“She’s medium height and build,” Toni said as we hustled back up the main corridor. “Between the yellow T-shirt and her red hair, you can’t miss her.”
We made our way past a half-dozen stores, walking very quickly and pausing just long enough to take a quick look inside the shops. I scanned inside the stores on one side of the corridor; Toni scanned the stores on the other. No luck. Two minutes later, we reached a junction with another corridor and stopped.
I looked both ways, hoping to spot the girl. Still no luck. “We have to split up,” I said. “No telling which way she went.” I pointed north. “You work up that direction. Look inside the stores on one side until you reach Nordstrom. Then turn around and work back down the other side.” I pointed to the east. “I’m going to go this way and do the same thing until I get to Sears. Then I’ll turn around and come back. We’ll meet back here.”
“Got it,” she said, as she turned and took off.
The mall was busy, but not packed, so I was able to make good time. I peered into each store as I passed it-my head in “swivel mode, up and locked” as we used to say in the army. I passed bath stores, lotion stores, clothing boutiques-even a store that lets you build your own teddy bears-but I saw no red-headed girl in a yellow T-shirt. A couple minutes later I reached the Sears and turned around to work my way back down the other side of the row. And there she was, coming out of a Cromwell’s Bath Shop store with a shopping bag under her arm.
She turned and began walking back toward the spot where Toni and I’d split up. I waited until she was about thirty feet away to be sure I wouldn’t be heard, then I grabbed my phone and called Toni.
“I’ve got her,” I said.
“Where?”
“I was at Sears, and she was coming out of a bath store. She’s walking back toward you now. Where are you?”
“I just finished my area, and I’m starting to walk your way. Hold on-I see her now. I see you, too.”
“Just let her go past, then I’ll join you,” I said.
“Okay.” We both hung up.
Except the red-haired girl didn’t go past Toni. Instead, before she got that far, she turned and walked into Macy’s. I picked up the pace and made it to the Macy’s entrance a couple of seconds later. I looked in and was able to spot her. She didn’t seem to suspect anyone was following her-she wasn’t looking around, stopping, starting, changing directions, that sort of thing.
“You see her?” Toni asked when she reached me, a few seconds later.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s right over there. C’mon, let’s go.”
We started following her again. A couple seconds later, Ms. Red Hair turned left, still unaware that she was being followed. She continued straight ahead and walked right out the Macy’s side door.
We were only twenty-five feet or so behind her, and we hurried to the door.
“Hold up,” I said, just before we were about to open the doors to go outside. “She’s stopping.”
We watched as Ms. Red Hair walked over to a low wall away from the sidewalk. The rain had stopped, and the girl sat down. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Looks like she just needed a smoke,” I said. I watched for a second more, and then I said, “Let’s go talk to her.”
We walked outside and headed straight for Ms. Red Hair. We were almost there before she even noticed us approaching.
“Hi, there,” I said.
She looked up at me but didn’t say anything. Instead, she took a drag from her cigarette.
“I wonder if you can help us out?”
She looked at me with a belligerent look and exhaled-blowing a big cloud of smoke in my direction. This kind of pissed me off, but hey-I’m a professional. I don’t get rattled by this shit.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me ask you this. How much does Crystal pay you when you call her up and tell her there’s a fresh teenaged runaway for her to come pick up and, oh-basically enslave-in her prostitution racket?”
Ms. Red Hair’s expression changed from belligerence to concern almost immediately. Even Toni glanced at me, surprised. I winked at her, from the side that Ms. Red Hair couldn’t see.
I turned back to the girl. “You know that makes you guilty of being a pimp in the eyes of the state of Washington, don’t you?” I said. I think this may have been true, at least in a thin sense, anyway. “That’s a Class B felony.” I turned to Toni. “Is that five or ten?”
“Ten years,” she said. “And a $20,000 fine.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Red Hair said. She tried to sound tough, but I got the distinct impression that she wasn’t as tough as she was trying to appear. “Are you guys cops?”
“Nope,” I said. “We’re private investigators. But we’ve got lots of friends who are cops. I’m sure our buddies at the Lynnwood Police Department can figure out if what you’re doing is something you can go to jail for. We can call them out here and turn this over to them.”
“Fuck off,” the girl said. “What do you want from me, anyway?”
“Tell you what,” I said, “Let’s start over. I’m Danny. This is Toni. You are-?”
“Megan.”
“Megan,” I said. “Good. We’ll leave everything on a first-name basis for the moment. Let me tell you, Megan, before we even get started-we’re not interested in seeing you get in trouble. But we need some information, and you’re going to give it to us; otherwise, we’re calling the cops, and you can explain things to them. Understood?”
She glared at me. “What kind of information?”
“We’re here this afternoon looking for a girl. We think she’s been through here probably today.” I pulled out my phone, opened up a picture of Kelli, and handed it to her. “Does she look familiar?”
Megan looked at the photo and then handed the phone back to me. She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said.
“Ahh-not good enough, Megan. You’re stonewalling. Here’s what we do when you stonewall.” I turned to Toni and said, “Toni, make the call. Lynnwood police.”
Toni pulled out her phone and started dialing.
“Wait,” Megan said. Toni paused.
“Okay,” she said.
I turned back to her.
“I saw her.”
“When?” I asked.
“Earlier today. Probably around eleven.”
“Where was she? Do you know where she is now?”
She lowered her head. “She went with Crystal.”
Hadn’t taken Kelli long at all. She’d been gone what-six hours? And she’d already infiltrated the gang.
“From the start,” I said. “Tell us what happened.”
She shifted her feet. “I saw her sitting outside the food court this morning. So I started talking to her. She said she ran away because her stepfather was giving her shit.”
“Then what happened?”
“I told her I knew someone who helped runaways. I told her I’d call her if she wanted.”
“That’s Crystal Wallace?” I asked.
“Crystal, yeah,” she said. “I don’t know her last name.”
“So you called Crystal, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what happened?”
“It usually takes Crystal about an hour to get here. She came and talked to me for a minute, and then she went outside and started talking to the girl. Then they left.”
“Are you sure they left together?”
“Yeah. I saw them leave together.”
“Here’s another picture,” I said. I opened up a picture of Isabel and handed the phone back to Megan. “Ever see her? It would have been a month or so back.”
Megan studied the picture. “Yeah. I called Crystal for her, too. Then she and Crystal came in shopping together.”
“So-back to my first question. How much money does Crystal give you for the lead?”
She looked back down. “A hundred dollars,” she said.
I nodded. “A hundred dollars. Do you know what happens to these girls?”
She looked at me and then shook her head. “No.”
“You don’t? Really?” I asked.
She shook her head again.
“You don’t know that these girls are almost all turned into prostitutes by Crystal and her people? That they advertise them on Backpage.com? That they’re basically held captive-sometimes for years? That they’re made to have sex with three-four-five men a night, seven days a week? You didn’t know any of that?” Despite my best efforts to remain perfectly calm, my voice probably made it pretty clear how upset I was getting.
Megan’s eyes were moist with tears. She shook her head. “I didn’t know.”
I stared at her for a minute and then asked, “Do you have a driver’s license?”
“I thought you said that it was just first names?” she said.
“I said ‘for the moment.’ That moment’s over. And here’s the way it is now. You’re going to give me your driver’s license so I can copy down everything on it. Also, you’re going to give me your cell phone number. I’m not going to do anything with any of this information-like I said, we’re not interested in seeing you go to prison.”
“Then why do you want it?”
“Two reasons. First off, there might be a question pops up that I need answered. If that happens, I’m going to call you on your cell phone, and you’re going to need to answer truthfully. Second, you may be called to testify. If that happens, you’ll need to do so truthfully.”
“I don’t want to testify,” Megan said. “I don’t want to be involved at all.”
I smiled. “Oops. Too late. You’re already involved. You’re making money off of prostitution. You don’t have many options here. Remember. Ten years. Twenty grand.”
She looked at me, then nodded. “Okay.”
She dug through her purse and then handed me her driver’s license. I took a picture of it using my phone. She also gave her cell phone number. I typed typed it into my phone and, just for kicks, tried her cell phone. It worked. When I was done, I turned to her.
“And I lied. There’s one other thing you have to do, Megan.”
“What?”
“I don’t believe you when you say you don’t know what happens to these girls. Or put it this way. If you really don’t know, then it’s because you don’t want to know. But you have eyes. You’re not stupid. So here’s the last thing for you to do. When you leave the mall today? If you ever come back, it better be to go shopping. If she or I ever see you in this mall hanging around girls again, then we’re turning over all this stuff to the Lynnwood cops. You’ll be in jail so fast you won’t believe it. And you’ll stay there for a long damned time.”
“One other thing,” Toni said. “You’d better not try to get in touch with Crystal and warn her about us. We’ll be pulling all her phone records-cell phone and home phone. We’ll trace down every caller, and we’ll know if you called after today. There’d better not be any calls from you. Got it?”
She nodded.
“You do your part,” I said, “Just go home. Stay home. We’ll not turn you over to the Lynnwood police. You go on living your life. That’s a hell of a lot better deal than these other girls have.”
She nodded.
“Now get out of here.”
She hopped up and double-timed it for the parking lot.