Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(77)

“How’d you get the data?” Eve asked him.

“Had a hunch on it—the when, the where—and when I dug up a photo of her—driver’s license—the look of her. So, I did a search, found a judge down there, gave him the what’s what. He didn’t decide until this morning—wanted to review the file and all that—but he unsealed the records, and bang. They had the tat listed as identifying mark.”

“You?” Eve asked Nadine.

When Quilla started to speak, Nadine put a hand on her arm. “Something like that,” she said. And fluttered her lashes.

“Say no more. Peabody, for Christ’s sake,” Dallas snapped.

“It’s coming. The unit’s having a moment doing the duet.”

“I’ll get it.” Jamie strolled over, tapped a few commands. The split screen—identical—came on-screen.

The mug shot showed a thin-faced blond girl with defiant eyes. The mascara and whatever else she’d piled on those eyes had run, leaving clumpy shadows under them.

The profile shot revealed the multiple ear piercings.

“And there you are, Lisa McKinney. Younger here than our age range, but yeah, fits the type he’s grabbing. Height, weight, coloring. What else do we know?”

Jamie started to speak, then gestured to Nadine. “You can take it.”

“That’s sweet. Actually, as part of the research team on this, Quilla has a report.”

“I can start, and then you can pick it up,” she said to Jamie.

“Good deal.”

“Okay, Lisa Evangeline McKinney, born in Bigsby, Alabama, September 8, 1978, to Buford McKinney and Tiffany Boswell McKinney—both eighteen, which is just whacked. The Tiffany came from Arcadia, but moved to Bigsby when she was a kid. So they busted up in 1984, quelle surprise, right? Anyway, dead now, but both got hooked up again—her twice—and he had two more kids with the second wife.”

She took a second to gulp down some of her Coke.

“Tiffany went back to Arcadia in 1991—took Lisa—that’s where she hooked up with husband number three in ’93. That busted in ’95, but in the meantime, Lisa has some sketchy attendance in school, did the runaway thing a few times, got busted. She finished high school—barely—and worked a series of jobs, nothing more than a few months. Then in November of 1998…”

She paused, looked at Jamie. “You can take it.”

“Thanks. That’s when she had the kid,” Jamie continued. “Baby boy. No name, no father listed. Did you get the car wreck?”

“What? No.” Quilla blew annoyance at her pink bangs. “What’d we miss?”

“She was in a vehicular accident in ’99. She wasn’t driving, but the driver—a Marshall Riggs—was charged with DWI. She ended up with a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, a busted wrist, and a couple of cracked ribs. She lived—maternal grandmother’s address—in Arcadia until 2000, then it looks like she took to the road. What employment I found—again sketchy—bar work, cocktail waitress, did some stripping. No address or employment I could find from early 2002 on. But she had a car registered in her name—had to be a beater.”

“Anything on her or the kid from Child Services?” Eve asked. “Social Services?”

“Nothing I found. And there’s nothing, Dallas, like poof, after 2002. I got this picture—ad for a strip club, Nashville, 2002. Computer, display doc McKinney 3-A.”

Working. Displayed.

She had her head thrown back and her arm around a pole. She wore a Gstring, pasties, and looked worn around the edges to Eve.

“Magnify her face.”

When Jamie had, Eve studied it. “Yeah, a resemblance, a type, more pronounced with the shorter hair. She’s on something. I can see user on her. She’s what—damn math.”

“Like twenty-four,” Quilla said.

“Yeah, like that, has a kid about three or four, and she’s riding a pole, living off the grid to stay ahead of Child Services, doesn’t stay in one place long. She tried selling herself at sixteen, so there’s probably that. But she either took the kid with her when she hit the road, or paid him regular visits.”

Mira nodded. “While he could have become obsessed due to the absent mother, and formed the illusion, there are too many details to his re-creation attempts. The trauma occurred sometime after she left Arcadia. They had a relationship. And I would say, in her way, she loved her son. Easier, by far, to have walked away, left him with the grandmother.”

“Let’s be sure she didn’t.”

Nadine set aside her coffee mug. “According to Lisa’s half brother—who still resides in Bigsby, she didn’t. I contacted him first thing this morning. He remembers Lisa’s mother calling his father when Lisa left and took the child. He doesn’t remember the name of the child—the son of the half sister he didn’t really know wasn’t part of his life. But he remembers hearing his parents arguing about it, as his mother was very upset about the situation.”

“You’ve got more. What else does he know?”

“His mother didn’t like the fact that his father had, essentially, cut ties with his daughter. And his father didn’t like the fact that his mother kept pushing him to try to reach her—Lisa, and his grandson. His father claimed Lisa was a junkie whore, and he was done with her. He remembers that clearly, as his father didn’t use that kind of language. So I’d say you’re right, and she was on something in Jamie’s photo.