Kenny Holloway ended the call with a thank-you.
“You did more for me than just about anyone,” he said. “Anyone but Tommy, that is.”
Inside her house, the Bone Box was lighter than it had been. Tommy’s case file would not be thrown away, but no longer did it feel right to keep it there. There were the cases of a little girl found drowned off the fishing pier in Manchester; the two teenage boys from Bainbridge Island who had supposedly killed themselves in a secret pact; and so many others. It surprised her how many there were. How many times she second-guessed the results of the cases in which things just didn’t add up. All the cases were different. All deserved another look.
Birdy turned off the light and slid under the covers. Her mother was right about one thing. She was never satisfied. That night as she went to sleep she remembered how she and Tommy had picked huckleberries and foraged for firewood. She imagined his laugh.
She’d fish through that box again. If all else had failed, if someone had gotten away with murder, maybe she could put her intuition and forensic science to good use. For Tommy and the others whose voices were never heard-some living, some dead.
