At the end of another day at work during which she had accomplished nothing, as Rebecca pulled into her illegal parking spot in Mulford Alley, once again, she saw Jared Woolridge sitting on the front steps of her building, steps that led to the doors of her upstairs neighbors. This was becoming an everyday occurrence. She could only hope it was for a good reason.
Jared stood as she got out of her car and walked over to the door that led to Rebecca’s tiny apartment off the back yard.
“What brings you here?” she asked as she approached him.
“I’ve got news,” he said.
“Okay.” She unlocked the door to the backyard and led him to her apartment. As she greeted Spike and then let him run into the yard, which he preferred over the “kitty litter” box she had taught him to use since her hours were so irregular, Jared followed her into her apartment.
“I need to show you something,” he said.
“Oh?” She put her gun in a locked cabinet and took off her jacket. “Coffee? Beer?”
“Beer would be great.”
She got them both a bottle and as soon as Spike came back into she apartment, she shut the door and joined Jared on the sofa. Immediately, he placed two 8x10 photos on the coffee table—MacKenzie Lamb and Willow Kassel. “A supposed suicide and a murder,” Jared said.
“She’s Sutter’s case.” Rebecca placed a finger on MacKenzie’s photo.
“That’s right. Now, look at this.” He then added photos of three other women. All looked to be in their early-to-mid-thirties, all were blond and attractive.
A chill went through Rebecca. The women in the photos, all five of them, had a similar appearance. “What is this?”
“When a person like me,” Jared began, “doesn’t have a lot to do, there’s time to look at a lot of stuff, and go down a lot of rabbit holes that a person on the job might not have time for. But here, I believe one of those rabbit holes paid off.”
“Go on,” she murmured.
“I went to Homicide yesterday to try to arrange a meeting with Lieutenant Eastwood to talk about what I could do to try to get my job back. You were off somewhere. Anyway, I saw Sutter at his desk. I asked if we could talk. He stiffed me completely, piled up some paperwork, said he was working on a case, and marched off. I guess he still sees me as the person who took his job for a while. Anyway, I saw the name on the file he was working, MacKenzie Lamb, and I decided to see if I could solve it before he did. If I did, it should prove to Eastwood which of us is the better man for the job.”
“What’s to solve?” Rebecca asked. “He said it’s a suicide.”
“Is it?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Remember, I still have credentials from my job in Los Angeles. I wasn’t fired from it, just on leave. So, I started to investigate MacKenzie. I talked to people who knew her. I learned she was having a hard time finding a ‘good man,’ according to her friends. And that’s how I learned she joined Utopian Connections. Bingo! The same place where Willow worked.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened at this news.
“So, I joined them,” Jared added.
“You did what?”
“Of course, I did. I want to know all about the site, and what better way than to become a member? MacKenzie’s still there, and so is Willow.”
Now, Rebecca understood. “And, seeing two dead women on the same site, plus I’d told you about Bo Benson’s case, so you went searching for more.”
“I did. If there had been several murders, involving these women, all of similar look, I’m sure Homicide would have put the cases together in a heartbeat. But with suicides, overdoses, and missing persons, not so much.” He paused a moment and then said, “These three women, all once clients of Utopian Connections, are now listed as missing persons.”
“What?”
“It’s true!” Jared said, then sat back, quite pleased with himself.
Rebecca shook her head. “It might not mean a lot. In this city, we have a lot of people who seem to go missing, but aren’t. The sad truth is nobody spends much time on missing persons cases unless it’s a kid or someone who’s very likely to have been the victim of foul play. But a single woman living alone in the big city—often, she’ll just take off for another city or a small town. Or even go back to her hometown, meet an old high school sweetheart, and get married. A Hallmark movie come to life. Nobody cares, case dropped.”
She couldn’t help but think that, aside from someone like Richie who knew she’d never abandon Spike, how many people would really question it if she vanished? She’d threatened to leave the city often enough, especially when things were going badly with Richie. Sure, they’d ask questions, file a police report. But after a while, most would probably assume the police were doing their job, and they’d go about their lives, forgetting all about her. There was a reason why “No news is good news” was a common saying for such situations.
Rebecca felt a stab of sorrow as she looked at the photos and the implication behind Jared’s findings. “Let’s hope this is all a coincidence. But, however it turns out, you did good work, Jared.”
“I think I did, too.” He took another piece of paper from the folder. “Here are the case numbers with Missing Persons. I suggest we interview friends of these missing women. See what we can learn about their time on Utopian Connections.”
“Yes. But first we have to fill Eastwood in on all this,” she said. “It could be big, unfortunately. I missed seeing Bo and Calderon in Homicide today, so I don’t know where they are with the Utopian Connection link.”
“Well, we both know Eastwood won’t talk to you this time of night unless it’s an emergency, so I think we should go to dinner and discuss how best to proceed.”
She liked the idea. “We can walk to Chinatown from here. I think mu shu gai pan is calling my name.”
“I hear it, too,” he said. “But I know a really good Chinese restaurant in the Richmond district. It’s not nearly as crowded as those in Chinatown. I’ll drive.”
That same evening, Richie brought Frankie Parks’ phones to Shay to go through and find out who Frankie had been calling. Shay downloaded the information from the phones and return them to Richie, all the while questioning Richie about what Rebecca was working on now that she was back in homicide. Why, Richie wondered, did Shay care so much? He did seem oddly relieved when Richie told him she was on desk duty reviewing cases on their way to storage.
Once he left Shay’s, he could have gone straight to Big Caesar’s, but all their talk about Rebecca was like salt on a wound. He hated the way he’d treated her when she went all the way to his house to tell him about Willow Kassel’s murder. She could have just phoned. But he suspected she’d wanted to see him, face-to-face. And what did he do? He’d ended the visit so he could go to see Matteo Veltroni.
He could really kick himself sometimes.
Then, to make things worse, as he talked to Matteo, he remembered what a loser Frankie Parks was. The guy probably managed to get himself killed by someone he was scamming. That was Frankie’s main activity, other than doing drugs and hanging around with hookers. The guy was so worthless, it turned out that the only reason Matteo cared about his whereabouts was because he’d had Frankie put his name on a business deal Matteo was working on and he needed some papers notarized. But instead of showing up to sign papers, Frankie went missing.
Matteo was furious about it.
Richie wanted nothing to do with either of them. Still, for his mother’s sake, he told Matteo he’d ask around—after all, he did know guys who knew guys who, he was pretty sure, knew people Frankie Parks hung out with. But other than that, he was staying clear of all of them. And he would somehow get Carmela to stay away from the entire family, especially that skank Matteo.
He reached Mulford and was relieved to see Rebecca’s car in the alley. He parked and, as usual, let himself in the street door, then crossed the backyard to her apartment. He knocked and could hear Spike’s barks. But no Rebecca. He knocked again.
After a long internal debate—well, maybe not so long—he used the key and unlocked the front door. “Rebecca? Are you here?”
Immediately, he saw two empty beer bottles side-by-side on the coffee table. Who, he wondered, was with her? When her neighbor, Kiki, came to visit, the two drank sweet wines like Riesling or Gewurztraminer. Never beer. It was more the sort of thing she drank with a guy, like him. Or… Jared Woolridge.
He went into the bedroom. At least the bed hadn’t been used that day. Rebecca was a stickler for making her bed each morning.
He sat on the sofa and petted Spike for a while. He could call Big Caesar’s and tell them he’d be late, then sit and wait for Rebecca to get home. But what good would that do? Especially if whoever had joined her for beer – most likely a guy – was still with her.
Hell! The last thing he was about to do was to sit there, eating his heart out while she was off having a good time with someone. Someone he doubted was a girlfriend.
Two could play at that game, sweetheart.