Monday
Late Night
Pulling back into the parking lot at the station, Keri saw that the media had taken over the place. They swarmed her car until two uniformed officers moved them out of the way enough for her to drive into the lot. Luckily there was a gate separating the employee lot from the general one so they couldn't get too close.
As she walked from her car to the side entrance, blinding flashes of camera lights and shouted questions all merged together. Even if she'd wanted to answer their questions, she couldn't tell them apart from each other. It was all just noise.
Glancing at the digital clock as she entered the bullpen, Keri saw that it was well past eleven. If Ashley really had been abducted in that van right after school, by now she could be as far away as San Francisco, Phoenix, Tijuana, or even Las Vegas.
She walked to her desk, noting that almost no one looked up at her. Some people appeared to be focused intently on their work. But other people seemed to be intentionally avoiding eye contact.
Ray was poring over files at their shared desk. She plopped down in her chair and sighed deeply. Suddenly she felt enormously tired.
"Did that teen Deep Throat have anything earth-shattering to share?" he asked her without looking up.
"She offered some juicy gossip. But nothing that changes things as far as I can tell. What are you up to?"
"Looking at past cases," he said. "Trying to find similar MOs, black vans, whatever."
"Evie's case in there?"
"Yeah, but I skipped it. The pattern didn't seem to match," he said, then finally looked up at her. "Do you disagree?"
"No. This guy was much more careful and deliberate than Evie's abductor. Other than the van, almost nothing else matches up between the cases."
Ray nodded.
"How you doing, Arrietty?" he asked. She could tell he was concerned. She tried to put a brave face on it but she couldn't even think of an insulting nickname comeback.
"I'm okay-just tired and frustrated."
"No missing time lately?"
"Not in the last few hours," she assured him. "I just feel like we keep hitting brick walls. I know that somewhere in all the crap we've been sifting through is an actual clue that will get us to Ashley. But it's hard to see it right now."
"Well, plaster a smile on your face because our fearless leader is headed this way."
Keri looked up to see Lieutenant Hillman walking toward them.
"Anything new, Sands?" he asked brusquely.
"No sir; just looking through old cases for connections."
"Locke, what about you?" he asked, avoiding mentioning the fact that she'd been removed and reinstated on the case within a matter of hours.
"I just met with a friend of Ashley's who said Stafford Penn had an affair with Mia when he was thirty and she was fourteen. She said he's Ashley's father. It might affect his next campaign but I'm not sure how it helps us. Either Artie North or Walker Lee is lying about their interaction but again, I'm not sure that getting the truth on that question gets us any closer to finding Ashley."
"We've got tails on both of them," Hillman told her, "but so far neither one has moved. We're working on getting warrants for the call records of everyone we've interviewed tonight to see if there's anything out of the ordinary but that's still a few hours away. In fact, I'm not sure there's anything either of you can do for now. I recommend you both head home and try to get a few hours of shuteye. I'm going to need you both somewhat fresh to go over those phone LUDs tomorrow morning."
"Maybe I'll just crash in the break room," Keri said.
"That wasn't really a request, Detective Locke. Ashley's former boyfriend, Denton Rivers, is bonding out as we speak and he's been squawking to his lawyer about police brutality. They'll be coming through here in the next five minutes and I don't want a scene where he starts yelling or pointing you out."
"But sir-"
"But nothing. I'm already certain they're going to talk to the press on the way out. I don't need that kid all riled up when he does it. If he sees you, he will be. So go home. I'm leaving in ten minutes myself."
"What's going to happen with that, by the way?" Ray asked.
"My understanding is that his drug dealer, Johnnie Cotton, admitted to assaulting him. Trying to bring a complaint alleging that he was hit in the same spot on his head on the same afternoon by both his dealer and a cop, all while being under suspicion for abducting his girlfriend? Does that sound like a winning case to you?"
"No sir," Ray said, smiling.
"To me either. But the less fuel we add to their fire, the better. That's why I want both of you gone now."
"Yes sir," Ray said, standing up.
"Yes sir," Keri repeated, doing the same. They walked briskly for the exit.
"I'll see you both here at six AM," Hillman shouted after them. "We should have the LUDs by then."
"You want a ride?" Ray asked her. "I know you said you were tired. Just leave your car here. I could even crash at your place…on the couch. We could go in together tomorrow."
"Thanks for the offer but I'm cool. I need to stop at the ladies' room anyway. I'll see you at six."
Ray looked like he wanted to say something else but stopped himself and just nodded.
"See you at six," he agreed and walked out the door to the parking lot.
*
Keri waited in a bathroom stall for fifteen minutes to be sure both Ray and Hillman had left.
When she returned to the bullpen, it was mostly empty. Suarez was still at his desk, typing up reports. Edgerton, the detective who loved all things tech, was doing some kind of cell tower triangulation that Keri didn't completely understand. A detective from Vice was taking a report from a john who said he'd been robbed by the prostitute he'd been with. A homeless guy sat handcuffed to a bench in the corner. He'd defecated on the car hood of a guy he claimed had tossed coffee on him. The car owner, who looked like a real jerk to Keri, seethed as he waited for an officer to take a report. Keri hoped it would be a while.
She made her way back to her desk as unobtrusively as possible and sat down. She wasn't going home. And she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep in the break room, no matter how tired she was. There was a teenage girl in desperate need of her help and she couldn't let her down. Somewhere there was a connection that would solve this case. Keri only hoped she could find it in time.
She grabbed one of the case files on Ray's desk and started rifling through it. There were no obvious similarities. She picked up another one and got more of the same. She slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes for a few seconds. Then she picked up a third file-nothing.
She stood up and headed over to the windows, the same one where she'd watched the mother and daughter pass by earlier in the afternoon. Outside, the night was quiet. It was approaching midnight. All the normal people were home asleep right now. She considered going to the houseboat, even if it was just to zone out to TV for a couple of hours in the hopes of clearing her head.
Just one more file.
She headed back to the desk and picked one up at random. A ten-year-old black girl named London Jaquet disappeared walking home from school and was never heard from again. That was six years ago. Technically the case was "open" but some pages were stuck together because they hadn't been touched in so long.
Similarities to Ashley: female, after school, young.
Similarities to Evie: female, never heard from again, elementary school age.
Keri set the file to the side and picked up another one. It was for a forty-four-year-old Hispanic man who went missing two years ago. His tattoos indicated gang affiliations. The file was thin. No one had worked it all that hard. Keri set it to the side and picked up another one.
A six-year-old Korean girl named Vanda Kang disappeared from the back seat of a car when her mother stepped into a mom-and-pop liquor store on Centinela Avenue to buy a pack of cigarettes. Seven years later, at age thirteen, the girl was found alive and healthy, living with a wealthy white couple in Seattle who claimed they'd adopted her.
A man named Thomas Anderson, aka The Ghost, had only recently been identified as the abductor, eighteen months ago, in fact. He actually went to trial, defended himself even. The file said that if the evidence hadn't been so overwhelming he might have gotten off. He was very convincing in the courtroom. He was currently finishing up the first year of a ten-year sentence. He was supposed to be doing his time at Folsom State Prison, but because of overcrowding he was still being held in county lockup at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown LA. Keri had been there on a few occasions. She didn't love it.
She sat in her chair, swiveling back and forth, turning an idea over and over in her mind.
The Ghost is a professional kidnapper. It's a business. And a business like this requires clients, and co-workers, and middlemen. It required an entire network of connections.
Maybe she'd been going at this all wrong. If this was a professional job, and the video from that bail bonds camera sure made it look like one, why was she talking to boyfriends and drug dealers?
If I'm going to catch a pro, I need to talk to a pro.
Keri stood up, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door. Suarez glanced up, zombie-eyed, and nodded. The homeless guy blew her a kiss. She winked at him and walked out the door. It was after midnight now. That meant it was a new day. And a new day meant a fresh start. And what better way to start than with a ghost.
