Free Drowning Barbie by Frederick Ramsay

either to be the killer or lead Ike to the killer. It would take some time but not as much as the dead-a-decade guy.
    TAK rapped on his door.
    â€œWhat have you got for me, Son?”
    â€œI found the girl on Facebook. Not too much there—no photo, just an avatar.” Ike’s eyebrows shot up. “Um…it’s like a cartoon face only not always. See—”
    â€œNever mind, I got it. Go on.”
    â€œAnyway, I’m sure it’s her. She uses the name Darlene Dellinger instead of Darla.” Ike started to speak and thought better of it. Give the kid his moment. “And here’s the good part. When I tracked her through the juvenile justice system, I discovered she’d had a name change right after that entry. You’ll never guess to what.”
    â€œDarla Smut.”
    TAK’s face fell. “How’d you know?”
    â€œSince you nearly wet your pants waiting for me to guess, it had to be one of our latest problems and a female child meant the Smut woman’s daughter. Why the name change?”
    â€œOkay, here’s the rest. The mother’s name changed, like, monthly as she jumped from one alias to another. Most of them were scams—ID thefts to collect welfare or food stamps she could sell. Dellinger was the father’s name, according to her birth certificate in the file—Mark Dellinger, and she decided to use it. I guess she thought she could hit him up for support money. Anyway, he took off for parts unknown about the time the kid was born, did a dime for assault and public drunkenness, and disappeared for good after his release.”
    â€œDid she ever catch up with the father?”
    â€œGuess not. So, the girl had a history of having been abused. The arresting officers thought that the mother might be complicit. I guess she thought a name change would get her off the radar, so to speak.”
    â€œThank you. You’ve done good, kid. Any luck with the program that ages a face?”
    â€œNo, sorry. Running that program is way beyond my pay grade. I’ll keep trying, but don’t hold your breath.”
    â€œFine. Before you give up on computer work, see if you can find a picture of Dellinger for me and anything else that’s available.”
    â€œYes, sir. You want his arrest record and—”
    â€œThere ought to be a mug shot in the system somewhere and maybe a dental record.”
    â€œYes, sir.” TAK drifted back to his temporary desk and began his next assault on the computer’s keyboard.
    Ike leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk, castled his fingers, and began running through the few facts he had and wished he had. All he knew for certain was that Smut had a long history of drug and child abuse and that she changed her child’s name at least once. What were the chances she’d done it multiple times? Pretty good, probably, if she wanted to stay ahead of Child Protective Services and the police. But there was the business of her rarely spending any real time in jail and the fact that serious charges were almost never brought. Why was that? Finding the daughter, whatever her name was now, would help. But to do that depended on someone stepping up with an address, a phone number, or a sighting. Unfortunately, the streets of America’s cities were filled with waifs and strays most of whom looked too much alike. You’ve seen one runaway, you’ve seen them all—like meth-faced women. That girl in the salon for example, Flora’s niece or whatever she was, in other circumstances, could easily be one of America’s lost children.
    Finally, he had to concede that, farfetched or not, the woman’s murder and the other body could be related. That is, if the other body in the grave turned out to be Mark Dellinger. Maybe it was he who did the molesting and the Smut woman popped him for doing the girl one time too many. It made sense, but only if the person who killed