“That’s the lie.” Fresh voice from the front. “If the tie is soaked in blood, how can you see the glitter?”

“Glitter is sparkly. Blood isn’t. Now, I’m not an expert in trace evidence. The forensics value of glitter is beyond me. What I do know is there’s no obvious source of silver glitter in the rest of the motel room. Meaning . . .”

“Locard’s principle.” Finder again.

“Exactly. The glitter must have come from our perpetrator. Who then exited out of a very small rear window, with the DG’s personal possessions in tow. A theory that gains even more credence when we find traces of blood and glitter on the windowsill. Come on, people, tell me what I need to know.”

“The hooker,” half of the room volunteered.

D.D. nodded her approval. “Told you. This is a story involving a seedy motel, a hooker, and a dismembered leg. And now, it’s time to identify our first person of interest, the hooker.”

• • •

“First thing we do is call the district detectives. In most urban police departments, you have a vice unit, which covers such crimes as prostitution. In Boston, however, ‘morality’ offenses are handled by the various district offices. Basically, the local detectives. Given that working girls, much like cops, stick to certain beats, all we have to do is provide the address of the motel and we receive a couple of names in a matter of minutes. Now we’re off and running again. Phil and I leave Neil with the body, and hit the streets.

“We locate the first potential girl, Sasha, almost immediately, working two blocks from the motel, and pissed that the police presence is scaring off her business. She’s too composed to be who we’re looking for. Instead, in the interest of getting rid of the patrol cars sooner versus later, she agrees to tell us where several of the girls hole up. There’s an apartment building not far away. Falling apart, rotten plumbing, and even shittier management, we’re told, but that’s where most of the girls live.

“Phil and I head over. We start going door-to-door, knocking, banging, and getting nowhere. Till the third floor. When we come upon a door with blood on the knob.

“We identify ourselves. We order the occupant to open up.

“Then, when nothing happens, Phil races downstairs to wake the manager. Now technically speaking, a landlord doesn’t have the authority to grant police access to an apartment without the tenant’s permission—that would violate the tenant’s expectation of privacy, otherwise known as the Fourth Amendment. But the blood on the doorknob combined with the fact no one is answering our calls works in our favor, providing something called exigent circumstances. We can argue that the blood trail plus lack of response gave us reason to believe the safety of the person inside was at imminent risk, so of course we had to access the apartment. It wasn’t for our sake; it was for the occupant’s. Honest! Trust me when I say the building manager isn’t going to argue with us. And as long as we can make a reasonable argument before a judge . . .