Greg took Joe Steiner’s fax and walked down the hall to the office of Lieutenant Detective T.J. Gelford, his supervisor.
T.J. was on the phone, but he waved Greg in. When he hung up, he said, “That was Frank. He’s at CCMC with a cracked ankle. What else can go wrong?” He looked up at Greg. “What’s up?”
Greg handed T.J. the fax.
Gelford, who was in his late fifties, was not a large man. But he possessed a powerful presence. His hair had been buzz-cut so close to his scalp that it looked like a shadow. He had a roughly hewn rawboned face and gray implacable eyes that could with a microflick go from neutral to withering scorn. Gelford looked at the fax then looked up at Greg. “So?”
“It may be something,” Greg said. “I want to check it out.”
“What’s to check out?”
“He says there are similarities. I want to see what they are.”
Gelford took in a long scraping breath of air and let it out through his teeth in a hiss. “Greg, a dozen times I’ve told you to leave that case alone, there’s nothing there.”
“I hear you, but it’s the first time we’ve got something on the markings.”
Gelford looked at him with that flat, chastening glare. “Yeah, and what you got is coincidence. Natural coincidence.”
“That’s what I want to check out.”
Gelford leaned forward the way he did when he wanted to press a point. “You have chased after every damn shadow, every nibble, every look-alike. I let you go halfway across the country and back on this—twice. You’ve eaten up my budget, not to mention the assistance funds for those software people to run those photosuperimposition screens. I’m up to here with that damn skull kid. You’re not spending your time correctly on your cases, and frankly that pisses me off.”
“And frankly I’m tired of the shit cases I’ve been assigned—stolen bikes, kids drinking, wallet snatches—they’re not even real crimes or ones that can be solved.”
“Maybe if you did what you’re told and dropped this thing, you wouldn’t be getting shit cases. You aren’t solving the ones you’re supposed to anyway.”
Gelford was right, and although he complained to his face, when Greg got home at night he fessed up. He’d go through the motions of investigating something, but he’d be only half there. “Joe Steiner doesn’t make calls unless he’s got something.”
“And Joe Steiner isn’t short of manpower,” Gelford shot back.
“Two hours, T.J. That’s all I’m asking. Two hours. If it’s nothing, I’ll bury it.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. Just two hours.”
Gelford picked up the A.M. docket from a pile of papers. “Yeah, two hours of wild-goose chasing, while I’m looking at three domestics, an assault and battery, one victim in critical condition. A sniper’s shooting pellets at motorists on Route 3, some asshole kids trashed the high school last night, and vacationers are pouring in by the thousands. You want some real crimes, I’ve got some for you.”
Greg checked his watch. “Back by noon, I promise.” He smiled, hoping to decharge the moment.
But Gelford did not smile back, nor did his manner soften. “This is not what we’re paying you for.”
“T.J., I’ve got a hunch there’s a connection here.”
“That’s what you said the last time and twenty times before that. I’ve had it with your hunches up to here. Get ahold of yourself: The case is closed.”
Greg took a deep breath to center himself. “Someone, somewhere, has lost a kid. Someone, somewhere, still misses him and has his picture hanging up. He’s somebody’s son.”
“Yeah, but not yours.”
Greg felt the sting of that. It was the mind-set of the barracks—that Greg’s tenacity went beyond a professional determination, that it was borderline pathological. “Three years ago I made a promise to myself to find out who that kid was and what happened to him, and I intend to keep that promise.”
“That’s all nice and good, but nobody knows who the kid is, and not from the lack of trying,” Gelford added. “You and two other detectives from the state hunted for the next of kin full-time for eight weeks. You canvassed the schools, day-care centers, pediatricians, and hospitals. Twenty thousand fliers from that reconstruction were distributed Capeside and off. We flooded the Internet, even got a fifteen-grand reward. You scoured all the databases, chased down leads from I don’t know how many families looking for a son the same age. It’s been three years, Greg, three years and nobody’s called your hot line to claim him. What can I say? It’s a fucking dead end.”
He was right again. Given the department budget, they had pulled all the stops. And they had floated plenty of theories on why nobody had claimed the boy. He could have been abducted from out of state, far from the Cape and the publicity blitz; his parents could have died—maybe even with him—perhaps in a boating accident. His parents could be illegal immigrants, afraid to speak with police; or they could have even been the killers; or it could have been a cult murder. One possibility was as good as the next, and they pursued them all. But Greg refused to accept their finality or to let the child remain an unnamed, unclaimed victim of happenstance. Which was why he had taken the case on his own. Which was why after three years, the kid was like family.
“I’d do this after-hours,” Greg said, “but Steiner gets off work before I do. Please.”
Gelford picked up the fax. “I don’t know how to say this without saying it, but this obsession of yours has affected department morale. People are resenting how it’s getting in the way of your real obligations, how you’re not pulling your own weight. And so do I.” He stopped for a moment. “Frankly, Greg, it’s become something of a bad joke. They’re saying stuff like how you should stop whacking your stick on this skull—and how you should get a wife.”
Greg felt the blood rise in his face. He knew that he had distanced himself from the others, even dropping off the department softball team, and bowing out of picnics, and fishing jaunts. He was even aware that other investigators were refusing to work on cases with him, including his onetime partner, Steve Powers. But the thought that he had become a department joke was mortifying. Suddenly he saw himself as a pathetic fool chasing his own tail.
Get a wife.
“This may be my hang-up, but I have not compromised my duties here.”
“That’s arguable,” Gelford said. “But you’ve been at this for three years, and you’re batting a dead mouse.” He handed back the fax.
Greg nodded, but said nothing.
“I think you might want to take a look,” Steiner had written.
Gelford studied Greg’s face. “Noon, and not a minute over,” Gelford said. “But if this does not pan out—as I expect it won’t—you’ll bury it for good. Otherwise … you know the rest.” Gelford then picked up the phone to say that the conversation was over.
Greg folded the fax and put it in his shirt pocket.
“Similar markings.”
“Thanks,” Greg said and left, his mind humming to get over to the ME’s office.
5
“Are you all right?” Martin asked.
“I’m fine,” Rachel said.
“Well, you don’t look it.”
“Don’t start.”
“Don’t start what? You look like you’re about to go to your own funeral.”
“I said I’m fine.”
They were in the kitchen, and Rachel was making pancakes. She was still in her bathrobe, hunched over the stove, pressing chocolate chips into the frying batter. Dylan loved chocolate-chip pancakes, and she made them for him at least once a week. Martin was dressed and ready to go to work.