Carved in Bone - Jefferson Bass [100]
“Which spelling of the word are we talking here?”
He laughed. “The mail fraud statutes make it a crime to use the U.S. mail, radio, telephone, or other communications over an interstate carrier to commit fraud. And fraud is defined very broadly—so broadly, it can include simply depriving a person of what’s called the ‘intangible right of honest service.’ In JJ Smith’s case, having hot sex with a Chinese spy, on the Bureau’s clock and at taxpayer expense, hardly counts as ‘honest service.’ Sounds like grasping at straws, but it worked.”
“Sort of like Al Capone eventually serving time, not for murder or bootlegging but for tax evasion?”
“Exactly. If Plan A doesn’t work, switch to Plan B.”
“And how does this relate to Sheriff Kitchings? We send Price up there in something by Victoria’s Secret?”
“Whoa. If she ever even suspected you’d said something like that, you’d need emergency admission to the Witness Protection Program.”
“Sorry. The ‘dishonest service’ charge just seems a little vague.”
“It is,” he conceded. “That’s why I’m hoping to relegate that strategy to Plan B.”
“Does that mean you’ve got a Plan A?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I’m looking at a map of Cooke County right now. Think you can steer me to the cave where the woman’s body was found?”
I described the route east from Knoxville on I-40, directing him to the Jonesport exit and then taking him along the winding river road. “Okay, about six or eight miles upriver, look for a right-hand turn that heads up into the mountains,” I said.
There was a pause. “Okay, got it. Now what?”
“Go three or four miles up that, then look for a road to the left. Cave Springs is another mile up that road.”
“Hang on. Let me make sure I’ve got this. Yes, I see it.” I could hear the excitement rising in his voice. “Bingo,” he said.
“What is it?”
“The law giveth, and the law taketh away. If a crime is committed on federal land, it can be prosecuted in federal court. Doesn’t make the crime federal—your Cooke County murder is a state crime, and always will be. But if it happened on U.S. land, we can make a federal case out of it.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that. Years before, some of my students were arrested for consuming alcohol in Great Smoky Mountains National Park—four of them shared a bottle of wine at a picnic beside Abrams Falls—and the entire Anthropology Department had shown up in federal court to lend moral support. I was vaguely familiar with the legal framework he was erecting here, so I hated to bring it crashing down. “Listen, I’m not sure I gave the directions quite right,” I said, hoping to let him down easy. “The body was found eight or ten miles north of I-40. The national park is all way to the south side of the interstate. I hate to say it, but it looks like we’re stuck with Plan B.”
“Your directions were fine, Dr. Brockton,” he said cheerily. “Cave Springs Church is shown on this map. And it’s just inside a beautiful green strip of federal land.”
“But the national park—”
“I’m not talking about the park, Dr. Brockton. Your victim’s body was found a mile inside the boundary of Cherokee National Forest.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’d stake my orienteering merit badge on it.”
“Hot damn,” I said. I could already hear the hoofbeats of the federal cavalry. “Hello, Plan A.”
“Hello, Plan A,” he echoed. “There is one thing you need to understand, though, Dr. Brockton.”
“What’s that?”
“Plan A: it won’t happen overnight.”
“Oh, I understand. These things can take weeks, even months, can’t they?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. “Dr. Brockton, you’re not going to want to hear this. The average duration of an interagency task force involving undercover agents is two years, start to finish.”
“Two years?”
“Two years.”
I thanked Welton for his interest, wished him happy hunting, and laid the receiver to rest, along with my hopes for Plan A.
My hand had scarcely left the receiver when the phone