Carved in Bone

way.”
    “Yeah.”
    “How’s the case against the suspect?”
    “Better than we expected. The crime scene techs found some hair and fibers on the body we think we can link to him, and we’re hoping we’ll find traces of semen—God, would you listen to me, ‘We hope we find some semen’? Also, we’ve got multiple witnesses, other kids’ moms, very credible and sympathetic on the stand. All of them put him near the school the day she disappeared. If your pal…” he trailed off, then began again. “If DeVriess doesn’t manage to bar testimony about the guy’s prior record, I don’t see how any jury in the land could fail to convict. But then again, I don’t see how any lawyer in the land could aggressively defend this guy, either. Clearly there’s a lot that’s beyond my feeble powers of comprehension.”
    “Mine, too,” I said, hoping to deflect his rage at DeVriess. “I admire how hard you guys worked to find her and make the case. I’m sure her family appreciates it, too. Or will, when they’re able to.”
    “Yeah, that’ll keep ’em warm at night.” He sighed. “You know, Bill, sometimes I despise this world and the vermin who infest it.”
    “I know. There’s evil out there, that’s for sure, and you’ve seen more than your share of it. But there’s good, too—try not to forget that.”
    “The good sure seems to take a back seat sometimes. My mama wanted me to be a dentist—‘Almost as prestigious as a doctor,’ she said, ‘and the hours are a lot better.’ Maybe Mama knew best.”
    “Are you kidding? Standing around all day with your hands in other people’s slobber? Besides, people positively adore cops compared to how they feel about dentists.”
    He laughed—faintly, but it was something. “You’re right, the slobber factor is a deal-breaker. Saying ‘Rinse and spit’ ain’t near as glamorous as yelling ‘ Freeze, asshole!’—or dredging up bloated corpses and burned skeletons. Speaking of that, any news from the hills in the last eight hours?”
    I told him about the parade of late-night visitors to the sheriff’s hospital room, and my own fruitless search for the cartridge cases. “I was hoping the TBI might be able to match the brass. Without those shells, all we’re left with is the ATV tracks Waylon found. And from what little I saw of Orbin firsthand, there could be legions of people up there who wanted him dead.”
    I was leaving at noon to take Orbin’s remains—cleaned as best Miranda could clean the charred, fractured bones overnight—to the funeral home in Jonesport, I told Art; would he like to go along, and did he have the time, now that an arrest had been made in the Stacy Beaman case?
    “Sure,” he said. “We have so much fun every time we go up there, wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Besides, I’ve got about a year of comp time built up. Can you swing by the lab at KPD and get me?”
    Three hours later, I pulled up in front of KPD headquarters, and Art bounded down the steps and leapt into my truck. He seemed like a different person from the morose man who had called me earlier. He was wearing an expression unlike any I’d ever seen on his face before: excitement, horror, amusement, disgust, all rolled into one.
    “You’ve practically got canary feathers hanging out of your mouth,” I said. “Spit it out—what’s up?”
    “I just got a call from Bob Gonzales,” Art said. “He couldn’t reach you at home or UT, so he called me instead.” Bob Gonzales had earned his Ph.D. with me about ten years ago—no, more like fifteen now. These days he was the staff forensic anthropologist for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which boasted one of the world’s biggest and best DNA labs. Art and I had overnighted the hair and follicle samples Art had “gathered” from Tom Kitchings’s scalp, along with femur cross-sections from both Leena Bonds and her baby, as well as cheek swabs from Jim O’Conner.
    “He’s got results already? That’s fast. DNA tests usually take weeks.”
    “I reckon he’s still shooting for extra credit. Once a Brockton student, always a Brockton student.”
    I was glad to hear that. “Anything interesting?”
    “Oh, maybe a couple minor points of interest.” He paused, clearly savoring the suspense. “For one, your pal O’Conner’s in the clear, at least in terms of paternity. Not a chance in a zillion that baby was his.”
    “Not surprising, but glad to hear his story checks out.