by Paul Bishop
Leaving her gun jammed into Olson’s neck, Fey released her grip on his groin. Getting her feet under her, she moved to a crouch, grabbed Olson by the front of his tee-shirt and dragged him the rest of the way up with her. He was scrawny enough not to give her much trouble.
Shock, more than anything else, was keeping Olson from thinking straight. He moved when Fey dragged him around the back of the car and pushed him across the trunk from the passenger side. On the way there, they passed Baca who was just beginning to moan from his crumpled position in the roadway.
Another group of kids and two other cars had passed by the action. There had been no comments made as everyone looked out for their own skin by staying clear. The kids, however, must have alerted the bouncers at the warehouse because Fey could see Alice and Trixie jogging toward their position.
“Who the hell are you?” Olson asked, as Fey quickly searched him for weapons.
“Your worst nightmare,” Fey said. “A woman with more cajones than you.” She threw a switchblade into the gutter after first snapping it in half.
“Do you know who you’re screwing with?”
“Well, let’s see. We’ve got the Pillsbury Doughboy twins in the back seat. We’ve got Jose Jimenez impersonating a big leaguer on the ground behind the car. And you’re Rotarian of the Year. Am I close?”
Alice and Trixie pulled up next to Fey.
“Forget I ever mentioned the word grandma,” Alice said, watching Fey finish dealing with Olson.
“There’s a few tricks still left in this old broad,” Fey told her.
“You’ve been real stupid,” Olsen said. “Whoever you are, Ottoman will get even with you.”
“No, he won’t,” Fey said. “Ottoman is smart. He’s a mean bastard, but he isn’t psychotic. He’s a businessman. When he finds out who I am, he’ll know that if he retaliates I’ll make life so hot for him it’ll singe the hair on his balls. He’ll weigh the odds and realize that there are easier ways of making money.” She leaned forward and whispered into Olson’s ear. “And if I ever see you again, I’ll pull your cock off and shove it so far up your ass you’ll be peeing out your ear.”
“There’s a nice cache of cocaine sitting in plain sight on the front seat,” Ash said. It had actually been in the glove box, but there was nobody around who wanted to quibble over technicalities. “The ignition is also hot-wired, so it’s a lock that we have ourselves a stolen ride here.”
“How terrible,” Fey said. “All this crime in the streets. Sounds as if the local police should be called.”
The other Mutt and Jeff duo of bouncers from the rave jogged up behind Alice and Trixie.
“You kids think you can handle this from here?” Fey asked.
“Yeah,” Trixie said. “We’ll move everything a couple of streets over so the rave can run, but you can rely on the local cops getting this bunch as a gimme tonight.”
Alice picked up the Louisville slugger from where Baca had dropped it. With the other hand, she easily picked up the groggy Hispanic and threw him over the trunk on top of Olson.
“Watch out for these two Baby Huey look-a-likes,” Ash said backing away from the car window. “Given the chance, they still have some fight left in them.”
“No problem,” Alice said, flexing her muscles and slamming the bat down on the car roof to punctuate her statement.
“Give my compliments to Tommy,” Fey said, before stepping back to join Ash and move away. “Tell him we’re square on favors tonight.”
Chapter 47
“I have good news and bad news,” Ash told Fey the following morning as they set off for San Diego.
“Everything in life is a trade-off,” Fey replied. “What’s the good news?”
“We may have a break in the case from an outside source.”
“I don’t see a down side to that news.”
“The source is Zelman Tucker.”
“As in Tucker the Sucker? American Inquirer’s top selling sleaze artist? That Zelman Tucker?”
“Don’t rub it in.”
“How did he get involved?”
“I made him a deal.”
Ash was driving Fey’s detective sedan. Fey turned and rested her back against the passenger door to look at him. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You made a deal with a man you hate and despise? How does that work?”
“I did it to get him off my back. I never dreamed he’d come through?”
“You said he wasn’t stupid – that he knew what sells. A man like that has to have his sources.”
Ash scowled. “And apparently they’re better than ours.”
“What kind of deal did you make with the devil?”
Ash kept his eyes on the lanes of the 405 freeway as he steered the car through the thickening morning traffic. “I told Tucker that if he came up with a clue to crack this case, I’d collaborate on a book with him.”
Fey had to laugh. “Talk about selling your soul.”
“We’ll see,” Ash said. He took a cup of too hot McDonald’s coffee from between his thighs and sipped at it tentatively.
After leaving the rave and dealing with Ottoman’s thugs the night before, the pair had been too wired to call it a night. Surprising himself, Ash had suggested a small after-hours jazz club. Fey had agreed, not knowing exactly where the night was leading, but willing to go along for the ride.
The Blue Cat was buried in a darkened side street near San Vincente and Bundy. A small blue light and a simple cutout of a blue cat were the only indication of the club’s location. Word of mouth among true jazz fans was what kept the club alive, not reliance on trends or high profile advertising.
From their reception, it was clear to Fey that Ash was an appreciated club regular. It wasn’t long after their arrival before he was coaxed up on stage to jam with the band.
After two numbers, Ash was given the lead. Moving from reluctance to passionate intensity, Ash caressed the piano through half a set. The notes were pure and clear, ringing with the hidden pain that is true blues. Finally, finishing on a sweet riff, Ash shook hands with the other musicians and moved off stage to a solid round of applause. He waved to the crowd, who were mostly ignoring the No Smoking laws, and moved back to where Fey was making her way through a second designer coffee.
“Maudlin crap,” Ash cynically called his choice of music. Fey, however, picked up the change in the man. The music had cost him physically. He was sweating, almost shaking, and his mood had turned bleak.
A short while later they left the club and Fey returned Ash to his somehow lonely residence. Her heart ached for what she sensed in him, but she refused to pressure him about it.
Outside the car, he had turned to her window, stopping her from driving away. “There are things you don’t know about,” he said. The reference would have been cryptic if both of them hadn’t been able to clearly read what was in the other’s mind.
“I won’t let you hide it from me forever,” Fey said. She reached a hand through her window and caressed his face as he leaned forward against the car door.
Ash pivoted his head and kissed her hand gently. He then turned and walked away to the front door of the converted church without looking back.
Fey had waited until Ash was inside before taking a deep breath and driving away. Somehow, some way, she was determined to break through to Ash. It had become very important to her.
Now, on the road with the morning sun glaring in their eyes, Ash’s mood appeared to have pulled itself out of the dumps. Despite his chagrin at having to deal with Zelman Tucker, he seemed more at ease.
“When did you hear from Tucker?”
“Last night. He’d been calling every thirty minutes until I answered.”
“At least we kept him up late,” Fey said, as if offering some kind of solace. “What kind of break are we talking about? It must be something pretty hot if Tucker was that bent on getting through to you.”
“I’m not sure what he’s got,” Ash said. He change
d lanes to let an old Pontiac, held together by rust and prayer, fly past at thirty miles over the speed limit. “He wants us to meet him for lunch in San Diego after we finish at the orphanage.”
“I can’t wait,” Fey said. “Anybody who can get your goat like this guy, has got to be worth his weight in gold.”
The orphanage that JoJo had called home as a child, and had returned to as a man, was in an older area of San Diego on Adams Boulevard. Diagonally across the road was a large children’s book store named after a Mark Twain story. On either side were businesses either giving up their dying breath, or being born from the hope that renovation was bringing to the area.
“Hardly looks like a good place to raise kids,” Ash said. The orphanage building was a tattered brownstone that appeared to have seen better days.
“Hammersmith and Lawless said the exterior was misleading. Apparently, JoJo funded the refurbishing of the interior.”
There was a chain link fence around the back of the property. Inside the perimeter, behind the main building, there was a small patch of grass along with several basketball courts that looked in decent shape.
“That figures,” Fey said, referring to the good condition of the basketball hoops, nets, and courts.
“Well, why not?” Ash asked. “Basketball was what JoJo was all about. Living here, he must have been a larger than life hero to the kids.”
“Let’s not lose track of the fact that the man is accused of being a serial killer. I know this make me a cynic, but what is a grown man doing living and hanging out with a bunch of kids?”
“Just because he was homosexual, doesn’t mean he’s a pedophile.”
“I didn’t say JoJo was a homosexual,” Fey said. “I’m well aware that there’s a big difference between being homosexual and being a pedophile who preys on young boys. Just like there’s a huge difference between being heterosexual and pedophiles who prey on young girls. That doesn’t change the fact that all of the street chickens JoJo picked up were barely into puberty. I don’t know if he was preying on any kids from the orphanage, but I’ll bet he was fighting the urge big time.”
Ash had parked the detective sedan against the curb in front of a hydrant. He hung the radio microphone over the rear-view mirror. “You have a point,” he said with a sigh. “But does that mean we stop trying to clear him of the murder charges?”
“No way,” Fey said. “Because if we do, then whoever the real killer is will just keep on killing. We’re already agreed on that point.”
“There will always be more victims,” Ash said. “Even if we clear JoJo and catch the real killer. There’ll always be killers and consequently there’ll always be victims.” Ash didn’t catch the scathing look Fey sent his way.
“That’s depression talking,” she said, unknowingly hitting Ash where he lived. “Yes, there will always be victims, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying to save or help as many as we can.”
Ash took the keys out of the ignition and rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re right,” he said. “And the simple fact is that you and I have to keep believing in what we do otherwise our own lives have been meaningless.”
“Whoa, slow down, big boy,” Fey said. “It sounds as if you better come with me to my next therapy session.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Nobody knew she was in therapy. “Just joking,” she said, trying to recover when Ash turned his head toward her.
“So we both have our secrets,” Ash said, hearing the lie in her voice.
“I said I was just joking.”
“Get real.” Ash knew the stigma law enforcement attached to therapy.
“How about we call a truce and go inside and do this interview?” Fey opened her door and slid out of the car.
“Truce,” Ash said, and followed Fey up the walkway toward the orphanage.
Inside the main entrance to the Sacred Heart orphanage was a small carpeted lobby with a receptionist’s desk at one end. There were several padded chairs and a low table with scattered magazines. Behind the desk was an open door that appeared to lead into the rest of the building. A slender woman in a complete nun’s habit came through the door and slid into position at the desk.
“Can I help you?” she asked. She had a long nose on which a pair of wire rim glasses perched tentatively.
“We’re here to see Sister Ruth, the Mother Superior,” Fey said. “She’s expecting us.”
“Your names?” the nun asked, standing up.
“Detective Croaker and Special Agent Ash.”
The nun gave them a look that could have fried the devil, but only said, “Wait here.” She turned and went out through the doorway.
“I don’t think we rate real high on their Christmas card list,” Ash said.
“What do you expect?” Fey asked. “JoJo must be a real hero to these people. They’re caught between not wanting to believe JoJo is guilty, and their own guilt at perhaps not recognizing a killer within their midst.” Fey waved a hand around the small reception room. “I’ll bet this set up wasn’t necessary before the news media descended on this place after JoJo was arrested.”
The slender nun returned trailing behind an older woman in a black business suit with a startlingly white blouse. A modified coronet sat on coarse black hair piled into a high bun. Over the years, the sun had not been kind to the skin of the matronly woman. It had wrinkled her face with hundreds of tiny lines like the cracked bottom of a mud dried river bed.
“I’m Sister Ruth,” she said in a voice used to being obeyed. Her eyes through heavy lenses were cold steel. She held out her hand to shake first with Fey and then with Ash. “Please come through to my office.” She spun on her heels, not waiting to see if she would be obeyed, and stalked away.
Fey and Ash followed Sister Ruth through the open doorway and into an office a short way down the corridor. The office was carpeted in the same fashion as the lobby, and contained a desk with two padded chairs in front of it. A graphic rendition of Christ on the cross wearing a wicked crown of thorns and painfully impaled hung on one wall.
Sister Ruth gestured for Fey and Ash to sit.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Please,” both detectives replied at the same time.
Sister Ruth turned to a countertop that was part of the built-in shelving behind her desk, and poured into three mugs that had been arranged around a stoppered coffee flask.
Sister Ruth handed out the mugs and then sat down behind her desk. “Father Peter, who is our head administrator, is sorry that he couldn’t see you today, but he has business with the Los Angeles Archdiocese.”
“JoJo Cullen business?” Ash asked.
“When isn’t it these days?” Sister Ruth replied. “However, I had thought that by this time we would have been done with law enforcement types. Mr. Cullen’s room has been searched so many times that I’m surprised the carpet hasn’t been worn out.” It was clear from the Mother Superior’s tone that she would be hospitable to a point, but no further. “And I’m afraid I don’t understand where both of you fit in with the grand scheme.
Fey took a chance. “Sister Ruth, do you believe JoJo is guilty?”
Sister Ruth suddenly reached out to touch the simple cross that hung against the hidden shape of her bosom. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“It’s a simple question, sister. Do you believe JoJo is guilty of having sex with three young, male prostitutes, and then burying them alive?”
“Are you trying to be brutal on purpose?”
“No, sister. I’m just trying to cut to the chase.”
Sister Ruth continued to fondle her cross. She was somewhere between fifty and seventy – an impression that in some women seems to last forever.
“I have been with the Sacred Heart Orphanage since its inception, which happened to coincide with my own induction into the Sacred Heart Order. Many years have passed since then, along with many children.” She paused, self-consciously dropping her hand from her
cross. “I am not naive. Though I am a nun, I have not sheltered myself from the outside world. When you have had a hand in as many lives as I have, that would be an impossibility. Therefore, I can conceive that a child could pass through this home, grow up – even become spectacularly successful – and later be found guilty of the most heinous of crimes. But, in my heart of hearts, despite all of the evidence we keep hearing about, I cannot accept that JoJo Cullen is guilty.” Her face had taken on a stone-like expression of defiance.
“Good,” Fey said, smiling. “Because we don’t believe it either.”
Sister Ruth looked stunned. “What? I don’t understand.”
“We’re well aware of what you, the other members of your order, and the kids who live here must have gone through in the last few weeks. Every official entourage or media maven has come here with one mission in mind – to pound more nails into JoJo Cullen’s coffin.”
Sister Ruth nodded her head, still cautious. “It has not been easy. JoJo has been very good to the orphanage. His arrest has been a tremendous blow to many of the children here to whom he was more than just a big brother. As much as I hate to admit it, JoJo is much more real to them than God himself. But what is JoJo to you?” she asked, almost angrily – as if she didn’t want anyone else to share her martyred belief in JoJo. “Why would you believe he is not guilty?”
Fey sipped from her coffee cup before replying. “There are a lot of pieces that don’t fit this particular puzzle,” she said. “I’m not sure that JoJo is the epitome of clean living that his work here at the orphanage may suggest, but we don’t think he killed those boys.”
“And if he didn’t,” Ash entered the conversation for the first time, “then somebody else did. Somebody else who is still out there, maybe getting ready to kill again.”
“So what do you want from me?” Sister Ruth asked.
“We believe the real killer has some personal connection to JoJo. We want you to tell us about JoJo, give us a feel for his life here – both as a child and as a man. Not the impressive stone wall you’ve maintained with the media, but the unvarnished truth.”