by Janis Jones
“He was shot to death in an alley. A young guy… younger than you.”
Casey looks sad and shocked.
“Oh my God. Do I want to hear this? I don’t like the way you’re looking. It was really bad, yeah?”
“Yes, very, very bad.”
“Oh my God, was it cops? Oh no! Is that it? Mara?”
Casey felt sick to her stomach, but felt even worse for Mara because she looked so drawn and tense. The word ‘stricken’ popped into her mind.
“No, not me. I’ve been at the scene. I can’t say much, but it was especially bad. Do you know him?”
Casey leafs through the slim folder.
“No, I’ve never seen him at the bar or anywhere else.”
“So, Derek was wrong… it’s not personal.”
“Oh, no.” Casey was looking at the folder.
“What is it?”
“Did you know they have a baby?”
“I read that, yeah…”
“I hate this stuff! Hate it! Now some kid has no Daddy just like that.”
Casey looks up, thinking.
“I want to send her something. Would you take it for me?” She won’t want to see me, that’s for sure.
“Oh, Casey. Come on! I know you’re upset by this… Send her a card if you just have to do something. Her husband is a…” Mara thought this level of sympathy was just ridiculous, but it was totally ‘Casey’, so not unexpected. She would contain her exasperation, soften her tone. She would try. That hot shower was calling again…
“It’s not her fault. Please do this for me. Hey, it’s sure not some little baby boy’s fault.”
Casey slaps the folder hard against the rail.
“Oh, this is… this just completely sucks!” Casey’s face was flushed as the facts sank in.
“A little gangsta wannabe making his bones by almost killing you?” I can’t even think about it.”
“That doesn’t change anything. There’s still a mother and baby left behind, no matter what he was like.”
Mara wanted to take Casey by the shoulders and shake her, but she didn’t want to fight, so she calmed down as much as she could.
She also couldn’t tell Casey that she discovered she had crossed paths with this little punk a couple years before, without realizing it was the same guy. Skinny, dyed long Goth black hair, no tattoos, no self-anointed nickname and a beater car.
Maybe later when things settled down.
In a split-second, her mind tore through the memory. Hot Los Angeles day. Downtown. Leaving the Criminal Courts Building everyone now recognized from the first Simpson trial. A long wait and a short ten-minute testimony as a witness in a domestic dispute. Saying goodbye to the officer working the metal detector at the main entrance, grabbing a hot dog from the cart at the curb, loading it with jalapeños and cheese and walking down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. First bite and she thought she spotted someone dropping down between two cars like a bad imitation of Whack-a-Mole. Probably tying his shoe or something, but it had gotten her attention so now she had to check. Quietly walking up on him where he squatted, gouging the side panel on a nice midnight blue sedan with a stubby screwdriver. It registered that he also held a slide-out box cutter in his other hand, maybe planning some tire-slashing, so she tossed the sandwich and got ready. Still chewing the second bite of her attempted lunch, she swallowed quickly.
“LAPD. Sir, I need you to stand up slowly, drop the weapon and back out from between the cars. I will need to see some ID.”
He jerked his head around and said something like, “Bitch, you ain’t all that… and you ain’t big enough to take me!” Another genius. But at least he had complied with her order to drop the utility knife and screwdriver. Now he stood facing her, looking peeved and sweaty.
“Take it easy, Sir. I just need to run your identification. Nothing to get all tense about.”
“I got some ID for you, right here.” The little jerk had actually grabbed his crotch and leered at her. In her peripheral vision, she saw a uni officer walking toward them from across the lot. She would keep this loser occupied and let the uniform officer take over so she could get on the road to her next interview. Two tubby downtown pigeons were already attending to the remains of the hot dog nearby.
“Did you want to report a theft? Is there something missing from your pants?” She knew she shouldn’t do this, but exasperation provided her with some dialogue. Of course, he didn’t take kindly to her assertion. He was seething.
“Oh, now it’s on! I don’t let no bitch talk to me like that!” He made the mistake of taking a swing at her face. She ducked the punch, grabbed his wrist with both hands, twisted it and whipped him into the vandalized car.
“You’ve attempted to assault an officer of the court, so I take you in. Stand still. Now turn around, put your other hand behind you.” He is livid and pointedly ignoring her directions. The officer arrives and makes a move to help. Mara holds up her hand, keeping her eyes on her charge. She twists his arm and brings him to his knees. Fuming, he attempts to rise to his feet, and Mara shoves him into the side of the SUV next to the sedan, simultaneously sweeping his feet out from under him. He bangs his forehead on the door handle on the way down. She places her knee in the small of his back, and slaps one handcuff on.
“Hi, Tony.” The officer is enjoying the scene, stifling an unprofessional grin.
“Ow, goddamn it! My name ain’t Tony.
“I wasn’t addressing you, Junior. This is Officer Colton… Finish him, Tony. I’ll write up my report and catch you up with the paperwork when I get back. Thanks.”
So hard to imagine that she would see this skinny little weasel years later, looking completely different and dead. He had completely rebuilt his body and improved his life, and now he was gone. Back to the moment.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“I can’t help it. I really feel it. I know it’s stupid, but please do it for me?”
Mara closes her eyes.
“Okay. Okay, I will.”
Casey hugs Mara around the waist and grinds her face under Mara’s jaw, kissing her.
“Thank you. I know you don’t really want to do it.”
Chapter 47
Carport
Mara cleans the windows on Casey’s car and her truck. As she wipes the inside of the little sports car’s back window, Skeezy appears, speaking in a singsong.
“I can help you. Do you want me to… help you… Do you? Do you?”
Mara is exasperated, her voice muffled from the inside of the car.
“I can’t hear you… just a minute, Dr. Seuss!”
She climbs out of the car, her hands full of paper towels and a spray bottle.
“Okay, now what did you want?”
“I can help you, and you don’t have to pay. I can wipe the apple off today… SPRAY!”
Mara is feeling more charitable toward him now that Casey is feeling so much better.
“Okay, I’ll spray and we can both wipe.”
She hands him a big wad of paper towels.
Skeezy is happy to be helping with Casey’s car.
“BRAWNY! Don’t forget to shine it on the side!”
“Okay, I’ll do the mirror again… is that what you mean?”
“YES! GOOD ONE!” Skeezy’s volume knob had apparently broken off. He must be really happy. Can’t fault him for that.
They move to the truck windshield.
“I’ll get it. I’m tall.”
“Yes, you are. A lot taller than me.”
“Bigger than Casey, bigger than you. Lemme do the apple, okay?”
He was settling down. Less rhyme-y. Less jumpy. She would give him some food money after they finished.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Skeezy runs to th
e back window of the truck and jabs his finger, thumping repeatedly on the circular Marine decal on the driver’s side.
Mara tries not to laugh.
“Oh, okay… I get it. You do the apple.” Casey was going to love this story.
“The BIG apple, not the little apple.”
“There’s only one apple.”
She shakes her head, correcting herself.
“...Decal… sticker.” Hard to tell if he would know the word ‘decal’.
Skeezy makes a joke.
“Stick’er on there! HA! He has one, too.”
“Who has one what?” Veering into Abbott & Costello territory here.
“The man has one. The one with the belt and the keys. Hey, wanna see the licorice whip? I washed it in the ocean. DRIP!”
Now Mara is aggravated and completely over letting him help.
“Honest to God, Skeezy… I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m sorry.”
Skeezy is scared. She said Skeezy and she said hell. Should he explain or go? Try explaining, he decided. And he was hungry.
“In my backpack pack.”
He lunges for his backpack and yanks open the zipper, in a hurry to dump everything out and redeem himself. He grabs the black telescoping baton and holds it up for her to see, being careful to show it in a friendly way on both open palms like an offering. He knew that much. Because it was a weapon.
Mara suddenly notices the twisted orange cell phone in his avalanche of junk.
“Jesus!”
Now Skeezy is petrified.
“I didn’t do it!”
Mara is stunned to see Casey’s ruined cell phone. It had taken her weeks to find a replacement for the small vintage flip phone on eBay.
“It’s okay, it’s okay… I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
She puts her hand lightly on his arm, and he stares down at it.
“Where did you get these?”
He speaks rapidly, blurting out the story in nervous bursts.
“Somebody threw it down there. I was taking a shower… and stuff came out the door.”
He points in the direction of the ocean.
“Over there. I just picked it up… I didn’t take it.”
He explains breathlessly.
“Casey said I could take a shower out there if you weren’t looking. She’s very nice.”
“Yes, she is. Very, very nice. Would you please show me where you picked them up? Was it at night?”
“It happened AT NIGHT! I wanted to run away, but I waited to see her first and then I ran away. She got hurt real bad.”
“Yes, she did. Let’s go and you can show me… It was nice of you to be worried about her.” She had all she could do not to cry, remembering.
They walk down the side of the carport toward the beach.
Chapter 48
Duplex
Mara rings the doorbell on a ground floor stucco duplex and waits. She has a large, flat package wrapped in brown paper under her arm.
Lisa Tiller’s voice is muffled from behind the closed door.
“Who is it?”
“Mrs. Tiller, my name is Mara Bays. I’m a detective.”
The door opens. Denny Tiller’s widow, Lisa, is a petite, pretty, tired-looking nineteen year-old with long reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. She has a pale, pudgy baby boy on her hip. He’s cranky and his nose is running.
“No more drug questions. I mean it! Denny didn’t do drugs. He wasn’t like that, or I wouldn’t have married him.”
“I believe you. I’m not here about that.”
“Alright, come in then. And you can call me Lisa.”
Lisa holds the bowed aluminum screen door open, and Mara steps inside.
The apartment is clean but sparsely furnished. There is a dingy olive-green shag rug and heaps of laundry and baby clothes on the tired couch. Framed family photos cover the walls.
“Mrs. Tiller… Lisa, I just wanted…”
“What, to say you’re sorry? Sorry doesn’t pay the rent. I got a car note staring me in the face. Maybe if you people did your goddamn job, I wouldn’t be in this mess. I don’t wanna hear ‘sorry’. You get me?”
“Yes, Ma’am, I do get you.”
“You want some coffee? I just made some.” Lisa realized she had blown up and, really, who could blame her under the circumstances.
“Thank you. That would be nice.”
Lisa puts the baby down in his playpen and pours two cups of black coffee in mismatched mugs.
“So, what did you want?”
“Well, it’s a little complicated.”
“Sugar, creamer?”
“Black’s fine, thanks. You were aware that your husband was wanted for a violent assault on a woman?”
Lisa hands her the mug.
“The cops said that. Why, is it her people who shot him? Did you catch ‘em?”
She looked angry and close to tears.
“No, it’s nothing like that. Ms. Terranova, the victim, asked me to deliver this gift.”
“A gift? Yeah, I bet!”
Lisa felt like one more thing would break her. She had to stay angry until she had a chance to break down and cry more in private.
“No, really. It’s not a trick.”
Lisa seems stunned.
“No way! Seriously?”
“That’s all I’m here for. I don’t want to interrupt your day.”
Mara sipped the surprisingly good coffee.
“What is it?”
Mara puts her cup down and removes the wrapping from the framed print, facing it toward Lisa, who seems overwhelmed for the moment.
The design is a silhouette of papyrus stalks in the wind with the legend,“TIME HEALS” across the width of the bottom edge. The color is deep blue-purple with a rising full moon behind the papyrus.
“Ms. Terranova… her name is Cassandra, wants you to know that there are no hard feelings toward you and that she’s forgiven your… late husband.”
Lisa tears up.
“I can’t even believe a stranger would be so nice to me, especially when…”
“She’s… she just seems to be a genuinely nice woman.” This was just unbelievably strange, saying Casey’s formal name, describing her, seeing how right her instincts had been about the gift.
“You know, I could help you hang it if you have a place you’d like it. You have your hands full with little…” They both looked over to see the baby sleeping in his pile of stuffed animals. Lisa smiled.
“We call him ’D.J.’ for Dennis, Jr. Big name for my little man… Dennis Armand Tiller, Jr.”
She pauses to compose herself and looks at the baby sadly.
“Thanks, but Denny’s uncle is coming over this weekend with rent money and some baby things. He can help me put it up then. Don’t worry; I’ll keep it safe from D.J. and him safe from the glass. It’s so beautiful.”
She looked wistful as she continued while Mara drank her coffee.
“He was so good to Denny when he was a little boy… I heard lots of stories.”
She stares at a framed photo and points.
“That’s him in the fishing picture, with Denny holding that big ole salmon. It was up in Washington State, I think. He was a Marine, too.”
Mara pauses and looks down.
“I have two Marine brothers.”
Mara carries her coffee and walks over to look at the family photos. Nine year-old Denny Tiller stands with a young, wholesome Uncle Larry beaming beside him. There is no mistaking that this is Larry Fratiano. My God, this is unbelievable. Handle it. Be cool.
“Well… I… uh… that’s a great thing for a man to do. Something I bet your husband always remembered fondly.” That son-of-bitch! Mara finished her coffee, walked over a
nd put the cup on the kitchen counter for something to do. Time to get out of here.
“Yeah, he was real good to him. I don’t know what we’re going to do now.”
Mara could barely hear what Lisa was saying for the blood roaring in her ears. She hoped she didn’t miss anything.
Lisa was crying now.
“Well, I really need to get back to work. Thanks for the hospitality. Bye, baby D.J.!”
“If you see Mrs. …”
“Terranova.” Now it made her sick to say the name in this bastard’s house. She had to leave before she lost it.
“Please say how much this meant to me?”
“I sure will. Take good care of yourself, Lisa. ‘Bye now.”
Chapter 49
Shade 7
Mara sits in Casey’s car, a knit cap jammed tightly over her hair. She’s parked at the edge of a bowling alley parking lot next to a low planter with a good vantage point on the strip club’s side exit. The competing signs cast a colorful glow over the area. At ‘Lucky Lanes’, bright neon yellow bowling pins being blasted repeatedly by a rolling blue bowling ball sending bright magenta action lines radiating outward. Across the way, ‘Shade 7 Gentlemen’s Club’ glows with a more subdued and steady deep lavender panel sign with dark silhouettes of sexy women riding giant off-kilter musical notes.
Hunkered down, Mara looks through small, powerful infrared binoculars. She has spotted a car she recognizes. People walk by swinging bowling bags, laughing and joking.
Inside Shade 7, Derek and Larry sit at a ringside table at one end of the stage, drinking and staring up at the pole dancers. The Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’ bangs from the PA, urging the pole dancers on.
Derek gulps down a Vodka-rocks like it’s water.
“Damn, Derek! Take it easy with that.”
“Oh, please! You sound like her.”
“What her… I mean who d’ya mean?”
“Don’t play dumb, Frat. It doesn’t suit you.” Derek leans over toward Larry.
“This is strictly off the record, right?”