“Come here,” Art says, putting an arm around her as she holds the hankie to her face.
Harper pushes a box of Kleenex across the table toward Didi. “There’s some more in there. Okay?”
“Thanks,” Didi manages.
“I want you both to know that we’re not taking your daughter’s death lightly. We will explore every avenue available to us, anything that will offer insight as to why she died.”
“The detective said she was found dead, that she’d been laid out . . .”
“Mister Buford . . . your daughter was murdered. We are looking for a killer.”
Didi shakes her head, trembling all over. “Murdered . . . ,” she whispers in a thin, reedy voice. Her husband holds Didi against his side as she sobs, burying her face in the plaid material of his shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” Harper says. This is not the first time she has had to do this. If she can’t catch a break in the case soon, she knows it won’t be the last either.
Art fixes her with a cold look. “Find him,” he growls. “Find whoever killed my daughter.”
Before she can catch herself, Harper says, “I will.”
Captain Morelli unwraps a hard candy and pops it into his mouth. The sun is sinking outside, casting all of Hope’s Peak in deep shadows. Orange light cuts through the blinds in Morelli’s office, throwing itself at the back wall in thick contrasting bars of brightness and shadow.
“What do we know about our victim?” Morelli asks Harper.
“Alma Buford. Seventeen. Raped and strangled. Semen matches what we have on record already. Samples taken from under Alma’s fingernails also match. It’s the same guy.”
Morelli sucks the candy. “Right.”
“We’re waiting on toxicology, but I suspect it’ll come back the same thing. DXM to incapacitate her.”
“Okay.”
“Sir, this sick bastard will strike again. His behavior shows psychopathic traits.”
“I know,” he says grimly. Harper frowns and watches Morelli pick up a file from his desk. He hands it to her.
“What’s this?” Harper asks.
“A case.”
“If you didn’t notice, I already have a pretty big one on my hands.”
“Listen to me for a minute, Detective.” Morelli holds her gaze. “Many moons ago, I remember there being a girl found up at Wisher’s Pond. Twenty-four years old, I believe. Anyway, everything about that case bears more than a passing resemblance to your two girls.”
Harper opens the file. She reads the name at the front: “Ruby Lane?”
“The lead on that case is still around. Lives in a retirement home now, if I’ve heard right,” Morelli says. “Might be worth you going to see him. See what he has to say. If this killer is a psychopath, he had to start somewhere. Could be this case has historic implications.”
“Okay . . . I’ll get on it first thing in the morning. Can’t very well go pounding on the doors of a retirement home this late at night,” Harper says, miffed.
Morelli stands by the window, framed by the fiery light and thick bars of shadow.
“Be sure you do, Detective.”
Stu Raley offers her a cup of coffee in the staff kitchen.
“Not for me,” Harper says. “I think I’m gonna go home, put my head down.”
She watches as Stu stirs several packets of Sweet’N Low into his coffee, then adds a drop of milk.
“Not a bad idea,” he says. “Think I’ll do a few more hours, though. See what I can turn up.”
Harper hands him the file. “This ought to help.”
“What is it?” he asks, opening it.
“The captain gave it to me. It was all a bit . . . odd. You know what I mean?”
Stu shakes his head. “Sorry, but no.”
“I don’t know how to describe it,” Harper says, “just that it was out of the ordinary. He said the murder of Ruby Lane matches the two girls we’re investigating. But if that’s the case, why not hand me this file when we found Magnolia Remy?”
“Maybe he didn’t know about the file’s existence, or he was waiting to see if there was a pattern. Jesus, you’re really worked up over this, aren’t you?”
“I don’t mean to be. There’s just something off about it, that’s all,” Harper says. “Could be I’m being paranoid.”
Stu sips his coffee. “Sure I can’t get you one?”
“No, I’m off.” Harper reaches for the file but Stu hangs on to it.
“I’ll give it to you tomorrow. Let me read through it while I’m here.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
Stu smiles. “I am.”
Harper pats him on the arm. “Tomorrow, stud?”
“It’s a date.”
Morelli walks out of his office as Albie and Dudley exit the elevator accompanying a skinny white punk in a wifebeater, jeans, and black combat boots. Cuffs restrain his hands behind his back. He has two full sleeves of tattoos on his arms—the most prominent being the swastika on his right shoulder.
“What’s this?” Morelli asks. Dudley doesn’t answer. His face is bright red and he’s gritting his teeth. His fingers are white hard on the young man’s arm. The kid hasn’t stopped running his mouth while the two detectives physically maneuver him down the corridor, past Morelli’s office.
“You can’t arrest me! What for? I didn’t do nothin’,” he complains, eyeballing the captain as he does so. “Fuckin’ pigs!”
Stu ambles over as Albie and Dudley steer the guy into an interview room, despite his protestations. “Skinhead trash, sir.”
“Right.”
“We’re interviewing a few kids, known to be part of a white supremacist group. Don’t know what we’ll get out of it,” Stu tells him.
Morelli nods. “These little pricks hang themselves sometimes, they’re so stupid. It’s their breeding, Detective. Or shall I say, their inbreeding.”
Stu chuckles a little. “I hear you, sir.”
Albie emerges from the interview room, flustered.
Morelli calls him over. “Dudley looks wired up,” he says.
“The guy rubbed him the wrong way, sir,” Albie says.
Stu frowns. “How so?”
“We were talking to this one, just asking questions, when he starts mouthing off to Dudley. Dudley called him a walking cliché, and he called Dudley a filthy nigger-loving mick. Told him the only reason micks get badges is they’re too dumb to get real jobs.”
“Christ,” Stu says.
Morelli shifts on his feet. “What’d Dudley do then?”
“Didn’t get a chance to do anything,” Albie explains. “Next thing I know, I’m stopping that guy from throwing a punch with Dudley’s name on it. We both got on top of the guy and had to restrain him with the cuffs.”
“Well”—Morelli sucks his gums, peering down at the interview room door as if he can see straight through it—“just make sure Dudley doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“I will, sir,” Albie says, glancing at Stu, then heads back to the interview room.
The captain rubs the bridge of his nose and yawns.
“Coffee?” Stu offers.
Morelli looks at him, eyes heavy, and smiles. “You know why I like you, Raley? You’re a goddamn mind reader.”
3