Jordan's Stormy Banks: A Body Farm Novella by Jefferson Bass Page A

after the wildcatters moved on, kudzu vines began slithering into the shale, latching onto bits of windblown soil and leaves. Scrubby trees—black locust and Virginia pine—slowly followed, clawing tenuous toeholds in the rubble. A stunted sham of a forest returned, one instinctively shunned by birds and deer and even humans of right spirit.
    And so it was the perfect place to conceal a body.
    Like the mountain, the corpse was partially reclaimed by the persistence and insistence of Nature. A year passed, or perhaps two or three or five. One spring afternoon, a seedpod on a black locust tree split open, and half a dozen dark, papery seeds wafted away on a warm mountain breeze. Five of the six seeds drifted and sifted into deep crevices in the shale. The sixth spun and swirled and settled into a neat oval recess: the vacant eye orbit of a now-bare skull. By summer the seed had germinated, sending pale tendrils of root threading downward through fissures in bone and rock. One day a female paper wasp—a queen with no court yet—lighted on the skull, tiptoed inside, and began to build her small papery palace. And so was formed an odd ecosystem, an improbable peaceable kingdom: wasp colony, flowering tree, crumbling corpse.
    The world contains a multitude of postmortem microcosms. Many remain forever undiscovered. But all leave some mark, some indelible stain, upon the world; upon the collective soul of mankind.
    Some—a handful—give rise to reclamation or redemption.

 
    PART I
    I N THE B EGINN ING
    And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
    G ENESIS 1:2
    Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
    G ENESIS 3:1

 
    Brockton
    September 1992
    TUGGING THE BATTERED STEEL door of the office tight against the frame—the only way to align the lock—I gave the key a quick, wiggling twist. Just as the dead bolt thunked into place, the phone on the other side of the door began to ring. Shaking my head, I removed the key and turned toward the stairwell. “It’s Labor Day,” I called over my shoulder, as if the caller could hear me. “It’s a holiday. I’m not here.”
    But the phone nagged me, scolding and contradicting me, as if to say, Oh, but you are . I wavered, turning back toward the door, the key still in my hand. Just as I was about to give in, the phone fell silent. “Thank you,” I said and turned away again. Before I had time to take even one step, the phone resumed ringing. Somebody else was laboring on Labor Day, and whoever it was, they were damned determined to reach me.
    “All right, all right, ” I muttered, hurrying to unlock the bolt and fling open the door. “Hold your horses.” Leaning across the mounds of mail, memos, and other bureaucratic detritus that had accumulated over the course of the summer, I snatched up the receiver. “Anthropology Department,” I snapped. The phone cord snagged a stack of envelopes, setting off an avalanche, which I tried—and failed—to stop. I’d been without a secretary since May; a new one was scheduled to start soon, but meanwhile, I wasn’t just the department’s chairman; I was also its receptionist, mail sorter, and answering service, and I was lousy at all of those tasks. The envelopes hit the floor and fanned out beneath the desk. “Crap,” I muttered, then, “Sorry. Hello? Anthropology Department.”
    “Good mornin’, sir,” drawled a country-boy voice that sounded familiar. “This is Sheriff Jim Cotterell, up in Morgan County.” The voice was familiar; I’d worked with Cotterell on a murder case two years before, a few months after moving to Knoxville and the University of Tennessee. “I’m trying to reach Dr. Brockton.”
    “You’ve got him,” I said, my annoyance evaporating. “How are you, Sheriff?”
    “Oh, hey there, Doc. I’m hangin’ in; hangin’ in. Didn’t know this was your direct line.”
    “We’ve got the phone system