Fatal Escape, page 9
“Can I see the chief for a minute?” Ernie Mansfield’s voice.
I gestured to let him in.
He held two sheets of paper in his hands. “Studying the tire tracks we found, I think I’ve pieced together what happened.”
“What, you know who the murderer is?” Cruthers said, in a teasing voice.
Ernie blushed. “No.” He sounded mildly irritated.
I was catching on that Ernie had a limited sense of humor, and Bert, along with the detectives, found that an irresistible challenge.
“May I?” Ernie gestured toward my desk.
I nodded, and he laid one of the sheets of paper in front of me. The detectives rose and gathered around.
“There were multiple sets of tracks.” He pointed to two lines of crosshatches in the middle of the page. “That’s Ms. Gomez’s car. She slammed on the brakes, probably to avoid hitting the car that had just swerved across in front of her and stopped, blocking her way.” He pointed to a diagonal set of tracks in front of the others.
“Her tracks are blurred some, because she tried to back up. But she didn’t get very far because someone else had stopped behind her, blocking her in. Those tracks were much lighter. That driver didn’t stop as quickly.” He pointed to a set of tracks behind hers and straddling the center line, blocking both lanes.
“Couldn’t those tracks be the commuter who almost hit the car?” I asked.
Ernie shook his head. “I’ll get to him in a minute.” He tapped a box lightly penciled around the far end of the straight tracks. “That’s where her car ended up.”
“She might have jumped out to run,” Bradley said.
Ernie shook his head again. “She’d locked herself in. There are signs that a slim jim was used to unlock the driver’s door.”
Cruthers grunted. “Somebody from one of those cars ran to her door and jimmied it open.”
“The guy who left the fingerprint inside the handle?” Barnes said.
I nodded. “Quite possibly. And someone from the other car probably stood next to the passenger side.” My throat tightened. “So she had no place to go.”
Ernie placed the second sheet on top of the first. It was tracing paper. The drawing below showed through. “There were three sets of tracks behind her car. One was the guy who blocked her in. He was in the middle of the road. Then another set of tracks directly behind her, and a third set partially obscuring the second set.” He touched the marks on the tracing paper. “That third set matched the tires of the commuter who almost hit her car.”
“So someone else was there,” Bradley said. “Maybe between the time she was blocked in and when the commuter found the car and called it in.”
I sat back in my chair and blew out air. “More evidence that two people were after her, or at least keeping track of her.”
“One was probably Butler,” Bradley said. “His print was on the glove box handle. I wonder if we can get an imprint of the tires on his car.”
Ernie nodded. “If you’re thinking his was the other car directly behind her, those tracks were partially obscured by the commuter’s car. Only one side of them is visible. The tires are brand new.”
“How can you tell that?” I asked.
“The tracks are too pristine, no cracks or indentations in the tread. Over time, the tread wears unevenly, gets marked up by stones and glass and such. These tires were probably purchased in the last month or so. Derek’s helping us track down the brand and model based on the tread pattern.”
“Good work, Ernie.” I pointed to the papers in front of me. “Can I keep these?”
“Yeah, I’ve got the diagrams on my computer, but I thought it would be easier to show you on paper.”
He left, and I handed the pages to Barnes. “Put these on the murder board. Then meet me downstairs.”
She turned and followed Ernie out.
To Cruthers and Bradley I said, “It’s also possible that those new tires belong to a rental car. Or at least one of those sets of tracks is somehow related to Alejandro’s father.”
“The hypothesis being,” Bradley said, “that he was abusive and Tatiana left Mexico to get away from him.”
Cruthers’s expression was pensive. “Batterers will often go a long way to track down the woman that got away.”
“Especially if she takes his kid,” I said.
Bradley skimmed hair out of his eyes. “You’re thinking he was the one Tatiana saw in the park.”
“Yes, or someone else she knew in Mexico, and feared they would go back and tell him where she was.”
“He may have come here,” Cruthers said, “rented a car, and went looking for her. Or he could’ve hired somebody else to track her down, maybe Juarez.”
I pointed at him and Bradley. “We need to find the father, for several reasons.”
They both nodded, acknowledging that by “we” I meant “you two.”
Standing up, I said, “In the meantime, I think Barnes and I will talk to Mary Striker again, and her happy band of do-gooders.”
Cruthers’s bushy eyebrows pulled together.
“It’s may not be all that important, but I’d like to nail down if Tatiana got the car from them.” I shrugged. “And see if anything else falls out when I shake that tree some more.”
Patterson caught up with me by the elevators. “Cruthers said you were going to talk to Mary Striker. I’ve got some info on her.”
I mentally took back my earlier assumption that he was goofing off somewhere.
“She’s forty-nine, born Marianne Osborne, grew up in Wisconsin. Father died of cancer when she was twelve, and a couple of years later a stepfather came on the scene. A few months after he married her mother, Marianne accused him of molesting her.”
The elevator dinged. When the doors opened, Bert and Ernie were in it, headed down. I waved them on. The doors closed again.
“No one wanted to believe her,” Patterson continued, flipping through some papers in his hand, “but she kept insisting. She pressed charges and it went to trial. And the jury didn’t believe her either. He was acquitted and two months later she ran away, ended up a prostitute in Miami.”
“Ahh,” I said, “so she’s lived the life. No wonder she wants to help others get out of it.”
“She got lucky after that. Married a rich guy a good bit older than her. He died four years ago, and two years ago, she remarried, only this guy is younger than her.”
I nodded. “I met him in passing yesterday. Thanks for all the background, Patterson. Good work.”
I expected a smile, or something. All I got was a slight nod back.
He walked away, and I punched the elevator button again.
I went out the front of the building. During the still-hot-in-Florida months of September and October, I’d learned to go down the hall and out the back, to stay in the air-conditioning as long as possible. But now that it was finally cooling down, I took the sunnier route to my space in the parking lot.
I was almost to the corner of the building when a man abruptly appeared in my path. I instinctively stepped back, a hand flying to the butt of my gun behind my back.
“Chief Anderson?” the man said. He was average height, average build, wearing a light gray suit, but the way he carried himself said cop.
I kept my hand on my gun. “Who wants to know?” It came out snippy. I decided I was okay with that.
“Special Agent Grant, FDLE.” He took a half step toward me, hovering on the edge of my personal space.
“Uh, huh. You got a badge?”
He took out a slim leather wallet, flashed it open in my direction, then started to pocket it again.
I took an exaggerated step back, and held out my left hand, palm up. I was trying to decide between kicking his knees out from under him or elbowing him in the face if he got anywhere near my personal space again.
He wisely did not move forward. Instead, he stared at my hand for a beat, as if he didn’t know why I had it stuck out there.
“Everything okay, Chief?” Barnes’s voice, from the corner of the building. She’d apparently gone out the back.
Several rude retorts crossed my mind—rude toward the state guy, not Barnes. I let them whiz on by and finally settled on, “Just peachy.” My hand hadn’t moved.
Finally, the man put his badge wallet into it.
I opened it and carefully examined it, then handed it back. “What can I do for you, Special Agent Grant?”
“You can keep your nose out of my case.” His tone was authoritarian, but his expression said he knew he’d lost most of his power advantage.
“And what case might that be?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
I snorted. “Well, that makes it damned hard to know which case I should stay out of, doesn’t it?”
“You interrogated Conrad Butler, before we’d even talked to him.”
“Yes. He’s a suspect in a homicide here.”
“Yeah, well, we got bigger fish to fry than your dead hooker.”
A gasp. I glanced past Grant’s shoulder to its source—Barnes. Her face was turning red.
Again, many things that I could have said came to mind, such as how did an insensitive oaf like you get assigned to a sensitive case like this.
Finally I settled on, “I was given access to the prisoner by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. The Starling PD has a cordial working relationship with JSO.”
“Well, you’re not getting access to him again.”
I gave him a fake smile. “Thank you for saving me some time, then.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. Apparently, that wasn’t the response he’d expected. He grunted and started to turn away to his left.
“If I need access again,” I stepped around him on his right, “I now know to go directly over your head.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Who was that?” Barnes asked, as we headed for my car.
“State cop who likes to throw his weight around.”
I’d requisitioned two unmarked cars for my detectives to use, but they hadn’t been delivered yet. There was some customizing required—a more powerful engine than was standard, for one. When you chase bad guys, you need more horses under the hood.
In the meantime, we continued to use our own cars, submitting mileage.
I had Barnes drive, and I sat back in the passenger seat, trying to focus my mental energy on what I wanted to achieve in the upcoming interview.
I hadn’t called ahead, so it was possible Mary Striker wouldn’t even be in. The desire for an element of surprise, though, outweighed the concern about wasted time if she wasn’t there.
I’d had the feeling, when we’d last talked, that she was holding something back. Maybe several somethings. And I wanted to know how the “repurposing center” operated. I suspected it was not always strictly within the law. I would be willing to bend some rules, for a good cause, but others maybe not. And I expected some cooperation out of her in return.
Barnes pulled my car to the curb next to the storefront office.
“Follow my lead,” I said.
“Always.”
A woman was coming out the front. We ducked past her before the door could close and made a beeline for Mary Striker’s door.
Several of the volunteers at the desks called after us. “Hey, who are you? Where are you going?”
“You can’t go in there,” one woman yelled as we reached the office door. I recognized her as Nancy from yesterday. It took her a little longer to recognize me, now dressed in a tailored black pantsuit and carrying myself like a cop, rather than a scared, desperate prostitute.
I knocked on the door and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked. Off to a good start.
I peeked around the door. Mary was alone. “Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Striker, but we have some more questions.”
She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly through her nose. “Come in.”
I did so and took the liberty of sitting in one of the two chairs across from her desk. Barnes lingered by the door. I looked at her, made a slight gesture with my head toward the door, then looked down at the empty chair beside me.
Barnes had become expert at reading my body language. She closed the door firmly in Nancy’s face and sat in the other chair. Out came her pad and pen.
“We’ve found out quite a bit about Tatiana Gomez,” I said, “since you and I last talked. Did you know she rented a storage unit and moved her son into it a few days ago?”
“No, but I’m not surprised. She said she had to get him out of harm’s way, in case her pimp caught on to what she was about to do.”
“As in, run away from him.”
She nodded.
“You’re sure she never mentioned her pimp’s name?” I asked.
A head shake.
“Does the name Conrad Butler mean anything to you?”
She tilted her head to one side, as if thinking about that. Another head shake. “No, never heard of him.”
She seemed to be telling the truth, or she could be a good liar. “Tell us more about how you provide cars for the women.”
She hesitated.
“We traced the license plate on hers.”
She sighed. “They’re older models, don’t cost us much. Very average cars that will blend in. We prefer to give them bus or train tickets, bought in someone else’s name. But some are too afraid of even that much of a paper trail.”
“And there’s no paper trail with a car?” I feigned surprise. “Aren’t they registered?”
Mary’s face paled as she realized she’d painted herself into a corner.
I let her off the hook, for now. “You sure Tatiana never said anything about Alejandro’s father?”
She began to shake her head, then stopped. “She said something one time that made me think he was a big deal, that he had a lot of power.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t remember exactly. It was just an impression I got.”
“Did she ever say anything more specific about where she was from?”
“No. Only Mexico.”
“How about where she came across the border?” I asked.
“She said it was one of the more narrow spots, a popular place to cross the Rio Grande. And it hadn’t rained in a while so the river was down some. She was able to wade across, with her son on her back.”
I glanced sideways at Barnes, scribbling on her pad. Maybe we’d be able, with some research, to piece together where Tatiana had come across.
Then I glanced in the other direction, at the door Striker’s husband had come through yesterday. Time to make my move.
I jumped up, startling Mary. “Sorry, but I really need a restroom.” One long stride over to the door. “Is this one?” I yanked the door open.
On the other side was a large warehouse-type space. And the end closest to me had been decked out as a mechanic’s garage. It held a lot of shiny equipment.
The handsome younger man of yesterday looked up from where he was working under the hood of an old car. And leaning against the car’s fender, shooting the breeze with him, was the guy from Cruthers’s photo.
Harry, the junkyard owner.
The office was now quite crowded, with Mary behind the desk and Barnes and myself in front—and Mary’s husband, leaning against the jamb of the doorway leading to the garage.
The junkyard owner had taken off when I’d flashed my badge. Barnes started to give chase, but I’d called her back. “We know where to find him.”
Now Mary’s husband had his arms crossed. His blue eyes, in his scowling face, were more an icy gray today.
I ignored him, focusing on his wife. “Walk me through the process, when you’re helping one of these women.”
She sighed softly. “There are four phases. First is communication, the easiest. We give them two disposable cell phones, with plenty of minutes on them. Tell them to not share the numbers with anyone. Second, we look at the transportation options. As I said, we prefer to give them a bus or train ticket, but we’ll provide a hard-to-trace car if that’s what they want.” She stopped, took a breath. “We give them as much opportunity to make choices as possible, since they’ve been stripped of their power for so long.”
I nodded, mentally giving this woman kudos for her astuteness.
“Then we figure out where they’re going to go. Some, like Tatiana, want to disappear on their own. The others, we try to pair them with sympathetic people in the town or city they are going to, someone who can help with getting a place to live, a job, etc.”
“Magdalene’s Repurposing is a statewide organization?” I asked.
“No. But there are similar organizations to ours, in several cities, and we’ve developed contacts around Florida, and even in some other states. Some are women we’ve helped in the past.”
She paused, sucked in air. “Look, some of what we do bends the rules, but we don’t really break them.”
“You talking about the cars,” I said, “or giving the women new identities? That’s phase four, isn’t it?”
“We can stop providing cars, only give them the train or bus options.” Her voice was a little panicky. Her husband stiffened.
“And it’s not illegal to live under an assumed name,” Mary added.
No, I thought, but as soon as you sign a lease or get a credit card, you’re committing fraud.
“It’s exactly the same thing the government does,” the husband finally piped up, “with their witness protection program.”
No, not exactly. But I didn’t pursue that right now.
“The bar of soap Tatiana had. Something had been scratched off above the number.”
Mary nodded. “It just says, Need help? Call us. I guess she scraped that off in case her pimp found the soap. We put the bars in the bus station and train station restrooms, and some other places.”
“Such as?”
“Any restrooms that the women on the streets might use, such as the ones in the city parks.”
That was probably where Tatiana had come by the soap, while taking her son to the park.
“Do you only help prostitutes?” I asked.
Mary and her husband exchanged a look. His face had relaxed some, his expression now more worried than angry.
