Chapter 44
JOE WENT TO pick up Julie. I was ready to head home for a nice bath. It had been a long day and I was beat.
I was watching Joe pull away from the small strip mall when my phone rang. It was Cindy Thomas. I didn’t want to take it. But I did.
“I’m near the Dorm in the Mission. I need help right now. Please hurry.” Then she hung up.
There aren’t a lot of people I’d drop everything for, but Cindy was one of them. I wasn’t going to call her back and tell her that I was exhausted or scold her for bothering me. I couldn’t just say, I’m too tired. I had to suck it up and make sure she was okay.
This time of night it wasn’t a hard ride to the Mission District. Traffic was light and the traffic lights were synced. A light drizzle made the asphalt shimmer under the streetlights.
I hadn’t spent a lot of time in the Mission since I patrolled it during my rookie days, but I knew it still had a fair amount of street crime. I had no idea what kind of trouble Cindy had gotten into. Unfortunately, my imagination easily came up with terrifying scenarios.
I breathed a quick sigh of relief when I spotted Cindy pacing in front of a little shop on Guerrero Street that sold handmade blankets and quilts. Cindy was on her phone but ended her conversation and tucked her phone into her purse as soon as she saw me.
“What’s going on? You said you needed me right now. Then I couldn’t get you on the phone on my way over here. So what’s the story?” I asked.
Cindy walked to the corner of the quilt business and peered down the empty side street.
She pointed at the four-story brick structure called Hotel Montserrat, better known locally as “the Dorm.” The hotel was clean and reasonably inexpensive.
It still had an elegant outline with stone eagles on the corners of the roof and columns by the entrance.
I’d heard that in the fifties it was quite the place.
Now I thought of it as a place for tourists on a budget.
Cindy said, “I was going a little stir crazy at home. I was antsy and working on some of my ideas about the book. I kept thinking about the missing girls.”
“You and me both.”
“Anyway, I just decided to take a ride around the city. Somewhere along the line I had the idea to talk to some young women on the street. Maybe get some inside information.”
I didn’t like where this was going.
Cindy ran her hand through her hair and then bit her lower lip.
“I started talking to a girl down the street. I’d guess in her mid-teens.
Beautiful. Just like the girls who’ve gone missing.
She told me she wanted to be a writer. I went to my car to get something for her, and when I came back, maybe two minutes later, she was walking into the Dorm with a man who had to be around fifty. ”
“Was she going willingly?”
“Hard to say. One minute we were talking, the next she was walking away with the man.” Cindy glanced nervously again down the empty street.
“I didn’t see him drive up if he has a car.
He was a big guy. I mean, fat. That’s really the only distinguishing characteristic I saw. That’s when I called you for backup.”
I smiled. Cindy could really get into being a cop. I was a little more cautious. “Let’s see if we can find out more about what’s going on.”