The Inquisitor's Key by Jefferson Bass
PART I
PROLOGUE
Knoxville, Tennessee
The Present
A MOCKINGBIRD TWITTERED ON A BRANCH OF A DOGWOOD as a middle-aged man—his hair going to salt-and-pepper, but his body fit and his movements brisk—approached a chain-link gate at the edge of a wooded hillside. The man wore a black Nomex jumpsuit, which was heavy and hot for Knoxville in June, but he’d scheduled a meeting with the university president later in the day and didn’t want his street clothes reeking of human decay. Sewn to each shoulder of the jumpsuit was a patch embroidered with the words “Forensic Anthropology” and the image of a human skull, a pair of swords crisscrossed beneath it.
The gate, like the rest of the fence, was topped with shiny coils of concertina wire. Above the gate, the unblinking eye of a video camera kept constant vigil; other cameras monitored the perimeter of the fence, which enclosed three wooded acres. A large metal sign wired to the mesh of the gate proclaimed UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH FACILITY. KEEP OUT. OFFICIAL USE ONLY. FOR ENTRY OR INFORMATION, CONTACT DR. BILL BROCKTON, ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT, 865-974-0010. The gate was secured by a padlock whose shackle was as thick as the man’s index finger.
The man in the jumpsuit—Brockton himself—unclipped a large ring of keys from his belt, selected one, and opened the padlock. Swinging the chain-link gate outward, he proceeded to a second, inner gate, this one made of solid planks. The wooden gate, part of a high privacy fence shielding the enclosure from prying eyes, was secured by a second padlock, which was fastened to a heavy steel chain threaded through holes bored in each door of the gate. When the lock clicked open, Brockton fed one end of the chain through the hole in the board, link by clattering link, and then pushed the wooden gate inward. It opened onto a small grass clearing surrounded by locust trees, oaks, maples, dogwoods, and climbing honeysuckle vines. Stacked at one edge of the clearing, just inside the gate, were three aluminum cases, each the size and shape of a no-frills coffin. Faded shipping labels hung from the cases, along with red BIOHAZARD warnings.
Retracing his steps, Brockton exited the enclosure, returned to a white University of Tennessee pickup idling just outside the fence, and backed it through the gate and into the clearing. At the far edge of the grass, he tucked the truck between two trees and shut off the engine. Opening the camper shell and the tailgate, he slid out a sheet of plywood, pulling it across the tailgate until it was close to dropping off.
His muscles strained with the effort, for atop the plywood lay a black vinyl bag seven feet long by three feet wide, as thick and lumpy as a human body. He lowered the end of the plywood to the ground, forming a ramp, and then slid the bag down. Kneeling beside it, he tugged open the zipper—a long C-shaped zipper edging the top, one side, and the bottom of the rectangular bag—and then folded back the flap. Inside was a fresh corpse, a white male whose abundant wrinkles and sparse white hair seemed to suggest that he’d lived out his allotted threescore years and ten, maybe more. The face appeared peaceful; the old man might almost have been napping except for the unblinking eyes…and the blowfly that landed and walked unnoticed across one of the corneas.
From the back of the truck Brockton retrieved two thin dog tags, each stamped with the number 49-12 to signify that the corpse was the forty-ninth body donated to the research facility in the year 2012. With a pair of black zip ties, he fastened one tag to the corpse’s left arm and the other to the left ankle: a seemingly insignificant act, yet one that conferred a whole new identity on the man. In his new life—his life as a corpse, a research subject, and a skeletal specimen—the man would have a new identity. His new name, his only name, would be 49-12.
Upriver, the bells of a downtown church began to toll noon as Brockton lay 49-12’s hands across his chest. The anthropologist looked up, listening, then smiled slightly. Peering into the vacant eyes of the corpse, he plucked a line of poetry from some dusty corner of memory. “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls,” he advised 49-12. “It tolls for thee.”
At that moment, the cell phone on Brockton’s belt chimed. “And for me,” he added.