leave the ones that are at least three weeks old or older so they can judge the full decomp,” Donovan explains, stooping down for a better look, “Did you find any witnesses?”
“A fisherman found the dog with the hand and a Ranger, who was through this area about three hours earlier,” O’Malley reports.
“We still have the dog?” Donovan says, looking up at him.
Stein looks puzzled. “Why?”
“There may be some trace in the dog’s mouth from the hand,” MacBride explains like a first-year student who knows the answer and blurts it out. She wipes her mouth with a white handkerchief O’Malley gave her. Donovan smiles and continues looking around.
“Where’s the Ranger?” Donovan asks.
“After we took his statement, he needed to finish his rounds through the forest,” O’Malley answers.
“I’ll want to talk with him,” Donovan says, stooping over the woman. O’Malley nods. Donovan walks back into the woods, back toward the base camp, with MacBride following, “Sushi, anyone?”
“Keep it up! Keep it up,” MacBride yells, slapping Donovan on his back and then Stein vomits. O’Malley holds her by her waistband and wrist, moving some distance from the body.
“Document, document, document!” Donovan yells back.
O’Malley holds Stein as she continues vomiting. “Good to have you back, T.”
back on the job
donovan and macbride arrive at the station, walk down a small corridor and up to the four-and-a-half-foot-tall check-in desk with a small swinging door off to one side and a long wooden bench on their right.
Maria Ramirez, a young girl looking right out of high school and just shy of five feet nothing, with black hair, sits at the check-in desk, with four other Deputies around her. She runs around the desk and hugs Donovan. The others clap to celebrate his return.
“Okay, okay. Back to work. It’s not like he is the prodigal son or something,” MacBride says.
“You’re back?” Maria asks, stepping back some.
“For this case, I think,” Donovan says, looking back at MacBride.
MacBride points, keeping him moving, and they continue through the bullpen. A few of the Deputies welcome him back with pats on his shoulders and handshakes. He notices O’Malley’s desk. It is the messiest one in the place, with two used coffee cups and what looks like eggs, maybe his breakfast in a box, except for a small area in the top right-hand corner with a single picture frame of Roberta, his wife of twelve years. She is a young Hispanic woman in her forties, with dark hair. There are also two wallet-size pictures. One is of an eight-year-old boy, brown-haired, in a blue-and-white Little League uniform and kneeling with a bat. The other is of a young girl, about seven, in a white ballet leotard and with blond hair.
Donovan looks across, seeing his old desk, which is now Stein’s new one. The desk is immaculate, still not lived in since she just started as a Detective a couple months ago. He looks around for an empty desk.
“This way, Mister,” MacBride says, walking past him and into the empty office next to hers along the back wall.
“I’m moving up in the world,” Donovan says, entering the room.
“Like you said, we’ll see,” MacBride says, watching him sit down behind the desk.
“This could work,” Donovan says, sitting back in the chair, finally in his Father’s office.
Maria enters with a cup of coffee. “Here you go, Sir, black as you like it.” She turns and sees the look on MacBride’s face and hurries out.
“Where do you want to start?” MacBride asks.
He looks out into the bullpen, seeing a blond male Deputy. “Hanson!” Donovan yells, moving around the desk toward the door.
Charles Hanson, early thirties, with corporal stripes, was the one with Duke when he and MacBride arrived at the crime scene. “I need everything on Sherman’s Forest, any recent deaths and missing person reports of young women and teen girls, say sixteen to thirty…within the last six months,” Donovan orders. Hanson nods and runs out.
“Well, just move right in,” MacBride says.
Both laugh, and she leaves. Donovan grabs his old white board from out in the bullpen, a long table sitting up against the wall, which had a list of Deputies’ names and shift times, their roll sheet.
He erases it and pulls it back into his office and writes “14 female bodies, 16–25 years old, black/white dresses, pearldrop necklaces” along the top of the board. I have seen these outfits with pearls before, he told himself and writes “Left hands cut off like Surgeon” on the lower right side of the board.
“Already down to business. I like that,” O’Malley says, standing in the doorway.
Donovan pauses, looking over the board, and turns back toward him. O’Malley hands him a few brown folders, “First reports from the scene. Stein will have the rest and photographs soon.”
“Good. Have you been able to let the Ranger know I wish to talk to him?” Donovan asks, taking the folders.
“I am to meet with him at the Ranger’s station at two p.m. I will have him here at eight a.m., when he gets off shift.”
“Good,” Donovan answers, skimming through the first folder.
“I meant what I said, T. It’s good to have you back.”
“I hope Dana is working out,” Donovan says, still not looking up at him and, leaning against his desk, reads one of the files.
“She’ll be fine. She’s a good Detective.”
“Good Detective?” Donovan says, looking up at him finally. “You said a woman could never be a good Detective well enough for you while you were on the job.”
“Yeah, I know, but she was a good help on many cases while she was still in academy. Guess you mellowed me.”
Donovan drops the files on the desk behind him, and O’Malley sits on the long old, worn-out green fabric couch which looks as if it could have been here back in his Father’s day.
“How long did the Forensic Anthropologists say they needed for their analysis?” Donovan asks.
“A few days, same as Alice,” O’Malley answers as he puts his feet up on the small wooden coffee table.
“Get me the photographs as soon as you can,” Donovan says, moving back behind his desk.
O’Malley stands quickly, thinking he could have sat for a time, and then walks out after remembering Donovan was always focused when on the job.
Hanson returns with two file boxes. “Here you go, Sir. One is of missing persons, teens to thirties, over the last six months. The other
