Page 30 of Making His Bones
“Yes, I got a super great deal on a room in a gorgeous home.” I noticed I said “home” instead of “house.” That was weird. My nerves kicked in, and I bumbled, “We’re on the trail of that same Bud Pitchfork asshole we suspected ten years ago. He’s obviously involved in some kiddie porn operation.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’? Have you been getting involved with those bikers?”
“Well, yes,” I admitted. Why not? What did I have to hide? “They have some extremely good hacktivists with their club, and they’re getting to the bottom of this cheese pizza op in the back of a music store—“
“Cheese pizza? Elektra, what have you been—“
“Slang for child porn. Or you could say Captain Picard, apparently. Don’t you know this stuff?”
“Actually, no. Listen, I don’t want you taking all these risks, especially not with those biker blowhards. Isn’t your vacation over with yet? You should come right on home and let us handle it.”
“My vacation’s over, but I’ve extended it. I’m in discussions with DNAnon to open a new branch in Flagstaff that I can supervise.”
Booker was silent for a brief second. “What? Why would you want to do that? Don’t you like Illinois?”
“It’s okay, Booker. But in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t exactly built a whole solid life for myself there, outside of the lab. It was just the best offer I had after I graduated. I had no siblings, no children, no husband. Why not Illinois? But now I’ve got a whole new life support, a whole new structure. Pure and Easy is far enough from Seeker that I don’t need to be reminded of Delilah all the time. And it’s close enough to commute to Flag.”
“Well.” Booker kind of huffed and puffed. “If that’s your decision, nothing I can say will stop you. I must tell you, though, that the bureau has rejected your proposal to re-type every man in Seeker and surrounding towns. They feel that since it’s a cold case and there is no new evidence to reopen it—“
“But there is!” I cried. I looked to Gray for assistance, my face screwed up. He screwed his face up with empathy, though he could hardly have known what I was freaked about. “I told you! That Bud Pitchfork asshole is running some kind of pedo ring, using downtrodden Mexican kids he obtained through drug runs. When he’s used them up, he sends them back into the desert with bottles of moonshine to wander and die!”
“That’s all very fine and well,” said Booker tersely, “but what does this have to do with Delilah? There was no suspicion she was part of any pedo ring, was there?”
I slapped a mosquito on my arm and tossed my purse to the dust. “Well, no, but—“
“Well then, these are two entirely separate issues. I agree the porn ring is bad, of course, but that should be dealt with by local police.”
“Local police!” I wailed. “Remember that Dave DeFreeze sheriff? He’s as crooked as a barrel of snakes! He admitted under duress that Pitchfork knows more than he lets on about Delilah’s murder, and that’s the path we’re following. If we can get him on the pedo ring thing, we can squeeze him for—“
“Wait, wait, wait,” snapped Booker. “’Under duress’? What are you doing with those bikers, Elektra?”
I froze. It was true, Gray had briefly described his meeting with DeFreeze and some other Bare Bones patch holders. That meeting was clearly outside the reach of FBI protocol. My only choice was to downplay it. “Oh, I wasn’t there, but I think they yelled at him or something. Listen, Booker, you know that DNA is a thousand-fold more accurate than bite mark or hair analysis. We don’t even have to catch the actual murderer in our dragnet—just narrow it down to his family. We’ve already narrowed it down to eye color. We can leave all the blue-eyed men out of our web, Booker. And who knows if the murderer hasn’t recently uploaded his sputum to 23andMe or Ancestry and we get a match when we do a new sweep and line up genetic markers?”
Booker sighed. “It’s a no-go, Elektra. I’m sorry. When are you moving out of Downers Grove? We’ll have lunch before you leave.”
So that was the ending of my brief flirtation with Special Agent Booker Maverick of the FBI.
Gray didn’t see it that way. He jammed his fists way into the pockets of his khakis and walked around in tight circles, kicking dust. “Booker Maverick,” he surmised sullenly, lower lip sticking out.
It would’ve been adorable if it wasn’t so annoying. “Yes. He doesn’t see things my way and won’t authorize a new DNA sweep.”
All jealousy fell from his face. “Oh, baby! I’m so sorry! What was his justification?”
It was my turn to pout. “No new evidence. Screw it. We don’t need a new sweep. We’ve zeroed in on Pitchfork, and you and your club are going to help squeeze him, right?”
Gray smiled, his cheeks dimpling. How could anyone not fall for this man? I had to check his past—see if there were any unrequited loves still hanging around. “Right. But you already swabbed Pitchfork ten years ago.”
“Yes. Doesn’t mean it can’t be a family member of his, visiting town. We’ll track them all down! ‘It is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains?’” I quoted. “Holmes and Watson.”
Gray frowned. “We can’t just go running around taking shit out of their garbage cans. Isn’t it inadmissible in a court of law?”
“Not at all. Shed or ‘out-of-body’ DNA sampling taken by private citizens or investigators has been allowed in the courts. They agree there’s no issue with the Fourth Amendment when it’s in a restaurant or someone’s garbage that’s been technically abandoned on the street.”
Gray grinned again. “Oh. You’re an amazing woman, Elektra Spinoza.”
“’There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’”
“Holmes?”
