by Blake Pierce
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, Keri,” Mags replied, her normally composed voice strangled with emotion. “I’m so sorry. I handled things badly last night. Please forgive me.”
Keri was used to hedged apologies, full of phrases like “if I offended you.” This had none of that and it took her by surprise. To be petulant in the face of such remorse seemed small.
“Of course I forgive you.”
“Thank you so much. I haven’t slept a wink since we spoke. My insides have been bubbling like a crawfish boil.”
“Same here,” Keri admitted, although she didn’t totally get the reference.
“Well,” Mags continued, “I couldn’t just leave it like that. I had to do something. So I came up with a notion. And I think it might have done some good.”
“What do you mean?” Keri asked, confused.
“All right, hear me out, darling. This will all make sense in a moment. Two years ago, I was working on a piece about sex trafficking in the city. I was never able to publish, partly because I couldn’t nail some details down solidly enough. And partly because my editor was worried that I might face retribution.”
“What kind of retribution?” Keri asked.
“The permanent kind. You might remember that Lawrence Kenneally over at the Times did a similar story about six years ago. About a week later, his car blew up in the driveway when he started it.”
“Your editors thought you were at risk even though you write under a pseudonym?”
“Yes,” Mags said. “That only offers so much protection. And since I didn’t have enough hard evidence to name names, it didn’t seem worth the risk.”
“Okay. So how does this affect me?”
“Part of your description of what happened last night—a guy being shot by a man in a mask—fit the M.O. for someone I’d heard about in my research. He was known as the Black Widower. Supposedly bigwigs use him to clean up messes for them. And his standard method was a gunshot to the head. Any chance he left the scene in a black Lincoln Continental without plates?”
“Yes!” Keri nearly shouted.
“I suspected as much. That’s part of his custom as well. He’s been doing this for years. But because he’s a hired gun, no one can establish a pattern to his crimes. The only similarity is that they always seem to occur when a major mess needs cleaning up.”
“Okay. I feel like there’s more you’re not telling me, Mags.”
“There is,” Mags said. “During the course of my investigation, I was given a way to reach out to him if I ever needed a job done. Obviously, I never did. But I always held on to it, just in case. This morning, I reached out.”
“How?”
“Craigslist, if you can believe it. I was told to post in LA’s “strictly platonic” section, using a few specific keywords.”
“Have you heard back?” Keri asked anxiously.
“Not yet. But it’s only been a few hours. I heard sometimes he replies the same day. Sometimes it takes weeks or even months. Sometimes he never responds. But I’ve baited the hook at least.”
“Thank you, Mags.”
“Of course, sweetie. I almost didn’t do it. I don’t want to give you false hope. But it sounded so similar that I had to try.”
Keri saw Ray coming out of the store. He had a coffee in one hand and a breakfast burrito in the other. She didn’t want him to know she’d confided in Mags and not him so she started to end the call when she had a thought.
“Hey, Mags—when you were investigating this story, did you ever come across the name ‘Mr. Holiday’ or something called ‘the Bad Place’?”
Mags was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking, before she finally responded.
“Not specifically. But I remember interviewing several teen prostitutes who talked about not wanting a holiday. I’d ask them if they had tried to get out of the life and they all used the same phrase—‘I don’t want a holiday.’ It struck me as odd but I never knew what to make of it. But if it was a reference to a person, it might make more sense. I could try to reach back out to them but it might take a while. As you know, these girls aren’t exactly easy to find.”
“That’s okay,” Keri said, rushing to wrap things as Ray reached the car. “I actually know a girl who might be able to help. And I know exactly where to find her. I’ve got to run, Mags.”
“Of course. But we’re good?”
“We’re good, Margaret. I’ll be in touch,” she said, hanging up as Ray sat down.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Just Mags Merrywether checking in. She gave me an idea.”
“What’s that?
“Remember Susan Granger, the teen prostitute I found in Venice earlier this year?”
He gave her a disbelieving look.
“You mean the fourteen-year-old girl with a pimp named Crabby who you beat to a pulp? The girl you’ve been visiting every week since then at that girls’ group home in Redondo Beach? Yeah, I remember her, Keri.”
“Just checking,” she said, unable to hide her smile at how well he knew her. “Mags mentioned that a lot of prostitutes she interviewed for a story kept referencing the word ‘holiday.’ Maybe Susan knows what that’s about.”
“It’s worth a shot,” he said. “Especially since we still have nothing else to go on. Suarez just called me and said they found that trucker who drove the girls to the truck stop, Curt Stoller. He gave the same description of Mr. Holiday but he was almost useless otherwise. He said this was his third time transporting girls and he always follows the same routine. He leaves the cab of his truck unlocked when he gets to the truck stop, then goes into the rest area for twenty minutes before returning to the truck. He said that when he left this time, the girls were all drugged and unconscious. When he got back, they were gone. He never saw who took them.”
“That’s all they got out of him?”
“He did mention that Holiday promised him that if he kept doing a good job, he’d get to spend some private time with the girls somewhere called the Bad Place. But he didn’t know where that was and he didn’t want to press Holiday. Apparently, he’s pretty scared of the guy.”
“Great,” Keri said, frustrated. “Just so we’re clear: all our law enforcement resources are coming up empty and we’re hoping a former teen prostitute might give us a bread crumb we can follow?”
“Pretty much,” Ray conceded.
Keri scowled as she dialed the number of the group home. The phone was picked up by Rita Skraeling, the woman who ran the place. Keri would have recognized her raspy, cigarette-bruised voice anywhere.
“Hey, Rita, it’s Keri,” she said. “I need to talk to Susan. Is she available?”
“Usually, I’d say no. But for you, any time. Give me a minute to get her. She’s on mop duty.”
Rita put down the phone and Keri imagined the little, wrinkled force of nature shuffling down the hall in her thick glasses. A few seconds later Susan picked up.
“Hi, Detective Locke,” she said, her voice full of enthusiasm.
Susan had come a long way in the months since Keri had found her hooking on a Venice street in the middle of the night, her grotesque pimp only steps away.
It had taken her a while to believe that she was actually free of that life. But with support from Ms. Skraeling, her therapist, and the other girls at the home, along with regular visits from Keri, she’d finally come out of her shell.
“Hi, Susan,” Keri said, knowing the girl would be disappointed that this wasn’t a social call. “How are you?”
“Pretty good,” Susan said. “I finished that Nancy Drew book. We could talk about it when you come over next. Is that why you’re calling—to set up a visit?”
“I do hope to visit soon. But not this weekend. I’m out of town on a case. I’m actually hoping you might be able to help me out.”
“Me help you?” Susan said excitedly.
“Yeah. But it means telling me something about your time on the streets. And I don
’t want to ask you about that if you’re not okay with it.”
“What’s it for?” Susan asked, her voice turning guarded.
“I’m searching for a girl that was kidnapped yesterday—she’s sixteen,” Keri told her, starting to regret that she’d called at all. “We think some bad people are trying to turn her into a prostitute and we’re trying to find her before it’s too late.”
“What can I do about that?”
“Well, we keep hearing references to someone named Mr. Holiday who may be involved in taking her. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“No, sorry.”
Keri looked over at Ray, but he wasn’t looking back. He was staring at his phone. Obviously some new information had come in. He held up the phone for her to see. It was a text from Kevin Edgerton that read “Found trucks. One still headed south toward San Diego on the 5 freeway. Other going east to Arizona on the 8 freeway. Advise.”
“Are you mad at me?” Susan asked.
Keri realized that she hadn’t responded to the girl and that she must have interpreted the silence as anger.
“No, Susan, of course not,” she said. “It was a long shot. Thanks for trying.”
“Was there anything else they said?”
Keri thought for a moment.
“Some people mentioned something called the Bad Place. Does that ring a bell?”
“I’ve heard of it. Crabby used to say it was where troublemaking whores were sent when they’d stepped out of line one time too many. I don’t know if it’s even real.”
“Did Crabby happen to mention where it was?” Keri asked.
“Sure. He said it was in Mexico.”
Keri and Ray looked at each other. This time she made sure not to leave Susan hanging.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
“Yeah. He said it all the time. ‘If you act up I’ll have to send you to the Bad Place down Mexico way.’ After a while I assumed it was just a story he was making up. Does that help at all?”
“It might,” Keri told her.
“Does this mean you can get that girl back?”
“We’re sure going to try, Susan. And if we do, you’ll be part of the reason why. I’ve got to go now but we’ll talk again soon, okay?”
Okay,” Susan said and Keri could actually hear her smiling through the phone.
She hung up and turned to Ray, who had started up the car and was pulling out of the gas station.
“South, I assume?” he said.
“Yep, south. All the way to Mexico.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Keri could feel time slipping away from them. Even though Ray had the siren on and was pushing 100 miles an hour as they tore down the freeway, a creeping sense of dread was overtaking her. If that truck crossed into Mexico, she doubted they’d never find Sarah or the other girls again.
They had everyone on speakerphone at the station and, after explaining what they’d learned, the entire team took on assignments. Lieutenant Hillman was calling the San Diego Sector of the Border Patrol to request they hold the truck if found and warn them about the nature of the situation.
Detective Manny Suarez was doing the same thing with San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the San Diego Police Department. Of course, it was hard to get assistance when all they knew definitively from the video footage was that the truck had a red cab and a white trailer that said “Maersk” on the side.
Using freeway cameras, Detectives Edgerton and Patterson had only managed to intermittently track the truck so far because, until recently, it had been on a quiet stretch of freeway in the very early morning traveling at a constant speed. But now it was after 9 a.m. and they were deep into rush hour in a major city. The highways were choked with traffic and there were likely dozens of Maersk trucks with red cabs close to crossing the border into Mexico.
That’s why Patterson was trying to clean up freeway sign camera screenshots to get a decent image of the license plate. They knew it was from California and suspected that the first letter was “V” but they couldn’t be certain. The process was slow and painstaking.
Patterson was having the same issue as he looked at images taken through the front windshield of the truck from overpass cameras. If the computer could clean up the picture of the driver, then he could employ facial recognition technology to attempt to identify him. But right now, it was just a blur.
Jamie Castillo was poring over surveillance footage from the truck stop, hoping to find a clean image of someone in a red Maersk truck filling up to see if it matched the license info Edgerton had gleaned so far.
Even the old-timers were helping out. Detectives Jerry Cantwell and Ed Sterling were reviewing receipts from the truck stop for anything useful. And Frank Brody, only months from retirement and not known for his tireless work ethic, was trying to get Maersk on the phone to review their driver information.
Keri tapped her feet nervously on the floor of the car as she watched vehicles move right so that Ray could have a clear path along the carpool lane. But even then, it was slow going. According to the last sign she’d seen, they were still eleven miles from the San Ysidro border crossing, the most likely spot for the truck to pass into Mexico. Even if there was a massive backup at the border, she doubted they could catch up.
“I’ve got it,” someone shouted over the phone. It took Keri a second to realize that it was Edgerton.
“What?” she heard Hillman bark from nearby.
“I’ve got four digits of the license plate. That’s enough to ID the truck and driver. I’m pulling up his license now. It belongs to a…Roberto Alarcon. Garrett, can you see if his photo matches what you have so far from facial recognition?”
There was silence on the line and Keri and Ray knew everyone back at the station was probably hovering over one computer monitor. After a few seconds, they heard a collective cheer.
“Hey, guys,” Patterson said, letting them know what they couldn’t see, “we’ve got an eighty-eight-percent match, pretty darn good, considering how fuzzy this image still is.”
“All right,” Hillman barked. “I’m going to pass this info along to Border Patrol. Suarez, you do the same with County and SDPD. Castillo, put out a general APB for all of Southern California on this guy and the truck. Roberto Alarcon isn’t going anywhere. Edgerton, patch Sands and Locke into my office. I want to talk to them privately.”
Keri and Ray exchanged worried looks. They recognized the tone in Hillman’s voice. It was the one he used when he had to deliver bad news. And the fact that he wanted to talk to them privately only reinforced their concerns. A few seconds later he came back on the line and they could tell he was no longer on speakerphone.
“Great work, you two,” he said. “We’d be nowhere without your efforts on this.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Ray replied, “we’re still nowhere. Until that truck is stopped and we find Sarah Caldwell in it, we’re not out of the woods. We’ve thought we found her too many times to get overconfident now.”
“No one’s getting overconfident, Ray. I’m just saying you did well.”
“But…” Keri said, knowing he was holding something back.
“But I need you two to come back. There’s nothing left for you to do down there now. Three law enforcement agencies have been notified. They’re not going to want a couple of LA detectives trying to horn in on the case, especially the Border Patrol. You know how proprietary the feds get.”
“Horn in?” Keri demanded. “This is our case. We’re primary on it. Besides, Sarah’s going to need someone there who knows what she’s been through. That’s us.”
“Keri,” Ray said sounding defeated. “Don’t you get it? That’s not the real reason he’s calling us in. Is it, Lieutenant?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. It lasted so long Keri thought the call had dropped.
“It’s a reason. But no, it’s not the only reason,” Hillman finally said in a softer voice than K
eri was used to from him. “Detective Locke. You’ve been through a lot in the last day and frankly, I’m worried about you. You were in a shootout that could have killed you. Your car was hit by a man who escaped with your missing daughter. And you were in an altercation with the man who originally abducted her, an altercation that left him dead and you on the run. It would be irresponsible of me to leave you in the field after all of that.”
“It’s that last one that’s got your boxers in a wad, isn’t it?” she said sharply, the hairs rising on the back of her neck as her voice got louder. “You’re tired of holding off Downtown Division on their interrogation of me. Why don’t you just admit it?”
“That’s not it,” he said, his tone still much more restrained than she would have expected. “I’ve told them you’ll need at least twenty-four hours’ recovery time before any interview. I’m more concerned about your state of mind. You sounded really out of it last night. Do you even remember that you gave me information which led to the rescue of almost thirty children?”
“Vaguely,” Keri admitted.
“Listen, I know that losing Evie a second time has to be affecting you. You haven’t had any real break, Keri. I’m worried about you.”
She opened her mouth to respond but Ray put his hand gently on her knee and shook his head.
“We understand, Lieutenant,” he said. “We’re coming back. Please keep us posted on any other developments.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply and began moving the car right across lanes to get to the next exit.
“What the hell was that?” she yelled.
“Listen. I know you didn’t want to hear that. But he was actually taking it easy on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you realize the favors he had to call in to get that APB on you pulled down? And to delay your interrogation? You left a crime scene where someone died, Keri. I know it was the frickin’ Collector. But there are rules. You broke them and he’s trying to pick up the pieces for you. Cut him some slack.”
“But why now? What difference does another few hours make?”
