An Evening with Jefferson Bass

Ever mix dinner with a discussion of bones, bodies and fire?

That's what we did Friday night in Knoxville.

But don't worry. It was for a good cause -- a fundraiser for the Friends of Literacy. And we ate before Dr. Bill Bass, the pioneering forensic anthropologist, began discussing The Devil's Bones, the most recent novel he and journalist Jon Jefferson have written under their pen name, Jefferson Bass.

Dr. Bass is the founder of the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility - or Body Farm. It's a unique place.

"At any given moment, a hundred human corpses were progressing from fresh body to bare bones there, helped along by legions of bacteria and bugs, plus the occasional marauding raccoon or possum or skunk. By studying the events and the timing as bodies decomposed under a multitude of experimental conditions - nude bodies, clothed bodies, buried bodies, submerged bodies, fat bodies, thin bodies, bodies in cars and in sheds and in rolls of scrap carpeting - my graduate students and colleagues and I had bootstrapped the Body Farm into the world's leading source of experimental data on what happens to bodies after death and when it happened." -- The Devil's Bones.

"Even though I deal with death every day," Bass said, "you run into some funny things."

He showed a slide of a fire scene with a burned-out skull and other bones. On closer look, he noticed something odd.

"Now how many seeds are you supposed to have inside your head?"

The "skull" was actually a gourd and the bones were from two hams.

He also showed slides of a burned house and a spinal column and other bones found in the basement, but no skull.

"It could have happened as the body fell through the burning floor," Bass said. "But I told them I thought the guy had been blown up."

The police said the neighbors had heard an explosion before the house caught fire. And cans of lighter fluid were found, with the labels still legible. Turns out the man had been spreading the accelerant when lightning struck nearby and ignited the vapors.

Dr. Bass and Jefferson met when Jefferson did a documentary on the Body Farm for National Geographic. In 2003, they published Bass's memoir, Death's Acre. They also released a second non-fiction book in September, Beyond the Body Farm.

When they turned to fiction, Jefferson wanted to create an honorable, likeable hero who would reflect the qualities of Dr. Bass.

"So many protagonists in novels are dark, tortured souls," Jefferson said. "The line between good and bad is often so blurred I wouldn't want to walk down an alley with any of them."

Their first novel, Carved in Bone, was released in 2006.

"When USA Today said we had a lovable protagonist," Jefferson said. "I knew I'd done a decent job because I captured Bill Bass."

They followed up with Flesh and Bone a year later.

Their collaboration seems simple enough.

"Jon comes up with the story and I put in the science," Bass said.

Bass said the most frustrating part of his day job is the half-dozen bodies of young females who were found along interstate highways. Most were likely runaways who became involved in prostitution to feed their drug habits.

"I know their age, their race, their height and weight and whether or not they were left-handed or right-handed," he said. "But I don't know their names."

He takes the most satisfaction in identifying someone who has been missing for years to give the family a sense of closure.

He's been at it for more than 50 years.

When he was getting his master's degree at the University of Kentucky, police asked his mentor's help identifying a body burned in a car accident.

"The only case I ever threw up was the first one," Bass said. "As I was standing there, getting sick, I realized, that's what I want to do."

Jefferson noted that Dr. Bass had come full circle, since the first case Bass witnessed involved fire and their current book does as well.

"Well, I hope that doesn't mean this is the end," Bass responded.

It seems unlikely. Though officially retired, Bass still spends a few days a week at UT and still works with law enforcement agencies. Five of his former students are at the Smithsonian, including the head of anthropology.

Bass also said he doesn't want to stop teaching when he dies. That why both he and Jefferson have donated their bodies to the Body Farm.

Terry Shaw is the author of "The Way Life Should Be," winner of Gather's original First Chapter's Contest. It was published in September by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.