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In the kitchen she fed the cat, programmed a pot of coffee.
At her desk
she booted up her comp then sat to organize her notes, the reports, and start the first ten runs from the Columbia list. While the computer worked, she looked over the report she’d drafted for Whitney.
She refined it, read it again. Hoping he’d be satisfied, for now, with the written, she sent copies to both his home and office units.
She ordered the computer to display the runs, in order, on screen. Sitting back with her coffee she studied data, images.
Young, she thought, all so young. Not one of her initial runs had so much as a whiff of criminal, no juvie bumps, no illegals busts, not even so much as an academic knuckle rap.
She ran the rest, then started over from another angle.
“Computer, run current list for parents, siblings with criminal record and/or connection to MacMasters, Captain Jonah, as investigator or case boss.”
Acknowledged. Working . . .
Payback, if payback it was, came from different roots, she thought. While the run progressed, she rose to set up yet another murder board.
Data complete . . .
“On screen.”
Now there were some bumps and busts, and a few whiffs. Eleven on her list had illegals hits, some more than one. And yet, she noted, none of those had any connection to MacMasters.
Considering, she ordered a run on the investigating officer or team. Maybe the connection with MacMasters was more nebulous.
Once again, she hit zero. And paced.
She’d ask MacMasters directly. Maybe one of the investigators was an old childhood friend, or a third cousin once removed.
Waste of time, that wasn’t it, but they’d cover the ground.
She recircled the murder board, coming from another angle, but saw nothing new. She shook her head as Roarke came in.
“Daughter,” she said. “Payback—if we run with that—was to kill MacMasters’s daughter. Is it a mirror? Is MacMasters somehow responsible—in the killer’s mind—for the rape or death of his own daughter—child. Make it child as MacMasters only had a daughter.”
“If the killer is anywhere near the age he pretended to be, he’d be a very young father. What if he’s the child, and MacMasters is, to his mind, responsible for the rape or murder of his parent? Or, for that matter himself. He might perceive himself as a victim.”
“Yeah, I’m circling those routes, too.” She dragged both hands through her hair. “Basically, I’m getting nowhere. Maybe taking that break, clearing it out of my head for an hour, is a good idea.”
“I copied the music disc.”
Something in his tone had her looking away from the board, meeting his eyes. “What is it?”
“I ran an auto-analysis while I was working on the other e-business. It’s both audio and video, which is very unusual. Performance art is often a part of a disc like this. But there was an addition made this morning at two-thirty, and another at just after three.”
“He added to it. Son of a bitch. Did you play it?”
“I didn’t, no, assuming you’d disapprove of that.”
She held out her hand for the disc, then took it to her comp. “Play content from additions, starting at two-thirty, this date. Display video on screen one.”
Roarke said nothing, but went to her, stood with her.
The music came first, something light and insanely cheerful. The sort of thing, she thought, some stores play in the background. It always made her want to beat someone up.
Then the image slid on screen—soft focus, then sharper, sharper until every bruise, every tear, every smear of blood on Deena MacMasters showed clearly.
