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Roper chuckled.  Hell, I d no sooner said the words  death penalty than he
started crying and begging to plead out.
 So how long will Latham serve?
 If the judge approves the deal, he ll get a ten-year sentence. Could be out
in five.
 Five years  that s not much for killing your wife and burning her body, I
said.
 No, it s not, he agreed.  But it s a lot more than zero. And then there s
the fine.
 What fine?
 His twenty-five-million dollars that just went up in smoke.
CHAPTER 29
Page 96
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I REACHED ART JUST AS HE WAS FINISHING LUNCH, judging by the smacking sounds
on the other end of the line.  If you needed a body, I said,  where would you
get one?
 Gee, let me think, he answered.  Who do I know that has a body or two lying
around?
 Okay, smart aleck. If you needed a body and you couldn t get it from the Body
Farm, where would you get it?
 Down in Georgia. They re stacked up like cordwood down there.
 Too late, I said.  The GBI had those under lock and key by the time Garland
Hamilton escaped.
 In that case, he mused,  maybe I d try a funeral home. Buy a fresh body off
an unscrupulous undertaker.
 How would he explain the empty coffin to the grieving family at the viewing
or the service?
He thought for a moment.  Maybe he wouldn t have to. Wait till after the
viewing, then swap the body for two or three concrete blocks, so the
pallbearers don t get suspicious.
 Why wouldn t this undertaker report you to the cops?
 Because he s unscrupulous?
 So unscrupulous he s going to help a notorious killer who s just escaped?
That seems mighty risky, I said.
 Okay, I give up, he said.  You re fishing for an answer that I m not coming
up with. What is it you re after?
I told him the idea that had occurred to me, the way I might try to procure a
stand-in if I were trying to fake my death.
 That could work, he said finally.
 Could you check missing-persons reports, see if there s anything on file?
 Sure, he said.  Oh, and Bill?
 Yeah?
 Remind me never to turn my back on you in a dark alley.
I laughed as he hung up.
A half hour later, he called me back.  Only one new report in the past two
weeks, he said.  Teenage girl  a runaway. You sure those burned bits of
skull are male?
 The pelvic bones are in pretty good shape, I said,  so it s definitely male.
And we ve got two fully erupted third molars in what s left of the mandible
and maxilla, so he was at least eighteen. Harder to estimate the age because
of the condition of the bones, but I m thinking I see some signs of
osteoarthritis on the vertebrae, which suggests he was middle-aged.
 That could fit with your theory, he said,  though it sure doesn t prove it.
I called Evers and ran it past him. The good news, sort of, is that he said
it s possible.
 The bad news?
 He said it sounds like the ultimate wild-goose chase. Even if somebody saw
something, they re not likely to tell the cops.
 Well, damn. I was saying that a lot lately, I noticed. I thanked Art and
hung up. But I wasn t ready to let go of the idea. I dug out the phone book
and looked for a number.
 Public Defender s Office, said the woman who answered the phone.
 Is Roger Nooe in? His name, despite the double o, rhymed with  Chloe, not
 kablooey, I realized while I was on hold. The thought of Chloe and her speed
dating made me smile, and I wondered if she d met any good prospects.
Roger had taught for years in the UT College of Social Work; he d retired
several years before, but when he did, he took a job in social services at the
Public Defender s Office. The PD s clients were the polar opposite of the
well-heeled criminals represented by Burt DeVriess: Roger s work put him in
daily touch with people who were poor, unemployed, and often impaired by
alcohol, drugs, or mental disorders  the kind of people who were falling
through the widening gaps in America s safety net by the millions in recent [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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