RICH CONKLIN ANDI were looking for a contact who had wanted to meet us at the Yerba Buena Gardens, not far from the Tenderloin. The contact had said the Duke of the Tenderloin told her to call.
We parked on Mission Street and had to walk almost a full block to get to the entrance of the park.
Conklin said to me, “Did you know Cindy was going with Joe on some kind of missing child tip?”
“Yeah. I helped set it up. It was supposed to give Cindy a little context for her story.”
“She’s positively obsessed with this case of the girl missing from San Julio. She’s spun it up into a huge conspiracy theory about human trafficking.”
“She’s not the only one. That’s my working theory as well.”
“But the cops in San Julio said the father of the missing girl is their main suspect. How is that a trafficking ring? Sounds more like a nut.”
“Eric Snaff? I haven’t gotten a handle on him yet.” I took a fewsteps on the uneven sidewalk and had to stop when a thought hit me.
Conklin stopped and turned around to look at me. “What’s wrong?”
My mind was still ahead of my mouth. I held up a hand as I tried to bring my thoughts into alignment. My patient and reliable partner stood there silently and didn’t speak as he waited for me to tell him what my momentous thought was.
Finally, I looked at him and said, “In addition to our unidentified body from Marshall’s Beach, we have the murder of the woman in Golden Gate Park, Tina Barnes. Who we know was murdered the same night as Claire’s party.”
“So?”
“So if the San Julio cops think Eric Snaff is a suspect in his daughter’s disappearance, and we think the missing girls might be connected to the two dead women, then Snaff could also be a suspect in Tina Barnes’s murder. We know for a fact he was in San Francisco that night because he talked to me and Cindy at the party.”
Conklin nodded his head slowly, then said, “That’s a pretty interesting theory.”
“Most theories are interesting. That’s why people come up with them.”
“Do you think we can move on from theory to investigation and find the woman who phoned in this tip?”
With that we continued our march toward the public park.
CHAPTER26
YERBA BUENA GARDENShas a wide-open feel. Terraced lawns, flower beds, and steps with beautiful waterfall features are highlights. I consider it one of the most beautiful parks in the city.
As we entered the park, though, I was a little on edge. Which is a good thing for a cop. You can get too complacent. We still weren’t quite certain who we were meeting or all the details about the information she had.
Conklin and I stuck together and started strolling through the park. In front of the public restrooms, we came across a young woman with straight, dark hair sitting on a hard concrete bench. She had the lean, edgy look of someone living between the parallel worlds of the streets and a troubled home. I’d seen it too many times before. A kid who found life at home to be hell, only to discover life on the streets wasn’t any better.
The way the young woman turned her head and looked at us told me I was right. Her eyes cut left as if making sure no onewould see her about to talk to the cops—probably why she had left the Tenderloin to meet us here at the gardens.
I gave her a subtle nod. She considered the gesture and returned a matching nod. She stood up silently and motioned for us to follow her to behind a Martin Luther King memorial, where a narrow ledge on the back wall afforded us some privacy.
Conklin and I introduced ourselves. The woman said to call her Rachel. She wouldn’t give us any other information about herself. I couldn’t even guess at a birthdate. She looked like she was in her early twenties, but the street tended to age people. She could’ve been as young as eighteen.
As we talked, Rachel kept scanning the terrain beyond the curtain of water. I noticed an unnerving tattoo of a bony hand reaching up her neck with the index finger disappearing into her hairline, and when she clicked her long, fake, dark nails on the stone seat beside her hip, it sounded like she was tapping out a message in Morse code.
After a few minutes of feeling one another out, Rachel pulled out a copy of the digital composite of the young woman who’d washed up on Marshall’s Beach. She reverently placed the now worn sheet of paper on her lap.
“The duke gave me this. He’s been showing it around the Tenderloin. I think I know this girl. She called herself Missy, but when we were both signing up for our benefits, I heard her say that her first name was actually Donna.”
I asked, “Any chance you got her last name?”
That’s when Rachel sat up a little straighter and looked me in the eye. “What would it be worth if I did?”
“Depends on if we’re able to corroborate your information.”
