Hard Sell - Chapter 9; T
Title: Hard Sell, Chapter 9
Author: Zelda Ophelia (zeldaophelia)
Fandom/Character: CSI:NY; girl!Flack (Dawn Flack), Stella, Mac
General info: Genderbender; Not mine; T
Notes: A huge thank you to eternal_sadist, significantowl, avidbeader, and the wonderful ladies at postonthursday who helped make this fic happen.
Summary: Pre-series. Dawn Flack (not a junior, though everyone wants to add that on) is finally getting her first solo case, without her training partner to tag along. But when one death becomes three with little evidence, she's needs all the help Mac and Stella can give her to find this guy.
The morgue seemed crowded when she arrived, with Stella, Mac, Hawkes, and Sid waiting for her. They were standing around Kelli Rowe's body, Hawkes waving her over as soon as she joined them.
"We may have caught a break," he said.
She stared at him, refusing to let her hopes get too high. "Please tell me you aren't kidding."
"Nope, not kidding at all." He pulled the sheet back, revealing their victim's face. "As with the other victims, Kelli Rowe was stabbed multiple times. I've taken a molding of the entry wounds for Mac."
"We'll be able to tell if the knife found by the body was the murder weapon."
"It likely is," Stella said. "But considering this is the third victim and the case is beginning to get a lot of press, we want to double-check everything."
Dawn nodded, frowning at the body impatiently. "This is good to know, but I'm not seeing a break here."
"I haven't gotten there yet," Hawkes chided gently.
"Then don't let me hold you up," she retorted sharply. She rubbed her forehead, trying to relieve some of the tension there as she apologized. "Sorry. It's just I've got Gerrard breathing down my neck over this, and I'm pretty sure Vicaro's counting the ways he can try to steal the case. I need to be able to show them some progress."
"Hey, it's okay. We're all wound a little tight." Hawkes offered a friendly smile before he continued. "As I was about to say, Kelli Rowe was sexually active prior to her death."
Sid was damn near bouncing with excitement, Dawn noted, and he cut in before Hawkes could continue. "We, once again, found traces of spermicide."
"But," Hawkes continued, lifting a petri dish from a nearby cart to hand to the CSIs, "we found something else."
"A piece of plastic?" Stella asked, looking at it before passing it over to Mac.
"We believe it was part of the condom," Sid explained.
"Part of the condom-" Dawn paused, staring at the dish before turning back to the MEs. "The condom broke?"
"We think so," Hawkes said. "We were also able to recover seminal fluid, including spermatozoa."
"So we have DNA?"
"It's on its way to Dr. Parsons as we speak," Sid answered. "I took the liberty of putting a rush on it. I figured it'd be a priority."
Stella grinned, as much in relief as amusement. "I think that's all right. Thank you."
"Hopefully he's in the system so you have something to compare it to," Hawkes said as he followed them to the door.
"I don't know," Dawn mused, once they were outside the morgue. "He still killed her. And cleaned up. Despite knowing that the condom broke. I don't think he's in the system."
"No?"
"If he was, he had to have known when the condom broke that the jig was up, that we'd be onto him and be able to identify him as a result," Dawn said, shaking her head slightly. "Think about it. They had sex before he killed her, so he knew the condom broke before he stabbed her. What would you have done in that situation? Probably gotten the hell out of there and found someone else. Maybe played it cool long enough to get out of there without raising any suspicion. But a smart perp would have left her alive, where she wouldn't have become a part of our case and we never would have made the connection. She would have just been some woman whose one night stand left abruptly. She probably wouldn't have even found that odd and most likely wouldn't have reported it."
"Instead, he still killed her, but cleaned up as he did before," Mac said, following her train of thought. "He knows that he isn't in the system, so unless we are able to get a sample from him, we can't use the DNA to identify her killer at this time. We just have the DNA of an unknown male."
"But he still cleaned up, because that's part of the routine. Because he's being careful," Stella continued. "He might possibly be worried that some of the other potential evidence is more likely to finger him--and about taking anything from the crime scene out with him. By showering, he's getting her blood, her DNA, off of him so that it can't be used to incriminate him."
"Fingerprints maybe?" Dawn asked, her brow furrowed. "He's introducing himself as a business man, and he's probably sticking to what he knows. It's safer that way: it's not as much of a lie, and he's less likely to get caught. A lot of businesses require their employees to get fingerprinted these days."
"While those prints usually don't end up in the databases we'd normally check, he might not know that," Mac pointed out as the elevator doors closed behind him and they headed up toward the lab. "If he was fingerprinted for his job and knows that those prints are out there and can identify him, he's going to be far more concerned about that than any DNA that isn't in the system yet."
"Plus," Stella said with a sigh, "all the DNA proves is that he slept with her. Without any of the other evidence that he's been systematically destroying, we're going to have a much more difficult time proving that he actually killed her."
"Any defense lawyer worth his salt is going to argue that the murder happened after he left," Dawn said, continuing Stella's line of thought.
"Then we need the evidence to place him at the scene at the time of death along with his identity." The creaky elevator came to a shuddering stop as he spoke, opening to the lab's floor. Mac turned to her, changing the subject as they stepped off. "Vicaro's giving you problems?"
"Nah," she said, shaking her head and waving it off.
"But you said-"
"Vicaro started giving me problems my third week on the job. He stopped in my third year, after he made an inappropriate and unfortunately timed remark when I was working an undercover case - still wearing my wire. The only reason he still has a job is because I'm not interested in being the reason a semi-decent cop got fired, regardless of what my partner wanted to do at the time. And Vicaro knows it." She sighed and looked at the tiled wall, suddenly feeling very tired. "He also might have reason to believe that if he starts giving me, or any other women on the force, problems again, that recording is going to find its way to Gerrard's desk. He doesn't particularly like that idea, so while he's cleaned up his act and can't actively try to sabotage my career, he sure can cheer from the sidelines as I screw things up on my own."
"You aren't screwing this up, Dawn," Stella said, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. "You're doing pretty good, all things considered. Heck, probably better than a few others I could name."
"Thanks," she said quietly, not particularly convinced. She glanced over at Mac, who was giving her an unreadable look.
"You're blackmailing Vicaro?" he asked.
Dawn flinched and tried to backtrack. "I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail. I've never actually said to him 'straighten up or you're toast'. More like Kaspar took him aside and pointed out that my wire had been on, suggesting maybe he ought to be on his best behavior. It's up to him whether he read anything more into it."
"You need to be careful," Mac said quietly. "The force frowns on blackmail just as much as it does sexual harassment. He could turn this around on you."
"I know," she shrugged, relieved that he didn't seem interested in pursuing it. Mac was a good cop, and he took the NYPD's code of conduct seriously. "Just between you and me and the wall, I don't plan for it to go anywhere, never have. I don't even have a copy of the tape. Hard to get me on blackmail if I don't have the alleged blackmail material. Truthfully, if it hadn't been for Kaspar hearing what happened over the line, I would have just ignored the situation all together."
"You don't?" Stella looked shocked. "Dawn, if he was threatening you-"
"He was being an ass, saying some things that are very much contrary to the force's anti-sexual harassment policy, and made an attempt at groping me. I've dealt with worse and will probably deal with worse in the future. I reminded him I was a cop who had scored higher in hand-to-hand than he had, and he might want to think again before he put his hand there. Then, because I was on duty at the time, I went back to work and finished the case. Like everything else we gathered on that case, all of the tapes were duly processed and entered into evidence. The way they should be."
"It's in evidence lock-up."
"Yup."
"Does he know it's in lock-up? And what case it was?"
"Pretty sure he does. Kaspar probably mentioned the case to him when they had their little talk." Dawn rolled her eyes. She could take care of herself, thank you very much. She'd given Kaspar a piece of her mind after hearing about that, pointing out that that particular encounter with Vicaro had been relatively tame compared to some of the other things she'd had to put up with.
"Dawn, if he knows where it is, he could try to remove it."
"Yeah, but which would be worse for his career: a tape recording of him sexually harassing a colleague, or evidence that he destroyed evidence?"
"Either one would get him fired."
"Something I think he's figured out. He mostly keeps his mouth shut around me, makes the occasional smart remark about Moran needing a new partner, but otherwise gives me a wide berth."
"Just be careful," Stella warned. "You don't want to get in over your head."
"Stell, it's Vicaro." Dawn rolled her eyes. "I doubt it'd be possible to get it over my head when it comes to him."
::
According to Maxine Rowe, Kelli's sister, the group of friends had finished their night at Porter's in Midtown. She found a place in the parking garage of a hotel next door, weaving her way through a throng of suits on the sidewalk to reach the door. But it was pleasantly quiet inside, the evening rush well in the future. A young woman, maybe Dawn's age or a few years younger, looked up from where she was organizing bottles behind the bar.
"Be with you in a sec," she called out, making a note on a pad before walking over. "What can I get you?"
"Nothing to drink," Dawn said, holding up her shield and introducing herself. "But I do have a few questions about last night."
"Sure." The bartender, who said her name was Nicole, gave the picture of Kelli Rowe a long look. "Yeah, I remember her. Your typical broken-hearted type out trying to drink to forget. According to one of her girlfriends, she caught her boyfriend sleeping around on her."
"Did you see who she left with?"
"No, we were too busy. I know there was a guy chatting her up for most of the night. That's the biggest reason I remember her, because of him. He crashed and burned pretty spectacularly just before she showed up."
"Crashed and burned?"
"Yeah, he was hitting on another woman. He had a definite type, you know. Like her - and you." The other woman gave Dawn a speculative look as she spoke. "Tall brunettes. Anyway, he was telling her about how he was here in town for business with some sob story about how his luggage got lost and corporate messed up his hotel reservations, so he was waiting for a secretary to call him back with where he was supposed to stay. But he was still all over her and wanting to go home with her. She put the kibosh on that pretty quick and left. That one showed up with her friends, and he zeroed in on her."
"Did you get his name?"
"No, I couldn't hear what he said to her, and he paid in cash. Why?"
Dawn picked up the picture of Kelli. "She's dead."
"What?" Nicole's eyes widened as the connection dawned on her, glancing at the TV in the corner by the bar. "You mean he's that serial killer that's in the news? You think he killed her?"
"We just want to speak with the people who were with her before her death, try to find out what her movements were before she died. Can you give me a description of him?"
"Your height, brown hair, wore a suit and had a briefcase. Um, I couldn't tell his eye color; it was too dark in here."
"Do you think you could sit down with a sketch artist?"
"I could try." She shrugged at Dawn. "I'm not certain if I remember him all that clearly, but I'd be happy to try to help."
"Good." Dawn made arrangements for her to stop by the precinct for the sketch when she got off her shift. That completed, she thanked her, standing to leave.
"Hey, detective." Dawn turned back to the bartender, who gave her a shy smile. "Come back by when you catch this guy. Drink's on me."
"Thanks," she said, her cheeks heating up as she walked out the door.
The street had emptied significantly while she was inside, almost completely clear except for a man rushing past speaking into his cell phone. "It's going to have to wait, I'm late for my next round table session-" He glared at Dawn when she didn't jump out of his way quickly enough, nodding and stepping aside when she put her hand on her hip, pushing her jacket back to reveal the shield clipped to her belt.
She shook her head as he continued on his way, a sign across the street catching her eye. It was a banner draped above the entrance of a restaurant she'd tried and rather liked, welcoming the "American Association of Sales Conference" to the city. Dawn looked at the sign carefully, trying to remember why it seemed so familiar. It hit her quickly, and she spun around to duck back into Porter's.
Nicole looked up, grinning. "Catch him already?"
"Unfortunately no. Did you hear him say what kind of business he was in town for?"
"I think he said he was a salesman. I'm not certain, though. All the customers tend to run together after a while."
"Thanks." Dawn gave her a grin of her own, feeling the pressure lift a bit as she returned to her car. It didn't take long to swing past first Touch and then Spotlight, where she parked and took a quick stroll into the lobby of the hotel next door. She exited a few minutes later, carrying a handful of papers and dialing her cell phone as she walked.
Stella answered quickly. "Bonasera."
"What do you know about the Association of American Sales Conference?" Dawn asked, studying the sign on the hotel she'd stopped in at.
"The what?"
"Association of American Sales Conference. It's an annual business conference that takes place in Midtown. There are usually about fifteen thousand attendees spread out among eight different hotels, including the Bedford, The Roosevelt, and the Millennium."
"The Bedford, The Roosevelt, and the Millennium," Stella repeated. "Those are all hotels near where our victims were last seen."
"Uh-huh. And according to the schedule, there are meetings going on in each of the eight hotels."
"Which means that if he is a part of the conference, he would have likely been to those hotels, even if he wasn't staying in one or any of them."
"Yeah. But it also means he really may only be here on business. One of fifteen thousand people." Dawn could hear the frustration creeping into her voice as the break began to look less and less like a break, and more and more like a complication. "The conference lasts until Monday. We may only have until then to find him, and then he'll be gone for good."
"We'll find him by then," Stella replied confidently. "Better fifteen thousand than eight million," she reminded Dawn, "and that fifteen thousand is going to include women as well as men who don't match the physical description."
"So just more like five thousand." Dawn smiled into her phone, wishing she felt as confident. "I've gotten some information about the conference from one of the hotels and plan to track down the people running the thing next - after I call and update Gerrard. Maybe we'll get lucky and find out they had all of their attendees submit physical descriptions in with their registrations."
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Author: Zelda Ophelia (zeldaophelia)
Fandom/Character: CSI:NY; girl!Flack (Dawn Flack), Stella, Mac
General info: Genderbender; Not mine; T
Notes: A huge thank you to eternal_sadist, significantowl, avidbeader, and the wonderful ladies at postonthursday who helped make this fic happen.
Summary: Pre-series. Dawn Flack (not a junior, though everyone wants to add that on) is finally getting her first solo case, without her training partner to tag along. But when one death becomes three with little evidence, she's needs all the help Mac and Stella can give her to find this guy.
The morgue seemed crowded when she arrived, with Stella, Mac, Hawkes, and Sid waiting for her. They were standing around Kelli Rowe's body, Hawkes waving her over as soon as she joined them.
"We may have caught a break," he said.
She stared at him, refusing to let her hopes get too high. "Please tell me you aren't kidding."
"Nope, not kidding at all." He pulled the sheet back, revealing their victim's face. "As with the other victims, Kelli Rowe was stabbed multiple times. I've taken a molding of the entry wounds for Mac."
"We'll be able to tell if the knife found by the body was the murder weapon."
"It likely is," Stella said. "But considering this is the third victim and the case is beginning to get a lot of press, we want to double-check everything."
Dawn nodded, frowning at the body impatiently. "This is good to know, but I'm not seeing a break here."
"I haven't gotten there yet," Hawkes chided gently.
"Then don't let me hold you up," she retorted sharply. She rubbed her forehead, trying to relieve some of the tension there as she apologized. "Sorry. It's just I've got Gerrard breathing down my neck over this, and I'm pretty sure Vicaro's counting the ways he can try to steal the case. I need to be able to show them some progress."
"Hey, it's okay. We're all wound a little tight." Hawkes offered a friendly smile before he continued. "As I was about to say, Kelli Rowe was sexually active prior to her death."
Sid was damn near bouncing with excitement, Dawn noted, and he cut in before Hawkes could continue. "We, once again, found traces of spermicide."
"But," Hawkes continued, lifting a petri dish from a nearby cart to hand to the CSIs, "we found something else."
"A piece of plastic?" Stella asked, looking at it before passing it over to Mac.
"We believe it was part of the condom," Sid explained.
"Part of the condom-" Dawn paused, staring at the dish before turning back to the MEs. "The condom broke?"
"We think so," Hawkes said. "We were also able to recover seminal fluid, including spermatozoa."
"So we have DNA?"
"It's on its way to Dr. Parsons as we speak," Sid answered. "I took the liberty of putting a rush on it. I figured it'd be a priority."
Stella grinned, as much in relief as amusement. "I think that's all right. Thank you."
"Hopefully he's in the system so you have something to compare it to," Hawkes said as he followed them to the door.
"I don't know," Dawn mused, once they were outside the morgue. "He still killed her. And cleaned up. Despite knowing that the condom broke. I don't think he's in the system."
"No?"
"If he was, he had to have known when the condom broke that the jig was up, that we'd be onto him and be able to identify him as a result," Dawn said, shaking her head slightly. "Think about it. They had sex before he killed her, so he knew the condom broke before he stabbed her. What would you have done in that situation? Probably gotten the hell out of there and found someone else. Maybe played it cool long enough to get out of there without raising any suspicion. But a smart perp would have left her alive, where she wouldn't have become a part of our case and we never would have made the connection. She would have just been some woman whose one night stand left abruptly. She probably wouldn't have even found that odd and most likely wouldn't have reported it."
"Instead, he still killed her, but cleaned up as he did before," Mac said, following her train of thought. "He knows that he isn't in the system, so unless we are able to get a sample from him, we can't use the DNA to identify her killer at this time. We just have the DNA of an unknown male."
"But he still cleaned up, because that's part of the routine. Because he's being careful," Stella continued. "He might possibly be worried that some of the other potential evidence is more likely to finger him--and about taking anything from the crime scene out with him. By showering, he's getting her blood, her DNA, off of him so that it can't be used to incriminate him."
"Fingerprints maybe?" Dawn asked, her brow furrowed. "He's introducing himself as a business man, and he's probably sticking to what he knows. It's safer that way: it's not as much of a lie, and he's less likely to get caught. A lot of businesses require their employees to get fingerprinted these days."
"While those prints usually don't end up in the databases we'd normally check, he might not know that," Mac pointed out as the elevator doors closed behind him and they headed up toward the lab. "If he was fingerprinted for his job and knows that those prints are out there and can identify him, he's going to be far more concerned about that than any DNA that isn't in the system yet."
"Plus," Stella said with a sigh, "all the DNA proves is that he slept with her. Without any of the other evidence that he's been systematically destroying, we're going to have a much more difficult time proving that he actually killed her."
"Any defense lawyer worth his salt is going to argue that the murder happened after he left," Dawn said, continuing Stella's line of thought.
"Then we need the evidence to place him at the scene at the time of death along with his identity." The creaky elevator came to a shuddering stop as he spoke, opening to the lab's floor. Mac turned to her, changing the subject as they stepped off. "Vicaro's giving you problems?"
"Nah," she said, shaking her head and waving it off.
"But you said-"
"Vicaro started giving me problems my third week on the job. He stopped in my third year, after he made an inappropriate and unfortunately timed remark when I was working an undercover case - still wearing my wire. The only reason he still has a job is because I'm not interested in being the reason a semi-decent cop got fired, regardless of what my partner wanted to do at the time. And Vicaro knows it." She sighed and looked at the tiled wall, suddenly feeling very tired. "He also might have reason to believe that if he starts giving me, or any other women on the force, problems again, that recording is going to find its way to Gerrard's desk. He doesn't particularly like that idea, so while he's cleaned up his act and can't actively try to sabotage my career, he sure can cheer from the sidelines as I screw things up on my own."
"You aren't screwing this up, Dawn," Stella said, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. "You're doing pretty good, all things considered. Heck, probably better than a few others I could name."
"Thanks," she said quietly, not particularly convinced. She glanced over at Mac, who was giving her an unreadable look.
"You're blackmailing Vicaro?" he asked.
Dawn flinched and tried to backtrack. "I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail. I've never actually said to him 'straighten up or you're toast'. More like Kaspar took him aside and pointed out that my wire had been on, suggesting maybe he ought to be on his best behavior. It's up to him whether he read anything more into it."
"You need to be careful," Mac said quietly. "The force frowns on blackmail just as much as it does sexual harassment. He could turn this around on you."
"I know," she shrugged, relieved that he didn't seem interested in pursuing it. Mac was a good cop, and he took the NYPD's code of conduct seriously. "Just between you and me and the wall, I don't plan for it to go anywhere, never have. I don't even have a copy of the tape. Hard to get me on blackmail if I don't have the alleged blackmail material. Truthfully, if it hadn't been for Kaspar hearing what happened over the line, I would have just ignored the situation all together."
"You don't?" Stella looked shocked. "Dawn, if he was threatening you-"
"He was being an ass, saying some things that are very much contrary to the force's anti-sexual harassment policy, and made an attempt at groping me. I've dealt with worse and will probably deal with worse in the future. I reminded him I was a cop who had scored higher in hand-to-hand than he had, and he might want to think again before he put his hand there. Then, because I was on duty at the time, I went back to work and finished the case. Like everything else we gathered on that case, all of the tapes were duly processed and entered into evidence. The way they should be."
"It's in evidence lock-up."
"Yup."
"Does he know it's in lock-up? And what case it was?"
"Pretty sure he does. Kaspar probably mentioned the case to him when they had their little talk." Dawn rolled her eyes. She could take care of herself, thank you very much. She'd given Kaspar a piece of her mind after hearing about that, pointing out that that particular encounter with Vicaro had been relatively tame compared to some of the other things she'd had to put up with.
"Dawn, if he knows where it is, he could try to remove it."
"Yeah, but which would be worse for his career: a tape recording of him sexually harassing a colleague, or evidence that he destroyed evidence?"
"Either one would get him fired."
"Something I think he's figured out. He mostly keeps his mouth shut around me, makes the occasional smart remark about Moran needing a new partner, but otherwise gives me a wide berth."
"Just be careful," Stella warned. "You don't want to get in over your head."
"Stell, it's Vicaro." Dawn rolled her eyes. "I doubt it'd be possible to get it over my head when it comes to him."
::
According to Maxine Rowe, Kelli's sister, the group of friends had finished their night at Porter's in Midtown. She found a place in the parking garage of a hotel next door, weaving her way through a throng of suits on the sidewalk to reach the door. But it was pleasantly quiet inside, the evening rush well in the future. A young woman, maybe Dawn's age or a few years younger, looked up from where she was organizing bottles behind the bar.
"Be with you in a sec," she called out, making a note on a pad before walking over. "What can I get you?"
"Nothing to drink," Dawn said, holding up her shield and introducing herself. "But I do have a few questions about last night."
"Sure." The bartender, who said her name was Nicole, gave the picture of Kelli Rowe a long look. "Yeah, I remember her. Your typical broken-hearted type out trying to drink to forget. According to one of her girlfriends, she caught her boyfriend sleeping around on her."
"Did you see who she left with?"
"No, we were too busy. I know there was a guy chatting her up for most of the night. That's the biggest reason I remember her, because of him. He crashed and burned pretty spectacularly just before she showed up."
"Crashed and burned?"
"Yeah, he was hitting on another woman. He had a definite type, you know. Like her - and you." The other woman gave Dawn a speculative look as she spoke. "Tall brunettes. Anyway, he was telling her about how he was here in town for business with some sob story about how his luggage got lost and corporate messed up his hotel reservations, so he was waiting for a secretary to call him back with where he was supposed to stay. But he was still all over her and wanting to go home with her. She put the kibosh on that pretty quick and left. That one showed up with her friends, and he zeroed in on her."
"Did you get his name?"
"No, I couldn't hear what he said to her, and he paid in cash. Why?"
Dawn picked up the picture of Kelli. "She's dead."
"What?" Nicole's eyes widened as the connection dawned on her, glancing at the TV in the corner by the bar. "You mean he's that serial killer that's in the news? You think he killed her?"
"We just want to speak with the people who were with her before her death, try to find out what her movements were before she died. Can you give me a description of him?"
"Your height, brown hair, wore a suit and had a briefcase. Um, I couldn't tell his eye color; it was too dark in here."
"Do you think you could sit down with a sketch artist?"
"I could try." She shrugged at Dawn. "I'm not certain if I remember him all that clearly, but I'd be happy to try to help."
"Good." Dawn made arrangements for her to stop by the precinct for the sketch when she got off her shift. That completed, she thanked her, standing to leave.
"Hey, detective." Dawn turned back to the bartender, who gave her a shy smile. "Come back by when you catch this guy. Drink's on me."
"Thanks," she said, her cheeks heating up as she walked out the door.
The street had emptied significantly while she was inside, almost completely clear except for a man rushing past speaking into his cell phone. "It's going to have to wait, I'm late for my next round table session-" He glared at Dawn when she didn't jump out of his way quickly enough, nodding and stepping aside when she put her hand on her hip, pushing her jacket back to reveal the shield clipped to her belt.
She shook her head as he continued on his way, a sign across the street catching her eye. It was a banner draped above the entrance of a restaurant she'd tried and rather liked, welcoming the "American Association of Sales Conference" to the city. Dawn looked at the sign carefully, trying to remember why it seemed so familiar. It hit her quickly, and she spun around to duck back into Porter's.
Nicole looked up, grinning. "Catch him already?"
"Unfortunately no. Did you hear him say what kind of business he was in town for?"
"I think he said he was a salesman. I'm not certain, though. All the customers tend to run together after a while."
"Thanks." Dawn gave her a grin of her own, feeling the pressure lift a bit as she returned to her car. It didn't take long to swing past first Touch and then Spotlight, where she parked and took a quick stroll into the lobby of the hotel next door. She exited a few minutes later, carrying a handful of papers and dialing her cell phone as she walked.
Stella answered quickly. "Bonasera."
"What do you know about the Association of American Sales Conference?" Dawn asked, studying the sign on the hotel she'd stopped in at.
"The what?"
"Association of American Sales Conference. It's an annual business conference that takes place in Midtown. There are usually about fifteen thousand attendees spread out among eight different hotels, including the Bedford, The Roosevelt, and the Millennium."
"The Bedford, The Roosevelt, and the Millennium," Stella repeated. "Those are all hotels near where our victims were last seen."
"Uh-huh. And according to the schedule, there are meetings going on in each of the eight hotels."
"Which means that if he is a part of the conference, he would have likely been to those hotels, even if he wasn't staying in one or any of them."
"Yeah. But it also means he really may only be here on business. One of fifteen thousand people." Dawn could hear the frustration creeping into her voice as the break began to look less and less like a break, and more and more like a complication. "The conference lasts until Monday. We may only have until then to find him, and then he'll be gone for good."
"We'll find him by then," Stella replied confidently. "Better fifteen thousand than eight million," she reminded Dawn, "and that fifteen thousand is going to include women as well as men who don't match the physical description."
"So just more like five thousand." Dawn smiled into her phone, wishing she felt as confident. "I've gotten some information about the conference from one of the hotels and plan to track down the people running the thing next - after I call and update Gerrard. Maybe we'll get lucky and find out they had all of their attendees submit physical descriptions in with their registrations."
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