The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(14)
“NCIC and WCIC came up negative for Lynn Hoff,” Faz said.
“Seriously?” Kins said, disbelieving. He’d been even more certain that Hoff had been a prostitute after learning she’d been paying cash for her reconstructive surgery and rent at the motel.
“Not even a parking ticket,” Del said.
“What about the Department of Licensing?” Tracy asked.
“More interesting,” Del said. He swiveled his chair and retrieved an 8? x 11 sheet of paper from his desk, handing it to Tracy. “Meet Lynn Hoff. I’ve asked for a copy of the actual photograph.”
Plain looking, Lynn Hoff, if that was her name—Tracy now had doubts—had straight brown hair parted on the side that extended past her shoulders. She wore heavy black-framed glasses. The license indicated she was five foot six and 135 pounds with brown eyes, which corresponded with Funk’s autopsy findings.
“The DOL issued the license March 2016 but has no prior licenses issued in that name,” Del said.
“She’s twenty-three,” Tracy said, looking at Kins. “Might not be her real name.”
Tracy and Kins had come to that conclusion on the drive back from the motel, after they’d turned jurisdiction of the room over to the CSI sergeant.
“Likely an alias,” Faz said. He swiveled his chair to follow Tracy as she crossed the bull pen to her cubicle and deposited her purse in her locker. “I ran a LexisNexis search on her and came up with bubkes. No past employers, no former addresses. I also ran her name through Social Security. The number appears legit but no employment. She’s a ghost,” Faz said.
“A ghost on the run,” Kins said. “She had reconstructive surgery on her face and afterward insisted on getting back all the photographs. She didn’t provide any personal information or family history, and she paid cash for a motel room. It also looks like someone cleaned it. No cell phone. No wallet. No computer or laptops.”
Tracy handed Faz a copy of the receipt from the bank she’d found in the garbage. “Found this in the trash, though. Can you log it in and run it down for me?”
“No problem,” Faz said.
The yellow light on Tracy’s phone blinked, indicating she had a voice mail message—or several dozen. One or two were likely from her favorite muckraker, Maria Vanpelt. Bennett Lee, SPD’s public information officer, had also likely called, in part because Vanpelt had called him. Lee would be seeking a statement for the media. It was unlikely Nolasco had left a message. He liked to be an ass in person.
“How does someone exist today without debit or credit cards?” Del said, facing the interior of the A Team’s shared workspace.
“Prepaid credit cards and burner cell phones,” Faz said. “You use them and throw them away.”
Faz had spent four years working with the fraud unit before homicide. Though he and Del went out of their way to keep things in the section loose, they were far more than just comic relief. Promoted to homicide the same year, twenty-one years ago, they had worked as partners for seventeen and had solved every homicide put before them. Yeah, they played two Italian gumbas, but Faz also had college degrees in accounting and finance, and Del had graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in political science. Over lunch one afternoon, Faz had told Tracy he’d been headed to grad school to get his master’s in tax, but needed to make some money to pay down his student loans. An uncle secured a summer internship for him at the Elizabeth Police Department in New Jersey, and Faz found his calling—much to his mother’s disappointment.
“But you said you didn’t find any prepaid credit cards or cell phone,” Del said to Tracy and Kins.
“Didn’t even find a wallet,” Kins said. “She paid cash for the surgery and a month’s rent. Close to seven grand.”
“Where’s she getting that kind of money?” Del asked.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Someone could have whacked her and cleaned up the motel room,” Faz said. “They certainly didn’t intend for her body to ever be found.”
“Whacked her?” Del said to Kins while jabbing a thumb toward Faz. “He thinks he’s Michael Corleone.”
Tracy turned to Kins. “What about running her photograph through facial recognition software, see if we find a license under a different name?”
“How’re you going to get the DOL to authorize that?” Kins said.
After a $1.6 million investment, SPD had the facial recognition software and staff trained to use it, but the Seattle City Council had only approved its use to go through jail-booking mug shots. The DOL had the most comprehensive database of photographs of Washington residents, but the powers that be would not allow SPD to use that database to hunt down criminals because an ACLU lawyer had argued it could invade John Q. Citizen’s personal privacy rights. Yeah, better to let the criminal kill John Q. Citizen than learn how tall he was, or how overweight. And God forbid they determine the identity of a dead person so they could advise their next of kin.
“Maybe they’ll make an exception,” Tracy said. “She’s dead.”
“A government bureaucrat willing to think outside the box for the greater cause,” Del said. “Good luck with that! While you’re waiting for them to say no, I’ll do things the old-fashioned way and take a look through the missing persons database.”