“If she was murdered, yes, I have to question why now. The thought that somehow I could have brought this on her is making me physically sick.”
“You can’t be serious?” One look at her face assured him she was. “Okay, let’s take a look at this, shall we? Let’s assume for a moment that Melissa was murdered. You found her, Annie. What makes you think that someone else couldn’t have found her, too? Someone who maybe started looking for her long before you did.”
“I’ve been looking for her for a few weeks. My search and her probable date of death are suspiciously close, Evan.”
“That is supposition on your part.”
“No, that is fact. Shortly after I started asking about her, she died.”
“Who knew you were looking for her?”
“Just about everyone in the Bureau. I asked so many people, and some of them probably asked some other people… Evan, if I hadn’t been so adamant about finding her, she might still be alive.”
“I think that’s a long shot, Annie. I think it’s way too soon to start beating yourself up over something that may not even be true. Let’s put it aside until we find out what caused her death. It could have been any one of a number of things. Before you blame yourself, let’s get the facts.”
She lay silent for a long time, then turned in his arms and said, “All right, then, it’s your turn. Tell me what you found in Chicago.”
“This detective, Don Manley, is quite a guy. You know he’s devoted the past eight months of his life to finding the killers of these girls? He’s totally committed to this case, even though it’s been shelved. No leads at all.”
“How likely is it that he’ll find a lead now? Realistically?”
“He says he has a lot of feelers out. He thinks that sooner or later, someone will have some information to deal. He’s willing to wait.”
“How does this help you in your case?”
He lay silent for a moment, as if he hadn’t considered the question before.
“It helps me to know that there’s someone else out there who isn’t giving up. It helps me to know that when the day comes that Manley gets his lead, he’ll pass on whatever he learns to me.”
“In the meantime…?”
“In the meantime, for me, it’s back to the evidence. Avon County isn’t Chicago, and I don’t have the network that Manley has. If I’m going to find our killer, it will have to be through the evidence.”
“Unfortunately, there isn’t much of that, as I recall. Or did something turn up while I was away?”
“Nothing new,” he admitted. “And you’re right, there isn’t a lot to go on.”
“You had some dirt,” she murmured. “Did a full analysis come back on that?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“I can follow up on that for you, have our lab break it down as far as it can go. Maybe that could lead somewhere.”
“Oh, and the dog hair. Let’s not forget about the dog hair.”
“Do I detect some sarcasm there?”
“I keep thinking the lab report will come back with a match to a golden retriever. ’Cause there are so few of them around, it would be real easy to track the owner.”
“Hey, you’ve been in this game long enough to know that you don’t discount anything.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just a little frustrating. The Schoolgirl Slayer is in custody. Seemed awfully easy to solve that case.”
“Not to the parents of the girls who died.”
“True enough. Oh, hell, I think I’m antsy after meeting with Manley and wanting so badly to make this right for these girls, to find out who they were and take them home. You look at what’s happened to these kids-sold or kidnapped or lied to in order to get them under control, sent to work in brothels. Forced into prostitution before they’re even in their teens. Then tossed aside for whatever reason-executed.” Evan made no attempt to disguise his anger and disgust. “And let’s not lose sight of the fact that as long as he’s still out there, other girls could be at risk.”
“You’re thinking there are more girls in the area?”
“Why not?” She could hear his wheels turning. “Let’s assume for a minute that there was in fact a working brothel in the area. A brothel with only three girls? Not likely.” He shook his head. “So there would be others… but would they all be from Santa Estela?”
“How do you find out?”
Annie felt his body tense slightly and smiled to herself, recognizing that he was onto something and, in minutes, would be out of bed and getting dressed, in anticipation of going wherever the thought would lead.
“A few years ago, the D.A. started this program where whenever they picked up a woman for prostitution, they picked up the john and printed his name in the paper. It caused a lot of grief for a lot of guys. After the third arrest, you not only got your name in the paper, you got jail time. Light time, but time all the same. Imagine being some big executive type, or some big lawyer down in Philly, having to take a month off to do time. The program sort of fell to the wayside after a while. Not a lot of guys actually served any time.”
“So, you’re thinking if you had a list of the men with two arrests, you could check in with them, see if any of them knew or heard about some young foreign girls in a house.”
“Right.” He had slowly disengaged himself from her and was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“And they would speak with you now because…” She began to mentally count the seconds before he stood and started looking for the clothes he’d earlier discarded.
“Because maybe if they thought the program was being reactivated, they might appreciate a heads-up before such a sweep-and a possible third arrest-might take place.”
… twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…
“Twenty-five,” she announced.
“What?” he asked as he retrieved his jeans from the floor.
“It only took you twenty-five seconds between the time you sat and the time you stood. You beat your own best time of thirty-seven by a mile.”
“You really think you have me pegged, don’t you?” He laughed softly.
“Absolutely, I do. I can see right through you.”
“Like what you see?” He pulled a T-shirt over his head and started to tuck it into his jeans.
“I love what I see.”
He hesitated, then asked, “Annie, are you sure you don’t mind if I just look a few things up-”
She cut him off. “Of course not.” There was no point in making him explain. She knew his heart, and knew that he’d do what he had to do. Just as she would. “It’s an excellent idea. You need to follow up on it.”
“It may lead nowhere.”
“Or it may lead to your killer.” She sat up and wrapped the sheet around her.
“Will you be here when I get back?”
“Actually, I probably will not. I need to talk to Grady, and I don’t think a phone call is the way to do that.”
“Want me to go with you? It’s Saturday. I could drive down with you later this afternoon, we could go see Grady, then I can drive back tomorrow night.”
“I would love to have you come home with me. But I think I’ll get more out of Grady if I’m alone. I don’t think he’ll tell me anything if you’re there.”
“Okay.” He leaned over to kiss her. “But I can still drive down later today, if you want.”
“Why don’t you wait and see how many names you come up with, and see how many are willing to talk to you. If I know you, you’ll be up to your neck in this for the rest of the day.”
“God, I hope I can get a break.” He looked under the chair for his shoes, then remembered he’d left them downstairs. “I need something solid on this.”
“So go for it.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” He hovered over her, studying her face.
“Go.” She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was 4:30 in the morning. “Actually, I think I’ll get up now, too. The earlier I
get back to Virginia, the sooner I’ll be able to sit down with Grady and see if I can get some of the truth about his relationship with Melissa.”
“Good luck, babe.” Evan kissed her one last time. “Maybe I’ll see you later tonight…”
“And maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and be my longed-for height of five-eight,” she murmured as he went down the steps. “Neither is likely, but one can always hope…”
____________________
Annie stood in the vestibule of the building that housed Grady’s condo, along with five others, all of which had mailboxes lined up along the wall to the left of the front door. Junk mail overflowed from the black box bearing a label that read, G. Shields, 2B.
Interesting he hasn’t picked up his mail in a few days, she thought as she rang the bell for his unit, but his car is in the parking lot. She went outside and looked up at his apartment. There were air conditioners in two of the three front windows, and she could hear their faint humming. She went back into the vestibule and rang the doorbell again. She rang it over and over, until finally, she got a response.
“What.” It wasn’t so much a question as an expression of exasperation.
“It’s Annie, Grady.”
“Not now, Annie.”
“I’m not leaving until I talk to you.”
“You’re talking to me now.”
“Let me come up, Grady. We need to talk about Melissa.”
“I did not kill her. And I don’t know who did. What else do you need to know?”
“Do you really want me to go into that right here, right now, where anyone could come along and-”
He buzzed her through the locked front door, and she crossed the lobby to the stairwell that rose directly in front of her. She climbed the steps and found Grady waiting for her in the doorway of his apartment. From his appearance, she guessed that the mail had been piling up in the box because he hadn’t left the apartment in several days. It had certainly been that long since he’d shaved.
He stepped aside and motioned for her to come in, then closed the door behind her.
“So tell me what it is you’re looking for, then you can go and I can get back to the business of getting myself good and drunk.” He walked into the living room, and she followed.
“Looks like you’ve made some progress there.” She noted the empty bottles of wine that formed a circle on top of the coffee table. “Odd choice, though. Most men drink themselves into a stupor on beer or hard liquor. Merlot doesn’t seem to fit.”
“What is it you want?” He flopped onto the sofa but did not offer her a seat.
She pushed some newspapers onto the floor and sat anyway.
“Why were you so secretive about your relationship with Melissa Lowery?”
He appeared to be trying to formulate a response.
“Come on, Grady, just say it.”
He still searched for words.
“All right, let’s try this approach. Why did Melissa change her name and move to Montana?”
“Free country.” He picked up the nearest bottle and checked its contents. Finding it empty, he moved on to the next one and refilled his glass.
“Cut the bullshit,” she said softly. “We both know she was afraid of something. Or someone. Was it you?”
“Me?” The question took him off guard. “God, no.”
“What was your relationship with her?”
“She was… my best girl.” His eyes filled with tears. “She was… my wife.”
“Your…?”
He nodded slowly. “We were married in Reno eight months ago.”
“Why all the secrecy? Why was she hiding, Grady?”
He exhaled slowly, a long breath fraught with pain.
“Someone scared her.”
“Who?”
“Now, don’t you think if I knew that, I’d have dealt with it?” He lifted his head and met her eyes, and she understood exactly how he would have dealt.
“She gave you no information, she never told you why-”
“Yeah. That much I know. She was on a job, she saw someone who shouldn’t have been there, and included his name in her report.”
“Who wasn’t she supposed to have seen?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t even know who it was. All I know is that after she wrote the report, someone contacted her by phone and told her she was to forget that she had been there, forget who else she’d seen there, and to destroy any copies of her notes. He left a bag with a lot of cash-a whole lot of cash-on her doorstep and suggested she resign from the Bureau and take the first train out of Dodge.”
“Or…?”
“Or he’d kill her.”
“Why didn’t she go to someone at the Bureau?”
“Who would do what, Annie? Protect her from someone she couldn’t even identify? Someone who obviously works for the Bureau?” He got up and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Believe me, we went through all of this. Whoever was threatening her works for the Bureau. He’s supposed to be one of the good guys. He could have been anyone. How do you even begin to figure out who you can trust?”
“Well, what about the job she’d been on, start with that. Look at the people who were there, figure out-” She stopped short, staring at him. “Grady…”
“Annie, please don’t even ask.”
“Tell me it wasn’t the job where Dylan was killed.”
He was agitated and drunk. He swayed when he stood, then sat slowly back down.
“And that’s why Melissa’s report was missing, because someone took it deliberately and made sure she wouldn’t replicate it?”
“Yes.”
Annie digested the information.
“I’m sorry, Annie. I’m really sorry.”
She waved away his apology, past that now. “Why,” she asked, “didn’t he just kill her?”
“I don’t know.” He took a long swallow of wine, this one straight from the bottle. “I’ve asked myself that same question a dozen times. Why didn’t he just kill her.”
He wiped tears from his face with the hem of his shirt.
“I guess the question really is, why did he kill her now?”
“I have a call in to the sheriff in Montana. As soon as I’ve heard about cause of death, I’ll let you know.”
He cleared his throat. “Appreciate it.”
“In the meantime, why not put the wine away? Take a shower, get something to eat. Get some sleep.”
“Merlot was the only thing she ever drank.” He held up the bottle and studied the label as if it held some weighty truth.
“Grady, I am so sorry about Melissa. I don’t know what to say.” She swallowed hard. “I’m more sorry than I can say, if my looking for her, for her report, was the catalyst-”
“Don’t, Annie. There’s no point…” He shrugged helplessly.
“Still…”
“Just… don’t, okay?” He looked away.
“I’ll call as soon as I hear anything.” It was the only thing she could think to say.
“Okay.”
She wanted to go to him and put her arms around him, but she knew that nothing would comfort him. Instead, she walked to the door to let herself out. She opened the door to leave, then turned and asked, “Did anyone know that you and Melissa were married?”
“Only my brothers.”
“You didn’t tell your sister?”
“Nah.” He smiled weakly. “You know Mia, she talks to everyone. But my brothers, well… you know how they are. They’re both so closemouthed, you never know what’s going on with either of them.”
18
Evan took a sip of coffee and grimaced to find it had gone cold during the course of his telephone conversation with john number twenty-seven on the list of seventy-four he’d gotten from the D.A.’s files when he arrived at the courthouse at 5:30 that morning. To say the guard at the front door had been surprised to see anyone at that hour-least of all on a Saturday-would have been an understatement.
“Ea
rly day, Detective?” The man had yawned as he unlocked the front door.
“Yeah.” Evan shifted the cardboard carrier holding the three large cups of coffee he’d picked up at the local convenience store. As he passed through the metal detector, he handed one Styrofoam cup to the guard. “Thought you could use a wake-up this morning, too.”
“Thank you, Detective Crosby. Nice of you to think of me.”
“Nice of you to let me in.” Evan smiled and walked the dimly lit hall to the stairwell, and took the steps down to the basement, where the county detectives and some of the assistant district attorneys were housed.
The hallway was darker here, and it had taken him several tries before he managed to open the main office door. He locked it behind him and walked through the common area, lit only by an “Exit” sign on either side, and went directly to his small office at the end of the hall. He’d placed the coffee on one side of the desk and turned on his computer. He searched the files until he found what he was looking for, opened one of the coffees, and sipped at it while he scanned the screen, occasionally making notes on a yellow legal pad he’d pulled from the bottom drawer. By the time his list was complete, the sun had come up and enough of the morning had passed that he could begin making his calls without risk of having anyone complain that it was too early.
By noon, he’d called almost one third of the names on his list and had spoken with twelve. The others had either not answered or were no longer at the number he had on record. Out of the twelve, only five were willing to speak with him about their prior arrests. He’d left telephone messages for several others but was not optimistic that many-if any-of his calls would be returned.
Of the five he’d spoken with, none of them admitted to knowing anything about any young Hispanic girls working in an area house in which they might be held against their will.
“I wouldn’t go for none of that, man, none of that young stuff,” one of the johns had told him. “That’s disgusting, man…”
“There are a couple of Hispanic chicks working the corner at Seventh and Warwick,” another had offered when pressed, “but they ain’t no kids.”
“I don’t usually ask to see ID, you know what I mean?” another had snorted.
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