Rue and I headed to the mall. Since we’d been right across the street just an hour earlier, it seemed like we were wasting precious time, but back then, we hadn’t known about the receipt. We went to the customer service counter and asked where we could find Grind Time. We were told it was up the escalator and to the left and that we couldn’t miss it. Once we reached the second floor, the colorful stand was thirty feet to our left. We approached the young lady sitting behind the counter, and she stood when we reached her.
“Hi, what can I get you?” she asked.
I looked at Rue and shrugged. “Two coffees, please, and some information.”
She wrinkled her forehead as she prepared the coffee. “Information about what?”
“Do you know LeAnn Morrison?”
She laughed. “I don’t know who you are. Why would I answer that?”
Rue moved his jacket aside, exposing his badge, then smiled. “Because we asked nicely.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know LeAnn. She works in that shoe store behind you, but I’m sure you know that.”
We acted as though we did. “Of course, but she isn’t at work today. Do you know her well?”
“Well enough. She buys coffee from me whenever I’m working.”
“Do you work until the mall closes?”
“Nope. Only from three until six every day. It isn’t a lot, but it pays for my gas and personal needs. I live with my folks and take college courses online.” She stuck out her hand. “By the way, I’m Callie.”
“Nice to meet you, Callie.” I brought up the picture of the receipt. “This is from last night.” I pointed at the initials. “Do you know who J. L. is?”
“Sure, that’s Josh Lang. He takes over three nights a week when my shift ends. He shuts down the kiosk when the mall closes.”
“So, he would have created this receipt for one caramel latte?”
“Yep. Probably the last sale of the night. Sounds like something LeAnn would have bought.”
“Right, it was LeAnn’s receipt.”
Callie looked confused. “So why aren’t you talking to LeAnn about whatever it is you’re here for?”
I skirted her question and asked one of my own. “Did you see LeAnn yesterday?”
“Sure. She comes in during my shift. She says hi, starts work, and then buys a coffee at her six o’clock break. We usually talk during those ten minutes. After that, Josh takes over for me, LeAnn goes back to work, and I go home. Is something wrong? With LeAnn, I mean?”
I gave her my best smile and handed her my card. “Nothing we can’t handle. Appreciate your help, Callie, and call if anything comes to mind.” I was happy that my new business cards showed me only as Detective Mitch Cannon, not listing the department I worked in. That would be a dead giveaway as to why we were asking about LeAnn.
We spoke briefly with the manager of the shoe store, and he confirmed that LeAnn had worked her entire shift last night and left when everyone else did. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Rue and I headed downstairs to the customer service counter, where we asked for the location of the security office. We hoped to see LeAnn on camera as she left the building. That would tell us whether she was abducted right there in the mall’s parking lot or somewhere off-site.
The woman behind the counter said we weren’t allowed to go into the security office without an escort, but she would call somebody out to meet with us. We said that was fine.
Minutes later, an older man who looked like he could be a retired police officer walked out, introduced himself as Tim Hein, and escorted us back. We explained what we needed, and he said he was more than happy to help. We’d learned that he was indeed a retired cop who had moved south after putting in his twenty years of service at the Milwaukee Police Department.
I thought about how small our world actually was and asked if he was familiar with North Bend. He said yes, and I told him we’d worked a case last year with an FBI agent from North Bend.
Once we’d finished the courtesies and got down to business, we asked to see the footage of the shoppers and employees as they exited the building.
He scratched his head. “That’s a tall order, Detectives. Our employees leave anywhere between ten and eleven p.m. If they’re a manager, it’s the latter. The mall has cameras that cover every exit, and we have twelve of them. Is there a way to narrow down your request?”
Rue took over. “Well, the employee was a part-time worker, so she wasn’t a manager, and she worked at the shoe store on the second floor.”
“There are three shoe stores upstairs. Do you know which one?”
“Yes, Barker Shoes.”
“Good. That helps. The nearest exit to that side of the building is the northwest exit. The woman you’re looking for probably went out that door.”
“We have a coffee receipt of hers that was time-stamped two minutes after ten,” I said.
“Okay, then that would put her downstairs and at the exit by six or seven minutes after the hour. Would you recognize her if you saw her? The cameras capture images in color, but you’d likely see her only from the back.”
Since we’d never seen LeAnn alive, I had no idea if we’d recognize her, but we had seen the clothes she was found in that morning. My assumption was that they were the same clothes she’d worn during her shift last night. We would also watch for a woman carrying a coffee cup from Grind Time.
“So, is that the door you want me to bring up?”
I cocked my head at Rue and said yes. We had to start somewhere. “Start the footage right at ten o’clock, Tim.”
“You got it.”
I recalled the blouse LeAnn had on in the car. The front had turned a sickly black from all the blood, but the sleeves and collar were still green. Her pants were black anyway. We were looking for a woman wearing a green blouse, black pants, and likely carrying a purse and a coffee cup. She also had shoulder-length brown hair. I was confident that if she walked out that door, we would recognize her.
When Tim hit Play, I double-checked the time stamp. It was ten o’clock, and the date was correct. Within a few minutes, she might exit through that door.
My eyes were locked on the screen. Customers carrying bags were walking out, and the lot was clearing. I glanced at the time stamp again—10:02. LeAnn was upstairs paying for her coffee. How much time she still had among the living, we didn’t know. Tapper had estimated that she’d been dead between eight and ten hours when he arrived at the scene. That meant she had been killed in the parking lot or abducted there and killed shortly afterward.
I sucked in a deep breath and focused on the screen. I pictured LeAnn taking the escalator down to the first floor and walking the hallway to the exit. If only we could turn back time.
“There!” Rue’s shout startled me out of my vision. “That has to be her, but she isn’t alone like we figured.”
“Employees often walk out with other employees,” Tim said. “Safety in numbers you know, especially at night.”
We were aware of the saying, but in LeAnn’s case, it didn’t matter. She had been chosen by sick individuals, and her fate was in their hands. Why it was her and not the woman with her, we didn’t know, but the footage might answer that question.
As we continued to watch, I asked Tim if he recognized the other woman.
He shrugged. “It’s hard to say from behind, plus I don’t know many of the store employees. There are two groups in Security—the mall walkers and the monitor watchers. I fit into the second group. That lady is either a friend of LeAnn’s who was shopping until closing or an employee who shopped before her shift and had her purchases set aside until she left for the night.”
Knowing who that woman was could be helpful, and we would get back to that later. For the moment, we needed to watch whatever played out in front of us. It was hard to see the women clearly as they walked farther out into the lot. Their images became fuzzy. I squinted and asked Tim to pause the video.
“Is there anything you can do to sharpen the footage?”
“Sorry but no. Night images are tough the way it is, and as people get farther from the camera, the worse it becomes.”
I gave Tim a nod. We could only watch and hopefully be able to tell what was going on. The women veered slightly to the right and stopped at a car centered in the lot. I couldn’t tell the make or model, but it wasn’t LeAnn’s car. The trunk opened and closed, then a minute later, the car drove away. We saw someone we presumed to be LeAnn continue walking until we couldn’t see her any longer. I checked the time—10:14.
We waited. She must have driven there from home, and sooner or later, we would see headlights or taillights pull away—if the camera reached that far.
I turned to Tim. “Are there cameras farther out in the lot or just what’s on the storefronts?”
“Only what’s attached to the building. Honestly, we’ve never had anyone question how far the cameras pick up images or if the range goes as far as the outer lots. I’d have to make a call to the company who sold the cameras to us and installed them.”
“How long would it take to get that information?”
Tim shrugged. “I should know by this afternoon.”
“Okay, good. We’ll watch for another few minutes. Maybe we’ll see a car go past on the frontage road.”
It was nearing ten thirty on the screen when two vehicles exited out the main entrance. Tim had switched cameras so we could see the frontage road, which went from the outer lots to the street that turned in at the mall.
“Did you see that?” Rue asked. “Two vehicles just left, one right after the other.”
“Right, but we didn’t see where they came from. It could still be employees leaving out of different areas of the parking lot.”
“I couldn’t tell what the vehicles were, but I could see that one was a light color and large.”
Rue’s comment made me think. Jacob Kenney had a large white van. Could it be him after all? I asked Tim to back up the footage a smidge, then I took a picture of the vehicles. I didn’t know whether Tech could sharpen that picture, but I would urge them to try.
I gave Tim my card, asked him to call as soon as he knew about the cameras, then we left. I needed to get that photo in Tech’s capable hands as soon as I could.
I told Rue my thoughts as I drove to the precinct. “Do you think that large light-colored vehicle could be a van, as in a white Econoline van?”
He frowned. “As in a Jacob Kenney kind of van?”
“Maybe.”
“Then how did LeAnn’s car get to the school? A second person helping out? Somebody who knows Jacob by name, like Dylan Marx?”
“That’s also a maybe. I sure as hell hope that Tech can give us more.” I grinned at Rue. “And they haven’t let us down yet.”