Middlebrook Pike was the next intersection after I passed Rohm and Haas. I turned left on Middlebrook, heading west, away from downtown. The road burrowed beneath I-40 and then, an industrialized mile later, crossed over the I-640 bypass. Just beyond 640 the cityscape gave way to farmland, and I knew I’d reached the Latham property. The entire Middlebrook frontage, perhaps half a mile, was lined with white board fence. Huge oaks and tulip poplars dotted rolling meadows, and a small stream—Third Creek, if I remembered Knoxville’s prosaic creek-naming scheme correctly—meandered out of the property beside an entry road.
The driveway led to a two-story white clapboard farmhouse, easily a century old, shaded by more of the towering oaks. The house was simple but graceful, with a wide, airy porch and generous windows of wavy antique glass. A handful of law-enforcement vehicles, including a crime-lab van, lined a semicircular drive that approached the front porch. Off to the side of the house was a yellow Nissan Pathfinder, which I guessed to be Stuart Latham’s.
Beyond the house, after the asphalt drive gave way to gravel, stood a large whitewashed barn, complete with weather vane and lightning rods atop the metal roof. I’d passed this property many times, but I’d never realized how big it was, or how beautiful. Beyond the barn a dirt track led farther out, winding into the pasture, where a pond glistened in a low hollow. The dirt track looped down past the pond, then angled up a hillside beyond. The only jarring notes in the whole pastoral, picturesque scene, a mere two miles from the heart of downtown Knoxville, were the black circle of grass and the blue strobes of the unmarked car belonging to Darren Cash, who’d told me where to meet him.
Cranking down my window—the morning was already hot but not yet unbearable—I caught the sweet, dusty fragrance of hay, a welcome change from the chemical fumes that had forced their way into my truck only a few minutes before. I idled past the barn, around the pond, and up the rise toward Cash, taking my time so I could enjoy the view. Cash was half sitting, half leaning on the trunk of his car, his arms folded, his biceps stretching the limits of a navy polo shirt. As I pulled alongside and parked, just outside the scorched circle, Cash used one foot to shove off from the rear wheel, then extended his hand through my open window for me to shake. Now that my engine was off, I could hear the steady whoosh of traffic somewhere through the woods to the north—not loud but surprising, considering I could see no signs of the bypass from here.
“Morning, Doc,” Cash said. “Nice place, huh?”
“Very nice,” I agreed, clambering out. “I wouldn’t mind having a place like this myself.”
“Well, it could be coming on the market soon,” he said. “If we’re smart or lucky.”
“How long you been here?”
“About an hour. We were waiting for Latham at the gate down at the bottom of the driveway when he headed for work. He wasn’t too happy to see our little caravan.”
“Did he go on to work?”
“No way,” said Cash. “He’s in the house, acting all indignant, watching the evidence techs like a hawk. Trying to figure out what they’re looking for.”
I studied the burned circle, which measured maybe twenty yards across, then turned and looked back toward the house, which was barely visible. “For a place that’s as close to downtown as my house, this is mighty isolated,” I said. “I can see why nobody would have just happened by and seen a body in the car.”
He nodded. “Latham says she liked to park up here when she wanted to think. Sit and smoke and look at the view.”
I gazed out over the farmland. From the rise where we stood, the pasture had lovely views to both the east and the west. “Actually, I’ll buy that part of the story,” I said. “I’d probably do the same if I owned this chunk of land. Except for the smoking.”
“Which Latham mentioned three times in his statement. He actually said, ‘It was probably a cigarette butt that caught the grass on fire.’ When I read his statement the other day, I could almost feel his elbow nudging me in the ribs every time he mentioned the smoking.”
“That’s because he thinks cops are dumb,” I said. “Wanted to make sure they got it.”
“Another interesting thing about this location,” said Cash.
“Once the car was burning, hundreds of people would have seen the smoke from 640—it’s only a quarter mile through those trees. Half a dozen people called 911 to report a fire—which I’m sure he wanted.”
“To establish the time of the fire,” I said.
“Exactly. The first call came at three fifty-three P.M.—while he was playing the slots in the Bellagio.”
Cash led me into the burned circle, pointing out four evidence flags, which indicated where the corners of the vehicle had been. A fifth flag marked the spot where five cigarette butts—almost but not quite consumed by the blaze—had been found below the driver’s door. I knelt and inspected that area, seeing nothing but the charred stubble of grass and the thin wire of the evidence flag jammed into the ground.
I pointed back toward where the rear of the vehicle would have been. “Do you remember which side the exhaust pipe was on?”
“The right,” he said.