by Lynn Bulock
“Great. Do you want to tell Terry or shall I?”
“I’ll do it,” Kyra said. She wondered what on earth the two men would talk about for six hours or more together in a car. Maybe, she hoped, they would find a shared interest in the same kind of music, or sports radio or something. In any case, she’d picked the best assignment for herself this time.
“She’d be twenty-one now.” Nate Phipps spoke quietly, more thoughtful than Josh expected him to be. He had the pallor of someone who’d spent nearly fifteen years in a maximum-security prison, and the physique of a man who spent many hours working out. His short hair was sprinkled with gray that Josh knew hadn’t been there when he started his sentence, and there were creases around his eyes that had never come from smiling.
“Who, your daughter?” Terry said, storing the buccal swab in its tube after swabbing the inside of Phipps’s cheek and carefully labeling it before storing everything in a heavy plastic zipper bag.
“Yeah, Lisa. She was five when I went in here. I wouldn’t be able to recognize her today if she walked by. And don’t call her my daughter. That’s what me and Dani fought about.”
Josh couldn’t believe that the man could sit here that calmly and discuss his wife’s murder, even if it had happened so many years before. It explained why Phipps hadn’t argued any about giving them his DNA; he didn’t think it would tell them anything even if the bones they had were Lisa’s.
“So you didn’t think she was yours?” Josh tried not to let the contempt show in his voice. Apparently he didn’t do a very good job of it if the man’s expression was any indication. Twin grooves furrowed his heavy brows as he scowled.
“No, I didn’t think she was mine. She didn’t look anything like my family. Even the women in my family are big-boned, strong with dark hair. Lisa, she looked just like her mother, a little thing with pale hair. And she was sick all the time.”
Josh could see Terry open his mouth as if he was going to argue with the prisoner. He shot the technician a look to try to tell him to let the subject alone. Either Terry understood him or he came to the same conclusion on his own, because he shrugged but stayed silent. “We’ll let you know what we find out in a couple of weeks, Mr. Phipps,” Josh told him.
“I already know what you’re going to find,” the con said in a flat voice. “No matter what, that isn’t my kid down in Pikesville. End of story.” He must have meant what he said, because even though the man was shackled to the metal table in the small room, Josh could see Phipps try to get up to signal the guard.
“We can do that for you,” Terry said, his lips pressed in a thin, cold line. He seemed to want to get out of the prisoner’s presence even more quickly than Phipps wanted to leave them. Josh knocked on the door and they exited, letting the guard know that Phipps wanted to go back to his cell.
“Guys like that leave a bad taste in my mouth,” Terry said later in the prison’s parking lot. “How about we pick up some food for the road, and a strong coffee? It’s another two or three hours back to the lab.”
“Sure.” Josh didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t all that hungry, but the idea of coffee sounded good. Besides, he needed something to keep him awake on the trip other than Terry’s chatter. One more sentence about fantasy sports leagues and he’d be tempted to leave the tech by the side of the road.
When he got back to the lab, he tried to slip in quietly and do what he needed to do without having to talk to anybody, but it didn’t work. Kyra sat at her desk, musing over something on the desk.
“Hi,” she said, looking up. “I hate to even ask how your trip was.”
“I look that good, huh?” Josh felt impressed by her insight from just one look at him.
“Hey, I sent you to the state prison. That in itself can’t be good. And I have to think that Phipps wasn’t just a swell guy or he wouldn’t be in there.”
“Was your afternoon better?”
“I think so. Diane is the best kind of foster parent. She has something of every kid that’s ever been with them, both in her heart and with a few real mementos as well.”
“So she kept things from Nikki, then?”
“Yes. More than usual because she said Nikki was special somehow. She left hurriedly to go someplace else, and left a lot of her stuff behind.”
When Kyra looked up at him, her eyes were moist with tears. “Diane called it a lot of stuff, but it was a pretty small pile to represent all of somebody’s worldly goods. We got lucky, though. One of the things she left was a hairbrush.” She held up a clear bag with a pink plastic brush. “It was in a shoe box, protected all this time. We should be able to extract enough DNA from the hair to see if it’s Nikki on the gurney.”
“Good. According to Phipps, we won’t find out anything from his DNA. He claims to be sure that Lisa wasn’t his daughter.”
“Ouch. Is that what made you look beat up around the edges?”
The words were on the tip of his tongue to deny what Kyra said, but Josh stopped himself, thinking. “Yes, I think it is. Hearing him say that just brought back bad memories from my own childhood. After my dad died when I was ten, I spent five years hearing what a rotten human being people thought he was.”
He took a deep, ragged breath, feeling the story come out of him like something rushing out of a cage. “My mother moved us away from Chicago back to her hometown where nobody had heard about all the allegations against him, how he’d been a corrupt U.S. marshal who’d killed himself in disgrace. I never thought it was true, but if I dared say that, we’d get into arguments that would last for hours.”
“Last week you told me your mom killed herself because she couldn’t live with the shame of something. Was this why?”
Josh felt tears sting behind his eyelids, and looked down at the floor while he nodded. “Somehow, Chrissie, my sister, always blamed me for her death. She said if I hadn’t brought our father’s name up so often, she wouldn’t have been reminded. I sent Chrissie everything once the people who framed my father for their own crimes had been arrested and convicted. I thought maybe she’d call me or write me and apologize or something.”
“Didn’t she say anything?” Kyra’s voice sounded small and surprised. Josh wasn’t sure when she’d gotten up out of her chair to come and stand beside him. Now she put a hand on his arm. He didn’t push her away.
“I got a birthday card two months later. And at Christmas the same photo card as usual, she and her perfect family all dressed up in their red-and-green plaid, even a bow of it on the dog. No note, just the card.”
“Awww…” Kyra said, the tone in her voice saying more than a full sentence would have. Her arms were around him and she leaned against him. Josh buried his face in her dark auburn hair, trying to memorize the earthy floral scent of her shampoo. She felt so good, so accepting, and he wondered if this was anything like how God’s love felt to Kyra. It if was, he could see why she was so calm and peaceful most of the time.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
“Do what?” Her eyes held puzzlement.
“Love somebody, act as if you don’t care who they are or what they’ve done but still love them, anyway?”
She looked up at him, seeming to search his face for several long moments. “I can try,” she told him. “But I’m pretty sure it’s a God thing. Think you can handle that?”
He leaned farther into her embrace, the wonderful scent of her. “Let’s see. All I know is that I want what you’ve got, and if that comes from God then maybe I’ll have to get to know God, better.”
As Josh said the words he felt something inside him dissolve. As they stood there in the office he was aware of tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t mind. The peace and acceptance that washed over him made everything else seem of little importance.
“Well, first you need to say thank-you,” Kyra told him, still holding on to him. “After that, we can work on other stuff, but for me at least, once you can say thank-y
ou almost everything else gets easier by comparison.”
Somehow they ended up in chairs in the family waiting room for more than an hour, Josh never letting go of Kyra’s hand. Holding on to her as if she were a lifeline, Josh listened while she told him a story. It was the story, the only story that mattered, full of love and forgiveness, and by the end it sounded so simple Josh couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t really heard it like this years before.
But that didn’t matter because he’d heard it now, and in his heart Josh knew that nothing in his life would ever be quite the same again.
EIGHT
In the week they waited for the DNA tests to be done, Kyra spent most of the time alternating between throwing herself into work and wanting to pace like a tiger in a cage. Finally Allie came into her office with papers in hand. “You have a match,” she said simply, putting the results on Kyra’s desk.
Kyra was sorry that Josh wasn’t in the room to share the moment. He’d be back soon, though, and she could tell him that “Abigail” was actually Nikki. “Now we have a way to put you at rest,” Kyra said, knowing that she was talking to someone who couldn’t hear her anymore. She praised God that she had been able to be a part of this. Every time she was able to bring closure to someone, to help solve the mystery of a person’s identity or a cause of death, she felt that she was doing what she was called to do.
When she told Josh that two hours later, he looked mystified. “Maybe I just haven’t ever hung around church people enough, but I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say ‘called’ like that. Is it like that ‘road to Jerusalem’ thing with bright lights and a voice?”
“Damascus,” she said gently. “Saul was on the road to Damascus. And no, it’s nothing that dramatic. It’s just this welling up in me of something that says yes.”
Josh looked at her, a wry grin on his face. “See, I don’t even know the right territory, much less the right names. I thought it was Paul that got hit by that lightning bolt or whatever it was, anyway.”
“Later he was Paul. That day he was still Saul. It’s a pretty amazing story if you want to read it.”
Josh shrugged. “I never get that far in the Bible. I always get hung up someplace near the front, where they have that part that’s all rules and stuff.”
“I think you mean Leviticus. And you’re right, that’s tough reading sometimes.” Kyra had a thought, and she stood up from her desk and looked in the bookshelves over by the window of the office. “Here, this might help. Give this one a try and maybe it will make more sense to you. It’s called The Message, and while it’s not the world’s deepest study Bible or anything, it’s good to start out with.”
Josh turned it over in his hands, and Kyra saw light make sparkles on the bright plastic cover. “And I notice this one is just the New Testament. Does that perhaps mean that it leaves out the rule book?”
“That particular one does. But this has some rules in it, too. Jesus says his rules are easy, though. You might even agree with that once you’ve read through this.”
“We’ll see. Will this explain that ‘call’ thing we were talking about before?”
“Once you get deep enough into it, yes. But not right away. I’d have to say that ‘call’ means that it feels like you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, what you were made to do.”
His face looked wistful. “Wow. It’s been a while since I felt that way. I got feelings like that sometimes in the bureau, especially when I thought I was chasing down something related to my dad. But since that all ended, I haven’t gotten that feeling much.”
“What about trying to find out these girls’ identities? You seem to have really flung yourself into that.”
Now he gave her a half smile, quirking up one corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess I did. Maybe this notion of ‘call’ makes a little more sense than I thought.”
He sat quietly for a few minutes, turning the book over in his hands. “That’s the first piece of the puzzle, anyway. Now we have to figure out who did this and why. And if he’s still around…which I’m afraid he is…we need to bring him in.”
“That’s true. At least somebody needs to bring him in. But remember, Josh, that this office is concerned with forensics and evidence that will build a case against the murderer. The state police have homicide investigators who will take over when we’re done. And I have to tell you that we’re getting close to done.”
Josh nodded. “I know that. But when I hand this over, I want to give those investigators every possible piece of information that I can.”
“I can’t argue with that. Just make sure that you stay objective. I’m not comfortable with the way you’ve focused on one particular suspect.”
“Do you know something about anybody connected with this case that you haven’t shared with me? Because so far I haven’t found anything that tells me I shouldn’t count Ramon Garcia as a prime suspect.”
When Josh got stirred up, his eyes flashed with a glint that showed silver in the pale blue. The glint was there now, making Kyra remember that he’d spent a decade as an FBI agent. “So show me something that would back up your feelings. That, and talk to the other people involved to make sure that you don’t find something that should make us suspect them.”
He sat up straighter. “That’s usually how I do my job. If you want to know more about the investigative part of your department, why don’t you come with me?”
“I will, for some of it. It’s time I knew more about that end of what we do. I haven’t had the chance to check it out before because we’ve been clearing this case and a dozen others. But right now this is the most important thing we’ve got going and I want to see it from all angles.”
“Great. I’ll make sure that I can show you all the angles that I can.”
Joshua stretched in front of his computer, trying to loosen all the cramped muscles and tight joints from too long a stay in this chair checking records. It was worth the effort. Ramon Garcia was deeper in his sights than ever, but neither of the other guys with connections to more than one of the young women could be ruled out, either.
Judging from what he’d found today, their next job should be to talk to Deon Quinn and ask a lot of questions. If Quinn really wanted to go into law enforcement, he had some explaining to do about his past. Josh didn’t feel bad about asking any of the questions, because he knew the young man would have to answer even tougher ones to get admitted to a police academy.
Two days later Josh and Kyra sat in a coffee shop in Silver Springs with Deon Quinn. He’d agreed to meet them about a mile from the mall where he worked as a security guard. Still in his blue uniform, the young man stared down at a cooling coffee. “I know that what you found doesn’t look good. But I had my wild times a long time ago. That record you found may not have been juvenile, but it’s nearly ten years old. When my son was born, everything changed.”
“And why was that? It doesn’t appear that you spent all that much time with him.” Kyra’s voice sounded cold. It made Josh wonder what had happened in her life to make her appear hostile to this young man. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that he was only three years younger than she was and his life was so scattered. Or maybe it had something to do with what she might have perceived as a child’s neglect.
“I’ve been in his life from the first even when I haven’t lived with him. It’s more than I can say about my own father. He was out of the picture before I turned four.”
“So your mom raised you?” The question came from Kyra again.
Quinn shrugged. “My grandma, mostly. Mom was working two jobs a lot of the time just to keep us together. When I was a little kid I didn’t understand that. I just knew that she was never there.”
“And now she’s raising your son.” Josh tried to keep his voice level, nonjudgmental. It was hard.
“Not for long. And I see Andre at least twice a week. More when I can. I’m trying to build a future for him. For all of us.”
“Don�
��t get so busy building that future that you forget the present, Mr. Quinn.” Kyra’s tone was even sharper. “Kids need attention all the time. And the next few months may be hard on the whole family now that Gen’s death has been brought up again.”
“My mom’s relieved,” Deon said, his dark eyes clouded with pain. “She never thought Gen would just walk away from her son. Now we can tell Andre for sure that his mom cared for him and didn’t want to leave him.”
“What about you? How do you feel about all of this?” Josh decided to push the question, to see how Deon would react. So far Quinn had talked about everybody’s feelings but his own. How he expressed his own feelings would tell them a lot about his capacity for violence.
“I guess I’m glad. When Gen disappeared it was rough, really rough. We were both eighteen, a time when life should have been opening up in front of us, but that wasn’t the way things were happening. Neither of us had a decent job or a good education. The system was the only way she knew to get by and she had just aged out. I was still living with Mama…my grandmother…while my mother worked fifty or more hours a week.”
“Where was Andre?” Josh had uncomfortable visions of a toddler alone in a strange place.
“He was with me and Mama. Gen and I traded off once in a while so she could look for a job or something like that. The last time I talked to her she was all excited about some guy she said was going to help her get into a career. Not a job, a career. That’s the way she put it.”
“Do you remember any more? At this point anything helps.” Kyra leaned forward, green eyes wide and attentive.
“That’s about it. I think the guy’s name was Ray, and I know it all had something to do with being a medical assistant. Gen said this guy told her it was the wave of the future and it only needed a three-month training class before she could start making real money.”
“And real money was important for a couple of kids who hadn’t finished high school.”
