wondering is, a girl runs away from home, there’s got to be good reason. It can’t just be galloping hormones and drugged-out friends.”
“Sometimes there’s an abusive parent involved in the equation, if that’s what you’re getting at. Emotional or physical or sexual abuse, or a combination of the three. Part of what me and Karen do is, we spend considerable time in the home, trying to figure out if that’s the best place for the kid to go back to. And sometimes the home’s not the best environment. But you’re wrong about one thing: It often is just hormones and peers, and accelerating events, that make a kid run away. With Jennifer, we’re convinced that’s the case.”
“Where do you suggest I start?”
“Start with stakeouts, like we do. The Wheaton mall, it’s near D.C. and it’s been good for us before. The overground rave clubs, trance, jungle, whatever they’re calling it this week. The ones play a mix of live and prerecorded stuff. What’s that place, in Southeast, on Half Street?”
“Nation.”
“That one. Platinum is good, too, over on Ninth and F.”
“I don’t like stakeouts. I’d rather get out there and start talking to people.”
“No one likes stakeouts. But suit yourself, whatever works for you.”
“Anything else?”
“Just in general terms. White-girl runaways tend to start out in far Northwest, where they’re around a familiar environment.”
“Other white kids.”
“Right. Places like Georgetown. They get hooked into drugs in a bigger way, they get taken in by a pimp —”
“They move east.”
Tracy nodded. “It’s gradual, and inevitable. Last stop is those New York Avenue flophouses in Northeast. You don’t even want to know what goes on in those places.”
“I already know. I was a patrol cop in the District, remember?”
Tracy turned her coffee cup slowly on the table. “Not just any cop.”
“That’s right. I was famous.”
“It’s not news to me. We ran your name through a search engine, and there were plenty of hits.”
“Some people can’t get past it, I guess.”
“Maybe so. But as far as you and me are concerned, this is day one.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, first impression, you seem like an okay guy to me.”
“You seem like an okay guy to me, too.”
“I bought a tomato at Fresh Fields once.”
“You probably spent too much for that shirt you’re wearing, too.”
“It’s a blouse. I paid about forty bucks for it, I think.”
Quinn touched his own T-shirt. “This Hanes I got on? Three for twelve dollars at Target, out on Twenty- nine.”
“I better get out there before they run out.”
Quinn tapped the stack of flyers on the table. “I’ll phone you, keep you caught up.”
“You ready for this?”
“Been a while,” said Quinn. “But yeah, I’m stoked.”
She watched him step out of the coffee shop, studying the way he filled out the seat of his Levi’s and that cocky thing he did with his walk. Talking about her father, giving up something of herself to this guy who was, after all, a stranger, it was not what she would normally do. Add to that, Christ, she should have known better, he was a cop. But there was a connection between them already, sexual and probably emotional; it happened right away like that with her if it happened at all. She had known it two minutes after they had sat down together, and, she had seen it in his damaged green eyes; he had known it, too.
STRANGE looked over the file on Calhoun Tucker that Janine had dropped on his desk.
“Nice work.”
“Thanks,” said Janine. She was sitting in the client chair in Strange’s office. “I ran his license plate through Westlaw; everything came up easy after that. People Finder gave me the previous addresses.”
Strange studied the data. Tucker’s license plate number had given them his Social Security number, his date of birth, his assets, any criminal record, and any lawsuits. Janine had printed out his credit history, with past and present employment, as well. Credit drove the database of information; it was the foundation of computerized modern detective services. It was useless for getting histories on indigents and criminals who had never had a credit card or made time-payment purchases. But for someone like Tucker, who was part of the system, it worked just fine.
Janine had fed Tucker’s SS number into People Finder, a subprogram of Westlaw. From this she had gotten a list of his current neighbors and the neighbors of his previous addresses.
“He looks pretty straight, first glance.”
“No criminal record,” said Janine. “Apart from a default on a car loan, he’s barely stumbled.”
