“Definitely,” Tracy said.
She went back into the kitchen, opening up the cabinet under the sink and pulling out the garbage pail. It had not been emptied. She rummaged through it and found a wadded-up piece of paper—a withdrawal slip from a bank, Emerald Credit Union. The address was also Renton, Washington. “Might have found her bank,” Tracy said.
Kins walked over and took a look, then considered the rest of the apartment. “No wallet. No cell phone. No laptop.”
“Lynn Hoff did not want someone to find her,” Tracy said.
“But someone did,” Kins said.
Faz and Del rotated their chairs from their desks as Tracy and Kins entered the bull pen. The desks were positioned in the four corners, a worktable in the center. Tracy couldn’t help but compare them to Rex and Sherlock, Dan’s 140-pound Rhodesians, who reacted just as quickly every time Tracy walked in the door. The last time she’d seen the dogs had been early that morning. Dan, a lawyer, had left before her, flying to Los Angeles to argue in court against a motion to set aside a verdict in his client’s favor. Rex hadn’t even bothered to raise his head from his dog bed as Tracy departed the apartment. Only Sherlock had been chivalrous enough to walk Tracy to the door. For that gesture, he’d gotten to enjoy a synthetic dog bone.
“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.