else, and she was transported there and posed,” he said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Braddock said. “The way she was arranged seemed symbolic.”
“Is the RO gone?” Sinclair asked.
“Yeah, I reviewed his report and approved it. With only one witness, there wasn’t much to it. I ran out our victim. Her history begins with her juvenile arrest for the B case you put on her ten years ago. She was counseled and released to her parents by juvenile hall two days after the arrest. It appears they flew to Oakland and signed for her. I have their address in Minnesota, but I don’t know if it’s any good after all these years.”
“I’ll let the coroner’s office contact them. I doubt the parents will be able to shed any light on her recent activities.”
“You just hate talking to family.”
“You blame me? All they do is babble and blow snot and tears. And for what? If Dawn was close enough to her parents for them to know what she was up to, she probably wouldn’t have been involved in whatever it was that killed her.” Sinclair was angry. Angry not only because she was dead, but angry with her for not staying out of Oakland when she had the chance.
Braddock continued, “She had one other arrest for soliciting six years ago. The report says it was an operation run by the PSA due to citizen complaints of overt prostitution activity on Market and West Mac. Case was dismissed in the interest of justice.”
In one of many departmental reorganizations over the last ten years, the vice unit was disbanded, and the responsibility for street prostitution enforcement fell on the police service areas, which were responsible for all general police services in their sector of the city. At times, the special victims section, the investigative unit that handled sexual assaults and child abuse, conducted prostitution enforcement. But with all their other responsibilities, these units didn’t have the time or resources to do many undercover prostitution operations. As a result, the numbers of street prostitutes and the brazenness with which they flaunted their wares in public had increased dramatically over the last few years.
“Anything in LRMS?” Sinclair asked, referring to the law records management system.
“Only two field contacts for looking like a hooker in a high-hooker area. The last one was a stop by the beat officer two years ago at Brockhurst and San Pablo. She gave the officer the Tennyson Road address. She never did a change of address with DMV from that one.”
“Vehicles?”
“A two-year-old Chevy Camaro is registered in her name. No leaseholder or bank is listed, so she bought it outright.”
“You don’t often see a girl working the stroll with a brand new car.”
“She’s only had one traffic ticket. That was five years ago. She was driving a BMW three series, which was registered to her back then. I don’t know of many street prostitutes who own cars like that.”
“Maybe she was primarily doing outcalls and only hit the streets when her phone didn’t ring,” Sinclair said. “That would explain how she stayed below the radar most of the time.”
“I wonder if she worked the circuit. That could explain her limited contact with the police in the Bay Area.”
“Is that still going on?”
“When I worked the special victims unit, we investigated a ring that rotated girls between Salt Lake City, Tucson, Reno, Sacramento, and Oakland. Some worked the street, some had in-calls arranged for them in apartments provided by the managers of the operation. The girls liked it. They got to spend summers in Salt Lake City, winters in Tucson, and a week here and there in Reno for conventions.”
“They were living the dream,” Sinclair said.
“The rental office of the Tennyson Road apartments called when you were at the coroner. She moved there four years ago. No mention of her reason for leaving and no forwarding address. They did a credit check on her and she looked good. Her rental application said she did public relations for an entertainment company, made five grand a month, and provided the name of her supervisor, a Helena Decker, and a phone number. They made a note on her application that they spoke to Ms. Decker, who gave Dawn a positive reference. I checked the number and it comes back to a Verizon cell phone.”
Sinclair called the number and got a voicemail message: “Hello, this is Helena. Leave a message and I’ll return your call.” Sinclair left his name and number and said he was inquiring