Read Online Fat Chance by Rhonda Pollero - Free Book Online Page B

countered. “Your skeleton has been dead for ten to fifteen years, give or take. Guesstimate on her age at the time she died is between thirteen and sixteen. No skin on her hands means no fingerprints. The clothing they found with the body had labels. The items were sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. Impossible to trace. She had perfect teeth, so that’s probably a dead end.”
    “Was she a runaway? Maybe someone reported her missing.”
    “They’ve inputted the relevant information into the system, but nothing popped so far. You have to remember,” he said, then paused for a sip of pilfered coffee. “Somewhere around seven hundred fifty thousand kids go missing every year. Multiply that times the ten to fifteen years since your skeleton died, and you’re talking a whole lot of files to cross-check.”
    “So you’re telling me the police aren’t going to do anything ?”
    “Officially? They’ll release a press statement and promise to make this case a priority.”
    “Unofficially?”
    “They know the chances of closing a case this cold are practically nil. It’ll get filed alphabetically someplace between who cares and why bother.” He stood, swallowed the last of his coffee, and said, “By the way, you might want to stop deleting my emails unread.”
    “Who gave you permission to go snooping in my computer?”
    “Didn’t so much as take a peek. Didn’t have to.”
    How could a man I’d never even kissed know so much about me? It was annoying as sin. “Then take the hint.”
    “Fine. I’ll stop sending you names of reputable contractors. I’m sure you’ll be great at tearing up mildewed carpet and ripping out Sheetrock.”
    “I’m not helpless,” I insisted, knowing full well hell would freeze over before I ruined a fifty-dollar manicure doing DIY. “I’ll take a second look at those emails. Thank you.”
    “Not a problem. See ya.”
    “Wait!”
    He paused in the doorway, turning to glance back at me. “For what?”
    “What about the dead girl? What will the police do?”
    “Nothing.”
    “How can the police do nothing? We’re talking about a teenager. She was someone’s daughter or sister.”
    He shrugged. “Unless someone reported her missing, or you turn over that medallion to the cops to use as a clue, there’s not a lot the police have to go on.” He glanced down at his watch. “Gotta go. I’ve got to see a guy about a thing.”
    Always with the thing. Quelling the childish urge to throw something at the back of his retreating head, I fell back into my seat. There was no way I was going to hand the police something that might place guilt on my late, incapable-of-defending-himself stepfather. At least not yet. Grabbing up the phone, I dialed Becky’s extension and asked her to come to my office.
    “Ellen just dumped a mountain of work on my desk. How about lunch?”
    “I’ll take what I can get.”
    “Cheesecake Factory?”
    “Sure. I’ll meet you there around one thirty. The lunch rush will have died down by then.”
    I made similar calls to Liv and Jane, then Googled Marc Feldman to get his telephone number. My call was answered on the second ring by a pleasant female voice. I explained who I was and asked for an appointment, only to be told that Mr. Feldman had a heavy schedule for the day and would only be in the office after three. Thanks to the Google info, I knew his office was an easy five-minute walk from mine, so I arranged to meet him at three thirty.
    I needed to file my deed at the courthouse. According to an email from Jane, I also had to pick up forms for a homestead exemption, some sort of tax thing she promised to explain at lunch. There were some other things I had to do for Dane, Lieberman at the courthouse such as open an estate and get letters of appointment for the executor, and I’d finally finished the initial asset inventory on another case. Plenty of time to get all that done and then meet my friends for lunch.
    I was just about to head out when