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Bud fished under the bed and removed a purple bag covered in sparkling stones and fringe. He unzipped the top as Fiona continued to snap photos. The tech dug in the purse, coming up with a handful of condoms, lube, handcuffs, and a flip phone. No ID.
“Is the phone password protected?” he asked.
“Yes,” the tech said.
“Damn.” That phone likely contained the girl’s client lists and communications with her killer.
Vaughan walked a wide circle around the bed, removing a pen from his breast pocket, and then flipped open the pizza box. A stale pile of onions stood inches from a collection of shriveled pepperoni slices. “Someone bought a pizza with toppings they didn’t like.”
Bud studied the victim’s slight frame. “She looks half-starved. But the autopsy will confirm what’s in her stomach.”
“She probably was.” Vaughan flipped the lid closed long enough to take a photo of the generic logo before searching around for any kind of receipt. He found none.
Vaughan glanced back at the bed and the faint impression on the end. It appeared as if someone had sat there watching television. “Was the television on when you arrived?”
“It was,” Bud said. “It was a local news channel.”
“He watched television as she bled out.”
“Jesus,” Fiona said.
Vaughan crossed to the bathroom, where he saw the towel crumpled on the counter. The sink and tub handles looked as if they had been wiped down, but there were no traces of blood on the remaining towel. He looked closely at the shower’s drain and saw faint hints of blood around it. The killer had been naked when he had murdered the girl; then he had showered and dressed. The sequence would have ensured his clothes were not stained with blood.
“When you run the victim’s prints, let me know if you get a hit?” Vaughan asked.
“Will do, Detective,” Bud said.
The probability of solving this case was incredibly low. Statistically, girls like this were considered expendable by their families, their pimps, and the justice system. They had no advocate except him and his overworked staff. But understanding the reality did not dampen his determination to give this girl some dignity and reckoning from the grave.
“Bud and Fiona, keep me posted.” And when both techs nodded, he stepped outside. He squinted toward the hot sun, absorbing its heat, knowing there was a monster out there who believed he would not get nailed for this crime.
He straightened his jacket and strode toward the adjoining room. Inside he heard whispers.
“Open up,” he said. “Alexandria Homicide.”
The knob turned and the door opened, catching on the security chain. A woman with gray hair and pale skin stared back at him. “I already talked to the cops.”
“You haven’t talked to me.” Vaughan held up his badge. “A murder occurred next door.”
She rubbed her index finger under her red-tipped nose. “That’s what the cop said.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“Not a sound.”
“When did you arrive?”
“I checked in about midnight.”
That would have been fourteen hours ago and well within the window of the murder. “And you heard nothing?”
“Well, a television show, or maybe it was the news. I could hear it through the walls, but it was muffled.”
He studied her bloodshot eyes before his gaze cut to the bruises near the crease of her arm. “Did you hear any conversation, shouts, cries, screams?”
She tugged down her sleeve. “No. Like I said, just the television.”
If she had been high, as he suspected, she would not have heard a train if it had rattled past the foot of her bed. “When did you shoot up?”
“I don’t do drugs.”
“I don’t care what you put in your arm. I just want a time.”
Her eyes roved down her arm, and then, “Maybe about fifteen minutes after I checked in.”
“And you heard nothing?”
“No. Just the television, I swear. And I didn’t get that messed up.”
If that was true, that meant Jane Doe had been killed before midnight. He took the woman’s name and number and gave her his card.
Vaughan moved down the string of rooms, but each new occupant was less helpful than the last. He spoke to several working girls, gave them his card, and told them he wanted to figure out what had happened to the girl.
Homicide work was tedious, amounting to boots on the ground that led to small crumbs that might lead him to a killer. The forensic stuff would come in handy later in court, if the case made it that far. But his best chances of solving this murder fell within the first forty-eight hours. After that, the chances dropped by 90 percent.
His phone rang, and he tugged it from the cradle nestled beside his badge. Zoe Spencer’s name flashed on the screen.
They had met months ago at a Quantico training session sponsored by the FBI for local law enforcement. She had been lecturing on forensic art, and she’d worn a pencil skirt and black heels that had given him such a hard-on; he had not learned much.
He had approached her after the second week of classes, bribing her with coffee if she would assist him with a case, and she had agreed. Her assistance had helped solve the case, and basically one thing had led to another.
Their paths had not crossed for weeks until early summer, when Nikki McDonald had called in the Jane Doe find. He had called Spencer immediately.
“Agent Spencer. Any luck with my Jane Doe?” he asked.
“I can be in your office in an hour and give you the full story.”
“Can I have the CliffsNotes version?”
“Better to show you,” she said.
“Make it two hours. I’m at a homicide scene.”
“Understood. See you in two hours.”
After he ended the call, he knocked on motel room doors for another hour but discovered if there had been a witness, they weren’t talking.
When he had less than a half hour before his meeting with Spencer, he notified Officer Monroe he was headed back to the station, and then he texted his partner, Detective Cassidy Hughes, about this current case as well as the pending update on Jane Doe. Hughes replied quickly, informing him she would be tied up in court for at least another hour.
He slid behind the wheel of his car and turned on the engine and air-conditioning. As he pulled out of the lot, the motel room sign glinted in his rearview mirror. Already he felt as if he had let the dead girl down. If he got an ID, then he could search arrest records and last known associates. Jesus, there had to be someone out there who had known her.
He forced his mind to shift gears and focus on the Jane Doe Nikki McDonald had found in the storage unit early in the summer. When he and his partner had arrived on the scene, Nikki had already uploaded footage to her social media pages.
He’d asked her to hold off on any more posts, but when she’d realized her post had gone viral, she’d doubled down. He had posted a uniformed officer at the scene to keep curiosity seekers and crime junkies away.
Nikki’s posts had generated a couple of spots on local news, leading to more speculation about the victim’s identity. The pressure to solve the case had steadily built.
He and his partner had interviewed the owner of the unit, but she’d had no idea how the trunk had ended up in her space. There had been no prints on the trunk and no usable DNA in or on it. They had hit one dead end after another.
