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of pissed me off. How dumb did they think I was? Any fool could have figured this out. I clicked on his bio, and there was my son’s father, a clean-cut man in his early forties with sandy hair and hazel eyes, sitting behind a desk. He wore a gray suit and a red tie with tiny blue spots, and smiled somewhat apprehensively at the camera.
    So now I knew. Drobysch. David and Nancy Drobysch.
    I pulled out the Atlanta phone directory, looked up David Drobysch. There was no listing for either David or Nancy.
    But that’s not a problem when you’re a detective. I called the phone company. “Yes, hello there,” I said. “This is Detective Deakes with the Atlanta Police Department. I need an unlisted number for a David Drobysch in Alpharetta.” I gave her my badge number, then spelled the last name.
    â€œPlease hold for the number,” the operator said.
    It was as easy as that. I felt a little chill run through me as the phone clicked, the computer about to feed me the number I’d asked for. I hung up before the voice could tell me the number.
    This was bad, I was thinking. This was creepy. I was going to have to quit this, quit it right now.

ELEVEN
    â€œYou like dead kids?”
    â€œ Excuse me?”
    Lt. Gooch was looking up at me from his desk as I walked into the office. “Dead kids. You gave me two cases, both of them got dead kids. Then I hear through the grapevine the chief just stomped on you for sniffing around this Jenny Dial thing.”
    â€œOkay, yeah.”
    â€œWhat was the name of that other case you gave me? The first one.”
    â€œEvie Marie Prowter.”
    â€œYeah, that one. Where’s the file?”
    I opened my desk drawer, pulled out the Evie Marie Prowter file. “Right here.”
    â€œAll right then,” he said. “Let’s go.” Without saying anything, he stood up briskly and walked out the door. I followed him. It was the first time I’d ever seen him get out of his chair. I’d expected him to move slowly, inching along toward his retirement. Instead he moved quickly and gracefully, like an athlete. I had to move fast just to keep up.
    â€œWhat are we doing?” I said.
    â€œIt’s called working a case,” he said.
    â€œYeah?” I said. “I didn’t know we did that down here.”
    â€œLot of things you don’t know,” he said.
    And that was the last word he spoke until we were standing in the office of Dr. Vale Pleassance IV, Assistant Medical Examiner of Fulton County.
    Dr. Pleassance had just finished an autopsy, and was taking off his green medical gown and his green protective booties as we walked in. Underneath the gown he was wearing the full Kappa Alpha: seersucker pants, a billowy white Brooks Brothers shirt, bow tie, white bucks.
    â€œAh, the ever-cheerful Hank Gooch,” Dr. Pleassance said, smiling at Lt. Gooch. He had one of those drippy accents that rich white people on the coast have—Savannah, Charleston, someplace like that—and a smile that went with the accent, the kind that managed the strange trick of seeming both very warm and a little condescending at the same time. “What brings you to my humble abode?”
    â€œNeed to dig into your memory banks a little.” The lieutenant handed the file to the pathologist. “Prowter, Evie Marie. Female white. A child. You autopsied her in ’92.”
    The ME’s eyebrows went up slightly. “I’ve been a trifling civil servant in this sinecure for so long, shucks, I can barely remember that far back.”
    Gooch glanced at me. “Vale’s one of them people thinks it’s funny to pretend he’s a damn fool.”
    Vale Pleassance, also addressing me, said, “The lieutenant is a man who finds little enjoyment in life’s smaller pleasures. Jokes, conversation, human beings, etc.” Then his smirky expression went away as he began leafing through the file.