Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

said in a flat voice. ‘I can deal. I just wanted to know, was he wearing any body armor at all?’
    ‘No. He had his badge on a chain, under his sweatshirt, but no vest. His holster was also empty and no weapons were found on or around the body. I am sorry.’
    ‘It’s okay,’ Clay repeated. ‘Thank you for taking care of him. We appreciate it.’
    Joseph turned his attention to Brodie. ‘Have you figured out how he got Ford and Kimberly out of the alley?’
    ‘We did,’ Brodie said. ‘I went back to the alley after the techs had moved a lot of the trash. The garbage on the street had been mixed around, erasing his tracks, but the techs found oil mixed with hydraulic fluid on the pavement at the end of the alley and on some of the debris in the area where Ford would have fallen.’
    ‘He used a cart with a hydraulic lift,’ Joseph said. ‘And it needs maintenance.’
    ‘We found the same oil/fluid mix in the garages of all of Odum’s houses,’ Brodie added. ‘I bet that’s how he unloaded the guns. He definitely visited all three houses.’
    Joseph frowned. ‘He’s not hiding Ford at any of those houses, though. JD, did any other Millhouse properties come up in your search?’
    ‘None. The house and business that we searched today were rentals. I had Hyatt’s clerk run a property search for “Doug” in Maryland and Pennsylvania, both as a first and last name. I also searched variants on Doug, such as “Douglas” and “McDougal”. We got thousands of hits. I’ll start narrowing them down tonight.’
    ‘Good. Let me know if you need support to do any physical searches.’ He reviewed his notes. ‘Daphne, you’re checking all of your old cases to see if you prosecuted Doug. What’s the status?’
    ‘I keep all my cases in a database which I checked before the meeting. In my first year and a half with the state’s attorney’s office, I was Grayson’s assistant. When I wasn’t sitting second chair in court, I mainly handled cases like Kimberly MacGregor’s, where the defendant was taking a plea. I dealt over five hundred misdemeanors and class D felonies. Since I’ve been lead prosecutor I’ve closed less than a hundred cases. Reggie Millhouse’s case has sucked up most of my time.’
    ‘Did anybody jump out?’ Joseph asked.
    ‘Not yet. I know that I never prosecuted anyone with Doug in the first or last name or any of the variations JD just mentioned, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a family member. There are an army of clerks researching the cases I did when I was assisting. They’re also checking photos of all my defendants, pulling every male between twenty-five and thirty-five who has brown hair and who’s between five-six and five-ten. They should be done by mid-morning tomorrow. I offered to help, but my presence would require too much security.’ She frowned. ‘I’m banned from my office until Doug is caught.’
    Joseph was secretly thrilled that she wouldn’t be going back to her desk or into the courtroom until the threat to her life was gone. But he knew she’d just lost a major occupier of her time – a way to keep herself busy so she didn’t think about her son.
    He shot her a look of silent sympathy. ‘If they come up with any photos, we’ll get them in front of our eyewitness, that teacher in Timonium, as soon as possible.’ He turned to JD. ‘What did you find out about Kimberly?’
    ‘From Ford’s Facebook posts that you sent to us, we know Kim and Ford met at a party in September and he told his friends that she had more in common with him than any other girl he’d ever met.’ JD put an evidence envelope on the desk. ‘I found this in her dorm room. It’s a list of all the things Ford liked and her to-do list to find out about them. It’s handwritten. She did a lot of research.’
    Joseph bit back a wince. Just looking at the list was painful. ‘Kimberly is a . . . calculating young woman. Did anyone else see her that way?’
    ‘Nobody I talked to,’ JD said. ‘She was funny, smart, laughed at their jokes. Baked them cookies . . . Didn’t complain when Ford went out with his friends. She was the perfect girlfriend.’
    ‘Joseph, it’s Deacon. I talked with the MacGregors for a while tonight. They live in a very nice house and the parents drive luxury cars. I wondered why Kimberly stole to begin with. The parents said that they’d hit some hard times two years ago and had to cut back Kim’s allowance. They put her BMW