Birthdays of a Princess by Helga Zeiner Page A

her
and asked for her full name because she repeatedly called herself Princess Tia.
Anyway, he must have managed to sneak into her brain. Court has asked for a
more comprehensive assessment of her mental health, and from what I understand
she wants to keep the same shrink. Maybe he’ll crack her.”
    Macintosh stated the obvious: “And a fat lot of good that’ll do us.”
    “I know, he isn’t allowed to give us anything until he has finalized
his report,” Harding replied. “Unless he cracks her so bad that she spills the
beans all by herself to anybody who wants to listen.” It had happened before.
    “So we’re looking at another month, at least,” Macintosh said.
“Where are we with the eye-witness accounts?”
    “Most have been to the station for their statements.” Now Harding looked
at his notes. “Twelve so far, ten customers and the two employees, so we only
got two to go. Nothing new there, and frankly, I don’t expect any spectacular
insight from those remaining two either. What we’ve seen on the video clips taken
by five of them is what we have to go on. Those clips show what happened a lot
more accurately than any of their verbal descriptions.”
    “Everything, except the victim’s face.”
    “Yes, that’s too bad.”
    “Any discrepancies?”
    “None whatsoever. It’s all smooth and clear cut. None of them had
noticed anything suspicious leading up to the attack, and several of them
confirmed that the victim was sitting at table four, reading a newspaper,
drinking coffee and eating a muffin when the alleged suspect came through the
door, looked around and walked straight up to her. All of them confirm that she
yelled something nobody could understand, just some blood-curling war cry I
guess, and started slicing the victim without any provocation. All the
customers present at that time watched, stunned at first, for a few seconds.
Five of them were talking on their iPhones at that precise moment and were
quick-minded enough to direct those devices toward the commotion.”
    “Anybody recorded the war cry?”
    “Sure, you can hear it in the background on several of the clips.”
    “Did she say anything while attacking?”
    “No. One high-pitched cry and then only serious grunting. She worked
it hard.”
    Pete Macintosh had seen the clips, but it was always good to
summarize. Talking it over again gave him an idea.
    “Have we sent the recordings to voice analysis? What sounds like a
war cry to us, could be the victim’s name.”
    Harding shuffled his notes. “Already done. It’s just an angry cry.”
    "What about the three guys who manhandled her? What are they
saying?”
    “They all agreed that she was a tough cookie. Took a bit of
strength, but three against one and her being so tiny, it took only a few
seconds. That’s on the clips as well.”
    Macintosh sighed. Everything was recorded, everything was obvious,
except the victim’s identity and the suspect’s motive. They had to be
connected. As long as they were in the dark on the ID, they should concentrate
on the motive. There had to be one. Of course he had come across cases where
the suspect had been clearly deranged, had been guided by voices from
outer-space or was a psychopath who loved killing for the sake of it, but those
were extremely rare. Usually there was motive.
    “We have to dig into the suspect’s background.”
    Harding shook his head.
    “That freaks me out most. There is no information available. Not for
her or her mother. Word came back from the Texans that there is no birth
certificate made out to a Tiara Brown. However, as we knew from the mother that
she was born in August 1998 we checked the records of that month. On 21. August
1998 a certain Tiara Rodriguez-Brown was born at Houston General Hospital.
Other than that, they have checked into all sorts of government departments,
there is no record of a Melissa Brown or a Tiara Brown anywhere. The address
Melissa had given us, Caroline Road in Galveston, is