“Not yet. I scanned her prints into our regional fingerprint database, but none of the matches the computer generated were true.”

“You mean the computer isn’t going to spit her ID out as fast as on an episode of Law & Order?”

“I wish we could solve all our cases in forty-three minutes. Heck, I wish we could solve all our cases in forty-three days.” Darcy rolled her eyes. “When the regional AFIS was a bust, I moved on to the state of New York.” She stood and rounded her desk. “Let me see if the query came back with any hits.”

“You’ve been busy this morning.”

“I came in early. Frank called me last night. You know we’ll do whatever we can to determine if this woman is Chet’s daughter. Besides, whoever killed that woman needs to be locked up before he hurts someone else.”

Darcy would have taken the fingerprints herself, so she’d seen the body. With determined strides, she crossed the gray tiled floor to a row of computers on a long table pushed against the wall. Sliding into the seat, she moved the mouse. The blank screen came alive. She moved the blinking cursor to a row in a table. “We have eleven possible hits so far, and the query is still running.” She glanced up at him. “The visual comparisons will take some time. Depending on how many results that computer cranks out, I might be here all day. Want me to call you when I’m done?”

Unlike television crime dramas, where a mug shot of the suspect or a photo of the victim popped onto the screen in seconds, in real life, the ridge lines of each possible match had to be manually compared by a certified latent fingerprint examiner. The matching software erred on the side of caution and generated as many matches as possible, leaving the examiners to sift through the possibilities.

“I’d appreciate it,” he said.

“If none of these match up, I’ll try the neighboring states and the FBI.”

“Thanks, Darcy.”

“How’s Chet holding up?”

“As good as can be expected.” Brody started toward the door.

“I can’t imagine how he deals with it.”

“Me either.” Because he doesn’t.

Brody exited the building. A gray and cloudy sky hovered over the parking lot, and the wind that whipped around his neck contained the first real bite of damp New York winter. Autumn had been unusually warm, a brief but welcome stay of pleasant temperatures, but now it seemed like Mother Nature was making up for lost time.

His cell rang. Brody answered with the hands-free device on his steering wheel.

“Hi, Brody, Stella here. Have you seen Chet?”

“No, isn’t he at the station?”