‘I’m running out of time,’ Mac said. He told the old reporter of his indictment, and the likelihood that he would be tried and convicted within a few weeks.
Ridl reached into the cooler, handed across another beer. ‘You’re a noble man, Mac Bassett.’
‘I can’t figure who would have benefitted from switching the skull.’
‘You don’t believe Randy White’s story?’
‘That the good doctor removed her head to get at the bullet? White might have been told that, but I’m bothered by the circular cut around the top of the skull. The bullet could have been extracted that way, without beheading her.’
‘Work backward,’ Ridl said. ‘Who would have known the head was switched?’
‘Doc Farmont cut off her skull at Wiley’s, according to Randy White. That means Bud Wiley knew, since he put her in the bag before burial. Likely enough, so did Luther, his nephew.’
‘Besides those four, the coroner?’
‘I don’t think he ever came to Wiley’s.’
‘Neither did Sheriff Milner,’ Ridl said. ‘I was told he went home sick after he got a look at Betty Jo on the Devil’s Backbone.’
‘Clamp Reems.’
‘Possible. I remember he was everywhere those days, hard to track down.’
‘And Horace Wiggins. He had to know everything that was going on…’ Mac stopped to stare into the distance, only dimly aware he’d suddenly stopped talking.
‘Mac?’ Ridl asked.
‘Wiggins is the key. Wiggins is the leverage,’ Mac said slowly, thinking it through. ‘He knows why no other crime scene photos ever surfaced.’ He stood up, edgy with the sudden sense of what he was thinking. ‘That one photo showed nothing except a covering of leaves, right? And perhaps a perverted last act of tenderness, or at least a staging to obscure the condition of her head?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wiggins is no idiot,’ Mac said. ‘He knew how to take crime scene photos. That was only the first photo, Jonah. He took more pictures at the Devil’s Backbone, useful photos, photos that didn’t obscure the wound. Photos he could have been told to destroy.’
‘Photos that would show an entry wound up from the base of her neck, in case she was ever exhumed?’
‘Photos that would now prove the skulls were switched,’ Mac said, ‘but still I ask: why switch skulls in the first place?’
‘For now, consider availability. Not just anyone can go to a local Skulls ’R Us?’ Ridl laughed at his joke.
‘A mortician or a doctor would know how to get one; Bud Wiley or Doc Farmont.’
‘No help there. One’s dead and one’s taken off, likely never to be made to come back,’ Ridl said.
‘I’ve got to find a way to squeeze Horace Wiggins, the man who took the pictures that got destroyed.’
‘How long will the wrong people in Grand Point let you play at this?’ Ridl asked.
‘They must be thinking my conviction will end things for good. Believe it or not, I’m still scheduled to introduce the town’s honoree on the Fourth of July.’ He managed a smile for Ridl. ‘Clamp Reems is the honoree.’
Ridl managed his own small smile in return. ‘And after the Fourth?’
‘Even my lawyer says I’m going away.’
FIFTY-SEVEN
He called Reed Dean as he crossed into Illinois. ‘What are they going to do with the skull?’
‘My sister’s head? I asked Jimmy after you went flying out of his office. He put on one of his phony smiles and mumbled some crap about them keeping it as evidence. I don’t understand. They wrote their report; they’ve washed their hands. They’re not going to do anything more.’
‘We expected this whitewash, Reed.’
‘I was also expecting more of a ruckus out of you. Instead, you took off like your pants were on fire.’
‘I told you I had an appointment with my lawyer.’
‘How’d it go?’
‘I might be found guilty.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Have a lot of faith in the justice system lately?’
Reed took the point. ‘Damn.’
‘You’ll have to take over.’
Reed hesitated. ‘I don’t know…’
‘You ever hear anyone say your sister got shot through the nose?’
‘Nobody until that report writer. He got Doctor Brown’s notes wrong.’
‘I think he got Brown’s notes right.’
‘Mac, you really think that’s not her skull?’
‘Yes.’
Reed paused for a moment, and said, ‘Then how can the beginning of the report, where is says all the skeletal parts came from the same person, be correct?’
‘That’s the only mistake. Obviously they didn’t check to see if all the bones matched the skull.’
‘What do we do?’
‘First thing tomorrow, make some phone calls. Start with Bales, but then call State’s Attorney Powell and then Darrell Thompson, the author of that report. Say you won’t rest until she’s whole again. Tell them you have to put back all her bones.’
‘What does that matter, if it’s not her head?’
‘Stay with me on this, Reed. They’ll object. They’ll say your sister’s case is still an active murder investigation and they need to retain the skull, femur and those vertebrae. Be insistent; threaten to take the whole matter to court. They‘ll try to frighten you by highballing the cost of opening the grave yet again. Tell them none of that matters; you need to bury her intact, no matter what the cost. Say you’re not going to give up until you get everything back. Tell them you’ll call every reporter you can think of to say you’re being deprived of your right to bury your sister decently.’
‘What’s up your sleeve?’
‘I remember from a college anatomy class that each person’s skull and vertebrae are unique. One person’s skull can’t fit someone else’s vertebrae. We need to get the skull and vertebrae to show the skull doesn’t belong to your sister.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then we unleash enough hell to force a proper investigation of your sister’s murder.’
FIFTY-EIGHT
By the time the first rays of Thursday morning touched his living-room windows, Mac had made a list of a half-dozen board certified forensic anthropologists. One of them ought to be willing to compare the skull to the vertebrae that had been cut from Betty Jo Dean.
He’d gotten the names from the Internet. Sleep had been out of the question, and Web surfing kept him from thinking about how the rest of the day was going to go to hell.
But now, at eight-thirty, it was time for a different horror. He put on his dark suit, a white shirt and a conservative blue tie. Then he went out to drive to a bench outside a courtroom, to wait while a judge, a state’s attorney and his own lawyer argued about how long it should take to try his case and send him to prison.
The Linder County Courthouse had used to seem to Mac to be everything Peering County’s was not. It was modern, built of sand-colored bricks, and seemed to have too many wide windows to harbor secrets. But that was before he was indicted.
Courtroom assignments for the day’s cases were posted on computer sheets behind glass-fronted wall cabinets. People of Linder County v. M. R. Bassett, up for status review, was being heard in courtroom 208.
He walked up the broad, glossy beige stairs and sat on the bench outside the courtroom. He took the narrative he’d prepared for Rogenet out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket. He would make sure to give it to the lawyer, whether it would be of use or not. As though anything could be of use. Or not.
Ryerson Wainwright’s glossy black wingtips came tapping down the hall at nine-fifty. His face was slightly upturned, like a feral animal smelling meat. ‘A fine day, don’t you think, Mac?’
‘My emotions are always sharpened by seeing you, Ryerson.’
The bastard stepped inside without a further word.