Death's Acre Page 30

  The negative showed one other radiographically opaque object. It was an almost perfect disk, about the size of a penny and twice as thick. I fished it out. The disk was heavy—heavy as lead. I hadn’t been able to see it or feel it in the cremains, but it had been there all along. I had found Chigger’s bullet.

  The Harden family’s long period in limbo was over. The finding of the bullet wasn’t exactly good news, but they were grateful for it all the same. I’ve encountered that response time and time again in dealing with the families of the missing and the dead. Uncertainty and dread are almost always harder to bear than the finality of certain loss.

  I can’t give people back their loved ones. I can’t restore their happiness or innocence, can’t give back their lives the way they were. But I can give them the truth. Then they will be free to grieve for the dead, and then free to start living again. Truth like that can be a humbling and sacred gift for a scientist to give.

  CHAPTER 20

  And When I Die

  IN MY FIRST FORTY YEARS as a forensic anthropologist, I saw hundreds of corpses and thousands of skeletons. I scrutinized death from every angle. Every angle but one, that is. Then one day I found myself flat on my back on a restaurant floor, staring death straight in the eye. And death was staring right back at me.

  My wife, Carol, and I were driving from Nashville back to Knoxville. It’s about a three-hour drive, and we decided to stop for lunch about halfway back, in Cookeville. We pulled off of Interstate 40 and headed for my favorite local restaurant, Logan’s Road House, which serves a baked sweet potato I crave.

  I’d gone to Nashville to lecture to a group of organ-donor professionals. I didn’t feel well the night before, and if I’d had any sense I’d have canceled my talk right then, but I’d come to Nashville to lecture and, by God, I was going to lecture. There’s a long tradition in the Bass family of a trait we like to call determination. I’m told other people often refer to us as mule-headed.

  I gave the group a slide-lecture introduction to forensic anthropology. It starts with the case of a Texas man who set his car on fire and killed himself and moves on to the case of Madison Rutherford, who faked his death in a car fire. I’ve given this talk dozens of times, but I could barely get through it that morning. Normally in front of a group I come to life: I feel energized, excited; I’m full of stories and jokes. This time, though, I was clearly chugging. Finally, mercifully, it was over. I accepted polite Southern compliments on my lackluster talk, said a few quick good-byes, and hustled Carol to the car, counting big on that baked sweet potato along the way to perk me up. We walked into Logan’s and minutes later it arrived, buttery and steaming.

  I remember taking about two bites of the potato. Suddenly things began to go black. Pushing my plate to one side, I told Carol, “I’m about to pass out”; with that, my head dropped to the table. I have no recollection of the events that followed; I relate them as they were recounted to me by Carol and others.

  Paramedics soon arrived and so did Dr. Sullivan Smith, the county’s medical examiner, who had been driving nearby when the 911 call came. Hearing the emergency dispatcher on the police radio in his car, he hotfooted it to Logan’s. If he’d arrived a minute later, he might have had occasion to document my death. As it was, he joined the fight to reverse it.

  I’d known Dr. Smith for years, ever since his medical residency at UT Medical Center in Knoxville. I consider him one of the state’s best medical examiners, and over the years I’ve lectured half a dozen times or more for his seminars for ER personnel. Amazingly, Dr. Smith recognized me from a glance at the back of my head. (I’m not sure whether that says more about the keenness of his mind or the strangeness of my head.)

  “Dr. Bass? Dr. Bass, can you hear me?” he asked, then looked at the paramedic who was still checking for a pulse. The paramedic just shook his head. “Dr. Bass, we’re going to have to move you to the floor right now,” Smith said, as if I could hear.

  They unpacked their portable defibrillator, brought the paddles to my chest, and prepared to give me a jolt of electricity—a final, desperate effort to jump-start my heart. Just at that moment my heart shuddered back to life. Consciousness and vision returned, and I found myself lying on the floor, surrounded by feet—dozens of feet.

  “Dr. Bass, can you hear me?” The voice was vaguely familiar; so was the face of the man kneeling over me. “ . . . Sullivan Smith,” he seemed to be saying.

  “Sullivan Smith? Oh, yes, I know him,” I murmured weakly. “I’ve lectured for him.”

  “No, Dr. Bass, this is Sullivan Smith,” he said. Finally the fog cleared and I recognized him, grateful to be in such good hands. Another minute or so, Smith said, and they might not have been able to bring me back.

  Within hours Smith arranged for an ambulance to transfer me to UT Hospital in Knoxville. The EMT and I chatted for most of the two-hour ride, about subjects ranging from forensic cases to UT football. One thing we did not talk about was my near miss with death.

  My cardiologist, John Acker, said my heart muscle itself was fine. The problem was in the electrical system controlling its contractions. Fortunately, the fix was simple: a pacemaker, a sophisticated heart monitor and miniature defibrillator packed into a disk not much bigger than a silver dollar. If my heart was working fine, the pacemaker would do nothing; however, if my heart rate dropped below fifty beats per minute, the pacemaker would kick in.

  It was an odd feeling to be in UT Hospital as a patient. I’ve spent thousands of hours there since moving to Knoxville in 1971: The Knox County Morgue and the Regional Forensic Center are housed in the hospital, and I’ve examined hundreds of bodies and skeletons there. The fact that I myself now had one foot on the edge of the grave made me all too aware of the proximity of those basement autopsy rooms. A few days later I had surgery to implant the pacemaker.

  ONCE UPON A TIME I believed in an afterlife. I believed in it for fully sixty years after my father shot himself. But then Ann died, and then Annette died, and suddenly nothing I’d grown up believing about God and heaven made any sense to me any longer. We’re organisms; we’re conceived, we’re born, we live, we die, and we decay. But as we decay we feed the world of the living: plants and bugs and bacteria.

  People who knew my father—the man I never got a chance to know; the man who eluded me when I was three—say I resemble him in many ways: in my curiosity and intelligence, my friendliness, my kindness; in the way I stick out my tongue slightly when I’m concentrating hard. I’m proud to see these same qualities in my grown sons, and I notice with delight that one of my granddaughters, when she’s coloring or practicing the knitting stitches Carol has taught her, sticks out her tongue in that distinctive Bass manner. So something of us lives on, in some fashion, in those we leave behind us: our genes, our mannerisms, our shared experiences and oral histories.

  Is that all that endures? Almost, I think, but not quite. Charlie Snow, who brought me in on my first forensic case—that woman’s soggy, burned body we exhumed and identified outside Lexington—is still alive to me in a way when I arrive at a crime scene and begin trying to make sense of what I see and what I smell. So is Wilton Krogman, the Socrates of “bone men”: there’s a part of me that’s forever in a car with him, perpetually commuting to the University of Pennsylvania; in my mind I go over my latest case with him, outlining my conclusions and marshaling my arguments and references to answer any question and refute any objection the great man might voice. I still beam with pride, after all these years, when I spot something Krogman might have overlooked if he had been on the case.

  And so it will be, perhaps, with my students. For some of them, I hope, I will always be looking over their shoulder at the shattered skull, the burned bones, the telltale insects; always questioning them, always challenging them, sometimes even inspiring them. There’s a part of me that will live on, too, at the Body Farm, my proudest scientific creation. Looking bac
k over the past quarter century, I’m amazed at the wealth of pioneering research that has emerged from such humble beginnings—it began in an abandoned sow barn—and even today the Anthropology Research Facility remains a simple metal shed and a patch of trees and honeysuckle vines, tucked behind a high wooden fence (recently enlarged and rebuilt with help from Patricia Cornwell). That, plus a generation of bright, inquisitive minds eager to unlock the secrets of death. I certainly didn’t set out to create something famous there. I just set out to find some answers to questions that were nagging me. As in life, so in science: One thing leads to another, and before you know it, you find yourself someplace you never imagined going.

  One question I’m often asked, especially by journalists, is this: “When you die, will your body go to the Body Farm?” Will I practice what I preach; see it through to its logical conclusion? There was a time when I was sure I would. I discussed it with my first wife, Ann, who was also a scientist; she approved heartily. My second wife, Annette—who was my assistant for years and was all too familiar with the facility and its work—said, “Absolutely not.” As for Carol, she seems to be leaning toward a more traditional, and—to her way of thinking, at least—more dignified final resting place for Dr. Bass. I’ll leave the final call to Carol and the boys. The scientist in me wants to sign the donation papers. But the rest of me can’t forget how much I hate flies.

  Either way, you’ll still find me at the Body Farm when I die. Not anytime soon, though. I don’t want to die now. I have too much to do. Books to write. Grandchildren to play with. Killers to catch.

  APPENDIX I

  Bones of the Human Skeleton

  General Elements of the Human Skeleton

  Skull, Frontal View

  Skull, Lateral View

  The illustrations in this appendix are reprinted from Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual (Fourth Ed.), by William M. Bass. © Missouri Archaeological Society, Inc., 1995, and used by kind permission.

  APPENDIX II

  Glossary of Forensic and Anthropological Terms

  accumulated degree day (ADD). The cumulative total of the average daily temperature, measured in either Fahrenheit or Celsius degrees; linking decompositional stages or insect development to ADDs allows temperature changes to be taken into account when computing time since death.

  acetabulum. The “socket” in the hip, within which the femoral head moves.

  adipocere. Literally, “grave wax,” a greasy or soapy substance formed when fatty tissue decomposes in a moist environment.

  antemortem. Before death.

  anterior. Toward the front (of the body).

  auricular surface. The surface of the hipbone in the area of the sacroiliac joint.

  autolysis. Literally, “self-digestion,” the breakdown of the body’s soft tissues as a result of intracellular chemical changes.

  autopsy. A postmortem examination by a forensic pathologist.

  blowfly. Any of several iridescent green or blue flies in the family Calliphoridae that colonize recently deceased bodies, laying eggs in orifices or wounds; the eggs hatch into maggots that feed on the soft tissues.

  Blumensaat’s line. An interior seam in the femur just above the knee, named in honor of the German physician who discovered it, now used by anthropologists to help distinguish Negroid femurs from other femurs.

  calcaneus. The heel bone, the largest bone of the foot.

  cervical. In the region of the neck.

  clavicle. Collarbone.

  coccyx. The “tailbone,” consisting of the lowest (distal) several vertebrae, ranging in number from three to five vertebrae.

  condyle. A rounded projection or end of a bone, usually where it joins another bone (as, for example, the condyles of the femur and of the tibia form the “hinge” of the knee).

  coronal suture. Joint in the cranium running across the top of the head from one side (parietal) to the other.

  coroner. An official who investigates and certifies deaths; a coroner may or may not have medical training.

  cranium. Skull.

  cremains. Human remains that have been cremated.

  crenulated. Wavy, notched, or scalloped in form; in anthropology, generally used to describe the upper surfaces of the molars of Negroid individuals.

  decomposition. The decay or disintegration of the body.

  distal. Far; in bones, farther from the center of the body (opposite of proximal), as in “the distal end of the femur.”

  entomologist. A scientist whose specialty is insects.

  epiphysis (plural: epiphyses). A part of a bone, usually the end, separated from the central portion or shaft by cartilage; specific epiphyses ossify at consistent, predictable times, making them important markers of skeletal development or age.

  external occipital protuberance. The bony bump at the base of the occipital bone of the skull, usually prominent in males but not in females.

  femoral head. The “ball” at the proximal end of the femur.

  femur (plural: femora). The thighbone.

  fibula. The smaller, lateral bone of the lower leg.

  floater. A body found decomposing in water.

  foramen. An opening or hole (in a bone).

  foramen magnum. The large opening at the bottom of the occipital bone through which the brain stem and spinal cord emerge.

  frontal. The bone forming the forehead and upper edges of the eye orbits.

  greater trochanter. The larger, lateral epiphysis, just below the head of the femur.

  humerus (plural: humerii). The bone of the upper arm.

  hyoid. Small, U-shaped bone at the front of the neck, often broken in cases of strangulation.

  ilium. Broad, upper portion of the hipbone, or innominate.

  innominate. Hipbone, formed by the fusion of the ilium, ischium, and pubic bone.

  instar. Any of the three developmental stages of the maggot (first instar, second instar, third instar), distinguished from one another by specific anatomical features, and helpful in pinpointing time since death.

  ischium. Lower portion of the hipbone; the part you sit on.

  lateral. Toward the side (of the body); the opposite of medial.

  lesser trochanter. The smaller, medial epiphysis, just below the head of the femur.

  maggot. The caterpillarlike larva of a fly.

  mandible. The lower jawbone.

  maxilla. The upper jawbone.

  medial. Toward the center (of the body); opposite of lateral.

  medical examiner (ME). A physician who works with law enforcement officers to determine cause of death.

  metatarsal. Literally, “beyond instep”; any of the five long bones of the foot located between the ankle and toes.

  ninhydrin. A chemical used to reveal latent human fingerprints; when it reacts with the oils in fingerprints, it turns purple.

  occipital. The bone forming the back and base of the skull.

  orbit. The bony socket that cradles the eyeball.

  ossify. To turn to bone; at birth, the skeleton is formed by cartilage, which gradually ossifies as calcium and other minerals reinforce it.

  osteoarthritic lipping. A degenerative, aging-related process in which joint surfaces acquire jagged edges through the buildup of additional bony material.

  osteology. Literally, “bone science”; the study of bones.

  parietal. Literally, “of a wall”; the bone forming either side of the skull.

  pathologist. A physician specializing in disease, particularly diseased tissues and organs; forensic pathologists perform autopsies to determine cause and manner of death.

  pelvis. Literally, “basin”; the pelvis is the structure formed by the innominates and the sacrum.

  perimortem. At or around the time of death.

  phalanges. Bones of the finge
rs and toes.

  postcranial. Below the cranium, generally referring to the postcranial skeleton (that is, everything from the neck down).

  posterior. Toward the rear (of the body).

  postmortem. After death.

  proximal. Near; in bones, close to the center of the body (opposite of distal), as in “the proximal end of the femur.”

  pubic bone (pubis). Anterior portion of innominate, where the two hipbones meet at the midline of the abdomen.

  pubic symphysis. The junction at the midline of the pelvis where the left and right pubic bones meet; the features of the pubic symphysis reveal much about skeletal age.

  pupa (plural: pupae). Insect in transition from larval stage to adult stage.

  puparia. Hard, cocoonlike shells in which insect larvae mature into adults; blowfly puparia are often found by the thousands on or near decomposed bodies or skeletons.

  putrefaction. Decomposition of the body’s soft tissues, especially by bacteria.

  radius. The lateral (thumb-side) bone of the forearm.

  sacroiliac crest. The seam in the hipbone—normally wide, raised, and prominent in adult females—where the sacrum is joined to the ilium.

  sacrum. Literally, “holy bone”; a triangular bone formed by the fusion of three to five sacral vertebrae; the sacrum is the posterior part of the pelvis.

  scapula. The shoulder blade.

  sciatic notch. Gap in the hipbone through which the sciatic nerve passes when it emerges from the lower spine; wider in females than in males.

  sphenoid. A U-shaped bone making up the middle floor of the skull.