Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(86)

“She baked homemade muffins in a hotel room?” D.D. was still trying to work that out.

“If you let her stay in her daughter’s apartment, she’s promised us cake.”

“You let her in?”

“Judging by the look on her face, it was going to happen. At least this way she had supervision.”

“Was an FBI officer, Dr. Keynes, with her?”

“No. Just her.”

D.D. nodded but remained frowning. Her conversation with Keynes still bugged her.

“Did Rosa notice anything?” D.D. asked at last.

“Nothing appears missing, all Flora’s clothes are intact, that sort of thing. The bed was unmade, but according to Rosa that’s not atypical. Flora isn’t a stickler for neatness. That’s more the mom’s department.”

“What did she do in the apartment?” D.D. asked.

Alex shrugged. “Walked around. Seemed to be absorbing the space. She spent a fair amount of time in her daughter’s room, reading the articles on the wall.”

“Are any of those cases Natalie Draga or Kristy Kilker?” a new detective spoke up.

“No,” D.D. answered. “Neither girl was ever reported missing. Natalie was in Boston on her own. Kristy Kilker’s mother thought her daughter was in Italy. So, in theory, Flora was focused on Stacey Summers.” She returned her attention to Phil. “Any leads from Flora’s cell phone or computer?”

“Working through both of them now. Flora was definitely fixated on the bar scene in Boston. She’d been reading up on Tonic in the days before she headed there.”

D.D. frowned. “But Stacey Summers disappeared from Birches, meaning something else would had to have put Tonic on Flora’s radar screen. What?”

Around the table, no one had any answers.

“Natalie Draga used to work at Tonic,” Carol Manley piped up. “Maybe Flora did know something we didn’t know. I mean, just because Natalie wasn’t formally declared missing doesn’t mean a friend hadn’t started asking around, hey, any of you seen Natalie lately, that kind of thing. Given Flora’s obsession, maybe such rumors caught her attention.”

D.D. nodded. Which was exactly why she’d grilled Keynes on the subject. Because Flora did have an obsession when it came to missing persons, and seemed to be better informed than even the police.

“All right,” D.D. said. “For now, let’s focus on the case we know Flora was definitely working, Stacey Summers. I want some suits paying visits to Stacey’s family and friends. Except, this time, show them Flora’s picture. Let’s see how far she got with her own investigation. Because if Flora was looking at other bars in the area, then I’m guessing one of Stacey’s friends must have mentioned something. Maybe Tonic was a nightclub they’d visited often in the past, or Stacey knew someone who worked there. Maybe Flora even figured out that another pretty girl who used to work at Tonic hasn’t been seen for months. Honestly, I have no idea. But whatever the connections are here”—D.D. drew lines between Natalie, Kristy, Goulding, and Stacey Summers—“we need to figure them out.”

“I might have one clue,” Alex offered. He’d finished his sandwich, was now wiping his hands. “On the fire escape outside Flora’s apartment, I found traces of glitter.”

“Glitter?” D.D. didn’t mean to sound so dubious; it just wasn’t the type of clue she’d expected.

“Hey, for us crime scene geeks, glitter is the new duct tape.”

“I don’t even understand that statement,” D.D. assured her husband. Around the table, her fellow detectives were nodding.

Alex leaned forward. “Glitter is nearly perfect trace evidence. It’s very easy to transfer while also being highly unique. Better yet, like duct tape, there are extensive databases available to help determine the particular source of the glitter in question. For example, glitter is present in everything from women’s makeup to greeting cards to various clothing items. Needless to say, the size, color, cut of each of these sources is different. Better yet, on a microscopic level, you can tie an individual piece of glitter to a specific cutting machine from a specific manufacturer, proving once and for all the glitter found on the victim’s bed definitely came from the same source as the glitter on the killer’s fancy shirt. Good stuff, glitter.”

“So what did you find on the fire escape?”

“I found traces of gold on the handrail, I’m guessing transferred from contact with a subject’s hand. With Rosa’s help, I examined Flora’s clothing. No sources of glitter there. No glitter in the bed either, which would have occurred if Flora had gotten some on her skin, say, when she was out and about, then transferred it to her sheets when she tucked in at night. She did have glitter in some of her cosmetic products, but those particles are too fine to match with the fire escape sample.”

“What does that mean?” D.D. asked him.

“It means someone was out on the fire escape with traces of glitter on his hands, clothes, et cetera.”

“And that helps us how?”

“Find a suspect, we can use glitter to place him or her on Flora’s fire escape. Or—” Alex’s gaze grew more thoughtful. He pointed at the circle of names D.D. had joined with lines on the whiteboard. “We believe these cases are all interconnected, yes?”