that nature?’
‘What sort of question is that?’ Bowman asked wide-eyed.
‘The sort of question that pertains to this investigation.’
‘Are you asking me if Vicki was a pervert?’ Bowman blasted in an offended tone.
‘No, just if you know if she was into that sort of thing.’
‘No, she wasn’t.’
Hunter decided to cut in. ‘Is she well off? I mean is she well paid?’
Bowman turned his attention to Hunter with a ‘what does that have to do with anything?’ expression.
‘Can she afford expensive stuff?’ Hunter tried to clarify.
‘What kind of stuff? Drugs?’ Bowman’s expression was even more puzzled now.
‘No. Beauty stuff – moisturizers, creams, make-up, you know, women stuff.’
‘Well, she ain’t rich, not by LA standards anyway, but I’d say she earns enough. Now, where beauty stuff is concerned she spends a fortune. I’ve seen her pay over 300 dollars for an anti-wrinkle night cream and the bottle was the size of a pack of gum.’
Hunter cocked both eyebrows in surprise.
‘That’s not all,’ Bowman continued. ‘Four hundred dollars on an eye cream from Switzerland, 150 dollars on a bottle of nail varnish, not counting what she spends on manicures, pedicures, moisturizers, beauty treatments and spas. She can go without food, but not without her beauty creams and serums. Vicki’s very vain. Maybe too vain.’
‘Does Vicki have a locker or a place where she keeps her stuff?’ Hunter asked.
‘Yes. All members of staff do. We encourage everyone to exercise. We all have assigned lockers.’
‘That’s great. Can we see hers?’
‘It’s got an electronic lock and it needs a four-digit combination code. She’s the only one who knows hers.’
‘Yes, but I’m sure there’s an override code,’ Garcia said.
Bowman twisted his mouth wondering if that was the right thing to do. ‘Don’t you need a warrant to look through her things?’
‘We are trying to find her, not put her in prison. A warrant could take a day or so, meanwhile we are losing precious time,’ Hunter shot back.
‘It’s inside the women’s changing room.’
‘We only need five minutes, just tell whoever is inside the changing room to cover up,’ Garcia said.
A short silence followed.
‘We’re losing time here,’ Hunter pressed.
‘OK,’ Bowman finally gave in. ‘Give me a few minutes. I’ll ask one of the receptionists to make an announcement.’
Hunter studied Bowman as he quickly spoke on the phone to the front desk. ‘Are you sure we haven’t met before? You really do look familiar,’ Hunter asked once he had put the phone down.
‘I’ve appeared in several bodybuilding magazines. I’m a pro competitor. You look pretty fit yourself. Do you ever buy any fitness magazines?’ Bowman replied.
Hunter snapped his fingers. ‘Once or twice, yes. That’s probably where I’ve seen you before then.’
Bowman gave Hunter an unenthusiastic smile.
Ten minutes later they were standing in front of locker number 365 inside the ladies’ dressing room. Bowman punched in a six-digit code that bypassed Vicki’s original one. The small light on the locking mechanism went from red to green and the door clicked open. Garcia had fetched some latex gloves from his car and Hunter was the one with the task of going through her things.
There wasn’t much in there. A pair of running shoes, two pairs of socks, training shorts, a woman’s top and a pair of fingerless weightlifting gloves. On the top shelf he found what he needed. A spray can of deodorant and a hairbrush. He picked them both up and placed them inside separate plastic bags.
Bowman watched in silence wondering why they were taking only two items and leaving the rest behind.
Fifty-Two
At eight o’clock that evening Doctor Winston was getting ready to finish for the day and go home when he received the call from Hunter. The deodorant spray can and the hairbrush needed testing for prints and DNA.
Hunter knew the results from the DNA test would take around five days to come through, maybe three if they put in a super-urgent request, but the fingerprint analysis could be done tonight. Doctor Winston said he’d wait for them.
Hunter was glad they weren’t inside the basement room where both victims’ bodies were kept. The Coroner’s building made him feel uneasy, but the basement room gave him the creeps. The forensics lab was located on the first floor and Doctor Winston had asked Ricardo Pinheiro, one of the forensic analysts, to stay behind and help him with the fingerprint job. Hunter handed Ricardo the deodorant can and watched while he applied a fingerprint powder made of titanium dioxide to it. The high-reflexive index of the powder against the smooth metal surface of the can reacted almost immediately, revealing several latent fingerprints.
Ricardo dusted the excess powder from the can and proceeded to transfer the prints to several clear cellophane slides.
‘On a fast naked-eye first look I’d say we probably have three sets of prints here.’ Ricardo was rarely wrong. He took the cellophane slides to the nearest microscope and carried on analyzing them.
‘Yep, three different sets, but there’s a predominant one,’ he said after a minute at the microscope.
‘Let’s check the predominant set of prints first then,’ Doctor Winston said. ‘Can you transfer them to the computer?’
‘Sure,’ Ricardo said, taking the slides and moving on to one of the video microscopes, which were already linked to the lab computers. He took a snapshot of each fingerprint and with each shot the photo-analysis software displayed an enhanced image on the computer screen.
‘Do you want me to run the prints against the police criminal fingerprint database?’ Ricardo enquired.
‘No, check it against this one.’ Doctor Winston handed him a small pen drive with the digital image of the first victim’s fingerprint on it.
Ricardo loaded the image into the computer’s hard drive and with just a few clicks he had both images side by side on the analysis software. He clicked the ‘compare’ button.
Several comparison point red dots appeared over both fingerprint shots. It took the software less than five seconds to display the words
‘Yep, they’re the same person,’ Ricardo confirmed.
‘It’s official, we finally have a match for our victim,’ Doctor Winston said. ‘Who was she again?’
‘Her name was Victoria Baker. Canadian . . . had been living in LA for four years,’ Garcia replied.
Hunter kept his eyes on the fingerprint images on the computer. ‘We’ll run the other two prints against the police database just in case,’ he finally said, obviously bothered about something. It wasn’t until they were back in Garcia’s car that he spoke again.
‘We’re back to square one where links between victims are concerned. This screws up our “sex party” theory. George Slater probably never heard of Victoria Baker.’
Garcia ran both hands over his face and rubbed his eyes in the process. ‘I know.’
‘We have to find out where she was abducted from. Her place might give us some clues, but we won’t get a warrant until tomorrow.’
Garcia agreed. ‘We also have to contact her family in Canada and let them know.’
