The Breaking Point: A Body Farm Novel
Jefferson Bass
Dedication
In memory of Clyde Snow, Walter Birkby, and
Ted Rathbun: good friends, valued colleagues,
superb teachers, and crusaders for justice.
The Two Faces of Richard Janus And thus does Fortune’s wheel turn treacherously
And out of happiness bring men to sorrow.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
One of ancient Rome’s most powerful and mysterious deities, Janus—the god of two faces—was guardian of gateways and transitions. The two faces signified not hypocrisy, as people often assume, but dual vision: One face turned toward the past, the other toward the future, Janus stood sentinel on the threshold of birth, as well as the threshold between death and the afterlife. In one hand he held a key; in the other, a cudgel.
—Sofia Paxton, Ancient Teachings, Modern Wisdom
Friday, June 18, 2004
Knoxville, Tennessee
MCCREADY STOPPED AND KNELT BESIDE A RUT IN the dirt road, raising a hand to halt the six men and two women fanned out behind him. The road, if a pair of faint tracks through grass, weeds, and leaves could indeed be called a road, meandered down a hillside of oaks and maples, their trunks girdled with vines. The mid-June morning was sweet with honeysuckle blossoms; the exuberant lushness of June had not yet given way to the duller green of July and the browning scorch of August, but underneath the perfume lurked something darker, something malodorous and malevolent hanging in the air.
McCready—Special Supervisory Agent Clint “Mac” McCready—studied the rut, which was damp and also deeply imprinted with multiple layers of sharply defined tire tracks. He pulled two evidence flags from a back pocket and marked the ends of the tracks, then, with the camera slung around his neck, took a series of digital photographs. The photos were wide-angle views at first, followed by tighter and tighter shots. As he snapped the final, frame-filling close-ups, he said, to no one in particular, “It rained, what, couple days ago?”
“Night before last.” The answer came from behind him, from Kimbo—Kirby Kimball, the youngest, newest, and therefore most eager member of SSA McCready’s Evidence Response Team. “The front passed through about thirty-six hours ago. Rain stopped shortly after midnight.”
McCready nodded, smiling slightly at the young agent’s zeal, and lowered the camera, focusing now solely with his eyes. “These tracks look like they’ve been machined. What does that tell us?”
“New tires,” said Kimball. “Deep tread blocks. Almost no wear. But there’s a nick—a cut—here. At the outer edge.”
“What else?”
“Big, off-road tires,” Kimball added, squatting for a closer look. “SUV or four-by-four. Just one, looks like. One set of impressions heading in, another—on top—heading back out.”
“Right.” McCready glanced over his shoulder at the other agents. “Mighty quiet back there. I thought maybe the rest of you guys had gone for coffee.” The agents exchanged sheepish glances. “Okay, what else can we tell from these tracks? Somebody besides Kimbo jump in. Anybody?”
“The vehicle passed through after the rain stopped.” This from Boatman, an earnest, thirtysomething agent who looked and listened a lot more than he talked.
“Right, far as it goes. But can you pin it down any tighter than that?”
Boatman stepped forward and bent down, his brow furrowing, his gaze shifting from the tracks to the surrounding vegetation—crabgrass and spindly poison ivy. “Quite a while after the rain stopped. Hours later, I’d say; maybe yesterday afternoon or even last night.”
“Because?”
“The impressions wouldn’t be so crisp—so perfect—if there’d been a puddle there when the vehicle went through,” Boatman said. He surveyed the margins of the rut, then inspected the undersides of some of the blades of grass there. “Plus, if there’d been standing water, there’d be mud spatter on the vegetation. There’s no spatter.”