friends, no souvenirs, and nothing to anchor a personal history. Ana Markovic had a yearbook and snapshots of her friends, but Yanni had nothing.
Cole returned to the living room, then went into the kitchen. The counter and sink were cluttered with unwashed dishes. Cole found a box of plastic baggies under the sink, then selected a glass tumbler, placed it in the bag, and let himself out. Yanni Pevich had no record, but maybe Yanni Pevich was someone else.
Cole phoned John Chen from his car, and explained the situation.
Chen said, “How am I going to sneak it in with everyone here?”
“You’ll think of something. I’m already on my way.”
“ You’re coming here?! Don’t come here!”
“Meet me outside.”
The trip down to SID took only fifteen minutes, and John Chen had probably been waiting out front for the entire time. When Cole pulled up, Chen was hopping from foot to foot like a kid who had to pee. He relaxed when he saw the glass.
“Hey, that’s a pretty good sample.”
The fingerprints were clearly defined on the glass.
“Yeah. You won’t have to glue it or do anything fancy. Just tape off the prints and see what you get.”
“You want an Interpol check, too?”
“Yeah, Interpol. I’ll be in my car.”
“You’re going to wait?”
“I’m going to wait. How long could it take, John? Just see what you get.”
Chen scurried away. All he would have to do is dust the glass with latent powder, lift the prints with tape, then scan them into the Live Scan system. He would have a hit, or not, in minutes.
When Cole reached his car, he phoned Sarah Manning. He had not heard from the girl with the purple hair, and wished now he’d gotten her phone number. He was disappointed when Sarah’s voice mail picked up.
“Hey, Sarah, it’s Elvis Cole. I never heard from Lisa Topping. Would you please reconsider giving me her number? Thanks.”
Cole left his cell number, and hung up. He checked the time. He had been waiting for only eight minutes, and Chen might get hung up forever.
Cole couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he thought about Grebner. Grebner had really blindsided them with that business about Jakovich, which seemed all the more believable because Rina had so readily admitted she knew him. They both seemed believable, but Cole knew from experience the best liars are always believable, and the very best lies were mostly the truth. Here was Grebner with his party house in the hills, and here was Rina, who claimed to have attended his parties along with other Serbian prostitutes so Grebner and his gang-set buddies could boogie with girls they trusted.
Cole wondered if there was a way he could find out if this was true, and thought he might be able to get the information from one of the other prostitutes.
Cole didn’t have the files, but he had his notebook. He had copied the dates of Rina’s arrests, and now he phoned the district attorney’s general administration office. He worked his way through three clerks and spent almost twenty minutes on the phone before he found someone to look up the case number and identify the deputy district attorney who handled the case.
“That would be Elizabeth Sanchez.”
“Could I have her current posting and number, please?”
Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Sanchez was currently posted to the Airport Courthouse in Playa del Rey, south of the Los Angeles International Airport.
Cole thought he would likely get a voice mail, but a woman picked up the call.
“Lauren Craig.”
“Sorry. I’m calling for Elizabeth Sanchez.”
“Hang on, I think I can-”
Cole heard her call out, then the muffled clunks of the phone being handled, and a different voice came on the line.
“Liz Sanchez.”
Cole identified himself, gave her the date and the case number, and told her he needed the names of the other prostitutes scooped up in the sting.
Sanchez laughed.
“That was almost six years ago. Wow, I was still a Grade Two. You can’t really expect me to remember their names.”
“I thought it might stand out because of the nature of the arrest.”
“A vice sting?”
“A Serbian sex ring. They worked for a Serb gang set.”
“Ah. Okay, that sounds familiar. NoHo Vice took down thirteen or fourteen girls over by CBS Studio Center. A joint task force deal with OCTF.”
Organized Crime Task Force.
“That’s it.”
“Serbians. Okay, sure. They had cribs all through those complexes. They had so many hookers around the pool over there it looked like the Playboy Mansion. Not that I’ve ever seen the mansion.”
“That’s the one. I want