“She said it was green, white and red,” said Daryl, “I led the witness. I assumed it was an Italian flag and she went along with it. It was my mistake. We’ve been looking for a pizza when we should have been hunting for tacos.”

“In that case, we made another wrong assumption. Sr. Bello isn’t Italian as in, Signore Bello, it’s Spanish for Señor Bello,” said Heather. “I’m pretty sure the word bello means the same thing in Italian and Spanish—beautiful. Eww, the masked woman calls her murderous boyfriend Mr. Beautiful. I think I’m going to be sick. If Brandt and McAllister were right, our masked Lady Macbeth has to be one of these sixteen women.”

After a string of phone calls the detectives deduced that none of the women on the new list with double G names fitted the new profile. Gabriela García’s name didn’t show up because when she applied for the job, she had used her married name—Gabi Harmen. Frustrated, but still convinced there was something to Zoe’s story, Daryl Williams had another idea. “If Zoe Brandt is right about this murder happening tomorrow on June 4, in about twenty-four to forty-eight hours a man’s corpse is going to turn up,” he said to his partner. “We know the masked woman has a G name, right? What if we expand the search to women with first or a last name beginning with G?”

“Worth a shot,” said Heather as she reached for the stacks of employee rosters and pulled out a red pen. “What about the Mexican-Italian connection?”

“Look for both.”

When they finished, they had identified five new names at different Thayer and Co stores around the city—Gloria Sala, Maria Gonzalez, Gabi Harmen, Ellen Grassi and Vicki Garistino.

“Gloria Sala was born in 1956. That would make her sixty-four. She’s definitely not the masked woman,” said Daryl crossing off her name. “Same with Vicki Garistino, too old.”

“Gonzalez and Grassi fit into the Spanish-Italian bucket,” said Heather, “and both women are under forty. That moves them to the top of the list.”

“What about Harmen? Harmen doesn’t sound Latin.”

“Give me a second,” said Heather as she turned back to her computer and entered an access code into the Thayer digital file. Seconds later she let out a yelp.

“Here we go,” she said, smiling. “According to the personnel records, Gabi Harmen is her married name. Her middle name is García. There’s your double G and García could definitely be of Mexican descent.”

“Let’s pick up Zoe Brandt and Sean McAllister and do a drive-by on these women and see if they can ID her,” said Daryl as he grabbed the phone to call Zoe.

35

By 3:45 pm, Zoe and Sean were in the back seat of Daryl and Heather’s unmarked police vehicle on their way to a Thayer and Co store in Lower Manhattan.