“That’s right. They’re good friends—most who work here get pretty tight, you know. I run a happy place. Hey, Bo, give Liza a tag, ask her to come in and talk to these officers. Save you time,” he said to Eve. “She just lives a couple blocks away, and she’s worried sick. We all are.”
“We appreciate that.”
“I don’t know what we can tell you that we haven’t told the other cops. I’ve gone over that night again and again, trying to see something. I’m not always in the front of the house, but I spend most of my time out here once things get hopping. Anna and Liza left together, right around one. We close at one on Wednesdays—midweek, slower business. Since they live close, and I like knowing neither of them walk it alone that time of night, I try to mesh their schedules.”
“Did you see them leave?”
“I saw Anna right before. It was raining, so I asked if she had an umbrella. She just gave me a poke, said how she wouldn’t melt. She had her walking shoes on.”
“Walking shoes?”
“The girls wear heels and short skirts—better tips.” He gave a shrug. “That’s the way it is. A lot of them keep the work shoes here, in the back, change into them when they come in, out of them when they clock out. She had on her walking shoes, the little skirt. It wasn’t a hard rain, so I didn’t push it.”
He ran a hand over his smooth dome. “I keep thinking, if I had, if she’d had a damn umbrella, she maybe could’ve used it to beat him off or something.”
“Him?”
Those worried eyes met Eve’s. “Somebody grabbed her. I know it in my gut. Someone like Anna—happy, steady—they don’t just up and go, leave everything. Somebody’s got her.”
“Would she have gotten in a vehicle with someone, willingly?”
“Anna? No, just no. She’s friendly, personable, but not stupid, right?”
“Someone she knew? ‘Hey, Anna, how about a lift home? It’s raining.’”
“I don’t think so, and I’ve thought that one around, too. She only had a few blocks left after Liza turned off. She had a routine on work nights. Walk home, get in her jams—pajamas—pull out her bed, and watch a little screen to wind down. She’d say how she’d be conked in about twenty after the wind-down most nights. She’d say how she loved this place, loved hanging and working and singing and being, but after, she needed her little nest and her quiet time.”
“Getting in a vehicle with somebody puts off the nest and the quiet.”
“Yeah, so I don’t think she would.”
Eve ran him through, and when Liza rushed in, did the same.
It gave her a good picture of the missing woman, and a very bad feeling.
“If it was a mugging,” she began as she and Peabody started to walk the route, “a rape, a combo of those, her body would’ve turned up by now. That’s high probability.”
“The rain gave him more cover,” Peabody put in. “Maybe another reason he didn’t wait to grab her. But if he had two at the same time? That’s two to control, two to feed.”
“He’s got to have the space. Maybe he wanted two so they could compete, so he could judge which was the right one, or better one.” Eve shook her head, paused at the point where Liza would have separated, walked her own way home.
“Liza’s taller, more muscular. A yard of dark hair, mixed race. Wouldn’t fit for him. Anna Hobe? You can see why Mike had that flash moment when Lauren Elder’s photo popped on-screen. They’re a type. Slim, young blondes. It’s not going to be a coincidence two slim, young blondes who work nights at a bar and walk home late went missing within days of each other.”
“He’s got her.”
“And within walking distance of each other. Yeah, a solid hike, but only about six blocks.
“This is his hunting ground.” Eve stopped again a half block from Hobe’s building. “Here’s a good spot to park, to wait. Between the streetlights, in the rain. Her head’s down, she’s walking fast. Maybe bash her, but a quick-acting drug—quick jab—that’s easier, cleaner. Has to be quick. She’s what—a hundred and fifteen pounds? So bundle her into the vehicle and drive away. But then you’ve got to get an unconscious woman out of the vehicle and into your place.”
“You’d want privacy if you could get it.”
“A garage maybe,” Eve said as they walked again. “I can’t see driving her out of the city to hold her, then back in to dump her. Adds risk. Nothing strikes me as the behavior of a risk taker. It’s need and it’s anger, but he doesn’t want to be caught. He’s not after the thrill.”