Jefferson Bass BF 03 The Devil's Bones (com v4.0)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Would you mind if I took the bag out and weighed it?
Of course not, she said.
Before leaving the Anthropology Department, I d borrowed the postage scale
from Peggy s supply closet. I was curious to see how the cremains I d received
from Burt DeVriess compared in weight to those from the crematorium. Burt s
Aunt Jean had weighed barely three pounds. These cremains tipped the scales at
nearly twice that. I commented on the difference to Helen. Well, this gal was
pretty good-sized, she said. Big-boned, as large people like to say.
It s true, I said. The heavier you get, the stronger your bones have to be
just to carry your body weight. Bones are like muscles the more you
challenge em, the stronger they grow.
She smiled. I like that analogy. Like muscles.
A little bit longer-lasting, though, I said. Especially when there s fire
involved.
I thanked Helen for the help and headed back to UT. When I got back to the
office, I looked again at the cremains Burt DeVriess had sent me. With the
comparison fresh in my mind, I was struck more than ever by how wrong they
looked. The bone fragments were too big and splintered. The granular part was
too grainy. The powder was too fine. And those pebbles they were just plain
wrong. I d known it from the moment I saw them; now, somehow, I took them as a
personal affront. With the tip of a pencil, I stirred the mixture, frowning,
thinking about various tests I could use to determine what precisely was in
this urn besides, or instead of, Burt s Aunt Jean.
The phone rang. Dr. B.?
Yes, Peggy?
You haven t seen my postage scale, have you?
Damn it was on the corner of my desk, where I d set it and promptly
forgotten it upon walking into my office.
I need to mail Kate Spradley s bound copy of her dissertation to her down in
Pensacola, and I can t find the scale to weigh it.
I ll look around and see if I spy it anywhere, I said.
Would you like me to pick up one for you next time I m at Office Depot, Dr.
B.?
Whatever would I need with a postage scale, Peggy?
Heaven only knows, she said. And I m pretty sure I don t want to.
When I hung up, I made a mental note to stop by the men s room on my way to
her office. If I was lucky, the electric hand dryer would have enough oomph to
blow away the coating of human dust from the crematorium.
I wished it could also dispell the layers of dread and fear that had settled
over my heart since Garland Hamilton s escape.
CHAPTER 9
THE PHONE RANG AND I GRABBED FOR IT, HOPING IT was Art or a reporter, or
anyone calling to tell me Hamilton had been captured.
The caller was Robert Roper, the Knox County district attorney general, but he
was calling to ask about Mary Latham. You re sure she was already dead when
the car burned? Robert was a longtime colleague and friend; I d testified for
him in a dozen or more murder trials over the past decade, and I respected his
thoroughness and professionalism. I also appreciated the fact that Robert had
recused his entire staff when the police initially charged me with Jess
Carter s murder.
No way she could have been alive, I said. Not unless she was walking around
like somebody out of Night of the Living Dead, with hunks of flesh falling off
and flies and maggots swarming all over.
Thanks for sharing, he said. I was just about to eat lunch. Maybe I ll
catch up on my depositions instead.
If memory serves, you could stand to skip a lunch or two, I parried. Last
time I saw you, you d put on about twenty pounds.
Page 30
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
You should write a book, he said. Dr. Brockton s Gross-Out Weight-Loss
Plan. It could be the next South Beach Diet. You might wind up on Oprah.
I ll be sure to tell Oprah it was you who inspired me.
Great. Now back to Mary Latham. Can you tell if she decomposed in the car or
someplace else?
I doubt it, I said. Normally there s a big, greasy stain where the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Odnośniki