Laura nodded. “Then let’s look into thefts,” she said. She nodded towards the computer they’d been loaned by Captain Ortega, which was situated on Nate’s side of the desk.
He fired it up as Laura picked up her cell phone. She dialed Ortega’s number, then waited for him to answer.
“Captain Ortega.”
“Captain, can you direct one of your team to start looking into purchases of mannequins in the local area?” Laura asked.
The Captain grunted. “You don’t think that would have been one of the first things I tried?”
Laura bit back a retort at his prickly tone. “And?”
“And, no dice. If this killer is buying them, it must be online. We haven’t been able to find any local sellers at all.”
“Thank you,” Laura said. “What about thefts?”
There was a long pause. “I’m not sure.”
“Never mind,” Laura said, seeing Nate’s gestures at the screen. “I think we’ve got the reports up now anyway. I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
She ended the call as Nate tapped the screen excitedly, shaking his head. “I don’t know if this is it, but there’s a report of theft at a local department store that has been logged but not followed up,” he said. “I guess Ortega has reassigned almost everyone to the murders, and there aren’t enough bodies to follow up. The report says good stolen from the back room, but not what the goods were. Want to go check it out?”
Laura gestured to the stuffy, small box room and their utter lack of leads and results. “Is the Pope a Catholic?”
Nate laughed, standing up and grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. He swung the FBI-branded windbreaker over his shoulders as he moved around the table. “Race you to the car,” he joked, but Laura didn’t need to be challenged twice. She shot forward, beating him out of the door and speed-walking all the way down the hall.
***
Laura bobbed on her feet impatiently, straining her neck to try to see over the crowds of shoppers for a sign of the oncoming manager. She couldn’t catch sight of anyone in uniform, and she was starting to grow impatient – when a sound from behind the customer service desk drew her attention, and she turned to see an unfamiliar man standing there.
“Hello,” he said politely, using the respectful yet firm customer service voice that retail workers always seemed to develop eventually. “I’m the manager here. I’m told you’re here to follow up on the theft report we filed yesterday?”
“That’s right,” Laura said, showing him her badge just the same way she had shown it to one of his subordinates at the desk a few moments ago. Nate did the same. She was worried by that word – yesterday – because if there hadn’t been any theft before then, it wouldn’t be possible to connect them to all of their murders.
“I didn’t expect to have the FBI respond,” he said, blinking from behind round eyeglasses that made him look about ten years older than he probably was. His brown hair was very neatly combed and parted, as if he’d taken inspiration for his look from Victorian-era shopkeepers in England.
“Well, we’re actually investigating another case, but we’re checking out some local cases while we’re here,” Laura explained. “Is there somewhere we can go to discuss your report?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, gesturing towards a door behind him. That must have been where he had emerged from to surprise her. Laura followed Nate around the side of the counter and through the door, experiencing a moment of that strange feeling of entering an area that was normally reserved only for staff. As an agent, she went into private places all the time – but not usually while customers were still walking around, given that it was often part of a murder scene.
The door turned out to lead into a slightly grimy staff room, with a small coffee table surrounded by a battered sofa and several armchairs as well as a row of lockers against the wall. It was currently empty, a fact which allowed the manager to sit down at the coffee table and gesture for Nate and Laura to take the sofa.
“I didn’t think much of it, at first,” the manager said. “You must be taking it seriously, then? You think there’s a link?”
Laura blinked. “A link between what?” she asked. The question sounded blunt once she’d said it, but she was confused as to what he was talking about – he clearly already thought she should know, but they hadn’t even mentioned the murders yet.
“Oh,” he said, his turn to be a little taken aback. “I’m sorry – you said you’d seen the report?”
“We saw a report that you’ve had a theft from your back room, but those are all the details we have,” Nate said, spreading his hands wide to follow the explanation. “We came down here to find out more from the horse’s mouth – so to speak.”
“Oh, right!” the manager said, wide-eyed. “Well, it’s a good job you did, then. We’ve had four mannequins stolen.”
Nate and Laura blinked at one another. There was a slight tightening of a muscle in his jaw, which Laura thought she recognized as a quickly-stifled urge to grin. He’d been right. Without any psychic ability, too. She couldn’t imagine he wasn’t going to brag about this later.
“When did this happen?” Laura asked. She was going to need some serious answers about why this hadn’t been flagged before. Surely, it should have been of the highest possible priority.
“Over the last few days,” the manager said. “I went into the stockroom a few days ago and I noticed the mannequins looked different than normal. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but then I checked our stock list and I saw we were missing two of them. I can’t say for sure when they disappeared, but that’s when I noticed it.”
“But you said four were missing?”