CHAPTER9
NOT LONG AFTERdropping Cindy and Julie at Pier 39, I pulled my car into a space behind a Crime Scene Unit van on the edge of Golden Gate Park. Since I wasn’t part of the Homicide team on call, I figured I wouldn’t bother Rich Conklin about the discovery until I had more information.
I looked up to see that the weather had turned gray. Now it felt more like a typical San Francisco afternoon. It also matched my mood after having to leave Julie to come here. I saw several officers and detectives I knew. They didn’t lift my spirits either. I liked all of them just fine, but they weren’t my daughter.
I noticed Claire near a clump of trees, silently watching the CSU’s personnel survey the area and take photographs, while Edmund sat on a checkered blanket, leaning against a tree, looking at his phone. I decided not to disturb him. Instead, I kept marching toward Claire.
She looked up as I approached. “Did you learn anything?” I asked.
“Yeah. That I prefer examining bodies in a controlled environment. All this nature—the wind, the bugs and animals—is driving me nuts. Maybe it’s because I’m a control freak.”
“No, it’sdefinitelybecause you’re a control freak.” At least I got a smile out of her.
Then I got my first look at the body, sprawled on the grass near the corner of the park: a tall woman with blond hair splayed out around her head like she’d fallen backward and it had floated in the air before settling on the ground. A shiny necklace that spelled “Audrey” hung from her neck.
Her cheeks and eyes had an odd color and texture. I mentioned it to Claire.
She said, “I noticed that too. I thought maybe it was some kind of cosmetic, but on closer examination, I’m not sure. Once I get her back to my lab, I can do a scraping and get an idea of what it is.”
I said, “Can you take a stab at what you think the cause of death is?”
She slowly shook her head. “If you’re trying to tie her to your body from Marshall’s Beach, it might be tough. I can tell you this woman wasn’t strangled. She appears to have been struck in the face and maybe the throat. Again, I’ll know more once I examine her.”
Randy Hicks, the homicide official on duty, came up to me with a quizzical look on his face. I beat him to the punch. “I’m not trying to steal your case, Randy. Claire called me because we’re friends.”
The stocky Black man looked at Claire and said, “Remind me again how the medical examiner’s office beat me to the scene?”
Claire said, “It’s all part of our new policy to act quickly onevery call.” She waited a second and then let out a laugh. “I have the day off and was already here at the park having a picnic.”
The detective nodded. “Sorry about your day off,” he said with a smile, then went about directing everyone on the scene.
I said to Claire, “I think you’ve done just about all you can here. You should probably take Edmund home.”
Claire’s eyes opened wide. “Oh my God! I forgot all about Edmund.”
CHAPTER10
IN THE WEEhours of the next morning, I sat in the kitchen in the unholy glow of my laptop computer. When I’d woken up to Joe’s snoring, I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep anytime soon.
My mind just kept going back to the body that had washed up on Marshall’s Beach. And the body from earlier in Golden Gate Park. The other homicide team had texted me a few hours after I’d left them. They’d already identified the victim. She’d been in some kind of witness protection with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Could have been a revenge killing, but they were still working on the details. Claire was theorizing that the residue on her face was some kind of homemade mace.
With my peripheral interest in the missing girl Cindy was looking into, the daughter of the guy who’d come to Claire’s party, any hope of a restful night was gone.
I decided it was a good time to do research. I started with simple news articles about missing women. I restricted it to California. Soon, I moved on to any stories about human trafficking. Finally, Istarted poking around in darker places, where unsettling pornography marked the entry portholes to the sites.
“What are you doing, Lindsay? It’s four thirty in the morning.”
Joe’s voice had made me jump, really pop up in my seat. Once I caught my breath, I leaned back and let him look over my shoulder at the computer.
Joe glanced down at my screen. “These sites look creepy. I’d visit some more official websites.”
“I know. But I’m trying to get a down-and-dirty look at it. I want to read comments on some of these crazy websites.”
“Have you found anything interesting?”
“I found a news article and a few police reports that might be something in San Diego. Just this week they broke up a ring that trafficked teens to legal and illegal brothels in Nevada. There were four defendants and over fifty trafficked teens. It’s a big organization. They claim it’d been operating for several years. This is a problem no one really talks about.”
“Because it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. These people purposely prey on girls with iffy family situations,” Joe said. “I’ve been doing a little checking myself. We have organizations like the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which tracks all this stuff. But the truth is, with law enforcement departments not talking to each other, we’re not sure exactly how often it happens. It may not be as prevalent as people say.”
