Teeth by Edo van Belkom

Author:Edo van Belkom [Belkom, Edo van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625670-57-1
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Joe lifted the Styrofoam cup off his desk and took a sip. He’d been so busy in the last hour he’d completely forgotten about the coffee. He got up, stretched the blood into motion in his arms and legs, and headed for the cafeteria for a fresh cup.

Since he was up and about, he decided to check up on Earle O’Donnell and see if the crime analyst had found anything that might be of help to him.

He stopped in the cafeteria first and bought two coffees. He mixed in the cream and sugar for his own cup and brought O’Donnell a cup of plain black coffee, along with extra cream and sugar packets so he could fix it anyway he liked.

“Brought you a coffee,” Joe said as he came up behind the young man working at his computer terminal.

O’Donnell turned around, saw the two cups in Joe’s hands and smiled. “Thanks, but I don’t drink anything but Chamomile tea.”

All of a sudden Joe had trouble finding a spot on O’Donnell’s desk to set down the coffee cups. “Oh … that’s okay,” he said. “I guess I could drink both of them.” He did his best to smile. “Did you come up with anything?”

“The guy you wanted checked for priors didn’t have any.”

Joe nodded, a little disappointed but not surprised that Rico Juliani had turned out to be clean. “What about the other stuff?”

O’Donnell spun back around to face his computer. “You wanted stuff on sex crimes … with castrations, right?”

Joe wondered if the guy was trying to be funny. There’s no way he could forget something like that. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said, mixing a sigh in with his words.

O’Donnell’s fingers clicked over the keyboard. “I’m afraid not. I only came up with two convictions in cases involving castrations.” He turned to face Joe, gesturing at the screen.

Joe looked at the computer. He didn’t know what he was looking at, but nodded thoughtfully.

“Convictions, eh? Could we open it up to unsolved cases as well, then? See what happens.”

O’Donnell gave him a look that could have chilled a flame.

“What? What is it? Is that hard to do or something?”

“No,” O’Donnell said. “It’s not hard to do. It just means I’ll have to make a few phone calls, talk to some of my counterparts on other forces.”

“I thought all these computers were all hooked up, you know … automatic or something.”

O’Donnell just looked at him, shaking his head slowly. “You’ve been watching too much television lately, Joe. Computers can do wonders, but they’re still restricted by the humans …” He turned slightly and lowered his head to look at Joe. “… who ask the questions.”

“Oh,” muttered Joe, wondering how long it would take him to get out of the room if he walked really fast toward the door in the far wall.

“Come back this afternoon,” O’Donnell said at last. “I should have something more for you by then.”

“Thanks,” said Joe.

He was out of the room in something under three seconds, by his count.

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