It had been sunny earlier in the morning, but now the clouds were rolling in. Soon it would begin to rain. I have friends in other states that were in the middle of heat waves, but here it was in the mid-sixties. I don’t envy them.
I was driving north on Thirty-Sixth Avenue toward the Alderwood Mall. The mall is almost exactly one mile from Julia’s house, so it wouldn’t take long.
“Your mom going to be okay?” I asked.
Toni nodded. “I think so. She’s pretty tough.”
“She’s an impressive lady,” I said. “It’s pretty easy to see where you and Kelli get your gumption.”
She smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I suppose.”
A few seconds later, I said, “Why do you suppose Kelli didn’t drive?”
Toni shrugged. “Because she hoped to get picked up,” she answered. “She didn’t want her truck sitting vulnerable-like in the mall’s parking lot for a couple of days while she was gone.” She paused. “She loves her truck. She’d rather walk a mile than have it broken into.”
A few minutes later, I pulled into the mall’s main entrance off 184th Street.
The entrance was about a hundred yards long, then it forked left and right. “Which way?” I asked. “Got any ideas?”
Toni leaned forward and looked left, then right. “Let’s just drive around the whole place first.”
I turned left to circle the mall clockwise. “Where do kids hang out at malls?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, as she scanned the stores. “It’s been a while for me. Maybe the food court?”
That made sense. “Where’s the food court at this place?” I asked.
“I don’t know that either. We’ll probably need to park and find a directory. But let’s keep going around once before we stop.”
The mall is good-sized for northwest Washington, which probably means it’s average size for most other places. The perimeter road is square-shaped, maybe one-quarter mile in each direction. We entered at the top of the square-due north.
At the bottom of the square, we passed a movie theater and a couple of stand-alone restaurants. The sign read “Terraces.”
“This might be it,” I said. “There sure are a lot of kids around here. But I don’t see any kind of food court.”
“It’s summertime. There’s going to be lots of kids at the movie theater. But if we’re looking for the food court, it’s not going to be outside,” Toni said. “It’ll be inside, out of the weather. Let’s just finish the circle, and then we’ll go inside at the main entrance and look for a directory.”
“What makes you think the movie theater isn’t where Kelli would have gone?”
“Think about it,” she said. “Kelli’s following Isabel, right?” Before I could answer, she continued. “Isabel was looking for something-or someone. That’s why she came here. Isabel got picked up on or just right after her birthday-May seventh. School was still in session then. So-”
“So there wouldn’t have been any kids at the movie theater except for at night.”
“Right,” she said. “And even then, it would have been pretty light on a weekday night.”
“And May seventh was-”
“A Monday. A school day and a school night. I think that it would have been relatively quiet at the theater then, and relatively busier inside at the food court.”
I thought about this for a few seconds. “Well, I wouldn’t want to stake my life on that theory, but it’s better than anything I’ve got.”
“So let’s keep going,” she said. “If it’s not busy inside, we’ll come back out here.”
I finished driving the perimeter and found a parking space no more than a couple hundred yards away from the main entrance. We hiked on inside a few seconds before the rain started falling. Just inside was a large directory. I scanned it and located the food court.
“I was right,” I said. “It’s in the back in the place called the Terraces.”
“Inside,” Toni said.
“Leave the Jeep and walk there?” I asked.
“Yeah.” We had started walking toward the mall’s main entrance when Toni said, “Wait a second.” I turned to her, but she was already walking toward a group of girls. I followed.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I ask you guys a question?”
They nodded.
“We’re new to the area, and we’re supposed to meet my little sister here. But she didn’t say where. Do you girls have any idea where kids-about your age-would hang out?”
“Probably the food court,” one of the girls said. “There’s lots of kids there.”
Toni smiled. “Thanks.”
She turned to me. “Sounds like we’re on the right track,” she said.
We walked down the main corridor, hung a right at Macy’s, and then turned left to reach the Terraces Food Court. It was a very large, open area, with ceilings probably thirty feet tall. A long double row of skylights allowed natural daylight to flood the huge area. It was about as close to being an outdoor area as you could get and still make it work in the rainy Northwest. Two-dozen food vendors occupied spaces that ringed the perimeter of the court. There must have been a couple hundred tables in the center.
Impressive as that was, though, the most impressive thing by far were the number of people. It was twelve thirty-lunchtime. It was as if every middle school and high school in the northern King County area had decided to hold class in the food court, and school had just let out for lunch. It was a huge party. There were hundreds of kids: kids talking, kids laughing, kids eating, kids standing around. There were at least a half-dozen security guards, stationed at strategic points around the area. They seemed to simply watch the action around them. Perhaps they were under orders to leave the kids alone as long as the kids behaved themselves-which they all seemed to be doing. It was a happy, peaceful, end-of-the-school-year party. And maybe, somewhere, Kelli was in there.
“Wow,” I said.
Toni nodded. “We’d probably best split up,” she said.
“Are we just looking? Or are we talking?” I asked.
“I think both now,” she said. “Use Kelli’s photo if you want, but let’s not show any photos of Crystal yet. Let’s do them one at a time.”
I pulled out my phone and organized my pictures. I had several photos now of people connected to this case, starting, of course, with the picture of Isabel that we’d taken from her bedroom. Now, I also had a good close-up of Kelli that Toni’d e-mailed me a few minutes earlier. I also had a decent close-up of Crystal and another one of Donnie Martin and DeMichael Hollins-all taken during our stakeout at the big house.
“Okay. Let’s do it,” I said. “I’ll take this side here on the east. Plan on meeting back here in half an hour?”
“Good.”
I headed for the first security guard I saw. He was a tall guy, leaning against a post and whistling.
“Hi, there,” I said. I introduced myself and showed the guy my license. “My partner and I are looking for a missing person-this girl here.” I held up my phone and showed him Kelli’s picture. “In case you notice us and wonder what the hell we’re doing, we’re going to be showing this picture around and asking some of the kids here if they’ve seen this girl.”
He nodded. “That’s cool,” he said. “Let me have a closer look at the picture.” I handed the phone to him, and he studied the photo for a minute. Then he shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t recognize her.” He handed it back.
“How about this one,” I said. I scrolled to the picture of Crystal. I figured Toni hadn’t been talking about the security guard when she said not to show any pictures of Crystal yet.
He smiled. “I’ve seen her,” he said almost immediately. “She’s pretty hard to forget, isn’t she? Comes in here and shops from time to time.”
I had a hunch. “How about this one?” I said. I scrolled to a picture of Isabel.
He scowled, trying to concentrate. “Let me have a closer look.” I handed him my phone again. “I think I may have seen her here,” he said. “She looks familiar. But not recently. It’s been a while-maybe a month or two. I noticed the two of them in here together.” He handed it back.
I nodded. “Thanks,” I said.
“But you’re just looking for the first one?” he asked.
“Yeah. The other two are her friends. I figure if we can find our subject, great. But if we can’t find her, maybe we can find her friends. Maybe they can help us.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t help. But feel free to go ahead and ask around.”
I spent the remainder of my thirty minutes going from one group of kids to another, talking, showing Kelli’s picture. When I explained that I was looking for my partner’s little sister, and that no, she wasn’t in any trouble, most of the kids were pretty helpful. Unfortunately, most people didn’t remember seeing her. A few people said they might have seen her-but they weren’t sure-it could have been someone who looked like her. One young guy said he definitely saw her-said she was his buddy’s sister and that they were going to get married. Then again, he reeked of alcohol, so I discounted his answer.
As my half hour came to an end, I returned to our starting point and waited for Toni.
“How’d you do?” I asked, when Toni walked up.
“Crash and burn,” she said. “Nothing. Some people think they saw her, but no one was totally certain. How about you?”
“I met her fiance,” I said.
“What?” She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
I explained about the drunken teenager. “Except for that, my experience was about the same as yours. So what’s our next step-switch to looking for Crystal? The guard over there recognized her. Said she shops here.”
She nodded. “Kids are going to think we’re nutty doing a second walkthrough asking about a different girl, but I don’t care. Let’s do it. I’m pretty sure Kelli’s not here-at least not inside.”
“I don’t think she’s here, either. I looked around pretty closely.” I glanced around. “When I get to the back there, I’ll go outside,” I said. “I think the theater must be out those doors. I’ll go check out that area.”
“So half an hour again?” she said.
“That should be enough,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
This time, I’d only been at it for about fifteen minutes when I got lucky with our first lead.
“Yeah, I seen her,” a teenaged boy said enthusiastically. “She’s fuckin’ hot, dude. She was wearing these tight jeans.”
“Oh! I remember her,” his buddy said. “The one in the red sweater-thing.”
“Yeah,” the first boy said.
“When was this?” I asked.
“A half hour ago.”
“No, dude. It was more like an hour ago,” said his buddy. “We just got here.”
“Here? In the food court?” I asked.
“Yeah. When I saw her, she was talking to another chick-a redhead who hangs out here all the time.”
“Oh, yeah,” his buddy said. “Gigantic tits. I remember her, too. She was wearing a yellow shirt that said Google on it.”
The first boy nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Whereabouts?” I asked. “Where was she?”
“She was right over there,” he said, pointing toward the door. “One of those tables by the door.”
I looked around but could see no one wearing a yellow T-shirt.
“You guys don’t know her, do you?” I asked.
They shook their heads. “We don’t know either of them. We just saw them today.”
With a little prodding, they were able to provide a little better physical description. I wrote it down in my notepad before calling Toni on her cell.
“I’ve got a lead,” I said.
“I saw you talking to those two boys.”
“Yeah, they said they saw Crystal here an hour ago.”
“No Kelli?”
“No, they didn’t recognize Kelli. But they said Crystal was wearing a red sweater over dark blue jeans. Also, she was either here with or meeting with a red-haired girl, also in blue jeans. The redhead was wearing a yellow shirt that said Google on it.”
“No shit? I just saw that girl!” Toni said.
“Where?”
“She was heading out of the food court, back toward the main entrance.”
“Meet me back at the top. I’ll be right there.”