Page 89 of The Dollmaker

Sharp checked his own watch. “At this time of day?”

“They work nonstop, like you.” He placed his coffee cup in the sink and, offering a quick salute to Sharp, snatched up his keys and left.

As Sharp sipped coffee, he mentally ran through the surveillance tapes he’d reviewed, until his phone rang. It was Martin. “Working on Sunday?”

Martin’s chair squeaked through the phone. “A good excuse to skip brunch with my mother-in-law.”

“You two don’t get along?”

Without any malice in his tone, he said, “We’re polite, but she could live the rest of her life without seeing me again, and I could do the same.”

“Tessa’s mother died before I met her. She has a cousin who never liked me. The cousin knows me better than I know myself.”

“How so?”

“The cousin is a workaholic. She recognized the traits in me that I didn’t see.” He refilled his cup.

“She wasn’t charmed by your witty dialogue?”

Sharp grunted. “I’m incapable of small talk.”

“No kidding, really?”

Sharp ignored the sarcasm. “The blood in the Richmond city alley belongs to Terrance Dillon.”

“No doubts?”

“None. The kid was AB negative and the blood is a DNA match to the evidence collected by the medical examiner at autopsy. Terrance Dillon was definitely killed in the alley.”

“Any other evidence from either of the two crime scenes that are attached to this case?”

“As you might remember, there’s a partial fingerprint on Terrance Dillon’s belt buckle, which doesn’t belong to the victim. We’re running it through AFIS. Must have been transferred when the killer lifted the body. Judging by the blood trail, the killer pulled the body toward Cary Street. The trail ended abruptly two feet inside the alley.”

He thought about the white van circling Diane’s block. “He put him in a vehicle.”

“Which has to have traces of blood in it. The kid lost a tremendous amount of blood, and even if he died in the alley, he was still spilling blood.”

He remembered the faint bloodstain on Diane’s doll dress. “What about the blood on our doll victim? Has that been tested?”

“It’s in the works now.”

“Compare it to Terrance Dillon’s blood.”

Martin hesitated. “Sure.”

“What about the kid’s cell phone? Did you find any numbers out of the ordinary?”

“All the numbers on the kid’s phone can be confirmed. The father’s phone is a different story. When he was arrested, he had three phones in his possession. One had not been used. The other two were used to make calls to another burner phone. I checked with the cell towers to see if I could get a location, but the phone is currently inactive. If the killer reactivates the phone, then there might be a chance to find him.”

“If he’s smart, he’ll smash it and toss it in the river.”

“You give him too much credit.”

He wished that were true. This killer could possibly have been killing for a dozen years. “Can you send me a printout of the numbers?”

“Sure, why?”

“A man at Shield Security might be able to track the cells and see if one reactivates.”

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