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“Pretty good, Holly. What’s up? I was just on my way home to dinner.”
“Barney, we just had a call from a Mrs. Garcia, whose daughter works out there as a domestic. The girl didn’t come home after work, and she’s worried. You folks heard anything about her?”
“Hang on, I’ll check,” Barney said. He didn’t cover the phone. “One of you guys hand me the checkout roster for the service gate,” he said. There was a shuffling of paper. “Here we go,” he said. “Is she Rita Garcia?”
“That’s the one.”
“She checked out at the service gate with the other cleaning women just after three o’clock this afternoon.”
“Do you check them out one by one?”
“Yeah, we do a body search to be sure they haven’t lifted anything from one of the houses, and then they’re checked off the list. She left, all right—no doubt about it.”
“Okay, Barney. Would you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Would you call me if she doesn’t show up for work tomorrow morning?”
“Be glad to. I’ll alert the man on the gate to look for her.”
“Thanks. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Holly hung up. “He says she checked out just after three this afternoon.”
“Sure, she did,” Harry said. “I’ve got another reason for a search warrant now. Jackson, can I use your office phone? I want to call a judge of my acquaintance.”
“Sure, help yourself.”
Harry disappeared into Jackson’s office and closed the door behind him.
“Ham,” Holly said, “what the fuck do you mean going into that place?”
Ham shrugged and grinned.
“Those guys could have you right now.”
“No, they couldn’t,” Ham replied. “They don’t have anybody could take me.”
Holly rolled her eyes and sighed.
Harry came back. “The judge is thinking about it,” he said. “He’ll call me back later.”
“If we’re going in there, we’re going to need a lot more help,” Holly pointed out.
“Yeah, but I can’t request the manpower until I’ve got a search warrant.”
“Jesus, Harry, if Rita is missing and presumed in there, what more does the judge need?”
“I think he just wants to see if she turns up on her own. He knows what a big effort this would be, and he wants to be sure his warrant stands up on appeal.”
“So what do we do now?” Holly asked.
“We wait,” Harry replied.
CHAPTER
