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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 about Dawn Gustafson, but didn’t mention that she was dead.
    Sinclair and Braddock spent the next two hours driving the whore strolls from the San Pablo area in West Oakland to MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland. The rain fell steadily, punctuated by several five-minute-long pounding torrents that emptied the streets. When it finally transitioned to lighter rain, they saw a few hookers and showed them Dawn’s driver’s license photo. None admitted to knowing her. Sinclair couldn’t tell if they were lying or not. Not many johns cruised for prostitutes on normal Sunday afternoons, and with the cold and rain, only the desperate girls or those with demanding pimps were out looking for business.
    They returned to the office, and Sinclair drafted a press release—a requirement on every homicide call-out.
    NEWS FROM THE OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT
    On December 4, at 0548 hours (5:48 AM ), Oakland police officers and emergency medical personnel were dispatched to a report of an unresponsive person in Burckhalter Park on Edwards Avenue near the 580 Freeway. Upon arrival, they discovered an adult female with a single gunshot wound. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. The victim, whose name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, has been identified as a twenty-seven-year-old woman whose last known address was in Hayward. Anyone with any information is urged to call Sergeants Sinclair or Braddock of the Oakland Homicide Unit at (510) 238-3821.
    Sinclair e-mailed the release to the twenty people on the distribution list and put a hardcopy on the lieutenant’s desk and another on the desk of Connie, the unit admin. He returned to his computer and started typing his investigative log while Braddockbegan combing the Internet and other public systems the department subscribed to in an attempt to learn more about Dawn.
    A half hour later, the door to the office clicked, and John Johnson walked in. He’d worked the crime beat for the Oakland Tribune for forty years and was the only reporter who had free access to the PAB. Johnson poured a half cup of coffee into a Styrofoam cup and pulled a desk chair alongside Sinclair. He studied his BlackBerry for a few seconds and then said, “You kept the press release pretty vague.”
    “We don’t know much yet.”
    Johnson showed Sinclair a photo from his phone of Dawn hanging from the tree. “The editor wants to put this on the front page of tomorrow’s paper.”
    “She’s no one famous, John. All that picture’s going to do is invite a lot more attention to this case than it probably deserves.”
    “Won’t that help? Maybe get people to come forward?”
    “It’ll cause the mayor and the chief to get involved in one of my cases again.”
    “Not if I mention that she was a prostitute. Then the pressure will be off because everyone assumes her chosen occupation led to her demise.”
    “Who said she was a prostitute?”
    Johnson smiled.
    “I sure wish other cops would stop blabbing about my cases,” Sinclair