“’Cause she’s dead,” Nick muttered. “And if we’re wrong, we’ve given out potentially valuable details on the killer’s MO. But you can check with her former clients in the morning.” He stood up. “I’m going home. I’ll call you when I’m outta court tomorrow.”
“Good luck,” Vito said, then dialed Liz Sawyer’s home number. “Hey, it’s Vito.”
“What do you have?”
“Possible ID on the girl with the hands.” He filled her in. “I’ll confirm tomorrow.”
“Very nicely done, Vito. I mean it. And thank your brother for me.”
Liz didn’t give out praise often. When she did, it felt good. “Thanks. And I will.”
“I rearranged some schedules and freed up Riker and Jenkins. They’ll be available to help you chase leads and IDs as of tomorrow morning.”
Liz had done well. Tim Riker and Beverly Jenkins were good cops. “Full time?”
“For a few days. It was the best I could do.”
“Appreciate it. I’ll ask them to track Brittany Bellamy through her modeling clients tomorrow. I got some names from the archeologist that I want to run down. One of them might be able to help us trace the equipment this guy is using. I want a money trail.”
“Always follow the money,” Liz agreed. “Schedule a briefing for oh-eight tomorrow.”
“Will do. Hey, I gotta go. Looks like the IT guy is here.”
A young guy carrying a laptop was approaching his desk. “You Ciccotelli?”
“Yeah. You Jeff’s guy?”
One side of his mouth lifted. “I prefer Brent.” He shook Vito’s hand. “Brent Yelton. And just so you know, calling us ‘Jeff’s guy’ won’t make you a lot of friends on our floor.”
Vito grinned. “I’ll remember that. The computer’s in the box. Thanks for coming out.”
Brent nodded. “I was the one who checked out the computer you took from Keyes’s room. I told Jeff to call me if anything else came up on this case, that I’d be there.”
Vito scowled. “I used up a favor to get you here. Jeff’s an asshole.”
Brent laughed as he hooked Sherry’s computer to his laptop. “One more reason not to be associated with him.” He sat in Nick’s chair and for five minutes worked in silence. Finally he looked up. “Well, this machine hasn’t been wiped. No trace of the virus that took out the victim’s computer. Somebody has been fooling with the history, though.”
Vito walked around to stand behind him. “What do you mean?”
“The wipe on the vic’s machine was a virus. This here is totally an amateur effort. Somebody didn’t want anybody knowing he visited certain sites and deleted them from the history. But that doesn’t delete them from the hard drive.” He glanced up. “Big mistake people make when they use company computers to surf for porn. They delete the history, but it’s still on the drive and any IT person worth a nickel can find it.”
“Good to know,” Vito said wryly. “So which sites were deleted by our amateur?”
Brent did a little doubletake. “This is a first for me. Somebody’s hiding visits to medievalworld.com, medievalhistory.com, fencing.com… here’s one for clothing of the Middle Ages, more of the same, yada yada, and… Hmm. A site for Caribbean cruises.”
Vito sighed. “Their honeymoon. Warren and Sherry were getting married. She said he’d dropped some hints about cruises, to see if that’s where she wanted to go.”
“And the medieval stuff?”
Vito stared at the list broodingly. “It all fits. I’m just not sure how.”
“Call me if you come up with any more wiped machines. Gotta say I’m intrigued. That virus had one of the sneakiest codes I’ve ever seen. Here’s my card with my cell.” He grinned as he packed up his laptop. “That way you don’t have to go through Jeff.”
“Thanks, man.” Vito pocketed Brent’s card, then dialed Jen McFain’s cell.
“McFain.” The connection was bad, but Jen’s fatigue came through loud and clear.
“Jen, it’s Vito. What’s happening?”
“Just sent the eighth body to the morgue, another elderly woman. Nothing funky.”
“Meaning no bullets, no shrapnel, no cancer, no weird bruises or folded hands.”
“Pretty much. We’re on the final grave now. First row, first grave.”
“Well we’ve ID’d the Knight for sure and maybe the Lady.”
“Wow.” She sounded impressed. “That’s fast work.”
“Thanks. You didn’t do too badly yourself. Six bodies excavated in one day.”
“We couldn’t have without Sophie’s map. The real work starts tomorrow when we start sifting through the dirt we took away.”
“Speaking of tomorrow, we’re having a briefing at oh-eight. Can you be here?”
“If you bring coffee and crullers from that bakery at the end of your street, then I’m there. Hold on. The team’s calling me.” A minute later she was back. “Last one’s uncovered.” Her voice held new energy. “Young female. And Vito, she’s missing a leg.”
Vito grimaced. “You mean he cut off her leg?”
“No, she’s an amputee. And oh, my goodness. If I’m not mistaken… Oh, Vito, this is good. Really good. She’s got a plate in her skull. Oh man, this is gold.”
Vito blinked hard. “She has a gold plate in her skull? Jen, that doesn’t make sense.”
She huffed in frustration. “Dammit, Vito, stick with the program here.”
“Sorry. I’m just tired. Try again.”
“Well, it’s not like this has been a garden party for me either. Pay attention. Her skull has decomposed, revealing a metal plate. She obviously had it implanted after an injury or surgery at some point in her life. Now that she’s decomposing, it’s visible.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “I’m still missing why this is so good.”
“Vito, an implantable metal plate is a class-three medical device. All class-three medical devices have unique, traceable serial numbers.”
Cognition clicked and he stood up straighter. “By which we can identify her.”
“And the prize goes to the man who just woke up.”
Vito grinned, almost giddy over this lucky turn. “I’ll call Katherine and have her start with the amputee first thing tomorrow morning. See you at oh-eight.”
Monday, January 15, 10:15
P.M.
Daniel was staring mindlessly at CNN on the hotel television when his cell phone rang. “Luke? Where have you been?”
“Catching fish,” Luke said dryly. “That’s what usually happens on a fishing trip. I didn’t get your message till now. So what’s up? Where are you?”
“In Philadelphia. Listen, I found a memory stick after you left this morning. I plugged it into my laptop and all I could see was a list of files with PST at the end.”
“Those are e-mail files. That’s probably your dad’s backup file since he wiped everything before November.”
Daniel pulled the memory stick from his pocket. “How can I see what’s on here?”
“Plug the stick into your PC. I’ll walk you through. It’s not hard.”
Daniel did what Luke said to do and was soon looking at his father’s e-mails. “I’ve got ’em.” Several years’ worth, in fact. But Daniel didn’t think he wanted Luke to know what had been on the memory stick any more than he wanted Frank Loomis to know about his father’s secret safe. “Let me check it out. Thanks, Luke.”
It took Daniel only minutes to get to the message that stopped his heart. It was from “RunnerGirl” and was dated July, eighteen months before. It said only, “I know what your son did.”
Daniel forced himself to breathe, to think. This was not going to be pretty at all.
Tuesday, January 16, 12:45
A.M.
It was damn good. On his computer screen the Inquisitor battled his opponent, the Good Knight. Both characters fought sword in one hand, flail in the other. Each step was smooth, each jab of a sword or arc of the flail a realistic combination of muscular movement. It was a masterpiece.