doubt as to what the woman was willing to do-which seemed to be pretty much anything somebody’d be willing to pay for.
Kenny closed the page and clicked on several more. The faces changed, but the message remained consistent.
“Sometimes the photos hide the faces, sometimes they don’t,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s about one-third hidden, two-thirds not hidden.”
Toni said, “When it says ‘200 roses H-120 roses HH’ does that mean-”
“It’s a simple little code. I’m pretty sure it means $200 for an hour-$120 for a half hour,” Kenny said.
“Holy crap,” she said. “That’s what I thought it meant. They’re just out and out advertising sex for sale. It’s like a catalog for prostitutes.”
I nodded. “That’s exactly what it is,” I said.
Kenny closed the ad. “I showed you all these because I wanted you to be a little prepared for this next one.” He scrolled down and clicked on an ad. It opened up and immediately, Kelli gasped.
“It’s her,” she said, her eyes fixed on the screen. “It’s Izzy.”
The ad showed Isabel in several provocative poses wearing a string bikini bottom and a very skimpy string top. She was smiling seductively into the camera. The ad wording looked similar to the other ads.
“Let me do this,” Kenny said. “I captured the face from the Backpage photo. Then, I enlarged it, enhanced it, and cropped it.” He split the screen in half. On the left half, he brought up the ID photo of Isabel we’d been using. Then, on the right, he showed the image he’d captured off the Backpage ad.
“They look almost identical,” I said.
“It’s her,” Kelli said again, her voice steely.
“Are you certain?” I asked.
She nodded but didn’t speak.
I looked at her. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded again, face resolute. “I’m okay. But I want to kill the guys who’re making her do this.”
“Don’t do that,” I said, trying to joke with her to lighten the mood. “We’ll get ’em. We have to take it one step at a time, but we’ll get them.”
“When do you suppose this picture was taken?” Doc asked.
We thought about this for a moment, and then Toni said, “I’d bet this was taken somewhere between ten days and two weeks ago. Think about it. It had to be long enough after these guys picked her up for her to feel comfortable enough wearing clothes like that to pose for someone taking pictures. She doesn’t look like she’s under any duress here.”
“Although that might be hard to tell,” I said.
“True. But for the moment, all we have to go on is what we see.”
I nodded.
“So the picture would have been taken-what-a couple of weeks after she got picked up? When was the text saying that she liked Mikey?”
“May 17,” Kenny said.
“May 17. And what-ten days later she’s writing to say that it was too good to be true?”
“May 28.”
“So my guess is that sometime in that window-starting around May 17 and definitely ending by May 28-that’s when this picture was taken.”
“But I don’t understand,” Doc said. “That last text message said it was ‘too good to be true.’ If that was how she felt, I would have thought that she’d somehow try to leave or at least not go along with these guys. But that doesn’t make sense when you see they’re still running the ad.”
“I guess she just ended up doing what they told her to do,” Toni said. “Carla said the pimps have ways of dealing with girls who resist.”
The room grew silent as we stared at the ad and considered its implications. “Any thoughts? Any ideas? Any directions?” I had a pretty good idea, but I wanted to see if someone else would come up with it.
“It’s time for a little sting,” Toni said. I should have known Toni would reach the same conclusion. We tend to think a lot alike.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “We need to run it through Nancy, but I think we just call the ad and pretend like we’re a tourist in from Podunk and we’re looking for a little companionship while we’re here. We make a date. When Isabel shows up-we do a little intervention. Nancy grabs her-problem solved.”
“Well,” Toni said, “first step, anyway. There are still the long-term problems that need to be resolved.”
I looked up at the ad photo-at Isabel looking off into the distance over my head, smiling suggestively, trying hard to look like her idea of a sex symbol.
I turned to Toni. “One step at a time, right?”
She nodded.
After the meeting, I went to my office and put a phone call in to Nancy Stewart. They patched me through to her cell phone-she and Tyrone were away from her office. I explained to her what we’d found and that we had a plan we wanted to run by her. To my surprise, she offered to stop by our office. She and Tyrone were on their way to a meeting in Ballard at the moment, but Nancy thought that they’d be done by three o’clock and could probably make it to our office by 3:15 or 3:30 p.m. I was pleasantly surprised. The police coming to our office instead of the other way around is like the mountain jumping up and coming to Mohammed-it’s happened maybe three times in the past four years.
And they were right on time-they walked into the office at 3:15 sharp. Toni and I greeted them and walked them back to the conference room.
“You have a beautiful view from here,” Nancy said, looking out the window to the southeast. Our office is on the south end of the second floor of an old building, situated right on Lake Union. In fact, the building is built on pilings, and it actually sticks out over the water. A large balcony wraps around the southeast corner of the building. The conference room faces south; my office is on the end facing east. The balcony services both spaces. Today, as most days, a number of small boats moved quietly across the water. Some of the boats were sailboats, some were powerboats, some were even rowboats.
“Thanks,” I said, stepping out with her onto the balcony. “We leased the space four years ago. First thing we did was basically gut it and redo it. But the view was already here, of course. In fact, that’s why we picked this place.”
A Kenmore Air seaplane taxied away from the dock just a hundred yards or so south of our office. The little plane maneuvered into the middle of the channel, where the pilot pointed the plane into the wind and gunned it. The engine roared, drowning out any thoughts of further conversation for a few seconds.
After it had taken off, Nancy said, “Boy, I tell you, I’d be out here every chance I could get.”
“Are you a boater?” I asked.
“My husband and I live for it,” she said.
“I think I could be a boater,” I said, “It looks really peaceful. But it’s not something I have much experience with. I do like watching, though. Matter of fact, in the summer-probably starting next month-I like to bring my laptop outside my office right around the corner there.” I pointed to where the balcony wrapped around the side of the building. “Then I just do my work from outside.”
She shook her head. “You’re lucky.”
Kenny poked his head outside and waved.
“No doubt,” I agreed. “It looks like we’re set up for you now. If I can tear you away from the view, let’s head on inside.”
“Back to the salt mines, right?” she said, laughing.
“You got it. This shouldn’t take too long.”
Inside, everyone took a seat. I made the introductions, and then I got started.
“We had a busy day yesterday,” I said. “After meeting with you guys in the morning and then with Annie Hooper, and then with Reverend Jenkins in the afternoon, we decided it’d be best to split our efforts this morning. So Toni, Doc, and I took the reference picture we have of Isabel, and we hit the streets. Or, more accurately, we hit the shopping centers up in the north part of the U-District. We were looking for anyone who might have recognized
