Jordan's Stormy Banks

3

Turning back from the office doorway, I snatched up the ringing phone. “Hi, honey,” I said. “I’ll be right there. I’m leaving this instant.” It was the Friday before Christmas, and all through the stadium I was the only creature stirring; everyone else was already home for the holidays, or at least en route.

I was answered by a gravelly, homespun voice, half an octave deeper than my own. “Well, darlin’, I sure ’preciate that,” the man chuckled. “But before you go, you reckon you could connect me with a Dr. Brockman? Dr. Bill Brockman?”

I felt my face redden. “Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were my wife. This is Dr. Brockton. How can I help you?”

“This is Sheriff Dixon, Dr. Brockman. Up in Morgan County.”

“Hello, Sheriff,” I said. “It’s Brock-ton, by the way, not Brockman. What can I do for you?” Turning to the framed Tennessee map mounted on the wall, I scanned for Morgan County. The state had ninety-five counties, and in the six months since my arrival in Knoxville, I’d worked ten forensic cases — five of them in Knox County; one each in Chattanooga, Nashville, and Memphis; the janitor-infuriating case from Cumberland County, fifty miles to the west; and one from a rural county southeast of Knoxville. I seemed to recall that Morgan County was nearby, but I was having trouble finding it.

“Looks like maybe we’ve got a homicide up here. A hiker found a body in the woods, up in Frozen Head State Park. Unidentified nigrah woman. In pretty rough shape. The medical examiner took one look and told me to call and have you come get her. Reckon you could come on up this way?”

I felt a tinge of annoyance—that damned memo, I thought again — followed by a wave of excitement and then a ripple of guilt. My addiction to forensic adrenaline was, I suspected, as strong as any alcoholic’s thirst, and the truth was, I was happy to have a chance to slake it. But I’d promised Kathleen I’d be home by five o’clock, to help prepare for a Christmas party at six. “Where’s the body now, Sheriff?”

“Still in the woods. Just up the slope from a creek. Jordan Branch. It’s about five miles outside Wartburg. The M.E. said to leave it at the scene for you.”

I spotted Wartburg on the map — a small dot about fifty miles northwest of Knoxville — and then found the irregular green rectangle that marked the state park. Glancing out the office windows, through the grime on the glass and the latticework of girders supporting the stadium’s grandstands, I saw that the sky had already gone dark. “I don’t mean to put you off, Sheriff,” I said, “but I’d rather work the scene in the daylight. No matter how good your lights are, it’s easy to miss things in the dark. Any chance you could post somebody out there tonight, to keep an eye on things? Let me meet you there first thing in the morning?”

He considered this for a moment. “I reckon I could put Cotterell out there. One of my deputies. He ain’t got nothin’ better to do.”

I got directions and agreed to meet him at the Morgan County courthouse the next morning at nine. After hanging up, I called Kathleen. “Hi, honey,” I said with a sense of déjà vu, sheepishness, and amusement. “I’ll be right there. I’m leaving this instant.”