Nothing to Hide (A Roland March Mystery Book #3) Read Online Free

phone call.
    Over by the exit Lorenz taps his watch.
    “The clock’s ticking,” Cavallo says.
    “It always is.”
    I catch up with my partner, giving Cavallo a last look from the threshold. She’s standing where I left her, but with her back resolutely turned. Something’s not right between us.
    ———
    The afternoon grinds on, one false lead after another. Then the shift ends and the next one starts and it’s the same all over again. We have a body without an identification, no witnesses, and no likely avenues to pursue. So we pursue the unlikely ones, roping in the rest of the squad in twos and threes, exhausting leads, exhausting detectives, exhausting the patience of my long-suffering lieutenant.
    “There’s always the DNA ,” Lorenz keeps saying.
    Yes, there’s always that. The long shot chance that somewhere in the FBI ’s massive computerized index, there’s a strand of chromosomes waiting to be matched. Even that would only get us so far. Knowing a victim’s name doesn’t automatically unmask his killer. It might, though. Why bother making the identification so difficult, removing the head and mutilating the hands, if having a name won’t make any difference?
    By the end of the week I’m starting each day with a conference in Bascombe’s office.
    “Whatever you need,” he says. “Anything at all. ‘You have not because you ask not.’”
    Which is the first time I can remember him quoting anything other than the criminal code.
    “All I need is a hit on those test results.”
    “You’re making the calls? I’m making them, too. Believe me, the pressure’s on to push this thing through the system. I don’t know what the holdup is, but I’ll call again right now if you think it’ll help.”
    He reaches for the phone, then waits for my answer.
    “It can’t hurt,” I say.
    But it doesn’t help. He puts the phone down five minutes later, giving me a shrug. “We’ll get the results when we get the results. Maybe something by shift’s end.”
    So I check back with him a few hours later before clocking out, just to see if anything’s come through. He looks me up and down, deciding what to say. “Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll go at it fresh again in the morning.”
    “All right.”
    He glances at the monitor on his desk. “I’m thinking, while we’re waiting on the DNA to come back, it’s not a bad idea if you and Lorenz catch up on your other open cases. We’re not giving up on this, March. We just need to use our time as efficiently as possible.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    In other words, barring intervention from on high, JD will keep clocking time in the refrigerator while Lorenz and I move on to other cases. It’s not the first time I’ve had to put a victim on the back burner, not the first time a case has gone cold on me. They say there are things you don’t get used to, like seeing a headless corpse or an autopsy in progress, but the fact is you get used to them just fine. They even become a little fascinating from a professional standpoint. What I can never get used to is this: giving up. Gathering all the paper and filing it away for what might be the last time.
    Whoever he was, this man was strapped to a chair and tortured, was put through such agony that his young healthy heart finally gave out. What would he have thought if he’d known in those final moments that after a handful of days, I’d be consigning him to a cardboard filing box and preparing myself mentally to move on?
    I take the elevator down to the secure garage, tracing the way back to where I left my car. Sliding between two vehicles, my foot catches on a drain grate and twists. The old pain, fading steadily every day since the night of my fall, stabs through me. I steady myself against the hood of a car and try to shake it off. It feels just like a knife, or maybe a surgeon’s scalpel. And then it dulls down to a throb. I take a step and it’s still there. There, but manageable.
    Not so bad that I