The prints paid off.
Chapter
3
Marissa Adrianne French, twenty-five years old, five-five, one seventeen, brown and blue, driver of a six-year-old white Accord.
DMV photos typically bring out the worst in faces but this face had managed to dodge the indignity.
Beautiful young woman with wide, sparkling eyes, the blue of her irises so deep they came across indigo. Broad, white smile, rosy cheekbones, dimple on the right. “Brown” was chestnut laced with strands of ice blue, worn long and side-parted, with a flap that half concealed her left eye.
The address on her driver’s license was a three-digit apartment number on Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Sherman Oaks. Milo pulled up a street view. Massive gray mega-unit between Magnolia and Riverside.
Her prints were on file because Beverly Elms Gardens, where she worked as a Caregiver Level I, had required a background check. Milo looked up the facility. Olympic just east of La Brea, specializing in “Eldercare and Memory Rehabilitation.”
He called and got put on hold. Switched his phone to speaker and muttered, “Wonderful,” when too-soft rock began streaming.Returning to his keyboard, he entered his LAPD user I.D. and began searching databases.
Since the background check nineteen months ago, Marissa French hadn’t accrued any criminal charges. Nor was she listed as a crime victim or a party to a civil suit.
Milo had just logged onto NCIC when the phone said, “Can I help you?”
Female voice, flat with boredom.
Marissa French’s name elicited “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Your facility fingerprinted her.”
“If you say so.”
“She no longer works there?”
“That I couldn’t tell you.”
“Ma’am,” said Milo. “She’s dead and she listed you as her place of employment.”
A beat. “Dead.”
“Could you see if she ever worked there and if she left, is there a forwarding to a new job?”
“We don’t keep that type of information…dead…an accident?”
“I’m a homicide detective, Ms….”
“Julie. You’re saying murder.”
“It’s not a pretty situation, Julie.”
Silence.
“Julie?”
“Okay…could she be a temp?”
He rolled his eyes. “Good question.”
“I’m only saying because if she was a temp you need to talk to HR and they’re over at corporate in Buena Park. Would you like the number?”
“I would, Julie, but if you could be a doll and just check your records that would be super-helpful.”
