Thin Luck

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Detective Joseph Turner

"DETECTIVE TURNER? PHONE for you." The shapely officer's sweet voice filled the station. "It's about 'Bonnie,' " she said with excitement, the kind used for salacious news about celebrities.

Detective Turner's face went flush. He didn't want to hear that name again for the rest of his life, but he wasn't about to chew out a woman in a visiting department. "Transfer it over," he said.

His hand was on the receiver when the phone rang, "Detective Turner."

"Good evening, Detective Turner. Your Lieutenant in Connecticut said you arrived in San Francisco last night. I tried your cell..."

"It isn't working inside this building..."

"I see," he said. "This is Sergeant Rivers of the California Bureau of Investigations in Sacramento. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

"What's that, Sergeant Rivers?"

"This woman, on the news, they call 'Bonnie?'" Sergeant Rivers had a squeaky voice, not unlike a stubborn faucet.

"We don't use that name, only the media."

"Oh yeah," he laughed. "Saw you on CNN."

"Her legal name is Robyn Hughes. You said you had bad news?"

"Yes. California Highway Patrol got a call at about 6:00 p.m. The manager for The Flamingo in Yuba City reported a suspicious person, a woman, paying cash with a weird story. He called it in, since she was from Illinois. We get a lot of drugs up in these parts."

"Drugs are everywhere," Turner said, dryly.

"Yeah, well meth is a real problem here. We have a deal with hotels to report suspicious persons, paying cash for their rooms. We've caught a half dozen cooking in their hotel rooms this way. Anyway, the officer called in the ID for the woman. ID came back as one of the aliases for Bon-I mean, Robyn Hughes. The manager, an old guy with hearing problems from his former life on oilrigs-rig pigs I think they're called. Anyway, he got the room number wrong."

"You just missed her, huh?" Turner put his forehead in his hand. Most of his upper body weight leaned against the desk.

"Yeah and the officer said he saw someone leave the room they later found was her real room, but he didn't get a good look at her. We got a report about half hour later of a woman stealing a motorcycle about two blocks away."

"Any word on the location of the motorcycle?" Detective Turner asked, but the hope was all gone in his voice.

"Yeah, more bad news I'm afraid." Sergeant Rivers coughed. "I'm sorry to say we found the motorcycle in the woods outside Boring."

"Boring?"

"Yeah, that's the name of the town. Boring," he said. "Sorry, Detective. It seems we didn't have our act together on this one."

"Thanks Sergeant."

"One more thing, Detective," Sergeant Rivers said. "One of my colleagues is doing an investigation here in Sacramento. Bank robbery. I saw the video, it was a woman, but doesn't look anything like your woman. We found the assailant also in Yuba City at a 'Crab Shack' restaurant. When we arrested her she said she was with another woman."

"Did you ask her about Mrs. Hughes?"

"We showed her a picture," he said. "But here's the part you might really be interested in. The woman says it sorta looked like Mrs. Hughes. Only her hair was really different. She said the woman also looked younger."

"Did she say how the hair was different?"

"Shorter, and darker."

"Thank you, Sergeant. Keep in touch if you hear anything else."

"Will do, Detective. The press here wants to hear all about it."

When Detective Turner hung up the phone he pulled three more push pins from his drawer. The red one went into Sacramento, a blue one into Yuba City. The map didn't have Boring on it, so he had to look it up on the Internet. He pushed the green pin into a spot about half way between Yuba City and San Francisco. She was only an hour away.

The next few hours he'd be spending in his shift at the stakeout. First though, he picked up the phone to talk to his Lieutenant.