The Body Box by Lynn Abercrombie

don’t. Don’t make no difference to me.”
    â€œYou’re full of it. Sir. The first day when I got here, you remember what you said? You said, ‘Who are you?’ You’d never seen me before in your life.”
    A ghost of a smile. “That’s what those of us in the detective business call dissimulation. You may have heard, it’s one of them fancy interrogation techniques they teach at the CIA interrogation workshops and whatnot. I searched through two hundred personnel files, narrowed it down to three people. I talked to a bunch of people who’d worked with you. Then I observed you.”
    â€œYou spied on me? When?”
    â€œWhen you were up there pushing paper? Gay Lesbian Whatever-it-was Coordinator?”
    â€œLiaison.”
    â€œLike I say, whatever. Point is, I was keeping an eye on you. Seeing how you interacted with your fellow law-enforcement professionals.”
    â€œI never saw you.”
    â€œYou never noticed me. Different thing.”
    I sat back in my chair. “So? How did I get on with my fellow officers?”
    â€œNot well.”
    â€œWhy not just . . . Why not just interview me? Like any normal person would.”
    â€œI just didn’t.”
    â€œSo why me? Why me, specifically?”
    â€œHad to be the right person.”
    â€œOh, now suddenly we’re getting down to flattery.”
    â€œNot flattery. Facts.”
    â€œSo, explain it to me. Exactly how you knew I was right.”
    â€œFirst off, I needed somebody with people skills. You didn’t get on well up in Admin because them people are idiots. You’re results oriented; they’re keeping-their-jobs oriented. Everybody in Narcotics sang your praises up one side and down the other, how you had a special touch with people, getting people to talk, that type of thing. Case you haven’t caught on, touchy-feely ain’t my strong suit. But I needed more than that. I needed a particular kind of person. Nothing to lose, no husband, no kids, no, uh, entanglements. I don’t need nobody down here that wants to spend the weekend fishing or doing yardwork or taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. I need somebody who’s gonna live this case, somebody who don’t have no life.”
    Somebody who don’t have no life. I was mad at the manipulative bastard, but at the same time secretly impressed that he seemed to have read me so clearly.
    â€œYou knew about my baby, too, didn’t you?” I could feel a little tremor in my voice.
    Hank Gooch looked away without speaking.
    â€œYou thought that would give me, what, some kind of special motivation? Huh? My mind all tuned into the missing children wavelength? Huh? Man, you make me sick.”
    â€œI never claimed to be no nice man.”
    I suppose I could have let my anger at the man spoil the moment. But the truth was, I was intrigued. Lt. Gooch had deliberately set me up, sucked me into this thing, opened the door into the dark room, pointed the way. And I couldn’t help myself: no matter how mad I was, I was already through the door, already in the room he’d prepared for me, no going back. He had me.
    â€œOne thing you haven’t mentioned,” I said.
    â€œAnd that would be . . .”
    â€œDNA. Have you run the DNA on these cases?”
    â€œYeah,” he said.
    â€œAnd?”
    Gooch looked at something over my shoulder for a while. “Mixed bag,” he said.
    â€œMeaning what?”
    â€œThere’s lost samples in two cases. The first four murders all match each other, but no match to any perps in the database. A couple of the other murders have common DNA. Then three of the cases are already considered to be solved. Four, if you include Marquavious Roberts. Three men are already serving time in these cases, straight-up DNA matches.”
    I wrinkled my forehead. “Hold up. You’re saying some of these cases are already solved?”
    â€œIn theory,