CHAPTER THREE

Keri sat in the passenger seat on the way to Culver City, quietly flagellating herself. She tried to remind herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong. But she was wracked by the guilt of forgetting something as simple as today not being a school day. Even Ray hadn’t been able to hide his surprise at it.

She was losing touch with the parent part of her and it scared her. How long would it be before she forgot other, more personal details? A few weeks ago, she’d been given anonymous clues which led to a photo of a teenage girl. But Keri, much to her shame, hadn’t been able to tell if it was Evie.

True, it had been five years and the picture was grainy and taken from far away. But the fact that she just didn’t immediately know if the photo was of her daughter or not had shaken her. Even after the unit’s resident tech guru, Detective Kevin Edgerton, had told her that his digital comparison of the picture to photos of Evie at eight years old was inconclusive for a match, her sense of shame lingered.

I should have just known. A good mother would have known if it was real right away.

“We’re here,” Ray said quietly, snapping her out of her reverie.

Keri looked up and realized they were parked just up the street from Lanie Joseph’s house. The Caldwells had been right. This area, while less than five miles from their home, was much rougher-looking.

It was still only 5:30, but the sun had already mostly set and the temperature was dropping. Small groups of young men in gang attire were gathering in driveways and on stoops, drinking beers and smoking what didn’t look like cigarettes. Most of the lawns were more brown than green and the sidewalks were cracked everywhere, with weeds fighting their way through the spaces. Most of the residences on the block looked to be townhouses or duplexes and all of them had bars on the windows and heavy metal screen doors.

“What do you think – should we call Culver City PD for backup?” Ray asked. “Technically, we’re out of our jurisdiction.”

“Nah. It’ll take too long and I want to stay low profile, get in and out. The more formal we make this, the longer it’s going to take. If something did happen to Sarah, we don’t have time to waste.”

“Okay, then let’s get to it,” he said.

They got out of the car and walked briskly to the address Mariela Caldwell had given them. Lanie lived in the front of a two-unit townhouse on Corinth, just south of Culver Boulevard. The 405 freeway was so close that Keri could identify the hair color of passing drivers.

As Ray knocked on the outer metal door, Keri glanced two houses over at five men huddled around the engine of a Corvette sitting on blocks in the driveway. Several of them cast suspicious looks at the interlopers but no one said anything.

The sound of multiple kids screeching came from inside. After a minute, the inner door was opened by a small blond boy who couldn’t have been more than five. He wore holes-pocked jeans and a white T-shirt with a homemade Superman-style “S” scrawled on it.

He stared up at Ray, his neck craning all the way back. Then he looked over at Keri, and apparently viewing her as less threatening, he spoke.

“What you want, lady?”

Keri sensed that the kid didn’t get a lot of sweetness and light in his life, so she knelt down to his level and spoke in as gentle a voice as she could muster.

“We’re police officers. We need to speak to your mommy for a minute.”

The kid, unfazed, turned and shouted back into the house.

“Mom. Cops are here. Want to talk to you.” Apparently this wasn’t the first time he’d had a visit from law enforcement.

Keri saw Ray glance over at the guys around the Corvette and without looking herself, asked him quietly, “We got a problem over there?”

“Not yet,” Ray answered under his breath. “But we could soon. We should make this quick.”

“What kind of cops are you?” the little boy demanded. “No uniforms. You undercover? You detectives?”

“Detectives,” Ray told him and apparently deciding the boy didn’t need to be coddled, asked his own question. “When’s the last time you saw Lanie?”

“Oh, Lanie’s in trouble again,” he said, a gleeful grin consuming his face. “No surprise there. She left at lunchtime to see her smart friend. I guess she was hoping some of it would rub off on her. Don’t bet on it.”

Just then a woman wearing sweatpants and a heavy, gray sweatshirt that said “Keep Walking” appeared at the end of the hall. As she lumbered toward them Keri took her in. She was about Keri’s height but weighed well over 200 pounds.

Her pale skin seemed to merge with the gray sweatshirt, making it impossible to clearly tell where one ended and the other began. Her grayish-blonde hair was pulled back in a loose bun that was in danger of falling apart completely.

Keri guessed that she was younger than forty but her exhausted, worn face could have passed for fifty. She had bags under her eyes and her puffy face was dotted with gin blossoms, possibly alcohol-induced. It was clear that she had once been quite attractive but the weight of life seemed to have drained her and you could only see flashes of pretty around the edges now.

“What’s she done now?” the woman asked, even less surprised than her son to see police at her door.

“You’re Mrs. Joseph?” Keri asked.

“I haven’t been Mrs. Joseph for seven years. That’s when Mr. Joseph left me for a massage therapist named Kayley. Now I’m Mrs. Hart, although Mr. Hart cleared out without a proper goodbye about eighteen months ago. But it’s too much trouble to change the name again so I’m stuck with it for now.”

“So you’re Lanie Joseph’s mother,” Ray said, trying to get her on track. “But your name is…?”

“Joanie Hart. I’m the mother of five hellions, including the one you’re here about. So what exactly did she do this time?”

“We’re not sure she’s done anything, Ms. Hart,” Keri assured her, not wanting to create unnecessary conflict with a woman who was clearly comfortable with it. “But the parents of her friend Sarah Caldwell haven’t been able to reach her and they’re worried. Have you heard from Lanie since about noon today?”

Joanie Hart looked at her like she was from another planet.

“I don’t keep tabs like that,” she said. “I was working all day; 7-Eleven doesn’t close just cuz yesterday was Thanksgiving, you know? I only got back about a half hour ago. So I don’t know where she is. But that’s not special. She’s gone half the time and she never tells me where she’s going. That one loves to keep secrets. I think she’s got some guy she doesn’t want me to know about.”

“Did she ever mention this guy’s name?”

“Like I said, I don’t even know if he exists. I’m just saying I wouldn’t put it past her. She likes to do things to piss me off. But I’m too tired or busy to get angry so that pisses her off. You know how it is,” she said, looking at Keri, who had no idea how it was.

Keri felt her anger rising at this woman who didn’t seem to know or care where her daughter was. Joanie hadn’t asked about her well-being or expressed any concern at all. Ray seemed to sense how she was feeling and spoke before she could.

“Can we get Lanie’s phone number and a recent photo of her, please?” he asked.

Joanie looked put out but didn’t say so.

“Give me a second,” she said and wandered back down the hall.

Keri looked at Ray, who shook his head in shared disgust.

“You mind if I wait in the car?” Keri said. “I’m worried I’m going to say something…unproductive to Joanie.”

“Go ahead. I got this. Maybe you can call Edgerton and see if he can bend the rules to access their social media accounts.”

“Raymond Sands, my stars,” she said, rediscovering a bit of her sense of humor. “You seem to be adopting some of my more questionable law enforcement methods. I think I like it.”

She turned on her heel and walked off before he could respond. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the men two doors down were all watching her. She zipped up her jacket, suddenly aware of the cold. Late November in Los Angeles was pretty tame, but with the sun gone, the temperature was in the low fifties. And all those eyes on her added an extra shiver.

When she got to the car, she turned and leaned with her back against it so she could maintain a good view of both Lanie’s house and her neighbors as she dialed Edgerton’s number.

“Edgerton here,” came the enthusiastic voice of Kevin Edgerton, the unit’s youngest detective. He may have been only twenty-eight, but the tall, lanky kid was a tech genius who was responsible for cracking many cases.

In fact, he’d been instrumental in helping Keri get in touch with the Collector while shielding her own identity. Keri imagined that right now, he was brushing the longish brown bangs out of his eyes. Why he didn’t just get his sloppy, millennial hair cut was beyond her, as were most of his technical abilities.

“Hey, Kevin, it’s Keri. I need a favor. I want you to see if you can access a couple of social media accounts for me. One is for Sarah Caldwell from Westchester, age sixteen. The other is Lanie Joseph, Culver City, also sixteen. And please don’t give me a hassle over warrants and probable cause. We’re dealing with exigent circumstances here and – ”

“Got it,” Edgerton interrupted.

“What? Already?” Keri asked, stunned.

“Well, not Caldwell. All her accounts are password-protected and require her approval to view. I can crack them if you need. But I’m hoping we can avoid any sticky legal situations just using Joseph’s stuff. She’s an open book. Anyone can look at her pages. I’m doing it now.”

“Do they say anything about where she was today after about noon?” Keri asked, as she noticed three of the men from the Corvette driveway walking toward her.

The two other men remained behind, their focus on Ray, who was still standing at the Hart front door, waiting for Joanie to find a recent photo of her daughter. Keri readjusted herself slightly so that even though she was still leaning against the car, her weight was more evenly distributed in case she had to move suddenly.

“She hasn’t posted on Facebook since last night but there are a bunch of posts on Instagram of her with another girl, I’m assuming Caldwell. They’re from the Fox Hills Mall. One’s in a clothing store. Another’s at a makeup counter. The last one is of her at what looks like a food court table, eating a pretzel. The caption says ‘yummy.’ It’s from two oh six p.m.”

The three men were crossing into the Harts’ yard now and were less than twenty feet from Keri.

“Thanks, Kevin. One last thing – I’m going to send you cell phone numbers for both girls. I’m betting the GPS was shut off in both of them but I need you to track their last known location before that happened,” she said as the men came to a stop in front of her. “I’ve got to go. I’ll get back to you if I need more.”

Keri hung up before he could respond and slid the phone into her pocket. Along the way, she inconspicuously unsnapped the holster of her weapon.

Glancing at the men but not saying a word, she still leaned against the car but lifted her right leg so that her foot rested against the vehicle. That way she would have extra power if she needed to propel herself forward.

“Evening, gentlemen,” she finally said in a firm, friendly tone, “a little nippy out tonight, don’t you think?”

One of them, clearly the alpha, sniggered and turned to his friends. “Did this bitch just say it was nipply?” He was Hispanic, short, and a little paunchy in the face, but his bulky flannel shirt hid his frame, making it hard for Keri to tell what she might be up against. The other guys were both tall and skinny with the shirts hanging off skeletal frames. One was white and the other was Hispanic. Keri took a moment to appreciate the racial diversity of this particular street gang before deciding to exploit it.

“You guys letting white boys in these days?” she asked, nodding at the odd man out. “What? Hard to find enough brown-skinned members willing to take orders from you?”

Keri didn’t love playing this card but she needed something to create division among them and she knew a lot of these gangs were very particular about membership requirements.

“That mouth is gonna get you in trouble, lady,” the Alpha hissed.

“Yeah, trouble,” repeated the tall white guy. The tall Hispanic guy remained silent.

“You always go around repeating what your boss says?” Keri asked the white guy. “You pick up any trash he drops on the ground too?”

The two men glanced at each other. Keri could tell she’d hit a sore spot. Behind them, she saw that Ray had gotten the photo of Lanie and was walking back toward them. The two remaining guys by the Corvette started to step in his direction but he gave them a sharp glare and they stopped in their tracks.

“This bitch is rude,” the white guy said, apparently unable to come up with anything more clever.

“We may have to teach you some manners,” Alpha said.

Keri noticed the tall, quiet Hispanic guy with them tense up at that. And suddenly she understood the dynamic among these three. Alpha was the hothead. White was the follower. Quiet was the peacemaker. He hadn’t come over to join in any trouble. He was trying to prevent it. But he hadn’t found a way in yet and that was partly Keri’s fault. She decided to throw him a lifeline and see if he’d use it.

“You two twins?” she asked him as she nodded at White.

He looked at her for a second, clearly unsure what to make of the comment. She gave him a wink and the tension seemed to seep from his body. He almost smiled.

“Identical,” he answered, taking the opening.

“Yo, Carlos, we ain’t twins, man,” White said, not sure whether to be confused or angry.

“No, man,” Alpha jumped in, temporarily forgetting his anger. “Bitch is right. It’s hard to tell you two apart. We need to pin some tags on you, right?”

He and Carlos laughed and White joined in, although he still looked perplexed.

“How we doing over here?” Ray asked, startling all three of them. Before they could get riled again, Keri jumped in.

“I think we’re good,” she said. “Detective Ray Sands, I’d like to introduce you to Carlos and his twin brother. And this is their dear friend…what’s your name?”

“Cecil,” he said willingly.

“This is Cecil. They like Corvettes and chatting older ladies up. But unfortunately, we’re going to have to leave you to the car repair, gentlemen. We’d like to stay, but you know how it is with LAPD – always working. Unless, that is, you’d like us to stick around and discuss manners a little more. Would you like that, Cecil?”

Cecil took a look at all 230 pounds of Ray, then back at Keri, seemingly unruffled by his insults, and apparently decided he’d had enough.

“Nah, it’s aight. Y’all go on and do your LAPD thing. We busy with car repair, like you said.”

“Well, you guys have great night, okay?” Keri said with a level of enthusiasm that only Carlos noticed bleeding into mockery. They nodded and headed back to the Corvette as Keri and Ray got in their car.

“That could have gone worse,” Ray said.

“Yeah, I know you’re still not a hundred percent from that gunshot wound. I figured I shouldn’t get you involved in an altercation with five gang members if I could help it.”

“Thanks for looking out for your invalid partner,” Ray said as he pulled out into the street

“Don’t mention it,” Keri said, ignoring the sarcasm.

“So did Edgerton have any luck with the social media stuff?”

“He did. We need to go to Fox Hills Mall.”

“What’s there?”

“I’m hoping those girls,” Keri said, “but I’ve got a feeling we aren’t going to be that lucky.”