To The Last Breath by Carlton Stowers

Author:Carlton Stowers [Stowers, Carlton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-28T15:22:50+00:00

Translation, case closed, before ever opened.

Still, Duckworth had spoken with several doctors Sharon had asked him to contact and had looked into the possibility of having a second set of tissue-sample slides from the autopsy made and sent to them. That idea had been dismissed when he’d learned that the cost would be $637 for each set of slides and that there was no money in the department’s budget for such expenditures. And, in truth, what could someone thousands of miles away see that the doctor who actually conducted the autopsy hadn’t?

The entire matter was little more than a growing list of questions without answers, innuendo and accusation without a hint of fact to serve as foundation. Duckworth felt as if he was trying to hold quicksilver in his hand.

Now, there was this new suggestion that Goode might have murdered his daughter to collect on an insurance policy, which had spawned another round of angry accusations and grasping questions.

Detective Duckworth was therefore relieved when word reached him that his chief was loaning him to a newly formed narcotics task force in Galveston County. He eagerly accepted the new assignment, confident that he’d taken the investigation of Renee Goode’s unexplained death as far as he possibly could.

Needless to say, it was not an attitude Sharon Couch shared.

Unaware that Duckworth was no longer pursuing the case, she contacted him to inquire about the testing procedures that were being done on the sleeping bag in which Renee had lain on the night of her death. It had, she understood, been sent to the Department of Public Safety forensic lab where it would be tested for any sign of body fluids.

Duckworth had seemed evasive as he told her that he had not yet received any results. Sharon had sensed a dismissive tone in his voice and quickly ended the conversation.

Then, as had become her pattern after contact with anyone at the Alvin Police Department, she spent the remainder of her day fuming.

Desperate, she finally telephoned P. G. Walls. If anyone could give her direction, it would be the man who had helped her become a private investigator.

“They’re not going to do a damned thing,” she told the private investigator. “I’ve begged, I’ve gotten angry, I’ve tried giving them information, and nothing works,” she said. “They just don’t care.”

As he listened, Walls already had a good idea of what was taking place.

“It sounds like they’re getting ready to cold file it,” he said.

Sharon’s brief silence communicated her puzzlement. “What do you mean, cold file?” she asked.

“It means they put the case file into the back end of some filing cabinet and everybody forgets it’s even there,” Walls explained.

Throughout the nation, he knew, there were literally thousands of such cases, ranging from serial murders to petty theft, which were routinely marked “inactive” and stored away while detectives went in pursuit of new, more solvable crimes. The only way a “cold file” case was ever reactivated was if the perpetrator walked into the station and was successful in finding someone with time enough to listen to his confession.

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