by Leslie Wolfe
Tess frowned and clenched her jaws, trying not to think of what Julie was going through right at that moment, how she must have felt. She knew it too well. Unwanted memories invaded her brain and clouded her vision. Sixteen hours already… sixteen hours of torture, of screams no one heard, of wishing she were dead. How the hell did that happen?
She muttered curses under her breath, reading the rest of the notes and blaming herself for being away in Atlanta when Julie had gone missing. Maybe if she’d been there, they would have found Julie already.
“Talk to me,” she asked Michowsky between clenched jaws. “What the hell happened?”
“She went missing last night, guess where? Club Exhale, no less. That’s one hell of a coincidence. She went out with friends. Apparently, her boyfriend, Drew DeVos, was late in joining her and a girlfriend of hers, Tiffany. At some point, waiting for Drew, Julie said she was going to the car to retrieve her forgotten phone. That’s the last time anyone saw her.”
“Background?” she asked.
“Graduated from Stanford law a month ago. Father, Douglas Reynolds, is a big-shot lawyer, with offices in four states. Stepmother, Diane, homemaker and, rumor has it, a bit of an alcoholic. Boyfriend, Drew DeVos, 22, engineering student; he’s the one who arrived late at the club last night.”
Michowsky scratched the back of his head, running his hand through his buzz-cut hair, and paced back and forth in front of the wallboard.
“It fits,” he added. “Too well, if you were to ask me.”
“He never took two girls in the same city before,” Fradella said. “The unsub… why is he changing his game now?”
“We don’t know that he is,” Tess replied, her eyes still pinned on Julie’s photo. “So far, we have discovered victims in various locations, but we don’t know that those victims were all his victims, do we? He could have killed more than four women, and we don’t know where. He’s too experienced, too skilled and organized to be a beginner, so he might have killed in Miami before.”
Fradella didn’t reply, just grunted almost imperceptibly.
“All right,” Tess said, “let’s get organized. Detective Fradella, please figure out Julie’s last 24 hours, minute by minute. Make calls, pull financials. I’ve cleared it with my office and we can access financials without delay, since this is an active kidnapping case. Call this number for anything you need; this is the analyst they’ve assigned to the case to help us with data pulls. His name is Donovan,” she added, and handed him a scribbled sticky note.
“Got it,” Fradella replied and disappeared.
“You and you,” she continued, pointing at the two uniformed cops still hanging out in the room. “Go to Exhale and screen the surveillance videos. Find Julie in the crowds, and watch every move she makes. Don’t leave until you pinpoint the exact time she left the club and with whom.”
One of the officers pursed his lips, and the other one grumbled. She ignored them both and turned to Michowsky.
“Michowsky, you and I need to speak with her friends and family. We’re leaving now.”
“Start with the family?”
“Nope, with Tiffany. She was there last night; the family wasn’t.”
As she turned to grab her bag, she caught a comment from one of the uniformed officers still in the room.
“We know how to do our job,” the man grumbled in a low voice, intended only for his partner to hear. “It’s not like we need to take any orders from this fed bitch.”
She felt a wave of anger rise inside her like a tidal wave. It wasn’t because they’d insulted her; she couldn’t care less. It was because those cops had time for egotistical, territorial bullshit like that, while a young woman screamed for help in the grasp of a killer.
“I heard that, you know,” she said coldly. “You want to find this girl while she’s still alive? Or you want to go home early and book a therapy session, so you can bitch and moan about me, and how I ruined your perfect little day?”
The two men hustled toward the door without responding, encouraged by Michowsky’s fierce look and head shake, ordering them gone.
“I’ll get the car pulled out,” she told Michowsky. “Call Tiffany and tell her we’re on our way.”
27
The Creep
Tess almost ran across the squad room, heading for the stairs, car keys in one hand and laptop bag in the other. As she turned into the hallway, the elevator doors squealed open and two young women stepped out. Recognizing them, Tess froze in her tracks. She’d completely forgotten about the sketch artist session she was supposed to book.
“Agent Winnett,” they greeted her, offering their hands.
“Ashely, Carmen, thanks for coming in. Let me—” she hesitated, not sure where to ask them to wait. “Just give me a second, will you?”
“Sure,” Ashely replied.
Tess checked both interview rooms and no luck. They were already booked, one with a grieving family, and another one with a twitching meth head. Out of options, she decided for the conference room, although she hated exposing witnesses to case information, no matter how minimal. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the boards. Yeah… like that could happen.
She invited the two young women to take a seat.
“Water, coffee, anything?” she asked, in a hurry.
“No, thank you, we’re good,” Carmen replied, after exchanging a quick glance with Ashely.
“All right, hang in here for a few minutes, I’ll go find the artist.”
She scampered back and forth between offices, looking for the artist and couldn’t find him. Out of options, she grabbed a phone and called the front desk.
“Hey, Bob, has the sketch artist arrived yet?”
“Haven’t seen him today,” Bob replied.
“When he shows up, please have him come upstairs to the conference room, okay? I have to run out. The witnesses are in there.”
She hung up and went back to the conference room, where the two young women stood, getting ready to leave.
“I see you found him,” Carmen said.
“Found who?” Tess asked, raising her eyebrows.
“The creep. Right there,” Carmen replied, pointing at May Lin’s investors’ gala picture. “This guy, the tall one.”
On the second row, behind May Lin’s family, a tall, blond man stood with an arrogant yet charismatic smile. A memorable face, full of self-confidence, and radiating power, the type of power that lets people know he’s intolerant, impatient, fierce. His hair, rebellious, looked tousled, in a permanent just-out-of-bed style that showed a tall forehead and bold eyebrows. Attractive, young, and fit the profile. A strange feeling tugged at her gut when she looked at the man’s face; anxiety, adrenaline, excitement, fear? It felt like she was staring into the face of a large predator, a tiger about to pounce, and her gut was telling her to run. Makes no sense, she thought. I catch killers; I don’t run from them. You’ll be no different, Mr. Creep.
“Are you sure it’s him?” Tess asked, her voice a little raspy for some reason.
“Yeah,” Ashely replied. “Positive.”
“Definitely,” Carmen added. “He’s the creep who left with Sonya that night, on the 28th.”
“See? He doesn’t look like a creep at all, does he?” Ashely asked. “I liked the guy.”
Tess studied that face a little longer. If she’d run into this man, would her instincts tell her to be careful? Would any alarm bells go off? She couldn’t tell. The image was too small for her to be sure. The photo had been enlarged and was a little blurry, but it was good enough for her purpose. She yanked the photo off the whiteboard, then thanked the two young women and showed them to the elevator.
Then she went back into the squad room, where she’d seen Fradella in passing. He was seated in front of his computer, pulling Julie’s credit card history. She put the photo on the scratched, stained desk, and circled the creep’s face with a marker.
“Fradella, drop everything and identify this man, please. Th
is was taken at the real estate investors’ gala in Chicago almost two years ago. This man is the creep.”
“I see May Lin in the picture,” Fradella replied, seeming confused, “not Sonya.”
“Well, that’s exactly it,” she said excitedly. “The creep in Sonya’s recent past stood inches away from May Lin just weeks before she disappeared. This makes it our strongest lead, and we need to move fast.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Fradella asked.
She frowned, a little irritated. She should have been on her way already.
“We don’t have another lead. This man could be the key to finding Julie alive. We’ve connected him with two of the four victims we know about.”
“What if someone else took her? What if this is nothing more than a coincidence, this… creep?”
She pursed her lips, unsure what to say. “Sometimes you have to go with your gut,” she said eventually, trying to save time.
“And if you’re wrong? Are you prepared to have Julie’s death be on you? On a gut call?”
“Listen,” Tess replied, “let’s be pragmatic here. Identifying this man won’t take you all that long. An hour, maybe two, tops. Why don’t we stop talking about it and just get it done, huh? Then you can resume working on Julie’s last 24.”
He slammed the photo onto the scanner, sending rattling vibrations into the battered desk.
“Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed sarcastically.
“Don’t scan, I have the digital,” Tess added, ignoring his attitude. “As soon as you have an ID, send a better photo and his details to my phone, will you?”
He nodded, frowning and averting his eyes.
“Then, when I come back,” she added, “we’ll run a search and see how many missing persons were last seen at Club Exhale since it opened for business. My gut tells me there are more.”
28
Vanished
Tiffany lived in one of those high-rise condos on Ocean Drive, the pride of Miami Beach, no doubt with the help of parental sponsoring. The elevator, running smoothly and perfectly silent, took less than 40 seconds to unload Tess and Gary on the 22nd floor.
The young girl waited for them with the door ajar, courtesy of the doorman, who had announced them on their way up. Tess knocked, and Tiffany was quick to open the door wide.
“Come in,” she said, then led them into a luminous, oceanfront, living room. They introduced themselves and shook hands, while Tess admired Tiffany’s attire, one of those soft fabric, beach gowns that flutter and float around one’s curves, without revealing much, yet looking that good only on someone with a perfect beach bod.
Tiffany parked chilled cans of sparkling water in front of them, on the small glass coffee table, using coasters with the Exhale emblem.
“So, you were regulars?” Tess asked, pointing at the coasters.
“Um, no, not really,” she replied, then blushed a little.
“Are you legal in there?”
“Um, what? Oh, yeah, I turned 21 a month ago,” she smiled nervously. “We were celebrating that actually. Julie was the last one in our group to turn legal, just a few days ago. So this was our first Friday night as legal patrons,” she chirped on casually, then doubled back on herself. “Um, I mean, like out first night in a club, like, ever,” she added quickly, looking Tess sheepishly in the eye.
“Yeah… right,” Tess replied. “Tell me what happened.”
“We arrived a little early to get us a table,” she said, switching to casual mode again. “Around nine or so. We danced for a little while, just the two of us, because Drew was running late.”
“Why? What happened?” Michowsky asked.
“He had a flat tire on his way in. We didn’t worry much; he’s technical, you know. He could fix that himself. So we went ahead by ourselves. We danced, then we took a break and went back to the table, when Julie saw she forgot her cellphone in her car.”
“Did anyone hit on you? On Julie?”
“Um, not really… You know, we always get attention from guys when we go out, it’s not like… you know.”
“But no one in particular?” Michowsky insisted.
“No, no one in particular.”
“Then what happened?” Tess asked.
“Julie left to get her phone, and she was gone a while. I thought she’d run into Drew coming in, and they were together somewhere, dancing. I was pissed off as hell, because I thought they’d just left me there by myself, and it sucks sitting alone at a table in a club, right? But then Drew appeared, without Julie, and I freaked out. We both did.”
“Then what did you do?”
“We went looking for her. We looked everywhere. I checked all the bathrooms, then we went together in the parking lot, where she’d parked her car when we arrived. Drew opened it, and the phone was still in there. She never even made it to the car…” Tiffany’s voice trailed off, as she started crying. “Oh, my God, Julie…”
Tess touched her shoulder in what attempted to be a comforting gesture, but Tiffany didn’t react. She continued sobbing, as if she was just realizing the implications of Julie’s disappearance.
“There was this girl,” she spoke between sobs, “on TV, just a few days ago. They called her Dawn Girl.”
Tess and Gary exchanged quick, worried glances.
“Do you think he’s got Julie?”
“Who?” Tess asked quietly, although she already knew the answer.
“Dawn Girl’s killer,” she whispered, afraid to even hear herself speak.
“We don’t know that,” Tess replied, and Michowsky shot her a surprised glance. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions though. Lots of people go missing every day, for lots of reasons. A ransom call could come in any minute, or Julie could walk in here, embarrassed she took off with some hot guy for a night of steaming passion.”
“Not her,” Tiffany said, looking Tess firmly in the eye. “She wasn’t like that… she wasn’t trashy. She’s with Drew, and she would have never left with another guy. She loves Drew.”
“Good to know,” Tess said in a pacifying tone. “But still there’s no reason to jump to any conclusions, right?”
Tiffany nodded and wiped her tears with the back of her hands.
“Tell me, last night, when you went looking for her, did you ask the door bouncers if they’d seen her?” Michowsky asked.
“Of course we did, and no, they said no.”
She couldn’t have vanished like that, from inside the club. Someone must have seen something.
“Tiffany, did you look at CCTV video feeds last night? Did anyone show that to you?” Tess asked gently.
“Yes. When we couldn’t find her anywhere, we asked for help from the bouncers. At first they didn’t want to help, but later on, when the club closed, Drew and I were by the door, making sure we looked at everyone’s faces as they left.”
“That’s actually very smart,” Tess acknowledged. “Well done.”
“That’s when they took us seriously, when the club emptied and she wasn’t anywhere.”
“Michowsky, did you see the surveillance video this morning?” Tess asked, intrigued.
“It’s dark, grainy, and flashy from the strobes. You can’t see anything on most feeds.”
“I wonder if those two guys we sent there found anything yet. Can you hook us up? On my laptop, to see the feeds?”
“I guess… let me see,” Michowsky offered, and took her laptop.
Tess used the time to stretch her legs a little and walked around the room. White walls with scattered pictures hanging in geometrical arrangements, all framed in black for powerful contrast. Light furniture, casual, almost like patio furniture, seeding the idea of leisure living, of vacation in one’s head. Light draperies, light moods on the faces of the people photographed on the walls, light living. Not a worry in this world.
“What’s your major?” Tess asked, out of the blue.
“Law,” Tiffany replied. “Why?”
“Just wondering how you
two met, that’s all.”
“We grew up together. Our dads are both lawyers, partners in a major law firm. Reynolds and Rohr, you might have heard of it.”
She had. She doubted there was a single Miami resident who hadn’t heard of it.
“How hard was it for Julie to finish law school early?”
“For her? Not that hard. She’s super smart.”
“Why did she want to finish early? Do you know? What motivated her?”
“She likes money and wanted to start earning her own,” Tiffany said, blushing a little. “I’m not like that… I wanted to have some fun while in school. She was just focused, that’s all. Anxious to finish what she calls unpaid work.” She chuckled lightly. “She wanted to bill someone for all those research hours.”
“Here you go,” Michowsky said, turning Tess’s laptop around. “All feeds are there.”
“What time was it when Drew arrived?”
“It was 10:30 or so.”
“So if we say Julie left to get her phone at about 10:00PM, would that ring true?” Tess asked.
“Even a little later, maybe 10:15.”
“Which one was your table?” Tess asked, turning the screen toward Tiffany.
“This one,” she replied, pointing at an empty table, barely visible in the grainy darkness.
The time code read, 10:01:17. Tess fast-forwarded that feed until she saw the two girls coming to take their seats at the table.
“Here you are,” she mumbled, and Tiffany nodded.
“Yeah, that’s us.”
The quality of the video feed was awful. Flashing club lights and strobes, overall darkness, and low-resolution, crappy equipment made for the triple threat of almost unusable video. Nevertheless, she continued to watch the feed, until Julie stood and left the table, exiting the camera’s field. She noted the time code, 10:14:29.
“Let’s see in which feed we see her entering, when she leaves this one.”
They checked a few other feeds and finally found Julie, walking between hordes of people in a hallway, alone, and apparently all right. Then she fell off that camera, at time code 10:16:44.