CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Laura trailed behind Nate as they walked into the precinct, back on Captain Blackford’s turf but without him. Which meant that the cat was away – and the mice had the place to themselves. The question was, were the mice going to respect the orders of the dogs in his stead?
Or, whatever other kind of complicated metaphor Laura could dream up.
She felt like her head was still spinning as she walked up to an unoccupied desk, glancing around. There was another cop, a detective, sitting at the desk next to it. “Who uses this computer?” she asked, making him look up in surprise.
“Uh, that’s Bobby,” he said. “He’s not in today. Got annual leave.”
“You have some kind of tech department here, who can get us set up on the computer so we can use the databases?”
He nodded, but then jumped out of his chair as he realized why she was still looking at him expectantly. “Right. I’ll go get someone.”
“Thanks,” Laura said, turning around.
Nate had stopped to talk to another detective, an officious-looking older man with a gray streak in his hair and a clipboard in his hands. He was showing Nate something inside a file, which Nate nodded at thoughtfully.
“What do you have?” Laura asked, joining them as she waited for her tech man to get back.
“Identity of our third victim has been confirmed,” Nate said, handing her the piece of paper. “We’ve got a male aged twenty-eight. Lincoln Ware. A local resident, just like the others.”
“Has he lived here long?” Laura asked.
Nate frowned down the length of the report. “No. See, here – about two years ago, his last address was reported as being in Montgomery, Alabama.”
“Two years,” Laura said thoughtfully. “You think it means anything?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Nate said. “Not yet, anyway. It could all mean something, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Laura stood with her hands on her hips, staring into the middle distance as she thought. He was right. Every little thing could be relevant. They didn’t know enough yet to rule any of it out.
Which was why she needed to get her hands on that database, sooner rather than later. She needed to go back over Veronica Rowse’s file, see as much as she could that might give her some clue about what she had seen.
The last case they had worked, the one out in Milwaukee, was still fresh in her mind. The killer had been targeting twins. That was one thought. Had the vision she’d seen not been of Veronica after all, but her identical twin?
It would be weird if the family hadn’t mentioned a sister, but then again, people did weird things.
“What are you thinking?” Nate asked, snapping her attention back to him.
“I’m thinking that we know hardly anything right now,” Laura said. “Has his family been tracked down and notified?”
Nate glanced at the detective who had brought him the file in the first place for confirmation.
“No, not yet,” he said, making a disappointed face. “They’re back in Montgomery, from what we understand. We’re liaising with the local department there, trying to get them informed. When we do, I’ll be able to let you know.”
“Thanks,” Nate said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “We’ll have to talk with the detectives on the ground there, get them some immediate questions to ask. I’m guessing the family will want to come and see the body anyway, but we need information faster than they can get here.”
The detective nodded smartly, moving away just as Laura’s contact returned with an overweight and bespectacled woman hustling across the bullpen behind him. Pushing her glasses up her nose, the newcomer looked at Laura and Nate owlishly before returning her glance to the computer behind him.
“You’re the ones need access?” she asked.
“That’s us,” Laura said. She flipped out her badge for the tech’s benefit. “We need access to all local and national databases.”
“You don’t need access to Bobby’s files?” the woman asked. When Laura shook her head, she nodded in reply and sat down in the vacant chair. “Shouldn’t take me too long to whip up a new user profile. I’ll get you all the access you need.”
“Thanks,” Laura said. She turned to Nate, figuring this was a good time to fill him in on what she’d been thinking during the drive over – if not revealing the cause of those thoughts. “I’m going to dive deeper on our victims. Starting with Veronica Rowse, see if there’s anything in her history I can dig up. There must be something here that we can work with, even if it’s just some kind of popular hangout they’ve all been to.”
Nate nodded. “I’ll work with you on that,” he said. “I can do the non-database route. Look at their social media pages, start looking for locations or people in common, that kind of thing.”