Land of Shadows

by Rachel Howzell Hall

“He was tall. He was black. He wore a diamond earring and a light blue tracksuit with a yellow stripe up the leg.”

  Bruin colors. She was describing Todd Wisely, who had supposedly been at training camp in Lake Arrowhead. Unless the coach had lied to me. Wouldn’t be the first time a coach covered for a misbehaving player. Either way, his picture was not in the six-pack that Joey compiled for me.

  “He drive a car?” I asked.

  “A gray BMW,” she said, “with black rims.”

  “Where was it parked?”

  “By the driveway close to the trailer.”

  Even though Todd wasn’t in my lineup, I still reached into Monique’s file and pulled out the photo compilation. I slipped it before Sunshine and asked, “Do any of these men look like the man you saw that night?”

  Her eyes skipped across the photographs of Von Neeley and the four men who were actually Vice cops. Her fingers hovered over Fake Dude Number Four, but then she pulled back her hand. “Don’t know. It was dark.”

  “It was dark,” I repeated. “But you saw that he wore an earring. And you saw the yellow in his tracksuit…” I let her sit and ponder awhile longer. When she didn’t speak, I said, “You don’t have to be afraid, Bernice. We won’t let him hurt you. I promise.”

  Sunshine hunched over and her soul returned to that place where junkies loitered and napped.

  I tapped the table once, then withdrew the sheet. “Thanks for coming in, Miss Frater. I know this is difficult, so I really appreciate it. Macie’s family appreciates it, too.”

  “I should drive her back,” Macie said.

  Sunshine leaned toward Macie. “Is Lockjaw gon’ give me the money?”

  Macie gave me a what-do-I-say-to-that? look.

  I stood from my chair. “Bernice, a promise is a promise.”

  I gave the woman thirty dollars of my own money, then escorted her, Macie, and Butter down to the lobby.

  “Lockjaw?” I whispered to Macie.

  “That’s what they call you on the street,” she whispered back. “Once you’re on a case, you don’t let go.” She thanked me again and exited the station. Sunshine scuffled behind her, in a hurry to get a fix sponsored by private citizen Elouise Norton.

  42

  Legs twisted beneath him, he opens his eyes to see the dimly lit ceiling. His fingers clutch at strands of carpet.

  How long has he been out?

  The dim blue digital numbers on the DVR say 10:13 P.M.

  Twenty minutes.

  The bones in his neck click as he climbs back onto the couch. He blinks—sounds like his eyes are smashing cornflakes.

  He reaches out to the coffee table for the swatch of gauzy, blue material—a memento from his last excursion—and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger. He closes his eyes as he remembers the girl struggling beneath his hands. But the image of Nikita morphs into an image of Samantha, and then Mirna … Katie … So many.

  He stares at the television—the ten o’clock news is on.

  Car chase. Bank robbery. Child dying after swallowing a thumbtack at school.

  LIVE FROM SAN DIEGO pops on the screen. An Asian reporter stands near the Omni Hotel. “Authorities state that the girl was found after the hotel maid came into the room to clean…”

  He cannot tolerate sounds anymore. The noise from the television hurts his head. Age is a bitch and he wishes he could strangle her, too; but he can’t and he needs to hear this news story.

  The reporter continues: “… has been identified as nineteen-year-old Nikita Swenson, a sophomore at Chapman University.” A picture of Nikita, a wholesome girl posing with a rose to her cheek, fills the screen.

  His angel returns to the living room but stops in her step. “You’re awake.” She holds a bag of frozen peas and a glass of brandy. She inches forward, then slips the icy bag around his left hand and whispers, “The swelling is getting worse. And your blackouts…” Her eyes flit to the television, to the reporter now interviewing a sweaty-looking detective asking the public for help. “What happened?”

  He says nothing, just stares at the TV. The police will look at the phone numbers of the hotel guests and will reach one phone number and call it—but the line will be disconnected. They will stop at one name in the computer: Peter Kurten. They will search and discover that Peter Kurten killed thirty people over a span of fifteen months back in Germany during the summer of 1929. And he has come back to life to kill sexy little Nikita.

  Maybe he should stop.

  No. He can’t stop. He doesn’t have much time left.

  His mind races. Stop. Do more. Stop. Do more.

  He reaches a compromise. One more girl. His angel. And then the detective.

  “The cold will make your hand feel better.” She slips the peas on his hand, then offers him the high-ball glass of brandy. “This will help, too.”

  He stares at the drink.

  She takes a sip, then offers it to him again.

  He takes the glass and gulps it down. His stomach warms. Delicious.

  She perches on his lap and tugs at his zipper.

  He shakes his head—he can’t tonight.

  “Please?” she whispers.

  The bag of peas tumble to the carpet as his swollen hand finds her neck. His thumb rubs the scoop where her pulse beats against the skin.

  She closes her eyes and whispers, “Tighter.”

  He obeys—but the bulge in his pants … the detective put that there. The detective with her long, breakable neck.

  “You’d never hurt me,” his angel whispers. “You need me.”

  He says, “Yes. I need you.” He kisses her, then pulls her T-shirt over her head, unclasps her pink bra.

  Will he miss her when she’s gone?

  He doesn’t miss the others. And even though his angel now wears a sapphire ring, the ring he took from the Mirna of Cal State San Bernardino, she is no different from others.

  Detective Elouise Norton—she is different. And a kill like that only happens once in a lifetime.

  43

  It was a nice night for catching up: filling out reports, making copies of reports, three-holing and stapling those reports, and slipping them into binders and file folders. Colin and I did all of this over foam cartons of one-dollar Chinese takeout and bottles of Diet Coke. Puttin’ on the Ritz, Southwest Division style.

  In between the eating, sipping, and stapling, Colin learned that Max Yates’s alibi had checked out.

  According to a Pechanga Casino customer service rep, Yates and Macie checked in on Friday, June 15, ordered room service on Monday morning, June 18, and on Tuesday night, June 19. Yates checked out of the hotel on Wednesday morning at 10:03 A.M.

  As Colin worked the murder book, I studied the Darsons’ most recent bank statements. The expression on my face must have been a strange one because Colin said, “What do you see?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Last March, Cyrus Darson’s account saw this crazy infusion of cash. Ten thousand dollars, seventy-five hundred dollars, twelve thousand dollars.”

  “He win the lottery?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Maybe it was payment for services rendered.”

  “There haven’t been any other large amounts like that in his account since then. But that’s not the only WTF moment I’ve had. So I’ve also been scanning city council meeting minutes for all Crase-related activity and I saw that in April of last year, a month after Cyrus Darson wins the lottery, the city voted on building approvals—specifically, the building of Crase Parc and Promenade.

  “According to the minutes, there were no protests—Darson and the neighborhood group never showed up to City Hall. I mean, it was the most important council meeting ever. The renovation got the ‘all systems go’ that day and Darson’s a no-show? But now, looking at these banks statements, Darson’s lottery winnings had started to arrive in March, just a month before that crucial vote.”

  “You thinkin’ Darson was bribed?” Colin asked.

  �
�Something happened. Strange, right?” I flipped a page in the bank statements and scanned the entries. “Okay, this is interesting: a thousand dollars deposited on the twentieth of each month.” I flipped back to the end of the prior year. “A thousand dollars, deposited on the twentieth of every month.”

  “Maybe it’s his salary for something,” Colin suggested.

  “He told me that he worked ‘here and there.’” I looked up from the statements. “Something’s going on with Mr. Darson.”

  By ten thirty, Monique Darson’s book had been updated. Unfortunately, as the binder thickened, I still lacked enough evidence to make an arrest.

  Then, Colin and I made phone calls.

  Nova Wheeler, Renata’s mother, had been placed on bed rest by her doctor and couldn’t talk to me. The old woman that had answered the phone hung up before I could say “good-bye.”

  Margo, Von Neeley’s sidepiece, had been doing just fine when I rang, but she refused to come to the station for an interview without legal representation. “I been praying on it and God told me to call a lawyer.” Since when was God acting as a referral service?

  And in all this time, not once did pinballs clang or Greg’s picture and cell-phone or hotel-room telephone numbers brighten my phone’s display. No bueno.

  I caught Colin staring at me after my last voice mail to Greg. “What are you lookin’ at?”

  He waggled his pen between his fingers. “Nothin’.”

  That’s when his cell phone rang from his shirt pocket. He plucked it out, glanced at the screen, grimaced, then placed the phone facedown on his desk. The ringing stopped and a swoosh sounded seconds later—the caller had left voice mail. Colin stared at the phone for several seconds, then turned back to the murder book.

  My gaze settled on the picture of Greg and me in scuba gear, preparing to dive somewhere off the coast of Cozumel. Smiles, everyone!

  Colin’s phone rang again. Again, he didn’t check for the caller.

  “Is that the chick from Whole Foods?” I asked.

  He stapled a crime scene photo onto a divider. “Nope.”

  Swoosh. Another voice mail.

  I cleared my throat, then said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  His jaw worked for a moment, until he gave a curt nod.

  “Did you love what’s-her-face?” I asked. “Colorado?”

  Colin, eyes still in the big blue binder, said, “Yeah. I loved her.”

  I twisted in my chair for a bit, then asked, “Did you do what you did intentionally, so that she’d have to end it?”

  Colin pulled at his lower lip, then sighed. “As Sun Tzu said, ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’” Then, he met my eyes and for a quick second, his cockiness had been subdued by sadness.

  I ran Todd Wisely’s name through the computer. He came back clean, but a simple Internet search turned up three news stories about him doing bad things to strippers, a Chihuahua, and one very unfortunate mailbox. “How is it that I’m reading all of this, yet he has a clean record?”

  “He got slapped on the wrist those times,” Colin said, coming out of his momentary funk. “Most college basketball players gotta live by a code of conduct. If Todd had been convicted of domestic assault or vandalism or whatever, he would’ve been kicked off the team for conduct unbecoming of a player. Then, the season would’ve been in the crapper. Betcha the DA or the judge is an alum and took it easy on him. And the team probably has great lawyers on retainer, a cleanup crew who deals with shit like that all the time.”

  UC Santa Cruz, home of the Fightin’ Banana Slugs, was my alma mater. Sure, we had athletics and cheerleaders, but we were also Division 183 or something. So sports: yay?

  “Try calling him again,” I said.

  Colin grabbed the receiver and punched in the number Macie had scribbled on that list. After waiting and waiting, Colin hung up. “Still no answer from Mr. Wisely.”

  “That’s the fifteenth time you’ve told me that,” I said, closing my carton of chicken fried rice. “And frankly, I’m tired of hearing it.”

  “Frankly, I’m tired of saying it.” His cell phone rang—the ringtone was the first few bars of some Maroon 5 song about needing something to believe in and la-la-la. This time, Colin picked up the phone but still didn’t answer. He waited until the swoosh sounded before he smiled and said, “Jen, the chick from Whole Foods? Just sent me a picture.” He held up the phone to show me the photograph. “Hot, huh?”

  The blonde in the small screen had big hair and wore on her face every color of paint Sherwin-Williams sold.

  I winced. “Just promise that you won’t feed her after midnight.”

  Colin’s brows furrowed. “Huh?”

  I had just showed my age and wit with the Gremlins reference, and he didn’t understand it. Good things were always wasted on the young.

  “So Todd Wisely,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “Let’s go pay him a visit. Sunshine put him at the scene. Macie put him on her list. He’s a big baller. And I’m curious.”

  “About?”

  “How it feels to consider some guy other than Napoleon Crase as the Evil One.”

  Colin smiled. “You may enjoy it and never come back.”

  I laughed. “I doubt it—Crase is the wind beneath my wings. Saddle up, cowboy.”

  “Right now?” He consulted his watch. “This late?”

  “You turning into a pumpkin at midnight?” I stood and stretched like a cat on a carpet, flexing the tips of my toes and fingers until they cracked. “Since when do we allow potential murder suspects to catch Letterman? Are we in Kennebunkport or are we in South Los Angeles?”

  And hell, it had been a decent enough time of day for someone—maybe even Todd—to wrap his hands around a child’s neck and squeeze until she stopped living.

  44

  Todd Wisely and his family lived in Carson, sixteen miles out of downtown Los Angeles. In the 1920s, oil had been discovered in this part of Southern California. Refineries opened and job seekers and their families followed. Almost one hundred years later, Carson was still a city of oil production; a city that stank of methane, its unofficial flower; a city shrouded in sherbet-colored refinery lights and giant plumes of steam.

  Only a few homes on Todd Wisely’s block glowed with television light—and someone was still watching the boob tube in Todd’s living room. The Wisely house was not the original tract home that had been built in the 1970s. It had been remodeled into a five-bedroom McMansion with lush plantings and a waterfall—too much this-and-that for such a small plot of land. A Bruins flag hung above the front double doors. UCLA bumper stickers had been plastered in the rear windows of the two Lexus sedans parked in the flagstone driveway.

  After knocking and waiting, knocking and waiting some more, the front door opened and a draft of onions rode out to greet us. Weezy Jefferson, all bosoms, wig, and fake eyelashes, stood there wearing a blue-and-yellow tracksuit similar to the one Sunshine had described Todd wearing on Tuesday night. But Weezy knew as much about exercise and conditioning as I knew about horse husbandry in Kazakhstan. At half past eleven, she was not pleased to see two strangers standing on her porch.

  I identified myself and Colin, then asked to speak with Todd.

  “Todd is not here,” she said with a frown.

  “And you are…?” I asked.

  “His mother, Gerri Wisely.”

  In the background, I heard a very excited man preach about God’s plan for His children. Plants—ferns, orchids, and something carnivorous-looking—filled the foyer and beyond, crawling everywhere and sucking up all of the oxygen meant for us highfalutin homo sapiens.

  “Do you know where he’d be, Mrs. Wisely?” I asked. “We’ve tried calling him all night but we’ve had no success … which is why we drove here tonight. It’s very important that we speak with him immediately.”

  She crossed her arms. “About?”

  “The murder of
his friend Monique Darson.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  I held her gaze. “We’d just like to speak with him, please. We’re talking to all of the victim’s friends.”

  She said nothing at first, just tapped the door with her fingernails. Then: “Do you show up this late to all of her friends’ houses?” Weezy was acting hard, but her jaw muscles twitched and the left eyelash fluttered too much—fear lurked beneath her pissiness. Because murder? Who the hell wants that on their porch at almost midnight? She touched her wig with a shaky hand and the gold five-point-star ring on her finger caught the porch light.

  “You’re an Eastern Star?” I asked, nodding at the ring.

  Her eyes lit and her chin lifted with pride. “Yes, I am.”

  Yahtzee!

  “My grandmother was an Eastern Star,” I said. “She was the … Who’s the officer responsible for the initiations? The conductress? Yes, she did that in a chapter back in Brooklyn.” I sniffled. “Rest her soul.”

  Gerri Wisely’s bosom lifted to follow her chin. “I’m Worthy Matron of my chapter.”

  “Oh, wow.” I dropped my eyes, all golly, gee whiz. “I’ve always been interested in joining. I have such warm feelings about Eastern Stars, you know, because of my grandmother. Before she died, though, she asked me to join. But I’m just a cop—”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Gerri Wisely the Worthy Matron said, “you’re a relative, first of all, and second, all distinguished women are invited to apply.”

  “Even a gun-slinging wretch like me?” I asked, sad-eyed.

  “You are a detective,” she said with a soft smile. “You keep our neighborhoods and families safe from—”

  Colin cleared his throat and said, “I hate to break this up—”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” I offered Gerri Wisely an embarrassed grin. “I’m forgetting why I came to your house so late at night. And again: I apologize for the lateness.”

  “Todd said he was going to a party over in Inglewood,” she shared. “At some club called Metro.”

  I thanked Gerri Wisely for her help and promised that I would check out her chapter’s Web site once I had a free moment.