"Broussard, John A - Gone Missing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Broussard John A)

Corky nodded absentmindedly, engrossed in Leilani's file. "Hell, Hank, she hasn't exactly been sitting still during her fifteen years, either. Two runaways when she was thirteen. Fights at school. Truancy."

Hank nodded agreement. "She was in trouble and headed for a lot more."

"Here's something from her school health record. Blood group AB plus. That's not all that common. Any bets about the type from the pickup?"

Hank checked his watch. "I've got the lab on it. They should be back with blood type any minute now. DNA will take a lot longer, of course, so...."

Corky held up her hand as she reached for the other two folders. "I know. Back to her room. There should be hair samples around that can give us a match. We already have her fingerprints--but fingerprints won't help much. The pickup's bound to have hers and Stan's all over it. And maybe others," Corky added, mostly to herself.

"I'm moving this from missing to possible homicide," Hank said. "We'll get all the ID together. Both Leilani and Stan have tatoos. His should be a great identifier. . .a snake around his neck. Have someone check the airport personnel to see if either of them were seen boarding. Make sure they check both shifts. And ask around about Amaral and Andrade."

As Corky was leaving, he added, "Most of the lab info should be here by four."

"Fine. I'll be back from the Johnsons' by then."

"No need for them to know about the bloodstain. Not yet, at least."

Corky kept herself from rolling her eyes at the obvious advice.

The four o'clock meeting produced few surprises. The blood was AB positive, The pickup, inside and out, was covered with fingerprints, the clearly-recent ones belonging to Leilani and Stan.

Corky was especially intrigued by the diagram of the truck's interior with the x's marking Stan's prints, checkmarks indicating Leilani's, and question marks in the few places where older, unidentified prints had been raised.

"Look, Hank. There aren't any prints on the steering wheel."

Hank reached for the phone. When he hung up, he grinned. "Scotty was pee-oed. He says if the diagram doesn't show any prints on the wheel, then there aren't any there."

"So it was wiped. But why? Anyone who handled the wheel would have touched other parts of the cab. What would be the point to just cleaning off the wheel?"

Corky left the folders at work that evening, but the fingerprints still bothered her--in fact, they nagged at her for the better part of two weeks. Even assuming Amaral and Andrade were at the bottom of this, there was nothing connecting them to the disappearances. And really, no one could be expected to come up with an alibi covering at least a twenty-four hour period.

Airport personnel were no help either. A recheck with all of them found no one who recalled seeing the missing couple or the two suspects. No one had seen the pickup entering the airport. With no parking slip in the pickup, there was no way of knowing the exact time it had entered the lot.

A return visit to the Nobrigas' produced little more than shrugs from the parents. Fortunately, Stan's younger brother happened to be there and produced some information which Corky circled in her notes for further investigation, or at least for further thought.

The brother said Stan's departure might have been long planned. "He told me he was gonna take off to California one these days. He had a good job waiting for him--if he wanted it."

Knowing Stan was unemployed, and that the fare to the Mainland was expensive, Corky asked, "Where was he getting the money for the trip?"

The brother grinned. "He had fifteen hundred dollars, last I talk to him." He made a gesture around his waist. "Safe in a money-belt."

There was no point in asking where an unemployed twenty-two year old would come up with so much money. The real answer would have been ice--crystal metamphetamine--the latest drug being handled by local small-time dealers, and Stan's brother certainly wasn't about to tell that to a police officer.

"Was he going to take Leilani along?"

The grin widened. "The Johnson wahine? No way. A goodbye wave, maybe."

Corky also spoke with Leilani's school counselor, Melissa Fujii, who produced further food for thought, but certainly no solution.