Criminal (Will Trent 6)

Most striking was their similarity. Long blonde hair. Blue eyes. Tall and slim. Lush lips. Expressive eyes. They were not just pretty, but beautiful. “They all list the same address,” Amanda noted. “Techwood Homes. I can call back Pam Canale and see if she can trace the apartment to a roll number. I have a feeling it belongs to Kitty, but it wouldn’t kill us to be certain.” An idea occurred to her. “We could take these license photos to Techwood tomorrow. Like you said, it’s ninety percent black there. Three white girls would stick out.”

“That’s good. You hold on to them.” Evelyn grabbed her notebook off the desk, but didn’t open it. “I checked all the missing persons files at the rest of the precinct. There was nothing for Lucy or Jane, but I found one for Mary Halston. She has a sister who lives in Virginia who’s been looking for her for almost a year.”

“We could call her.” Amanda tucked the licenses into her purse. “I’m sure she’d talk to us.”

“We’ll have to do it from here. If we call long-distance from the station, they’ll have our hides.”

Their hides were already in enough jeopardy. “Did anything else stick out?”

“I checked the DNF.” She looked down at the notebook. “None of them seemed to match our case. But all those missing girls, Amanda. At least twenty of them, and no one thought to do anything but shove them in a file at the back of the cabinet.” She slowly shook her head. Amanda felt ashamed for having told her about it in the first place.

Evelyn continued, “They’re dead, or they’ve been abducted, or hurt, and no one cares. Or at least no one knows to care. They must have families who are looking for them. But there are hardly any missing persons reports on black women. I guess their families know it doesn’t matter. At least not …” Her voice trailed off as she opened her notebook. “I wrote down their names. I don’t know why. I just thought that somebody should. Somebody has to acknowledge that they’re gone.”

Amanda looked at the long list of women’s names. All dead. All tossed into files that no one ever looked at.

Evelyn let out a long sigh. She put the notebook back on her desk. “How was the jail?”

“Disgusting.” Amanda dug around in her purse, though she hardly needed to refer to her notes. “Juice confessed to killing Lucy Bennett, but only to avoid the death penalty.”

“Did no one explain to him that we’re no longer allowed to execute people?”

“They said they’d bring it back for him.”

Evelyn nodded. “I suppose that’s a smart move on Juice’s part, then.”

“If you want to spend the rest of your life in prison.” Amanda opened her notebook. “He confirmed Kitty is Andrew Treadwell’s daughter.”

“Well.” She smiled smugly. “Our black sheep theory was correct.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath for a commendation,” Amanda advised. “Here’s the best part: Juice said that Hank Bennett came to see him a week or so before Lucy disappeared.”

Evelyn grunted. “God, that man would rather climb a tree and lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.” She took the pen off her desk and stood up to write on the puzzle wall. “Saw sister one week prior to disappearance,” she called out, writing down the words under Hank Bennett’s name. “What else did Juice say?”

“Hank Bennett told him to cut Kitty off heroin.”

“You mean Lucy?”

“No, I mean Kitty.”

Evelyn turned around. “Why would Hank Bennett want Juice to cut Kitty off heroin?”

Amanda pulled a Sergeant Hodge. “That’s an interesting question.”

Evelyn groaned as she looked back at the puzzle. “Maybe Andrew Treadwell sent Hank Bennett to get Kitty cleaned up.”

“Maybe.”

Amanda could tell she wasn’t convinced. “Okay, try this: Trey Callahan at the Union Mission said that Kitty stuck out from the other girls. She was obviously from an upper class. It wouldn’t take much poking around to find out who her people were. Maybe Juice tried to blackmail Treadwell, and Treadwell sent Hank Bennett to do his dirty work.” She scanned her notes. “Juice said it himself, that Bennett offered him money to get Kitty off the Boy.”

Evelyn breathed a heavy sigh. “Bennett went to bribe Juice about Kitty, but then he saw that his sister was there?”

“Juice said that Bennett didn’t see Lucy that time, but who knows? They all lie.”

“Yes, they do.” Evelyn bent down and studied the yellow page with the timeline drawn out. “We need to update this. Call it out to me.”

“Thanks for taking the hard part.” Amanda flipped through her notes as Evelyn waited. “Okay. The letter for Lucy Bennett comes to the Union Mission. We have both Trey Callahan and Juice confirming that.”

Evelyn took out a new piece of blue construction paper, stuck it on the wall, and wrote THE LETTER across the center. “Did Juice know what it said?”

“That he wanted to see his sister. That he missed her. Juice took it for a load of bull.”

“Look at me, agreeing with a pimp.”

Amanda continued, “Hank Bennett shows up at the mission a few days later and talks to Trey Callahan. Then, presumably soon after, he goes to Juice on his street corner. He sees Kitty instead. He tells Juice to cut Kitty loose. He doesn’t ask about his sister.” She squinted at her scribbles. “Juice made a point of telling me that he told Bennett to wait around for a few minutes, that Lucy would be right along, but Bennett didn’t wait.”

Evelyn guessed, “So, seeing Kitty put finding Lucy on the back burner for our boy lawyer.”

“Evidently,” Amanda concurred. “Then, two weeks later, Lucy is gone. A week or so after that, Kitty is gone. And then Mary disappeared after that.” Amanda looked up from the notebook. “Three girls gone. But why?”

“Tell me so I can stop writing.” Evelyn shook a cramp out of her hand before she finished the updating. Finally, she stood back and stared at the timeline. They both did. The puzzle was sprawling now, different bits of information floating around without a seeming connection. “I feel like we’re missing something.”

“Okay—” Amanda stood up. Pacing sometimes helped her think. “Let’s think about it this way: Bennett was trying to get in touch with his sister. His father was dead. His mother wanted to see her daughter, to let her know what had happened. So Hank goes to the streets looking for Lucy, only he finds Kitty Treadwell.”

“All right.”

“Bennett said that he sent Lucy the letter in August. He remembered it because he’d just graduated law school and his father was recently deceased. Later, he told us that he was a first-year associate at Treadwell-Price.”

“Oh-h-h.” Evelyn drew out the word. She picked up her pen and wrote down the approximate dates. “Bennett sees Kitty whored out on the street and parlays that into a job with Treadwell-Price?” She smiled. “That’s a top firm. A job there sets you up for life. I can totally see that weasel trying to work his sister’s tragedy to his own benefit.”

“Right.”