Page 56 of The Whispering Girls

“Different type of lodging.”

John pulled out one of the four large binders. “Just as I thought.”

“What?” said Katie.

“This fiber appears to come from a carpet, based on its characteristics.” John went back to his microscope and studied the fiber further. “It appears to be a green low-pile that has been looped into a backing—even though we don’t have the backing, it has a slight curl.”

“Can you tell where this fiber came from?” she said.

“I can only tell it’s most likely synthetic—like polyester or nylon. If I had to guess, it would be poly.”

“Like from a house or car?” said McGaven.

“It’s a lower-end type of carpet I’ve seen over the years, but it’s difficult at this magnification level to be able to tell if it’s for house or car. It could be both.”

“Wait a minute,” said Katie. She went directly to the reports from the laboratory from Theresa’s crime scene. “It says here there were carpet fragments in Theresa’s hair.”

“Color?” said John.

“It says olive-green synthetic polyester.”

“It’s something,” said McGaven.

“Yes and no,” she said, looking at the board. “What’s the preliminary at the hospital?”

“The victim, nurse in training Natalie Renaldo, wasworking the late shift along with nurse Patty Brown. They were taking care of the chief. Nelson Gonzalez was the security guard. He had some defensive wounds, which means he saw the killer,” said McGaven. “All victims were strangled.”

“Is there at this point any connection with the nurse to Theresa or TJ?” she said.

McGaven shook his head. “No, we haven’t connected anything yet. But Clark and Banning are still questioning people and we should hear from them soon. But, one thing they did say was that Natalie was new to town and she went to the café quite a bit.”

“I think most of the town goes there. But that would mean the killer does too,” she said.

“So what was the killer doing at the hospital last night?” McGaven said.

“Maybe they were there for the chief?”

“Why?”

Katie shrugged. “Maybe to shut the investigation down? Maybe the killer knows the chief? Or has been watching him and the other officers. But why didn’t they kill him while they had the chance?”

“Then he brutally murders the nurse and takes out the other nurse on duty and the security guard in case they saw him?” said McGaven.

She shrugged again. “What about the security cameras?”

“There’s only footage up to 8:30p.m. The rest is completely blank.”

“So by the time we got there around 10p.m. the killer was already there.” Katie was frustrated. Just when she thought they were making some headway they were hit with setbacks.

“More than likely. The killer was most likely the one who locked us into the bathroom.”

Katie ran all the hospital events through her mind. “Three down…more to go…”she whispered.

“What?”

“The message on the wall. Three down…more to go…”

“What about it?”