He executed a quick U-turn to leave the decaying old hospital behind. As he headed toward New Orleans, his cell phone rang.“Montoya,” he said, flipping on his headlights while Bonita Washington updated him on the Gierman-LaBelle murders. The upshot of the conversation was that there were no skin scrapings under Courtney LaBelle’s fingernails, no DNA evidence whatsoever. None of the fingerprints they’d pulled from the scene came up with any matches using AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, so either the killer hadn’t left prints or he wasn’t in the database. Courtney LaBelle’s backpack had been recovered, but it was empty and pretty much a bust. No evidence collected from it.Washington went on to say that the autopsy report showed nothing unexpected. Both victims had died from single gunshot wounds at close range. Both looked as if they’d been bound and gagged, most likely abducted.“So,” Washington said as he accelerated onto the freeway and the damned rain started up again.
