I turned and looked again at the body of the DEA agent. “Hickock said he was trying to protect me. And by God he did, didn’t he? He died waging war.” Prescott nodded. “So now I gotta ask one thing,” I said. “How the hell did you know to put a sharpshooter out here?”
“We had a GPS tracker on your car. And a tap on your cell phone. We even managed to get a shotgun mike up on that ridge in time to record that last part of Maddox’s little speech.”
I was impressed, but I was also confused. “You did all that? Why?”
“One of our partner agencies—the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department—shared a key piece of new evidence with us yesterday. A skull fragment, which confirmed that Richard Janus was murdered. That took the investigation in a new direction. It also suggested that the killer might attempt to . . . uh . . . contact you.”
I pondered the implications of all this. “Are you saying you used me as bait for a killer, Agent Prescott?” I remembered a brief bit of banter from our first ride down Otay Mountain weeks before and gave him a grin. “Did you just throw me under the bus?”
“Of course not, Dr. Brockton,” he said, grinning back. “We never throw anyone under the bus. And if a forensic consultant just happens to fall under the bus? While we’re standing nearby with our hand on his back? We do our very best to pick him up and dust him off and remind everyone how glad we are that he’s okay.” He paused to let that sink in, then added, “I’ll be recommending to SAC that we hold a joint press conference tomorrow, together with the DEA and the sheriff, to update the media and set the record straight on Richard Janus’s case. I’d like to get Mrs. Janus there, too, if she’s willing to accept an olive branch and bury the hatchet. If you could find it in your heart to join us, there might even be a letter of commendation in it for you. A very lavish letter.”
“When you say lavish,” I said, “do you mean embossed with the FBI seal? In color?”
“You know the Bureau doesn’t make promises,” he said. “But I’ll recommend color and embossing. In the strongest possible terms.”
Knoxville, Tennessee
WE HELD KATHLEEN’S MEMORIAL SERVICE AT SECOND Presbyterian Church in late August, a week after the university’s fall semester began—a long time after her death, but the only way to include the university community that had meant so much to her. Jeff, Jenny, and the boys sat with me in the front row. So did Carmelita Janus and helicopter-jockey Skidder, who had given up his law enforcement job to become chief pilot for Airlift Relief International. Carmelita was getting the organization back on its feet again, thanks to Kathleen’s bequest and a flood of other donations in Richard’s honor, which began pouring in once the media began portraying him as a misunderstood and martyred saint, of sorts. Last but not least, in a wheelchair parked at the end of our pew, was KPD Captain Brian Decker, still weak but out of the woods and expected to recover from his close brush with death.
Behind us, in the second pew, sat Kathleen’s colleagues from Nutrition Sciences. At my request, they all wore their academic robes as a way of honoring Kathleen as a teacher and scholar. The sight of them reminded me yet again that Kathleen’s death was a loss to many people, in many walks of life—some of them children in faraway places. They would never lay eyes on her, but they would see the world itself, as a result of her foundation’s eyesight-saving work.
My own colleagues and students turned out in droves, too. So did the dean, UT’s provost and president, and even the sharptaloned legal eagle Amanda Whiting, who had actually worked behind the scenes to rally legislative support for the Body Farm: Amanda had enlisted police chiefs, county sheriffs, and district attorneys from throughout the state in a campaign to remind their senators and representatives that the Body Farm’s research helped solve murders throughout the great state of Tennessee, and that voting against the Body Farm might be perceived as getting soft on crime. The strategy worked brilliantly, and the legislative assault on the facility ended not with a bang, or even a whimper, but with utter silence.
The service itself was fairly brief. I wasn’t able to say much—I choked up pretty quickly, so about all I was able to get out was something about what a privilege it had been to share thirty years of my life with such a wonderful woman. Jeff did better than I did, but the real prizewinner was Jenny, who talked about becoming family with Kathleen: about finding a haven, and a friend, and a role model, and a hero all rolled into one in this remarkable woman. Amen, I thought.
The receiving line, after the service, lasted for nearly two hours. By the end I was exhausted, having trouble recognizing faces and remembering names. The last person in line was a young woman, and when I looked at her, I drew an utter blank. She looked to be around twenty or so, an attractive redhead with lively eyes. She had probably taken one of my intro classes; by now, thousands of UT students had.