Kiss & Tell

by Luke Murphy

  “A nine-one-one call came in last night we need to hear. The techs are analyzing it now.”

  They headed to the small, overcrowded audio/visual room hidden in the back corner of the building and entered without knocking.

  “Rewind it and play it from the start,” Larry ordered.

  The techs stopped the tape and did as they were told. Charlene and Larry pulled seats close to the speakers.

  “This call came in to nine-one-one last night at 11:38 PM. We traced it to a phone booth on Motor Avenue.” The tech pushed play as the room fell silent.

  Charlene heard the operator’s voice. “Nine-one-one dispatch, what is your emergency?”

  Light traffic could be heard in the background and then someone spoke.

  “Yeah, I got news about yo’ dead white boy.”

  “Who is this, Sir?”

  “Shit…” then it was silent. Loose change fell to the booth floor. “I seen a car.”

  “You said something about a dead body, Sir?”

  “Yeah, shit…I don’t know. That teacher. I seen a car near the house. Listen man, I seen it befo’.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Listen, this Nelson Porter. You gotta listen.”

  From the caller’s voice/tone, grammar, vocabulary, and attitude, Charlene pictured an adolescent male, somewhere between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, African American and from the time of the call, the kid was either homeless or a gang member. He sounded scared and gang members don’t scare easily.

  “Just calm down, Mr. Porter. Where are you now?”

  “I don’t know, don’t you cops got some sorta trace to find me?”

  “Just stay where you are, Mr. Porter. I’m sending a black and white immediately.”

  “I seen dat white bitch. Shit…” Then there was silence, followed by a click of the phone.

  The tech walked over and shut off the recording. “That’s it. Like I said, we traced the call to a phone booth on Motor Ave. We sent a car but that kid must have taken off. We have an APB out on Porter.”

  The ‘white teacher’ had to be Anderson.

  Charlene read the report. The police couldn’t find Porter, and no one was around to confirm his call. LAPD hadn’t had a black and white in the vicinity at the time, and it took officers almost forty minutes to reach the location. When they couldn’t find him, the cops looked up Porter and made an appearance at his home on Overland Avenue. Porter wasn’t there and his grandmother hadn’t seen him all night.

  The GRIT—Gang Related Information Tracking—file on Porter was complete. The fifteen year-old African American lived with his grandmother. His mother had died from a drug overdose and his father was serving time at California State Prison for drug trafficking. The oldest of five kids in an extended family, Porter was a trial member with the Bloods, an LA West Side gang. He had spent some time at Central Juvenile Hall, aka Eastlake Juvenile Hall, down on Eastlake Avenue, so there was a picture on file, although it looked a few years old. Charlene knew it was only a matter of time before Porter got into serious trouble or got himself killed.

  Charlene had to find that kid.

  ~ * ~

  By 10:45 AM they were on the Santa Monica Freeway. For cops, most call-ins were suspicious and unreliable, but with the Porter house only a couple of blocks from where Anderson was killed, the killer could have parked there and moved on foot.

  During the ride, Charlene couldn’t get Porter’s young, innocent voice out of her head. Whose car did he think he had he seen?

  “You heard Porter say something about a white chick, right?” Charlene said.

  “Yeah, I heard that part,” Larry answered.

  Who was the ‘white chick’? Had Porter seen Beverly Anderson or Margaret Connors? And there was also Bianchi’s unidentified daughter, although at this point, she wasn’t a suspect. Charlene had nine suspects for the Anderson murder and five of them were female Caucasian.

  They pulled into the short driveway of a shabby, run down bungalow with white siding that had been torn off. The front step was leaning to the left and the paint was peeling. The small front yard was caged in by a poorly painted fence and bicycles, toys, and car parts polluted the lawn. The screen was ripped out of the storm door.

  As they approached the front door by a grassy pathway, the detectives heard loud banging inside the house, followed by a woman’s yell. Charlene looked at Larry and then knocked on the door.

  After a couple of minutes and two more knocks, the storm door was opened by a small black child, wearing nothing but a diaper. The toddler, no more than two years old, stared at Charlene with curious eyes.

  “Who dat?” A large, dark skinned woman, with salt and pepper hair rolled into a bun, waddled up behind the infant. She was chain smoking a long, filtered cigarette and eyeballed Charlene. “Can I help you?” she asked in a sarcastic tone.

  Charlene flashed her badge. “Detective Taylor, LAPD.”

  “That suppose to impress me?” the woman asked.

  Charlene knew the type, no formal education past fourth grade, but had grown up on the streets and could handle herself.

  Grandmother Porter stared at the detectives, hands on hips, waiting for a response. She clearly intimidated any visitor who came to the door. Charlene noticed two children running rampant in the background.

  Larry pushed past Charlene. “Detective Baker, can we come in?”

  “I s’pose you here for Nelson?”

  They followed the woman into what looked like a living room. Toys and dirty diapers cluttered the floor and they were greeted by the stench of urine and cigarette smoke. A long cigarette burned in a Buddha-shaped ashtray on the coffee table.

  They didn’t sit and weren’t offered a seat.

  The elderly woman sat down and continued with her hobby of smoking. “Nelson ain’t here, ain’t seen ’im since yestaday.”

  The woman fished out a Kleenex from inside her bra and blew her nose loudly.

  Charlene looked at Larry, then back at the woman. “Do you know where Nelson is, Mrs. Porter?”

  “That’s Ms. Porter,” she said, giving Larry a subtle wink. She looked back at Charlene. “You deaf, or just don’t undastand English? I ain’t seen ’im since yestaday.” She shook her head. “What dat boy done now?”

  “He might have some information for us.”

  Larry disappeared from the room and moved to the back of the house.

  The woman chuckled, it sounded like a hiccup. “He don’t know nuthin’.”

  “Do you have some names of friends he may be with?” Charlene asked.

  The woman gazed off into the corner of the room, as if looking for something in midair. Her eyes moistened.

  “I do my best to bring ’im up. He a good boy, just mixin’ wit bad company, that all, bad company. He come and go as he please. I can’t control ’im.”

  A two-year-old girl with curly brown locks and a dimple-face toddled into the room, and Grandma heaved her up with a single arm, slapping her on her lap. She started bouncing her knee as the child giggled with excitement.

  Larry returned from the back and shook his head at Charlene. “Do you have a recent picture of Nelson, Ms. Porter?”

  “Child, dat boy neva sit still long enough to get a pickcha.” Then she thought about it. “How’s bout his school pickcha?”

  “That’ll do.”

  The woman gently set the child on the floor and left the room. The child got to her feet, wobbled, and approached Larry, tugging at his pant leg. Larry pulled away. “Beat it, kid.”

  The woman returned and handed Charlene the photograph. “Here, child, dis from last year.”

  The detective looked at the picture. “Cute kid.”

  “Oh, he a handsome devil dat one, but dats just it, he a devil. Look like his papa but act like his mama.”

  “Can I keep this?”

  “Sure, I got anotha.”

  As they were heading to the car, Larry’s cell phone rang.

  �
��Baker,” he answered. “Yeah thanks. What’s the address?”

  He hung up and looked at Charlene. “They found Porter. Palms Junior High School”

  “Should we tell the grandmother?”

  “No.”

  Larry got behind the wheel and Charlene plugged the information into the car’s mobile computer terminal—MCT—checking the GPS for directions.

  “He won’t be talking.”

  ~ * ~

  Cop cars were parked diagonally outside the football field at Palms Junior High School on Woodbine, cherries flashing, and the first officer at the scene was taping off the area. A cop was stationed at the gate preventing unauthorized vehicles from entering, so Larry showed his ID, signed the log book and followed the trail left by the ambulance and police cars.

  They parked and approached the group standing around the body, choosing the most unlikely path the killer would have taken, not wanting to contaminate the crime scene. Charlene saw their contact in black sweats, with an LAPD vest on, kneeling beside Porter. A tech was documenting the scene.

  Detective Rodriguez, a thirty-five-year-old Latin detective with short cut, curly dark hair and the beginning of a beard, from the Gang Related Crimes Division of LAPD, saw Charlene and Larry and nodded in their direction. He took off a pair of big sunglasses that were covering squinty eyes. When he stood, he was a full head shorter than Charlene.

  “I was told to expect you. Is this your kid?”

  Charlene and Larry stepped past Rodriguez.

  Charlene nodded. “Yeah, that’s Nelson Porter.” She looked at Larry. “Someone got to him before us.”

  “Looks like a gang shooting,” Rodriguez said.

  The boy was rail thin. He wore a red bandana overtop a shaved head, a short sleeve, black Rage Against The Machine T-shirt and ripped jeans. Charlene could see a self-made snake head tattoo, the symbol for the Bloods gang, on his right forearm. The pockets of his jeans were turned out.

  “Any thoughts?” Charlene asked.

  “We think they came in from behind the bleachers. The fencing has been cut and pulled back, allowing a small hole for trespassers. We’ll have to find out from the field crew when that hole was made. No signs of defensive wounds or a struggle. Porter was looking at the shooter, about three feet away. Bang, bang.” Rodriguez held out his thumb and index finger, making a gun. “Two shots to the chest. Looks like they robbed him too.”

  “Murder weapon?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Bullet size?” Larry asked.

  “Have to wait for Ballistics to confirm, but from the holes in his shirt and chest, we’re thinking six mm.”

  Charlene was circling the body. “You’re sure this is gang-related?”

  “Looks that way. This is Crypts territory, and they don’t take kindly to strangers, especially from a rival gang. But Porter should have known better than to be here, especially alone.”

  “How do you know he was alone?” Larry asked. “Time of death established?”

  “Between one and three this morning. Groundskeeper found him.”

  “What time was the nine-one-one call?” Larry asked.

  “At 11:38 PM,” Charlene replied quickly.

  Maybe Larry was thinking the same thing. Anderson’s killer had time to hear about the nine-one-one call, find Porter, and silence him.

  “Who else knew about the nine-one-one?” Charlene asked.

  Rodriguez shrugged. “Probably everyone who was at the station last night.”

  Could be a leak in the department.

  She turned to Larry. “What was Porter doing out of his territory, alone? Gangs don’t run by themselves, there’s always a group of them together. How could a tough fifteen-year-old gangbanger get lured into this field and be such an easy target? He had to have trusted the person.”

  Larry didn’t have an answer.

  Rodriguez said, “I’m going to be conducting interviews with some of Porter’s gang buddies.”

  “Keep us informed on that,” Larry said.

  “Do you want to come along?” Rodriguez asked, but Charlene had already turned and was walking away. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

  Larry and Charlene stopped at the edge of the end zone and discussed the case.

  “I know we have a lot of suspects in this case, Larry. Carl Minor could have found out about Porter through a leak at the department. He has the money to buy the information. He then could have paid someone to take out the witness. Old, rich men like Minor do not tolerate failure, and Beverly’s marriage looked bad for her father.”

  Larry nodded. “Marcus Lopez has ties with the local gangs, could have received the information from one of his gang buddies and he also has the strength to drag a kid onto a football field and finish the job.”

  Charlene cut in. “Alberto Bianchi also has many contacts, probably someone on payroll from inside the department. The mob has their own way of finding out things, legal or otherwise, and their own way of solving problems. Putting down a street punk would be like picking apples for them.”

  Charlene shook her head. “Larry, I know these three guys are suspects, but I don’t know.”

  “What are you thinking?” Larry asked.

  “Porter claimed to have seen a woman. Call it feminine intuition or female instinct, but I like a woman for this murder. And not just this one, but Anderson’s also. It feels personal, like a crime of passion, two bullets close range. Someone hated Anderson and really wanted him dead. A woman could have lured Porter out here and with Anderson’s history with women, his murder just feels like a woman scorned. And we have a long list of those. Anyone can fire a gun.”

  Larry added, “Whatever Porter saw or knew is now gone forever.”

  Charlene thought about Larry’s statement. A teenage boy with a perpetual boner, hormones kicking in, testosterone pumping, could have easily been lured by the likes of Jessica Philips, Ashley Stanley, Sandra Philips or Margaret Connors, who were all attractive women. Maybe even by an older woman like Beverly Minor, popular these days with young men who saw them as ‘cougars.’

  Porter, a young street thug, could have been intimidated and followed anybody in a high powered job, such as a cop with a badge. Maybe Carl Minor had someone working for him on the inside.

  “Get Brady on our suspects,” Larry said.

  Charlene opened her cell. “Darren, track down our suspects and find out where they were last night. Check alibis too.” She snapped shut the phone.

  Charlene and Larry headed back to the precinct where they spent the early part of the afternoon going over interviews, crime scene reports, and possible tips from call-ins. Eyewitness accounts are usually only fifty percent accurate, but this time, they were all dead ends.

  They put Barry and Clayton on Marcus Lopez for some counter-surveillance, keeping a loose watch on him. With Porter’s death, Charlene and Larry felt that Lopez, an ex-gang member himself, was more dangerous than ever and needed a tail, even though nothing incriminating had been recovered from the search warrants for Lopez’s car and home.

  With Bianchi being watched by the Feds, and Lopez by the LAPD, those two were in check.

  Charlene checked bank statements she had subpoenaed from each suspect. No large sums had been withdrawn or deposited into any of the accounts, meaning no one had hired a professional assassin to take out Anderson or Porter.

  Everyone’s finances were accounted for except Carl Minor, who could have a number of different accounts in countries that no one knew about. Charlene was sure that he, or his accountant/lawyer, would know all the loopholes in the system.

  The ballistics report indicated the bullets pulled from Porter didn’t match the bullets from Anderson. Charlene wasn’t surprised. The killer wanted these two murders to look unconnected, and that’s how LAPD was handling them.

  Charlene was at her desk, rereading the case file on the fire in Fresno, when she overheard Berkley and Harris sitting at their desks on the other side of the partition.

/>   “This is victim number five, but it’s different. This is by far the most gruesome scene yet, and he seems to be speeding up between murders. Almost as if it was a hate crime, like this was personal.”

  She stood up and peered over at them. “Who was the victim?”

  Both cops looked at her. They knew Charlene had found the locket. “Another B-lister. The woman’s name is Tanya Louise Stockton.”

  T.L.S.

  The cop continued. “After we put the woman’s picture on the news, her mother called and gave us the address. We showed up at the vic’s apartment and found the body.”

  “When was she killed?” Charlene asked.

  “Coroner said three days ago. And she was the worst I’ve seen yet.”

  Charlene sat back in her seat. She hadn’t been told about this latest victim and she’d never been updated on the FBI’s profile of the suspect. Charlene was going to have to go get that information because it certainly wasn’t coming to her.

  She had to put the Slayer out of her head and focus on her case. The longer it went unsolved, as leads grew cold and hours passed, the chances of finding the killer decreased. Charlene’s overtaxed mind was running on fumes at this point.

  Her gut told her that Ashley Stanley, AKA Sarah Crawford, was somehow involved. But after reviewing crime scene photos again, trying to place Stanley at the scene, Charlene just couldn’t prove it.

  Stanley left the ball field early, giving her time to commit the murder. Her alibi was weak, but so were the alibis of every other suspect. Stanley had motive. Anderson was allegedly her former lover and had raped her two best friends, making Stanley relive what Charlene believed was her own abuse. But every suspect had motive.

  It took a special kind of person to commit a cold-blooded murder. Because of the fire report, Charlene believed that Stanley had it in her. But believing it and proving it were two different things.

  Charlene leaned back in her chair and breathed out discouragingly. She needed a drink.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked Larry.

  He removed his bifocals and rubbed the bridge of this nose. “Honestly, murderers aren’t normally organized, but Anderson’s killer is beyond methodical. What about you?”