by Frank Zafiro
I peeled a number of bills from the money clip and laid them on the counter.
With the key in hand, I left the manager’s office and continued walking back downtown to the Davenport.
Thursday, April 15th 2312 hrs 507 West Corbin
TOWER
The house was silent when I slipped in through the kitchen door. The kitchen was clean as usual. The smell of popcorn hung in the air.
I shed equipment as I walked slowly down the hall. The weight of the handcuffs came off my waist but did little to lighten my step. I shrugged my shoulder rig off my shoulders.
I moved into my bedroom and dumped my gear on top of my dresser. Then I poked my head into Ben’s room. He lay in his bed, sleeping, perfectly still. It always concerned me, how still he lay while he slept. Only his shallow breath moved the blankets slightly.
After the collision, I used to wonder if Ben had always slept so stilly. The only other person who might have known was my sister. She wasn’t around to answer that question.
I closed his door and started toward my own bedroom, then paused. Directly across from Ben’s room was the spare room. The door was partially open. I swung the door open slowly, wincing when it gave a small creak.
Teri lay on her back in the small twin bed. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow. The blankets came to her waist and I could see her turquoise nightgown. She was breathing deeply and I felt a tinge of shame as I watched her. Asleep, she didn’t press her lips together so tightly. They pouted like a 1940s movie star.
Teri moaned softly and rolled onto her side, facing the door. I took in the curve of her body under the blanket, beginning at her feet and following it up her legs, over her hips, to her bare shoulders and to her face. When I reached her eyes, I saw her looking back at me.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.
“I just got here,” I half-whispered. “I tried to be quiet. Sorry if I woke you.”
“S’alright,” she murmured. “You check on Ben?”
“Yeah. He’s sound asleep.”
“Mmmm-hmmm. Never moves when he sleeps.” She snuggled down into her pillow. “Everything okay?” she asked sleepily.
“Yeah,” I told her. “Go back to sleep.”
“Mmmm-kay.” She closed her eyes. “’Night, John.”
“Goodnight,” I said and pulled the door closed. I stood and stared at that closed door for several moments before turning and trudging toward my bedroom. I knew that sleep would evade me again.
Thursday, April 15th Lazy J Diner, Morning
VIRGIL
A jagged headache pushed inward from the temples, making me uncomfortable and angry as I wandered along Sprague in the early morning sun. The newspaper predicted it would be abnormally warm for the day. At nine o’clock in the morning, I was already roasting in my jacket with beads of sweat rolling down my back underneath my shirt.
Sprague Avenue was pretty quiet at that time of the morning. The locals were still sleeping off their highs from the previous night and the few honest business folks in the area were tucked quietly away inside their shops. The gnawing headache convinced me that I needed something to eat and a caffeine injection.
I stopped at the Lazy J diner. An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was finishing up when I walked in for breakfast. One of the female members collected their sign from the front entrance, flashing an embarrassed smile when she walked by me.
The smell of bacon grease and burnt coffee wafted around the room, over-powering the obligatory cigarette smoke that accompanies any recovering alcoholics meeting. I grabbed a table near the window and sat facing out at the activity on the street.
A white-haired waitress slowly ambled over to me. Her brown skirt fell below her knees, allowing the varicose veins in her thick, lower legs to show. The scuffed nurses shoes she wore looked several months past comfortable. Her orange nametag read Laverne.
“Morning,” she said with a slight southern drawl.
I nodded back at her and pulled out a pack of Camels.
“Something to drink?” she asked and laid a plastic menu on the table in front of me.
I lit up a cigarette and drew a deep inhale. “Coffee.”
Laverne had large crow’s feet with deep crevices near her eyes. Her dark eye shadow made her appear tired and haunted. “Need a moment to look at the menu?”
“Two eggs, bacon and an English muffin.”
“How do you want those eggs?”
“Sunnyside up.”
Laverne nodded and wandered off to the kitchen.
I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and massaged my temples, hoping to ease the headache.
From inside my jacket I pulled out Fawn’s picture and the article that Andie had sent me on her murder. I unfolded the article on the table and reread it.
GIRL FOUND MURDERED BEHIND BINGO HALL
Early morning discovery shocks neighborhood
A young woman was found murdered behind a dumpster in the parking lot of the Farmer’s Bingo Parlor in east River City. Her body was discovered by a patron leaving after an evening of Bingo.
The victim’s name was not released pending notification of the family. She was described as white and in her early teens. No further information regarding her description was released.
Vivian Marsh, the patron who discovered the body, was still shaken after finding the girl. “No one, especially a little girl like that, deserves to get herself killed that way,” said the sixty-seven year old grandmother. Marsh immediately notified the Bingo Parlor management, who called the police. Patrol units responded quickly.
The case was assigned to River City Police Detective John Tower of the Major Crimes unit. When asked if the murder was sexually motivated, Detective Tower responded, “We’ll have to wait for the forensic tests to come back before we can make that determination.”
No immediate suspects have been developed, but the police department’s Crime Analysis unit will begin compiling suspects who match certain criteria. “Once the evidence is collected, and that includes interviews of potential witnesses, Crime Analysis will input that data into the system and pull out individuals of interest. It’s a slow process sometimes, but we’ve got to make sure we don’t overlook anything,” said Detective Tower.
Anyone with information regarding this homicide is requested to contact the River City Police Department at (509) 555-4100.
“Is that your daughter?” Laverne asked when she brought my breakfast.
I glanced up at her and covered the article with my hand. “Yes. Did she ever come in here?”
Laverne put my plate down with a clatter and stared at the picture for a minute. “She doesn’t look familiar. Do you guys live around here?”
“No. She was hanging out down here.”
Laverne’s face softened and she glanced outside to Sprague Avenue. When she looked back to me, she nodded silently and walked back into the kitchen.
I folded the article around Fawn’s picture and tucked it back into my coat.
After breakfast I wandered back out to Sprague where traffic, both human and vehicle, was starting to pick up. I closed my eyes and lifted my head to the morning sun, feeling its warmth on my face. I pulled out a Camel and lit it.
“Got a smoke, man?”
I turned around to see a young black kid with a serious case of the shakes. His eyes looked older, but I guessed him to be about fifteen years old.
I shook a cigarette free for him. He reached out with a shaky hand and plucked it from the pack.
“Suck your dick?” he asked, lifting the cigarette to his lips.
“What?”
“Suck your dick?”
“Get away from me.”
“C’mon, man, I’m jus’ tryin’ to make a livin’.”
I stepped towards him, ready to inflict the reality of the situation on him, when a loud voice boomed, “Dookie!”
The black kid spun around and looked back up the street at Rolo, the pim
p I’d met in The Hole.
“Get your black ass back over here.”
I looked up the street at the pimp and gave a small wave. He ignored my sentiment and slapped Dookie hard across the face when he was in range. East Sprague’s version of tough love, I guess.
The normal players were scarce in the morning, usually spending their mornings hung-over or in a cell block. By coming down early in the morning, I hoped to get a different feel for Sprague Avenue. Down near the ACME TV, a leggy blonde stood next to a bus stop sign, smoking a cigarette and watching the passing traffic with intent eyes.
The girl wore a dirty, red flannel shirt over even dirtier blue jeans. The shirt was open and Mickey Mouse’s face peered out from a faded t-shirt. Her long blond hair was stringy and a month or two had passed since its last bleaching.
A patrol car cruised slowly down the street as the whore leered at it. The female police officer behind the wheel never looked in her direction. The hooker was smarter than I had given her credit for. She stood near the bus stop, acting like she was waiting for a bus.
I lit a cigarette and headed in her direction, hoping to show Fawn’s picture.
A shiny, black Mercedes pulled up next to the curb and the leggy blonde clicked over to the car. The passenger window rolled down and she leaned into it. The windows on the car were tinted, but the interior was light enough that I could see an older white male behind the wheel. I stopped in the doorway of an antique toy store and watched. It took only a few seconds of negotiation before she nodded her head and stood up from the car. She spun around deftly on her high heels and clicked off around the corner with the car following her.
I took a deep inhale on the Camel and dropped it to the sidewalk. As I got close to the alley’s entrance, a patrol car came around the far corner with its engine gunning. The car whipped into the alley in front of me.
A young black officer was behind the wheel while an older, graying officer was in the passenger seat. They stopped behind the Mercedes and activated their emergency lights. The Mercedes was rocking slightly side to side. I could see the head of the driver, but the prostitute’s head was out of view.
The black officer jumped out of the car and strode quickly and confidently to the driver’s door of the Mercedes. The graying officer took his time getting out of the car and saw me standing at the alley entrance. He ignored me and sauntered up to the passenger side of the car.
“River City Police Department, sir,’ the black officer said after he smacked the top of the roof.
The hooker jumped upright in her seat. The older officer stood next to her window where she never saw him.
“Roll down your window, sir,” the young cop ordered.
A moment later the driver leaned his head partially out of his window. “What’s the problem, Officer?”
“You’re getting oral sex from a known prostitute, that’s the problem.”
“She’s not a hooker, Officer. She’s an old girlfriend.”
“What’s her name then?”
The hooker leaned over and yelled, “Toni.”
The young officer looked frustrated. “Ma’am, please sit back. I’m talking with the driver.”
“Her name’s Toni,” the driver said.
“Yeah, she told me.”
The driver pleaded, “I swear she’s an old girlfriend.”
The young officer crossed his arms and frowned. “Let me see your driver’s license and registration.”
The driver reached over to the glove box and fumbled around. Toni looked to her right and saw the older officer outside the car. She rolled down her window and said, “Why are you standing there?”
“I’m his back-up officer,” he said and watched his partner.
“Do you know Officer Hiero?”
He turned his head to her. “Hiero?”
The hooker nodded.
“Yeah, I know him.”
“I know him, too,” she said.
“He arrest you?”
She shook her head, the blonde hair flopping over her shoulder. “No, we’re friends.”
“Friends?”
She nodded again.
“I doubt it.”
Toni glanced at the black officer and then turned back to the officer standing outside her window. She leaned in and read his name tag. “Officer …. Bates, you’re not his back-up. You’re his training officer. Am I right?”
Bates ignored her and watched his partner.
“Shit,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Rookies arrest everybody.”
A broad smile grew on the older officer’s face. It faded when he glanced over at me. He jerked his head for me to leave the area.
“Can I get out of the car?” Toni asked.
“No.”
“But I need to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Toni whined.
Bates glanced over at me. “What the hell do you want?”
I shrugged.
“Take off.”
I glanced around, shoved my hands in my pockets and started across the street.
“I’ll tell you about the dead girl,” Toni blurted to the older officer.
I spun around and stared at them.
“What dead girl are we talking about?”
“The one in the bingo parking lot.”
Bates stared at his partner and thought for a moment. When he started to turn in my direction, I wandered off to the end of the block over on First Street. I shook a cigarette free, lit it and stood there smoking. When the cigarette was done, I changed my vantage point to make sure the police car was still there.
The rookie was stuffing Toni into the back seat of the patrol car as his training officer dropped back into the passenger seat. The rookie climbed into the car, turned off his emergency lights and backed out of the alley. The tires chirped slightly as they drove away.
Thursday, April 15 th 1019 hrs Investigative Division
TOWER
“Gonzalez, huh? Lots of them down here.”
The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Salinas Police Sergeant Roger Kraemer.
“Could you run a local check on my victim, Sergeant? I got her identified off fingerprints and the flag on the hit said something about a misdemeanor arrest in California.”
“Gimme her info,” Sergeant Kraemer grunted.
I gave him her name and birth-date and could hear him typing it into his computer. He asked for the address on her driver’s license. I told him.
He stopped typing. “Her address is on Grant Road? Well, that narrows things down.”
“What do you mean?”
Kraemer coughed away from the phone receiver. “What I mean is, we got ourselves a group of Gonzalez pukes that live on Grant Road who are in trouble all the time.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Stolen property, mostly. They run chop shops once in a while, too.”
“Do you recognize Serena’s name?”
“No,” Kraemer answered. “But I wouldn’t recognize many of them..”
“How about a Lucinda?”
“Nope. Here’s the computer return on your vic, though. Serena Gonzalez. Same date of birth. She shows that address on Grant Road. One arrest at age sixteen, three years ago.”
“Prostitution?”
“Nope. Simple Theft. Victim was a store at the mall.”
“She was fingerprinted off of that?”
“I imagine that whoever popped her for the shoplift saw the last name and the address and figured that if we had a chance to get a Grant Road Gonzalez printed and pictured, we’d better do it.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah. Listen, I’m going to have Detective Ernie Williams give you a call back in a little bit. He’s in Auto Theft and Burglary right now and I think he’s been working the Gonzalez family for a while.”
“That’d be helpful. Thanks.”
He grunted and hung up.
I
reached for my pen and scribbled some notes. Serena belonged to a family of criminals. My experience with people born into a family like that was that they go one of two ways. They either embrace that lifestyle wholeheartedly and join in the fun, or they reject it utterly. Either way, having the same last name is a curse of sorts. It identifies them forever with that group of criminals, which hampers a criminal career and sullies a straight one.
I paged through my case file to the autopsy photos. They were arranged chronologically, so the early pictures showed Serena in an almost peaceful repose, as if she were asleep with an unnatural stiffness. Her arms lay at her sides and the skin tone was too gray. The stab wounds on her chest and the bruising on her throat were like angry punctuation marks.
I picked up her driver’s license photo and examined it. It showed a sixteen-year-old Serena. Her thick, jet-black hair was teased up and she flashed an excited grin. There was a light in her eyes. Her face still had a slight chubbiness to it, almost as if she hadn’t shed all of her baby fat. Glancing back down at the close-up of her face on autopsy table, she was noticeably thinner, though not unhealthy. But her face held the lines and edges of a woman. The picture on the license was of a girl.
Staring at a picture of her dead, naked body, I tried to envision her alive. I thought of what George and Gina had said about her at the Tip Top. How popular she was. It was plain that she had a nice body. Even in death, her breasts were pert and her stomach flat. I imagined her flashing that same smile from her license photo to the customers at the Tip Top. Any one of them would think he’d hit the lottery. Young, built and with a killer smile. And for a five-dollar drink, she’d spent twenty minutes talking to you.
So this girl, with a criminal family, left Salinas and ended up here in River City. How long did she knock around before she ended up here? Or did she come straight to River City? Did she have friends here?
I thought about the last question. Probably not, I decided. Would she be staying at a motel for a month if she had friends in town? So chances were she came to town knowing no one.