Kathleen looked worried. “What’s wrong? Honey? What’s happened?”
I held up a hand to quiet her as Malloy’s message began to play. I closed my eyes and felt my head sag toward my chest. “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no. Please, no.” I felt Kathleen’s hand on my arm, squeezing and then shaking it to get my attention, but I just shook my head, my eyes still tightly closed. I felt behind me with my free hand and found one of the chairs tucked beneath the kitchen table. Tugging it out, I sat down—or, rather, collapsed into it.
When the third message began—the FBI message—my eyes flew open, and I stared at Kathleen as if I’d seen a ghost. She no longer looked worried; now she looked downright alarmed, and she backed away slightly, as if I myself might be cause for alarm. When the third message ended, the phone fell silent for a moment. Then a robotic voice intoned, “To replay your messages, press one. To save your messages, press two. To delete your messages, press three.”
I cued up the reporter’s message again, put the phone on “speaker,” and turned it toward Kathleen, motioning for her to sit. Her eyes still riveted on me, she sat down across the table, poised on the edge of the seat as if ready to spring up and flee at the slightest provocation.
“Mike Malloy, Fox Five News,” I heard the brash voice again. “Dr. Brockton, I need to ask you some questions about the remains you identified as those of Richard Janus. I have information from a reliable source confirming that Janus is actually still alive. My source tells me that Janus had his teeth pulled and put a decoy body in the aircraft. I’d like to ask you to explain more about how you reached the conclusion you did, and how Janus was able to fool you, since you’re supposed to be one of the world’s leading experts on human identification.”
I felt Kathleen’s hand on my wrist. “Oh, darling,” she said. “Bless your heart.”
“Wait,” I said over the dial tone at the end of the reporter’s message. “It gets better.”
“Dr. Brockton,” the third message began in a tight, clipped tone, as if each word were being bitten instead of spoken. “SSA Prescott, San Diego.” As if I needed to be reminded where Prescott worked. “We have one hell of a shitstorm here, the epicenter of which is your botched identification of Richard Janus. I have two questions for you, which might, at this point, be moot, but I’ll ask them anyway. First, did you check the teeth for tool marks, or other evidence of extraction? Second, why the hell didn’t you ask more questions about that spinal cord stimulator?” There was a pause in the message, and Kathleen opened her mouth to speak, but again I held up a hand to tell her to wait. “We need you to return the teeth and skeletal material immediately,” Prescott went on, “so we can send the teeth to a qualified forensic odontologist.” The phrase—qualified forensic odontologist—practically dripped venom. “Please deliver them to the FBI’s Knoxville field office as soon as you get this message. They’ll be expecting you. Needless to say, you’re not to make any further comments to the media about this case.” And with no further sign-off, he hung up.
“Oh, Bill,” said Kathleen. “I am so, so sorry.”
The fourth and final voice mail was from a blocked number. The message began with what might have been the heavy breathing of an obscene call, but then the breathing became torn and ragged, as if the caller were struggling to regain control. “Please,” said a woman’s voice, hoarse and anguished and barely recognizable. “Do not play games with me. I must know. Is my husband dead, or is he alive? Tell me the truth, please. I beg you. Please.” The breathing grew even more ragged as she gasped out a San Diego telephone number, and then the call ended.
Kathleen stared at me from across the table. One hand remained on my wrist; the other was over her mouth. “My God,” she breathed. “Was that . . . ?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Carmelita Janus.”
“How awful.” Kathleen’s eyes were wide. “What on earth do you do now?”
I considered my options, not liking any of them. “I give the teeth and bones back to the FBI. But first I spend some time with them.” I heard another voice, and I realized that my cell phone was nagging me to replay, save, or delete my messages. Instead, I simply disconnected the call, and left the phone on the table. “I think the voice-mail system keeps those marked as new messages until I tell it to do something with them,” I told Kathleen. “I’m leaving now, but I’m not taking that with me.”