As he stared into the clouds, like a click in his head, something occurred to him.
He got up and went into the kitchen and opened the Farina file. In it were blowup reproductions of different latent fingerprints that had been found in her apartment and yet to be identified. Others included Katie Beals, the landlady, a plumber, and other individuals who had been investigated and cleared. But there were two that had still not been matched.
He retrieved his fingerprint kit from the hall closet and inked a pad and laid his own prints on a blank sheet of paper. He cleaned his fingers and took a deep breath, and with the magnifying glass he inspected the image of his forefinger and double-checked it with the blowup of the latent found on the lid of Terry Farina’s mailbox.
An identical match.
Steve did not sleep for the next two hours then—unable to tolerate wakefulness—he took three tabs of Ativan and woke around eight to the sound of his alarm.
His eyes were burning and his head felt as if it were going to explode. His stomach was sour with aspirin. He showered and dressed and headed into headquarters.
As he turned onto Tremont Avenue, the communications tower of headquarters breaking the skyline in the distance, his phone rang.
His first thought was Dana. He had called her last evening to see how the operation went, but he only got her answering machine. So he had left a message for her to contact him when she felt up to it. But it was not Dana.
“Hey, where are you?” Dacey asked.
“On my way in.” And he wanted to add,
“Well, we got bad news.”
“What?”
“Neil’s prints weren’t on record, so we took them off his desk and ran them through the checks. We’ve got matches to latents found in Farina’s apartment.”
“What?”
“We got four locations—the big picture frame over her bed, a beer mug in the freezer, the photo of her near her bed, also a lamp in the living room.”
His head was spinning. “They could be old,” he said. “He claimed he’d dated her for months. Besides, he drank only beer and there wasn’t any in her place.”
“I hear you, but that’s not all,” Dacey said. “We got a big red flag.”
“What big red flag?”
“Six days before Farina was killed, his Visa account showed the purchase of fifty-one dollars’ worth of women’s underwear from the Copley Place outlet of Wolford’s.”
Steve was nearly struck dumb. All he could say was, “Wolford’s?”
“Yeah, they got their own store there now.”
“What was the purchase?”
“That’s the bitch, it doesn’t itemize. But they were having a special on lace-top stockings.”
“Did you go up there?”
“No, I just called them and asked what was on sale.”
“I’ll take it.”
When he hung up, Steve’s hands were shaking. A C-clamp had been released from his chest and his blood was charging.
Steve turned the car around and called Vaughn, who was heading up one of the two teams keeping Neil and his daughter under surveillance. “Where is he?”
“Hasn’t left his place since last night.”
“What about the kid?”
“Cambridge Galleria. She’s got a summer job at Best Buy.”
“Okay, stay with them.”
Steve parked in the Copley Place mall. It was a little before noon, and the luncheon crowd filled the concourse. Located on the second level, Wolford’s was a small store located in a corner near the escalator. Three women milled about. No other males. Toward the rear sat a display of fall hosiery on sale. What caught his eye was the mannequin, dressed only in a lacy bra, lacy panties, and black lace-top stockings that stayed up without a garter belt. On the wall was a photo of a long thin model in a high plaid skirt and white stockings, her legs innocently knocked at the knees like Little Bo Peep. The sign said SEXY HI-THIGHS FOR FALL.
The rack had packages in all colors and styles. On sale—two pairs for the price of one: forty-eight dollars. That plus tax was fifty-one and change.
62
“It could be his daughter,” Dacey said.
Steve felt the C-clamp tighten on his chest again. “What do you mean?”
“He might have given her his card and she bought them for herself.”
That very thought had occurred to him, but he said, “Except I’ve only seen him give her cash in the past.”
“Maybe he was low.”
“I doubt he’d let her wear them.”
“Like that’s going to stop a sixteen-year-old.” Dacey took a sip of her beer. “All I know is that this sucks.”
“I’ll say.”
They were sitting at a rear booth in Punjab on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington center. The place was ten miles from Boston and Neil hated Indian food, which meant that there was no chance of his showing up. Just in case, Vaughn was on him.
Steve and Dacey were splitting an order of samosas, chicken tandoori, a vegetable biryani, and some naan. Dacey had a Taj Mahal and Steve had iced green tea.
Dacey clicked his glass. “To Mr. Virtuous.”
“Yeah, and no more days of cakes and ale.” He sipped his tea. “Spicy Indian food and iced green tea. I feel like some kind of exotic Amish.”
Dacey snickered and guzzled her beer. “How long you been off the booze?”
Steve checked his watch. “One hundred and twenty-one hours, eleven minutes. But who counts?”
“Must be a bitch.”
“Especially watching you drink your Taj Mahal.”
“It only makes you stronger.”
Dacey ate some food and washed it down with beer. Steve sipped his tea.
“He came in this morning to get some things from his desk and I go, ‘Hey, Neil, how you doing?’ And he looks at me with a crazed look and goes, ‘How the fuck you think I’m doing?’ Then he stomps out. I think maybe Reardon’s right, like he’s ready to pop.”
“Hogan said the same thing. Bumped into him this morning and gave him an icy stare with barely a word.”
