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I made it to the north end of the stadium without encountering another soul in the long corridor that curved beneath the grandstands. Breathing a sigh of relief, I unlocked the door of my private sanctuary, hung out the DO NOT DISTURB sign, and locked myself inside.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I knew it wasn’t Peggy; in twelve years as my secretary, she had made the long, dark trek to this end of the stadium only twice—both times in her first week on the job. I considered who it might be. The last thing I wanted to do right now was talk to a graduate student. Or a colleague. Or anyone else, I realized, with the exception—the possible exception—of Kathleen. I ignored it. After a pause, the knocking resumed, louder this time. Again I ignored it. “Hello? Dr. Brockton? You in there?” I recognized the voice of Brian Decker, and I considered him friend, not foe.
“Oh, just a second, Deck,” I called, hurrying to open the door. “Hey. Sorry to keep you waiting. I was preoccupied”—I pointed an accusatory finger at the heap of phone messages—“trying to figure out which of these alligators is gonna take the biggest bite out of my ass. What’s up?”
“The plot thickens,” he said. “You were right.”
“Well, that’s not something I’ve heard much lately,” I said. “About what?”
“About running the print from that finger. That kid’s pinkie. I got a hit.”
“No kidding? The kid’s already got a record? He is a prodigy.”
“Not a criminal record,” he said. “An I.D. record.”
“I’m not following you,” I said.
“There’s been a big push, the last few years, to put kids’ prints on file,” he said. “So if a kid goes missing, we’ve got something besides photos to work with.”
“You mean if a body turns up?”
He frowned; nodded. “Yeah, but not just that,” he said. “Also, if the missing kid—or someone who might be the kid—turns up years later.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Like putting a computer chip in your dog’s neck, right?”
He nodded. “Like that. The new version of that is DNA—parents can buy DNA kits now—collect a cheek swab and send it off to a company that’ll run the profile and store it.”
“For a fee,” I said.
“For a fee. But fingerprints are free.”
“But we’re talking about Satterfield’s kid here,” I said. “So putting the kid’s fingerprints in a database seems like the last thing Mom and Dad would want to do.”
Decker raised his eyebrows. “Like I said, the plot thickens,” he repeated. “This isn’t Satterfield’s kid.”
“How do you know? And if it’s not his, whose is it?”
“It’s Tim and Tammy Martin’s kid,” he said. “And I know because I talked to them.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “And their kid’s missing a finger?”
“Unfortunately, their kid’s missing a lot more than that,” he said. “Their kid’s dead.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Murdered?”
He shook his head. “Accidental death. Two weeks ago. Riding his bike. A seventeen-year-old girl ran over him. She was dialing her cell phone.” I frowned, partly because I was appalled by the senseless death, partly because I couldn’t imagine how these puzzle pieces fit together. Decker reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an index card, which he handed to me.
Except it wasn’t an index card, it was a photo: a headshot of a woman looking—scowling—directly at the camera. The woman was five feet seven inches tall; I could tell this from the inch-by-inch measurements stenciled on the wall behind her. I looked from the photo to Decker, puzzled. “This looks like a mug shot,” I said. “But if she’s seventeen, I’m not a day over twenty.”
“She’s not. Take another look.” I studied it again. She looked familiar, but I was having trouble placing her. Decker raised his eyebrows, watching me closely. “Recognize her? From Satterfield’s trial?”
I felt a mixture of excitement and dread rising in me. “My God, it’s her! The weird groupie woman?”
“Give that man a cigar,” he said. “Or a finger.”
I stared at him, baffled. “I still don’t get it, Deck. Connect the dots for me.”
“Think about it,” he said. “I’ll give you a hint. The kid
still had the finger when he was hit by the car.”
I was about to snap at him—about to tell him I didn’t have the time or energy for guessing games—when I realized that playing twenty questions with Decker was probably the most fun I would have all day. All day? Hell, maybe even all week, I thought, glancing again at the pile of angry, insistent messages.
“So the parents,” I mused. “I’m guessing they’re not connected to Satterfield, or the package—that they had nothing to do with cutting off their son’s finger.”
He shook his head. “They were horrified when I told them about it. And furious.”
My mind sorted through various possibilities. “So the girl runs over the boy. Somebody calls 911. The EMTs and the police—city, or county?”
“County. Sheriff’s deputies.”
“The EMTs and the deputies arrive. Is the kid alive or dead when he goes into the ambulance?”
“Alive. Dies on the way to the hospital. Head trauma—no helmet—and internal injuries.”
“Poor kid. But his finger’s still attached, you say.”
“Right.”
“And then he’s taken to the morgue. Is that where the parents first see him?”
“Yes. Took a while to track them down.”
I could feel the picture coming into focus. “So they I.D.’d the body at the morgue. And the finger must’ve still been on his hand then. Because if it wasn’t, they’d have noticed and started asking questions. And anyhow, Garland”—Dr. Garland Hamilton, the Knox County medical examiner—“would’ve pounced on that. An amputation that clean? He’d have been on that like a duck on a June bug.” Decker nodded, smiling slightly, and I continued, on a roll now. “So the boy still had the finger when he was in the morgue. But unless somebody dug up his body”—I felt almost as energized now as when I was working a death scene—“the finger must’ve been amputated between the time he left the morgue and the time he was buried.” Decker was beaming now. “My God,” I said, “so Satterfield’s groupie-woman works at the funeral home? She cut off the finger while she was embalming the boy’s body?”
