Page 10 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)
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D oreen wasn’t sure about Mack driving her around, just to see what she would do.
However, she did admit it was nice to have him with her while she went looking for more info.
It’s not as if she sought something specific.
She was seeking possibly anything that could be connected, and that made it different and harder to do.
A whole huge city was here, and a lot of people had their own reasons for doing stuff.
Mack was right about that. That couple in the park may have had absolutely nothing to do with the poor dead man case that she was working on.
On the other hand, maybe they did, and at least this way she had an idea of who they were, even if it wasn’t what they were.
She was glad to have at least something to look into.
As she got home, she walked into the house with the animals and put on a cup of tea.
She wanted very much to just sit down and think.
Yet nothing really was coming to mind as to what she was supposed to think about.
She needed to do a brain dump, and yet there wasn’t a lot of information for her to do that yet.
She liked to do it when she had too much data, seemingly not connected, so she could better understand what was happening.
She’d heard some people call it a brain-dump journaling.
That made sense in that she was just jotting down those random tidbits on paper.
And here she was, not even sure what thoughts she should be putting down.
With a cup of tea at her side, she went ahead and wrote out the little bit that she had so far.
When Nan phoned, she asked, by way of a greeting, “And?”
“And what?” Doreen replied, her mind still on her notes.
“Did you find anything?”
“No, I haven’t found anything yet. And we haven’t heard anything from the coroner.”
“Oh, dear,” Nan muttered, disappointment in her voice. “How long does it take?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Did you talk to Richie or anybody else about that park or that area of town?”
“I talked to several residents, but nobody knew anything about it. In fact, nobody had any recollection of anybody going missing,… particularly a very tall man going missing.” she clarified, “which is always suspicious in itself.”
Doreen laughed. “Maybe,” she replied, “but a missing man who was very tall seems to make disappearing him all the more difficult.”
“Right. Tall is not something you can easily fake or easily hide.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Doreen agreed, but it was a question that she wanted to ponder a little more because that’s all they really had in terms of helping with an ID.
There were teeth in the partial jawbone, so they might get DNA from that.
But still, they would need something to match it to.
“Now that we’ve got some of the genealogy stuff happening more and more with the public sector, the police department might very well go ahead and utilize that too. ”
“I would think so. I mean, you did show them that it works.”
“It wasn’t even so much me,” she pointed out. “Just the fact that cases all over the world are getting solved that way. Not everyone and not all the time but sometimes, and it still takes a very long time to get a hit because it requires somebody else to input matching DNA.”
“Right,” Nan muttered in a gloomy tone. “I could be dead before we solve this one.”
Doreen burst out laughing. “And yet you might be doing just fine because it’ll happen next week.”
“I hope so,” she declared indignantly. “An awful lot is riding on you.”
“Oh no, please tell me you didn’t set up a betting pool on this one.”
“What do you mean, on this one ?” she asked. “We set one up on every case, child. Of course we do. Everybody wants to know how you’re doing.”
“And what happens when I don’t solve one?” she asked. “It’s putting a lot of pressure on me too, you know?”
“Ah, if you don’t solve it, you don’t solve it. That’s a given. It’s not your fault. It’s not as if they give you much to work with,” she grumbled. “Some of these cases, I swear, you’re just finding out the answers by sheer luck.”
Doreen sighed. “Believe me that I’m very much aware of that.”
Nan groaned. “I didn’t mean it in an insulting way, so you can’t take it that way.”
“No, of course not,” she replied, with a wry tone. “I just had an odd thought that maybe, just maybe, one of these days, I won’t solve one of these cold cases, and everybody will feel… let down somehow.”
“They can’t feel let down by you. You’ve solved so many cases already. Surely everybody would give you a free pass on not being able to solve one out of so many.”
Doreen winced. “Not sure that there is such a thing as a free pass on these cases.”
“No, maybe not. I guess you’ll just have to solve it, so you don’t get a black mark on your record.” And, with that, she added, “I’ve got to go. We’re doing something down at the dang ballroom today.” And she ended the call right away.
“Dang ballroom?” Doreen repeated out loud, as she put down her cell. “What on earth could they be doing in the dang ballroom?”
She smiled to herself, thinking about how very busy and active Nan’s life was down at Rosemoor and how much fun she was having in her old age.
Particularly at having found a group of cronies who were almost as much trouble as she was.
With a smile, Doreen returned to her brain dump of notes.
Deciding that maybe Solomon’s files might have something to offer, and needing to refresh her memory anyway—just in case she ever thought she would miss something—she pulled out her index and slowly read through the summary entries she had made for each of Solomon’s files.
Nothing really came to mind after the first read, but, as she went through her index of Solomon’s files the second time, something there made her ponder.
Another person, a woman, had gone missing, and her body had been found… where? She looked at her notes, and all she saw was Rutland.
“Rutland,” she repeated, “and a woman’s body.”
She thought about it for a long moment, wrote down as much of the case number as she had, then phoned Elizabeth Harley.
When the coroner answered, she sounded a little testy, as she bypassed any greeting and stated, “I have no answers for you.”
“You may not,” Doreen noted, “and I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
I knew this would take some time. I may not like it, but I know how it is.
However, there was a prior case, and I don’t know if it’s connected because I can’t…
of course, I can’t get very many details of a woman who went missing a good fifty years ago.
Yet her body was found in Rutland, about two years ago, I understand.
Anyway,” she said, “it was found under very similar circumstances, with the same type of burial.”
“What case is this?” Elizabeth asked, almost affronted that she didn’t know anything about it.
Doreen gave her the case number and suggested, “It’s likely in the cold case files.”
“I’ll have to take a look,” she replied, “but I’m not at all sure anything could be quite as similar to this.”
“No, I’m not saying there is. It just seems… curious.”
“No, you’re right,” Elizabeth muttered, her tone almost sliding into a far-off note. “Look. I am a bit occupied, but I’ll get back to you.” And, with that, she ended the call.
Doreen stared down at her phone, wondering just what she had triggered because it was obvious that something had popped up in Elizabeth’s head.
And that was a good thing because anything that triggered a response was always helpful.
As she waited for the coroner to get back to her, Doreen was left sitting here.
After an hour of staring down at her cell, Doreen groaned.
It would drive her nuts just sitting here and waiting. When her phone did ring, it was Mack.
“Hey,” he began, “I just got off the phone with Elizabeth,… Dr. Harley.”
“ Right .” Doreen groaned inwardly. “I phoned her about a cold case earlier this morning.”
After a moment of silence, he asked, “You did?”
“Yeah, I did, about a woman who was found in Rutland.”
“She didn’t mention that part.”
“The bottom line is, I found a reference to it in Solomon’s files.
So, I called her, just in case any similarities popped up with it and our very tall missing man.
She seemed almost, I don’t know, affronted that she didn’t know about it.
She ended the call fairly quickly, as if something went off in her mind during our discussion. ”
“Yes, I would say so,” Mack agreed. “And you’re right. I want to come take a look at anything you’ve got in Solomon’s files.”
“Sure, but I can easily send you a copy.”
“I’ll come take a look at the originals.” And, with that, he ended the call.
She frowned at her phone, then over at the animals sprawled all around her. “Well, boys, something is definitely up.”