Jones’s sister Ronnie Hooks.
“Ms. Hooks,” he said, “Sergeant Boxer’s the primary investigator on this case. She’s the best.”
I shook the woman’s hand, then introduced Conklin, and the three of us walked back to Interview 2.
Ronnie Hooks looked to be in her early forties. She was perfectly manicured and coiffed and smartly dressed in a crisp red suit, with some bling around her neck and a wedding ring.
Conklin pulled out a chair for her, and when we were all seated, he asked her how she was doing.
“No good,” she said. “No good at all.”
“Talk to us,” I said.
She said, “Susan and I are like twins. I’m ten years older. She’s my little sister. But we talk every day. Except last week—Marty and I just got back from Peru. It was a long trip, two weeks, in a remote area. Normally, I talk to Susie every day. I got back to an area with Wi-Fi, and I find out the worst news imaginable. How could she be missing?”
Her crazy eyes were switching from me to Conklin to the mirrored window to her folded hands on the table. I had a thought that she might be on the verge of some kind of breakdown.
I also had a good idea why she’d come in on her own and where this was going. She was going to ask why we hadn’t found Susan. She’d want to know if Susan was dead or if she should post a reward. She might get mad and threaten to go to the media with a heartbreaking story about her sister and SFPD’s incompetence.
Instead, Ms. Hooks threw us a curve ball.
“Susan was a good teacher, but she didn’t make enough money to pay her rent and own a car and have enough left over to get herself a decent haircut.”
I said only, “Uh-huh.”
“She did some freelance work,” said Hooks.
“Like tutoring and such?” Conklin asked her. “She’s a piano teacher, right?”
Hooks looked down at the table and spoke to her folded hands. “She’s also an exotic dancer.”
My jaw actually dropped. Susan Jones was a stripper? But Hooks wasn’t looking at me. She was inside her story and she kept going.
“Susan worked once in a while out of a club,” she said. “Never told me where, and I never asked for details because I didn’t approve. I was afraid for her, but she was strong-willed and it’s not for me to judge her. And she said this club was a decent place. Pfft.” Ronnie laughed with no joy. “The customers were businessmen, she said.”
Customers wearing jackets and ties wouldn’t have eased my mind if my sister were dancing, but Ronnie Hooks wasn’t done.
“The part that worried me,” she said, “was the owner of the club was some kind of drug dealer posing as a father figure. Or the way Susan put it, ‘He helps out girls who are trying to make new lives in America. Or girls like me, who need the money.’ Some of those girls danced in the shows with Susan. But some of them …”
She flipped a hand. I interpreted that to mean she didn’t want to say that they were prostitutes.
I said, “Ronnie, I want to be sure I understand. You’re saying you think Susan was dancing as a second job?”
I saw yes in her very frightened eyes.
“The big boss advanced her some money, and she was supposed to work it off. That’s what she told me. But now I think … he controlled them.”
“Ronnie, this is important. Did Susan ever describe him, or anyone at the club?”
“I think he’s from the Balkans or something. She just called him ‘the big boss,’ sometimes the nickname Mr. Big. But I heard her use the name Marko once, on the phone.
I said, “Might the boss’s name be Petrović? Did Susan ever say that?”
She shook her head no.
“Susan was afraid of him, and she said she wanted to keep me out of it. But she really couldn’t. She swore she wasn’t having sex with him or anyone, and so I gave Susan money to pay off this criminal before it came to that. I guess it wasn’t enough.”
I told Ms. Hooks that the department had assigned every available resource to finding Susan and that I would call her myself as soon as we had any information.
It wasn’t what Susan Jones’s sister wanted to hear. She grimaced as she grabbed her bag. Conklin opened the door for her. She was halfway down the hall when she turned and came back to the