The Next Victim

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Photos?” Kali felt a prickle of interest. “What kind of photos?”

  “Nature stuff mostly. Nothing with those girls in it, if that’s what you’re wondering. Or any girls.”

  That was precisely what Kali had been thinking.

  Sabrina took a bite of chicken. “Did you find Olivia’s friend?”

  Kali nodded. “She didn’t recognize the girl who looks like the dead Jane Doe, but the other girl is apparently someone named Crystal.”

  “Well, Crystal ought to be able to identify the dead girl.”

  “But we don’t know how to find Crystal. In fact, we don’t have anything but a first name.”

  “Maybe the cops will be able to find her.”

  Kali bit her lower lip. “That would mean telling them about the photo. And it would bring John’s name in.”

  Sabrina sighed. “You really think there’s a link between Olivia’s murder and that other girl’s?”

  “It’s odd that two of the girls in the photo were murdered, and within weeks of each other.”

  “It could be a coincidence,” Sabrina argued halfheartedly.

  “You believe that?”

  “Jesus,” Sabrina muttered, “I sure hope Crystal’s not dead, too.”

  Chapter 24

  Kali spent a restless night, struggling with her decision about the photo when she was awake, and dreaming about terrified girls in peril during those rare occasions when she managed to drift off to sleep.

  After breakfast, she left Sabrina to finish cleaning out closets and filling boxes for Goodwill, while she drove to the four-star hotel downtown where Olivia’s mother worked as a maid.

  Kali started to approach one of the clerks at the front desk, then thought better of it. Even if they knew the names of the housekeeping staff, which they might not, they weren’t going to summon the woman downstairs at Kali’s request. Instead, Kali walked past the reception area and pressed the elevator button.

  She started at the top. Luckily, there were only twelve floors, rather than twenty or thirty, like some of the larger hotels. A housekeeping cart was parked outside a room at the end of the hallway to the right. Inside the room, two women were making beds and conversing in Spanish. Both were too young to be Olivia’s mother, but Kali knocked lightly on the open door and asked if they knew where she could find Angeles Perez.

  They exchanged a few words in rapid Spanish, then, looking embarrassed, shook their heads.

  Kali repeated the exercise on floors eleven and ten. On nine, she found someone who directed her to four. There she waited near the housekeeping cart until a middle-aged woman in a maid’s uniform returned to the cart for fresh towels.

  “Mrs. Perez?” Kali asked.

  The woman looked startled. Her dark eyes were alert. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to talk to you about your daughter.”

  The woman pressed her lips tight and lowered her gaze.

  “I’m truly sorry for your loss. I can only imagine how terrible it must be for you.”

  Angeles Perez nodded softly without speaking. She was a pleasantly plump woman with dark, wavy hair and remarkably unlined skin. She looked to be in her early forties, probably only five or ten years older than Kali, but her shoulders were rounded, her posture that of a woman much older.

  “You’re a reporter?”

  Kali shook her head. “I’m an attorney involved in an investigation of your daughter’s death,” she said and waited for a lightning bolt to strike her dead. It wasn’t really a lie, she reminded herself, and since she’d not actually been served with papers in the wrongful death lawsuit, there was technically nothing wrong with talking to the woman directly. Still, Kali knew she was pushing the limits of what was ethically correct.

  It didn’t stop her.

  Angeles pressed a knuckle to her mouth. “She was my baby. My little girl.” Her eyes welled up. “I thought it was a good job, my Olivia working for Mrs. Winslow. I was so happy for her. And now . . . because she was there . . . my baby’s dead.”

  Another one of the housekeeping staff stepped up to the cart. She was younger, Anglo, with bleached hair and thin lips. She addressed Kali. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, I just needed to speak to Mrs. Perez. It’s a personal matter.”

  “It’s okay,” Angeles said to the woman. “It’s about my daughter.”

  “Still?” The woman tapped her foot. “Well, don’t take all day. I’m not doing more than my share.”

  “I know you’re busy,” Kali told Angeles. “Maybe if you’ve got a break coming up, we could talk then.”

  “Lunch is in two hours.”

  “I’ll wait,” Kali said.

  Angeles Perez nodded. “Across the street by the art museum. I’ll meet you in front.”

  <><><>

  Lacking the patience for an art museum right then, Kali used the time to browse the museum store and the shops of Old Town a block away. By the time she met Angeles Perez, she’d purchased a pair of silver earrings, a pack of desert-flower note cards, and a lovely hammered-copper vase she was having shipped back to California. It had been an interesting, but costly, two hours.

  “Can I buy you lunch?” Kali asked after she’d greeted Angeles.

  The woman held up a paper sack. “We’ll talk, and then I will eat.”

  They sat on the sculpted metal bench in the shade in front of the museum. A hot, dry breeze sent a candy wrapper dancing at their feet.

  “You must have been proud of Olivia,” Kali said.

  “Yes, very. Such a girl—smart, pretty, sensible.” Angeles smiled wanly. “And headstrong, like a bull. My husband, he didn’t understand. He didn’t like it that she talked back. I tried to tell him it was good. The fire inside her is what made her work so hard.”

  “You obviously did a fine job raising her.”

  “Olivia was a good daughter. She told me, ‘Mama, I’m going to be rich someday, and buy you anything you want.’ She told me to start making a list.” Angeles looked down at her hands. “I miss her so much.”

  “Did you know many of her friends?”

  “In high school. Not now.”

  “Does the name Crystal mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Sorry.”

  “I have a photo of your daughter,” Kali said, “with two of her friends. I’d like you to look at it and tell me if you recognize either of them. Will that be too painful for you?”

  “I have pictures of her in my house,” Angeles said gently. “Many pictures. I look at them every day. But a mother doesn’t need pictures to remember, and the pain never goes away.”

  She took the photo from Kali and studied it with a frown. “I’m not sure, but the girl at the end, the redhead, she might be the girl who buys lottery tickets.”

  “Lottery tickets?” Kali asked.

  “Every Friday she buys. Five tickets.”

  “You know her name?”

  Angeles shook her head. “Olivia was with me when we bought gas at the Circle K. The girl was there. They talked, you know, girl talk. Then back in the car, Olivia told me about the lottery. Every Friday. The same Circle K.”

  “Which one?” Kali asked. “Where’s it located?”

  “On Oracle, near Grant.”

  “Was she someone Olivia knew from school?”

  “I think she met her during the summer. It might not even be the same girl, but it looks like her.”

  “When was this? Do you recall?”

  “Early August, I think. She’d been living at Mrs. Winslow’s a while.”

  Olivia had met Crystal recently, too. At her job? “Your daughter worked at the River Inn for part of the summer, didn’t she?” Kali asked. “What about after that?”

  Angeles fiddled with her lunch sack. “She wasn’t happy waiting tables, but I told her, ‘You think I’m happy cleaning people’s rooms? You do what you have to do to support yourself and, God willing, your family.’ It was only a summer
job. Then she was going back to the university. ‘Three months,’ I told her, ‘it’s not so hard.’“

  Kali hesitated, then prodded gently. “So she stuck it out?”

  Angeles nodded. “No more complaining.”

  I bet, Kali thought. No more complaints because, if Joanna was right, she’d quit and gotten a different job.

  But she hadn’t told her mother. Why was that?

  Chapter 25

  The River Inn was located, not surprisingly, on River Road.

  When Kali had first looked at maps of Tucson, she’d seen River Road marked as a broad boulevard paralleling a blue river that snaked along the northern section of the city, stretches of it bordered in green, designating parkland. Having crossed River Road regularly on her way to and from John’s, however, she knew the bucolic lushness she’d envisioned didn’t exist. In the rainy season, she’d been told, the river did, indeed, have water in it— rushing torrents of muddy brown runoff from the flash floods that followed heavy rain. The rest of the year it was a wide, rocky wash. And the only thing remotely green about the park was some peeling benches that had once been painted that color.

  So Kali knew better than to expect a posh waterfront resort, despite the French impressionist images the restaurant’s name conjured up in her mind. Still, she was expecting something a bit nicer than the square, pink stucco building sandwiched between a gas station and an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. The interior, with its dark wood walls and white linen tablecloths, was only a slight improvement.

  Kali spoke to the manager, who confirmed that Olivia had quit her job after two weeks. He hadn’t been particularly sad to see her go, because she had, in his words, “something of an attitude.” He’d never seen the redhead in the photo, and neither had any of the other employees to whom Kali showed the picture. If the redhead and Olivia had worked together over the summer, it was at whatever other job Olivia had taken when she quit the River Inn.

  Kali almost didn’t try the Circle K, because it seemed such a long shot. There had to be scores of people who bought lottery tickets there. But her options were limited, and she needed answers.

  Inside the store, two clerks were on duty. Both male. Both young. That was a plus, Kali decided. Maybe they’d remember an attractive young woman who was a regular customer.

  Kali bought a packet of peanut butter crackers and a Coke and showed the photo of the three girls to the clerk with the buzz cut at the front register.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her around,” he said. “She comes in here pretty regular.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  Kali tried the second clerk, who was counting bills from an adjacent register, and got a similar response.

  “Is there anyone who might know?” she asked.

  Buzz Cut shrugged. “Maybe Dougal. He’s always hitting on the chicks.”

  “Where can I find Dougal?”

  “He comes on in about an hour.”

  More time to kill and no museum or Old Town nearby, probably best for her bank account, given what she’d spent that morning. Kali drove to a bookstore she’d noticed earlier, vowing to browse, not buy.

  She was back at the Circle K in just under an hour. Dougal sauntered into the convenience store about ten minutes later. He was slender and wiry with short, sand-colored hair and a goatee so sparse Kali wondered what the purpose was.

  “Hey, man,” said one of the original clerks, “this lady wants to ask you about a chick who comes in here.”

  Kali showed him the photo.

  “Yeah,” he said, stroking the scraggly beard, “that’s Hayley.”

  Eureka, a name. “Hayley what? Do you know?”

  He shook his head. “Is she in trouble?”

  Big trouble if she was actually the murdered Jane Doe. “She didn’t do anything wrong,” Kali said, “if that’s what you mean. Have you seen her around lately?”

  “Nah, not for the last month or so. I figured she moved or something.”

  “She lived nearby?” Was it too much to hope Dougal knew the address?

  “Probably,” he said. “Most of our regulars do. Either that or they work in the area.”

  “So she might have worked around here,” Kali noted.

  “No. She worked at the Crazy Coyote.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A club over on Grant.” Dougal exchanged places with the clerk behind the counter and punched a code into the cash register.

  “How do you know where she worked?”

  He gave Kali a withering glance. “She told me.”

  “What else did she say? What can you tell me about her?”

  Dougal threw up his hands. “Look, lady, she came in and bought lottery tickets. Sometimes a pack of smokes. That’s it. I try to be friendly but it’s not like I was interested in her life story.”

  I’m making progress, Kali told herself as she climbed back into the hot car. Not fast progress, but she’d learned the first names of both girls in the photo. This was a step in the right direction, even if it was a baby step.

  She only hoped the direction she was headed wasn’t going to bring her face-to-face with a side of her brother she didn’t want to know.

  <><><>

  Kali thought the Crazy Coyote might not be open, given that it was only midafternoon, but the flashing neon sign said that it was.

  “Club” was putting a good spin on it, Kali thought as she pulled into the gravel parking area. “Seedy bar” was a more apt description. The building was a single-story stucco building with a flat roof and no visible windows. There was no walkway or formal entrance, just a narrow door that opened onto the parking lot, empty now except for a handful of pickups and motorcycles. Kali guessed business picked up later in the evening.

  As she stepped inside, she was hit first by the darkness and then by a clammy blanket of smoke, sweat, and booze. After several seconds her eyes adjusted to the point where she could make out dim shapes. She was still getting oriented when she became aware that all eyes in the place were on her. And then the pieces fell into place.

  The Crazy Coyote was a strip joint.

  A woman clad only in a G-string was gyrating onstage. A little too skinny, a little too saggy, definitely bored, she was arching and sliding around a metal pole while scratchy music from a tape pounded in the background. Off to Kali’s left, another dancer wearing a tiny Stars and Stripes bikini and mesh tank top straddled a man’s lap.

  The music and dancing continued, but conversation had stopped.

  Okay, Kali said to herself, you can leave now and forget about Hayley, or tough it out. Before she could give in to the temptation to flee, a scar-faced man appeared.

  “You looking for a job?” He spoke with an accent, maybe Russian. An unlit cigar hung from his loose lips as he looked her up and down.

  Kali felt the urge to go home and shower. She couldn’t begin to imagine herself onstage writhing around a pole. “No,” she said, swallowing her distaste. “I’m looking for Hayley.”

  “Haven’t seen her for a while.” And didn’t care one way or the other, if Kali was reading his expression correctly

  “What’s ‘a while’?”

  “A month, maybe more. Girls come and go.” He pulled the cigar from his mouth and examined the tip, wet with saliva. “They get ideas, you know what I mean?”

  Gone a month, the same timing Dougal had reported about her trips to the Circle K. Kali wondered if that jibed with what the cops knew of the dead woman. “What’s her last name?” Kali asked.

  “I don’t recall.” The man’s eyelids dropped to half-mast as his eyes fixed on Kali’s chest.

  “Do you know where she lived?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s not in your employment records?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Or maybe not. In a place like this, an employment record might be little more than a phone number scratched on a slip of paper. In any case, the ma
n wasn’t interested in pursuing it.

  Kali took a stab in the dark. “How about Crystal? Is she around?”

  “Who?” He lifted his gaze.

  At least she had an answer of sorts. Crystal didn’t work here. “Or Olivia?” Kali asked.

  “What is this? Twenty questions? I got a business to run. You want to stay, buy a drink and sit down. Otherwise, it’s time to move on.”

  She didn’t have the stomach for staying. “Thanks for the help,” she muttered sarcastically and left.

  She’d just started her car’s engine when she noticed one of the men from inside wobbling across the lot toward her car. He was bowlegged and skinny with a big gut hanging over the waistband of his jeans. She locked the door and rolled her window down partway as he approached.

  When he bent down to talk to her, Kali was hit with the sour stench of whiskey breath.

  “What’s it worth to you to know her last name?” he asked, squinting in the bright light of the afternoon.

  She hadn’t a clue about the going rate for information, except this was not a high-living clientele. “Ten dollars.”

  The man turned away in disgust.

  “Twenty?”

  “Make it fifty and I’ll throw in an address.”

  Kali pulled the bills from her wallet and warily slid them halfway through the open window.

  “Hendrix,” the man said, snatching the bills from Kali’s hand. “Hayley Hendrix. She lives on Tyndall, a couple of blocks south of Fort Lowell. It’s a two-story apartment with ‘heights’ or ‘hills’ or something stupid like that in its name.”

  It wasn’t exactly an address, but Kali wasn’t going to quibble with a drunk, even if it was broad daylight. “How well do you know her?”

  “Not hardly at all. I gave her a ride once when she was having car trouble.” He gave Kali a bleary-eyed grin punctuated with a burp. “I’m a married man. No touching the merchandise or my ol’ woman will cut my balls off.”