She scanned through the photographs very quickly. “What am I looking at?”
“We thought maybe you could tell us.”
“And why did you think I could help you?”
“Honestly, we were thinking that the fabric came from a rock band souvenir tour jacket.”
“One of my souvenir tour jackets?”
“You tell us,” Oliver answered.
“C’mon, handsome. My memory’s good but not that good!”
Oliver came over and picked out one of the snapshots. “See up here in the left-hand corner. We were thinking that this was part of the word major.”
“Yes, I see it…maybe.” She handed him back the photographs. “Why do you want to know?”
“We found an unidentified body, Ms. Barrett,” Marge said. “We’re trying to date the bones from this piece of cloth. If it was one of your souvenir pieces of clothing, we would have a starting point.”
“I couldn’t possibly tell you yes or no or even maybe,” Priscilla said.
Marge tried to hide her disappointment. “It’s important, Ms. Barrett. Maybe you could take another look?”
“I can’t help, but don’t look so down, Sergeant. I’ve got something to show you.”
THE ROOM NEXT door was identical in size and also pink.
No furniture.
Instead, the space was filled top to bottom, and right to left, with racks and shelving units stuffed with clothing and souvenir memorabilia, probably everything that had ever been sold by Priscilla and the Major. There were racks of sweatshirts, sweatpants, T-shirts, and jackets, along with cases of hats, scarves, flags, banners, pins, posters, and cases of vinyl records, eight-track tapes (that went way back, Scott thought), cassette tapes, and newer-cut CDs. Everything was done in shades of pink, the most prevalent hue being powder-puff.
The room was a paean to Priscilla’s compulsiveness, and a blessing for the detectives. Everything was sorted by item and by year. It was going to take a while to find the right piece of cloth, but with time it was a task that was doable.
Oliver said, “This is incredible!”
“I have clones in storage. I used to have even more until I donated about half of the clothing to victims of Katrina and the Phuket tsunami. My accountant and agent were happy with the decision. I got a big write-off and some free publicity.”
“How much time do we have to look?”
“Take as much time as you need, handsome. And if either of you see anything you’d like or you can use, help yourself.” She turned to Marge. “How about a sweatshirt?”
Marge didn’t want to seem impolite, but felt uncomfortable with freebies. “Sure.”
“Take my newest one. What are you? Medium?”
“Large.”
Priscilla fished out a sweatshirt and gave it to Marge. Oliver picked up a CD in the 1998 section. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this.”
“It was my first foray into jazz. Gimme. I’ll autograph it for you.”
“That would be great! I really like jazz.”
She signed it and handed it over to him. “This was my first solo album in over a decade. It brought me out of retirement. It also got great reviews.”
Oliver noticed that it had been produced nine years ago. Good reviews but no doubt lousy sales. Marge was already comparing sweatshirts to the photographs that they had taken at the Crypt.
Priscilla said, “Let me see those pictures again, Sergeant.”
Marge looked up from a rack of clothing dated 1968. She gave her the snapshots along with a piece of paper with tour-city names that might correspond to the fabric’s abbreviated letters. “We were thinking it’s a tour jacket and these cities might have been on the tour.”
Priscilla looked at the list of the cities and then sorted through the photographs, this time studying them with a determined gaze. “Hmm…this narrows it down a little. We did play Galveston. Start at around 1973.”
SITTING AT HIS desk, Decker looked at the jacket from Priscilla and the Major’s America the Beautiful tour, comparing it to the forensic photographs taken off the piece of fabric. He specifically liked the way the configuration of cities had been handled, how the s in Galveston was over the p in Indianapolis, but was just slightly to the left of the p. If he had an overlay of the fabric-the next step-he was sure the letters would have lined up perfectly.
“So if we’re correct, the body is no older than 1974. But that doesn’t mean the murder was committed in 1974. Our victim could have been wearing the jacket long after the tour.”
Marge said, “It still shaves a couple of years off the front end. The building was put up in 1971. As far as the back end, I give it maybe five years to own a jacket like this.”
“Let’s get a list of all women in the area who went missing since 1974. Our next step is to find out which ones are still missing. Of those verified as still missing, first concentrate on the women who lived near the apartment or had a boyfriend, friend, or relative who lived near the apartment. It’s going to mean calling families and opening up wounds. Sorry, but it has to be done. Also, we need that list of all the tenants who have ever lived in the apartment. Did we do that yet?”
“Bontemps is working on it,” Marge said.
Oliver said, “It sure would help if we could put a face on the body. Are you sure there’s no way we can use the facial bones to create soft tissue?”
“You heard the pathologist,” Decker said. “The facial bones are way too delicate. We’re working on a computerized model, but that’s going to take time also because we need measurements. All we can do is be patient.”
Oliver said, “On to the other missing person in our lives.”
“Roseanne Dresden,” Marge said. “Did her stepfather call today?”
“Like clockwork. I’ve got to say that his theories are sounding a lot less loony now than they did a few months ago.” Decker began to tick specific incidents off his fingers. “WestAir has not helped us substantiate that Roseanne was on flight 1324. Also, the first victims list that the paper received did not include Roseanne’s name on it, and no one at the paper remembers who called in Roseanne’s name as a victim. Furthermore, according to you, Margie, the desk attendant at WestAir…what’s her name?”
“Erika Lessing.”
“Right. She swears that Roseanne did not board the flight from Burbank. Now, Roseanne could have come on board from an earlier flight from San Jose, but so far no one’s verified that. Then, when we add to the mix a cheating husband as well as a cheating wife who had an ex-boyfriend in San Jose, we come up with a lot of unanswered questions. We need to start retracing Roseanne’s last steps. It’s time to pull a warrant for her phone records and her credit cards, her ATM accounts…any paper that might give us ideas about her last days on the planet.”
“Any specific judge in mind, Loo?”
“Try Elgin Keuletsky.” Decker spelled it out loud. “Present what we have and I think he’ll be simpatico.”
“What about Ivan Dresden?” Oliver asked. “I thought we were going to interview him and ask for his help in locating Roseanne.”
Decker said, “We will, but later. Right now let’s stay clear of him. Don’t even let him know we’ve got suspicions. After we get a better handle on Roseanne’s final days, maybe we’ll be lucky and something will point to Ivan as the bad guy.”
“We’ve interviewed some of Roseanne’s friends,” Oliver said. “How about if I talk to a few people who know Ivan…discreetly, of course.”
“Discreetly?” Decker answered. “Do you have someone in mind, Scott?”
“Well, we can’t talk to any of his friends or coworkers without him getting wind of our poking around. But as I recall…there was a lap dancer that Ivan put the make on.”