Loose Change: The Case Files of a Homeless Investigator

by Sean Huxter

  The EMTs had already unwrapped the baby, packed it in warm blankets, and had an IV running on it moments after they arrived. They were just now loading it onto the back of their truck. One of the EMTs held it as tenderly as a father would his new-born child. I knew it – he or she? - was in good hands.

  As the truck drove off, I noticed that for no reason I could fathom, I was crying.

  Chapter 3 It was now about three a.m and the officers had done their cursory look-round, wrapped the place up in Crime Scene tape, and posted a sentry for the rest of the morning until detectives could show up once they got on duty, probably at 9:00.

  I had stopped shaking and was on my way back to my flop when I saw blood on the ground. In my earlier approach I hadn't noticed it, my focus being up near the dumpster. But here was a patch of blood. And not far along, towards the Arlington Street entrance, more. As I kept following the blood patches it turned into a clear trail. I looked back at the sentry officer, and started to call out. He was busy on his phone so I opted instead to pursue the matter myself, as I am sometimes known to do. I knew I wasn't going to get back to sleep this night.

  The trail was straight for a while, but I noticed it faltered here and there as it approached the crosswalk into the Public Garden's Arlington Street Entrance. Bright streetlights allowed me to follow it into the Garden where it got so dark I lost the trail as it headed down towards the Swan Boat dock.

  With no more trail to follow, I stood, stopped moving so my neoprene parka didn't make shiff-shiff noises. I perked up my ears and listened.

  Nothing.

  I kept doing this, moving from place to place around the Garden. I knew I couldn't see anything, but I hoped my ears at least could detect something. The wind was light, but even that interfered and I had to listen for long stretches at a time.

  There was nothing going on, but I couldn't just give up. The trail clearly led to somewhere around here.

  The statue of Edward Hale said he hadn't seen anyone, nor had the bronze Make Way for Ducklings. I was about to give up hope when I heard what might have been heavy breathing. I started running towards the Triton Babies fountain, one of several stone fountains in the Garden. This one featured a bronze statue of two young girls, joyfully playing, naked. The fountain was empty of water, and huddled up against the curved outer wall was a young woman. Her clothing was covered in drying blood.

  I rushed to her side and checked her breathing. She was gasping for breath. She was not in good shape.

  “Miss!” I said.

  No response.

  “Miss!” I shouted, shaking her.

  She tilted her head and looked at me, but I doubt she was seeing me.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Tito?” she asked, pulling back.

  “No,” I said, reassuringly. I told her my name. “I'm here to help. Please hold on.”

  I knew I couldn't move her, and I was not likely to be able to pull the taxi-cab trick again, so I knew I had to run back to my alley and alert the sentry officer.

  “Please don't try to move,” I said.

  I ran like I hadn't run in a number of years.

  Chapter 4 The ambulance came again. Same truck as before. Same EMTs. They loaded the girl onto a stretcher and attended to her. I stood close by.

  The girl looked about sixteen. She had long blonde hair and I recognized her face.

  I knew her. That is, I'd seen her around. I didn't know her in that way. Lots of guys had, though, judging by how I'd recognized her.

  I'd seen her hanging around the corners of the Garden, usually at dusk or later, smoking cigarettes, wearing a fur coat and mini-skirt and tall heels. I knew her to score from Fat Marcus some time ago when he had been King of Boston. That is, until his untimely demise earlier this year. Can't say I miss him much.

  She had a very pretty face before the streets, the drugs and the prostitution had been applied to it.

  Turley had shown up early for his shift, having been contacted by the uniforms I had talked to in the wee hours. He walked up to me. He didn't have to ask.

  “I tracked a blood trail to the fountain,” I said. “The girl was there. She'd lost a lot of blood.”

  “Yeah, the EMTs tell me she might not have made it if you hadn't found her.”

  “Listen, I know who did this to her.”

  “Did what to her? She gave birth in an alley.”

  “Yeah, but she's one of Tito's girls.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. I see her on the corner sometimes. You must too.” “Maybe, but I could hardly recognize her in this condition.”

  “Not lookin' very hard if you don't mind my saying. Hell, she even hit me up once or twice.”

  “Oh?” He eyed me.

  “Jesus, she's young enough to be my daughter and then some. What do you think I am?”

  “I know. Forget I said anything.”

  “So you gonna go after Tito?”

  “For what?”

  “Hello... prostitution at least. Not sure you could do anything about him getting her pregnant.”

  “Can't even get him for pimping. You know how it goes. She's not going to testify against him. He runs them with an iron fist.”

  “Right. So that's that then.”

  “Sadly, yes. We have her for child endangerment. That'll get her off the streets for a while at least, but it's not exactly going to help her any.

  “Anyway, thanks for your help. You saved her life. Let that be enough for now, ok?”

  “Ok. Thanks, Officer Turley.”

  Tito. Damn.

  Tito is a known pimp. He brutalizes his girls and has never been convicted of anything, not even simple drug possession. He's very careful. Very controlling. He's a big white guy with tattoos but talks street, knaw i'm sayin'?

  I know I wouldn't want to be on his bad side, not if I wanted to live.

  So this girl. The cops found her name from her ID. Jen. Jennifer Walters. From Somerville. She gave birth. It's November. I've seen her hooking on the streets for about six months. Before that, who knows, but she's been turning tricks while pregnant for at least the six months, and she's not likely even seventeen yet. Damn. That's sick. I guess there's a certain

  clientele that that caters to. Bunch of sick fucks.

  And as for Tito... Jesus. That guy has got to go down. Down like Marcus.

  Chapter 5 I didn't sleep well the next couple of days. For obvious reasons. Not just the lack of sleep that night, but, well, I couldn't help thinking about Jen, and how she reminded me of my own daughter, even though they looked nothing alike. What put her out on the street? What hell did she have to live at home to do this to herself?

  Not that she had done it all to herself. She probably got to the streets clean, a little messed up, but completely vulnerable to the likes of that scumbag Tito, and after he got her hooked, that's all she wrote.

  I read some Raymond Chandler, who was of no help at all. I guess I'd have to come up with something myself.

  Then I did. I did a little preparation work before heading to the Common to sell copies of Loose Change to tourists and average Joe, then later, instead of heading down my alley for the night, I trolled the street corner where the girls sometimes hang out. These all work for Tito, so I had my pick.

  Despite my appearance, I managed to convince one young lady to accompany me into one of the Public Alleys. She came without too much fear, so I knew my plan was working.

  “Ok, whaddya want?” she asked.

  “Just gimme a minute.”

  “Your dime,” she said. Her slurred speech showed me she was as high as a kite. Probably didn't even know or care what she was about to do.

  I turned and shoved her.

  “What the fuck?” she said.

  I shoved her again. Not hard, you understand. Just enough to intimidate.

  “That's it, mothafucka, I'm gettin' Tito over here.” She pulled out her cell phone and hit speed dial. “Tito, this mothafucka tryin' it on me.”
>
  She hung up after two seconds.

  “You don't know who you fuckin' with, douchebag,” she said. I didn't touch her again, and she began walking to the Arlington Street entrance of Alley 422.

  Within thirty seconds, Tito pulled up in a black Audi and stormed down the alley towards me. I guess he's used to people winnowing away with fear of him, because he hesitated when I didn't.

  “What's your problem, muthafucka?” he shouted. “You gonna get messed up good,” he continued.

  “I'm here to talk to you about Jen.”

  “What about Jen? What you want with Jen? You want somethin' young and pregnant? Well that's not gonna happen, not no mo'.”

  “No, I want her out. Out from under you.”

  Tito paused for a second or two and then let out a long hearty laugh.

  “Man, you shittin' me! Jen's mine. She's always gonna be mine.”

  He was about to launch into me when I leaned back behind a garbage can and pulled out a three-foot long length of steel rebar I had found earlier and swung it at Tito's knee. It hit with a sick thud. I felt the knee cave in as he slumped to the ground, with hardly a leg to stand on.

  I hit him again, on the other leg to make sure he wasn't going anywhere. He reached into his pocket and the rebar slammed down on his wrist. I took the gun and threw it down the alley.

  I leaned over his face real close so he could smell my breath.

  “Jen's out. Understand Tito? She's out!”

  He simply shook his head in defiance. He could barely breathe from the pain. “Gonna fuck you up good! You dead!” he hissed out between clenched teeth.

  “Lots of people have tried, Tito. Better men than you. Of course that's about all of them, isn't it?”

  I reached into Tito's other pocket and got his cell phone. I dialed 911, told them someone had just tried to kill me and gave a location. I wiped it of prints and dropped it next to Tito's head, which I kicked for good measure before heading back out to the street.

  Man, I was in the hornet's nest now.

  I watched from afar as police and an ambulance showed up at the entrance to the alley and watched as they bound Tito's legs and put him up on a stretcher. I also enjoyed watching the cops arrest him for the drugs I had taken from his pocket and scattered around him, along with the gun I retrieved from up the alley. I had a couple of days peace at least until they let him out on bail for drug trafficking, and maybe more if his prior arrests held sway with a judge. But he'd be out soon and out to get me. Or he'd have one of his boys take me out.

  This, I decided, was probably not my

  best laid plan.

  Chapter 6 “Tito's probably gonna go down for the drugs,” Turley told me as we leaned against his Boston Police cruiser the next morning. “But we still can't get him for prostitution, and we have no proof he had anything to do with the girl's baby. The baby's in hospital now, in critical. Sorry to have to tell you.”

  Damn. “What was it?”

  “Huh?” “I was in such a state I didn't even find out if the baby was a boy or a girl.”

  “Oh. Girl. She was hypothermic when they brought her in, but she was otherwise a healthy baby girl.”

  “Otherwise healthy...”

  “Look, don't beat yourself up. She might pull through, and that's a hell of a lot better shot than she had if you hadn't come along.”

  All I could think of was that hour I was lying there trying to read, pissed off at that damned cat. That precious hour might have made all the difference.

  “Well, the girl, Jennifer Walters, isn't going to implicate Tito. She's scared out of her wits, not that she has much wits at the moment. She's in critical too. The nurses won't let us interview her much, and we don't want to distress her at this point anyway. She could go either way. She lost a lot more than blood. That birth tore her up inside. I'm surprised she had the wits to clean the baby off at all, and wrap her up in newspaper against the cold. I'm shocked she could even think straight at that point.”

  “There's no way

  she wrapped that kid up, not in her condition. She had to have had help. Can you get to her, ask her some questions?”

  “Not likely. The detectives on the case only get a few minutes with her a day, if that. I certainly can't get in there.”

  “So ask them to ask her this when they get another few minutes: Who helped you, and why did you leave the baby?”

  “Ok, I'll try. Why?”

  “I have a hunch.”

  “Good enough for me,” said Turley, who had been on the positive side of more than one of my hunches.

  Chapter 7 Knowing Tito didn't know where I spent my nights, and suspecting he wouldn't be out for a few days at least, unless his high-priced lawyers could persuade a judge he was of no danger to himself or others, I continued to bed down for the night at my Alley 437 flop next to the dumpster. Tonight I had to be careful because tomorrow the truck would come and empty all the dumpsters in the alleys, so I would have to temporarily stash my stuff elsewhere.

  The next story in “The Simple Art of Murder” was a far better one, and I was looking forward to settling in and reading it. I was passing Alley 422 on my way to 437 when the wind blew up from the Berkeley end of the alley. I smelled something awful. I stopped. The smell was gone, but so was the wind. Then it came up again and I could smell something terrible, rotting.

  I walked down the alley. Like mine, this one was lined with dumpsters and plastic recycling bins. I went from one to another trying to find the source of the stench.

  About a dozen down, I found it. Oh god. I had to put my hand over my nose. It was awful. It was a large metal dumpster, and I flipped the lid open. Finding nothing immediate, I had to begin digging through. My stomach was churning but I had a bad feeling.

  About five minutes later I found it. A grocery store plastic bag tied at the handles holding the tiny body of a second human baby.

  That's it. That's enough. I leaned over and threw up. I kept throwing up. I staggered back to the Arlington entrance desperately gasping for some fresh air.

  Chapter 8 A detective named Davis was harassing me. He had me shoved up against a wall.

  “Why is it you who keeps popping up in this case?” he yelled? His partner held back, hands in pockets, probably waiting for the opportunity to jump in and be good cop.

  “Cause I live around here,” I said.

  “Well it's a bit of a coincidence isn't it? That you found the abandoned child, that you then found the mother, that you find a second baby, dead, tossed in a dumpster one alley over?”

  “Not really a coincidence, cause I live around here,” I said.

  “Don't you be a smart-ass with me, shit-head. I'm this close to haulin' your ass in on suspicion!”

  “Not so fast, Detective,” said a voice behind me.

  Turley.

  “I know this man. He had nothing to do with this,” he testified. “How do you know?”

  “I've known him for years. He's alright. He didn't have anything to do with this. Let him go.”

  “On your uniformed say-so,

  Officer ?”

  “On the fact that you have no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise linking this man to these events, except the fact that he lives one alley over, and I know that to be a fact.”

  The two detectives let up on me and walked over to the ambulance, having a few words with the EMTs. The ambulance drove off and the Coroner's van left with the remains of the second baby.

  After a heated discussion, during which Turley backed down not once, the two detectives got into their car and followed the Coroner. Turley stood there, shaking his head and eventually got back to where I was standing.

  “You just got me in the shit,” he said.

  “Sorry, Officer Turley, but you know I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Do I? I know you're looking into this, and it's police business, not yours.”

  I didn't reply to that.

  “Look, I know you like to get in
volved in these things, and we've taken down a bad guy or two in the last little while, but don't let it make you think you're some god-damned private eye or something.”

  “Oh, I know I'm not a private eye,” I said. “Private eyes are generally occupied finding some rich old lady's pearls, or so I've read.”

  “Bullshit. Real private eyes are usually out spying on cheating couples with a camera and a tape recorder.”

  “Well that ain't me either,” I said.

  “I know. Look. Just be careful, ok? Stay the hell out of this.”

  “But that baby,” I said.

  “Yeah... damn. A second girl. Probably a twin. The girl must have delivered twice. That would explain her condition.”

  And leave a lot more open to the imagination, I thought.

  “You have that look again,” Turley said, eyeing me.

  “No I don't,” I said, walking away. I turned. “Thanks. Thanks for getting those detectives offa me.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Turley walked down to his squad car, got in and drove off down Tremont.

  Two babies. One alive. One dead. Two different alleys. And a woman who could barely drag herself over to the Public Garden, let alone clean up and swaddle a baby in paper, and bag a dead one and chuck it in a different alley completely.

  She had had help.

  Tito.

  Chapter 9

  A few days passed and snow was coming down, the first flakes of the winter. I woke up before the sun was making much of a show, and rolled over. Right into the barrel of a Glock.

  “We meet again.” Tito was standing on crutches about ten feet away. Meanwhile one of his boys was kneeling down with his gun in my face.

  “You remember I tole you I was gunna fuck you up? Today's the day.”

  “Get up, muthafucka!” said the gunsel. I started to rise, pushing my blanket and tarp away.

  Gunsel put a foot on my chest to keep me down. Without much effort. He was heavy, black, muscular, with shaved head and a meaty hand gripping a Glock with tape around the handle. This wasn't good. I looked around for a way out, finding none.