Although we still had no name.
“Detective Parnell? Are you there?”
I pushed aside my impatience at getting derailed and led Clyde out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. Denise Jackson was Carolyn’s daughter. She deserved my respect.
“Ms. Jackson,” I said. “I appreciate your call. But you need to direct any questions through Ms. Gibbons. She’s your mother’s victim advocate. She can answer any questions you have.”
“I understand. But the way I hear it, you’re the one leading the investigation. And my mother and I need answers.”
Investigation wasn’t the right word. The Denver PD had been ordered to work through the backlog of rape kits—more than three thousand. Funding was coming, and once it was approved, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation would take over. But in the meantime, the chief himself had decided my first task as a new detective would be to select those kits with the best chance for closure. My job amounted to identifying kits with at least a minimally detailed report, a victim who was still alive, and DNA samples that either hadn’t been tested or hadn’t found a match in CODIS at the time of the crime.
So far, I’d raced my way through more than five hundred kits, scanning and digitizing the information as I went. Of those five hundred, I’d reviewed fifty more closely. And of those fifty, thirty-two had met our requirements. Carolyn Jackson’s assault was one of them.
But I couldn’t share any of this with the woman on the other end of the call.
I said, “I’m handling certain aspects of your mother’s case, Ms. Jackson. But it’s against procedure for the two of us to have a conversation without the presence of the victim advocate. If you wish to talk, why don’t you arrange a meeting through Ms. Gibbons?”
“Please,” she said. “I’m right here.”
Clyde came to his feet, and I turned. A sixty-something woman in a red pantsuit and short afro with a cell phone pressed to her ear waved at us. Her nails were long and as cherry red as her suit. When our eyes met, she lowered her phone and powered in our direction.
I signaled Clyde to sit.
“You’re Detective Parnell,” the woman said when she reached us. “And this handsome animal is Clyde. I recognize you from the newspapers.”
“As accused,” I said.
“I’m Denise Jackson.”
We shook hands, and I explained that Clyde was on duty and couldn’t shake paws. I glanced at my phone to note the time, then took a breath and mentally settled in. Now that Denise Jackson was standing right in front of me, I would hear her out.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Jackson?”
“Please, call me Denise.”
She smiled again, open and friendly. I had to admire someone who could maneuver so neatly into my space. But the firmness in her eyes told me she wouldn’t be shrugged off or mollified.
“Tell me how I can help, Denise.”
“You know the details of the case,” she said. “But what I’m sure those police reports don’t tell you is that my mother has not been the same woman she was before she was assaulted.”
“No one would—”
Denise rolled right over me. “The attack confirmed everything she’d come to believe about herself. That she’s an old, worthless, half-senile woman, loved only by her daughter. After that assault, she went from having a mild case of dementia to hardly being herself anymore.” Her eyes flashed. “I lost my mother in that attack, Detective Parnell. And I would like to see some justice. For her and me both.”
“I am sorry for what you and she have suffered.”
“You know what’s worse than all of that?” Her hands fisted and moved to her hips. “What’s so much worse? The fact that weeks after the assault, her case was dropped. Like none of it mattered. She was just an old black lady, not worth anybody’s time.” Denise frowned, all the niceties gone. “What you can do for me, Detective, is tell me what you’ve learned. Who did this to her?”
“First, my apologies that it has taken us so long to find a way to reopen your mother’s case. At the time of her assault, a DNA profile was created, and we searched a nationwide database for a match. But we didn’t get a hit.”
“A hit. What’s that mean, exactly?”
“DNA from your mother’s swabs was used to create a DNA profile of the suspect. That profile, called a forensic unknown profile, is run against all DNA databases in the hope of finding a match. In the case of your mother’s assailant, there was no candidate match at the time of her assault.”
“But now there is?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Meaning yes.”
“Please talk to your mother’s advocate.”
“Playing pass the buck?” Jackson tapped her foot angrily on the concrete. “So why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you call us when you have nothing new to share?”
“It’s policy to notify someone when their case is reopened.”
“Why is that?” Her voice shook with indignation. “Just so you can rip open wounds that might finally be healing?”
I couldn’t argue with her. The policy had never struck me as wise.
“I know it’s painful, Ms. Jackson,” I said. “Please try to be patient a little while longer. We’re working angles, hoping to find a different way to link the assailant’s name with his DNA.”
“What kind of different way?”
“I can’t go into the details. When we know more—if we know more—Ms. Gibbons will contact you.”
Denise leaned back, looked me in the eye. “Have you ever been raped, Detective Parnell?”
I held her gaze. “No.”
“Then maybe you’re not the person who should be handling this. I’ve heard about the backlog of rape cases. Runs right across all fifty states. Lots of buried hurt. Takes compassion to do that right.”
I considered her words. “The fact that I have not been raped doesn’t mean I don’t understand trauma. And it certainly doesn’t mean I won’t do
