Where the Lost Girls Go

by R. J. Noonan

  “As you used to be,” Martha said, looking up at her husband.

  “Until I met you.”

  “But where does she go?” I asked, trying to bring these two back to reality.

  “Lucy has . . . friends, for lack of a better word.” Kent shrugged. “I can’t say that I approve of them, and there’s really no way to contact them, but it is what it is. Worry no more! Our girl will return home soon.”

  “She’ll turn up when she’s ready,” Martha said, dismissing any concerns. “I’m just utterly relieved to know that she wasn’t in the car.”

  To me it felt like a hollow victory, but the Jamesons seemed to be satisfied. “So the search of Stafford Woods will go on as planned?” I asked, thrown off by their utter confidence that Lucy was okay.

  “Of course,” Kent said. “We’d love to have our girl back.”

  I nodded, waiting for the inevitable question: if Lucy wasn’t driving the car, then who was?

  But it never came.

  The Jamesons shared a few hugs, and then Martha went to the kitchen to brew a celebratory pot of tea while Kent called his agent in New York.

  “Skeeter has known Lucy since she was a little girl,” Kent explained to me as he tapped his cell phone. “He’s been waiting this out with me, hour by hour. He’s going to be so relieved.”

  “Ask him if he’s heard from Twilight House,” Martha said.

  “I will.” A glimmer of pride was in his eyes. “Martha has a book proposal in at Twilight. Isn’t that fabulous? Looks like we’ll have two authors in the house soon.”

  I nodded and smiled.

  “Sweetheart, that’s only if they buy it,” Martha called from the kitchen.

  “Of course they will.” He turned away as his connection went through. “Yes . . . Skeeter, it wasn’t her! Lucy wasn’t driving the car. She’s okay!”

  How do you know that? I wondered. But even if the Jamesons asked, I couldn’t reveal the identity of the driver until the next of kin had been notified.

  Declining Martha’s offer of tea, I let myself out of the lodge-like building to make the drive to the morgue.

  13

  I walked into the morgue with a sense of purpose. The smells faded to the background, and the creepy feeling fell away in my eagerness to scoop up new information from Dr. Viloria. I found her inside the lab, speaking with Omak.

  “Right off the bat, when I compared the hair from our Jane Doe to a sample from the brush you brought in, it was clear that the dead girl was not Lucy Jameson. The corpse had Afro-textured hair. Under the microscope, the pigment granules are larger, and the pigment is denser than Caucasian hair.” Dr. Viloria stepped back, allowing Lt. Omak and me a look through the microscopes set up on the counter.

  “That first one is Kyra Miller, who is of mixed race. Her father is Greek and her mother is African American. The other sample is from Lucy, we think. It was also on the hairbrush.”

  “You think?” I asked.

  “Well, it turns out that hairs from two different people were on the brush. They must have shared it. Anyway, I was confused by the hair samples at first, but then one seemed to be a match with our corpse. So I went to dental records.” She moved over to a computer monitor and clicked open a file. White chips of teeth lined up in a semicircle against a field of black. “I’m not a forensic odonatologist, but it’s easy to differentiate our corpse from Lucy. Lucy Jameson had braces in junior high, fairly good teeth. No major work.” Dr. V switched to another screen. “Kyra broke two teeth in a fall down icy steps, so she had crowns on the upper right. Same spot as our Jane Doe. We’re bringing in an expert for final analysis, and we’ll run the DNA match, which will take a while, but at this point, that’s a formality. Our Jane Doe is Kyra Miller.”

  “One of the Lost Girls.” The image of Emma’s tearful parents turned over in my mind as I turned to Dr. V. “I understand how you ruled Lucy out, but how did you connect Jane Doe to Kyra if there was no fingerprint match?”

  “I went scrolling through the missing persons database and something sparked my memory about those Lost Girls. I found out no prints existed for Kyra, but they have dental records for all the girls. When I saw those crowns on the upper right, I started looking for more. They seem to match.”

  “I’m impressed, Blanca.” Lt. Omak nodded. A gush of approval for him.

  “We need to notify Kyra’s next of kin.”

  “Right. Family first, and then the media.” Omak turned to me. “You didn’t mention Kyra’s ID to the Jamesons?”

  “No. I held back, and actually, they didn’t ask. Isn’t that strange? I understand their relief that the dead girl wasn’t Lucy. They kept hugging each other and thanking me. But they never asked who might have been driving the sports car, and they didn’t seem worried that their daughter is still missing.”

  “It will be interesting to note their reaction when they learn that Kyra Miller was driving their car. I’d say they’ve been withholding information,” Omak said. “They had to know Kyra Miller for her to have access to the car.”

  “With her hairs entwined on Lucy’s brush?” Dr. Viloria squinted. “I’d say the parents saw this girl around the house. Probably served her pancakes on Sunday morning.”

  “But they didn’t mention her. Didn’t suggest her as a possible driver of the car.” Omak tapped his fists together. “So they were holding back. Or distracted by relief.”

  Looking back, I wondered if Kent Jameson’s tears were true trauma or drama.

  “So let’s look at what we have,” Omak said. “Frame it up, Mori.”

  “We know that the brake lines on the car were cut. That the victim had drugs in her system.” I turned to Dr. V. “Do we know what she took?”

  “We’ll have a detailed drug analysis in a few days.” She pointed a thumb toward the door. “I need to get back to work, so I’m giving you two the boot.”

  Omak gave half a smile. “I’ve been thrown out of worse places.”

  “I’ll bet,” Viloria said, holding the door for us.

  I continued as we walked down the hall. “We know that Kyra Miller had sex with someone—consensual, we think. Though her records indicate she was only fifteen, not of consenting age. For some reason, Kyra Miller was compelled to get in that car. Trying to find someone? Stealing the car? Trying to escape? But there were drugs in her system, and the brakes were giving out. She lost control and died.”

  “Anything interesting crop up at the Jameson compound?”

  “I found a parking pad with puddles of viscous fluid near the garage at the Jameson compound, and the groundskeeper told me he’d seen the car parked there yesterday. I just dropped off some samples at the lab to see if it might be hydraulic fluid.”

  That got Omak’s attention. “So it appears that the brakes were cut at the Jameson compound.”

  I nodded. “We still don’t know when, and we don’t know what compelled Kyra Miller to drive off in that sports car last night.”

  “What was your take on the registered sex offender?”

  “Andy Greenleaf seemed earnest but a little creepy. Kind of stuck on himself. He denied having a relationship with Lucy, but of course, I didn’t ask about Kyra.”

  “I sent Frazier out to check Greenleaf’s alibi—the girlfriend,” Omak replied. “I’ve asked Frazier to work with you on the case. Right now there are too many leads for one person to track down.”

  I nodded, wondering how that would play out, working with Frazier. He had more experience—a good five years—which might make him tend toward bossy. He was also being avoided by a lot of cops who considered him to be a whistle-blower. I had nothing against the guy, but I wasn’t crazy about the idea of sharing my case.

  After leaving the morgue, we picked up soups and salads, though Omak made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone he frequented a “stinking granola joint.” He stuffed his salad into a brown paper bag, and we went back to the precinct so that Omak could work on something with the mayor and I could pic
k at the scab of the case a little more.

  I settled into my desk, grateful for some alone time to reboot and rethink everything. Tuning out the phone chimes and voices of the squad room, I sipped carrot ginger soup and made a list of people who might have been present at the compound the night that Kyra left in that car.

  Who had set her up for disaster?

  Maybe it was Carlos the handyman, upset because she’d caught him drinking again?

  Or Andy, who could have taken on a girlfriend as a cover while he continued to pursue teenage girls. Or the mysterious Lucy, who had disappeared around the time of the crash. And finally Kent or Martha for reasons currently unknown.

  Professor Plum. In the parlor. With a wrench.

  It was ludicrous to guess without more information. A trip back to the Jameson ranch was definitely in my future. Omak wanted to bring out a couple of units and do a wide sweep of the area, talk to neighbors, and step up the investigation at the compound.

  I went to the Lost Girls database for a profile of Kyra Miller. Fifteen years old, from foster care in Salem. Dad was out of the picture, and Mom was an alcoholic who had lost custody of both daughters. At thirteen Kyra began leaving her foster home to try to find her mother. A little over a year ago, when Latitia Miller died of a drug overdose, Kyra landed in Portland, panhandling in Pioneer Courthouse Square. In her photos, there was a shy grace, that teen self-consciousness as she looked away from the camera, her lips curved in a hopeful smile. In some photos, her hair was in cornrows; in others, it was straightened and short. Her tan skin was not dark enough to cover the smattering of freckles across her nose. Cute kid. Still a kid.

  “How do we notify your next of kin?” I asked softly.

  I called Brook Eastern, the Salem caseworker listed in the file. She seemed surprised to be hearing from me. “Really? You found Kyra?” When I told her how, the spirit drained from her voice. “Poor Kyra. Poor baby. Well, she’s with her mother now. That was what she . . .” Her voice broke. “What she always wanted.”

  Brook would make the necessary notifications to state agencies. “But honestly,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any next of kin to notify for Kyra. That was a big part of her problem. Her mom, Latitia, was unable to care for her, so the kid spent most of the last decade in foster care, and she was fed up. She headed to Portland, as so many of them do, and that was the last we heard from her. When the Duprees contacted me about including her information in the Lost Girls database, I was glad to see someone dusting off the case. But I’d hoped for a much happier ending for Kyra.”

  I thanked Brook for her help and invited her to call if she learned anything of Kyra’s whereabouts the past few months of her life. As we hung up, I imagined Kyra’s case dropping from the system, like a pushpin being plucked from a crowded map of pushpins. One down, a few thousand to go.

  “Kyra Miller,” I muttered under my breath, “tell me who you were.” I clicked through Kyra’s files on the database. The Duprees had wisely posted every shred of material they could get their hands on. There was even a file that showed pictures she’d drawn as a kid and letters to her mother. Heart-rending letters. When I clicked on the most recent note, I was stopped short.

  The handwriting, so childlike, almost printing, with the capital K in her name containing a loop in the center and each capital A shaped like a star. So familiar.

  I’d been an idiot.

  I went to the pages from Lucy’s diary that had been scanned into the computer. Wrong. Not Lucy’s diary, but Kyra’s.

  Each big, starry capital A jumped off the page now. The unsophisticated print, the tendency to turn letters into stars. It was a match.

  Which put a new light on Andy Greenleaf. He hadn’t been lying when he said he had no involvement with Lucy Jameson. He had left the boss’s daughter alone.

  But I had never asked him about Kyra Miller.

  14

  “If Andy Greenleaf is A, he’s probably going to see jail time just for his involvement with Kyra Miller. That’s not even assuming that he caused her death tampering with the brakes and drugging her.” Omak scrolled through the samples of handwriting from the journal that I had posted side by side with documents from Kyra Miller’s file. “Big A. Kyra Miller was smitten with him.”

  “But it’s still not conclusive,” I said. “And even if Kyra was having a relationship with Andy, that doesn’t mean he drugged her and cut the brake lines.”

  “Well, with this diary pointing to A, along with Andy Greenleaf’s history as a registered sex offender, I’d say we have probable cause.”

  “Did Andy have the means, motive, and opportunity to kill Kyra?” I posed the question. “Means and opportunity, yes. But motive?”

  “If he was having relations with an underage girl and things went bad, he would have wanted to shut her up so she couldn’t turn him in to the authorities. But let’s wait and see if he’s got an alibi for last night. Frazier texted me that he’s talking with the girlfriend and her parents.” Omak rose and paced behind me. “If Greenleaf doesn’t have an alibi, we’ll bring him in. The DA may want to charge him.”

  The case was moving swiftly, faster than I had expected, and I felt a thrill at the prospect that it could be all wrapped up within twenty-four hours of the crime.

  The lieutenant checked his watch. “If the DA thinks the charges will stick, I hope she makes a move before the dinner-hour press conference. People are always reassured to hear that we’ve got someone in custody.”

  “Wait . . . another press conference?”

  “The mayor wants transparency, and it’s not a bad idea.” Omak lowered his voice, looking around as he spoke. “This department has been a cloak-and-dagger organization for too long. But the worst of it was before your time, Mori. Lucky you.”

  “What exactly was going on behind the scenes?” I asked. “Are we talking failure to follow procedure or actual corruption?”

  “We don’t have the time to get into it now.”

  “Wait.” I checked the squad room—no one seemed to be paying attention to us. “And it’s still going on?”

  “Some other time,” Omak said firmly. “Right now I want to be sure we’ve got everything covered on the Miller case. I dispatched our available patrol officers to canvas the Stafford Woods area, find out what the neighbors knew about Kyra Miller or if they’d heard anything unusual going on at the Jameson compound over the past few days.”

  I nodded. It was standard procedure, except that our crime scene for Kyra Miller’s death was beginning to spread out through Stafford Woods.

  “And I want to know if the neighbors have had any run-ins with the homeless campers in the area. It’s hard to believe that sort of thing might have been going on for months and no one has filed a complaint.”

  “The state park is on a big parcel of land. Anyone camping back there could easily keep out of sight of the neighbors.”

  Omak squinted, skeptical. “For months?”

  “Stealthy squatters,” I suggested.

  We were interrupted when my cell rang. “It’s Frazier.” Probably with information about Heather Erickson. “I’d better take this.”

  It turned out that Frazier was having trouble getting Heather to talk. “She says she was with Andy, but that’s all she’s saying. Her parents keep pushing her, but whenever I ask her a question, she just bursts into tears. Am I that scary?”

  “You big bully,” I teased. “Do you want me to talk with her? The female thing might work to my advantage, and I can be warm and fuzzy.”

  “Good point. Let me make the offer and I’ll see what she says. Call you back.”

  While Omak took a different call, I opened up the database for the Lost Girls and called the number listed there. Maybe it was wrong to call before the information was released to the general public, but the strained voices and worried faces of Thomas and Louise Dupree had left a lasting impression. They deserved to know that one of the Lost Girls had been found.

  “T
his is Officer Laura Mori calling from the Sunrise River Police Department,” I said, trying to roll as much out before I lost my nerve. “We thought you would want to know that we’ve recovered the body of one the Lost Girls listed on your database.”

  “Is it . . . ? Not Emma.”

  “No, it was Kyra Miller,” I said.

  There was an awkward pause as Louise’s voice gave a whimper and then quickly recovered to ask me what had happened. I gave her some of the details and asked that she not share the information until after it was announced at our press conference tonight. “This is an open investigation,” I said.

  “Of course. Thomas and I won’t say a thing until it becomes public information.”

  “But I wanted you to be one of the first to know. Your database is so conclusive; it’s been very helpful to us in this case.” I wanted to add that I admired her courage, but I was afraid that would sound trite in light of the campaign she and her husband were waging to recover their daughter.

  “Officer Mori, should we come back to Sunrise Lake? My husband and I could meet with you to discuss Emma’s case.”

  My eyes swept over the busy squad room, a slight panic surging up as I imagined the Duprees landing at my desk. “I’d be happy to meet with you,” I said, worried that I had stepped into the muck, “but I’m not in the Missing Persons Squad. I’m just saying, I can’t make any promises.”

  “I understand completely.” She thanked me for calling and told me she would set up a meeting the next time she and her husband were in the Portland area.

  With a heavy heart, I hung up and delved into Greenleaf’s file from the parole division. I made a few calls, trying to track down people from his past. I spoke with a former minister who remembered Andy as a good kid who’d fallen through the cracks of the system. I tried to reach his parents, but the phone line had been disconnected. Most of all I wanted to talk with Ginnie, Andy’s high school girlfriend and the alleged victim of statutory rape, to get her side of the story. Since she was a minor at the time of the incident, there was no contact information for her. I left a message for her parents at the number in the old case file. I was searching Ginnie, Ginny, and Virginia Walters on Facebook when Zion Frazier came in and perched on the empty desk next to me.