Fallen by Kathleen George

Author:Kathleen George [George, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48458-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2004-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

WHAT CHRISTIE SAW ON FRIDAY AT THREE IN ATLANTIC CITY WAS what looked like a simple case. The ID of the dead man matched the registration of the car. An autopsy, though they hardly needed one with the needle still stuck in the arm of the dead man, showed a drug and alcohol overdose. There were no foreign prints on the syringe. The room key in the pocket of the deceased was finally identified in a door-to-door search. The landlord said the name of the person who had rented the room was Gerald Paul. He confirmed there were Michigan plates on the car of the young man, a VW bug. Fairly overwhelming evidence.

The boy's mother was called and given the news, asked the usual questions about identifying marks. She said he wore some kind of bracelet in the last couple of years but that she thought he chose it because he was embarrassed by an old scar. And bingo, there was a scar on the dead man's wrist. They asked her about her son's friends, sexual activity. The mother said she hadn't been in touch with her son for a while, didn't know what all he was up to lately. All of this was recorded in one particular detective's handwriting. Christie could almost see the invisible exclamation marks. Luck! A quick case! Christie expected to find something about Michelle LaBeau coming into Atlantic City, but note after note showed only phone interviews; and then he found a phrase: ashes to be sent to her. He read on. The fact was, she hadn't come in. And this was the thing, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that Gerald Paul was dead, that fascinated him. She had committed the body to ashes without looking. Cremations weren't so popular twenty-five years ago as today, and besides, most people wanted to see…. There was another scribble about a charitable organization that coughed up enough for the costs of the cremation and shipping the remains.

Cremation meant no dental records, no DNA even after the fact.

Find the mother. If possible. Christie copied down the old phone numbers and the address in Bellingham, Washington. Looked the same as what he had up at the office, way out-of-date, but he copied them anyway.

What happened to the car? Some cop copped it for a daughter? He kept turning pages of official reports for the next week until he found an answer. Sold to a junk dealer for minimal contribution toward funeral expenses, the rest covered by charity. The car would be waste by now, nothing left.

Had anyone gone to Detroit? No. Had anyone flashed a photo around Detroit? Fingerprinted the items in the wallet? No. Sloppy, sloppy. Busy, yeah, they were busy that August.

Another reason for the sloppiness was sadly clear. Possibly homosexual, the detective had written. Wears shiny underwear and silver bracelet. That was the reason, all right, a homophobic cop, to whose mind a puff drifter was better off dead.

Fingerprints of the dead man at the end of the report.

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