The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,82
guessing preteen, maybe eleven or twelve,” the assistant medical examiner told Reed and Delacroix hours after the bones had been discovered by Mentos.
They were standing in the morgue, looking at the remains of the body discovered at Black Bear Lake, the sterile room with its gleaming saws and knives and hanging scales surrounding them. On the metal table, the skeleton was incomplete, but the bones were laid out meticulously as Dr. Hancott studied them.
“But this,” he was saying, indicating the partial skeleton lying upon the table, “is definitely not the remains of a five-year-old girl.” A rotund man, with a fringe of hair around a tanned, freckled pate, he looked over the tops of a pair of half-glasses perched upon a short nose. “The teeth are the first clue,” he admitted, examining the jaw. “Bicuspids and second molars have erupted, which, of course, wouldn’t show in a five-year-old. And then there’s the measurements to the skull and sole femur that was found at the scene, which suggest a prepubescent youth. If I were a betting man, and I’m not, mind you, I would guess a male due to the narrow hips, though that’s not assured. At least at this point. We’ll send out DNA samples and check dental records against any missing children.”
“Do that and keep us posted,” Reed said as he and Delacroix left the building, feeling the warmth of the Georgia sun as they stepped outside. Though the body didn’t belong to Rose Duval, it would prove to be the son or daughter of some other set of parents who were still holding out a thread of hope that their child would return unharmed.
“It’s a pisser,” Delacroix said as they crossed the parking area to Reed’s Jeep. “What the hell happened to that kid?”
“I think we’ll have to find out. Most eleven- or twelve-year-olds don’t drop dead due to natural causes.”
“Amen to that,” she said as he unlocked the car. “Did you see the left ulna? Broken. At least once. Radius, too.”
He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. “Could have been anything. Biking accident, skateboarding, horseback riding, falling out of a tree—”
“Or it could be a defensive wound. Result of being hit with a baseball bat, or crowbar, or poker or—”
“I get it,” he said, and caught her glowering through the windshield. He wondered about what she’d gone through in her own growing-up years. She was tough and there was a reason for it, but he didn’t know why. Just a tomboy by nature, inherently strong, or was it because of how she’d been raised, the toughness really layer upon layer of calluses to hide her own vulnerability?
She caught his glance and seemed to read his mind. “I worked in New Orleans. Saw a lot of abuse I didn’t want to. Runaways. Child trafficking. Domestic violence.” Her jaw tightened. “The trouble was I can’t erase it from my mind.”
“So you took a job here in homicide?”
“Mainly adults,” she said with a shrug.
“You could have gotten out.”
She snorted. “Shit, no. How the hell could I make a difference then?”
“That’s what your job is all about? Making a difference?”
“Hell, no. I want to catch the bad guys, Reed. Catch ’em and send ’em up the river for good.” Her eyes behind those oversize glasses stared at him. “What about you?”
“Same, I guess.”
“Thought so.” One side of her mouth lifted. “So let’s do it, Reed. Let’s go get the bad guys!”
* * *
Nikki found a parking space across from the centuries-old red-brick building housing the newspaper offices. The three-storied edifice had survived several wars, multiple storms, good times and bad, and hadn’t crumbled. However, Hurricane Jules had made its mark. The first floor of the building had been damaged, a waterline visible on the exterior, the hair salon and spa on the street level still closed as repairs were ongoing, but the Sentinel was located on the third floor and since the elevators were still not operational, she hoped to find Fink at his desk.
A quick glance at the parking lot and she saw Fink’s vintage Corvette gleaming in his premier parking space in the small lot.
Good. Now to plead her case.
She locked her car with her remote, jaywalked across the street, then showed her ID to the security guard and climbed two flights to the newspaper’s offices.
At her desk near the entrance, Millie cradled a phone between her ear and shoulder but managed to wave Nikki to her desk.