“So that would be three days ago?”
“Yes. I went to his apartment on Friday morning. He wasn’t there. I tried to SMS him, emailed him. Nothing. I reported him missing by late afternoon.”
“The police called me just after midnight when they’d identified Chang’s body. I went to the morgue at six this morning.” His voice was brittle. “I saw what they did to him.” He looked at Mary and then at me, his face like a mannequin’s. “You have to find the killer Mr. Gisto. I am a very wealthy man. I don’t care what it costs.”
Chapter 9
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER THOROGOOD was coming through the main doors just as Ho Meng was leaving. I met him in reception and we walked along the corridor.
“That was the father of the murdered kid,” I said as we sat down. “He’s mighty pissed with your people.”
Thorogood’s face creased into a frown.
“He can’t understand why you didn’t save his boy.”
“So, he’s come to you?”
I nodded.
“Well, you know our agreement, Craig. We share Intel.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to the police.”
The Deputy Commissioner blanched, anger building in his eyes. “Well it’s not up to him, is it?” he snapped. “If he’s withholding evidence …”
I let it go, went to change the subject. There was a knock on the door. Darlene poked her head round. “Bad time? You said you’d …”
“Sorry, Darlene,” I said quickly. “Come in.”
“Deputy Commissioner, you’ve met Darlene Cooper, haven’t you?”
He stood up, extended a hand. “We … ah … met last night at the …”
Darlene gave the man a brief smile. The girl was a cool paradox, beautiful and brilliant – the only nerd who could grace the centerfold of Playboy. She’d done the whole modeling shtick for a year after finishing her degree in Forensics at Monash, became a disciple of Sci, Jack Morgan’s resident lab genius at Private LA. Then she’d come back to Oz and our Private.
“You wanted to know the latest,” she began before flashing her baby blues at the Deputy Commissioner.
“Absolutely,” I said.
She handed me a couple of sheets of paper. They were covered with graphs and numbers. I turned them sideways, then back again.
“Analysis of skin samples, and DNA,” she explained.
“Oh, great.”
“That was bloody quick!” Thorogood said.
“So what’re your conclusions?” I asked.
“I took a range of samples from the body. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get any prints, but I found three distinct DNA profiles. One of these is certainly the victim’s.”
“Any luck finding a match for the other two?”
Darlene shook her head. “Nothing close on any database.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Well yeah, actually. I took a sample of material from under Ho Chang’s fingernails.” She handed me a photograph. I stared at it for several moments, passed it to Thorogood. He sat back, held the photo up to the light.