admirable in the portrayal of forensic analyst Angie St. Claire. Additional thanks go to Jonathan Auclair, another friendly and helpful forensic expert; Vince George, a former FDLE chemist; Andy Randall, who opened the first of many important doors; Tony Falsetti, former director of the Human Identification Laboratory at the University of Florida; anthropologist Stefan Schmitt of Physicians for Human Rights; Joe Walsh, at the biohazard-cleanup firm Associated Services; funeral director Susie Mozolic; medical examiner Lisa Flannagan, MD; former prosecutor Pete Antonacci; former public defender Jeff Duvall; artist Stuart Riordan; forensic anthropologist Rick Snow; and—as always—forensic wizard Art Bohanan, whose faith in divining is matched by his expertise in more traditional forensic-science techniques.

Forensic artists Joanna Hughes, in Knoxville, and Joe Mullins, at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children—both of whom sportingly agreed to appear in the novel under their own names—were remarkably generous and patient in demonstrating their techniques and their talent for restoring faces to the skulls of the unknown dead.

A bow, a nod, and a pair of commemorative white gloves go to Doris Hamburg, Kitty Nicholson, and Lisa Isbell at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), who graciously opened the doors of NARA’s paper-conservation laboratory and offered helpful advice on how to save and read a waterlogged old diary. Conservationist kudos also to Andrew Spindler, a knowledgeable antiquary and generous friend, who paved the way for that NARA visit.

This book was written up and down much of the eastern United States. Many thanks to Holly Idelson and Don Simon, in whose Washington, D.C., basement many early chapters were written; to Beth McPherson and Paul Kando, on whose dining-room table in Maine many middle chapters took shape; and to Cindy and Joe Johnson, on whose screened-in porch at the mouth of the Ochlocknee River many late chapters (in every sense of the word “late”!) were finished.

Our last, lasting, and deepest thanks go to our wondrous wives: Carol Bass, whose life, day in and day out, embodies strength, courage, grace, and humor; and Jane McPherson—Amazing Jane, Beloved Jane—whose many inspiring qualities include unwavering commitment to human rights and deep compassion for the challenges faced by the disregarded, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised.

—Bill Bass, Knoxville, Tennessee

—Jon Jefferson, Tallahassee, Florida

Anatomical Illustrations

About the Author

J
EFFERSON
B
ASS
is the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass
and Jon Jefferson. Dr. Bass
(right),
a
world-renowned forensic anthropologist, founded the University of Tennessee’s
Anthropology Research Facility—the Body Farm—a quarter century ago. He is the
author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as
a critically acclaimed memoir about his career at the Body Farm,
Death’s Acre.
Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher,
honored as National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and
Support of Education. Jon Jefferson
(left)
is a
veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been
published in the
New York Times,
Newsweek, USA Today,
and
Popular Science,
and broadcast on National Public Radio. The
coauthor of
Death’s Acre,
he is also the writer and
producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body
Farm.

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Also by Jefferson Bass

Fiction

The Bone Thief

Bones of Betrayal

The Devil’s Bones

Flesh and Bone

Carved in Bone

Nonfiction

Beyond the Body
Farm

Death’s Acre

Credits

Jacket design by Richard Aquan

Jacket photograph by Edmund D. Fountain/St. Petersburg Times/zumapress.com

This book is a work of fiction. The
characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and
are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE BONE YARD
.
Copyright © 2011 by Jefferson Bass. All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have
been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the
text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced,
transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or
introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by
any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented,
without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition March 2011 ISBN:
9780062074560

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