The Truth Seeker by Dee Henderson Page B

I’m retired.”
     
    “The fact Rita was missing eight years before being found might Quinn picked up the bill. “You drive a hard bargain.”
    Lincoln smiled. “I learned from the best. Emily should also be able
    And still liking the work, Quinn could hear it in his voice. “I’m going to need to talk with Mrs. Beck at length about her daughter’s friendship with Amy. And as soon as Mrs. Beck learns Amy Ireland has been missing for twenty years, it’s going to bring back a lot of painful memories; she may shut me out. And she’s definitely not going to want to help me if she knows the two of us are old friends and that it was you who found the connection between the girls.”
    actually help you—Mrs. Beck will identify with another mom needing closure.” Lincoln considered him and slid the check over. “And I won’t take our disassociation in public personally, as long as you’re picking up the tab when we sit down to compare notes.”
    to help you out with the background work. She hasn’t wanted to touch the Grant Danford case with a ten-foot pole; she thinks he’s guilty. She’ll be able to do some research for you without people connecting her to what I’ve been working on.”
    “I appreciate it. I need to find out everything I can about that summer the girls met before I talk to Mrs. Beck.”
    “You’ll be amazed at Emily’s resourcefulness.”
    “Can I also see the Danford files? I’ll need to be prepared before I step into the minefield of how Rita died.”
    “Come over tomorrow, I’ll show you what I have.” Lincoln spun the ice in his glass. “Lisa worked the case.”
    Quinn set down his coffee without tasting it. “She did?”
    “She was the one who excavated the grave.”

Eight
    Robin Johnson, age thirty-one, shot and killed during a convenience store robbery. The case was seven years old, unsolved.
    Lisa slid the first X-ray onto the light table over the special hotshot bulb that could get more light through the old film, then swung over the high intensity magnifying glass. She frowned at the fracture lines in the skull that radiated across the left parietal bone in an oblong starburst. Robin had been hit—a hard blow from something blunt, long, and heavy.
    She scanned the other X-rays she had on the light table. The angle of the bullet went from the abdomen up into the chest. Robin had been knocked down and then shot? The cruelty was incredible. Lisa studied the films, absorbing everything they could tell her. There had to be something she could do with this case.
    Two hundred and sixty cases. Arbitrarily, counting boxes and thumbing through the printout of unsolved murders, Lisa figured she could solve percent of the open cases through a solid forensic review of the evidence. That gave her twenty-six cases going back thirty years.
    She had decided to identify the most promising cases and then take them apart: send unidentified fingerprints and bullets back through the current databases; analyze the crime photos, scrutinize the autopsies; read through the police reports, case notes, and depositions
    She didn’t want to admit she’d been lingering around the house the Go home or stay?
    Stay. At least she could try to do some good here.
    Work had always been the best way to get back her perspective. At
    looking for contradictions and assumptions; and try the latest techniques for fiber, blood, and fingerprint collection on the evidence.
    It was the last Saturday in October, and while it wasn’t atypical to spend part of her weekend at work, she was doing it today just so she wouldn’t sit around the house and brood.
    He hadn’t called.
    Lisa crumbled the page on her notepad when she realized she’d been doodling Quinn’s name, annoyed to have him intruding again.
    She missed the trash can, and the page joined the half dozen other crumpled balls that had flown that way during the day. Quinn was leaving for Montana tomorrow, and he hadn’t bothered to call to say good-bye.
    last two nights on the hopes he would drop by, making