“And so you have. What’s happening at Centennial?”
“There’s nothing turning up on the grid search. So far, there aren’t any witnesses. Even ADIDAS claims to have been asleep on his personal bus bench, like a good little boy.”
ADIDAS, so named for his labeled gym bag from the sporting goods company, was a well-known fixture around the park and one of Nashville’s many homeless citizens, but not a threat to anyone but the pigeons. “Was he sober?” Taylor smiled to herself. Fat chance of that.
“Naw, he was reeking like a distillery. He must have lit it up last night. Didn’t even hear the sirens this morning.”
“Too much to ask to have a witness, I guess. Okay, boys. Here’s what’s going to happen. Price and I decided Fitz is going to take over some of my cases so I can focus on our murder this morning. Is that cool with you, Fitz? I’m going to keep you in the loop on everything that happens, and if we need to pull you back in full-time, we’ll do it. I’m hoping we can wrap this up quickly, but if not…”
“Fine by me. You gonna let the kid here run with you?” He pointed at Marcus Wade, who sat up straighter in his chair. This was the highest profile case he’d ever been tapped to work.
“Yep, that’s the plan. If you would be so kind as to wrap up the park and file your report, I’d appreciate it. Then you can start messing around with my stuff.”
“Sure thing.” He gave her a smile, and Taylor thanked whatever being had sent Fitz her way. Any other detective would have gotten snotty or hurt by the request to stand down, but Fitz knew enough about the politics not to worry. They had known each other for years, and Taylor knew he would never suspect her of cutting him out of a case to take the glory for herself. He had told her from the beginning that her move to lieutenant would cut back some of his responsibilities and allow him the space to prepare for a graceful retirement from the force in a few years. Taylor gave him a smile of gratitude.
She turned to Marcus. The kid was handsome, with long brown hair and puppy dog brown eyes. He made a good impression to the outside. Taylor knew under his happy-go-lucky exterior, he was smart, and despite his lack of experience, she was happy to have him. Eagerness was sometimes a better quality in a detective than years of experience.
“Marcus, you work with the Metro spokesman, Dan Franklin. He needs to be briefed so he can give a statement. I want to be in complete control of all the info before we talk to anyone. So no leaks about anything, okay? Hopefully we’ll have an ID on this girl and can inform her next of kin, maybe even a cause of death, and we can release it in the statement. The Mayor’s pressing for something official ASAP.” Taylor snorted through her nose. “She’s pretty fired up. The big arts and crafts festival starts Friday, and she’s pushing to get the scene cleared and the park open.”
“Got it.”
“And Marcus? I know you and Lee Mayfield have been seeing each other. No preferential treatment, and no pillow talk. Okay?”
Marcus turned three shades past eggplant and looked at his desk. It wasn’t a huge secret that he had been dating the crime reporter for The Tennessean.
“Umm, actually, I broke it off. She’s not very cool. I’ll talk to Franklin.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Okay, maybe I’m not. Forget about her. You’re right, she isn’t cool at all.”
She felt badly that Marcus had been forced to air that tidbit in front of everyone, but such was life. Lee Mayfield was a bitch, and Taylor was happy Marcus had gotten her out of his system. She would sink her claws into any man she thought would give her some scoop.
She focused on Lincoln. He was wearing a beautiful blue suit, white shirt, and purple tie today.
“Linc, I want AFIS set and ready. Number one priority is putting a name on this girl.”
AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, would run the dead girl’s fingerprints through the local fingerprint database. If there wasn’t a match, the prints would go into the huge national AFIS database. “If we get a hit on her prints, I want you to track down where she’s from so we can go check it out. Go through the whole drill. I want you to run everything through the computers. Go up to the Intelligence Unit, log into the ViCAP database. Upload our details, and check for any similar MO’s.” ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database maintained by the FBI, would look for any similar crimes that matched the description of their murder. “Look for killings without rapes, unsolved violent rapes. And we have something unique to run through VICAP. Check for herbs found at murder scenes.”
Eyebrows rose all around.
“Sam noticed a sweet smell coming off the body. She bagged a whole bunch of leaves and stems, though we don’t know what kind of herbs they are yet. We need to keep this real quiet until we know what’s going on. Marcus, keep Franklin out of the loop too. It may end up being nothing.”