Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

The next page, same thing, but different woman, again a Lincoln Town Car, maybe the same one—too grainy to read the license plate, and the whole picture darker, later in the night. The woman’s dress is off the shoulders, her hair pulled back. A different woman, but coming out the same alley door into a black town car. Valerie notes the date and time, again, with a Sharpie: 5/5 8:30 p.m.

Twelve more pages like that, several photos each for May 5, 6, and 7. Same setup—various women dressed to the nines stepping into a black town car.

Valerie must have been using her phone. The photo quality is poor. I can’t make out license plates or faces. Can’t make out an address or any detail in the foreground or background that would indicate a location. Just an alley, like thousands in Chicago. Nothing whatsoever of note. Can’t even make out the ages of the women.

There are girls, girls I might be able to help.

I close the folder. This is it. She was preparing Antoine Stonewald’s defense, and she stumbled onto a human-trafficking ring. Something in these pages will tease out the answer.

Inside, I’m boiling, my hands balling into fists, my pulse thumping so loudly that it drowns out all other sound. But it has to be a controlled boil. Patti’s right. Keep your eye on the prize. Be smart. Don’t show your hand. Keep a low profile and snoop around. Do it off the books. Act like everything’s normal. You can do that. You’ve done it before. Be the wisecracking comedian. Be everyone’s buddy. All good. No problem here. Be the guy who just solved the big case, the aw-shucks routine, the team player.

But find these people. Billy the funny guy will find these people.

And then we’ll all find out together how funny I am.

Chapter 48

MONDAY MORNING, the sky like orange sherbet, the air mild.

Before work, I go to the crime scene, looking for things I didn’t look for the first time around, when by all appearances, the K-Town shooting was nothing more than a turf battle between street gangs.

That still may be the case. The shooting might have had nothing to do with my Jane Doe and her black-lily tattoo. If I find out different, so be it, but all I want right now is to learn more about Jane Doe.

The house is still roped off, surrounded by police crime-scene tape, but I stopped at the station and checked out the key to the house before coming here. I walk under the tape and slide the key into the door.

Inside, it smells like blood, like body odor, like death. I ignore the blood spatters on the wall and head back to the bedrooms. From what we know, this house wasn’t really a place where Shiv lived so much as the place where he ran his drug operation. But it was enough of a home for his girlfriend to sometimes leave their daughter, LaTisha, with Shiv while she went to work, a decision that will haunt her the rest of her days.

The bedrooms generally look like actual bedrooms—twin-size beds, simple nightstands, closets with some clothes hanging in them, and dressers. We cleared out all the drugs from the place, but the other stuff is untouched.

I snap on gloves and start with the bathroom. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for. Tampons, a purple box. So some female was living here, at least part-time.

Lip gloss, too, resting inside a medicine cabinet—also says female. I drop that into an evidence bag, in case I need DNA testing. We already have Jane Doe’s DNA, but I might be needing some evidence off the official record.

I hear the creak of the door from the front of the house. Footsteps entering.

I draw my piece but keep it low at my side. “Police officer!” I shout. “Who’s there?” I move slowly down the hallway, peek around the corner.

A young African American woman, twenties, braided hair—takes me a second, but it’s LaTisha’s mother, Janiece Moreland, staring at the bloodstain on the wall. She doesn’t even acknowledge me as I turn the corner, holstering my weapon.

The last week has not been kind to her. She buried her daughter and got to spend a whole lot of time thinking about her decision to use her drug-dealing boyfriend for day care.

“Ms. Moreland,” I say.

She nods absently, still looking at that stained wall. “Saw you come in.”

“You were parked outside? Any particular reason why?”

She takes a long breath. “I come here every day. First time it’s been open.” Her head slowly turns in my direction. Her eyes are heavy, purple bags that could almost pass for bruises. “You’re the one that caught the shooter. You’re the one that shot him.”

“I am, yes. I was hoping to take him in, question him, find out—”

“I’m glad you killed him.” She considers what she said, lets out a bitter chuckle. “Not s’posed to say that, am I? Not s’posed to answer violence with violence, ” she says, as if it’s something people have been telling her. “Try losing your baby daughter first.”

“I understand. Would it be okay if I asked you a couple questions?”

She doesn’t say anything. Her body in a slight tremble, a tear falling down her cheek. She’s in a blue uniform, on her way to work, less than a week after her daughter was killed. She has three other children, older than LaTisha, and she has to provide.

“The woman that was shot on the porch,” I say. “Anything you can tell me about her?”

For a time, I think she won’t answer, as she stares off. It must be agonizing to be back here, to see the blood and brain matter of your daughter splattered against a wall and onto a couch. But there’s no manual for suffering. We torture ourselves.

“Evie,” she says, a short e, rhyming with “Chevy.”

“You have a name besides Evie?”

She shakes her head. “Evie,” she repeats.

“Was Evie staying here?”

“’Bout a week or so, yeah.” Still with that far-off expression, her eyebrows up.

“Who was she? What’d she do? Where did she come from?”

“Fuck if I know. Dwayne said he wanted to help her, give her a place to stay for a few days. Said she ran from something ugly.” She turns to me again. “Take one look at her, you know what she was.”

“A prostitute,” I say.

“And a junkie.”

“Right, but—anything else you know? We’re trying to identify her. We don’t know anything about her.”

“Neither do I, mister. Neither did Dwayne. I figured he took her in so she’d pay the rent, know what I mean?” She shakes her head. “But Dwayne said it wasn’t like that. He said he didn’t touch her. Said he felt bad for her.”

“So she was running from something. Something ugly.”

“What she said, mister. Don’t make it true.” She wipes at her face. “I gotta go to work.”

“Sure, Ms. Moreland.” I slip her one of my cards. “If you can think of anything else, please let me know.”

She nods and leaves, a lifeless stoop to her posture, carrying a burden that will probably never lift.

I close the door behind her and begin a search of the first bedroom. I’m getting short on time before work begins.

Ten minutes in, my phone buzzes. Caller ID says it’s Carla.

“Hey,” I say when I answer, the content, easygoing, wisecracking partner, nothing amiss here, no, sir.

“Lew says he has something for us,” she says. “You close?”

“Maybe half an hour,” I say. “Sorry; I overslept. You wanna take the assignment, and I’ll meet you?”

“No. I’ll wait. You’re on your way or still at home?”

I close the dresser drawer I was searching and head for the door. To be continued.

“Just leaving now,” I say. “Walking out the door.”

Which is technically true. I pull open the front door, step onto the porch.