Keri Locke 02-A Trace of Muder

by Blake Pierce

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Everything was fuzzy. Keri blinked several times, trying to drive the cloudiness from her eyes. Her mouth felt bone dry and her whole body ached. An annoying ringing in the distance seemed to be getting louder. She forced her eyes open and took in her surroundings.

  She was on the houseboat, sprawled out on her stomach on the loveseat in her tiny living space. Her right arm and leg dangled off the side. When she tried to move them, she realized both were asleep.

  Her head throbbed and she felt like she might throw up. And still, the ringing sound kept getting louder. Finally she realized what it was—her alarm clock. It was over by her bed, about six feet away, a seemingly insurmountable distance.

  Then her phone began to chime too. It was lying on the coffee table, only three feet away. But that still felt like a hundred yards to her. She tried to shimmy over to it but lost her balance and fell off the love seat completely.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been this hung over in my entire life.

  She managed to get a hand on the phone and turn off that alarm but the clock by the bed still seemed like an impossible journey. She rolled over onto her knees and used her elbows to push off the coffee table and reach something approximating a standing position.

  She lurched over to the bed and punched the button on the clock, finally silencing it. Then she sat on the bed, trying to move as little as possible. She was tempted to lie down but something told her she shouldn’t.

  She looked at the clock. It read 7:15 a.m. Why had she set her alarm so early last night? She must have made the conscious choice to do it. But she couldn’t recall the reason. Everything from the night before was mostly one big haze.

  Flashes of detail from the evening came to her. Stopping at Ralph’s to get some chicken wings and a fresh bottle of Glenlivet on the way home from her awful meeting with Stephen; watching one of the interchangeable series about the Kardashians while she downed the whole thing; throwing up.

  Before she could piece together any more details, her phone rang. Realizing she’d left it on the coffee table, Keri used the wall to pull herself upright and lumbered back over to grab it.

  “Hello,” she said, not even looking at the caller ID.

  “Keri, are you up?” The voice belonged to Detective Kevin Edgerton.

  “Of course I’m up. Why are you calling to ask me that?”

  “Because you told me to when you called last night.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, you said you were going to get rip-roaring drunk and told me to call you this morning at seven fifteen to make sure you were up in time to get to the Burlingame update meeting at eight.”

  Oh shit—the meeting. How am I going to make myself presentable and get to the station by eight? Meanwhile, Edgerton thinks I’m crazy.

  “That’s right. It slipped my mind. Thanks, Kevin, although you’re a little late. I have the time as seven eighteen.”

  “I know. I’m sorry about—”

  “Don’t sweat it,” she said, pleased that she’d put him on the defensive. Hopefully, he wouldn’t dwell on the whole drunk thing. “See you soon.”

  She hung up and stumbled toward the bathroom. The woman staring back at her in the mirror looked like a stranger—pale, blotchy skin, red eyes with dark circles under them, matted hair. She looked ten years older than her thirty-five years.

  She grabbed a bag and quickly began stuffing it with what she’d need for the day—a change of clothes, her towel and shower toiletries, her gun belt, and a huge bottle of water. Then she hurried from the boat to the comfort station on the dock. The chill in the morning air both revived and annoyed her.

  I’ve got to check out that apartment Ray mentioned. What adult woman has to walk a quarter mile to take a shower?

  As she walked, Keri checked her phone. There were multiple texts and voice messages from yesterday, all of which she’d either ignored or missed. One text was from Ray in the late afternoon, asking why she never met up with Rene, the guy with the apartment to rent. Another text was from Stephen, pleading with her to get help.

  Next up was a voicemail:

  “Hi, Detective Locke. This is Susan Granger calling. I don’t want to bother you. I know you got hurt a lot fighting that bad guy. But you promised you would come visit me when you got better and I was hoping you didn’t forget. Anyway, thanks. Bye.”

  Keri hadn’t thought she could feel any worse, what with the pounding headache, dehydration, nausea, sore ribs and shoulder, and self-disgust. But now she could add guilt to the ledger.

  Susan Granger was a fourteen-year-old runaway who’d been forced into street prostitution by a pimp named Crabby. While investigating the disappearance of Ashley Penn two weeks ago, Keri had come across the two of them on a Venice street and briefly mistook Susan for what she imagined a teenage Evie would look like.

  After beating up Crabby and getting him put away, she got Susan placed in a group home in Redondo Beach. They’d been in touch on the phone a few times but Keri had assured the girl she would visit when she felt better.

  Somehow, the combination of her injuries and her reluctance to be face to face again with a girl who reminded her of Evie’s possible fate had kept her away until now. But the disappointment in Susan’s voice on the message told her she’d stalled far too long.

  Keri got in the shower and tried to push the shame she felt away, focusing only on the soap and shampoo. It didn’t work, as images of Susan, all tarted up and wearing a miniskirt on the street in the middle of the night, kept creeping into her head.

  After getting dressed and throwing on a bit of makeup to hide her rough night, Keri booked it over to the station. She walked into Conference Room A at 7:58 a.m., with two minutes to spare. Even Lieutenant Hillman hadn’t made it in yet. She sat down between Suarez and Edgerton and leaned over to the younger man.

  “Thanks for this morning,” she whispered. He nodded and smiled but didn’t reply as Hillman had just entered the room.

  “Okay,” he said without any opening pleasantries. “I understand we’ve got some updates this morning. Who’s first?”

  Garrett Patterson raised his hand and Hillman motioned for him to come to the front of the room. Patterson stepped forward and turned on the big computer monitor screen that dominated the back wall.

  “So, we know that Kendra’s individual checking account was emptied and that a ticket was purchased in Palm Springs by someone who looked like her under the name A. Maroney, which fits with her middle initial and maiden name. The ticket was for a bus to Phoenix but there is no evidence of the woman getting off there. But we now think we do know where she got off.”

  “Where?” Brody asked impatiently.

  “Blythe, California, just west of the Arizona border,” Patterson said, as the monitor displayed a receipt on the screen. “We have a record of a car being rented down the street from the bus station. The name on the credit card was A. Maroney. The car was turned in yesterday morning in El Paso, Texas.”

  “Great,” Brody grumbled. “She could have walked across the border into Mexico from there and we’d never know where she went after that.”

  “Actually, we think that’s exactly what she did. But we didn’t lose her. Right, Manny?”

  Detective Manny Suarez took that as his cue and stood up next to Patterson.

  “Being the only bilingual member of this unit, I volunteered to get in touch with the Mexican authorities. Eventually I was put in touch with the right folks and they sent me this.”

  The screen was replaced with a printout of what looked like an airplane manifest. Suarez continued.

  “This is a record of a flight from Juarez to Mexico City yesterday. Notice the seventeenth name on the manifest—A. Maroney. And here’s surveillance footage from the gate area as people boarded the flight.”

  Keri looked at the grainy images. After a few moments she saw what looked like the woman from the Palm Springs bus station. She was wearing a different outfi
t but had the same headscarf and sunglasses and was careful to keep her head down the whole time.

  Suarez put a new image on the screen.

  “This is a record of a different flight,” he said. “This one is from yesterday late afternoon. It went from Mexico City to Barcelona.”

  “Barcelona, Spain?” Cantwell asked, stunned.

  “Yep,” Suarez answered. “Here’s footage of the same woman boarding that flight. And this image is from early this morning at the Barcelona airport.”

  On the screen were several screen captures of what looked like the same woman. One was of her leaving the gate after getting off the plane. Another was of her walking down a concourse. And the last image was of her waiting in line at a bus stop outside the airport departure area.

  “That’s the last shot of her we have of her. Buses do pickups there every ten minutes and stop throughout the city. There’s no way to track her after that.”

  “And there’s something else,” Edgerton added, piping up for the first time. “Manny, can you go to the cleaned up shot from the bus station waiting area?”

  As Suarez looked for the image, Edgerton turned to Keri.

  “Do you remember how you asked us to clean up the footage of her reading that magazine in the station? Well, we did and this is what we found.”

  On the screen appeared a close-up of the woman holding the magazine. The title was a little fuzzy but Keri could make it out. It was called Living Spain.

  “Well, I’d say that seals it,” Brody announced triumphantly.

  “What about the prints from the snow globe?” Keri asked.

  Edgerton shook his head.

  “Palm Springs PD is still going through them. They’ve identified fourteen prints definitively but nothing from Kendra yet. They’re still processing others but they told me that even with her touching it, they might not be able to get a clean print. Just too many fingers on the things.”

  Lieutenant Hillman looked at Keri. She knew he was waiting on her since she was always the last one to want to close out a case. That instinct had served her well when everyone else had assumed Ashley Penn had run away. She had doggedly stayed with that case against direct orders and was eventually proven right. A teenage girl was alive because of her stubbornness.

  But despite her gut feeling that something was off, she couldn’t think of anything concrete that could justify not closing the case.

  “Her sister told me she was fluent in Spanish,” she said reluctantly. “So it makes sense that if she wanted to get away, she’d go to a place where she knew the language. It all fits.”

  “I agree,” Hillman said, stepping forward. “Here’s how this is going to work, folks. We’re not going to officially close the case yet. It’s only been seventy-two hours since she’s gone missing. Something might still turn up. And besides, the husband will raise a stink if we tell him we’re closing it out. This woman is the closest thing to a saint we’ve got in this city and we don’t need Burlingame going to the press, saying we’ve abandoned his wife. But for all practical purposes, we’re closing it out. Move on to your other cases. If anything pops on this one, we’ll revisit it. Understood?”

  Everyone nodded their assent.

  “And Locke,” he added, “take the rest of the day off. I think we pushed you back in the field too early. You look like death warmed over. Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yes sir,” Keri said. For the first time in a long time she didn’t feel like fighting him. All she wanted was to go home and sleep. She headed out of the station, checking for any messages she might have missed during the meeting. There was one e-mail waiting for her.

  It was from the Collector.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  In shock and suddenly feeling weak-kneed, she reached out for the closest wall to keep from falling.

  The message was in response to her e-mail from yesterday afternoon asking “where were you?”

  His reply was short and to the point:

  i was there. you were not. caution is good. you passed that test. but trust is key. maybe next time.

  Keri got in her car, closed the door, and sat quietly, not moving. She couldn’t decide if the message was crushing or hopeful. He hadn’t ended the communication completely. He’d even hinted that a next time was possible.

  But she had no idea how to ensure that possibility without risking scaring him off. Finally she decided, in violation of the very essence of her character, to do nothing, at least for now.

  I’m tired. I’m hung over. I feel sick. I’m physically hurt. And I’m stressed beyond belief. This isn’t the time to reach out and risk making a mistake. Just let it go.

  With the decision made, Keri felt a weight suddenly lift. She still felt like crap. But at least she could move forward. At least she could function. At least she could focus on other tasks without feeling like a raw, throbbing nerve every second. And she knew the task she needed to focus on at this moment.

  *

  As she pulled up in front of the group home in North Redondo Beach, Keri hung up the phone. She’d just finished leaving what she hoped was a gracious message for Randall the GameStop employee.

  For some reason she was in a generous mood and he was the beneficiary. She thanked him for his help yesterday and said that while he was cute and sweet, she’d decided to get back together with her boyfriend. Feeling proud of herself for the first time all day, Keri got out of the car and headed for the house.

  To the average person the South Bay Shared House looked like any other home in the neighborhood. It sat back from the street, surrounded by thick palm trees, and the Mediterranean-style design fit in with the surrounding residences.

  The only signs that the place was any different were the unusually high stone walls that surrounded the house and the unobtrusively placed cameras that stared out at the sidewalk and street in both directions.

  They were an unfortunate necessity as many of the residents, all teenage girls, were victims of domestic violence. On rare occasions the perpetrator discovered the house’s address and tried to make an unannounced visit.

  Keri rang the bell at the exterior gate and waited for someone to respond. She could tell there was a camera trained on her as well and she held up her badge and ID to make things easier for whoever was checking her out. After a moment, a voice came over the intercom.

  “How can I help you, Detective?” asked a raspy-voiced woman.

  “I’m Keri Locke, here to see Susan Granger. She requested a visit.”

  “We normally ask that visitors make prior arrangements, Detective Locke.”

  “I understand. But I’ve been incapacitated for a while. This is the first chance I’ve really had to come by. Can you make an exception?”

  There was a long silence. Then Keri heard a buzz. She pulled the gate door open and walked to the front door, where a tiny woman waited for her. She had thick glasses and her gray hair was tied up in a bun. Her powerfully wrinkled skin suggested a lifetime of smoking and too much sun.

  “Incapacitated for a while,” she said as Keri approached, sounding like she was mildly amused. “That’s one way of putting it. I saw you on the news, Detective. I’m surprised you’re walking already. I would have thought you’d be in a wheelchair for a month.”

  “Yeah, well. They got sick of me at the hospital so they kicked me out. I figured if they were willing to let me leave on my own two feet, I should try to stay upright on them.”

  The woman started to laugh but it quickly turned into a long, hacky cough. Oblivious, she waved for Keri to follow her in. When she recovered, she closed the door and proceeded to secure the three separate locks on it.

  “Susan will be happy to see you,” she said as they walked down a long hallway decorated with intricate ceramic tile flooring. “I’m Rita Skraeling, by the way. I run the place. Call me Rita.”

  “Hi, Rita, call me Keri. How’s she doing?”

  “Good days and bad. Therapy
sessions have been tough this week. But she’s really trying. And the other girls have taken her under their wing. A lot of them know what she’s been through so they can relate.”

  “How many girls do you have here?”

  “It varies, usually between four and eight. Right now we have five with Susan. She’s in the library.”

  They rounded the corner and Keri saw that the library was just a sun room with two full bookshelves. There was a loveseat by the window and two beanbag chairs, one of which Susan occupied. She was casually reading a Nancy Drew mystery.

  She looked shockingly different from the one and only time Keri had seen her on that Venice street. That night she could have passed for nineteen or twenty. But now, wearing sweatpants and a navy-blue T-shirt, free of makeup, with her blonde hair in a loose ponytail and her legs curled up under her, she looked closer to twelve.

  Susan sensed eyes on her and looked up fearfully. But the second she saw Keri, she softened and her face broke into a wide smile. She clambered to her feet and ran over, hugging her tight. Keri winced but forced herself not to grunt as her ribs were crushed.

  “Careful, Ms. Granger. Remember, Detective Locke is still recovering from her injuries.”

  Susan immediately pulled back.

  “Sorry. I forgot,” she said quietly.

  “That’s okay,” Keri assured her and lifted her arms like a bodybuilder showing off his muscles. “Strong like bull.”

  Susan giggled.

  “I’ll leave you two be,” Rita said and left without another word.

  “Want to sit down?” Keri asked. Susan nodded shyly and they sat down on the loveseat.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry it took me so long,” Keri said, deciding not to explain beyond that.

  “That’s okay. I know you’ve had a lot going on. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget.”

  Keri ignored the fresh wave of guilt that washed over her.

  “No, of course not,” she said reassuringly. “So how are things here?”