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“Because we only bother to prosecute the women and not the men who use their services,” Annie said with disgust. “Do you know anything about Rayanne’s family or where she’s from?”
“She’s from Henderson, I think. I don’t know her people, though.”
Annie sighed. “I guess I’d better go back into that mouse-infested roach hole and pick through her things. Try to find her phone or some clue who her folks are. They should know what’s going on.”
“You want help?” he asked.
Annie looked at him, both puzzled by and suspicious of his offer. “Hasn’t your chief declared war on the SO?”
He shrugged. “He doesn’t need to know. If that girl is at death’s door and you want her kin to make it here before it’s too late, there’s no time to waste. What difference does it make what uniform I’m wearing? I’m standing right here.”
Annie thought about it for a second. She had a hard time thinking Rayanne Tillis had a family who cared about her, but then she thought of B’Lynn, who would have given anything to see her son again, even if it was just for the last few seconds of his life. You never knew someone else’s story or who might be heartbroken at the end of it.
“Okay, Hollywood,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She grabbed a pair of gloves out of her bag and handed another pair to Danny Perry as they walked to the house.
“Brace yourself,” she said, leading the way inside.
Danny shoved his sunglasses on top of his head and squinted at the smell. “Wow. About the only thing that could make this smell worse would be cat piss. Of course, maybe she wouldn’t have mice, then.”
“Let’s start in the bedroom,” Annie said. “That’s where I found her. She’s got a cell phone somewhere. And be on the lookout for drugs. If we can find what she took, that might be helpful.”
“We don’t need a search warrant for this?”
“It’s exigent circumstances, but don’t touch anything you don’t have to.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said. “I don’t wanna touch the stuff I have to touch. It’s unreal to me how people will live this way.”
He pulled a ballpoint pen out of his shirt pocket and used it to move things around on the cluttered nightstand. “Animals don’t live like this.”
“Cockroaches and mice do,” Annie pointed out, picking up the bedsheet Rayanne had been tangled in. Roaches scattered.
“Vermin. It’s disgusting.”
“All an addict cares about is getting high,” she said. “Hygiene and housekeeping don’t even make the list.”
“Well, here’s the drugs,” Danny said. He turned around holding up a tiny plastic zip-top bag by one corner. “There’s part of a joint, too.”
“Where was it?” Annie asked, coming over.
He pointed with the pen to a spot on the nightstand between a can of Michelob Ultra and a dirty glass with an inch of whiskey with two cigarette butts floating in it.
Three white tablets with room to spare in the bag. Three pills left out of how many? Five, maybe. At thirty bucks per, minimum, that would have been $150.
“Where’d she get the cash for that?” Annie mused.
“Maybe she has a generous friend.”
“I don’t have any friends that generous—do you?”
She bagged the drugs and they kept looking for the phone, Danny picking through the mess on the dresser. Cringing, Annie got down on the dirty floor and looked under the bed. Dust bunnies, discarded underpants, a used condom. No phone.
A charger cord was plugged into the wall near the nightstand, stretched out as if maybe someone had yanked the phone off it on their way out of the room.
Maybe she had traded the phone for the drugs, Annie thought, getting to her feet, but that seemed doubtful. Why would someonetake her phone? Because phones held a wealth of information. A little handheld treasure trove of potential evidence.
Her own phone vibrated, and she took it into the hall to answer.
