Flame Out by M. P. Cooley

had slept, requesting that he read me his notes.
    â€œVera was a little wild. I picked her up a few times for public drunkenness, delivering her back to her husband, Taras. Back then, ‘alcohol rehabilitation’ was getting people home safe and pouring coffee into them. And most of those people I picked up . . . they weren’t ladies.”
    I raised my eyebrow at him. He protested. “No, no. I meant not women. Here you go.” Dad handed me the sheets. He had put together a list of witnesses.
    I read through the names. “You have a good memory. These were all the people listed in the original file.”
    â€œYou read my old notes?” He sat up straight. “If you show them to me, it would jog my memory.”
    I put my hand on his arm and glanced over his notes. “Why don’t we start fresh. Tell me what comes to mind.”
    â€œNot a whole lot. Dave was the only one who thought she was in some kind of danger . . . something not self-inflicted.” My dad sat forward, resting his arms on the oak table, which brought back a memory of sitting at the dinner table, my sister and I arguing with my mother about eating the manicotti she had “made gourmet” by adding raisins. Mom had banned Dad’s notebook from the table, and he respected the letter of this law, but he got up every two minutes to go to the other room and make a note to himself.
    â€œSo I talked to the family and interviewed her co-workers until her family told us to stop. People were angry at her for running out, especially Lucas. Dave’s dad, he’d given up. So we dismissed Dave’s complaint, and . . . he was right the whole time.” My father stared out the window into the blackness of the backyard, and I reached over and patted his hand. He had a faraway look in his eye, and I think he was back in 1983. “I was so caught up in the Luisa Lawler case that I fell down on the job. The Luisa Lawler case made my career, got me named police chief, and I completely missed another murder.”
    NORM BLEW IN AT 7:30 ON THE DOT .
    â€œHello, old man,” he said, greeting the chief. “And Officer Lyons, Junior.”
    As he peeled off his rain slicker and put on his lab coat, I was struck at how big he was. Even in his mid-sixties, he had power. He was the kind of guy who would go out in a bar fight or from a heart attack. My father told me stories of how Norm’s family had run all the cockfights in the north end of the county from the fifties until the seventies. Even though Norm was an MD, I could believe there were cockfights in his past. The fact that he knew where the bodies were buried—or at least the chicken carcasses—made him bulletproof politically. No one was going to run against him.
    â€œSo the cause of death was a skull fracture and strangulation.” Norm washed his hands. “I can’t tell if she was raped; however, she did have sexual intercourse in the hours before she died.”
    I found that unbelievable. “She’s been dead thirty years.”
    â€œVera Batko was remarkably intact, except for a crushed thorax and a smashed skull.” Labeled bone fragments lay next to her body, clumps of black hair still attached. “The body’s decay ended up not polluting the hair, and we got some of our best evidence.”
    â€œLike?”
    â€œCarpet fibers. And paint flecks caught in the blood in her hair. Plus what wasn’t there. No Tris. That drum was sealed as tight as . . . well, a drum. The tech didn’t want to send them over to the labs in Albany for analysis. Said they could do it faster and better.”
    â€œCan they?” Chief Donnelly asked.
    â€œI assume so. It’s not my responsibility to make sure they do their job, and I’ve found they’re resistant to correction.”
    â€œMs. Lin, I take it?” Chief Donnelly said.
    â€œOh, yes. She doesn’t take criticism, but of course,