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aback. He rotated his neck as if it needed loosening up. “That’s it?”
    “There’s nothing else to look at.”
    “So it’s still a cold case.” The detective pulled off his gloves.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, I’d love to spend a couple of weeks up here and work the evidence with you. Hell, I’m in love with your town, even though I can’t see it. It’s everything New York’s not, quiet, clean, and slow. Bet the fishing’s great. Trouble is, you don’t have any new evidence to work, and I got recent caseloads up the wazoo back home that do.”
    “But it’s murder.”
    Everett’s thin shoulders slumped, and he let out a rattling sigh. “It’s a body, what’s left of it, with a skull fracture. That anchor, chain, and padlock your retrieval team pulled up? We checked them out already. Virtually untraceable, they’re so common. Otherwise, there’s not a thing to point us where we haven’t already been. NYPD investigated the hell out of her disappearance twenty-seven years ago, the same as if she’d been a murder case. Not only did every lead come up empty – especially anything having to do with our prime suspect back then, her husband – but the PIs hired by the girl’s parents couldn’t find anything either. Factor in all the clout old man Braden still has in New York City, no one’s willing to put his son through a first-degree shit-ride again without a damn solid reason.”
    To this point, Mark had considered the detective’s visit as simply the necessary first step in the NYPD resuming the hunt for Kelly’s murderer. That they’d try to dump it never occurred to him. “That sucks!”
    “You bet.”
    “And what would it take to reopen the case? I can’t just let it go.”
    Everett shrugged and began pulling on his overcoat. “Well, say, you find a lead on the mystery man she met up with. We’d be on him in a New York minute.”
    “I find a lead?”
    “You want more done, do it yourself, Doc. You and the sheriff here.” He picked up his briefcase, snapped it open, and took out a pair of files, each the size of the Manhattan phone book. “I made copies of our records on the case, the basic stuff. Your body, your jurisdiction, guys. Sorry, but it’s the best I can offer.” He jammed the two tomes of paper into Mark’s chest and walked out the door.
    “Jesus, what an asshole,” muttered Dan, and hurried after him.
    Mark remained where he was, too astonished by the kiss-off to say anything. A slam echoed down the corridor, and once again he found himself alone with Kelly.
    A half hour later he looked up from leafing through the material Everett had left, startled to see Dan standing at the door watching him. “Christ, I didn’t hear you return.”
    “You were pretty engrossed in your reading. Find anything?”
    “No. It’ll take forever to go through this stuff.” Mark slammed the files closed. “Can you believe that guy, laying the whole thing on us?”
    Dan walked over and flipped one of the dossiers open again. Scanning the front page, he said, “Actually, it kind of makes sense.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You know what cracks cold cases?”
    “What?”
    He nudged the folder he’d been looking at back toward Mark. “One guy who can’t get it out of his head. I’d say that’s you, buddy.”
     
    5:00 P.M.
    Geriatrics Wing,
    New York City Hospital
     
    Dr. Bessie McDonald didn’t like seeing the sun go down. The gathering blackness reminded her too much of her own end of days, and her breathing got worse at night.
    She felt depressed, stuck in her hospital room. At least the nurses had allowed her more than the usual personal effects to help make it easier. She had a dozen framed photographs – a black-and-white of Fred in his uniform, smiling before he went off to Korea to be slaughtered and leave her a widow; color snaps of her son, Fred Junior; portraits of her three young grandsons, all grinning at her with various front teeth missing. She’d also