Cold Case--A Jeff Resnick Mystery Read Free

in a faded
housecoat, no make-up brightened her wan features, leaving her
looking colorless and ill.
    She glanced at me. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t
catch your name.”
    “ Jeffrey Resnick,” I said, forcing a
smile, and shoved my hand at her.
    The woman eyed my outstretched hand,
hesitated, then took it.
    Our eyes locked. Her hand convulsed around
mine. Peering past the layers of her personality, I looked straight
into her soul.
    A tremor ran through me. I pulled back my
hand, my legs suddenly rubbery. Sweat soaked into my shirt collar
and I took a shaky breath, hoping to quell the queasiness in my
gut.
    “ Mind if I sit?”
    She gestured toward the couch in the living
room, but I lurched into the kitchen and fell into a maple chair at
the worn Formica table. The others followed, leaning against the
counters, looking like wallflowers at a dance. Mrs. Jarowski moved
to stand in front of the refrigerator, arms at her side, body
tense. The open floor plan allowed me to look into the apartment.
Like the kitchen set, the rest of the furniture was shabby but
immaculate. Mrs. Jarowski’s faded house dress was freshly ironed.
She probably spent her days scrubbing the life out of things.
    I looked around the sterile kitchen, an exact
replica of the room directly below us—the floor, the counters, the
cupboards—everything, right down to the white plastic switch
plates. Three embroidered dishtowels lined the oven door pull, Mrs.
Jarowski’s only concession to decor. The tug of conflicting
emotions was even stronger than downstairs. We looked at one
another for a few moments in awkward silence.
    Mrs. Jarowski cleared her throat. “Are you a
doctor, too?” she asked me.
    “ You might say I’m an expert on
headaches. Tell me about yours, Mrs. Jarowski. Migraines, aren’t
they?”
    The old lady’s sharp eyes softened. “I’ve had
a lot of tests, even a couple of CAT scans, but they’ve all been
inconclusive. I’ve been told they’re due to stress. One doctor said
they’re psychosomatic.”
    “ I doubt that,” I said, winning a
grateful nod. “They get pretty bad sometimes, don’t
they?”
    She nodded again, looking hopeful.
    “ I can sure identify with that. I got
mugged last year. A teenager with a baseball bat cracked my skull.
Since then I get some really bad ones. I’m working up to a doozie
right now.”
    “ What does that have to do with me?”
she asked, an odd catch to her voice.
    “ Nothing. Tell me about Eric
Devlin.”
    Her back went rigid. “I’ve already told the
police, I don’t know anything about his disappearance.”
    “ His mother said he was ‘all boy,’ but
I get the feeling he was a little hellion. A noisy kid. Kind of a
brat, really.”
    Dr. Marsh glared at me as if I’d blasphemed
God almighty. The whole city had developed a reverence for the
missing child.
    Mrs. Jarowski didn’t share that feeling.
    “ He used to ride up and down the
sidewalk on one of those big plastic tricycles for hours at a time.
Up and down and up and down. They make one hell of a racket, don’t
they?”
    Her lips tightened. The tension in that
kitchen nearly crackled.
    My nausea cranked up a notch and I loosened
my tie. On the verge of passing out, I rested my elbows on the
table to steady myself.
    “ When I have one of these sick
headaches, I have to lie down in a dark room with absolute quiet.
Otherwise I think I’d go insane. That ever happen to
you?”
    Mrs. Jarowski’s gaze pinned me.
    The vision streaked before my mind’s eye:
Eric, eyes round with anticipation, his small hand clutching the
tumbler of chocolate milk, something his mother would never let him
have. Paula calling to him from somewhere outside. The half empty
glass falling to the spotless floor, shattering. Chocolate milk
splashing the walls and cabinet doors.
    “ It’s peaceful and quiet these days,” I
said. “Like a morgue.” My gaze drifted to the full-sized
refrigerator—back to her. I swallowed down bile. “You want to