Jilliane Hoffman (20 page)

43

‘We’ve been looking for you, Liza,’ Bobby said with a smile when he and Detective Bill Dagher opened the door and stepped into the detective’s office at the Coral Springs PD.

The thin, disheveled girl with the long, tangled brown hair squeaked, jumped in her chair and dropped her cell phone, which she’d obviously been busy yapping on. It hit the thin carpet with a thud and ricocheted into three different pieces around the room. ‘I … you … I didn’t hear you open the door. I thought you were my dad,’ she managed as she stooped down to pick up the pieces. She cleared her throat. ‘My step –’

Bobby picked up the battery and handed it to her. ‘Stepdad? No. But that’s who I want to talk to you about, Liza. I’m Special Agent Bobby Dees. I work for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I’m investigating the disappearance of your little sister, Elaine.’

‘Oh.’ Liza’s eyes darted around the room. She sat on the edge of her seat, like she was getting ready to run.

‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for two weeks now, but you’re not at home, you’re not at school. You’re not working at the bowling alley any more.’ He leaned casually against the edge of the metal desk in front of her. Dagher stood guard by the door. ‘What’s up with that? Are you in trouble, Liza?’

She looked down at her lap, where she was shredding a tissue. ‘No. No trouble. I just don’t want to be home right now, that’s all.’

‘Why?’ Dagher asked.

She shrugged.

‘When was the last time you saw Lainey?’ Bobby asked.

She shrugged again. ‘Dunno. The day before she didn’t come home, I think. At breakfast.’

‘What’re your thoughts on your sister’s disappearance? Any reason she might not want to go home, either?’

Liza said nothing for a long while. She continued to shred the tissue into little white shards of fluff. ‘I saw the news at my friend’s house. I saw that there’s a guy killing teens, you know? Painting weird pictures of them dead and all. And that Lainey …’ Her voice broke. ‘Oh God, that Lainey might be with him, you know? Then my mom told me the police were at the house, taking things like the computer and stuff, and that they were interrogating Todd at the police station.’

Bobby nodded. ‘Well, I’m not at liberty to discuss everything with you, but we have a couple of investigations going, that’s true. And your stepfather has definitely been questioned about some things – some things I want to talk to you about.’

She turned red and looked back down at her lap. ‘There was no way I was going home after that, you know? With him still there.’

‘Todd?’

She nodded.

‘Tell me why.’

She shook her head and sucked in a sniffle. When she finally spoke her small voice was just above a whisper. ‘She’s a good kid, Lainey. A good sister. I didn’t tell her that. I thought she just left for a few days to get away from him, and all, you know? To get him to stop trying to come into her room. Like me – I didn’t take that shit from him, you know? The fucking perv. But then she didn’t come home at all and now he’s back at the house. And I’m not going back there.’ She started to cry finally. Full force. Bobby handed her another tissue from the box on Dagher’s desk. He said nothing while she tried to catch her breath.

‘So me and my friends, we just crashed at this house we thought was empty. You know, like the people couldn’t pay for it no more? I forget what they call that. We weren’t burglarizing nothing. I just didn’t want to go home, is all. He’s a creep and a fucking asshole and a perv, and … oh God, I think, I think he might have done something to Lainey …’

44

‘So you think this might be the guy, huh?’ Judge Reuben Sullivan said with a cocked eyebrow as he signed the warrant that would allow them to search Todd LaManna’s home once again – this time for evidence in the Gale Sampson homicide and the Boganes sisters’ disappearance. The judge had already signed one for Todd’s 2001 black Infinity Q45. ‘Picasso, hmmm? Is that what they’re calling him in the press?’

‘The name seems to be sticking,’ Bobby replied, looking around at the dozens of celebrity charcoal caricatures that covered the walls of the judge’s chambers. With his enormous curly, leprechaun-red head, Karl Malden-sized noggin and small body, Judge Sullivan kind of looked like a caricature himself.

‘Great. Another South Florida serial killer with a catchy nickname. Look what Cupid did for tourism in Miami; they’re still taking pictures on the MacArthur Causeway,’ the judge remarked, shaking his head. ‘Stopping traffic to get a picture of five-year-old bloodstains that aren’t there any more.’

‘Don’t forget the dead celebs, judge,’ Stephanie chided. ‘They still stop buses on Ocean Drive in front of the Versace mansion. And that’s going on a decade. Wasn’t Anna Nicole Smith handled in this courthouse?’

The judge grimaced, as if he’d just sucked on a lemon. ‘Don’t remind me. You couldn’t drive down Third Avenue for a month. I hope that circus fever doesn’t spread north, now. Keep your blood-thirsty tourists and their cameras in Miami.’ The judge slid the warrant across the conference table to Bobby. ‘Hope you boys find what you’re looking for this time.’ Then he slipped on his black robe and headed out the door and back to his courtroom.

With the warrant in hand, Bobby and Stephanie stepped out into the chaotic hallways of the Broward County Courthouse. Babies in umbrella strollers whined and cried while being pushed by teens who looked far too young to be moms outside the fourth-floor courtrooms, alongside tired, middle-aged women who looked far too young to be grandmas. Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies escorted cuffed defendants to their courtrooms. Witnesses and out-of-custody defendants, some in baggy long-shorts and wife-beater tees, mingled around the wooden doors, either waiting to be called into court, or debating whether to run before they were. God rest his soul, when Bobby’s dad was on the bench in New York, he would’ve held somebody in contempt for wearing shorts in his courtroom. And whether it was a defendant or a witness wearing them, contempt would’ve meant jail.

‘We’ve got a signature on both. I’m headed to the house now,’ Bobby said into his Nextel as they followed the cheesy black strip of electrical tape on the floor that led pedestrian traffic from the newer criminal court wing to the older part of the courthouse and the bank of elevators that went down to the lobby. He hated the Broward courthouse. It was like a rat maze.

‘Was that Zo?’ Stephanie asked.

Bobby nodded. ‘The guys are sitting up on the house. The car’s at CarMax Pompano, along with its owner. Zo and Veso are gonna seize it there. The Sheriff’s Office is assisting, since we’ll be using their lab. Thanks for being so quick with this, Steph. And thanks for coming up here with me. You didn’t have to make the trip.’

The line for the elevators was four persons deep, so he led her by the elbow to the stairwell.

‘It got me out of calendar with Judge Spencer, so thank you,’ she began as they headed down, the click of her high heels echoing through the empty stairwell. ‘But I’m warning you, Bobby, we still may have a real problem with the paints that Ciro seized from LaManna’s studio. The brand looks like a match with the paint used on the Picasso paintings, and that’s good and all, but Ciro should never have seized them without a warrant. He should never have been in that room.’

‘But it’s because Ciro was in that room and saw what he saw that we just got warrant number two signed. Remember, the wife gave consent to search and seize.’

‘We may be OK on the search part, but as far as the seizure, the room was hubby’s and hubby’s alone. Debbie LaManna’s claiming she didn’t even know it existed. If this guy is our Picasso, the argument that LaManna’s slick defense attorney will eventually make is that the wife didn’t have authority to consent to the seizure of husband’s things that she clearly had no control over. I don’t mean to be argumentative or rain on your search-warrant parade, but …’

A senior prosecutor with over a decade of trial experience – including a couple of years experimenting on the dark side with criminal defense – Stephanie definitely knew her way around a case and a courtroom, and she was pretty damn good at guessing what was coming at her around every corner. She never tried to sugar-coat shit, either. Some cops – a lot of cops, actually – didn’t like it when a pretty girl was smarter than them. And they really didn’t like it when that pretty, smart girl let them know just how smart she was without at least stroking their egos first. But that’s what Bobby appreciated about Stephanie – he always knew where she was coming from. And he was smart enough himself to listen.

‘Well, there’s no unringing a bell,’ Bobby said with a shrug. ‘LaManna’s on twenty-four-seven surveillance now. If he is our guy, the hope is he’ll lead us to the Boganes sisters and anyone else he’s holding.’

‘You mean Lainey,’ she said as they reached the first floor.

‘And any other missing girls that we think he may be keeping,’ Bobby said quietly as he held the lobby door open for her.

Stephanie stopped walking and stared at him. Then she shut the door with her hand, so that they were alone again in the stairwell. ‘Bobby,’ she said softly, ‘I’ve known you for a long time. You’re one of my favorite agents. I’m thrilled that you’re working this case, because I know it’s in the best of hands. But …’ she took a deep breath. ‘I gotta ask – are you OK with all this? I mean, this is real close to home.’

Stephanie and he had worked together long enough and closely enough on a couple of cases so that they’d developed not only a good working relationship, but a friendship as well. Stephanie knew all about Katy. She’d been one of the very first to offer help in those horrible days right after Katy had run off.

‘You corner me in a dark, empty stairwell to tell me I’m your favorite? I’m blushing,’ Bobby joked with a wry smile.

‘Ha, ha,’ she returned. ‘You don’t make this easy on a person, do you?’ She shook her head. ‘Cops, you know, they’re so big and strong that nothing and no one can break them. I’m just saying that … well, look, I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but I know that it must be hell, Bobby.’

‘It’s a party, sweetheart.’

‘We haven’t talked much in the past year.’

‘Not much to talk about.’

‘How are things at home, then? Can I ask that?’

Bobby shrugged. ‘Sure you can ask.’

She looked hurt. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to stick my nose where it obviously doesn’t belong. My bad.’ She turned to walk away and open the door.

He gently grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him. The smile was gone. He ran a hand through his hair, trying hard to pull his thoughts together. ‘Things are … tough, Steph. I’m not gonna lie. Look, I appreciate you asking, but this year has been, like you said, hell. Pure hell. My wife has not recovered. Neither have I. I don’t think we ever will. No, I
know
we never will.’

She nodded but said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

He took a deep breath. ‘Everything’s changed. Everyone’s different. Sometimes I feel LuAnn and I are like two strangers in this little boat just sailing the world all alone, hoping to find our way back home, but in the meantime just trying to find some land. A place where we can stop paddling and searching and just … be. And every day we don’t find home, every day we don’t even find that little patch of land, we forget more and more what it is we’re looking for. I mean, we remember home as Utopia, right? But meanwhile, maybe we’re passing by a lot of smaller opportunities to just … be. To just make it.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t be saying nothing. That’s all the Red Bull talking on no sleep. But you asked, Counselor.’

‘I did ask,’ she replied softly. ‘Look, do you really think you’re the only one in the world to have relationship issues? Especially after a – for lack of a better word – tragedy? Don’t be such a guy.’

He smiled. ‘You must have a way with getting people to talk, Counselor. That’s why all those defendants are afraid to take the stand. Afraid of what you’re gonna get them to say.’

She blushed. Stephanie was pretty, no doubt, with long, thick dark red hair and fiery blue eyes that lit up when she was angry or got an idea. He’d heard more than one cop fantasize about what she looked like underneath her fitted suits. Bobby had wondered once or twice why she’d never gotten married.

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ she said. ‘So where do you go from here? I mean, with your daughter?’

‘I keep looking. I’ve had some sightings in California. San Fran and Venice Beach. I’ve been to the runaway hot spots in Jersey, New York, Vegas, Detroit. Nothing. Then last month Covenant House sent me a picture of a girl out of New Orleans that could’ve been her, but it was so blurry there was no telling for sure. By the time I got there, she was gone.’

A couple of clerks walked down the stairs past them and out the stairwell. Neither Bobby nor Stephanie said anything. ‘Do you think there’s a possibility he has her?’ Stephanie asked quietly when they were gone and the door had closed again. ‘That Picasso has Katy? Is that what I’m sensing here?’

Bobby sighed and slapped his hand on the wall. ‘I can’t go there. That was the first thought that crossed my mind when I realized that there might be more victims. But no, I can’t go there. There are thousands of runaways out there. And some don’t come home because they don’t want to. Because they’re not ready, is all. Anything else, and …’ He closed his eyes. ‘Well, I just can’t go there, Stephanie.’

She grasped his hand, her warm fingers wrapped tightly in his. He squeezed back. It felt good. It was a weird sensation, though – one that immediately had him feeling guilty. The other night at the dining table covered with MEPIC flyers was the first time LuAnn had spontaneously touched him in months. Like he had just blurted to Stephanie for some unknown reason, since Katy had run away, things had slowly but surely gotten more and more distant between them. He was sure LuAnn blamed him for Katy leaving. No doubt she harbored resentment that it was
his
final words to cut Ray out of Katy’s life once and for all that made her leave.
His
initial indiscretion in letting her date the boy that they both knew right off the bat was bad news.
His
failure to recognize that Katy was doing drugs long before track marks appeared on her skinny arm. Over the past eleven months he’d watched as LuAnn withdrew into her world – working more hours, going out with friends when she did have free time. He probably had, too, to be fair – but work for Bobby was no escape. It provided no relief. Looking for someone else’s missing kid while staring at a wall with his daughter’s smiling picture on it just made him that much more aware of his failings as both a father and a cop. And now, feeling the way he was feeling, with Stephanie’s hand in his, the smell of her perfume filling the small space between their bodies, made him that much more aware of his failings as a husband. He pulled away and opened the lobby door.

‘You know, I’m here if you need me,’ Stephanie said softly, as she stepped past him. ‘That’s all I’ll say. I’m here for you if you need an ear. Good luck today.’

He nodded slowly. Then he watched as she walked out into the bustling lobby and disappeared into the crowd.