Ella scooped up the pictures again. That was a connection she hadn’t expected.
And then a new idea rapidly took hold.
***
Paige requested to do this one alone. She sat in front of Kenny Spencer in Interrogation Room C, a stone’s throw from where his friend-turned-suspect sat. Kenny sat back in his chair, arms folded. Paige was confident she could unearth the intel they needed. This was her time to shine and show that, while she was still working at the whole psychological profiling thing, she excelled elsewhere. She was still riding the high of catching Bret single-handedly.
“Mr. Spencer, I’m sorry we have to do things this way.”
“Call me Kenny, sweetheart.”
“Okay, but don’t call me sweetheart,” Paige said, establishing dominance from the off. Kenny scoffed at the comment.
“Alright, whadda ya want with me?”
“This girl.” Paige showed him the crime scene photograph. “We’ve had three homicides in the past five days. Your friend Bret says you’re familiar with this woman. Is that correct?”
Kenny inspected the photo then grimaced. “The hell is this? I ain’t seen this woman before.”
“Her name is Teri Harper. Bret says you inked her tattoos.”
Kenny took his time responding. “I might have. I do a lot of tattoos. Man’s gotta eat.”
“Yes or no?” Paige asked. “This is a homicide investigation. We’re not here to play around.”
“Alright,” Kenny shrugged. “Yeah, I did them, but I didn’t kill her.”
Paige, nor Ella, hadn’t been so convinced. After their interview with Bret, Ella floated the idea that perhaps the two had worked together to pull these crimes off. To Paige’s eye, these didn’t seem like the work of a team, but any theory was a good one right now.
“Bret said you were obsessed with her profession. His words, not mine.”
“Yeah, who wouldn’t be fascinated by a hooker? Seriously.”
“Kenny, this woman was brutally killed in her own home. Her parents will never see their daughter again. Show some respect for crying out loud.”
Kenny laughed the comment off. “Please. Don’t want to get killed? Don’t invite random dudes into your house. Not rocket science, is it?”
Paige pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. A calming mechanism she’d learned during meditation classes. This man was testing her patience already.
“What did you learn about her, exactly?”
Paige intended to get Kenny to reveal something only Teri’s killer might know. And even if he wasn’t involved, the information about the victim could still prove useful.
“Prostitute, went by a weird name. Crystal or something like that. Said she hadn’t been doing it long but she needed the cash. I did wonder why a broke chick was getting a thousand-dollar rib piece but those kinds of people don’t surprise me.”
Not much to go on, but now they had her name. Crystal. Paige noted it down.
“Did she mention anything to you about her clients? Abusive clients, anything like that?”
“Nope. Said that every guy she’d met had been fine. I think she was fishing for business to be honest.”
“Does that kind of thing appeal to you?” Paige asked, pushing a little further.
“Hell no. I wouldn’t pay for it. I don’t have much respect for them.”
Paige clasped her hands together and considered her next move. Now they’d established both Teri and Kate had been escorts, and that meant they could have been targeted by someone with a hatred towards their profession. Kenny seemed to fit that character, despite him not matching eyewitness accounts.
But maybe Kenny had been the idea man and Bret had been the doer. Women-haters like this tended to stick together.