An awkward pause hung in the air. Finally, blessedly, it was broken by the electronic warble of the phone on the desk. Miranda lifted the receiver without looking at the display, trailing droplets of tea across the scuffed desktop. “Osteology lab, this is Miranda,” she said, then, “Hi, Peggy. . . . Yeah, he’s here.” She handed me the phone, frowning as a few final drips spattered her forearm.
Peggy Wilhoit had been the Anthropology Department secretary and administrative assistant for most of my twenty-five years at UT. She knew where to find me, when to remind me, and how to get my goat. Much like an old married couple, we had long ago dispensed with formality, settling into a relationship that was predictable and mostly harmonious, with the exception of the occasional spat. “Morning, Peggy,” I said. “Do you have a tracking device on me?”
“Darn. You’ve finally caught on. What I really need, though, is one of those remote-control shock collars, so I can make you mind better.”
“I’d laugh,” I said, “if I thought you were joking. What’s up? Am I late for a meeting?”
“Sheriff O’Conner, from Cooke County, is on line two. Can you talk to him now, or should I take a message?”
“I’ll take it. Thanks.” I pressed the blinking light on the phone’s console. “Hello, this is Dr. Brockton.”
“Doc,” came a familiar voice. “Jim O’Conner. Remember me?”
“Remember? Hell, how could I forget?” O’Conner, a Vietnam war hero, was a slight, soft-spoken man, yet he had a commanding presence and powerful charisma. Before becoming sheriff of Cooke County, O’Conner had built a small ginseng empire that was remarkable for being both prosperous and legal—an uncommon combination in the hills of Cooke County, which was notorious for its frontier mentality and outlaw entrepreneurs. Cooke County had long trafficked in ’sang, as the locals called ginseng root, but until O’Conner started cultivating it, the root was invariably poached from federal lands. Besides ginseng and rugged mountains, the county’s other claims to fame and infamy included pot patches, cockfights, chop shops, and, more recently, meth labs.
I had first met O’Conner five or six years or so before, when I worked a murder case in Cooke County. He himself had been wrongly accused of the murder; in the end, not only was he cleared, he was elected sheriff, and he’d promised to clean up the corruption that had characterized the county for a century or more. As best I could tell from occasional news reports about undercover stings and colorful trials, he’d done a good job of keeping his promise. “My secretary told me ‘Sheriff O’Conner’ was calling. I reckon that means you’re still wearing a badge?”
“For the moment,” he said. “But it’s a temporary, short-term kind of deal.”
I laughed. “Isn’t that what you said back when you first took the job, what, five, six years ago?”
“Well, yeah,” he confessed. “My mistake was, I said I’d stick with it till I got the place cleaned up. Turns out, cleaning up Cooke County is like getting rid of kudzu. You can cut vines all day long, but until you get at the root problem, it’s just gonna keep coming back.”
His analogy rang true to what I knew of Cooke County, botanically as well as criminally: it was easy to become entangled, tough to get loose. “You getting any closer? To the root problem?”
“Hard to say, Doc. Some days I think we’re making progress. Other days, I think the problem is just human nature itself, stretching all the way back to Adam and Eve.”
“So maybe it wasn’t a snake that started the trouble,” I mused, “but a kudzu vine grabbing hold of Eve’s ankle?”
He gave a quick laugh. “I think you’re onto something there, Doc. You ever get tired of anthropology, you should take up preaching. You make more sense than any of the hillbilly Bible-thumpers up this way.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” I said. “But meanwhile, I’m guessing you didn’t call to ask about theology.”
“You’re right. We’ve got a death up here I’m hoping you might help us investigate.”
“Now you’re talking my language,” I said. “Is the body still at the scene?”
He hesitated. “Well, no, not exactly.”
My good mood evaporated, replaced by exasperation. “Dammit, Sheriff, you know better than that. I’ve said this to law enforcement till I’m blue in the face. It’s really important not to move the body till I get there. Makes my job a whole lot harder if—”
“Excuse me, Doc,” he interrupted. “I didn’t make myself clear. It’s not that we moved the body. It’s that there’s not really much body there anymore. Just bones. And not a whole lot of ’em to speak of.”
Suddenly I felt sheepish. “Well, hell, Jim, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I should’ve known you wouldn’t compromise the evidence. My apologies.”
“No worries, Doc. You think you can come help us out?”
“Sure. Miranda and I—you remember my assistant, Miranda?”