Chapter 46
Thursday afternoon
JP eased the truck into a visitor parking space outside the Oceanside apartment complex and shut off the engine.
The place looked ordinary. It consisted of two-story stucco buildings wrapped around a small swimming pool where half a dozen children splashed while their parents occupied shaded lounge chairs.
He unfolded the sheet Rourke had given him. The address was correct.
JP started with the leasing office. A young woman behind the counter smiled politely.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm looking for records from about eight years ago."
Her smile disappeared. "I've only been here two."
"The previous management company?"
"They sold the property."
"Do you know who has the old files?"
She shook her head.
"I don't even know who managed it before."
JP thanked the young woman behind the counter and walked back outside.
Everything she said matched with what he had already discovered and what Rourke had as well.
JP had found the current owner's information through county records and followed that trail.
The ownership company still existed. The management company didn't.
A receptionist at county records located an archived file and informed him that anything older than seven years had been destroyed.
According to Rourke’s notes, the woman who had reported seeing Hannah lived across the street.
JP knocked on the door. A young couple came to the door together.
"We bought this place six years ago,” the man said.
"Do you know where the previous owner went?"
The husband shook his head.
"Arizona maybe? That's all the realtor told us."
JP thanked them and left. He saw an elderly man watering roses next door. He approached and asked him about the informant.
He remembered her. "Nice lady."
"Do you know where she moved?"
"Nope."
"Did she have any family?"
He shrugged. “I never saw any."
JP stood on the sidewalk for a moment. He had reached another dead end.
He walked back toward the apartment complex, slowing near the pool. The layout matched Rourke's description almost perfectly. A child could sit on one of the benches and watch everyone in the water. The apartments overlooked the courtyard. It all fit, just no Hannah.
He slipped the folded paper back into his pocket. Every detail was believable, and the neighbor could’ve seen Hannah. But after half a day of knocking on doors and chasing records, he couldn't prove a single word of it because time had erased everything that might have confirmed it.
JP climbed into his truck and muttered, "Some trails don't just go cold. Somebody pours water on 'em."
~~~
JP changed gears toward Todd Maddox. He started where Maddox had last belonged to anything, his neighborhood. And belonged was generous.
The blocks around Maddox’s duplex in El Cajon were a patchwork of aging apartments, storefront churches, pawn shops, check-cashing windows, and auto yards.
It was the kind of area where a man could be noticed every day and known by no one.
JP liked such places. Truth tended to leak there in small amounts.
With Maddox’s digital photo on his cell, he started walking. His first stop was the laundromat across the street. The woman behind the counter barely glanced at the picture. “Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I don’t care.”
Next was a market on the corner. The clerk studied the photo longer. “Maybe.”
“Maybe means yes or no?”
“Maybe means buy something.”
JP bought gum.
Then got: “No.”
He thanked him anyway.
A tire shop gave him two mechanics and two different answers:
“Never seen him.”
“Looks familiar.”
Neither meant anything.
JP moved on. Two apartment managers said no. One taco stand said no. Then there was a bus stop regular who claimed, in the same conversation, that Maddox worked for the cartel, the city, and NASA.
By noon JP had collected heat, bad coffee, and nothing useful. He stood in the shade beside his truck and watched the street. People were talking, just not to him. That meant he needed someone who lived on tips, gossip, and memory.
He tried the pawn shop next. The man behind the counter took the photo, glanced once, and handed it back. “His name’s Todd.”
First real yes of the day. “What’d he pawn?”
“Everything but shame.”
“When was he last in?”
“A week before he died.”
“Did he come into money?”
The pawnbroker laughed. “Nope. He came in trying to borrow against money he said was coming.”
That was new! “Did he say from where?”
“He said he had somebody by the throat.”
Also interesting. “Do you know if he frequented a bar around here?”
The man jerked a thumb east. “Lantern Room. If he was upright after dark, he was there.”
JP nodded. “Anyone he was mixed up with?”
The pawnbroker shrugged. “Todd was always mixed up with somebody. He was a flim-flam man and not that good at it.”
JP thanked him and stepped back outside. He had a thread.
As he drove to The Lantern Room, he processed what he’d learned: Maddox had no money, but believed money was close enough to smell. That usually meant greed would outrun judgment.
JP parked, straightened his hat, and went inside.
The Lantern Room was dim like every other bar that preferred to keep memory blurred. Neon signs hummed over mirrored shelves. A baseball game played on mute above the bottles. Three men occupied stools with the solemn commitment of people who had nowhere better to be.
JP took a stool at the far end of the bar and ordered coffee. The bartender— mid-fifties, with tattooed forearms— looked at him a long moment. “Did you lose a bet?”
“Just trying to stay sharp.”
“In here?” she said. “Bold strategy.” She poured the coffee anyway.
JP let five quiet minutes pass. Then he slid a photo of Todd Maddox across the counter. “Do you know him?”
She glanced once. “Everybody knew Todd.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Mostly loud.”
“So, he came in often?”
“Enough.”
“Recently?”
She wiped the counter. “More than usual.”
“How so?”
“He got cheerful.”
“Was that suspicious?”
“On Todd? Extremely.”
JP smiled. “Cheerful because of money?”
She shrugged. “Cheerful because he thought money was coming.”
“What’s the difference?”
“People with money buy drinks for strangers.” She tapped the photo. “People expecting money talk too much.”
Observant woman. “What was he saying?”
“That he finally had somebody cornered.”
“Did he use those words?”
“Not exactly. Todd’s vocabulary leaned simpler. He talked like a boy who lost fistfights in school.”
“Did he say who he had cornered?”
“No. But two nights before he died, Todd was telling anybody who’d listen that some girl wasn’t who she said she was and he was going to prove it and make big bucks.”
“What girl?”
“He didn’t give a name.”
“What’d he mean?”
“You know Todd, you tell me.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“Then lucky you.”
JP suppressed a smile. “Did he say where he met her?”
“No.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“That part he made clear.” She mimicked a swaggering voice. “‘I kept quiet long enough. Time to get paid.’”
“Paid by who?”
“He didn’t say. But he talked about a young brunette and her blonde friend/sister and how they weren’t who they claimed to be. He kept saying something was off about those girls.”
“Did anyone engage with him?”
She nodded toward the back of the room. “A guy in a Padres’ cap sat there one night pretending not to care.”
“Did you know him?”
“No.”
“Did he talk to Todd?”
“Not in here.”
“Then why mention him?”
“Because Todd got quieter after he saw him.”
That could mean something. “How quiet?”
“Quiet enough to step outside and make a phone call. At least, he walked back in with his phone in hand.”
JP filed that away.
“Did he act different when he came back?”
She thought a moment. “Cockier.”
“Did he ever say where the money was coming from?”
“Nope. But the night before he died, he said something else. He said, ‘They should’ve left when they had the chance.’”
The room seemed to tighten. “They meaning the girls?”
“Probably.”
“Did he sound angry?”
“No.”
“Threatening?”
She looked at him directly.
“Proud.”
“Did Todd leave with anyone the night he died?”
“No.”
JP slid a twenty beneath the cup.
She pushed it back halfway. “I’m not testifying.”
“You’re helping me now.”
“That’s cheaper.” She kept the bill.
As JP stood, she said, “One more thing.”
He paused.
“If there was a girl, she never came in here.”
“You sure?”
“Men like Todd show off prizes.” The bartender shook her head. “Whatever this was, he was scared of losing it.”