“Randy Hicks has the lead on that one. There was a home invasion in Pacific Heights. Three male subjects got away with approximately $900,000 in jewelry.”
Conklin said, “That means $40,000 in jewelry. Wealthy victims inflate their losses for the insurance money.”
“Always the skeptic.” Then I came to the last item on the list. “There’s a missing persons report for a twenty-year-old named Amy Phelps, last seen Tuesday at the diner where she works.”
“Quiet quitting?”
“That’s the best-case scenario.”
It had me worried. Another young woman.
Rich and I needed to follow up on the tip we’d gotten from Allison Weaver about seeing Nicole at the mall. When I suggested we go to Stonestown to see if we could find any video of Nicole Snaff, Conklin was on board.
It didn’t take us long to find the security office, tucked away next to an empty storefront. The metal door simply saidSECURITYin black block letters. We knocked and a middle-aged man with brown hair and a giant walrus mustache opened the door after a moment.
We badged him and explained who we were and what we needed. To my surprise, he immediately ushered us into the cramped suite of offices. There were three small rooms, two of which were nothing but video monitors covering virtually the entire mall. The eerie glow from all the monitors made the rooms look like something out of a sci-fi film.
The security chief introduced himself as Bill Simpkins. His Boston accent made him sound like a caricature. But he seemed pretty dedicated.
“You will have to excuse me. I’m watching this guy in the food court.” He pointed to a monitor in the bottom corner of the bank. It showed a muscular man with a lot of tattoos standing at the edge of the food court. Most of the restaurants had not even opened yet.
Simpkins said, “He’s been hanging out there for almost thirty minutes. I go by the old adage, the higher the tattoo is on your body, the crazier you are.”
I looked at the monitor a little more closely. The man had tattoos all over his neck and face. That didn’t validate the security chief’s adage, but I knew what he meant.
I repeated what Allison Weaver had told us. We were able to give the security chief a date, time, and the escalator Allie was on when she thought she saw Nicole Snaff. Simpkins set us up on a computer. With a few keystrokes, we were looking at footage from a camera that captured the entire escalator. Then he went back to watching the man at the food court.
Conklin said, “This is going to take a while. I might need to visit the food court myself.”
I was about to give him a funny response when I spotted Allie’s face on the monitor. I mumbled, “No way.” That caught Conklin’s attention. We both stared at the monitor. I saw Allie turn her head. I followed her line of sight and immediately saw the girl she was looking at. I paused the video and we focused on the girl who might’ve been Nicole Snaff.
There was definitely a resemblance. But was it really her?
We called over the security chief, who looked at the monitor too. Simpkins printed out a still photo. I stared at the photo. It could be Nicole.
I said to Simpkins, “This is a really good system.”
“The management bought it when times were better. Now theykeep it running because it’s cheaper than hiring a lot of extra guards.”
My eyes returned to the monitor. I zoomed out and looked at everyone around the girl. It didn’t seem like she had been with anyone.
Then Simpkins rushed back to his other monitor. I looked over to see two people meeting the tattooed man. It was an elderly couple, and the three greeted one another with hugs. Conklin, the security chief, and I all realized simultaneously that the tattooed guy was meeting with his parents.
I held in my hand a printout of the girl I thought could be Nicole Snaff. It was just one more confusing piece of information dropped into my lap.
CHAPTER51
YUKI CASTELLANO TRIEDnot to jerk the witness’s arm as she led him out into a waiting area in the Hall of Justice. The slightly built twenty-two-year-old had just frozen on the witness stand. He hadn’t even been under examination yet. All he’d been asked so far was to state his name. Still, the judge had graciously allowed a brief recess. He knew about witness intimidation. Yuki appreciated that kind of practical approach to justice.
Yuki had picked this specific waiting area because she knew it was where cops about to testify often congregated. She wanted the witness to feel safe. A quick look around the assorted benches and plastic chairs told her she’d accomplished her goal. The place was positively jammed with young, muscular patrol officers and a few weary detectives.
She settled her shaken witness in the middle of a sea of police officers. No one even glanced her way. They all knew who Yuki was.
“I don’t understand, Carlos. You didn’t have any problem talking to me about what you saw,” Yuki said.
The young man was sweating profusely despite the air-conditioned courthouse. His dark hair stuck up on the side from a ferocious cowlick. It was so distracting she wanted to pat it down on his head.
Carlos nodded his head vigorously. “I know, I know. But you didn’t see the way Elio looked at me in the courtroom. It was like he was telling me what was going to happen to me without ever speaking.”
