A Trace of Death

He was about to come back at her when the line rang. Keri picked up before Ray could say anything and stuck her tongue out at him playfully.

“Pacific Division Missing Persons. Detective Locke speaking.”

Ray got on the line as well but didn’t talk.

The woman on the phone sounded young, late twenties or early thirties. Before she even said why she was calling, Keri noted the worry in her voice.

“My name is Mia Penn. I live off Dell Avenue in the Venice Canals. I’m worried about my daughter, Ashley. She should have been home from school by three thirty. She knew I was taking her to a four forty-five dentist appointment. She texted me just before she left school at three but she’s not here and she’s not responding to any of my calls or texts. This isn’t like her at all. She’s very responsible.”

“Ms. Penn, does Ashley usually drive or walk home?” Keri asked.

“She walks. She’s only in tenth grade – she’s fifteen. She hasn’t even started Driver’s Ed yet.”

Keri looked at Ray. She knew what he was going to say and she couldn’t really argue the point. But something in Mia Penn’s tone got to her. She could tell the woman was barely holding it together. There was panic just below the surface. She wanted to ask him to dispense with protocol but couldn’t come up with a credible reason why.

“Ms. Penn, this is Detective Ray Sands. I’m conferencing in. I want you to take a deep breath and then tell me if your daughter’s ever been home late before.”

Mia Penn launched in, forgetting the deep breath part.

“Of course,” she admitted, trying to hide the exasperation in her voice. “Like I said, she’s fifteen. But she’s always texted or called if she wasn’t back within an hour or so. And never if we had plans.”

Ray responded without glancing at what he knew would be Keri’s disapproving glare.

“Ms. Penn, officially, your daughter is a minor and so typical missing person laws don’t apply as they would for an adult. We have broader authority to investigate. But speaking to you honestly, a teenage girl who isn’t responding to her mother’s texts and isn’t home less than two hours after school lets out – that’s not going to command the kind of immediate response you’re hoping for. At this point there’s not much we can do. In a situation like this, your best bet is to come down to the station and file a report. You should absolutely do that. There’s no harm in it and it could expedite things if we need to ramp up resources.”

There was a long pause before Mia Penn responded. Her voice had a sharp edge that wasn’t there before.

“How long do I have to wait before you ‘ramp up,’ Detective?” she demanded. “Is two more hours enough? Do I have to wait until it gets dark? Until she’s not home in the morning? I’ll bet that if I was – ”

Whatever Mia Penn was about to say, she stopped herself, as if she knew that anything else she added would be counterproductive. Ray was about to respond but Keri held up her hand and gave him her patented “let me handle this” look.

“Listen, Ms. Penn, this is Detective Locke again. You said you live in the Canals, right? That’s on my way home. Give me your e-mail address. I’ll send you the missing persons form. You can get started on it and I’ll stop by to help you finish it up and expedite getting it in the system. How does that sound?”

“It sounds good, Detective Locke. Thank you.”

“No problem. And hey, maybe Ashley will be home by the time I get there and I can give her a stern lecture on keeping her mom better informed – free of charge.”

Keri gathered her purse and keys, preparing to head to the Penn house.

Ray hadn’t said a word since they’d hung up. She knew he was silently seething but she refused to look up. If he caught her eye, then she’d be the one getting the lecture and she wasn’t in the mood.

But Ray apparently didn’t need to make eye contact to say his piece.

“The Canals are not on your way home.”

“They’re only a little out of my way,” she insisted, still not looking up. “So I’ll have to wait until six thirty to get back to the marina and Olivia Pope and associates. No big deal.”

Ray exhaled and leaned back in his chair.

“It is a big deal. Keri, you’ve been a detective here almost a year now. I like having you as my partner. And you’ve done some great work, even before you got your shield. The Gonzales case, for example. I don’t think I could have solved that one and I’ve been investigating these cases for a decade longer than you. You have a kind of sixth sense about these things. That’s why we used you as a resource in the old days. And it’s why you have the potential to be a truly great detective.”

“Thanks,” she said, though she knew he wasn’t finished.

“But you have one major weakness and it’s going to ruin you if you don’t get a handle on it. You have got to let the system work. It’s here for a reason. Seventy-five percent of our job will work itself out in the first twenty-four hours without our help. We need to let that happen and concentrate on the other twenty-five percent. If we don’t, we end up running ourselves ragged. We become unproductive, or worse – counterproductive. And then we’re betraying the people who really end up needing us. It’s part of our job to choose our battles.”

“Ray, I’m not ordering an Amber Alert or anything. I’m just helping a worried mother fill out some paperwork. And truly, it’s only fifteen minutes out of my way.”

“And…” he said expectantly.

“And there was something in her voice. She’s holding something back. I just want to talk to her face to face. It might be nothing. And if it is, I’ll leave.”

Ray shook his head and tried one more time.

“How many hours did you waste on that homeless kid in Palms you were certain had gone missing but hadn’t? Fifteen?”

Keri shrugged.

“Better safe than sorry,” she muttered under her breath.

“Better employed than discharged for inappropriate use of department resources,” he countered.

“It’s after five,” Keri said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m off the clock. And that mother is waiting for me.”

“It would appear that you’re never off the clock. Call her back, Keri. Tell her to e-mail the forms back when she’s done. Tell her to call here if she has any questions. But go home.”

She’d been as patient as she could but as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Clean,” she said, giving him a squeeze on the arm.

As she headed for the parking lot and her ten-year-old silver Toyota Prius, she tried to remember the quickest shortcut to the Venice Canals. She already felt an urgency she didn’t understand.

One she didn’t like.

CHAPTER TWO

Monday

Late Afternoon

Keri threaded the Prius through rush hour traffic to the western edge of Venice, driving faster than she meant to. Something was driving her, a gut feeling rising up, one she didn’t like.

The Canals were only a few blocks from tourist hot spots like the Boardwalk and Muscle Beach and it took ten minutes of driving up and down Pacific Avenue before she finally found a spot to park. She hopped out and let her phone direct her the rest of the way on foot.

The Venice Canals weren’t just a name for a neighborhood. They were a real series of man-made canals built in the early twentieth century, and modeled after the originals in Italy. They covered about ten square blocks just south of Venice Boulevard. A few of the homes that lined the waterways were modest, but most were extravagant in a beachy way. The lots were generally small but some of the homes were easily worth eight figures.