The Fort (Aric Davis)

Mr. Detective?”
    “Nothing, Tracy,” said Van Endel, and he meant it. Since the body had been found, he hadn’t been able to put his hands on one shred of evidence. It was beyond frustrating, but Tracy calling could mean that there had been a breakthrough at the coroner’s office. “What do you have for me?”
    “A little bit of interesting news—maybe good; not my call—and a big old chunk of frustrating news. You got a preference?”
    “I’ll take frustrating.”
    “I’ve got nothing on dental so far,” said Tracy. “Big fat zilcho, and I don’t see that changing.”
    “So you still can’t say with any certainty that this actually is Molly?”
    “Nope, sure can’t. I took a bunch of pictures to share with my old professor. He has some contacts in New York, said he can see if they can help. I’m good, but these teeth are something else. If the guy was deliberately trying to disguise who she was, he couldn’t have done a better job of it. I’m guessing that’s exactly what his goal was. I’ve heard of Mob guys doing stuff like that, burying Jimmy Hoffa with no head, hands, or feet, that sort of thing. Whoever did this knew that fire would destroy her fingerprints and footprints, and that hammer he used, I’m damn sure on that, plain old claw hammer, you can tell by the impre—”
    “I’ll take your word for it, Tracy.”
    “All right, whatever,” Tracy said, sounding a little miffed that Van Endel didn’t share his enthusiasm for the bloody nuts and bolts of his trade. “Anyways, I got the teeth thing headed out of state, so we’ll see what those guys have to say.
    “Now the other thing, though. The interesting one. She had a leather wallet in a back pocket, it was basically seared into her. At first I thought it was just more skin. You want to guess what was in there?” The line was silent for a minute, and Tracy sighed. “Won’t even try. You just know you can’t get it right, so you won’t even play.”
    “Tracy.”
    “All right, all right. Latex residue, along with some ruined foil. I got them under the microscope, confirmed on both.”
    “Condoms.”
    “My man gets the assist, anyway,” said Tracy. “So here’s how I see it. You either accept that Molly might have been planning on having a little safe fun, and things got out of hand, or that something else is going on.”
    “Like what?”
    “Shit, I don’t know,” said Tracy. “You’re the detective, I’m the lab rat. I can tell you what, where, and when it was done to her. You’re the one who figures out the who and why. One thing, though: I can’t think of any reason for anyone to kill Molly Peterson and go to all this effort to keep her identity a secret, can you?”
    “No,” admitted Van Endel. “There has to be some explanation, though. You’re right: disguising the body like this took time, and he ran a hell of a risk burning it like he did, too. I can’t see why anyone would do it just to do it.”
    “Is the mom clean?”
    “Stick to the what, where, and when, Tracy. That was one of the first things I looked into. Mom works a steady job, drinks a little, doesn’t date.”
    “So no Mob ties or gambling debts?”
    “Let me know what you hear on the teeth, all right?” Van Endel hung up the phone, frowning at nothing, and looking at and through his desk. There has to be a reason. The problem was that one of the truths he’d learned as a detective was that there didn’t have to be a good reason. Husbands beating wives to death for the hell of it, kids putting shotguns in their mouths because of heavy-metal songs, moms drowning infants in shallow bathtubs. Bad things happened often and never needed to schedule an appointment before they dropped on in.
    And still he kept grinding at the why. Could the guy—it had to be a guy, anything else was impossible to Van Endel—who did it have been so ashamed by what he’d done that he’d needed to try his hardest to destroy the evidence? Van Endel didn’t believe it. There had to be more to why someone would murder a teenage girl and then destroy the corpse beyond recognition.

35
    Tim walked quietly down the hall toward Becca’s room. He wasn’t sure what the rules were concerning him and his sister fraternizing during their respective groundings, but he figured the less his folks knew at this point, the better. He tapped twice on the door, waited for a response, and then tapped twice again. “What?” Becca called from inside the room.