The Body Farm

When I arrived in Knoxville many hours later, the weather was the same but colder, and it had gotten dark.

I got a taxi, and the driver, who was local and called himself Cowboy, told me he wrote songs and played piano when he wasn't in a cab. By the time he got me to the Hyatt, I knew he went to Chicago once a year to please his wife, and that he regularly drove ladies from Johnson City who came here to shop in the malls. I was reminded of the i

The restaurant was extremely busy, and I had to wait at the bar. It was the University of Te

The Vols had beat the Gamecocks, and it had been a battle as serious as any fought in the history of the world. When men in UT hats on either side occasionally turned my way for agreement, I was very sincere in my nods and affirmations, for to admit in that room that I had not been there would surely come across as treason. I was not taken to my table until close to ten p.m., by which time my anxiety level was quite high.

I ate nothing Italian or sensible this night, for I had not eaten well in days and finally I was starving. I ordered baby back ribs, biscuits, and salad, and when the bottle of Te

I tried not to think about crime. But blaze orange burned like small fires around me, and then I would see the tape around Emily's little wrists. I saw it over her mouth. I thought of the horrible creatures housed in Attica and of Gault and people like him. By the time I asked the waiter to call for my cab, Knoxville seemed as scary as any city I had ever been in.

My unease grew only worse when I found myself waiting outside on the porch for fifteen minutes, then half an hour, waiting for Cowboy to come. But it seemed he had ridden off to other horizons, and by midnight I was stranded and alone watching waiters and cooks go home.

I went back into the restaurant one last time.

"I've been waiting for the taxi you called for more than an hour now," I said to a young man cleaning up the bar.

"It's homecoming weekend, ma'am. That's the problem."

"I understand, but I must get back to my hotel."

"Where are you staying?"

"The Hyatt."

"They have a shuttle. Want me to try it for ya?"

"Please." The shuttle was a van, and the chatty young driver asked all about a football game I never saw as I thought how easy it would be to find yourself helped by a stranger who was a Bundy or a Gault. That was how Eddie Heath had died. His mother sent him to a nearby convenience store for a can of soup, and hours later he was naked and maimed with a bullet in his head. Tape was used in his case, too. It could have been any color because we never saw it.

Gault's weird little game had included taping Eddie's wrists after he was shot, and then removing the tape before dumping the body. We were never clear on why he had done this. Rarely were we clear on so many things that were manifestations of aberrant fantasies. Why a hangman's noose versus a simple, safer slip knot? Why a duct tape that was blaze orange? I wondered if that bright orange tape was something Gault would use, and felt it was. He certainly was flamboyant. He certainly loved bondage.

Killing Ferguson and placing Emily's skin in the freezer also sounded like him. But sexually molesting her did not, and that had continued to nag at me. Gault had killed two women and had shown no sexual interest in them. It was the boy he had stripped and bitten. It was Eddie he had impulsively snatched so he could have his perverted fun. It was another boy in England, or so it seemed now.

Back at the hotel, the bar was jammed and there were many lively people in the lobby. I heard much laughter on my floor as I quietly returned to my room, and I was contemplating turning on a movie when my pager began to vibrate on the dresser. I thought Dorothy was trying to get hold of me, or perhaps Wesley was. But the number displayed began with 704, which was the area code for western North Carolina. Marino, I thought, and I was both startled and thrilled. I sat on the bed and returned the call.

"Hello?" a woman's soft voice asked. For a moment, I was too confused to speak.

"Hello?"

"I'm returning a page," I said.

"Uh, this number was on my pager."

"Oh. Is this Dr. Scarpetta?"

"Who is this?" I demanded, but I already knew. I had heard the voice before in Judge Begley's chambers and in Denesa Steiner's house.

"This is Denesa Steiner," she said.

"I apologize for calling so late. But I'm just so glad I got you. "

"How did you get my pager number?" I did not have it on my business card because I would be bothered all the time. In fact, I did not let many people have it.

"I got it from Pete. From Captain Marino. I've been having just such a hard time and I told him I thought it would help if I could talk to you. I'm so sorry to bother you."

I was shocked that Marino would have done such a thing, and it was just one more example of how much he had changed. I wondered if he was with her now.

I wondered what could be so important that she would page me at this hour.

"Mrs. Steiner, what can I help you with?" I asked, for I could not be ungracious to this woman who had lost so much.

"Well, I heard about your car wreck."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just so grateful you're all right."

"I wasn't the person in the accident," I said, perplexed and unsettled.

"Someone else was driving my car."

"I'm so glad. The Lord is looking after you. But I had a thought that I wanted to pass on" - "Mrs. Steiner," I interrupted her, "how did you know about the accident?"

"There was a mention of it in the paper here and my neighbors were talking about it. People know you've been here helping Pete. You and that man from the FBI, Mr. Wesley."

"What exactly did the article say?" Mrs. Steiner hesitated as if embarrassed.

"Well, I'm afraid it indicated that you were arrested for being under the influence, and that you'd run off the road."

"This was in the Asheville paper?"

"And then it ended up in the Black Mountain News and someone heard it on the radio, too. But I'm just so relieved you're okay. You know, accidents are terribly traumatic, and unless you've been in one yourself, you can't imagine how it feels. I was in a very bad one when I lived in California, and I still have nightmares about it."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I told her, because I did not know what else to say. I was finding this entire conversation bizarre.

"It was at night and this man changed lanes and I guess I was in his blind spot. He hit me from behind and I lost control of the car. I ended up cutting across the other lanes and hitting another car. That person was killed instantly. A poor old woman in a Volkswagen. I've never gotten over it. Memories like that certainly can scar you."

"Yes," I said.

"They can."

"And when I think about what happened to Socks. I suppose that's really why I called."

"Socks?"