The Body Box Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.”
    I was at a loss. I’m rarely speechless, but he’d just flat taken the wind out of me.
    â€œDNA,” he said finally.
    â€œYou’re saying we need a case with DNA.”
    â€œTake another week,” he said. “Find another case.”
    I decided I was going to have to get a little ethnic on him. “Oh, no you don’t!” I said. “I’ve read two hundred, three hundred cases now. I don’t need a week, a month, a year. I don’t need one more minute of sitting around. You want DNA, I got DNA!”
    Lt. Gooch crossed his arms.
    I walked across the room, pulled out another file.
    â€œDNA, sir? All right then! Here’s your DNA. Marquavious Roberts, male black, juvenile, seven years old, disappeared 10/12/89—”
    â€œThe file,” he said.
    I laid the file gently in the middle of his desk. Then I stalked out of the room.
    When I came back an hour and a half later, I walked up and stood in front of the desk. The file was closed, sitting right there on the edge of the scarred Formica.
    â€œSir?” I said finally.
    Lt. Gooch didn’t look up. He was making tiny little notes in a notebook. “Why you keep looking for my approval? Go find him, get his DNA.”
    â€œWhose?” I said.
    No answer.
    â€œVernell Moncrief’s?” Moncrief was the dead boy’s mother’s boyfriend, the prime suspect in the Marquavious Roberts case.
    â€œVernell’s?” Lt. Gooch finally looked up, made a face of pretend surprise. He shifted the dab of snuff in his lower lip, prodded it pensively with a brown-stained tongue. “Of course, Vernell’s! Unless you got a better idea.”
    â€œSo, we’re working the case?” I said.
    â€œWe?”
    Inexplicably, I felt my heart soar.

SEVEN
    Find Vernell Moncrief, get his DNA. Thank you, Jesus! I was finally working an actual case. I felt like I’d gotten paroled out of hell.
    But then as I walked down the dim, echoing hallway I started thinking about it. Let’s say I found the suspect—which was no sure bet. And let’s say the guy consented to let me take his DNA—which he didn’t have to do. Even so, it would take forever for the case to move. I’d heard that the GBI crime lab’s serology department was so backed up that there was some kind of ridiculous turnaround time on DNA. Months, maybe.
    And so, by the time I reached the elevator, my initial burst of enthusiasm had faded, replaced by gloom. Now that I had a moment to consider the thing, it confirmed my diagnosis of Lt. Gooch. This case was all part of his game to play slowdown until his pension showed up. Once I got some DNA from this guy Moncrief, the case would be tied up for months while we sat around staring at more case files in the dark, silent room. I got the shakes just thinking about it.
    And so, on impulse, instead of heading to the parking lot and off on a fruitless drive to Vernell Moncrief’s last known address, I decided to ride the elevator up to the third floor.
    Sgt. Sheila Fairoaks’s office was down at the end of the hallway. The sign outside her door said, MISSING AND ABUSED CHILDREN COORDINATOR. She was the lead investigator on the Jenny Dial case. I’d known her for a while. She was a nice lady, one of the early women detectives on the force. But honestly? Not the sharpest tool in the drawer.
    I knocked on the door frame, walked in the open door. The walls of her office were lined with pictures of grinning kids. Behind every grin, I knew, there was a sad story.
    â€œHey, Mechelle,” she said. “Congratulations on the commendation! That was some heads-up police work.” She was a tall, horse-faced white woman with naturally blond hair pulled back in a bun.
    â€œThanks,” I said. We made a little chitchat and then I said, “So, did you get a look at that photograph in the kiddie-porn stash at Delwood Anderson’s house? It looked an