The Hunt. Andrew Welsh-Huggins

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      8

      A FEW HOURS LATER I WAS SITTING AT A table at Jury of Your Pours on Mound near High, just across the street from the courthouse. I spied a brace of judges, a pride of prosecutors, and a drove of defense attorneys, and that was just at the bar. The only thing it lacked was actual jurors. My reconnoitering over, I went back to examining a photo of a fat-cheeked baby with a dark head of hair on Karen’s phone. It looked identical to the four other photos of her son I’d just looked at.

      “Favors his father,” I said.

      “So funny.”

      Giving birth to Noah had swung Gabby’s religiously conservative parents around to her marriage to Karen. But I still doubted they’d laugh at sperm bank jokes.

      “Tell me about Jessica,” Karen said, spearing a forkful of salad.

      I went over the call Roy got, my visit with her brother and little Robbie, the Rest EZ, Reardoor.com, and everything else.

      “So when’s the last time you saw her?” I said.

      She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a purple file folder. She opened it and flipped through several pages before finding the one she wanted. “Last December. She was picked up for soliciting near Kelton Street.”

      “Court records made it look like she was in and out of jail.”

      “True. Until the last time.”

      “Oh?”

      “She went into a diversion program one of the muni court judges runs. It’s like a boot camp for trafficking victims. They spend two years trying to pull their shit together and taking classes and getting off drugs. If they make it all the way through, they graduate and there’s a ceremony at the governor’s residence and they’ve got their life back and they aren’t prosecuted. It’s a good deal.”

      “Sounds like it. So what happened?”

      “She was doing fine as far as I know. I’d sort of lost track of her. This July I got a notice that she didn’t show up to the regular Thursday session. They couldn’t reach her anywhere. The judge signed an arrest warrant the next day.”

      “You have the date?”

      She took another bite of salad and paged through more papers.

      “July 27.”

      I told her about the call without a message that Bill Byrnes received on the 26th, the day after Lisa Washington’s body was discovered.

      Karen said, “Makes a little more sense now. She could have been upset, or scared. Which could explain why she went AWOL. Unless . . .”

      “Unless she was next, and just hasn’t been found.”

      “We can’t discount it. Let’s hope we’re wrong. Maybe she snapped after her friend’s murder and left town. She’s not from here, right?”

      “Mount Alexandria. Her mom’s over there. My impression is they don’t exchange Christmas cards.”

      “Yeah, that’s what I remember. She could be anywhere, when it comes down to it. If she’s still alive.”

      I remembered the name tattooed on Jessica’s neck. I asked Karen about it. She made a face as if she’d just found half a bug in her salad and had a good idea where the other half was.

      “Bronte,” she said.

      “I’m sorry?”

      “Bronte Patterson. His name on her neck is like he branded her. To show who belongs to who. It’s a pimp thing.”

      “He have a brother named Heathcliff?”

      “Right. His more evil twin.”

      “Bronte’s his real name?”

      She shook her head. “It’s Bryan. The joke is he was going for something evoking ‘brontosaurus’ without realizing they have brains the size of walnuts.”

      “What’s his status?”

      “Status?”

      “In jail? On the streets? In a management training program?”

      “He’s out as far as I know. He’s a wily guy. Teflon coated, for some reason. Cops can’t seem to touch him.”

      “Wonder if he knows where Jessica is.”

      “It’s a possibility. She was his bottom girl for a while.”

      “Bottom girl?”

      “It’s sort of a misnomer. It means his top girl. Best girl. The one he uses to train the new ones.”

      “Train?”

      “What these girls do doesn’t come naturally. There’s rules. Tips.”

      “Such as?”

      “Such as, get the guys off as quickly as possible so you can move on to the next one. Always carry gum, to get the taste out of your mouth. Lie about your age. The younger they think you are, the faster they—”

      “OK. I get it. Did she still turn tricks?”

      “Oh, yeah. It’s not that important a job.”

      “Maybe I’ll go ask him what he knows.”

      “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

      “Why not?”

      She took a bite of her salad and leaned back in her chair. She picked her phone off the table, fiddled a bit, and handed it to me. I stared at a scowling white guy with blue eyes the color of spilled windshield washer fluid, muscular shoulders bulging through a wife beater, a shaved head, a badly healed nose, a scar on his left cheek, and the letters EWMN tattooed across his forehead.

      “I liked the pictures of Noah better.”