Free Liberty Falling-pigeon 7 by Nevada Barr Page A

a purse, nothing."
    "Maybe one of the EMTs picked it up for her."
    "I was there before, the EMTs." They sipped their insipid brew in silence for a moment.
    "God," Patsy said. "Somebody stole it? Can you believe somebody would steal a backpack off a broken little kid like that?"
    Having a fairly dismal view of her fellow humans, Anna found it easy to believe. Certainly easier than believing Hatch had made up a nonsensical lie about picking pockets, then purposely pursued a child through a hundred witnesses for the sole purpose of shoving him--her--to her death. Even evil had to conform to some twisted sense of logic.
    "Who was she?" Anna asked.
    "Who knows. A kid. No ID. Nobody has claimed her as far as I know. Maybe she was a runaway."
    "Her picture will go out," Anna said. "Somebody will recognize her. The world's not that big anymore."
    Patsy went to bed. Anna poured the last of her beer down the sink. If she drank enough to drop the veil over her mind she'd be up all night running to the bathroom. Without sufficient alcohol to slow the spinning of her thoughts, sleep would be a while in coming. A hot bath might have been the next best thing, but Mandy had drained the tank dry and, given the age of the equipment, it would take it longer to recover than Anna cared to wait.
    Pulling on her Levi jacket against the breeze off the ocean, she let herself out. A walk around the island to clear her mind; then she would read herself to sleep with something familiar. Knowing Molly might be in the hospital some time, Anna had packed several comfort books: Great Expectations, The Moonstone, The Small House at Allington. Stories she'd read before and would read again, finding reassurance in the formal language and happy endings.
    For reasons of professional interest or a natural morbidity, she made her way to the base of the pedestal where the girl had fallen, jumped or been pushed to her death. Bright scraps of pink littered the granite. Azalea blossoms had been scattered, a tribute to the dead. Squatting on the unnaturally clean stone--scrubbed by an NPS that didn't like blood shed any later than the Civil War to become part of the attraction at their historic monuments--Anna closed her eyes and conjured up what memories she had of the incident.
    The child's face and her injuries were paramount, coming into focus with unpleasant clarity. Anna let them sit, waiting for them to lose their shock value. It was not brain and bone she hoped to recall. Gore, like loud noise and bright light, had a way of blinding one to pertinent detail. Inexperienced EMTs had been known to lose patients because they wasted precious time dealing with a spectacular but non-life-threatening injury while the patient quietly ceased breathing from an unrelated problem.
    Graphic images faded. Bits of the child came clear. The ball cap hiding her hair had a funky decoration on it, a football or a rock. Her skin was good--no acne--and pale, as if she spent little time in the sun. Some of her teeth had been broken in the fall, but Anna could see the bottom row. They were crooked but white and without fillings. She wore a white T-shirt and green trousers. Army fatigues maybe; they were a couple sizes too large and frayed at the cuffs where they dragged the ground. New, expensive sneakers--Reeboks. If the child was a runaway, she'd either bolted recently or done well by herself.
    Without opening her eyes, Anna tilted her head back, looking around at an imaginary crowd. Backpacks: there was nothing on the ground near the dead child. Her mind's eye saw only shoes, feet and shins. From the knees down people were a tacky lot, Anna thought, as the grubby, hirsute parade passed through her mind: running shoes that looked as if they'd been used as third base for a season, hammer toes, army boots under unhemmed Levi's, ridged and yellowed nails poking from strappy sandals.
    Mentally, she raised her sights. Backpacks: the people she could recall pushing closest had all been