The Deepest Cut

by Dianne Emley

  Many more bangers were in the basement-level jail, hauled in during an early-morning sweep. Members of rival gangs were segregated into different cell pods. Some had been arrested for drug possession, carrying concealed weapons, or parole violations. Most were still on the street, lucky enough not to have been breaking the law when the cops rained down. They were disinclined to come voluntarily to the PPD to be interviewed. The patrol cops let them know that they were watching and if they so much as jaywalked or threw a gum wrapper in the street, they’d be pulled in.

  Vining and Caspers had interviewed three of Marvin Li’s six employees: Daniel “Dan B” Boone Shin, age twenty-four, Victor “Kicker” Chang, age eighteen, and Ernesto “Chuckles” Ronquillo, age twenty-eight.

  They were nicely dressed and polite and had shown up on time. Shin and Ronquillo had long arrest records and were on parole. Their parole officers sang Marvin Li’s praises for the skill with which he wielded an iron fist in a velvet glove to keep former career criminals off the street and on the straight and narrow.

  Victor Chang’s sheet was clean, but he had been seen with members of a local set of a long-established Chinese gang, Wah Ching. The local set’s name was Hell Side Wah Ching. Marvin Li was a family friend and had taken Chang under his wing ostensibly to steer him from gang influences.

  All three knew Scrappy Espinoza through working with him at Aaron’s Aarrows, but none had socialized with him. Victor Chang said he thought that Scrappy was back on drugs, which was news to Scrappy’s parole officer.

  Daniel Boone Shin said that Scrappy had cryptically told him that he “wasn’t going to be working that piece of shit job much longer” as he had “something big” coming down.

  Vining had checked out Li’s Guns Gone public-service organization. The commendations on the Guns Gone website from the mayors of Los Angeles and other Southland cities praising Li’s work in helping to stem gang violence were legitimate.

  On the PPD’s third floor, the brass was handling the outraged public and their representatives. Owners of businesses in Old Pasadena, where Scrappy had been shot, were gathered in the lobby, waiting for a meeting with the chief. Neighborhood groups clamored for a stop to the gang violence. That night, a community meeting of citizens, clergy, elected officials, representatives from the local NAACP chapter, El Centro de Acción Social, and the PPD police chief would take place at All Saints Episcopal Church.

  Scrappy’s murder had been the tipping point. The violence had seeped into Old Pasadena. The public outcry had not only widened, but had deeper pockets. Merchants feared that what had happened in Westwood Village in the eighties would happen to Old Pasadena. Westwood had been a thriving weekend destination of shops, restaurants, and grand old movie palaces until two gang shootings, one claiming the life of a bystander standing in line for a movie, turned the village into a ghost town. It took decades for it to recover and still wasn’t what it had once been.

  Vining watched and listened as Jones and Sproul pressed an African American male whom she did not recognize. He appeared to be in his early thirties which, if he was a gangbanger, would make him an elder statesman.

  From his clothing, Vining determined that he was a member of the Bloods. The Bloods always wore red and their archrivals, the Crips, always wore blue. In years past, these two gangs used to be bolder in flying their colors. With the police cracking down hard on street gangs, they’d found cagier ways to proclaim their gang affiliation. This guy’s red shoelaces and red belt gave him away.

  The lights reflected off his shaved head. The hems of his ultra-baggy jeans flopped over bright white athletic shoes with the red shoelaces. When he was standing, the crotch of the jeans would reach his knees. The waistband was around his hips, revealing several inches of his print boxer shorts. Woven through the jeans’ belt loops was the bright red webbed belt. Tucked into the boxers was a white sleeveless Tee showing off his well-developed upper body and tattoos. Large diamond stud earrings were in both earlobes. A heavy, twisted gold chain was around his neck.

  Corporal Cameron Lam entered the observation room. He’d met with the head of the Sheriff’s San Gabriel Valley Asian Gang Task Force and was going to present what he’d learned at the briefing.

  “Hey, Cam. Who’s that fine citizen?”

  “That’s Andre Spranger, aka Chinaman. He’s new in town. Was recently released from Folsom after serving a sentence for assault, battery, and mayhem.”

  “Mayhem,” Vining repeated.

  “Bit off a guy’s ear and most of his nose in a fight.”

  “Nice. His moniker’s Chinaman?”

  “His homeys think he looks Chinese,” Lam said. “Maybe Scrappy meant to threaten Chinaman and wrote China Dog.”

  “Scrappy wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer,” Vining said.

  “Spranger lives with his grandmother in a house around the corner from the apartment where Scrappy lived with his mom.

  “Jones and Sproul have been hammering him for over an hour. He’s sticking to his story that he was home with his grandma the night of Scrappy’s murder, watching American Idol. I checked and Idol was on then.”

  Lam looked at Vining. “Maybe Chinaman came upon Scrappy painting the China Dog one-eight-seven tag and he thought Scrappy was threatening him.”

  Vining gave Lam a deadpan look.

  Lam read her thoughts. “I’ve known these guys to do dumber things.”

  “Thing is, Scrappy was tagging in such an isolated area. It was off the main action in Old Town, inside a dark construction site. Who knew that Scrappy was even there? And why was he there?”

  “It’s a mystery,” Lam agreed.

  “Has your team spotted any other China Dog tags around town?”

  “No and we’ve looked. I’ve checked with sheriffs in Altadena and Temple City and the Alhambra P.D. and San Gabriel P.D. However, we did find two one-eight-seven tags with my name and one with yours.”

  “With my name? Where?”

  “On the back wall of a tire store on Orange Grove east of Newcastle.”

  “Is it recent?”

  “One of my guys took a picture of the tags in that alley a week ago and it wasn’t there.”

  “Huh.”

  “You’re just a popular girl, Nan. Making friends wherever you go.”

  She laughed without amusement and again turned lackluster attention to Chinaman’s interrogation.

  Lam commented, “That’s going nowhere. He’s not giving anything up.”

  “I think he’s telling the truth. American Idol,” she sighed. “I’ve got to finish getting ready for the briefing.”

  VINING HAD COLLECTED, PHOTOCOPIED, AND STAPLED SELECTED DOCUMENTS from the Scrappy investigation. A set was squared on the table in front of each chair in the conference room. She’d straightened the chairs. At the last minute, she snagged Caspers and asked him if he’d put bottles of water at each place.

  He gave her a crooked smile. “You’re not nervous, are you, Nan?”

  “A little.” It was obvious, so she might as well admit it.

  “You’ve never been the lead on a homicide before?”

  “Not one like this.” The PPD homicide detectives investigated all suspicious deaths. The cases she’d worked apart from Kissick had been cut-and-dried. Husband kills wife in front of the kids. Wife kills husband and confesses. Homeboy shoots a rival in front of ten witnesses, who won’t talk, and a CCTV camera that will. Depressed man or woman kills himself or herself, leaving a suicide note.

  The more complex cases, she’d worked with Kissick. She never considered that he was “in charge.” To her, and she knew he would agree, the investigation had been a collaboration, but she’d always let him take charge of the briefings. It would be good for her career if she sometimes held the dry-erase pen and fielded the pointed questions. She didn’t care. She already had the job she wanted.

  “Time for your turn in the spotlight,” Caspers said.

  That was another common misconception
about her, that she had third-floor aspirations because she was focused and aloof. Working at a police station could be like high school, only with guns and badges.

  She didn’t protest, but simply said, “Time for you to shine too, buddy. Show that you’ve stepped up.”

  He gave in to a small smile, clearly flattered.

  Being political did not come naturally to her, but she’d learned to appreciate its benefits and to fake it for self-preservation. She wanted to keep Caspers on her side. She ought to have earned that and more after she’d covered for him today with Sergeant Early and Marvin Li. She’d had a chat with Caspers in the car on the way back and had given him some big-sisterly advice, which he’d received well. While he was still capable of annoying her to the core, she’d come to like him. He was a good cop and generally strove to do the right thing. She needed someone to back her up during the briefing. The heat being put on Beltran would filter down to her.

  She wondered what Kissick was doing. It was late afternoon and he had certainly met with the park ranger by now. She regretted not having leaped on the Morro Rock connection when Kissick had first mentioned it after seeing Nitro’s drawings.

  Who was she kidding? When Nitro had shown up, she’d been in the thick of investigating a grisly double homicide. She’d lied to Kissick and Sergeant Early when she’d slipped off to Tucson to investigate Johnna Alwin’s murder. She’d barely managed to disappear for a few hours.

  Now, the murder of a career gangbanger whose life had ended as if foretold was keeping her from the only murderer she was obsessed about bringing down: T B. Mann.

  Standing in the perfectly set-up conference room, dreading the meeting that was about to begin, she looked at the big clock on the wall and tried to quiet the acid churning in her stomach. She left to get the Maalox tablets in her desk.

  TWENTY-ONE

  AN HOUR INTO THE BRIEFING, VINING THOUGHT IT WAS GOING AS well as could be expected. Her team had turned over a lot of stones and was aggressively pursuing a couple of solid leads. Yet, judging by Lieutenant Beltran’s expression— he was facing her at the opposite end of the table— she felt he thought she’d been watching soap operas and eating bonbons. Certainly, he’d never looked at Kissick that way, or had Kissick just brushed it off? She recognized that while Bel-tran craved attention, the type of spotlight that was being put on him from upstairs was casting an unflatteringly harsh glare. She guessed he was just sharing the love.

  Vining bolstered her confidence by making eye contact with the others there: Detectives Alex Caspers, Louis Jones, Doug Sproul, and Corporal Cameron Lam. Caspers’s contribution had been helpful and smart. She was proud of him. Sergeant Early was seated to her right. While Vining couldn’t directly see her, she welcomed Sarge’s solid and encouraging presence, as if Early were Kissick’s surrogate.

  Vining had presented what they had learned so far in their two-pronged investigation. On one hand, they were looking into a possible Chinese gang connection through Marvin Li, aka China Dog. On the other, they were chasing down the usual suspects in the ongoing gang war. She had stood through most of the briefing, making use of the diagrams and photos on poster board that one of the staff assistants had helped her put together.

  After she’d concluded, Lieutenant Beltran was the first to speak.

  “The business owners are hammering us to solve this, and quickly.” His tone was clipped. “They’re afraid of people staying away from Old Town because of gang violence. They remember what happened to Westwood Village.”

  Silence followed his last comment.

  Vining’s skin prickled with perspiration and she feared wet half-moons were spreading down the armpits of her shirt. She was glad she’d selected a light pink shirt which wouldn’t show the perspiration as obviously as one of her medium blue ones. Beltran’s disparaging facial expression had fanned her nervousness during her presentation, but with this comment, he’d made her angry. A word of encouragement from him wouldn’t have been out of line. He knew gang murders were notoriously hard to solve. Anyone who knew anything wouldn’t talk, out of loyalty or fear. Her team was doing everything by the numbers and then some.

  She was about to respond when he opened his mouth and raised his index finger, telegraphing that he wasn’t finished. “Nan, in my humble opinion, we don’t need to waste any more time investigating Pearl Zhang, her family, or her business associates.”

  Now, he’d really ticked Vining off. She recalled one of Kissick’s favorite sayings that went something like, just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

  Early shifted her feet beneath the table, but remained silent. Everyone was waiting for Vining to respond. If she lay down, she’d lose her power and authority.

  She stole a phrase from Kissick to preface her comments. “All due respect, ell-tee, but Scrappy’s murder doesn’t fit the mold of the recent gang-related incidents. None of our informants report the local gang-bangers taking responsibility for Scrappy’s murder, which is unusual. Usually, we have the opposite— guys claiming to be good for a murder when they weren’t anywhere near it. We need to think outside the box.”

  Sergeant Early finally stopped holding back. “I agree. We need to let the evidence lead the investigation. We start speculating and we could end up being wrong. Scrappy was tagging ‘Death to China Dog’ on property owned by a family that has connections to a well-established Chinese gang. Asian gangs haven’t taken hold in Pasadena. You’ll remember a few years ago, when a man connected to a Chinese gang opened a video arcade near Pasadena City College. We found out about it early and were able to chase him out of town before he and his crew got established here. Scrappy’s murder may be a wake-up call that there’s something going on that we haven’t yet caught wind of.”

  Beltran turned up his palm, conceding. “Point well taken, Sergeant, but you said we need to follow the evidence. Marvin Li says he’s retired from the Wah Ching gang and the facts bear this out. He’s spent years trying to help gang members get out of the life. Sure, Marvin’s newfound respectability could be an elaborate front. I’m not naïve to that possibility. But the question remains: Why would Marvin Li or Pearl Zhang want Scrappy dead? If they were going to eliminate him, why do it on family property? While Pearl Zhang at first denied knowing China Dog’s identity, she was simply embarrassed about her cousin’s criminal past. She apologized to me and I feel she was sincere.”

  An image of Beltran and Zhang laughing together popped into Vining’s mind.

  Beltran continued. “Let’s follow this thread through, but do it quickly and move on. It doesn’t help our image to harass Pearl Zhang, a fine citizen who’s done so much for the community.”

  Vining saw that Pearl Zhang had Beltran in her pocket, or perhaps in her pants.

  Beltran looked at the wall clock. “You’ll have to excuse me. As I mentioned, I have a meeting with the chief.”

  He hadn’t mentioned it, but Vining was glad he was leaving. She no longer wondered if perspiration was soaking her shirt. She was certain of it. When he had left the room, Vining glanced at Sergeant Early, who gave her a quick smile.

  Caspers’s shoulders dropped as he exhaled. Everyone remained sitting stiffly until Sarge leaned back and laced her hands across her broad middle. Only then did the mood become more relaxed. Jones, Caspers, and Lam almost simultaneously leaned back, too. Sproul took a small white cloth from his shirt pocket and began cleaning his glasses.

  Vining was the only one with her posture still erect and her hands on the table. “Cameron’s done research on Asian gangs. Can you bring us up-to-date, Cam?”

  “Be happy to.” Lam scanned through handwritten notes. “I met with Sergeant John Velado, who’s the head of the Sheriff’s San Gabriel Valley Asian Gang Task Force, working out of the Temple City station.

  “As everyone here knows, the Asian population in the San Gabriel Valley has skyrocketed over the past twenty years. Asians comprise fifty percent of the population in some ci
ties and in some areas, the numbers are even higher and they’re growing. The Department of Justice estimates there could be fifteen thousand Asian gang members in California and as many as five thousand in the S.G. Valley. In Orange County, Asian gangs are principally Vetnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian. In the S.G. Valley, they’re generally Chinese and Korean.

  “Unlike African-American and Latino gangs, Asian gangs don’t claim a turf. They aren’t attached to a street or neighborhood. Gang loyalty is not their priority. Their number-one goal is to make money. Gang members fighting one day may later get together to pull off a crime.

  “They prey on their own communities, targeting Asian businesses and homes. They specialize in extortion, robberies, especially home invasion robberies, identity theft, illegal immigrant smuggling, prostitution, drug trafficking, and import/export fraud. Using the tried-and-true formula that’s worked for all organized crime groups, most of their crimes go unreported because of the victims’ fear of revenge.

  “Their crimes are conducted with precision, demonstrate organization and planning, and are characterized by extreme violence. The larger gangs operate under a hierarchical structure. Among Chinese gangs, at the top are the ‘dai los’ or big brothers. At the bottom are the foot soldiers or ‘sai los,’ little brothers. In between are lieutenants, crew chiefs, and associates. The leaders try to insulate themselves from the gang’s activity. Not all Asian gang members are Asian. Some get in because the dai lo likes them or they were sponsored by an Asian girlfriend.

  “Investigating Asian gangs is tough. We’re up against cultural barriers, a code of silence, and language issues. Being a police officer is not a respected occupation among Chinese and Southeast Asians.