The Next Victim (24 page)

"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?

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 man 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."

"Thanks."

He gave her an unsteady salute. "Don't mention it."

Kali made a quick sweep of Tyndall in the general vicinity of Fort Lowell and found nothing that sounded right. She was driving back down the road in the opposite direction when Sabrina called.

"When are you coming home?" she asked. "I'm tired of dealing with the packing by myself. Besides, we need to talk about what to keep and what to toss."

Finding the right apartment could take hours, Kali realized. Assuming she was successful at all. "I'm on my way," she told Sabrina. She'd try again tomorrow, when she could devote more time to the task.

Back at John's, she found Sabrina knee deep in boxes.

"I moved most of them into the garage for pickup," she said. "We're going to have to sell the car, too, I guess. I'll take it down to the dealer in the morning. It's probably not worth the hassle to sell it on our own."

"I agree."

"I cleaned out the inside. Stuff's on the table."

Kali glanced at the pile. Maps, coins, parking receipts, a pair of sunglasses, and a hardback thriller whose title Kali recognized from browsing the bestseller rack at the bookstore that afternoon.

"Before I forget," Sabrina added, "Nash's secretary at Logan Foods called. They finished cleaning out John's office and have some stuff for us. I said one of us would swing by in the morning to get it." She picked up the box she'd been working on, then nudged another with her foot. "Can you grab this one? We'll add these to the collection in the garage. Then I'm about done for the day."

"Sure." Kali lifted the box and followed Sabrina into the garage.

"Did you manage to talk to Olivia's mother?" Sabrina asked.

"Yes. And I know the name of the third girl in the photo. Hayley Hendrix. She's a stripper."

"You mean like in a nightclub?"

"Calling the dive she works a nightclub is like calling the No Tell Motel a resort."

Sabrina made a face. "Why would she work at a place like that?"

"Money would be my guess. Though probably not a lot, given the looks of the place."

"Are you going to tell the cops? I mean, they need to know who she is, don't they?"

Kali nodded. "But not just yet. I hate to bring John's name into it until we have a better idea of what was going on."

The girl was dead, she reasoned. It didn't much matter whether the cops learned her name today or tomorrow. For that matter, they might have already learned it on their own.

But all the reasoning in the world couldn't quiet the misgivings Kali felt at being less than forthcoming with what she'd learned.

Erling rubbed his thumb over the bristly spot on his neck he'd missed while shaving that morning. He doubted the spot was noticeable to the casual observer, but once he'd found the small patch of stubble, he hadn't been able to keep his hand away. It was a petty annoyance that made it difficult for him to concentrate on anything else.

Enough
. He forced his hand away from his neck and back to the reports on his desk. A series of recent assaults, as well as a he-said/she-said rape case involving a Hollywood producer and an employee at the resort where he'd been staying. He said the sex was consensual; she said it wasn't. Erling and Michelle had interviewed the staff on duty at the time and now had as many versions of the evening as people they'd talked to. Erling was glad the final call on whether to prosecute would fall on the DA's office and not on him.

Especially now, when he was beginning to doubt his own judgment.

For the last twenty-four hours--since John O'Brien's sister had come to them with her suspicions of foul play--Erling had been feeling uneasy. Michelle had noticed, and last night at dinner, Deena had commented on his irritability, as well. He was fairly sure neither of them had bought his story of a toothache.