the photographer could take pictures. We leaned against the back wall of the defunct restaurant. It was late morning and the dry heat lay hard and flat over everything.
'Couple Mex night workers, got off work at six this morning, say they were just cutting through the lot on their way home. Except home isn't in that direction. I figure they scooped a six-pack from the hotel kitchen and came out in the lot to drink it.'
'Going to notify robbery?'
Romero smiled.
'Probably not,' he said.
'Anyway they found her and one of them called us and here we are. You see the way she was when we found her. No clothes. No purse. Mexican could have taken it, but I don't think so. If they had, they wouldn't have called us.'
I nodded.
'M.E. will want to look at her more closely but it looks like the cause of death was manual strangulation.'
'She been raped?'
'Almost certainly.'
'And somebody beat her up.'
'Yeah. Happens a lot with rapes.'
'I know,' I said.
'Where'd you find my card.'
'On the ground near the body. I figure it was in her clothes, maybe tucked in her bra or someplace, and it fell out when the guy made her disrobe.'
'How'd you know I was at The Mirage?'
'There were two phone numbers written on the back. We called them both. One was the MGM Grand. They never heard of you.
The other was The Mirage. Bingo!'
'What happened to her clothes?'
Romero shrugged.
'Maybe it happened someplace else, maybe he brought her here.'
'Why would he do that?'
Romero shrugged again.
'If she disrobed someplace else, what did my card fall out of?'
Romero shrugged again.
'You trying to make this harder than it is?' he said.
'What happened to the purse?' I said.
Romero shrugged.
'She was traveling,' he said.
'She probably had cash.'
'Why take the purse, which is incriminating? Why not take just the cash, which isn't?'
'Guy was in a hurry,' Romero said.
'Took the purse and beat it.
Emptied it out later. We'll probably find it empty someplace. Or he emptied it where he undressed her. Left it there. Give me a little time, pal. I just got on the case.'
'Didn't take her rings,' I said.
'Or the necklace.'
'Didn't want to get caught trying to turn them over,' Romero said.
'Maybe he took the purse because he didn't want us to know who she was.'
Romero shrugged again.
'Maybe he took the clothes for the same reason. You hadn't found my card you wouldn't have, excuse the expression, a clue.'
'Maybe,' Romero said.
'We find out where she's registered, might help. I figure the thing happened sometime between dark last night, say nine o'clock, and six A.M. this morning. You account for yourself during that time?'
'I was with my sweetheart,' I said.
'Can we talk to her?'
'She went back to Boston this morning. She won't get there until six tonight.'
