Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(23)

He went down, flashed that smile again. Once he’d taken care of the fresh drinks, he slid into a door on the side of the bar.

The man who came out with Bo would’ve made two of him.

Built like a linebacker with shoulders wide as a redwood, he had a shaved head and soft, worried blue eyes. He wore a pale gray suit with an open-collar white shirt, and stuck out a hand that gripped—and swallowed—Eve’s.

“I’m Mike, Mike Schotski. What can I do to help, Detective?”

“Lieutenant. Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody. We’re following up on—”

“Wait.” He held up one of those meaty hands, and the worry flashed into alarm. “I know you. The book, the vid. Jesus, you do murders. Anna—”

“Mr. Schotski, we haven’t found Anna. We’re pursuing a possible connection between Ms. Hobe’s disappearance and another case.”

“The girl at the playground this morning. I’ve been keeping an ear out since … Sorry.” He took a breath, visibly steadied himself. “Let’s get a table. What can we get you to drink?”

Since she calculated he needed a little more settling, Eve asked for a Pepsi.

“Make mine a diet,” Peabody said as Mike gestured to a table.

“I had a moment this morning with the report—I didn’t catch the girl’s name at first. I just caught a flash on-screen when they put up her picture. She looks a little like Anna. Once I focused in I could see it wasn’t her, but that little flash?”

He looked away, shook his head. “Stopped my heart.”

“Bo told us he couldn’t think of any reason Anna might have decided to take off,” Eve began. “That she gave no indication she was worried about anything or anyone.”

“That’s a fact. Thanks, Bandi.” He gave the waitress who brought the drinks—a sparkling water for him—a quick smile. “She liked the work here. You can tell when somebody’s just putting in time, and she wasn’t. And I’m damn sure she’d have told me if anybody was bothering her, if she had worries. If not me, she’d’ve told Liza.”

“Liza Rysman? The coworker she left with?”

“That’s right. They’re good friends—most who work here get pretty tight, you know. I run a happy place. Hey, Bo, give Liza a tag, ask her to come in and talk to these officers. Save you time,” he said to Eve. “She just lives a couple blocks away, and she’s worried sick. We all are.”

“We appreciate that.”

“I don’t know what we can tell you that we haven’t told the other cops. I’ve gone over that night again and again, trying to see something. I’m not always in the front of the house, but I spend most of my time out here once things get hopping. Anna and Liza left together, right around one. We close at one on Wednesdays—midweek, slower business. Since they live close, and I like knowing neither of them walk it alone that time of night, I try to mesh their schedules.”

“Did you see them leave?”

“I saw Anna right before. It was raining, so I asked if she had an umbrella. She just gave me a poke, said how she wouldn’t melt. She had her walking shoes on.”

“Walking shoes?”

“The girls wear heels and short skirts—better tips.” He gave a shrug. “That’s the way it is. A lot of them keep the work shoes here, in the back, change into them when they come in, out of them when they clock out. She had on her walking shoes, the little skirt. It wasn’t a hard rain, so I didn’t push it.”

He ran a hand over his smooth dome. “I keep thinking, if I had, if she’d had a damn umbrella, she maybe could’ve used it to beat him off or something.”

“Him?”

Those worried eyes met Eve’s. “Somebody grabbed her. I know it in my gut. Someone like Anna—happy, steady—they don’t just up and go, leave everything. Somebody’s got her.”

“Would she have gotten in a vehicle with someone, willingly?”

“Anna? No, just no. She’s friendly, personable, but not stupid, right?”

“Someone she knew? ‘Hey, Anna, how about a lift home? It’s raining.’”

“I don’t think so, and I’ve thought that one around, too. She only had a few blocks left after Liza turned off. She had a routine on work nights. Walk home, get in her jams—pajamas—pull out her bed, and watch a little screen to wind down. She’d say how she’d be conked in about twenty after the wind-down most nights. She’d say how she loved this place, loved hanging and working and singing and being, but after, she needed her little nest and her quiet time.”

“Getting in a vehicle with somebody puts off the nest and the quiet.”

“Yeah, so I don’t think she would.”

Eve ran him through, and when Liza rushed in, did the same.

It gave her a good picture of the missing woman, and a very bad feeling.

“If it was a mugging,” she began as she and Peabody started to walk the route, “a rape, a combo of those, her body would’ve turned up by now. That’s high probability.”

“The rain gave him more cover,” Peabody put in. “Maybe another reason he didn’t wait to grab her. But if he had two at the same time? That’s two to control, two to feed.”