When they arrived, he said, “Think we could get her into the Milmar like this?”
An hour later, wearing the clean all-purpose white blouse Nikki kept in her bull-pen file drawer to change into after all-nighters, field scrapes, or coffee mishaps, Holly Flanders waited in Interrogation. Heat and Rook stepped in and sat side by side across from her. She didn’t speak. Just looked up over their heads, staring at the slip of acoustical tile that ran above the observation mirror.
“You don’t have much of a rap sheet, at least not as an adult,” Nikki began, opening Holly’s file. But I have to warn you that, as of today, you’ve taken your game to the next level.”
“Why, because I ran?” She finally brought her eyes down to them. They were bloodshot and puffy, rimmed by too much mascara. Somewhere in there, given some good living, and losing the hardness, thought Nikki, was somebody pretty. Maybe even beautiful. “I was afraid. How did I know who you were or what you were doing?”
“I announced myself as police twice. The first time you may have been too busy with your john.”
“I saw that guy racing through the lobby,” said Rook. “May I say? No man over fifty should wear pigtails.” He caught Nikki’s shut-up look. “I’m done.”
“That’s beside the point, Holly. Your main worry isn’t the flight or the hooking. In your room, we found a Ruger nine-millimeter handgun, unlicensed and loaded.”
“I need that for protection.”
“We also found a laptop computer, stolen, by the way.”
“I found it.”
“Well, just like the other charges, that’s not your worry. What’s on the computer is your worry. We’ve been looking at the hard drive and we’ve found a number of letters. Threatening letters and extortion demands addressed to Cassidy Towne.”
This part was getting through to her. The hard pose was crumbling as the detective slowly, quietly, and deliberately tightened the screw with each revelation. “Are those letters familiar to you, Holly?”
Holly didn’t answer. She picked at the chips of nail polish on her fingers and kept clearing her throat.
“I have one more thing to ask you about. Something that wasn’t in your room. Something we found somewhere else.”
The manicure destruction stopped and a puzzled look crossed Holly’s face, as if the other things were something she expected and had to cope with. Whatever this lady cop was now referring to seemed a mystery to her. “Like what?”
Nikki slid a photocopy out of the folder. “This is your fingerprint array from your booking on a prostitution charge.” She pushed it across the table to let Holly examine it. Then Detective Heat took another photocopy from the folder. “This is another set of prints, also yours. These were taken by our technicians this morning off several doorknobs at the home of Cassidy Towne.”
The young woman didn’t respond. Her lower lip trembled and she slid the paper away. Then found her spot to stare at again above the Magic Mirror.
“We took these fingerprints because Cassidy Towne was murdered last night. In that apartment. The one with your fingerprints.” Nikki watched Holly’s face grow pale and then still. And then Nikki continued. “What would a prostitute be doing in Cassidy Towne’s apartment? Were you there for sex?”
“No.”
Rook asked, “Were you one of her sources, maybe? A tipster?”
The woman shook her head no.
“I want an answer, Holly.” Heat gave her the look that said this would go on until she got it. “What relationship did you have to Cassidy Towne?”
Holly Flanders closed her eyes in a slow blink. And when she opened them, she looked at Nikki Heat and said, “She was my mother.”
Chapter Five