drug-facilitator profile.”
“Men who drug women for sex have a profile?” asked Grazia, dazed at the overload of information.
“Typical drug-facilitator offenders are real planners,” explained Cargill. “They carefully organize how to drug their victims and where to assault them. It’s a crime of calculation. These aren’t impulsive men. They get away with it so often because they plan and they cover their tracks.”
Grazia felt sick. “This happens only in New York, right? Or the US?”
“No, Miss. It happens everywhere,” replied Cargill. “In New York we have laws against it and we try to enforce them. It isn’t easy to catch these guys, though. Like I say, they’re tricky. Let’s get back to last night. So you got to the bar; maybe you talked to Nick?”
Cindy cut in. “No leading questions, Cargill. She’s chock-full of drugs and impressionable. Maybe she never went to the Brazilian Bar. Or maybe she went somewhere after the Brazilian Bar. Don’t put words in her mouth or her testimony won’t hold up in court, if you ever get there.”
“Cindy, sweetheart, it’s got to be the Brazilian Bar,” protested Cargill. “You remember the drug-facilitated cases from there two years ago. Victims were lined up in your office.”
“Cindy’s right, Cargill,” frowned Stanley. “Don’t plant names in Miss Conti’s head.”
“Then why did Manuel tell her to ask for Nick?” Cargill held up his hands at Stanley’s protest. “Okay, but if Manuel works night shift, he must have seen Miss Conti come back, so he saw the man with her. How can I reach Manuel?”
“You can’t,” muttered Stanley, uncomfortably. “Manuel hopped a flight to Italy before his shift ended this morning. He told Edmondo his mother was in the hospital.”
Cargill raised his eyebrows. “Hopped a plane, did he? Who’s Edmondo?”
“Edmondo Potenza. Night security officer.”
Detective Cargill looked at the ceiling, thinking aloud. “Manuel sends her to Nick. Nick drugs her. He flags down a cab and sends her to the Hotel Fiorella. Manuel takes her to her room and assaults her. Then he runs for a plane.”
“Hold it,” snapped Stanley. “You want to bust Nick so bad you’re making up groundless scenarios. Manuel is married with three children. He’s a loyal employee—worked his way up from kitchen staff, took night classes in hotel management. He told me last week his mother was sick.”
“His fingerprints and his DNA profile are in your hotel employee files, right? I want the file.”
“Sure. But Manuel wouldn’t . . . ”
Cargill fixed him with a stern eye and pressed forward with more questions. “Don’t you have hotel protocol about reception clerks notifying a security officer if a guest has been assaulted? Shouldn’t Manuel have called a doctor if Miss Conti came back looking mugged?”
Stanley nodded reluctantly. “Yes, he should have notified Edmondo, who would have spoken to Miss Conti. And he should have notified the on-call nurse.”
“What if she came into the hotel with a non-guest and went up in the elevator with him?”
“Manuel would have called Edmondo.”
“Manuel did none of these things. Now he’s disappeared. Until I find him, and until I determine if Miss Conti came back to the hotel with a non-registered guest, I need the names of other staff who might have accompanied her to her room.”
“Only Edmondo would do that.”
“Give me Edmondo’s employee file as well as Manuel’s. Who else was on night duty?”
“I’ll check the roster.” Stanley’s voice was tense.
Cargill turned to Grazia. “I’ll get the medical examiner to run a match between the DNA that the hotel has on file for Manuel and Edmondo and any fingerprints and DNA that the medical examiner’s team finds in your room and what Janine puts into the rape kit. We may identify your assailant right off the bat.”
Grazia was watching her arms. They were floating again. Her stomach churned. “I’m