“Breaking and entering?”
“I was going to say sleuthing.”
“I’ll call him, dear. I’ll say Millie told me.”
“Thank you.”
As Indira placed the call, I resumed my search. After the tenant statements, the paperwork changed to JT’s personal finances: bank account statements, credit card statements, a checkbook. I had a hard time imagining JT had parted with any of this stuff willingly, which meant Channelle must have taken it after she found JT dead. Or after she killed him, a part of me suggested.
When I flipped the next page, I stopped. A driver’s license had been buried in the mix, and I caught it as it slid across the stack of pages. It was from California, not Oregon, and it showed a woman I didn’t recognize. She was what Will Gower would have called a bottle blond, with perfect makeup that had somehow resisted the DMV camera’s magical ability to make everyone look like they were having their mug shot taken. In the photo, she wore a sweatshirt that looked oversized—on her, the effect was cute—and there was a hint of rhinestones and what I thought might be a Western-style fringe. It was hard to say froma single DMV photo, but I thought it was even odds that she’d been, uh, enhanced.
The name on the license was Channelle Vance, and the address listed the city as Santa Ana. I wasn’t an expert on California (Will Gower wasn’t exactly a fun-in-the-sun kind of guy), but something told me that Santa Ana was either in Orange County, or close enough that the difference didn’t matter. It looked like the license had been issued two years ago and was still valid.
Indira was speaking quietly into her phone, explaining to Bobby our theory about the eviction and Keme’s clothes. I hissed to get her attention and showed her the license.
“And another thing,” Indira said. “Could you see if there’s anything on Channelle using a different last name? Like Vance?”
In the motel’s quiet, I could hear Bobby’s answer. “That sounded like Dash. Where are you?”
Indira wasn’t one to hem or haw or say um, uh, er, etc. But she did pause for a microsecond before saying, “I’ve got to go, dear.”
“I know that hiss—” Bobby began.
Fortunately, at that point, Indira disconnected. We traded a relieved look.
And then my phone buzzed.
Where are you?
Home?I texted back.Writing? Safe?
It’s more believable without the question marks. Where are you?
Bay Bridge Suites.
Call me. Now.
I answered with JAS—it stands forjust a sec, which is way cooler than BRB (be right back) or, believe it or not, AFK (away from keyboard).
Bobby did not wait just a sec. Bobby called me instead.
As my phone buzzed, I said to Indira, “We might be out of time.”
She nodded, but she said, “Look at this.”
A velvet box lay behind the vanity. It was open, and it held an incomplete jewelry set: a ring and a pair of earrings, all set with heart-shaped blue stones, and an empty spot where a necklace should have been.
“Roses,” I said. “Jewelry. Perfume.”
“And the clothes,” Indira said. “She has expensive tastes. But my point is that this couldn’t be a normal robbery, otherwise someone would have taken the jewelry.”
“Right. Okay, well—”
“And one more thing.” She indicated for me to look between the far bed and the wall.
In the narrow space between the wall and the bed, a shredder was plugged into an outlet. The top of the shredder had been removed from the little plastic receptacle it normally sat on and now leaned up against the wall. The little plastic receptacle was empty.
My first thought was that the paperwork in the room only went back to August. “She was shredding something,” I said. “But if that’s the case, why keep the California license?”
