I WAS RUNNING OVERTIME in my four o’clock Human Origins class, delivering a lecture on evolutionary changes in the human skull. “How many of you have seen the Coneheads, on Saturday Night Live?” I asked. Half the three hundred students raised their hands. “In another twenty thousand years,” I said, “if the cranium keeps getting taller and narrower, you and I will look just like the Coneheads.” The students were still laughing when a uniformed KPD officer came through the double doors at the back of the auditorium. Most anthropology courses were taught in the small, shabby classrooms in Stadium Hall, but the three big intro classes—Human Origins, Archaeology, and Cultural Anthropology—required a bigger venue, which I’d found in McClung Museum, a pleasant quarter-mile walk from the stadium.
The officer, a patrolman named Maddox, had been assigned to watch my back until Satterfield was safely in custody. Another officer was watching Kathleen, and a third was keeping tabs on Jeff. “So our brains have gotten bigger,” I continued, “as our jaws have gotten smaller—because our jaws have gotten smaller, in fact. Thirty-two used to be the normal number of teeth for adults, but as a species, we’re gradually losing our third molars, our wisdom teeth. So if you don’t have wisdom teeth, it doesn’t mean you’re dumb; it actually means just the opposite—it means you’re more highly evolved than some moron with a mouthful of teeth.” From the back of the auditorium, Maddox beckoned to me.
“Excuse me, class,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted. “It appears that the long arm of the law has finally caught up with me.” Heads swiveled, faces curious. “Y’all start counting your teeth. If you’ve had any pulled, or lost any, count those, too.” I beckoned to a girl seated in the front row. “Rebecca? Would you come up to the board and take a tally for us? In this sample of three hundred humans, how many have thirty-two teeth, and how many have only twenty-eight? What’s the breakdown, by number and by percentage?” As I started up the aisle, I saw students tooth counting—some using the tongue-probe method, others running a fingertip inside their mouths.
Maddox led me out of the auditorium and into the hallway. I searched his expression for some hint of what he had to say. “What’s up, Officer?”
“Got some news,” he said in a low voice. He glanced around the wide hallway, which was empty but exposed. “But let’s go someplace a little less public.” I took him down a narrow side hallway that led to the museum’s offices, stopping in a corner that offered privacy, as well as a good view of anyone approaching from either direction.
“From the look on your face,” I said, “whatever the news is, it isn’t good.”
“Some of it’s good, some bad. The good news is, the SWAT team went in, and the suspect’s dead.” The words sent a flood of feelings coursing through me: blessed relief, grim satisfaction, and guilt.
Suddenly my heart clenched as I realized just how bad the bad news might be. “Dear God,” I said, clutching his arm. “Has something happened to Kathleen? Or Jeff?”
He shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that,” he assured me. “But the scene turned into a total cluster-fuck, if you’ll pardon my language. Sumbitch had the place booby-trapped—that, or he ate a stick of dynamite. Blew his own damn head off. Nearly took the SWAT team out with him.”
“That’s awful.”
He made a face. “That ain’t the bad part. The SWAT guys are okay. But there was some kind of damn snake loose in the house, too—rattlesnake or cobra or who the hell knows what. Bomb-squad guy was in there with his dog, sniffing for more explosives. Damn snake bit the dog. Handler, too. Dead, both of ’em. Died quicker’n you can say Jack Robinson.”
“God in heaven. What kind of monster keeps killing even after he’s dead?” Maddox shook his head in sorrow and bafflement. “Do you know if my family knows about what’s happened at the scene? My wife and my son? If they don’t, I’d rather be the one to tell them. In person.”
Maddox radioed the officers who were keeping watch over Kathleen and Jeff. “No sir, they don’t know it yet. Your wife’s in a meeting, and your boy’s at cross-country practice.”
I nodded gratefully. “Could you relay a message to them? Ask them to be home by six?” He nodded. “And Officer? Please make sure they know I’m fine.”
I didn’t feel fine; I felt like I might be sick. But it seemed important to say it—to my family, and to myself. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.
CHAPTER 43
Kittredge
KITTREDGE FROWNED AT THE driver’s license the forensic tech, Bohanan, was holding between a gloved thumb and forefinger. Nicholas Eugene Satterfield, said the license, which had come from the dead man’s wallet. The face in the photo bore a strong resemblance to the artist’s sketch of the Cahaba Lane rapist—the Cahaba Lane killer. The frown-inducing problem was that Kittredge couldn’t match the face on the license or the face in the sketch to the face of the dead guy slumped in the La-Z-Boy, because the dead guy slumped in the La-Z-Boy had no face.
Bohanan tucked the license into an evidence bag. “We got dental records on Mr. Satterfield?”
“Not yet,” said the detective. “Military does, but we don’t. I’m still trying to find out who’s got ’em—the Navy, or the Military Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis.” The detective leaned in and peered at the bloody stump of spine. “Ick. What good will dental records do us, anyhow? We got no teeth.”
“O ye of little faith,” said Bohanan. “Just because his teeth aren’t in his head anymore—”