by Ivy Pochoda
“All I saw was red and blue,” Shelly says.
Essie’s not a fan of the sweeps. They’re not much more than a shot across the bow. Let everyone know that the LAPD’s got their eyes out.
“So you changed your beat? You worked this stretch?”
“Fuck yeah,” Shelly says. “Did two tours.”
Essie glances south on Western. She can see straight down to the R&C Fish Shack. That woman and her dead birds. As if the hummingbirds were her real problem. What are the chances that a woman who shows up at the station with three boxes full of dead birds had a daughter killed in nearly identical fashion to three victims found off Western in the last eight months?
What are the reasons someone might stop killing? Jail? Illness? Relocation? Injury? Discovery? Did he age out? Did his hormones change? Did he pivot toward another version of sadism or find release in drugs?
Did he find religion? Did he find a different release? Did someone stop him?
Maybe there wasn’t a pause. Maybe he took his game elsewhere.
Or maybe it was as simple as Dorian suggested. Maybe he just made a mistake: Lecia Williams. And that stopped him dead. But if that was the case—and if all of this is linked—why is he back?
“Detective Perry?”
Shelly’s leaning over the table. There’s a tattoo on her left breast: Jose. And on the right, a cross. Essie’s staring straight at them but not seeing them because they’re blocking the view down to the fish shack, which is where her mind is reaching.
“So I’m asking are you going to keep doing these john sweeps?”
“You know Katherine Sims? Kathy?”
“That’s what this shit is about? Those sweeps are because of what happened to Kathy?”
“Those sweeps are because your business is illegal. So you knew Kathy or not?”
“Bitch was crazy. Lived hard, worked hard. That’s all I know.”
“Did you see her?”
“Hell, I was on R&R. Checked into a hotel in San Pedro. Left my cares behind. Now let me ask you something. Are these sweeps gonna continue?”
“You want me to broadcast it next time?”
Essie can imagine it.
Perry, you tell the ladies we’re sweeping?
Perry, you keeping back, or you giving the game away before we move?
The sound of screeching tires can travel two or three blocks. This is why Essie likes to live as far as she can from any of the major crosstown or north-south thoroughfares. Her house is in a cul-de-sac of sorts at the edge of West Adams past Crenshaw, a dirty dead end.
She hears the tires before she sees them—a sustained shriek of rubber skidding on road. Her heart thumps once. She knocks her coffee over.
Shelly jumps back from the table. “Damn it. That shit’s hot.”
A Honda Civic has just stopped itself from running the red southbound on Western. It’s juddered into the crosswalk. Essie can smell the burn from its tires. She swipes the coffee with a napkin, sloshing it over the table.
“Fuck, Detective, you think someone’s gonna pull over now that I smell like a latte?”
“I think it’s time you punched out,” Essie says, standing up, leaving the coffee to drip on its own.
Shelly flicks some droplets from her thighs. “You need to do your roots, Detective.”
It’s her job to keep women like Shelly alive. To clean the streets. She does the lengthy stakeouts, analyzes the data, maps the crime. Still the women work. The drugs flow. There are big busts, huge sweeps. But the day-to-day is routine.
After the accident, Essie switched to Vice. She half pretended it was her idea. In fact, it was Deb’s. Always Deb working behind the scenes, smoothing things out for Essie, greasing the wheels. And look at Deb now, riding high in charge of Robbery/Homicide for all of L.A., while Essie’s chasing down hookers in a hooker hotbed. Not exactly high-policing.
Most women in her detail are put out as bait at least once. The official word from the top is that Essie’s too short—regardless of the fact that she wasn’t too short for patrol, for knocking on doors in Inglewood, for cuffing dealers, for chasing stick-up artists, before she made detective and moved north. The way she sees it short is an asset, making it less likely for anyone (cops included) to think police.
She knows the real reason: They think she’s volatile, that after the accident she cracked. That there’s no way she can control her emotions. Or if she can, it’s because there’s something wrong with her. No matter that she passed the psych eval.
She unlocks her bike, shoulders her backpack, and heads to work.
2.
THE SHIFT CHANGE IS OVER. ESSIE HEADS FOR HER DESK, A tanker in the way back. She’s got a reputation as a number cruncher. Her partner, Rick Spera, often leaves her to do her own thing and only calls her in for big business.
There’s a woman waiting in the empty chair across from Essie’s. Black. Middle aged. Heavyset. Essie unwraps a piece of gum as she crosses the room.
“Finally,” the woman says as Essie takes her seat. “You kept me waiting.”
She’s got short hair streaked with magenta that’s slicked to her head with a sharp side part. There’s a spattering of freckles on her nose and double door-knocker earrings in each ear. She’s wearing false eyelashes that widen her already enormous eyes.
Essie clinks her keyboard, waking her computer. COMPSTAT and the L.A. Times. “I come on at eight.”
“Well, other detectives seem to be here before then, but they told me to see you.”
The woman is wearing a loose shirt cut like a peasant blouse with a print of leopard and roses. She’s messing with the collar, yanking it up over her neck.
“Detective Perry,” Essie says, holding out her hand.
“Orphelia Jefferies.”
The woman’s hand is soft with lotion.
“You new here?”
“A couple of years,” Essie says.
“I never seen you before.”
Too old to be looking for help getting off the streets. Too sober to be snitching. There’s something there though. Some trouble. Some hard living.
Orphelia Jefferies. Essie searches the name.
“Normally they just shove me off on one of the desk sergeants, take my complaint, and send me the fuck on my way. Sometimes they don’t even write that shit down. Last time, for instance, the man was double-tasking me. Taking some kind of phone call in one ear and half hearing my story with the other. The hell I bother with this shit for?” She yanks the collar of her shirt. It falls down again, and Essie glimpses a dark discoloration above her clavicle.
Street name Pookie. Solicitation. Possession. Disturbing the peace. All the usual charges. Essie scrolls down Orphelia’s sheet. “Is this a job-related complaint?”
“A job-related what?”
Essie keeps scrolling. The rap sheet ends abruptly. “For instance—did someone rough you up? Did someone steal your turf? Did someone—”
Orphelia holds up her hand, jabbing it toward Essie like she’s slamming a busted vending machine. “Who the fuck they send me to?”
Essie looks up from the monitor. Orphelia’s blouse is drooping again, showing a raised scar—a jack-o’-lantern smile.
“Sorry?”
“What kinda cop are you?”
“Vice.”
“Shit.” Orphelia shakes her head side to side. “Let me ask you this. What’s my complaint have to do with Vice?”
Essie’s about to reply when she glances back at the monitor. Sixteen years ago. The last charge for solicitation. “You’re out of the game,” she says. See a puzzle. Not a complicated one. A former hooker. Cleaned up for whatever reason.
“Fuck yeah I’m out of the game. You need me to show you some kinda chip like they get in AA? Show you how many years I got?” She cocks her head to one side. “And what I used to do has to do with this I don’t know. I should have known the only detective they’d let me see is a Vice cop.” Orphelia crosses her arms over her chest,
giving Essie a good view of her scar. “I don’t ask you how come you have such a white lady name, do I, Detective Perry? Who I was has nothing to do with where I am now.”
Everything has something to do with something else, Essie thinks. The reason she’s in Vice is the reason she left Homicide is the reason she doesn’t drive. “What happened to your chest?” It’s the reason Orphelia gave up the game that interests her now.
“Got cut.”
“When?”
“Fifteen years back, give or take.”
Essie checks the rap sheet still open on her desktop. There’s a moment you can pinpoint. An event that changes everything. What made you start killing? Start hooking? What made you decide to stay indoors for good? Made you switch jobs? Get off the streets? Get on the streets? Start stealing? Get help? Go to rehab? Stop driving? Stop communicating?
She pushes back from her computer so it’s no longer between her and Orphelia. She takes a pen and a pad from her drawer. “So?”
“What do you mean, so?”
“Tell me why you’ve been waiting for me.”
Orphelia rolls her neck, stretching her scar wide. “So now you want to hear my story?”
Essie clicks her pen. “When did I say I didn’t?” She looks over her shoulder into the squad room. A few patrol officers and a couple of detectives have their eyes on her. She knows the look—they’ve played a prank and want to see the outcome.
“Shit,” Orphelia says as if that settles it. “Listen, I’ve been telling this damn story for years. How many goddamn times now?” She counts out on her fingers. “It doesn’t matter.”
Essie chews her gum hard, trying to stay with this, trying not to let Orphelia’s scar drag her mind elsewhere.
She guesses this is a parallel problem like Dorian’s, a distraction from the real issue. Figuring out who’s killing birds, stop worrying who killed your kid.
She snaps her gum. That’s another question, another problem. But one she can’t shake.
“You listening at all?” Orphelia’s popped her eyes wide to let Essie know she’s wandered off.
“Go on.”
“Like I said—like I just said to you and to every goddamned motherfucker in this place one time or another—I’m being stalked.”
“Do you know him?”
“Now I know you’re not even pretending. Do I know him? Lady, there’s no him. I just told you it’s a woman.”
“All right,” Essie says, scribbling something on the paper to keep Orphelia talking, “a woman.”
“You don’t think that’s a little fucked up?”
Essie clicks her pen twice. Snaps her gum. “Should I?”
“I don’t know,” Orphelia says. “Should you? You’re the cop around here, not me. You’re the one who’s all into clues and patterns. Maybe it’s normal that some white lady’s spying on me. Been spying on me for years.”
“Let me ask you something. Do you know Katherine Sims? Kathy Sims?”
Orphelia’s eyes widen. “Kathy? That’s a nice white-lady name. Is that her?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is that the woman you think is stalking me?”
Essie bites her lip at her own mistake. Her mind had run off on its own. Orphelia can’t follow. Hell, Essie’s even having trouble keeping up with herself. “No. Someone else. Not white.”
“Don’t know her. Should I?”
“I just thought,” Essie begins.
“Thought because she’s a hooker that I’d know her. Like we are all in our own special clique.”
“I didn’t say she was one thing or another.”
Orphelia folds her arms over her chest. “Didn’t have to. Now can we get back on my business?”
Essie snaps her gum and clicks her pen twice. “What’s she look like, the woman stalking you?”
“White.”
“That’s it?”
“She doesn’t let me see her. I mean up close. Like features and all that. If she did, we wouldn’t have a motherfucking problem, because I’d be all over that. Thing is, she’s sneaky. I’ve been telling you all this for years.”
“What does she do?” Essie asks.
“What does she do? What do you think? She watches me.”
“How long?”
“All night. All motherfucking night. Listen.” Orphelia presses her hands onto the desktop. Essie can see the tension in her fingers. “I know you all thinking I’m crazy. There’s no white woman hoofing down to Sixty-Fifth to stand across from my goddamned apartment.”
“I mean how long has it been going on?”
“Like timewise?”
“Timewise, exactly.”
Orphelia closes her eyes like she’s counting back the years. But Essie’s certain she knows the number without thinking. “Fifteen years.”
“You’re not going to tell me what happened to your throat?” Essie asks.
“I said I got cut.”
“By who?”
“Unsolved motherfucking crime. Open case. You tell me.”
It’s barely a math problem. The cut. The decision to give up the game. The idea someone was or is stalking her. Trauma revisits in the strangest ways. The mind plays tricks. An attempted murder can return in the form of a white-lady stalker. Easier than focusing on the real danger.
Clue: Corn Killer. Answer: Nightstalker.
“It’s not like it’s every night,” Orphelia’s saying. “Or not like it’s all night when she shows. It’s just sometimes. But that’s bad-e-fucking-nough. How’d you like to open your eyes and see someone across the street staring into your window?”
“How do you know that’s what she’s doing?”
“Because I know, I know. I’ve had years of knowing. Didn’t you just ask me how many years this has been going on? You all keep records? Look at them. Or maybe you just write down my complaint and throw it out.”
“But you are sure she’s watching you?” Essie asks.
“Listen, I’m motherfucking sure. She’s keeping tabs on me and don’t I know it. It’s not just outside my own house. She knows my routine, my goddamn schedule. Go to the store, get some smokes or whatever the fuck. I see her ass passing by the front door. Take myself out for a drink, and who the fuck is parked in the lot behind the bar.”
Essie opens her mouth but Orphelia beats her to it.
“It’s the same goddamned woman. Boring-white-lady type of lady. Stands out on that part of Western, let me tell you.”
“So what brought you here today?”
Orphelia sits back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest, accidentally pulling her blouse low and revealing her scar. “I thought you’d never ask.” She adjusts her shirt and resettles herself.
Essie spits out her gum. Her eyes drift to her monitor. There’s a browser window dragged nearly off-screen she didn’t notice earlier. SoCal Birding. Those hummingbirds.
“Detective Perry? You want to hear this shit or not?”
Essie fumbles for her pack of gum.
“I don’t need to be a motherfucking mind reader to know this shit isn’t going to make an impression on you, but here I go letting you know anyway.” She waits until Essie looks up. “Reason I’m here today is this lady is keeping tabs on me. I can prove it.”
Tap. Tap. Essie waits for her to continue.
“So I got a job. A real one. Finally. Can’t do a lot thanks to you all giving me enough felonies the city and whoever else won’t hire me. But anyway, I cook the meals at a church way the hell down in Inglewood. Two meals a day. And a uniform. So I’m proud. And first day at work, there the hell she is, just passing by like nothing.”
“And you’re sure—”
Again Orphelia holds up her hand, stopping Essie. “You’re gonna ask me how I know it’s her when I don’t know exactly what she looks like, right? Because I can’t draw a goddamn picture of her?”
Essie clicks her pen. How to turn the story back to what’s important?
“Maybe I couldn’t p
ick her out of a lineup. I know what she’s like. Sneaky. Smart. Keeps her distance. She’s like a motherfucking ghost, haunting me. Let me ask you something. You think you could pick a ghost out of a lineup?”
Clue: Dead Man Walking. Answer: Ghost.
“No,” Essie says. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I’m not asking you what you believe. What I want to know is what you are going to do. You going to send some patrols down? Sweep my block of Western, scare her off? Because I’m not going through my days with this lady on my back. You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night and there’s something watching you? Get a bottle of booze and someone just passes by? Start a job and she knows? You know what it’s like you all thinking I’m crazy?” She shakes her head. “’Course you don’t know what it’s like people thinking you’re crazy. You’re a cop. People think you’re the opposite of crazy.”
“You’d be surprised,” Essie says.
This brings Orphelia up short, breaks her rhythm. She raises her eyebrows and waits for Essie to say more.
But Essie’s said enough. She glances around the station. She knows what her fellow officers think, or at least some of them—that she must be at least partly gone after seeing those two girls tossed across the street in separate directions like they were shot from different cannons. Both of them dead, one north-south on Plymouth, the other lying east-west on Sixth. That must have cracked her. At least partially. And those who believe it didn’t make her nuts think she’s crazy for not having been affected—that there must have been something wrong with her from the start. Too much emotion or too little. Either way, can’t win.
“So are you crazy, Detective Perry?”
“I don’t think so,” Essie says.
“But what matters is what other people think.”
“If you let it.”
Orphelia points a finger at her. “That’s, what-do-you-call-it, privilege right there.”
Funny, a black woman telling a Latina cop about privilege. Essie has no interest in sharing her struggle. She is where she is, that’s all that matters. “So,” she says, “tell me your address.”
“For real?”
“I can’t have someone check it out if I don’t know where you live.”