“She came clean. She got a job.”
“What job?”
“McDonald’s on Main. For a while.”
“Where did she go after Mickie D’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about some of the other kids—they seen her around, talk about her maybe? Mention how nice her expensive, fixed pearly whites look?”
“What?”
“Her teeth.”
“I—” A knock sounded on the door. “Look, I really need you to go. I’ve got to prep—”
“That a yes, a no?”
“I havenotseen her. And I don’t know anyone who has.” He marched to the door as he spoke, opened it into the passageway, and headed for the front entrance.
“And you wouldn’t tell us if you did know,” said Kjel following the man, Leo coming slowly behind them.
Pastor Markus unlocked and opened the front door. Wet air blew inside. “I told you, these kids eschew bureaucracy. The system has let them down. Most have been bounced in and out of foster care their whole lives before landing on the streets. They don’t want to go back. Won’t even go to a clinic to see a doctor if they need to, because it could land them back in the system.” He paused. “And cops, especially—they won’t talk to cops.” He met and held Leo’s steely blue gaze a moment. “Not all cops are good cops, and they know that, too.”
“You do realize this is a homicide investigation,” Kjel said. “You could be withholding information that in turn could help save other victims. More of your kids, even.”
“Then do your work, detectives, and let me do mine.” He showed them out, shut the door, and watched them from a window.
Kjel paused under the eaves to pull up his collar and light a smoke, cupping his flame against the wind. Rain pattered into puddles and dripped off the eaves.
“What’s your take on him?” Leo said, lighting his own cigarette. “Fake pastor. All that religious shit about sinners, saving girls? Don’t trust weirdos like that.”
Kjel watched the rain for a moment. “Did yous see that board of photos in there?” he said quietly as he blew out a stream of smoke. “Faith Hocking was pictured in two of them. In one she looked just like her mug shot, crappy teeth, scabby. Skinny. In the other she was all nice white teeth and clean hair, and she was with that young woman we saw earlier.”
“That tweaker ho?”
“Yeah.” He started to walk.
CHAPTER 24
“This is Gracie’s room,” Lorna Drummond said, opening the bedroom door.
Maddocks allowed Pallorino to enter ahead of him and to ask the questions while he observed. He wanted a better handle on this detective who’d so brazenly propositioned and slept with him, almost leaving him cuffed to the motel bed for the night. He’d also been asked by Buziak to keep a close eye on her performance because of an application she was making to join the homicide unit. She was going to get resistance, though—he’d heard enough from the guys already, especially from Harvey Leo.
Part of him didn’t want her in homicide, either. Why? Because that part of him was still thinking he might enjoy the challenge of getting her back into bed. And having a relationship with someone in your unit, or worse, with your partner, was a no-go. Relationships like that screwed with objectivity, clouded judgment in high-risk situations. And if she so desperately wanted to get into homicide, she wasn’t likely to risk blowing it by having sex with him again.
Mostly he just liked to watch her. Lithe limbs, a catlike quality to her movements, long, dead-straight, dark-red hair hanging in a ponytail down her back. Pale, translucent skin. And those cool gray eyes that gave away nothing. She intrigued him—a very attractive and accomplished female who hunted heinous sex offenders by day and sought anonymous sex by night. How often, he wondered, did Angie Pallorino actually hit that club? How safe was her habit? What in the hell hadhebeen doing there, anyway? He should have left when his buddy hadn’t shown up, not gone with her to the room.
He stuck his hands deep into his pockets, remaining near the door while he took in Drummond’s bedroom.
It was neat and feminine, decorated in tones of green with dark-pink accents. On her bed a mountain of colored pillows had been topped with a stuffed bear. Above the bed, motivational slogans had been mounted on poster board, and on the wall near her desk a calendar hung alongside a wooden crucifix with a bronze Jesus nailed to it, the Lord’s head bowed under his crown of thorns. Atop the desk was a hardback novel, a MacBook, an iPad, and what appeared to be a necklace of pearly beads plus a thin gold chain with a gold pendant attached. The closet doors were sliding mirrors, and one side was plastered with photographs.
Pallorino walked over to the desk, touched the gold pendant, then moved the beads gently with her fingertips, exposing a pearly white cross. It was then that Maddocks realized it was a rosary. His partner’s attention went from the rosary to the crucifix with its Jesus on the wall, then to the motivational slogans. She moved over to a map mounted above a bookshelf at the base of the bed.
Gracie’s mother wrapped the ends of her long sweater closer over her chest. She wore jeans, no makeup, hadn’t showered or fixed her hair. A secondary victim—the survivor of the crime—the one left behind.
“Gracie wanted to travel,” Lorna Drummond said as Pallorino leaned closer to examine the pins in the map. “She stuck pins into all the places she was going to visit. She ... she wanted to see the whole world. She had plans. So many ...” Lorna Drummond sniffed, wiped her nose with the base of her thumb. “So many plans.”
