“How long had she been missing?”
“Less than twenty-four.”
“His daughter?”
“Nope.”
“No?” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s his story?”
“He claims they were friends. That he suspected someone was following her and had told her to watch herself. She hadn’t taken him seriously.”
“Why’d he think she was missing?”
“She didn’t go online Saturday.”
“Online? As in, computer?”
“Yep. That’s how they met-through a computer class at UCSD.” Concern laced Dean’s voice. “Something’s weird about this, and since the girl’s basic description matches your Jane Doe, I thought you might want to follow up with her family.”
“And the guy?”
“Steven Thomas. I’ll send up a folder with all the information.”
“What’s the girl’s name?”
“Angela Vance. Goes by Angie.”
“Thanks Dean. I’ll let you know what happens.”
Carina had just finished telling Will about the call when a secretary dropped Dean’s folder on her desk.
She opened the folder. No photo. Angela “Angie” Vance, eighteen, blond hair, brown eyes, approximately five feet five inches tall, and 115 pounds. Her Jane Doe was five feet four and a half and 120. Angie was a freshman at UC San Diego with an undeclared major. She lived with her mother and grandmother downtown.
“What’s wrong?” Will watched her closely.
“What’s this Thomas guy’s interest in a girl half his age? He told Dean they were friends from school, but…”
She logged onto the DMV database and pulled down Angie Vance’s driver’s license photo. She stared at the bright smile and short brown hair. Her vic had longer, blonder hair, but the photograph had been taken more than two years ago. Carina’s chest tightened. Women change their hair color all the time. The face matched their victim. She showed Will and he concurred. Angie Vance could be their vic.
“I’ll run Thomas,” Will said.
“Let’s do it from the road,” Carina said, jumping up and throwing her light-weight blazer over her black T-shirt. “I want to check out Angie Vance’s house and see if we can get a recent picture of her before we talk to her mother.”
Angie lived in a small, postwar bungalow in North Park, an old neighborhood in Central San Diego. It was noon on Monday and Carina suspected no one would be home; she was wrong. Angie’s elderly grandmother directed them to Angie’s mother, Debbie, who was working as a waitress at Bud’s Diner near the highway. Grandma also supplied a recent photograph.
During the short drive to the diner, Carina stared at the photo. It was of mother and daughter, both wearing burgundy sweaters that offset their fair skin. Debbie Vance had brown hair and Angie extensive blond highlights. The older woman had been pretty in her day, but in the picture she looked a little gray and worn, though happy. Her daughter was beautiful, with long shiny hair, curled for the photograph, eyes tastefully made up, and a warm and inviting smile.
Now Angie was dead. Jane Doe and this pretty girl were one and the same. Carina closed her eyes, putting herself in Debbie Vance’s shoes. Knowing exactly how the woman would feel when told someone she loved was dead. While Carina was pleased to have a quick identification of the victim, she dreaded having to break a mother’s heart.
The call on the radio confirmed it. The coroner ran Jane Doe’s fingerprints in the system. Nothing in the criminal database, but the Department of Motor Vehicles popped up with her driver’s license. Angela Vance.
Bud’s Diner looked like a greasy spoon on the outside, but once they stepped through the doors the rich aroma of a real country breakfast-sweet syrup, salty potatoes, sizzling bacon-reminded Carina that she hadn’t eaten.
“Take any table,” a waitress said as she poured coffee with one hand and put down a plate of butter-drenched waffles.
“Is Mrs. Vance available?”
The waitress looked up with a frown, but didn’t need to say anything.
“I’m Debbie Vance.”
Carina might not have recognized the short, chubby woman of about forty, her cherubic face bright from the heat of the kitchen. But the warm smile was the same as the photograph. Debbie Vance came around from behind the counter. “And you are?”
“Detectives William Hooper and Carina Kincaid, San Diego Police Department,” Will said. “Is there a private area where we can talk?”
Debbie Vance slowly nodded, her expression confused, her eyes asking questions she didn’t voice. Knowing something was wrong, but not wanting to ask for fear the question would bring a tragic answer.
Carina remembered the feeling.
“This way,” Mrs. Vance said tightly.
She led them through the kitchen to a small, crowded office that had no door. She looked around for three chairs, but there was only one. No one sat.
Carina asked, “Mrs. Vance, when was the last time you saw your daughter?”
Her lip quivered. “Is something wrong with Angie?”
Carina didn’t say anything, and Mrs. Vance continued in a rush, looking from Carina to Will. “Friday morning. I was leaving for work when she got up to go to classes. She goes to UCSD, you know. On full scholarship. She’s very smart, straight-As all through high school…”
She took a deep breath. “She goes out with friends on the weekends, and I work early and go to bed early, so I don’t really keep tabs on her anymore. She’s eighteen, she’s a good girl, never got into drugs, I didn’t think I needed to watch-oh God.” Her voice cracked. “I heard her come in late Friday night, after one, but when I checked on her Saturday before I left for work, she was already gone.”
Mrs. Vance searched their expression. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Mothers always know.
Carina took her hand as Mrs. Vance sat heavily into the only chair. Will said in a quiet voice, “A body was found on the beach this morning that matches Angie’s description.”
Mrs. Vance stared at them, shaking her head. She’d asked, but she didn’t want to hear. Carina didn’t blame her. No one wanted to hear when someone they loved and nurtured was dead. “No, I would know. It’s not Angie. You don’t know it’s her, right?”
Carina didn’t tell her the DMV prints matched. It seemed too cold. Instead she said, “When you feel up to it, we’d like you to come down to confirm her identity.”
“Right now. Right now. It’s not her.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, said, “What happened to the girl you found?”
There was never an easy way to tell a parent their child was dead.
“She was murdered, Mrs. Vance,” Carina said softly.
“Someone killed her? On purpose? Who?”
“We’re doing everything we can to find out,” Will said.
The waitress with the waffles-her tag said Denise-pushed herself into the small room and Mrs. Vance turned to her, sobbing. “They think my Angie is dead.”
The two women embraced and Carina steeled her emotions, willing herself not to remember the agony and pain of losing a loved one to violence. When the two women separated, she asked, “Mrs. Vance, does Angie have a close friend we can speak with? Maybe a boyfriend? Someone who might know where she went Friday night?”
“That’s what happened,” Mrs. Vance said with a certainty that wasn’t as evident in her shaking hands as it was in her voice. “She was with Abby and Jodi. They have an apartment near campus, she’s always staying there.” She scrawled the names and an address and phone number on the back of a guest ticket. “Maybe Kayla, but they’re not as close as Angie and Abby.”
“What about her father?”
Mrs. Vance shook her head. “Carl left years ago, when Angie was not much more than a baby. He-We don’t keep in touch anymore. He remarried and moved out of state. Doesn’t even remember to send Angie birthday c-cards.” Her words ended in a sob, which she swallowed back, putting a stoic expression on her face. Holding it together.