“Close the door,” she said softly but firmly, without looking in the direction the children had gone.
We waited for the click of a door, and then Floyd broke the silence with the beginning of a statement that would ring in the widow’s head for the rest of her days. “Ma’am, we are very sorry to have to inform you . . .”
Her eyes welled with tears as she whispered, “Dear God,” and Floyd continued with dampening eyes and brows that rested heavily over them. I looked away from them both, and began making a note of the date, time, and location in my notebook. I wrote her last name but couldn’t remember the first name, even though I had read it again as we pulled up in front. All I could picture were the curious faces of her children as they were sent to their rooms, and the cheerful face of Deputy Thomas Johnson from my last interaction with him. My jaw clenched, I continued to fight back the emotion brimming inside me.
Floyd continued, “. . . he was killed by gunfire—”
She wailed, and Floyd stopped. I could feel his eyes on me, but I wouldn’t look at him. Mrs. Johnson cried out hysterically, and I looked up to see the children peering through the banister, their delicate little fingers wrapped around the balusters the way prisoners clutch the bars of their cells. Back in my notebook, I made a pointless note of the two children being present, upstairs. It was something to do, something to think of other than the shattered family around me. The thought passed through my mind that I could come and mow their lawn on my days off, or maybe take the boy to his ballgames. I saw Floyd walking the girl down the aisle someday, and realized that although it wouldn’t be us, someone—his partners, brothers, friends—would be there for her. The way we had been there for the families of our fallen colleagues, this generation would be there for theirs.
As she settled, slowly, Floyd powered on. “We have to ask you some questions about Tom, questions that might seem off-putting to you, but you have to trust us. There will come a day when every detail will matter in a court of law, and we have to get this right. We’re very sorry for your loss, and we will be as brief as possible. There will be others coming, likely not far behind us, who will help you in other ways. But ma’am, we’re from Homicide, and we need to memorialize some details about your husband, and this day.”
Their marriage was good, normal; his relationship with the children strong. They had been married for twelve years. Not that it would ever be a factor in this case, but you never knew, and you left nothing to the imagination of sleazy attorneys. His day begun as most others: after breakfast, he had taken his daughter to school. He had come home and the two of them exercised in the garage and then went for a run with their son in a jogging stroller. They had taken turns guiding it. When they returned from their run, Tom had played with his son in the swimming pool. After lunch, he had showered, and watched the news as he began getting ready for work. He had left an hour and a half before briefing which allowed him enough time—even if traffic was heavy—to take his time at work, dressing in his uniform and preparing for his shift. He took pride in his job as a deputy sheriff and enjoyed being a training officer and working at a fast station. He had not spoken of any recent events with colleagues, supervisors, or the public, that had bothered or concerned him. Everything seemed to be perfect. Until.
Melissa was a firefighter. She worked for the Pasadena City Fire Department and had been so employed for six years. When they both worked, Tom’s mother took care of the children.
Floyd and I exchanged glances. He seemed as surprised as I had been that Melissa was a firefighter. I again appraised her toned body and realized she was more than just toned, more than just fit from working out and jogging; she had the body of an athlete, strong and agile and likely fast. For some reason, it made me feel a little bit better about the situation. As if she was one of us, a first responder, accustomed to death and trauma. And although she would be devastated for years to come, she would overcome this and carry on with the strength we all seemed to find during these darkest hours. She would be okay, eventually. She would carry on.
27
Tina directed Travis toward her grandmother’s neighborhood in North Long Beach, guiding him through the tangled interchange of the southbound Long Beach Freeway to the eastbound Artesia and then a quick exit on Atlantic Avenue and south. Traffic was light, which allowed a relatively easy process in an otherwise complex interchange. She told him to continue south to South Street, but he pulled into a liquor store instead.
“I need a drink.”
Tina looked around the lot and noticed homeless people, a gangster on a bicycle, and several cars carrying undesirables of all races, men, women and children alike. “Hurry up. Did you notice this isn’t a great place to hang out? Do you see all the druggies, the gangster?”
He chuckled. “Right. These fucking criminals give me the creeps. I’m a-scared for my safety now.”
“The cops, Trav. These lowlifes draw the cops to this place like flies to shit. Hurry up.”
Travis took his .45 pistol that was tucked between his leg and the seat and stuffed it into his pants. He covered it with his untucked shirt and popped the door open. “Do you want anything, or not?”
“Yeah, get me a bottle of tequila. Any kind. And hurry up.”
As he walked away, Tina looked over her right shoulder to see the gangster on the bike had been watching them. He was, most likely, a pee wee gangster, a clique of youngsters who were members of the North Side Longo gang. This was their turf, and he seemed comfortable hanging out on his lowrider peddle bike with a sparkling banana seat, chrome fenders, and high handle bars with chrome mirrors. Tina knew many of the older members of the gang—the O.G.s—as her brothers had been part of the gang when she was a kid. She had grown up around many of these boys. But this kid might have been in kindergarten when she left for the army, and wouldn’t know who she was, nor would he care. The youngest were the most foolish, always out to prove themselves. He was at the age that many of them began selling dope or jacking people for cash to make money for the gang, for the big homies.
Tina pictured a gun beneath the oversized flannel shirt he wore and wondered what the odds were that he was thinking about using it. She figured fifty/fifty if he was in fact packing, and then she thought now would be the time he’d make his move, if he was planning it. It would happen now, while Travis was away, and as she sat alone waiting in the car. She turned her eyes from him, not wanting to challenge him. Staring at a gang member is considered mad-dogging and is a form of disrespect. She didn’t want him reacting to that. If he wasn’t going to try to rob her or sell her dope, he’d leave her alone if she didn’t stare at him.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw that he was peddling away. Tina glanced in the mirror and realized he had continued watching her as he did. He made a big circle behind their car and came up in what he would believe would be her blind spot, but she was aware of his presence. His feet left the pedals and found purchase against the pavement as he stepped from the bike and reached toward her door. As he opened it, his right hand disappeared beneath his oversized shirt, and then he froze, and his eyes widened.
Tina didn’t raise her sawed-off shotgun above the top of the door; rather, she kept it low and out of view of others nearby. The two barrels were directed upward, and from the look on Pee Wee’s face, the dual .20-gauge holes were nicely aligned with his eyes. She smiled. “Not tonight, vato. Not this baby girl.”
His hands came away from his shirt. “Where’re you from, eh?”
“I’m from right fucking here, ese, before you were born. North Side. Now get the fuck out of my face before I cut you in half.”
The gangster paused for a moment, seeming to ponder his options.
“Go on,” she said. “I don’t have time to play games with a peewee. Vámanos!”
He slowly got back on his bike and drifted away. Tina closed her door as the tiny gangster distanced himself from her car. The driver’s door was opened behind her. She kept her eye on the cholo and h
eard Travis ask, “Everything okay?”
The kid disappeared from the parking lot. Tina turned in her seat.
Travis noticed the shotgun. “Whoa, did we have a problem?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“I guess.” He handed her a brown bag and backed out of the space. “Where to, killer?”
Morgan was restless.
He stepped out of the government-issued, unmarked sedan and walked over to the curb. The roots of the tree he had parked under had, over the years, broken through both the curb and the sidewalk next to it. Morgan stood on the uneven surface and looked up and down the street, and up and down the sidewalk. Being quiet in all directions, his attention was drawn to the roots of the old tree. Morgan saw the tree as an ally who, like himself, had been meant to live without societal encroachments, but was instead smothered by concrete and buildings and the civilization that had created both. He needed to find a remote post to serve out his twenty, or he was going to go crazy.
In the darkness, he thought about PFC Christina Ortiz. Tina. He knew she was alive; he could feel it more now than ever before. But he always knew. Now, she was close. He could feel her presence. It could be because he sat just houses away from where she had grown up, but he didn’t think so. He felt she was actually nearby, but he also felt that something bad was going to happen. These feelings had haunted him all night and had him unnerved. He glanced at the glowing watch face on his wrist; it was nearly midnight. The witching hour. It had been unusually quiet all night, and now it was just eerily so. Like the calm before a storm.
Morgan pictured the young private in her early days at Fort Hood. Small but mighty, green yet confident, serious but with playful, if not mischievous, eyes. Drawn toward excitement, thrills, and danger, seduced by bad boys. He thought of the night they’d spent together. He had never experienced anything like it before, and never would again. She was in a different league than he was, sexually, uninhibited and adventurous. But she also had been unattached emotionally. Like a sailor in a port of whores, she felt nothing beyond the physical act of sex alone and had left Morgan feeling used. His feelings for her now embarrassed him, and he’d never admit to anyone how he had fallen in love after a night of wanton sex on her part—passionate love making on his. He remembered seeing her with Hollingsworth the next day, the cocky sergeant who preyed on young soldiers who hadn’t yet had the chance to see that he was a fraud. Morgan had wanted to warn Ortiz, tell her the sergeant was no good for her. But he knew then it would be in vain. She was out for adventure and, like a testosterone-driven teenage boy, she wouldn’t be otherwise persuaded. He thought he had gotten over her, but as he sat with what he believed to be her spirit present, he admitted to himself that he hadn’t. Morgan wondered what would happen to her when she was captured. He allowed himself to see them together someday, she, a repentant desperado, and he, a rescuer of the downtrodden. But he knew deep down inside that it would never be, and he told himself to come to terms with it now and move on. Maybe he could, with some sort of closure to her disappearance. But maybe he couldn’t.
CW2 Morgan plopped back into his car, confused and unsettled. He caught himself before closing the door and forced himself back into the game, mentally. Physically. Get the woman off his mind. He quietly clicked the door shut behind him. He adjusted the volume of his handheld radio to the lowest setting and turned the knob less than an eighth of a turn. He keyed it once to check the volume level against its squelch and was satisfied that it wasn’t too loud. He keyed it again and called the command post and provided his status. “All is still quiet out here.”
A moment later, the soothing voice of their one female operator, Lazarevic, responded. “Quiet here too, Morg. But by the news, it appears the rest of the city is falling apart.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“LAPD has a robbery murder downtown, armored car deal. Sheriffs had a deputy killed in Compton. There’s a pursuit somewhere they’re calling the west side, and if that isn’t enough, the Dodgers have fallen three games back and it might rain Saturday.”
“This is why I don’t watch the news.”
“Roger that.”
A moment of silence passed as he considered the information he had received before keying his mic again. “I’ve had a bad feeling all night. Hopefully it will stay quiet here.”
“Be safe, Morg, and let us know if you need anything.”
“Roger that. Out.”
“Where to?”
“Might as well head back to Compton, see what else we can help with, I guess.”
That made as much sense as anything else, other than driving right past Chinatown where Floyd and I used to enjoy a cocktail at times like this. Gin was one of the only two cures for these nights. The other was to hit the streets with a partner you loved and trusted and do the work God intended for you to do. Not that I wasn’t fond of Josie by now, and not that I didn’t trust her—I did—but being back with Floyd at a time like this seemed natural and appropriate.
We agreed to go straight to the command post which had been set up a couple of blocks from the scene in the parking lot of a church. The key to establishing a C.P. was to be far enough from the scene as to not disrupt its investigation with the tremendous flow of traffic that would come and go throughout the days and nights. A dead cop’s case would likely run both day and night, maybe for several of each. Schools might be an attractive option for a case that would be wrapped up before the morning buses ran, but a church wouldn’t be used until Sunday. The church offered room for the mobile command post, an eighteen-wheeled tractor-trailer, and plenty of space left over for all of the radio cars of SWAT teams, investigators, and administrators who would come and go in the hours and days ahead.
Once checked in, we would notify the handling team and their lieutenant of our next of kin notification, and let them know we were available for anything they needed from an investigative standpoint. There were never too many investigators when it came to murdered cops.
I thought about Katherine and remembered she was coming to town this weekend. It occurred to me that I harbored mixed emotions about it. Were those my feelings toward her, or my concern about her feelings toward me? For some reason, our stars no longer seemed to be aligned. It was the story of my life.
As we descended into the southland, Floyd and I rode in silence.
28
The peewee gangster rode around the corner to his house and dropped his bike on the front lawn. Two veteranos watched from the porch.
“Some old chola just put a gat in my face at the market. She’s with a white dude.”
He was speaking to his big brother, Juan Medina, who everyone called Oso. Bear. He was a big, round-shouldered man who wore a blanket of hair everywhere other than his head, which he now shaved bald. He’d adapted the style during his last incarceration, a six-year stint in the California Department of Corrections for robbery-murder. The murder had been dropped to a manslaughter and he had received twelve years for both. The great thing about California is they negotiate your crime and then slash your time and you could kill people and only do a couple of years in the joint. Doing time for gangsters meant time to see old homies and get a break from the drama on the streets and your old ladies for a while. Put another teardrop under your eye and come out with more respect from your homies and the cholitas. Doing time was just part of the life.
Oso set his beer on the ground next to a folding chair where he sat on the porch with an old friend. He rose and glanced at his homie sitting next to him, and then at his little brother who the family called Junior but whom the homies on the street were now calling Little Oso. But Big Oso didn’t call him that; he still called him Junior. He knew that Junior hadn’t yet made his bones with the gang and was itching to do so. Oso wasn’t so sure he wanted him to follow in his footsteps.
“She just pulled a gat on you, for no reason?”
“I was going to ask her for a smoke. I don’t know what homegirl’s problem is.�
��
“So, what did you do?”
“I left, eh. What am I going to do when a bitch sticks a shotgun in my face?”
“A shotgun?”
“Yeah, mano, a sawed-off heater. Pointed it right at my face, ese.”
Oso thought about it for a minute. “What’d this homegirl look like?”
He curled his lip. “Ugly bitch with a fucked up eye, like someone else had already fucked her up. She prolly was talkin’ shit.”
“Okay, Junior. So what do you want to do about it?”
“Take me over there, I’ll fuck her up. Shit, mano, this is our motherfucking neighborhood, eh, not some old hood rat’s.”
Oso stood silent for a moment.
His homie, Bandit, had stood and was now walking down the steps ahead of him. “Come on, homie. Let’s take Little Oso back over there and let him put in some work. He needs to represent, eh. Plus, we can’t have bitches over here chumping out our little homies. That shit ain’t right, man.”
But Oso hesitated at the thought of his little brother putting in work. The older he got, and the more time he spent locked down, the more Oso saw how pointless his life had become. He slurped the saliva in his mouth. “I don’t know, ese. Where did she say she was from, anyway?”
Hard-Boiled- Box Set Page 85