“Dorothea Rush.” Evan looked from the woman to her driver’s license and back again. “That your real name?”
She nodded sullenly.
“I want my lawyer.”
“There’s the phone.” He pointed to it. “But you haven’t been arrested yet; you’re aware of that, right?”
She nodded again, this time warily.
“Then why did they bring me down here to the police station?” she asked.
“We just need to ask you a few questions. Look, Dotty… is that what people call you, Dotty?”
“My friends do.” She stared at him straight on.
“Well, maybe by the time this is over, you’ll consider me a friend.”
She scowled, and he amended his statement to, “Okay, maybe not a friend, but I may be in a position to help you.”
“Help me how?” That got her attention.
“Look, we know you don’t own that house, we know you don’t bring the girls in, we know your only role is in running the day-to-day. Keep the riffraff out, keep the girls clean, that sort of thing, am I right?”
“Sure.” She nodded without meeting his eyes. “That’s pretty much it.”
“So you have to know that you’re not the person we want. We want the person who owns the house.”
“I don’t even know who that is.”
“You live in a house, but don’t know who owns it?”
She shook her head. “I never met him.”
“What did you do with the”-Evan searched for the word-“proceeds?”
“Someone comes by on Mondays and Thursdays. I hand over what we took in since the last pickup. On Mondays, he pays me. On Thursdays, he pays the house.”
“Pays the house…?”
“Expenses for the girls. Doctor’s visits, prescriptions, that sort of thing.”
“How often do the girls see a doctor?”
“Only if they’re sick.”
“When was the last time someone was sick enough to call a doctor?”
She shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“Who does the food shopping?”
“I do. Online. I order through a website once a week, the stuff is delivered to the house.”
“You pay with cash?”
“Credit card.”
“Credit card?” Evan frowned. “Yours?”
“No, Orlando’s.”
“Who’s Orlando?”
“He’s the one who picks up the money.”
“His name is on the card?”
Dotty nodded.
“Where’s the card now?”
She opened her handbag, took out her wallet, and handed over the card.
“Orlando Ortiz. This his real name?” Evan studied the card.
“How would I know?”
“Good point.” Evan tapped the card against the palm of his hand. “I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the hall, where he met Dan Conroy, one of the county assistant D.A.s. He handed over the card without a word, and Conroy, grinning from ear to ear, took it happily.
“Let’s see where this little gem leads us. You’ll be the first to know,” Conroy promised Evan.
“Okay, so, does Orlando Ortiz own this house, you think?” Evan asked Dotty when he returned to the room.
“I don’t know. Honest to God, I don’t know where he lives or who he works for, if that’s his real name or not. For all I know, his real name is John Smith.”
“Who hired you?”
“Orlando.”
“How did that happen? You saw an ad in the classifieds for a madam and thought you’d apply?”
“He came to me. I used to work someplace else. He offered me a job, said someone was starting up a new house, they wanted someone with experience to run it. Said I’d be paid well if I ran a tight ship and I asked no questions. I figured what the hell.”
“When did they move you out of the house in Carleton?”
“Sunday.” Her eyes flickered nervously.
“How’d that come about? You lose your lease?”
“He-Orlando-came by early in the morning and told me that everyone was moving out in the afternoon. They were sending trucks and they’d be taking us to another house.”
“You didn’t think that was odd?”
“I thought maybe the house was sold. I was paid to not ask questions. I didn’t ask.”
“Did you ask questions when those three young girls disappeared about a month ago?”
“They didn’t disappear. They were moved.”
“Moved? Moved where?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged again, a flip of her shoulders, but the movement appeared overly casual.
“Because you don’t ask questions.”
“Right.”
“Even when you see their pictures on the front page of your morning newspaper, after they turned up dead?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her face flushed crimson, and she averted her eyes.
Evan turned to leave, then stopped near the door and turned back. “Who watches out for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s your security?”
She studied her nails for a long time, and Evan knew she was trying to decide which side in the drama that was about to play out would most benefit her. Finally, she said, “There were a couple of cops who came by at night. I don’t know their names, and I don’t know what police department they were from, so don’t ask me. I don’t know. But it was just the two of them, every time.”
“They were in uniform?”
“No.”
“How do you know they were cops?”
“Orlando told me.”
“What else did he tell you about them?”
“Only that the boss bought them to keep the peace and to protect his interests.”
“Would you recognize them? These cops?”
“Maybe. Maybe not…” She met his gaze head-on.
Evan knew the look: Depends. What’s in it for me?
Disgusted, he left the room, determined to find the rogue cops, with or without Dotty’s help.
22
“… so we put together an album with photos of every cop in the county, and she just looks at them all and goes, ‘I don’t know, I don’t think so…’ ”
Annie could hear the exasperation in Evan’s voice.
“Honest to God, Annie, to get this close and to have to play this kind of game…”