Free The Homecoming by JoAnn Ross

hadn’t been any reports of anyone having gone missing from Shelter Bay since she’d arrived in town, if the death was the result of a crime, it would undoubtedly be a very cold case.
    But it was a case. Not just a bashed- in mailbox or some graffiti sprayed on the bridge crossing from the bay to the coast, but a real case to be solved.
    Someone was dead, by either a violent act of nature, natural causes, or someone else’s hands. Whichever the results would turn out to be—if they could even determine the cause of death—it was her job to identify the body. To give it a name and hopefully return it to those who’d once cared about him or her.
    That was one thing she’d discovered while working the Oceanside streets: Everyone, no matter how low they’d fallen, no matter how alone their existence appeared to be, had at least one other individual, somewhere, who cared that they’d lived. And even for those estranged from their families, no one lived on an island. Lives touched others; relationships were created.
    Now the thing to do was to connect the dots and find out whom this skull belonged to, and how he or she had died, so this victim could at least be awarded the dignity in death everyone deserved in life.
    One problem with that goal was that when she’d called the state police this morning about the bone find, they hadn’t exactly turned cartwheels in glee at being invited down here to help. The fact of the matter was that while the detective she’d spoken with hadn’t exactly laughed out loud (though that had definitely been a smirk Kara had detected in his tone), he’d turned her down. Flat.
    Which wasn’t that surprising. She remembered, long before color-coded terrorism threats and other increases in the usual crimes caused by drugs, poverty, and simple bad behavior, her father complaining about much the same thing.
    But Ben Blanchard had handled his problems the same way he’d handled every other difficult thing in his life: He sucked it up and did his job.
    Which was precisely what Kara intended to do.
    She carefully wrapped the skull, tagged it, and boxed it, trying not to even think about how long it would take for anyone in the state lab—needless to say there were probably high school science labs with more equipment than her department’s—to begin an investigation. Especially since the state of the skull and last night’s bone pointed toward a cold case. And as the detective told her when she’d called this morning, didn’t they have enough active cases to solve?
    “It’s probably going to be the next century before OSP gets anyone on this,” Sax, who’d unsurprisingly ignored her instructions and followed her out here, suggested.
    “Try millennium. And although I’ve never had a reason to check it out, I suspect the state isn’t at the top of the list for sending dental records of missing-persons cases into NCIC.” The National Crime Information Center, while not entirely reliable, was still the only nationwide dental database. “What I really need is a forensic reconstructionist.”
    “I know someone who can help with that.”
    “You know a reconstructionist?” Anyone who’d ever watched Bones knew that having an expert re-create what the person whose skull this was once looked like could be a huge help. Unfortunately, crime fighting wasn’t as simple as it was on TV.
    “No. But I know someone who undoubtedly does. Cait’s a former FBI agent who married an old teammate. They both work for this private agency funded by a guy who just happens to have made himself about a bazillion bucks before the markets went south. And he’s more than willing to spend it if the cause is right.”
    Kara speared him a look, wondering what his angle was. Years as a cop had taught her there was always an angle. “I can’t imagine my skull would interest him.”
    Sax shrugged. “Truth be told, it probably wouldn’t. But Cait already offered to help when I called her this