Disembodied Bones Read Online Free Page B

Detective,” said Leonie plaintively. “Just
go and talk to him some. Look and see does he have a record
of…hurting little children. That’s not too much to ask and you
don’t have to tell anyone who told you this.”
    Roosevelt’s eyebrows drew together into a
scowl. A sneaky suspicion was beginning to form in his mind. It was
the kind of suspicion that cops got often, that they were being
lied to, and that the liar didn’t care what they said in order to
get something they wanted. “I get it. You got some kind of gripe
with this Whitechapel dude? Maybe your papa has some kind of money
problem with him? So you point a finger at him and he goes away for
a while and your problem is solved? Is that it? I don’t know how
you found out about my gold pen. Well, hell, I guess I asked enough
people about it, so that’s how, but this kind of stunt isn’t going
to get you jack-diddly-squat.”
    Leonie folded her hands together on her lap
and waited for him to pause. When he did she said, “It’s in the
passenger seat of your wife’s car, I think it’s called a Jetta and
it’s this pretty green color. You were riding with her somewhere
and looking for a Kleenex, when it fell out and got in between the
seats. Call her. She’ll go out to look at her car and find it.”
    “No, I don’t think so.” Roosevelt shook his
head. “This is some little stupid game to you. I’m gonna go call
your daddy and he’s gonna come down here and explain why you’re
doing this, and when that’s all settled maybe you won’t go to
juvenile detention for a few weeks for making a false police
report, but it won’t be because I didn’t recommend it.”
    Leonie’s lips flattened into a grim line.
This was why the family didn’t trust outsiders. Then she sighed.
She would have to do it herself. She didn’t know if she were strong
enough. She could call some of the family. They might help her, but
this was outside their normal capacity for the family’s gifts. She
wasn’t quite sure if they would believe her either. Her mother
hadn’t the day before. She hadn’t been quite sure if she believed
it herself, until she read the headlines and saw Douglas Trent’s
photograph on the front page of the newspaper. So that left her and
only her. She wasn’t weak but she wasn’t a match for a full grown
man. Somehow , she thought unflinchingly, I will find a
way to rescue Douglas.
    “You stay right here,” Roosevelt instructed
gruffly. “I’m gonna have the gal up front keep an eye on you, so
you don’t go anywhere. You got that, little lady?”
    Leonie nodded. Go ahead, turn your back
for a moment. I’m pretty fast for my age. And I’m skinny enough to
slip through all kinds of narrow gaps.
    Roosevelt kept an eye on Leonie until he
reached Eloise Hunter. When he reached the counter, he turned away
to say to the older woman, “You watch that little girl.”
    Eloise rebelliously glared up at Roosevelt
and then she tilted her head to look around his large body. The
expression faded away in puzzlement. She said, “Uh, Dee-tective
Hemstreet.”
    “Yeah?” snarled Roosevelt, aggravated already
because he’d wasted twenty minutes he could have been putting
something in his empty, growling stomach, when he knew he’d be
spending the rest of the day making cold calls to surrounding
parishes about the Trent boy until his ear felt like a slice of
warmed over cauliflower. The worst part was that he had a gut
feeling about the kid. The child was already dead, and they were
just doing a search and recover now. They could only hope that the
perpetrator left enough evidence to put him under Angola for the
rest of his natural born life. Compared to Roosevelt’s empty
stomach, that feeling by itself was enough to really piss him off,
and he didn’t need crap walking in off the street trying to feed
him a line that no one in their right mind would ever believe.
    “Ah don’t see that little girl,” said
Eloise.
    “Oh, for the love of