I opened a file labeled MCME 580-13, and saved the image to it. Then I attached and e-mailed a copy to Allison Stallings, a crime reporter at the Charlotte Observer. A few years back, Stallings had followed a string of satanic killings I was working.
Actually, Stallings had stalked Slidell and me. But she’d reported the facts accurately and fairly. In the end, I’d liked her.
After waiting ten minutes, I dialed Stallings’s number.
“Who is she?” she said by way of greeting.
I repeated what I’d told Josie Cromwell, adding a few more specifics about time of death and the body recovery site.
“What do you want?”
“Can you run the picture and a short article? Might scare up a witness, or someone who knows her.”
“Hang on.”
I did. Far down the line, indecipherable snippets sounded like chatter from another galaxy. Stallings was back in less than five minutes.
“Sorry. My editor says not yet. If your kid’s still a Jane Doe a week from now, he’ll reconsider. But nothing front page.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
We traded good-byes and disconnected.
Okay. Dogs.
As I was pulling on jeans, a blouse, and ballet flats, my brain posted an image of Slidell talking disdainfully of wetbacks and hookers.
Was he right? Was she illegal?
What are ya gonna do?
Firing back downstairs, I e-mailed the girl’s photo to Luther Dew at ICE. Another long shot, but it couldn’t hurt.
I sat a moment, thinking. About Slidell and his missing single mom. About my phone conversation with Luther Dew.
And I realized the obvious.
For my Jane Doe to have a name, I’d have to take the initiative.
I added text to the girl’s photo and sent my work to the printer.
Flyers in hand, I set out.
THE ONLY CAR IN THE Yum-Tum’s lot was the grungy Ford Escort from the night before, probably Shannon King’s.
Grabbing a handful of flyers from the passenger seat, I got out and walked toward the door. A car rattled by behind me. Gravel crunched underfoot.
In daylight I could identify some of the neighbors. A tool and die company, an outfit with its lawns full of cast concrete, a screen printer’s shop, a crumbling sprawl that looked like an old Motel 6 converted to apartments.
No phone, no pool, no pets . . .
Thanks, Mr. Miller.
The Yum-Tum’s front window was blanketed with notices, some fresh, most yellowed and curling at the corners. I stopped to read a few through the grimy glass.
Missing cats and dogs, one parakeet. Good luck with that. An ad for a wet T-shirt contest at some bar probably long since belly-up. An author hawking her self-published book, Mind over Weight. Seriously? At Fat Cells R Us?
King was behind the counter, thumbing through a copy of OK! magazine. The clotted lids lifted when I jingled through the door.
“Hi, Shannon.”
“Hey.” Noncommittal.
“Wondered if I might post some of these?” I handed her a flyer.
She eyed the picture, read the few details I’d included about the accident, the victim, my contact information at the ME office, Slidell’s at the CMPD.
“Okay.” She hooked a thumb in the direction of the Motel 6. “Creepoids from the apartments might have seen something.”
She dug below the counter, produced a roll of tape with hairs curling from the sticky side.
“Put it in the window.”
“May I also hang one on the door?”
The dark brows puckered.
“You have my card. If the manager objects, tell him to call me,” I said.
“What the fuck. I’ll tell him the coroner insisted.” She placed the flyer to one side of the counter, facing out. “I’ll keep one here, you know, watch how people react. If they look, like, guilty or something.”
Great. I had a kid in a cooler and my daughter in a war zone. I didn’t need a bimbo junior investigator.
“That’s fine, Shannon. But just observe. Don’t engage anyone in conversation.”
“You think I’m a moron?”
“Of course not.”
I felt goth eyes on my back as I posted the notices and left.
The day was warming, the cloud cover starting to fragment. The sun’s brief appearances warmed my shoulders and hair.
After removing my jacket, I drove to the Motel 6.
The complex, called the Pines, consisted of a long, rectangular box that appeared to have little motivation to remain standing. Paint that had once covered the cinder-block walls now looked like irregular bloodred sores. Each of the ten units had a single curtained window and faded blue door.
Rooms to let fifty cents . . .
I guessed that tenants at the Pines were mostly short-term, either hoping to move up or dropping down hard.
A few battered cars waited on the strip of pavement fronting the rectangle, like swayback horses tied outside a saloon. I nosed mine into the herd and got out.