“So there’s no evidence of a knife wound, Jess?”
“Well, you never know. Maybe the guy stabbed him and then stuck this in there to cover his tracks. Sounds far-fetched, but I still get surprised once in a while. You’re gonna check for knife marks on the bone, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I wasn’t trying to get out of the work. Just trying to make sense of what we’re seeing here.”
She wrapped up her dictation with a matter-of-fact notation that the remains had been transferred to forensic anthropologist William Brockton of the University of Tennessee for further examination, to ascertain whether the spine or ribs had sustained trauma, then switched off the recorder. “Bill, you want me to save you a little time?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant. “What do you mean?” I asked. Reaching to one side of the instrument tray, she picked up a long, straight-bladed knife that must have measured eighteen inches from stem to stern. I vaguely recalled seeing its twin one morning in Panera Bread, where a baker deftly dissected a cinnamonraisin loaf into perfect slices. “Looks like a kitchen knife,” I said.
“Oh, please,” she said. “It’s a highly specialized implement with a precise medical name: bread knife.” Her arm extended and then swiftly drew back, and suddenly the corpse’s legs and pelvis lay separated from the upper body by a crisp, narrow gap. The one-eighth-inch cartilage disk between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra had been slit neatly in half.
“Wow,” I said. “Remind me never to make you mad.”
“Don’t ever make me mad,” she obliged. “I keep hoping some creep will try to mug me in the hospital parking lot some night, but it never happens.”
“Tough break,” I commiserated. “But don’t give up hope. You’re far too young and beautiful to become embittered by life’s disappointments.”
“Thanks.”
“Say, you think you could do that again, up here between the thoracic and cervical vertebrae?”
“Gee, I dunno,” she said, “that mighta just been beginner’s luck.” I pulled my finger back a split second before the knife flashed again. The head rolled free of the shoulders. “Two in a row—whattaya know?” Jess washed and dried the knife and began shucking her scrubs and paper booties. Underneath, she’d kept on a pair of black jeans, a blue silk blouse, and a pair of square-toed leather boots. “Okay, sport, he’s all yours. Have fun.” I nodded, already mentally dissecting the rib cage. “Oh, and Bill?” I turned to look at her as she sheathed the blade and tucked it into the belt of her jeans. “Don’t forget what I said. Do what you need to do to straighten things with these students. Then cut yourself some slack. And for pete’s sake, get yourself laid!” She winked broadly and pushed open the door, leaving me standing red-faced above the disarticulated torso of Billy Ray Ledbetter.
I didn’t need to deflesh the entire skeleton, just the thoracic region which Jess had cut free for me. Curling my fingers under the rib cage, I lifted the ripe section of torso and lugged it to a nearby counter, where a mammoth steamjacketed steel kettle stood waiting. Resting my burden on the rim, I shifted my grip and lowered it in, then filled it to within a few inches of the rim, using a short hose hanging on the wall behind it. I added a splash of bleach from a Clorox bottle—I liked the fresher, green-labeled variety—and what I guessed to be a tablespoon from a jar of Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer. The Adolph’s would cut the time and the bleach would cut the odor, as well as lightening the bones’
caramel color to the shade of aging ivory that lawyers and jurors seemed to prefer. I twisted the thermostat at the base of the kettle to 180 degrees. Below that, the tissue would take too long to soften; any higher, and I’d be risking a nasty boil-over.
As I left Billy Ray Ledbetter to simmer, I realized I’d been doing a lot of stewing myself. I’d kept a tight lid on my emotions ever since Kathleen died—
outwardly, at least—hoping that by doing so, I could keep my life from getting messy. Jess’s advice, and my own behavior lately, had shown me that I, too, had come close to boiling over. Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed to loosen up. Maybe I did need to get laid.
CHAPTER 17
I LEANED OUT THE TRUCK and down toward the drive-through window.
“Here you go,” said Dolores, handing me the bright yellow plastic box.
“Did I get anything besides the lens cap?”
“Some great shots of your left index finger,” she laughed. “Your buddy Art could run those through his fingerprint database for sure.” Seeing the alarm on my face, she laughed again. “Gotcha. Not bad, mostly—less gross than usual, which I personally appreciate. Some of ’em, though, looks like you accidentally hit the shutter button before you were ready.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Nothing but mud.”