Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 06 - Private Eyes

by Private Eyes(Lit)

  Half a block later I saw two skinny black men in baseball caps and topcoats veer off the sidewalk and come face-to-face under the sagging portico of a half-demolished SRO hotel. They lowered their heads and did a palm-slapping routine so well-coordinated it could have been choreographed by Balanchine. Then one man flashed a small wad of bills and the other bent quickly and retrieved something from his sock. A quick exchange and the two of them were on their way, heading in opposite directions. The entire transaction had taken ten seconds.

  Milo saw me watching. "Ah, free enterprise. There's the place park wherever you can.

  He was pointing to a wide, flat-roofed three-story building on the east side of the street. The ground floor was faced with off-white tiles that brought to mind a bus station lavatory. The upper facade was pale-aqua stucco. A single row of barred windows ran along the top of the first story, too high to be reached from the street. The rest of the structure was a blank slab. Four or five men, mostly black, all ragged, congregated drowsily near the front door, which was topped by a dead neon deco-style sign that read ETERNAL HOPE MISSION.

  All the parking spots in front of the building were taken, so I drove up ten yards and nosed into a space behind a Winnebago with MOBILE MEDICAL painted on the back. A larger and more energetic group of derelicts hovered nearby at least two dozen men and three or four women, yapping and shuffling and rubbing their arms. As I turned off the ignition I noticed it wasn't health care they were after.

  A loose line had formed in front of an accordion-grated storefront.

  Another neon sign, these tubes flashing: $$ FOR PLASMA.

  Milo removed a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and placed it in the Seville's front window. A 10 by 12 card reading LAPD VEHICLE: IN SERVICE.

  "Be sure to lock," he said, slamming his door.

  "Next time we take yours," I said, watching a bald, eye-patched man engage in an angry conversation with a dead elm tree. "You did it!" the man kept repeating, slapping the trunk of the tree every third or fourth utterance. The palms of his hands were bloody but there was a smile on his face.

  "No way they'd eat mine," said Milo. "C'mon."

  The men hanging out in front of the mission noticed us long before we got to the front door, and stepped aside. Their shadows and their stench lingered. Several of them looked hungrily at my shoes brown loafers, purchased a month ago, that still looked new. I thought how far $ 120,000 would go in this neighborhood.

  Inside, the building was overheated and brightly lit. The front room was large, aqua, crowded with men sitting and lying across randomly placed green plastic chairs. The floors were black-and-gray linoleum, the plaster bare except for a single wooden crucifix tacked high to the welcoming wall.

  More body odor, mixed with disinfectant, the bilious reek of stale vomit, and the suety smell of something simmering in broth. A young black man in a white polo shirt and tan slacks circulated among the men, carrying a clipboard and chained pen and a handful of brochures.

  A name tag above the tiger embroidered on his chest said GILBERT JOHNSON, STUDENT VOLUNTEER. He made his way among the men, consulting the board from time to time. Stopping and bending to talk to someone.

  Handing out a leaflet. Once in a while he got a response.

  None of the men moved much. No conversation that I could see.

  But there was still noise from afar. Metallic rattles and machine pulses and a rhythmic baritone drone that had to be prayer.

  I thought of a depot filled with travelers who'd lost their way.

  Milo caught the young black man's eye. The man frowned and came over.

  "Can I help you?" On the clipboard was a list of names, some of them followed by check marks.

  "I'm looking for Joel McCloskey."

  Johnson sighed. He was in his early twenties, had broad features, Asian eyes, a cleft chin, and skin not that much darker than Glenn Anger's tan.

  "Again?"

  "Is he here?"

  "You'll have to speak to Father Tim first. One second."

  He disappeared down a hallway to the right of the crucifix and came back almost immediately with a thin white man in his early thirties wearing a black shirt, clerical collar, and white jeans over high-top black-and-white basketball shoes. The priest had jug ears, short light-brown hair, a wispy drooping mustache, and skinny hairless arms.

  "Tim Andrus," he said in a soft voice. "I thought it was all cleared up with Joel."

  "Just a few more questions," said Milo.

  Andrus turned to Johnson. "Why don't you get back to bedcount, Gilbert? It's going to be tight tonight-we'll need to be really accurate.

  "Sure thing, Father." Johnson shot a quick look at Milo and me, then returned to the men. Several of them had turned around and were staring at us.

  The priest gave them a smile that wasn't reciprocated. Turning to us, he said, "The police were here quite a while last night and I was assured everything had been taken care of."

  "Like I said, Father, just a few more questions."

  "This kind of thing is very disruptive. Not so much for Joel.

  He's patient. But the rest of the men-most of them have had experiences with the police. Lots of them are mentally disturbed. The upset in routine.

  "Patient," said Milo. "Good of him."

  Andrus gave a short, hard laugh. His ears had turned scarlet. "I know what you're thinking, Officer. Another bleeding-heart liberal do-gooder and maybe I am. But that doesn't mean I'm unaware of Joel's history. When he came here six months ago he was totally forthright-he hasn't forgiven himself for what he did all those years ago. And it was a terrible thing, so of course I had my reservations about allowing him to serve. But if I stand for anything it's the power of forgiveness. The right to be forgiven. So I knew I couldn't turn him away. And over the past six months he's proved me right. No one's served more selflessly. He's not the same man he was twenty years ago."

  "Good for him," said Milo. "But we'd still like to talk to him."

  "She still hasn't shown up? The woman he "Burned? Not yet.

  "I'm so sorry. I'm sure Joel is, too."

  "Why? He express his regrets, Father?"

  "He still bears the burden of what he did never stops blaming himself.

  Talking to the police brought it all back. He didn't sleep at all last night-was in the chapel, on his knees. I found him and we knelt there together. But he couldn't have had anything to do with her disappearance. He's been here all week, never left the building.

  Working double shifts. I can attest to that."

  "What kind of work does he do?"

  "Anything we need. For the past week it's been kitchen and latrine duty. He requests latrine duty would do it full time."

  "He have any friends?"

  Andrus hesitated before answering. "Friends he'd hire to do wrong?"

  "That's not what I asked, Father, but now that you mention it, yeah."

  Andrus shook his head. "Joel knew that's exactly the way the police would think. He hired someone to sin once before; therefore it was inevitable that he'd do it again."

  "Best predictor of the future's the past," said Milo.

  Andrus touched his clerical collar and nodded. "It's an incredibly difficult job you do, Officer. A vital job God bless all honest policemen. But one of the side effects can be fatalism. A belief that nothing ever changes for the better."

  Milo looked around at the men on the plastic chairs. The few who were still staring turned away.

  "You get to see much change around here, Father?"

  Andrus twisted one end of his mustache. "Enough," he said, "to maintain my faith."

  "McCloskey one of those who's maintained your faith?"

  The flush spread from the priest's ears to his neck. "I've been here five years, Officer. Believe me, I'm not naive. I don't take convicted felons off the street and expect them to turn into someone like Gilbert. But Gilbert's had a good home, nurturance, education.

  He's starting from a different b
aseline. Someone like Joel has to earn my trust-earn a higher trust. It did help that he brought references.

  "From where, Father?"

  "Other missions."

  "Here in town?"

  "No. Arizona and New Mexico. He worked with the Indians, put six years of his life into helping others. Paying his legal debt and enlarging himself as a human being. Those he worked with had only good things to say about him."

  Milo said nothing.

  The priest smiled. "And yes, that did help him obtain parole.

  But he came here as a free man, Officer. In a legal sense. He works here because he chooses to, not because he has to. And in answer to your question about friends, he has none-sticks to himself, denies himself worldly pleasures. A very tough cycle of work and prayer constitutes his entire life."

  "Sounds pretty darn saintly," said Milo.

  Anger tightened the priest's face. He struggled to fight it and managed to put on a calm expression. But when he spoke, his voice was constricted. "He had nothing to do with that poor woman's disappearance. I really don't see why there's a need to "That poor woman has a name," said Milo. "Gina Marie Ramp."

  "I'm aware of that "She's been sticking to herself, too, Father. Cut off from worldly pleasures. But in her case, it's not out of choice.

  For twenty years, since the day McCloskey's hired creep destroyed her face, she's been living up in a room, too scared to go out into the world. No parole for her, Father. So I'm sure you can understand why lots of people are upset at the fact that she's disappeared. And I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me if I try to get to the bottom of it. Even if it means inconveniencing Mr. McCloskey."

  Andrus bowed his head and clasped his hands in front of him.

  For a moment I thought he was praying. But he looked up and his lips were still. All the color was gone from his face.

  "Forgive me, Officer. It's been a hard week-two men died in their beds; two more were sent over to County General with suspected tuberculosis." He cocked his head toward the men in the chairs.

  "We've got a hundred more heads than beds, no letup in sight, and the archdiocese wants me to raise a larger share of my own funds."

  His shoulders dropped. "One searches for small victories. I've been trying to think of Joel as one."

  "Maybe he is," said Milo. "But we'd still like to talk to him."

  The priest shrugged. "Come, I'll take you to him."

  He'd never asked to see ID. Didn't even know our names.

  The first door in the hall led to an enormous dining hall where food smells finally overtook the stink of unwashed bodies. Wooden picnic tables covered by peacock-blue oilcloth were arranged in tandem, creating five long rows. Men sat hunched over their food, cradling their plates protectively. Prison dining. Spooning and chewing nonstop with all the joy of wind-up toys.

  Along the back wall was a steam table fronted by a glass partition and aluminum counter. Men were lined up holding their plates out, Oliver Twist-style. Three figures dressed in white shirts and aprons and hairnets ladled out food.

  Father Andrus said, "Wait here, please," and we stood by the door as he walked behind the steam table and said something to the middle server.

  Still working, the man nodded, handed his ladle to the priest, and stepped backward. Father Andrus began distributing food. The man in white wiped his hands on his apron, stepped around the table, through the line, and came toward us.

  He was about five five, with a stoop that robbed him of an inch he couldn't spare. The apron reached below his knees and was stained with food. He shuffled, barely raising his feet from the linoleum, and his arms remained at his sides as if glued there. Strands of white hair straggled from under the hairnet and adhered to a pasty, moist forehead. The face below was long and sallow, thin yet flabby. An aquiline nose had conceded defeat to gravity. White eyebrows. No fat under his chin, but a flap of loose flesh shook as he came closer. His eyes were hooded, dark, deep-set, very tired.

  He walked up to us, expressionless, and said, "Hello," in a flat, phlegmy voice.

  "Mr. McCloskey?"

  Nod. "I'm Joel." Listless. Open pores on nose and cheeks. Deep crevices flanking a down-turned, dry-lipped mouth. Eyes nearly shut under the heavy lids, yellowish scleras surrounding nearly black irises. I wondered when he'd last had a liver-function test.

  "We're here to talk about Gina Ramp, Joel."

  "She hasn't been found." A statement.

  "No, she hasn't. Any theories you'd like to share about what might have happened to her?"

  McCloskey's eyes shifted to one of the tables. Some of the men had stopped eating. Others cast covetous glances at the untouched food.

  "Could we talk in my room?"

  "Sure, Joel."

  He shuffled out the door and turned right into the corridor. We passed dormitories crammed with folding cots, some of them occupied, and a closed door marked INFIRMARY. Moans of pain filtered through plywood and echoed along the hall. McCloskey turned toward the sound, briefly, but didn't break step. Redirecting his gaze forward, he shuffled toward a brown-painted staircase at the back of the hall. The treads were covered with hard rubber, and the banister felt greasy.

  We followed his steady, slow climb up three flights. Now the disinfectant smell triumphed.

  Just off the landing on floor three was another closed door taped with a piece of shirt cardboard. JOEL was written on it in black marker.

  The knob had a keyhole, but he turned it and the door opened.

  He held it and waited for us to enter.

  The room was half the size of Gina Ramp's closet-no more than eight by eight, with a cot covered by a gray wool blanket, a wooden nightstand painted white, and a narrow three-drawer, woodgrain chest. A Bible sat atop the drawer, along with a hot plate, a can opener, a cellophane-wrapped cracker-and-peanut-butter combo, a half-empty jar of pickled beets, and a tin of Vienna sausage. A calendar painting of a haloed Jesus looked down approvingly on the cot. A yellowed, fly-specked shade was half drawn on a single barred window. Beyond the bars was a wall of gray brick. Light came from a bare bulb in the center of a ceiling spotted with mildew.

  Barely enough room to stand. I felt like holding on to something but didn't want to touch anything.

  McCloskey said, "Sit. If you want."

  Milo looked at the cot and said, "That's okay."

  The three of us remained standing. Close together, but miles apart.

  Like subway straphangers resolute upon isolation.

  Milo said, "Any theories, Joel?"

  McCloskey shook his head. "I've thought about it. A lot. Since the other police were here. I hope what happened is she got well enough to go out by herself and "And what?"

  "And liked it."

  "You want the best for her, do you?"

  Nod.

  "Now that you're a free man and the state can't tell you what to do."

  A faint smile formed on McCloskey's pale lips. The corners of his mouth were crusted with something white and flaky.

  "Something funny, Joel?"

  "Freedom. That's long gone."

  "For Gina, too.

  McCloskey closed his eyes, opened them, sat heavily on the cot, removed his hairnet, and rested his brow in one hand. The crown of his head was bald, the hair around it white and gray, cut short and spiky. It might have looked fashionable on an eighteen-year-old Melrose marauder.

  On an old man it resembled exactly what it was: a do-it-yourself job.

  Old man.

  Fifty-three.

  He looked seventy.

  "What I want doesn't matter," he said.

  "Not unless you're still after her, Joel."

  The jaundiced eyes squeezed shut again. The neck-flap trembled. "I wasn't No. I'm not."

  "Not what?"

  McCloskey held the hairnet with both hands, fingers poking through the mesh. Stretching it. "After her." A sub-whisper.

  "Were you starting to say you never were after her, Joel?"

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