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“We could all use some good news.” Miranda had taken Waylon’s death hard—I knew she had been fond of the deputy, but the depth of her grief had surprised me. “And this good news is? You’ve decided that my dissertation is so brilliant, I don’t have to defend it?”
“Better than that.”
“You don’t mean—you can’t mean—that you’ve sworn off terrible puns forever?”
“Even better.”
“What could possibly be better than that?”
“I talked some sense into the provost,” I said. “He’s agreed to make an exception to the hiring policy. Tenure track—yours for the taking!”
“How the hell did you manage that?
You’ve got pictures of him boffing a freshman on the president’s desk?”
“Ewww. No, I do not. I just explained what a devastating blow it would be if UT lost you. The point—the good news—is that now you can stay here after all.” I beamed, waiting for her response—a hug, a Happy Dance, a face-splitting smile.
Instead, she furrowed her brow. Then, remarkably, she frowned. “But . . . Dr. B . . . I’ve already accepted the FBI job.”
“I know, I know, but that was because I couldn’t offer you a tenure-track job here. Or thought I couldn’t. But turns out I can!” She continued to frown. “Miranda, it’s okay—the FBI’ll understand. Sure, they’ll be disappointed, but they’ll get over it. Hell, there must be a dozen other people who could do that job—not as well as you, of course, but very capably. I can call the Bureau for you, if you want.”
“No!” The speed and the force of it surprised me, and it seemed to have surprised her, too. “I mean, thank you, but . . . please don’t.” Now she looked on the verge of tears. “Here’s the thing, Dr. B. I appreciate your faith in me. And I appreciate how you went to bat for me, because I know it couldn’t have been easy to get an exception to the hiring policy. But you’re not just my mentor. You’re my hero. My role model. I want to be like you. And I can’t be like you if I stay here. Don’t you see? I’ve got to leave the nest and spread my wings—branch out on my own—if I want to do it right. If I want to do it the way you did it.”
When I had first broached the idea of her staying on here—it seemed a lifetime ago, but in reality it had been only a few weeks—Miranda had compared me to a plantation owner at the end of the Civil War, offering to pay a former slave for labor that had previously been free. That comment, half joking, had wounded me, but only superficially: a paper cut, nothing more. But this—this talk of heroes and role models: this was a blade slicing straight into my heart—slicing all the more keenly because of the kindness and generosity behind the pointed words.
And couch it however she might, the bottom-line fact remained unchanged: I still could not bear the idea of her not being here. “I’m late for a meeting,” I lied, my voice suddenly thick and unfamiliar. “I think you’re doing the right thing,” I lied again. “The FBI is so lucky to get you.” I ended, at least, by speaking a truth.
I gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then turned and hurried out of the bone lab. “Dr. B? Hey, Dr. B,” she called after me.
I held up a hand—my fist closed, my thumb raised in a gesture of false jauntiness—and turned the corner into the safe, obscuring shadow of the stairwell, the steel door closing between us as I trudged up the steps.
CHAPTER 36
EIGHT DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE WAYLON HAD DIED; six days since Jeff’s family had flown off to exile in Canada and since I had agreed to accept my Professor of the Year award during halftime of the Homecoming game. The ceremony had been announced with full-page ads in the News-Sentinel and on billboards flanking every highway into town. I’d spent a half hour on camera at WBIR, waxing rhapsodic to Beth Haynes about how the ceremony would be the high point of my life.
And now it was time.
Overhead and all around us, Neyland Stadium rumbled and shook with the stamping of multitudinous feet. “Sounds like the Vols just put some more points on the board,” Decker said. We were in my administrative office, awaiting the buzzer that signaled halftime.
“I’m glad the Vols are moving the ball well,” I grumbled. “Me, I can barely move at all.” Two of Decker’s SWAT guys hoisted my academic robes over my head, then clumsily threaded my arms through the sleeves. The gown was a strangely snug fit, and I felt like the Michelin man, or a kid in a snowsuit.
Except it wasn’t a snowsuit I was wearing under the gown; it was a bomb suit. I wasn’t wearing the high collar or the helmet, but I was wearing a bulletproof vest under the bomb suit, just in case. “You’re trading mobility for survivability,” Decker said. “Not a bad trade-off, I’d say. In this rig, only thing you need to worry about is a rocket-propelled grenade. That, or a tactical nuke.”
“I worry about a head shot,” I said. “What if he shoots me in the head?”
“Oh, that.” He gave a philosophical-looking shrug. “He shoots you in the head, we shoot him. Then we clean up the mess and feel really bad.” He frowned. “Seriously, Doc, you don’t have to do this. I know you want to draw him out, but you really don’t have to take this risk.”
“Deck, there are ninety thousand people out there expecting to see me get a medal draped around my neck. I can’t back out.”
He smiled. “No offense, Doc, but eighty-nine point nine thousand of ’em came to see the game, not you. As long as the Vols come back out and play the second half, nobody’s gonna be heartbroken. We make a PA announcement that you’ve been called out on a forensic case, and everybody’ll say, ‘Good ol’ Dr. Brockton—there he goes again!’ No shame in choosing to be safe.”
I shook my head. “If I chicken out now, it just means I have to keep looking over my shoulder, jumping every time a car backfires or a kid lights a firecracker. I’m sick of that, Deck. Let’s get this over with.”
He frowned. “He might not try anything today, Doc. He’s gotta know we’re on high alert.”
“He might know, but he won’t care. Look at it from his point of view: If he shoots me out there on that field, not only does he win, he wins in front of ninety thousand people. Plus a TV audience of millions. How could he resist?”
Decker shrugged. “I know, he’s bound to find it tempting. Still, there’s no guarantee he’ll take the risk.”
“No guarantee,” I agreed. “But there’s a chance. And if he’s out there waiting, and I don’t show up? I’ll have pissed away a golden opportunity. When will I ever have this much protection again? You’ve got, what, fifty, sixty guys out there?”
“More like two hundred,” he said, “once you count the FBI and TBI agents and UT police. Hell, you’ve got better security today than Obama had when he came to town.”
“Deck, that’s not your politics showing, is it?”
“I better take the Fifth on that.” He grinned slyly. “But you? It would be a real shame if we lost you.” From overhead came another roar, and I saw Decker’s eyes flicker as he put a hand to his ear to catch a transmission on his radio. “Okay, Doc, it’s halftime. Showtime.”
“But Daddy, I have to pee.”
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” THE PA SYSTEM BOOMED, “you’ve seen him featured on 60 Minutes and Cold Case Files. You’ve read about him in USA Today and the New York Times. Please welcome America’s top forensic scientist . . . the creator of the world-famous Body Farm . . . and now, the man who’s just been chosen as National Professor of the Year . . . the one, the only . . . Dr. Bill Brockton!”
Perhaps Decker was right—perhaps everyone in the stadium had come only for the game—but even so, the crowd did a commendable job of feigning enthusiasm, for as I stepped out of the dark access tunnel and lumbered, blinking and waddling, out to the sunlit center of the field, I could have sworn that all ninety thousand people rose to their feet, clapping and cheering. A good day to die, I told myself. Far worse ways to go.
I struggled up the steps of the platform that had been rolled to midfield, my bomb-suited legs as stiff as those of the Tin Man in need of his oil can. The provost welcomed me with a handshake and a huge, fake smile, then turned to the microphone and talked. And talked. And talked. Was he actually so fond of the sound of his own voice, or was he making sure Satterfield had plenty of time to line up a clean shot to the head? He talked so long, I found myself doing mental calculations: If Satterfield fired from one hundred yards away—say, from the top of the Jumbotron scoreboard, or the top of the press box, or the interior of a skybox, or the roof of the geology building—how long would it take the bullet to reach me, assuming it was traveling three thousand feet per second, which Deck had told me was the muzzle velocity of a high-powered rifle? Easy, I thought. A tenth of a second. And how much time
between the arrival of the bullet and the arrival of the crack of the gunshot, which would travel at the considerably slower speed of sound, eleven hundred feet per second? Not quite two-tenths of a second. So if I were still alive and conscious for half a second after the bullet left the muzzle, I might—might—hear the sound of the shot that nailed me. But not if my brains are spattered all over the provost, I concluded.
Eventually, miraculously, the provost finished saying all he had to say, apparently, for he stepped forward, hoisted a loop of satin ribbon over my head, and hung a heavy medal on me.
But why was I still alive? And why was there no commotion—no shrieking from the spectators, no shouting on the platform, no fusillade of bullets from the SWAT officers—exploding around me? I surveyed the stadium, turning in a complete circle, seeking some sign of Satterfield. I stretched out my arms, raising them shoulder-high—the highest I could manage, within the confines of the bomb suit and vest. Here I am, I yelled wordlessly. Do it. Come on, damn you—do it.
The crowd—understandably misunderstanding my gesture, misreading it as a sign of exuberance, not frustration—went wild, woke from their provost-induced slumbers and erupted, cheering and stomping and bellowing their approval. I heard air horns and cowbells and whistles.
But still I did not hear a gunshot, and by the time I had rotated in two complete circles, seeing police galore, but no assassin, I knew that the plan had failed, that Satterfield had been too smart to take the bait. Bowing my head—not in modesty, but in defeat—I waved a feeble farewell, waddled down the platform steps, and lumbered off the field.
Decker met me just inside the access tunnel. Even in the semidarkness, I could read the mixture of disappointment and relief on his face.
“Deck, there’s good news and bad news,” I said. “The good news is, Satterfield didn’t kill me. The bad news is, he didn’t try.”
“Maybe we came on too strong, Doc, scared him off. Maybe we should’ve played it a little lower key. Blended into the crowd more, you know?”
