Medina unrolled the top of the bag, pulled out a warm bagel, and sniffed it. “Cream cheese.” He smiled. “My favorite.” He took a large bite and kept on talking while chewing. “You do know my birthday isn’t until next month, right?”

Pryce slumped into the chair at his own workstation. He placed a plain bagel onto a napkin and cut it into four slices with a plastic knife. “No time for breakfast at home this morning.” He held up his own coffee. Black, no sugar. “I’ll be ninety percent caffeine by the end of the day.”

“Rough night?”

Pryce nodded. “She was only a few years older than Dionne.”

He didn’t need to explain to Medina who she was. He popped a piece of bagel into his mouth and realized he wasn’t even hungry. “Let’s go over what we’ve got so far.”

Medina scooted his chair around next to Pryce, who had a three-ring binder open in front of him. The murder book had replaced the missing person report filed by Amy Ong’s roommate. Pryce flipped through the pages until he came to one of the witness statements.

“Okay, so we know from our chat with Tommy Getz, the motel’s manager, Amy Ong checked into a room at the Dreamz sometime Saturday night. Getz doesn’t remember the exact time, but he remembers the girl because she was, in his words, ‘young and hot,’ and the man she was with was ‘old and fat.’ According to Getz, the man paid for the room in cash. The security camera behind the counter is busted, so we have no visuals on either of them. Same goes for the parking lot camera.”

Medina snorted. “Now there’s a surprise. The shit that goes on in that place, I don’t think their security cameras have ever not been busted.”

“The body was found on Wednesday morning by the maid, a woman called Jackie Salvas,” Pryce said. “She had been sick since Sunday, so she hadn’t reported for work in the early part of the week. No one else checked out the room, so Amy Ong was left there, undiscovered, for more than three days.”

“I spoke to Salvas myself,” Medina said. “She was pretty upset. Place like that, she’d come across a couple of stiffs in her time, but those were crack addicts who had overdosed. First time seeing a young girl all cut up like that.”

Pryce frowned. “Three days, though. They don’t have a replacement maid if someone gets sick or takes a vacation?”

Medina shrugged. “I’m surprised they have a maid at all.”

“Fair point. Sounds like our guy wasn’t too clever at cleaning up either. Forensics have lifted some good prints from the whiskey bottle and both of the plastic cups. Hopefully we’ll get a hit from the system. Anything from the autopsy yet?”