Free Dead Right by Brenda Novak

lives.
    As Madeline thanked Chief Pontiff for his efforts, Grace nudged Kennedy, indicating that they should go, too. She didn’t want to be in the same room with those panties, or with the other objects, either. The person she’d been was not the person she was now. “Grinding Gracie” was the one who’d been raped, repeatedly, by her stepfather, but Grinding Gracie was dead and gone. Grace wouldn’t be her anymore, she’d reject her pain, her inadequacies, her needs.
    But halfway to the door she heard Madeline say something that made her freeze.
    “How long wil it take?”
    “Depends on the lab. Could take a few weeks. Could take months. Without a suspect, we don’t have a legitimate reason to ask them to rush.”
    Graced turned back. “You’re going to try and get a DNA sample?”
    He nodded.

    “From what?”
    “Everything.”
    “But it’s been nearly twenty years! Any DNA wil be too degraded.”
    “Not necessarily. This stuff was sealed up tight.”
    She felt the pressure of Kennedy’s hand, warning her to be careful. She was sounding panicky, but she couldn’t help it. “But what good wil getting a profile do?”
    Pontiff’s eyebrows rose. “What good wil it do?”
    “It’s only helpful if you have something to match it against,” she said, “and you don’t even have a victim.”
    Wearing the same rubber gloves he’d used while laying out these objects, he started putting everything back into a brown paper sack. “True, but like I told Madeline, there might be other cases out there. Besides, you never know what we might come up with in the future, right?”
    Pontiff knew her professional background, knew she should readily agree. So she did. But she was praying the whole time that the scientists at the lab wouldn’t be able to develop the sample he hoped for. If they did, she knew whose DNA they might find. She also knew they might be able to match it to the panties she’d just identified as her own.

    5
    I rene seemed to have taken the day’s events harder than anyone. Madeline helped her out to her car, then returned to the police station so she could talk with Chief Pontiff.
    “I have a private investigator coming from California,”
    she told him. “He might be able to help you decide what to do with al this—” she waved toward the box where he’d put the sacks of evidence “—stuff.”
    Pontiff hesitated, obviously not as pleased with this news as she’d expected him to be. “I can do my own job, Maddy,” he said. “I understand you’ve been disappointed in the past, but I’m already planning to do everything that can be done. There’s no need to bring in an outsider.”
    “He might see something we’ve missed,” she argued.
    “The only one missing anything is you,” Radcliffe piped up, sounding exasperated. He had plenty of filing left to do
    —evidenced by the tal stack teetering at his elbow—but he was more interested in eavesdropping. “Didn’t you see how Clay reacted? He nearly lost his composure.”
    “Yes, I saw!” Madeline snapped, her patience wearing thin. “He was upset. But why wouldn’t he be? That was his sister’s underwear lying on the table.”
    Pontiff sent Radcliffe a quel ing glance and stepped between them. “Maddy, we’ve grown up together. I’ve seen your pain and frustration over the years, and I’ve felt plenty of my own when it comes to your father’s case. This whole town has. The police chiefs before me couldn’t get to the bottom of it, but I’m determined to be different. I plan to find the truth, okay?”
    “Then what’l it hurt to have some help?” she asked.
    “I don’t want anyone getting in my way. This investigator is from…where did you say? California? He’l have no idea how things are done in Mississppi.”
    But maybe that was good, Madeline thought. Then he wouldn’t be influenced by the Vincel is, wouldn’t have to worry about making the folks around her angry. “An investigation is an