Drowning Barbie Read online

  The Dental Information/Imaging Repository isn’t so much a place as it was an elaborate software program. It requires a few people to manage calls and to sort new submissions into the proper categories or to send them back to the submitting agency for clarification and correction. For Hannibal, it was the dead end that came before unceremonious retirement and a move to a rented apartment in a middling neighborhood and a bleak old age.

  When the system worked, it provided a smooth, efficient, and cost-effective addition to the FBI’s many services. Who could argue with an easily accessible system to help trace missing persons, identify victims, or even their killers? But it had its critics. While inexpensive, it still cost money to operate, and politicians, Hannibal knew, find expenditures they don’t think are vote-getters easy targets for public displays of fiscal outrage. By the same token, and often it’s the same politicians, they find enthusiastic support for the same program or service in times when a tragedy is avoided or a life is secured. The nature of politics in the twenty-first century, Hannibal thought, is that expediency trumps principle. With these dark, cynical thoughts in mind, he pushed through the door of the conference room to hear the latest from his section chief, a man half his age who commanded a quarter of his abilities.

  “Congressman Trangant is annoyed at us again,” the section chief was saying. “Apparently the agency’s Fraud Division has stepped on a few toes in a corporation that contributes large sums to his campaign. Accordingly, he will be bringing a sub-committee of the Appropriations Committee through here on Monday. He believes he will find waste and inefficiency.” He shot a veiled glance in Hannibal’s direction. “Well, if he knew where to look, he probably would. However, he doesn’t know, so he and his fellow political hacks are on a fishing expedition. He has decided the cost-benefit ratio of some of our newer services is demonstrably poor. So all of you, especially your group, Hannibal, make sure you look busy when the sharks swim into view.”

  Hannibal returned to his section and instructed his team to take the rest of the day off. He would see them bright and early Monday, he said, and they were to prepare for an inspection by a panel of Congressional poo-bahs. They were not to touch any of the materials currently stacking up in their electronic in-boxes but should wait until the politicians arrived. When these good gentlemen and ladies entered, the staff was to tackle them then and look terrifically busy. Satisfied his group could stand the scrutiny of even the most persistent prober, he joined his group by vacating the premises. Monday was a long weekend away.

  ***

  Lee Henry used to cut hair in her home where she acquired a substantial client list and some small savings. She was an early subscriber to the lemons-to-lemonade philosophy and had parlayed hard times into an entrepreneurial success. Instead of hunkering down when things got tight, she plowed her small savings into what she believed would be a successful business plan. She took over an abandoned commercial site on Main Street, installed several specialty chairs, and opened a salon. The extra chairs she rented to women like herself who thought a place in town would be more profitable than cutting and shampooing in their basements or kitchens, even after paying rent to Lee. Some were forced by hard times to return to haircutting to make ends meet.

  Leasing chairs to women did not quite cover it. Bob Blankenship, Flora Blevins’ retired cousin twice removed, rented one of her chairs every Wednesday and Friday afternoon. “Bob the Barber” worked those times because, he declared, men, if they planned ahead, usually had their hair cut late on Wednesday and, if they didn’t, had it done on Friday. The rest of the week’s business wouldn’t pay him enough to lure him all the way out of retirement. When he worked, Lee assigned Bob the first chair. She didn’t think his clientele mixed well with hers or the other girls’.

  When questioned by one of Callend’s faculty members at the term girls, Lee had brushed it off with a succinct—one might say rude—remark about folks giving up the joy in language usage for fear of offending, and she didn’t give a rat’s rear end for that. Actually she had not said “rear end,” but used a somewhat earthier term. The faculty member had never returned. One look at her hair was enough to confirm the truth of that, Lee had remarked later.

  Lee said if Ike got his handsome Semitic self over right away, she’d fit him in; she’d had a cancellation. He stepped into the shop’s unmistakable aroma of wet hair, conditioner, Lysol, and whatever the rest was. He could never quite determine what, but guessed it had something to do with permanents.

  “Well, you got here pretty quick, Handsome. How you been, how was your vacation with the beautiful Miz Harris? I been hearing stories.”

  “Stories? The vacation had its moments. Maine is beautiful in late May. Just trim me up the way you do. What’s the latest joke? I’ve been away and have missed your naughtiness, Lee.”

  A young woman entered. Ike scanned her as she walked past. Cop habit. He did not notice anything out of the ordinary except her clothes. They were new, all of them, blouse, jeans, shoes, everything new. How often does a young woman wear everything brand spanking new? And if he guessed right, everything wholly out of style. Most young people wore jeans that were past redemption—torn, worn, and ragged either from wear or were made to look old and decrepit with a belt sander and bleach. This young woman’s jeans were new and very blue. The copper rivets gleamed. He couldn’t quite guess how old she was. She had old eyes. That he did see. Her face had a familiar look, but he would have said that about half the women her age. The familiarity could be a generational thing.

  “You go see Grace,” Lee said to her. Grace Chimes rented the third chair today and apparently Lee had handed this client off to her.

  “Lordy,” Grace said, “we need to get that mop of yours washed before we do any cutting. How long has it been, Sweetheart, since it saw a dab of shampoo?”

  Ike didn’t hear the reply.

  “Okay, Mr. Sheriff, sit back while I spritz you.” Lee said. Ike could no longer see the girl but he could have sworn she jumped when Lee spoke just then.

  “Whoa there, Honey, you okay? I didn’t get soap in your eye, did I?” Grace asked.

  “No. I’m okay. Just a little jumpy I guess.”

  “So,” Lee began, “a rabbi, a monsignor—that’s one of them Catholic preachers, you know—a Baptist, a Muslim, and an atheist all come into this bar together, okay? And the bartender says, ‘Is this going to be some kind of a joke?’…Get it? It’s like—”

  “I got it, Lee. That’s funny.”

  “I don’t get it,” Grace said. “What’s the joke the bartender thought was coming?”

  “Aw, come on Grace,” Lee said, “all them jokes start that way. You know: a this, and a that, and the other go fishing or come into a bar or whatever and one says something. It’s a whatchacallit.”

  “Cliché,” Ike added.

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Well, shoot, Grace. You just ain’t been around this salon long enough or you woulda. Okay, Ike, you ain’t answered my questions about you and the beautiful Doctor Miz Harris. What’s up with that?”

  “I expect you’ll know soon enough, Lee.” He nodded his head fractionally toward the girl.

  In a lower voice Lee said, “Flora Blevins’ niece or grandniece, I think. She said something like that anyway. Flora called and set up the appointment. Luckily, Grace was in today. The kid’s here on a visit or something. What do you mean, ‘soon enough’?”

  “Ask me that next week sometime.”

  “That don’t qualify as encouraging, Ike.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The ballistics test from the bullet imbedded in the man’s spinal column lay on Ike’s desk when he returned from his trip to Lee Henry’s salon. The lab verified it as a nine millimeter with no important or distinguishing marks. It had been photographed and the images transmitted to the national registry. It would be checked for matches against other
samples from around the country. If the gun that produced it had been used in the commission of a crime anywhere and had been entered into the system, they would soon know.

  It was progress, of a sort, especially for a cold case like this one. Not much, to be sure, but crimes were not solved in the hour television devoted to the art, forty minutes if you discounted the time spent on commercials. The woman’s death was a different story. She’d been identified and had next of kin lurking around somewhere. She also had a record. She had acquaintances; Flora Blevins knew her, for example. Surely one had either to be the killer or lead Ike to the killer. It would take some time but not as much as the dead-a-decade guy.

  TAK rapped on his door.

  “What have you got for me, Son?”

  “I found the girl on Facebook. Not too much there—no photo, just an avatar.” Ike’s eyebrows shot up. “Um…it’s like a cartoon face only not always. See—”

  “Never mind, I got it. Go on.”

  “Anyway, I’m sure it’s her. She uses the name Darlene Dellinger instead of Darla.” Ike started to speak and thought better of it. Give the kid his moment. “And here’s the good part. When I tracked her through the juvenile justice system, I discovered she’d had a name change right after that entry. You’ll never guess to what.”

  “Darla Smut.”

  TAK’s face fell. “How’d you know?”

  “Since you nearly wet your pants waiting for me to guess, it had to be one of our latest problems and a female child meant the Smut woman’s daughter. Why the name change?”

  “Okay, here’s the rest. The mother’s name changed, like, monthly as she jumped from one alias to another. Most of them were scams—ID thefts to collect welfare or food stamps she could sell. Dellinger was the father’s name, according to her birth certificate in the file—Mark Dellinger, and she decided to use it. I guess she thought she could hit him up for support money. Anyway, he took off for parts unknown about the time the kid was born, did a dime for assault and public drunkenness, and disappeared for good after his release.”

  “Did she ever catch up with the father?”

  “Guess not. So, the girl had a history of having been abused. The arresting officers thought that the mother might be complicit. I guess she thought a name change would get her off the radar, so to speak.”

  “Thank you. You’ve done good, kid. Any luck with the program that ages a face?”

  “No, sorry. Running that program is way beyond my pay grade. I’ll keep trying, but don’t hold your breath.”

  “Fine. Before you give up on computer work, see if you can find a picture of Dellinger for me and anything else that’s available.”

  “Yes, sir. You want his arrest record and—”

  “There ought to be a mug shot in the system somewhere and maybe a dental record.”

  “Yes, sir.” TAK drifted back to his temporary desk and began his next assault on the computer’s keyboard.

  Ike leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk, castled his fingers, and began running through the few facts he had and wished he had. All he knew for certain was that Smut had a long history of drug and child abuse and that she changed her child’s name at least once. What were the chances she’d done it multiple times? Pretty good, probably, if she wanted to stay ahead of Child Protective Services and the police. But there was the business of her rarely spending any real time in jail and the fact that serious charges were almost never brought. Why was that? Finding the daughter, whatever her name was now, would help. But to do that depended on someone stepping up with an address, a phone number, or a sighting. Unfortunately, the streets of America’s cities were filled with waifs and strays most of whom looked too much alike. You’ve seen one runaway, you’ve seen them all—like meth-faced women. That girl in the salon for example, Flora’s niece or whatever she was, in other circumstances, could easily be one of America’s lost children.

  Finally, he had to concede that, farfetched or not, the woman’s murder and the other body could be related. That is, if the other body in the grave turned out to be Mark Dellinger. Maybe it was he who did the molesting and the Smut woman popped him for doing the girl one time too many. It made sense, but only if the person who killed Smut also knew about the father. Perhaps he had a brother or close relative who decided to even things up. That would explain going to all the trouble of having them share a grave.

  Likely or not, he’d post the connection as a possibility on the tack board he’d set up in the outer office.

  ***

  Charley Picket stood on the sidewalk outside the Cross Roads Diner and stared at its glass door. It was that time of the year when the humidity level caught up with the temperature. He mopped his forehead with a red bandanna. He could smell the food cooking inside and his stomach started to growl. He had not eaten anything since five o’clock and he’d missed lunch because he had to chase some redneck in a pickup for miles before the boy finally gave up and pulled over. The truck was a mess, the kid not much better. Charley had given him a ticket for failure to stop at a four-way and another for not yielding to an order to stop. He called in the plates and turned the kid loose.

  Charley was close to sixty, which side and how close were not clear. He had never eaten a meal or even had a cup of coffee in the Cross Roads Diner. Growing up, it had been forbidden territory. “Coloreds” were expected to eat in their own restaurants. All that had changed a good while back, of course. It had taken a long time, but the changes came. Still, he hesitated. Laws can change what people do and where they can do it, but not how people feel. Until this moment he had never had any desire to find out if the attitudes of local white folk had changed since Brown v. The Board of Education out there in Topeka, at least as it related to the Cross Roads Diner. But he was hungry and Jack’s Lunchroom was located over on the other side of town.

  “Whatcha waiting for, Charley?” Billy Sutherlin had somehow snuck up behind him. “Flora can be mean as a snake, but she’s an equal opportunity mean snake. She’ll as likely yell at me as you.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. It’s just I never been in this place.”

  “You’re kidding? Hell, Charley, you must be the only man in town that ain’t.”

  “Well, it’s just that—”

  “Charley…hey, all that stuff was a lifetime ago. Ain’t nobody in there going to come at you and I ain’t just saying that ’cause I’m white. So come on.”

  Billy shoved open the door and held it aside for Charley. Flora Blevins glared at the two of them.

  “Get in or get out, but either way, shut the door. I am not in the fly farming business. You must be Deputy Picket. How come you never eat here? Jack’s food can’t be that much better. I do reckon I’ll never match his ribs, though. Billy, shut the damned door.”

  Charley grinned an apology and took a booth with Billy in the corner. Flora plunked down a slice of apple pie with a wedge of cheddar and a cup of coffee in front of him.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Blevins, but I didn’t order anything yet.”

  “You will and that is what it’ll be. Billy, your chili is on the way.”

  “But—”

  “It don’t do any good to complain, Charley. Flora decides what you need and you get it. After you’ve eaten here a while you might be able to change it, but for now, your afternoon between-meals eating at the diner will be coffee and pie. It’s good pie, by the way. Flora, what’s the hold up on my chili?”

  “I told you once already, it’s on the way.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Friday finally arrived and with it the prospect of an uninterrupted weekend. However, Ruth and Ike had work to do. Not work related to their professions, but tasks connected to their behaviorally rash evening in Nevada. They had to decide the means by which their hasty and irregular marriage should be announced to the public. For ordinary folk, the problem would not loom so large, bu
t for a popular public servant and the respectable president of an emerging university, the situation had facets ordinary people could not appreciate. Or so they thought.

  Ike signed out early that afternoon at four. He could be reached at his A-frame, he’d announced, but short of a national emergency approaching Hurricane Sandy proportions, he would prefer to be left alone. Ruth managed to sneak out of the Administration Building at Callend University by a side door and thereby missed an unscheduled meeting with a very irate chairman of the Biology Department who’d just discovered an FTE had been cut from his budget. The fact that he hadn’t filled the slot in three years, and clearly did not need it whereas others did, meant nothing. Turf and pride were in play. To lose so valuable an asset, even if not needed, constituted a blow to the department’s prestige and, more importantly, to his ego. The fact that the creative writing division of the English Department got the faculty slot didn’t help either. Ruth’s surreptitious exit meant his complaint would go unheard until Monday.

  Ruth did leave a phone number where she could be reached. Agnes Ewalt, her secretary—administrative assistant—knew it and she would screen how and when and by whom it should be and could be utilized. That would be any and all attempts to reach her. On the whole, Ike thought, Ruth had a better avoidance system than he did.

  They ate an early dinner of leftover pizza salvaged from an office birthday party, which they supplemented with a bottle of red wine. Neither could identify it as to vintage or year as the label had mysteriously disappeared.