“No one was bothering her, and her husband loved the hell out of her. They’ve been married for almost ten years, and no one there believed there were any issues. She had a normal career in retail and was the boss’s favorite employee. That’s it. No one had a bad word to say about her.”
Gene pulled out his notebook and flipped it open.
“Who did you interview?” he asked.
Dannie had a very similar notebook and read him the names.
As he did, Ethan made note of the things the man was saying so he could adjust his profile.
“So, no customer issues or lurkers?” he asked.
He shook his head.
“Nope.”
This was befuddling.
The first victim wasn’t being harassed, that they knew of, and the last one wasn’t either. This person was certainly careful about his or her watching.
That was for sure.
Gene was curious.
“Here’s my million-dollar question. In your downtime last night, did you research the victims?” he asked.
He nodded.
“I did because I’m a good cop. What do you think I was doing all last night? It wasn’t sleeping with my girl, that’s for damn sure.”
He laughed.
“That’s a you problem, Boo. My bed buddy is my partner, so that’s part of the compensation perks. Anyway, what did you find?”
Dannie couldn’t imagine sleeping with his partner. They were opposites, and like oil and vinegar. They were better off just friends.
He clued them in.
“ABSOLUTELYnothing to connect them. I don’t know what the three women have in common, other than everyone was fromDamascus. They all went to the same high school, but at various times.”
Yeah, so they heard. Unfortunately, for them, the lack of motive was going to be an issue.
Man, they really needed some forensics on this one. What wouldn’t Gene give for a competent ME who didn’t play games? Well, if Greyson had luck, they’d be flush with competence in the next couple of hours. It didn’t take long for a forensic team to mobilize.
He hoped.
“I don’t like that we have nothing,” Ethan said. “I was running all the teachers, and nada came up. I didn’t think we’d find anything simply because schools do background searches and fingerprints.”
Yeah, Dannie thought that too.
“There has to be something.”
Oh, there always was. They had to find that thread to connect the dots.
And fast.
They were already past twenty-four hours for the homicides. At forty-eight hours, they had less of a chance of catching this person.
Ethan was honest.
