Then the second man got out, wearing a hat pulled low over his face. With the cup of coffee in his hands, he walked to his vehicle, which was just out of the shot.
She swore and said, “Damn. I need to know what vehicle he drove.”
“We can pick it up on the city cameras,” Rodney said, going over to his computer. “What time frame are you looking at?”
“It’s one-fifteen a.m.,” she said, reading the time off the security footage. And, from that point on, she saw no action in that vehicle. The man who had been sitting in the passenger seat was the last person to see Nico alive. She watched clear through the recording, until the new shift of staff arrived, and somebody noticed he was in there. Then she shut it down and went back to the beginning and watched it again. “Blue pickup,” Rodney announced. “Same license plate as in your photo.”
She turned in her seat. “The same one?”
“Yep,” he said.
She gave him a fat smile. Same one as Simon gave her too. “Now check,” she said, “to see if there was a second phone call, saying that his truck was stolen?”
He looked over at her in surprise.
“It was stolen the other night,” she said, “but I checked with the cops, and it was returned to him the next day.”
He nodded in understanding. “So now the question is whether it was stolen again—which is highly unlikely—or whether he was driving that vehicle himself.”
“From what I see on this video camera,” she said, “it’s him, the guy crawling out Nico’s window. Same stature, same framework, but I can’t get a picture of his face.”
“Well, that won’t have been accidental,” he said. “He knew the cameras were there.”
Owen spoke up from the other side of the room. “I’ve also run Nico’s bank account,” he said, “and five hundred was removed very early that morning—before his death at about one-fifteen a.m.—from a branch downtown.”
“Get those ATM camera feeds.”
“Already ordered,” Owen said.
“So, looks like our guy took Nico’s cash and his cards as well,” she said, with a nod. “No honor among thieves.”
“Considering they were selling that little girl and bickering over the price, no honor at all,” Rodney said.
“I need to talk to that little runt,” she muttered. She stood and pulled her wallet from inside her drawer and shoved it deep into her jacket pocket and zipped it up. With her keys in her hands, she looked at the two of them. “Anybody coming?”
Rodney gave her a big smile and said, “Oh, thank you for the invitation.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t know if our killer’s armed and dangerous,” she said, “or just dangerous to little kids.”
“Are we gonna kick some butt?” he asked, with interest.
Her smile widened and deepened. “I hope so,” she said fervently. “I really hope so.” Just as she was about to head out, Colby called out to her.
“Kate, come back here, please.”
She held up a finger to Rodney, saying, “Just a minute.” As she walked into Colby’s office, he motioned at the door.
“Close that, will you?”
She closed it and said, “Sure. What’s up?”
“I understand we have a new victim, and it’s connected to the existing cases. I want you to double-check Simon’s alibi for last night to make sure he’s not involved.”
She knew this was it. Her D-day had come. She took slow deep breaths and said, “Sergeant, I can tell you right now that his alibi is good.”
Colby looked at her, and a thunderous cloud crossed his face. “Please tell me that you didn’t—”
Shoving her hands in her pockets, she rocked back on her heels and then gave a nod. “Actually I did.”