Maybe it was the emotion of the visit to Betty. Maybe she was just exhausted. But this was the first time he had heard defeat in her voice.
“Look,” he said, “Things go cold on cases but then you get a break and things heat up. You have to stay with it, you have to stay positive.”
She glanced at him then looked back to the road.
“Go home and try not to worry,” he said. “Have a glass of wine and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll start again early tomorrow.”
She was silent.
“You’ve got to trust me on this,” Louis said. “We’ll find her, Katy. We’ll bring Grace home.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For the third time in the last twenty minutes, Louis checked his watch, this time even tapping it to make sure it was running. Almost eight.
Where the hell was Katy?
“Everything okay here?”
He looked up at the waitress. “What? Oh, yeah.”
“Top you off?” she asked, holding up the coffee pot.
Louis nodded absently and she refilled his mug.
Yesterday, after their visit to the reservation, Louis had asked Katy to meet him for breakfast this morning. The forensic report from Grace’s crime scene was due back today and he hoped to be able to show it to Katy to boost her mood. When he went to pick it up the tech said he would bring it over to the IHop when he came over to get his takeout coffee.
Louis looked out the window for Katy’s FWC Bronco. No sign of it on the morning crawl along Tamiami Trail. He glanced at the pay phone out by the entrance, but he had already called her apartment and gotten the machine. A second call to her office got him a secretary who told him she hadn’t come in yet.
The guy from the forensic unit came in the entrance, spotted Louis and came over to his booth.
“Here’s your prelim,” he said, tossing a manila envelope on the table.
“Thanks,” Louis said. “Tell the cashier to add your coffee to my bill.”
After the man left, Louis put on his reading glasses and took out the report. He skipped over the tire tread part, focusing in the boot prints that had been found. They were for a men’s size ten Timberland Flume, a common hiking boot.
He zeroed in on the cigarette pack. The lab had been able to lift two clean prints from the cellophane but there was no match to anyone in the system.
He turned the page, scanning quickly, then stopped. The techs had found human hairs tangled in some brush. The analysis read: natural black, from the head, straight with circular cross sections, medium-sized pigment granules, and a thicker cuticle, consistent with Mongoloid pattern.
Louis took off his glasses. “Mongoloid” meant someone of Asian or Native-American descent. But he knew this wasn’t going to be enough to convince Katy.
He glanced out to the parking lot. Still no sign of her truck. He put his glasses back on and went back to the report.
One hair had its bulb intact, which meant they could test for DNA. But Louis knew there was no point. He had read enough about the new technology to know that a test would take months to come back. Besides, they had no one — and nothing — to compare it to. That wasn’t really true, he thought. They had the cigarette butt from the hunting camp but what would that prove? Besides, he had promised Gary Trujillo not to involve him in the case and there was no way Mobley would foot the bill for the high cost of a DNA test.
Louis took a drink of his coffee but it had gone cold.
So would this case if he didn’t think of something.
But first he had to find Katy.
He rose, picking up his check. After paying, he called Katy’s apartment again. Still no answer. He tried her office, this time getting Jeff, the man who had been with Katy on the call to rescue Bruce from the patio. Jeff remembered Louis and told him that it was unusual for Katy to not check in.
“She’s been here every day at the crack of dawn since Grace disappeared,” he said. “She’s been pulling twelve-hour days and riding us all pretty hard.”
“You try to radio her?” Louis asked.
“Yeah, about a half-hour ago. No answer.”
“Try again, would you?”
Louis waited, listening while Jeff tried to raise Katy but there was no answer. Jeff came back to the phone.
“She could be out of range if she went out into the Glades,” Jeff said.
“Except she was supposed to meet me for breakfast.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said softly.
“Keep trying the radio,” Louis said. “I’ll check back in with you in a half hour.”
He hung up and looked again to the parking lot. He decided to go to her office. Maybe he and Jeff could go looking for her.
Traffic was bumper-to-bumper on southbound I-75 and the swirl of red and blue lights ahead told Louis there was an accident. He sat, hands tapping on the wheel, gaze wandering out the side window. A sign for the Miromar Outlet Mall caught his eye. He was right near Katy’s apartment.
He swung the Mustang onto the shoulder and sped up onto the off-ramp. The apartment complex backed onto the freeway and he found Katy’s building and parked. As he was starting toward the stairway he spotted her FWC Bronco sitting in a parking spot.
He breathed out a sigh of relief. Maybe she had taken his advice yesterday to heart and gotten drunk and just slept in.
On the second floor, he knocked on her door. No answer. He pounded harder this time. Nothing. There was a window with closed drapes. He rapped hard on it, hoping it was Katy’s bedroom.
The door flew open. A woman poked her head out, her blonde hair wild around her tan face.
“What the hell is it?” she said.
The woman was wearing Joe Boxer pajamas and her face was creased with sleep-lines. Obviously the roommate.
“Is Katy here?” Louis asked.
“Who are you?”
“Louis. I’m a friend of Katy’s and she — ”
“She’s at work.” She started to close the door but Louis wedged a foot in it to stop her.
“Hey!”
“Katy’s not at work,” Louis said. “You sure she’s not here?”
The roommate rubbed her face. “Yeah, I’m sure. I saw her leave early this morning when I got home. I work the night desk at the Clarion and we sort of pass each other coming and going.”
“Her car is still in the lot,” Louis said.
The woman stepped out and squinted down over the railing. “Huh,” she said. “That’s weird. She must’ve taken the Jeep instead.”
“What Jeep?”
“Her own car. She keeps it parked in number ten, next to her work truck.”
Louis looked down at the FWC Bronco then back at the roommate. “What time did she leave?” he asked.
“About six.”
“Was she dressed for work?”
The roommate nodded. “Yeah, the same thing she wears every day, khaki shorts, and one of her ranger shirts over a tee. And that ugly baseball cap.”
“Did she take her radio with her?”
“Yeah. She keeps it in a charger on the kitchen counter next to her keys and I saw her take it.”
“Does she have a gun?”
“Gun? Yeah, she has a gun.”
“Where does she keep it?”
“In her bedside table.”
“Would you see if it’s there, please?”
The roommate eyed him. “Stay here.” She shut the door and locked it. Louis waited, sweat beading on his face. Only nine-fifteen and it was already in the high eighties.
The door jerked open. “The gun’s not there,” she said, stifling a yawn. “We finished here? I’m pulling an extra shift today and I need my sleep.”
Louis thanked the roommate and went back downstairs to the FWC Bronco. It was locked. He looked in the window.
Immaculate as usual. No radio stuck in the console charger. Nothing strange. Except…
There was something on the back seat. He cupped his hands on the back window. Clothing. A white shirt with the prominent FWC emblem on the breast. And Katy’s ball cap.