Oren Rosenberg met his granddaughter for lunch at the Taj Mahal buffet on Tutor Lane. He’d arrived a little early and started with a plate of appetizers—paneer pakora, consisting of cottage cheese and spices dipped in flour and fried, and aloo tiki, potato slices topped with onion, yogurt, and chutney. Oren loved the Indian restaurant and ate here anytime he was in Evansville between the hours of eleven and two.
“Pops!”
“Millie. I’ve already paid for both of us. Go get started.”
She came back a few minutes later with a sampling of batter-fried vegetables.
“You’ve lost weight, Pops.”
“A little.”
“That’ll put it back on.”
“I’ll work it back off.”
She laughed merrily and started eating.
Oren smiled. Annie was right, he was so very proud of his granddaughter. He’d helped her pay for college and bought her a beater-of-a-VW. He’d wanted her in something more substantial, but she’d set her heart on the sky-blue, high-mileage Beetle. His daughter—Millie’s mother—helped when she could. But nearly five years ago, she’d rear-ended a daycare van while visiting friends in the Chicago suburbs. A girl died, a little boy was left a quadriplegic, and she was still paying on the judgment against her—and probably would be for at least a dozen more years. She’d been distracted, arguing with her boyfriend on her cell phone. A Class 4 felony, she could have spent three years in prison, but a savvy lawyer got her off without jail time. Oren had refused to help his daughter financially; she’d killed a child, and the accident had been wholly her fault. He felt that helping her would have been accepting what she’d done.
But Millie? His granddaughter was another matter.
Oren often wondered if Millie was pursuing law school because of her mother’s woes. He’d never asked, and certainly didn’t intend to today. Her t-shirt read I Love the Smell of Torts in the Morning.
“Pops, this is sooooooooooo good!” Millie stuffed an appetizer in her mouth and tried to talk around bites. Oren waved her to finish chewing; he couldn’t understand her. “I’ve been going to classes here five years and never been to this place. Why didn’t you take me here before? How had I not heard of this?”
“You’ve always been too busy when I’ve been in the city at lunchtime. This is the best buffet, I swear.”
“When I go out—rarely—it’s Charlie’s Mongolian Barbeque or the Acropolis. This is awesome, Pops. I gotta come back.”
She continued to stuff her face. Oren finished the aloo tiki, savoring the flavors that had settled nicely on his tongue, and went in search of more ample fare. Tomorrow he’d go back to his diet book. He returned with pepper chicken and a bowl of lentil soup. There were desserts up there. Those cheese balls soaked in honey couldn’t be that bad, right?
“Skinny Bastard the rest of the week.”
“What’d you say, Pops?”
“Nothing.” He sat and tucked in his napkin into the collar of his shirt. He knew it was a juvenile move, but he didn’t want to risk spilling on his shirt.
“So what brings you to the city?” She kept eating and looked at him expectantly.
Oren told her about the bones and the forensic anthropologist. “I can’t say more than that, nothing more than what’s gone out over the scanner and was sent to other departments. Open case, you understand.”
“Sure. I understand. But you working with Doc Natty. Awesome sauce,” Millie pronounced. “I’ll be right back, gotta get me a little more. Is that pepper chicken good?”
Oren nodded, his mouth full.
“I’ll try that, too. I’m not going to want any dinner tonight.”
“Think you’ll be able to figure out who the bones were?” Millie asked when she came back with a heaping plate. “With Doc Natty’s help? He’s dope, you know. I know. I know. Can’t say anything else. Open case. Can only talk about what’s on the blotter or went over the scanner. What you sent to other states. You did send it to other states, right?”
Oren nodded and drew his lips into a line and swallowed a bite of chicken. He decided to add a take-out order for his wife. “Doc Natty. Hah. Seems to know his stuff, but he’s a bit pretentious.”
“Pretentious? He’s a zhlub, insensitive, but brilliant. An ego the size of— Well, a very big ego. He’s been a consultant at the original body farm down by Fort Knox, and an advisor on some TV mysteries. One of the CSI shows, I think. Or maybe it was NCIS.”
“Zhlub. Throwing around the Yiddish. And I suppose you call me a zeyde.”
“Never.”
“Behind my back probably.”
“Never.”
“I am, you know.”
“You’re not that old.”
“My boss is your age. I could collect Social Security. I am a zeyde.”
“Zeyde?” She shook her head. “You’re Pops to me. I suppose I should call you Chief Deputy Pops. Though it should have been Sheriff Pops. Maybe you should run at the next—”
“I’ll be sixty-nine, then. No one is gonna vote—”
Millie waved a fork at him in a scolding manner. “We’ll talk about it in three years, when you’d have to start printing campaign posters. So about the bones—”
“You’re gonna drag it out of me?” Between bites, Oren gave in and chatted a little about Piper finding the bones on the bluff and the work ahead to search for an identity. He didn’t mention any of the items found with the bones; that would be going well beyond the boundaries of proper.
“So Doc Natty says a boy dead sixty or more years.” She paused. “But records back then—none of that is going to be on your department’s computer.”
“Tell me about it. And the boy might not have come from Spencer County. That’ll make it, I dunno, easier if old records are on other departments’ computers. Departments that have everything computerized.”
“Harder if they’re not. Computerized.”
“Yeah. I called in ‘Doc Natty’s’ first impressions right before I got here, and JJ sent it out to departments in Indiana, Kentucky, and Arizona, hoping we get a hit. Eight to ten-year-old boy, missing sixty to sixty-five years. White, right handed. Specific enough it might match something. Sent it to a national database, too. So long ago, though, if the records aren’t computerized—” He let that thought hang.
“Sounds like a mystery that’s wonderful and awful in one fell swoop.” She smiled excitedly, and then looked serious. “At least you won’t get shot with an old, cold case. Whoever killed that boy is long dead. Sad that there is no one to prosecute. A crime with a victim, but no justice for him. I think it would be tough to work. No satisfying end.” Millie had come to visit Oren in the hospital, too, and they’d chatted about the serial killer who would be sent away for life. “But at least no bullets.”
“There is that, not getting shot at. Hey, you want a graduation party? Should have asked you that before now, I guess. This weekend, I know. Saturday. Probably not enough time to put something together. But the next weekend. We could do a party then.”
“Hell no. No, no, no party. Me and some of my peeps from communications are going to Roppongi to celebrate.”
He tipped his head.
“It’s a Japanese steak and sushi place here in town.”
“I don’t like sushi.”
“You’re not invited. It’s a last hurrah before going our separate ways. I’ll let you take me out for my birthday next month, though.”
“Great. Then you’ll be older than my boss. At least you got college under you. Two degrees, and going to be a lawyer. Piper’s only got a high school diploma.” That was another sticking point he hadn’t been able to let go of. A high school graduate, twenty-three-years-old, was his boss and made more money than he did. He had forty more years of experience on Piper. Forty! Where was the justice? “Your degrees are a hairy big deal, Millie.”
Oren knew Millie had earned top honors with her bachelor of science in criminal justice, and this graduation was for her master’s—in communications—a good combination for the jump into law school. He decided to talk about financial arrangements for law school later, when she came to the house on her move to— “Where are you going to stay before law school? You got, what, two and a half, three months before it starts?”
“I don’t want to talk about more school. Not today. I’ve spent the past five years in classrooms. I want to talk about going out on your boat, and the latest Elizabeth Vaughan romance novel. I adore romance novels. I want to picnic at the lake. I want to—”
“Where are you going to stay?”
Millie scowled. “Not staying with mom, that’s for certain. Not staying in Evansville. Don’t worry. I already got it covered. I found this month-to-month on Washington in Rockport, a house that’s a hundred and thirty-some years old. Needs some work, and maybe I’ll work on it for something to do. Cheap rent, really, really, really cheap rent, especially for the size ‘cause it needs work. But it’s got four bedrooms, two baths. Good for having company stay over. They have to get the electric and plumbing working before I can move in, but that should be taken care of by Monday. That’s what I’m shooting for. To move in Monday. I’ll get to see more of you and grandma. Go out on your boat. And I’m gonna try to start paying you back for all the college money.”
He didn’t care if she paid him back. Renting a house, he mouthed. He hoped the rent really was cheap. Oren pushed his empty plate away and started on the soup. “Heard from your dad?”
Her scowl deepened. “Just the Hanukkah card. Only ever the Hanukkah card. But this one was postmarked Dutch Harbor. I did some Googling, and he’s on a crab boat in Alaska, something he always wanted, mom says. I’ll watch The Deadliest Catch when its new season rolls around and see if I can spot him on one of the big boats. Speaking of boats—”
“I took mine out last weekend. A tad chilly, but not too bad.”
“Doc Natty’s not too bad either, Pops. Give him a chance. I’m glad he’s working with you. Just ignore the arrogant side of him.”
“There’s another side?” Oren got up to get himself too many cheese balls soaked in honey.