Body Farm 01 - Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass

Author:Jefferson Bass [Jefferson Bass]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061804885
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-03-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

MIRANDA WAS LAYING THE last of Billy Ray Ledbetter’s ribs on a tray when I walked into the bone lab. The torso had simmered for a day and a half in our biggest kettle, a steam-jacketed vat nearly the size of a frontier-era bathtub. The kettle wasn’t the only thing simmering, judging by Miranda’s face. She looked away when she saw me. Keep things light and breezy, I told myself. “Anything interesting?”

She flushed. “I’ll let you decide for yourself.” She shoved the tray along the counter in my direction and headed for the door. So much for light and breezy.

“Miranda, wait.” She paused, her hand on the knob. “Please. Come talk to me about this.”

“You don’t need me to tell you anything about this. You don’t need a pathologist, either. Hell, an undergraduate—a goddamn undergraduate—could tell you the story on these ribs.”

She wasn’t making it easy. “I don’t mean what’s wrong with the ribs. I mean what’s wrong with you and me.”

She turned. “You and me? There is no ‘you and me,’ Dr. Brockton.” She turned the knob and cracked the door.

“Miranda, wait. Look, I made a mistake. I’m sorry I did, and I’m sorry you saw me make it.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” She shoved the door open furiously. It banged against the doorstop outside and careened back into her, catching her on the forearm. She yelled in pain. “Ow, shit! Oh, goddamn! Oh, son of a bitch. Oh, oh, oh!” I started toward her, but she saw me coming and shouldered on through the door to get away. The heavy steel door slammed shut behind her.

Yeah, Einstein, that went well, I sneered at myself. What a screwup. I plopped onto an ancient stool and laid my forehead on the counter. Closing my eyes, I took three deep breaths and tried to calm my mind by focusing on the sounds around me instead of the turmoil inside. Somewhere in the bowels of the structure, the ventilation system thrummed. Outside, beyond the maze of girders and concrete pilings, a weed-eater buzzed relentlessly, then gave a strangled cry and died. Moments later, the ventilation system fell silent, too. In the sudden quiet, all I heard was a deep groaning, the sound of an animal in pain. I looked out the lab’s wall of windows for the source of the sound.

Miranda sat crumpled on the concrete steps outside the stadium, her purse and backpack a few steps below her. Hunching over, she clutched her right arm to her chest, sobbing from somewhere deep inside. I hurried outside. As I got close, I noticed that the ulna—the forearm bone that runs from the elbow to the wrist—had a lumpy kink that hadn’t been there sixty seconds earlier. The bone was broken; things just kept getting worse.

“Miranda, you’re hurt. Let me take a look at that.” I laid a hand on her shoulder.

She shook it off. “Don’t touch me. Just leave me alone.”

“No. Until I get you to a doctor, I’m not leaving you alone.”

“Look, I’m a big girl, okay? You don’t have to take care of me.

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