kind as to wait for me for a few moments, I have a few things to take care of, then we can run out to the house. Okay?”
“Certainly. Do what you need to do. Could I possibly have a drink while I wait? I’m a bit dehydrated from the plane.”
Shit, the cokes. She’d forgotten them in the hallway. “I’ll have something for you in a jiff. Coffee? Water? Coke?”
“A coke would be great. Diet, if you have it.”
Taylor nodded, then stood. “Detective Taylor Jackson, terminating interview number 2009-1397 with Mr. Hugh Bangor,” she said, then used the remote control to turn off the tape. She stepped out of the room, let McKenzie come out and shut the door before she addressed him.
“Be sure you give him the can, and save it. I want to print him, and get a DNA sample. Chances are he’s going to cooperate with that, but just in case. When you’re done, get moving on the family of the Johnson girl. And McKenzie? Don’t ever offer up details of a crime to a suspect without my okay again, okay?”
“Yes,” he mumbled. “I won’t do it again. I’ll just go get his coke.”
She watched him walk off, shoulders hunched, and sighed. She didn’t think Bangor had anything to do with this, and knew McKenzie had followed her cues when he misspoke. No real harm done.
Too many things to do. Before she went any further, she needed to load a search into the ViCAP system. It was moments like this that she missed Lincoln Ross. He would have already taken the initiative, plugged in the information, added in parameters that Taylor herself wouldn’t think of, and have the results to her before she’d gone to autopsy.
McKenzie was green, and while she was technically his superior, he was just another detective, like her. It wasn’t like she could give him orders and leave him behind to work on things. He was her partner, needed to be coached and coddled, brought along on everything. Elm’s orders. Damn it.
She stepped into the conference room and retrieved her now-cold barbecue sandwich. She tossed the beans- they’d be gross unheated and she didn’t want to waste time getting to the microwave in their tiny, utilitarian office kitchen-but the pulled pork would be fine.
She took it with her and ate it in the hallway, leaning against the glass case that held the departmental bulletins. When she finished, she wiped her lips with the back of her hand and stared at a Missing poster of a thirteen-year-old girl and her baby. The poster had a NOTES section at the bottom stating the girl’s arms were scarred from repetitive cutting. No kidding. Thirteen, with a two-month-old baby? Yeah, there was a good chance that child was completely screwed up, would do anything to get some positive attention. At least her family had filed an MP report; so many families didn’t. Which led her back to Allegra Johnson. Who was missing her?
She jotted down the thought in her notebook’s to-do list: Look through the missing-persons reports for the past two months.
The computer room was housed three doors down from interrogation room one. She unlocked the door, turned on the light, and took the computer out of sleep mode. They all had their personal computers on the desk, but fingerprint searches in iAFIS and requests to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program had to run through a separate system that was tied to the state and federal databases. Antiquated systems out here in the field, but at least Lincoln had set these computers to go as quickly as was humanly allowed.
Within twenty minutes, she hit Send. The questionnaire was forty pages long, but she didn’t have a lot to go on, would update the file as more information came in. She filled out the forms as completely as she could, using her notes when necessary. She included the photos she’d forwarded to her work address. Having the crime-scene pictures would help with the analysis.
She asked for three separate searches. One, for art thefts in the metro Nashville area. Two, for any murders that might have an artistic component to them, with music or paintings or sculpture. And third, for murders in which the victims were starved to death. They’d process while she and McKenzie took Bangor back to his house.
That was the trick with ViCAP. You needed to give it parameters to search within, but keep them focused enough that it wouldn’t be a wild-goose chase. She wished it would spit back answers, but instead it looked at trends, which she’d need to interpret.
But just in case something fantastically close to their murder popped out…She left a note for Rowena Wright, the department administrator, that she was expecting the results back on a ViCAP search. Rowena was a jovial black woman who’d been a cop before Taylor was born, blazing a trail that Taylor was honored to follow. Rowena had started in admin, then became a patrol officer, a training officer, passed the sergeant’s exam and nearly made detective before a mild heart attack forced her to step out of the field. There weren’t a lot of people that Taylor trusted around headquarters these days, but Rowena was one of them.
When she made it back to the interrogation room, McKenzie was passing Hugh Bangor a hand wipe. He turned to greet Taylor with a big smile.
“Mr. Bangor was happy to give us his fingerprints and a DNA swab for comparison.”
“That’s good. Excuse us for a moment?”
Bangor smiled. He knew the score. She stepped out in the hall with McKenzie. “What did you find on Allegra Johnson?”
“Nothing much. There’s an address listed on one of her arrests, down in one of the projects. I cross-checked it, and it’s also listed as the address for three other people with arrest records. Either she was in with a bad crowd, or they’re using the address as a fake.”
“Okay. We’ll do this thing with Bangor, then head down there. Father Victor is available to go, just in case?”
“Yes. He said to call him whenever you were ready, he’d meet us there. He seems like a nice guy.”
“He is. You haven’t met him yet?”
“No. Never had cause.”
“You’ve never done a notification?” she asked, incredulous.
“No. Everyone always sends me off to do something while they handle the family. So if she has any, this will be my first.”
“How old are you, exactly, McKenzie?”
“I’ll be twenty-seven here in another month.”
Twenty-six, and already a detective. She’d thought he was older. They’d moved him along quickly. She wondered why.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
They retrieved Bangor from the interrogation room.
As they walked to the car, Bangor tried to make conversation. “Detective McKenzie here was just telling me he used to have a girlfriend who was quite a fine artist.”
“Um, yes, sir. I did.” He looked at Taylor apologetically, as if he’d been caught doing something very bad.
“What kind of artist was she, McKenzie?” Taylor asked, openly forgiving him so he’d relax. No harm done letting the man see a little compassion from her this morning.
“Oils, mostly, and some pastels. She was very good.”
They walked out into the parking lot, and Taylor realized she hadn’t signed out. Tough beans, Elm.
“ Was very good?” Bangor asked, gently. Taylor had missed something. McKenzie looked like he might cry.
“Um, she’s dead. She killed herself. Today’s actually the anniversary.”
Oh. That was the same girl he was talking about this morning at the autopsy, Taylor figured. Poor kid. Never good to lose someone you loved.
Bangor obviously felt the same. He clapped McKenzie on the shoulder in sympathy.
“I lost my partner five years ago.” Bangor hesitated for a moment, then said, “AIDS.”
McKenzie just nodded, didn’t say anything. Taylor looked at Bangor again. She hadn’t picked up that he was gay. Polished, certainly, but he had no affectation, no femininity about him. That made life a little less complicated. This crime screamed hetero, man on woman violence. Bangor was most likely not their suspect. Taylor had already gotten that sense, but the biographical details helped solidify her conclusions.
The drive out West End to Love Hill was quick, with Bangor regaling them with stories of famous actors who were in fact gay despite all appearances.
