Crush - Alan Jacobson [154]
She turned to Dixon. “The only messages in his log are from me. No one else called him?”
“Did he get other calls while you were with him—at any time during your trip?”
Vail thought. “No.” She thumbed the mouse button. “But at some point he would’ve received a call, and there’s nothing. Nothing here before today.”
“Maybe he deletes his logs regularly. I have a friend who does that. What about outgoing calls?”
Vail played her thumb across the buttons again. “Nothing there either. That’s not right.” She held up the phone. “There’s nothing.”
“Either he regularly deletes his logs, or—”
“Or someone deleted them for him.” Vail stood there staring at the phone, as if doing so would magically restore the log entries. “I can send the phone to the Bureau lab, see if they can grab data off the chip. There’s gotta be a computer chip inside, right?”
Dixon shrugged. “I would think so. But would the Bureau lab do that? It’s not a federal case. I mean, it’s not a case at all, not yet.”
“His friend,” Vail said. “Robby’s friend. Maybe he knows where he is.” Vail scrolled to the phone book. “What the hell was the guy’s name?” She watched the list roll by. “Sebastian, I think.”
“Is he there?”
“No.” Without another word, Vail carefully closed the phone and slipped it into her pocket.
“We can’t explain the log,” Dixon said. “So let’s approach this another way. If Robby left the phone here, he wasn’t planning on being gone long. Does he run?”
“Yeah.” She looked around, found a pair of new dress shoes. No sneakers. “Okay, maybe he drove somewhere and went for a run and left his cell. Or he just forgot it.”
“Sure. He’s on vacation, you’re swamped with a case. He’s on his own. Makes sense.”
“So why didn’t he come back?”
Dixon surveyed the room. “Too bad the maid cleaned the room.”
Vail nodded. She knew what Dixon was getting at: If there had been a struggle, a cop would immediately recognize the telltale signs, but to a cleaner it might look like a messy room . . . or the aftermath of a rough morning of sex. Regardless, what it looked like then—along with whatever clues there might have been—was now lost as far as the information it might have yielded.
“I’ll try to locate the owners, see if we can question the maid. For what it’s worth. Who knows, if it was obvious, things knocked over, she may remember.”
“Fine, do it.” Vail got down on all fours and examined the carpet, looking for trace blood. After making a circuit of the room and finding nothing suspicious, she moved into the bathroom to examine the sink and shower drains.
Dixon hung up and joined Vail in the bathroom. “She’s going to have the maid call me.” She crouched beside Vail. “I’m gonna call Matt Aaron, get a CSI in here to find what he can. If there’s latent blood or prints, he’ll find it. Other than maybe vacuuming, making the bed and running a sponge over the countertops, I don’t think the cleaners do a whole lot till you check out.” She tapped Vail on her knee. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here before we contaminate the scene more than we already have.”
Vail followed Dixon out of the room—took one last look back—then pulled the door closed.
SIXTY-TWO
Outside, Dixon called Brix and asked him to have someone at the Sheriff’s Department issue a BOLO for Robby’s car. They weren’t sure of the license plate, so Vail gave him the name of the rental company and their arrival date. A deputy would chase down the registration. Brix, being briefed on what was going down, also issued a countywide alert to law enforcement officers, across all local jurisdictions, that Detective Robby Hernandez was to be considered missing. It was far short of the time frame whereby they would normally issue such an order, but Brix said he had no problem bending the rules for another cop, especially one he’d come to like.
Before leaving the bed-and-breakfast, Vail and Dixon knocked on the doors of the other rooms, mindful that some of the guests might still be out on the town, at a late supper. Napa largely shut down in the evening, apart from the restaurant scene,