“Thank you for being here,” she said, her voice choked up with emotion. Steph was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt with a large red logo of the band Heart. Her dirty-blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, emphasizing her slender neck. A pair of small silver dolphins dangled from her ears. She had blue eyes and a small, turned-up nose, giving her a fresh and pretty face, but she was not gorgeous like her sister. Mike thought she looked too skinny. Michelle thought the same.
Mike stood up and introduced himself. Steph asked to see his police credentials, and Mike obliged, pulling out his wallet and badge. He was impressed that the young woman had the poise to ask him to prove his identity. They all settled back into the booth and waited for the waitress to take breakfast orders.
Mike said, in his best sympathetic voice, “We are truly, truly sorry for your loss and we are working to uncover the circumstances of Christine’s death.”
“You mean murder,” Steph said, her fists clenched on the table. “I talked to her. I know what she was going through. I can’t bear to think that both Alex and Christine killed themselves.” Steph was fighting back tears.
“It would potentially help us if we had a better understanding of the circumstances that led Christine to New York. We also need to have a complete picture of her history. Any small details might help us. I promise you, we don’t want to upset you. I hope you can trust us.”
Just then, the elderly waitress shuffled up to the table and asked them if they were ready to order. The conversation paused while everyone examined their menus and decided on their breakfasts. By the time the waitress trudged away, Steph had composed herself. Mike took the opportunity to lead the conversation in a slightly different direction by asking about Christine’s former boyfriend, Jack. This gave Steph a villain on whom to focus. Steph did not hold back in reviling the boy who had, in her mind, corrupted Christine and spirited her away from home, only to abandon her in Seattle and allow her to run off to New York by herself.
For fifteen minutes, Mike and Michelle pieced together the story from the disjointed fragments coming from Steph, punctuated by curses and condemnations of Jack. Christine had started dating him when they were both juniors at Port Angeles High. He was a star football player and the homecoming king; she was a cheerleader. They were at the top of the popularity pyramid, but then Jack blew out his knee in the next-to-last game. This killed his dream of playing football at the U of Washington and resulted in him getting hooked on oxycontin during his recovery from surgery. He started hanging with the stoners, one of whom was his best friend, and Christine went with him. She still had stars in her eyes about him and felt sorry for him because of his injury. She drove him everywhere because, with his right leg in a brace, he couldn’t drive. She got dragged down with him as he started experimenting with meth.
After they graduated, Christine spent the summer practically living with him. He was mostly recovered from his surgery, but he was never going to be a star athlete again and had let himself fall badly out of shape. He got a job working at the bowling alley, but his boss had no patience for his unreliable attendance and bad attitude. He got fired within a month. Then he left town and moved to Seattle, where everyone thought he had a cousin with whom he was living. Steph had been thrilled that Christine could go to the local community college without Jack.
But halfway through the fall semester, he came back to town and begged Christine to take him back. He swore he had cleaned himself up and had a job in Seattle, that he loved her and wanted her to come live with him. He said she could go to college in Seattle and they could be together. Steph was skeptical and told Christine not to give Jack a second chance, but she was in love, or thought she was. She spent the rest of the school year shuttling back and forth to Seattle on weekends to see him.
After Christine finished her first year at Peninsula Junior College, she went to Seattle, intending to enroll as a sophomore at the University of Washington. Steph and her mother knew that she was still seeing Jack, but there was not much they could do to stop it. They had a feeling that something was wrong when Christine didn’t come home for Steph’s birthday in October. She called to say that she had a lot of work to do, which didn’t sound plausible. When pressed for details, she couldn’t explain exactly what it was that she needed to do that she could not do from Port Angeles. Then, just before Halloween, they got the call that she was in the hospital. Christine had overdosed on a combination of drugs and alcohol. Steph and her mom rushed to Christine’s bedside, where they had a huge fight with Jack when they tried to evict him from Christine’s room. Hospital security called the police. When she was released, they tried to get Christine into a rehab facility, but she refused. Since she was over eighteen, they couldn’t force her. Christine went back to living with Jack.
In November, Steph tried to engage Christine on the phone and by texts and Facebook, but Christine was not interested in talking much. Then Christine didn’t come home for Thanksgiving, and they knew something was very wrong. When Christine called a week later, she asked Steph for money, claiming that she was going to finally dump Jack. When Steph offered to come pick her up and bring her home, she made an excuse. Steph finally had to tell her that if she wasn’t willing to come home so Steph could help her, then she was on her own. Steph was crying when she got to this part, tears dripping down into her eggs. “It was so hard to just refuse her,” she sobbed. “She sounded so pathetic, but it was just like Alex. If I gave her the money, she’d just spend it on drugs. The only way she was going to get clean was if I said no. I wonder now if she was calling from New York. I guess she really did decide to leave Jack. I wish I’d known that was true.” Steph dissolved into weeping.
Mike and Michelle ate their pancakes and omelets silently while Steph composed herself. When she sat back up and dabbed the last tears away, Mike decided that continuing the interview was the best way to go. “Did you hear from her again?”
Steph looked across the table at Michelle, ignoring Mike. “She called in January and told me she was in New York. I was so happy to hear from her, but I was shocked when she told me where she was. She said she had to get away and she was really trying to get herself right, but she didn’t have a place to really live. She said she was crashing with a friend she met and she needed money to come home. I offered to send her some Starbucks gift cards that I got for my birthday.”
“Did she give you an address?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, she did, and I sent the cards.”
“Do you remember the address?” Michelle cut in, then she shrugged at Mike’s disapproving look.
“I don’t remember,” Steph said, prompting a visible sag from Michelle’s shoulders. “But I wrote it down. It’s at home.”
“We’ll get that later,” Mike said, trying to get back to her story. “Did you hear from her again after that?”
“Sure. The last time. It was maybe a month later. I had almost given up on hearing back from her. I was trying to focus on school, but it was really hard. Mom was depressed. I was depressed. Then she called, and she really seemed like she was better. She was speaking clearly and she said she was clean and was trying to make it home. That’s when she told me that she was calling from somebody else’s phone and that she had to make sure that somebody named Eddie didn’t find out. She said she was going to escape and come home.”
“Did she say ‘escape?’ Did she use that word?” Mike asked.
“Uh huh,” Steph nodded. “She seemed really scared, but she wasn’t high. I could tell. But that’s the last time I spoke to her.”
“Do you have any record of those gift cards?” Mike asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have a gift receipt, or copies of the cards or the numbers?”
“I don’t know. I think I have the envelope they came in, because there was a card and I kept the card.”
“Great. So, at home you have the address where you sent the gift cards, and maybe some record of the cards. We’ll want to get
those.”
“OK. I guess we could go home and I could get that for you. My mom’s home, and I don’t think she’d want to talk to you, but I could get it.”
“We can wait in the car.”
“Fine. Then let’s get it over with.” Steph tossed her napkin on the table and started collecting her things. Mike waved to their waitress for the check and sent Michelle ahead to escort Steph to the door, where Mike joined them as soon as he paid the bill.
Mike and Michelle followed Steph’s car, a red Plymouth station wagon that was easily thirty years old. She drove up a residential hill with old but well-kept homes lining the street. They turned into a dead-end lane and parked at the curb as the girl pulled into the garage of a ranch model house with dark brown wooden shingles covering the sides. Mike and Michelle sat restlessly, staring at the vacant lot across the street while waiting for her to emerge from the house. Steph finally came out and got into the back of the sedan.
“OK, I have the address.”
Mike extracted a notebook from his jacket pocket and said, “go ahead.”
Steph looked quizzically at the notebook in Mike’s hand. “Why don’t you just take a picture of the piece of paper?” she said, handing Mike a plain page from a notebook with an address scrawled on it.
Mike handed it back to her. “Humor an old guy and just read it to me, please.”
Steph shrugged and read off the paper. “953 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11226.” Mike wrote it down and then read it back to make sure he got it right. “You want the gift cards next?” Steph asked expectantly.
“Yes, please,” Mike responded. “What have you got?” Steph handed him an envelope from which Mike pulled out a birthday card, inside of which was a smaller envelope emblazoned with the easily recognized Starbucks logo. Inside that was one plastic gift card and a paper gift receipt, with a bar code. This time, Mike grabbed his cell phone and took a photo of the receipt, needing an image of the bar code in order to try to trace the cards. He fumbled with the camera function on the phone before clicking off three snapshots, then handed the card and envelope back to Steph, thanking her.
“No problem,” Steph said. “I only wish I could do more. I know Christine was responsible for herself and it’s not my fault that she’s . . . gone . . . but I should have helped her when she asked me.” Her voice trailed off as she finished.
“Don’t blame yourself, Sweetie,” Michelle soothed.
“I feel like I don’t have anyone I can talk to who understands.”
“I understand, believe me,” Michelle said softly, “and I’m a really good listener.” Then Michelle turned to Mike. “You’re going to send that to Jason, right?” Mike nodded, then Michelle got out of the car and opened the rear door.
“Come with me, Honey,” Michelle said, holding out her hand to the girl. “Mike is going to have to make a call or two and you and I are going to take a walk.”
Mike looked over his shoulder as Steph got out and took Michelle’s hand. The two women walked down the sidewalk, toward the dead end down the block where a steel barrier separated the street from an embankment overgrown with bushes and trees. Michelle put her left arm around Steph’s shoulders as they walked slowly away from the car. Mike pulled his attention away and swiped his phone to get to his dialer, punching the icon next to the name Jason Dickson.
“Dickson,” Mike’s partner answered in his usual professional manner.
“Jason, I have a few things for you to chase down on the Christine Barker case.”
“I thought you were on vacation?” Jason quipped sarcastically.
“I am. It just happens that Michelle and I bumped into the dead girl’s sister and she has some useful information. I’m going to email you some photos.” Mike explained what the pictures would be and the potential significance of the records, then hung up, snapped a photo of the page in his notebook with the street address, and attached the image files to an email to Jason. This operation took Mike a solid five minutes and included two failed attempts to upload the picture files. When he finally finished, he looked up to locate Michelle and Steph, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Mike walked around the block, expecting to see the women, but did not. He tried calling Michelle’s phone, but it rang twice and rolled to voice mail. He frowned and went back to the car to wait. After twenty minutes, Mike glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Michelle and Steph approaching the car from the direction of the main street. Steph’s head was resting on Michelle’s shoulder and she had her arm around Michelle’s waist. Michelle’s left hand cupped Steph’s head, holding it gently and stroking her hair. When they got back to the car, Mike watched as the two women hugged tightly for a long minute. As they separated, Steph wiped a tear from her eye. Steph waved one last time as she turned and walked back into the house.
Michelle got into the front seat and closed the door. “Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said quietly. Mike looked at her and could see in her eyes that she was not in the mood for talking, so he started to drive. He turned on the radio to fill up the silence inside the car. They listened to the DJ read a promo for a local car dealership and a public service announcement about an upcoming charity food drive sponsored by the United Way. He navigated back to the Olympic Lodge and escorted Michelle toward their room, but she stopped suddenly before going through the front door.
“Can we go back up to the mountain?” She asked with pleading eyes.
“Sure,” Mike said, turning back to the rental car.
Ж Ж Ж
The next morning, before they started the drive back to Seattle, Mike and Michelle paid a visit to the local hospital. Michelle led Mike to a medical office building across the street from the main hospital building, where the sign read “Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy.” When they walked through the door, Steph rocketed from her chair behind the reception desk and gave Michelle a tight hug. When she detached, she looked at Mike and said, “Hello, Detective. I think Hector is ready for you.”
“Hector?” Mike said, confused. He glanced at Michelle, who had a mischievous smile and a twinkle in her eye.
“I didn’t want you to miss too much PT while we’re away.”
Mike gave her a kiss. “Thank you. That’s very considerate, of both of you.” He turned to acknowledge Steph. “Where do you want me?”
Chapter 20 – Worst Laid Plans
Thursday, March 14
JASON SAT BEHIND THE WHEEL of the beige Lincoln he had checked out of the motor pool, tapping his index finger on the top of the steering wheel. Ray was in the passenger seat, sipping a coffee. They were parked across the street from a gas station in Queens that included a convenience store, which was owned and run by a family from Haiti. The windows of the store had been broken by someone throwing bricks through them. The police report had few details, but it had filtered its way to Jason, who had been trying to track down circumstances similar to the events leading up to the Rosario murder and the Hwong dry cleaner shake-down. He and Ray figured that the only way they were going to find the mysterious “Ricky” was to find one of his active clients. He had been smart enough to abandon the neighborhood around the Rosario bodega, since the police and the press were a constant presence there in the aftermath of the murder and the subsequent melee on the Webster Avenue sidewalk.
The public relations guys were crowing about how the police department had ridded the neighborhood of the criminals responsible, but for Jason and Ray, that just meant it would be harder to catch their guy. As expected, the gang members in custody were not talking. They seemed resigned to doing their time and were not interested in making deals to rat out their bosses. Loyalty among scumbags, Jason called it. When he got the report of the broken windows at the convenience store, Jason figured it was worth checking out. When he and Ray questioned the owner, Francois, he was reluctant to provide any details about who might have been responsible. Throughout the questioning, he shot looks toward his wife, who sat silently with her head down. The
daggers coming out of his eyes signaled to Jason that it was the wife who had made the police report and that her husband was not happy that she did. Francois was not at all helpful, but Ray and Jason both came away from the interview convinced that he was not telling them the whole truth.
Although the task force working the Gallata mob clearly did not want to give Ricky up, for reasons that were never explained to Jason and Ray, the commissioner decided that if he got himself arrested in the act of committing another crime, it would not appear that he was ratted out and nobody working undercover with him could be implicated. It helped that there was, in fact, no help coming from anyone undercover. In any case, based on the commissioner’s earnest desire to make an arrest in the Rosario murder case – and thereby demonstrate that the department was just as diligent in investigating the death of a minority businessman as it would be for a white victim – Jason and Ray were freed up to stake out the store. Based on the pattern of Ricky’s appearances in the Bronx, it seemed that Thursday was collection day in his business cycle. They were hoping that he made the rounds to all his pick-up stations on Thursdays, and so here they were hoping to get lucky. Since this was such a speculative operation, they had no backup from patrol cars, but they had arranged to have some support there within a few minutes if the situation required it.
“I still can’t figure why somebody would dump the girl in the river,” Ray said. “If you’re going to give her an overdose so it looks like either a suicide or just an ordinary OD case, why put her in the river, where it will seem more suspicious?” They had been talking about the Christine Barker case while killing time in the car, waiting for something to happen across the street. The captain didn’t want them wasting time or resources on “that stupid case,” especially since primary responsibility had been transferred. But since they had time to burn now, they were going over what they had.
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