by Domino Finn
BLOOD MAGIC
by Domino Finn
Copyright © 2015 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.
Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles
First Edition
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.
Cover Design by Paramita Bhattacharjee
DominoFinn.com
BLOOD MAGIC
When they found the first body, no one batted an eye. That was par for the course in Skid Row.
Nicknamed the Nickel by locals because its center is Fifth Street, the slum is five square blocks of the worst Downtown Los Angeles has to offer: condemned buildings, overfull shopping carts, and upwards of six-thousand disenfranchised men and women living in sidewalk tents. You can say it's tragic. You can call it a crime. Some even think it survival of the fittest. But it's easy to slap a label on it from a safe distance. It's different on the asphalt. The grime on those streets never washes off. It doesn't matter how much bleach you pour into a bucket.
Living in Skid Row, it was hard not to consider the stories that came my way. I'd been here over a week, and my eyes were open to the plight of the locals. Some of the nicer ones were victims of circumstance. Others were sick in the head. Many were criminals and deadbeats who'd brought this on themselves one way or another. And, without a doubt, every single one of them was addicted to something: Drugs. Alcohol. Meds. Adrenalin. Whether theses vices were contributing factors to their decline or a habit picked up to cope, it no longer mattered. These marginals had been forgotten in life.
And in the beginning, they were forgotten in death as well.
To everyone else here, my name was Ricky Kicks. Just another down-on-his-luck redneck who finally couldn't scrounge up enough scratch for a month's rent. But my real name is Rick Danvers. I'm an undercover detective with Robbery Homicide.
I know—that's hard to believe.
What did the LAPD care about the destitute and the lost? The truth was, they didn't. Not at first. But they care about headlines, and you can only pile bodies so high before people notice.
* * *
John Harris Sr. was a sixty-seven-year-old black male who'd been off the grid most of his life. Even though he'd lived in Skid Row for as long as any could remember, he was so far removed from the conventions of society that not a single person in the neighborhood knew his name. Everyone just called him Twinkle, on account of the shiny set of false teeth he wore. When the autopsy was performed, it was determined that John Harris hadn't had a real tooth in his mouth in over twenty years. Imagine that, needing an entire tooth-replacement in your early forties.
Anyway, everybody in the Nickel knew Twinkle because he always smiled everywhere he went. It wasn't just to show off his most prized possession either—eye-witness accounts all stressed how happy John Harris was. Down-trodden, sure, but aglut with freedom. For some he was the shining example of living outside the system successfully. He didn't use. He'd never been arrested. And, although his health had been failing of late, he'd made good use of the free clinics in the area to keep ahead of bad times.
So it surprised even the most jaded residents when Twinkle sliced his belly open.
The suicide was horrific. The man disemboweled himself, ripping his gut from liver to spleen. When that didn't finish the job, he tugged his insides outside. The police found Twinkle slumped over his knees, face pressed against the linoleum floor of an abandoned building.
There was a lot of blood at the scene, but it wasn't all his. Before Twinkle committed the act, he had drawn a sort of pentagram on the floor in chicken's blood. That was an easy guess because the decapitated bird was found near the body. The lab confirmed the results later. They also discovered that the so-called cleanest man in the Nickel had high levels of crack cocaine in his system.
The ceremonial nature of the act, as well as the lack of evidence to the contrary, placed the case firmly in the camp of a suicide. In truth, the nature of the victim and the location played a large part in the conclusion. What was the death of one more Skid Row junkie? Nobody cared about John Harris Sr. No one showed up to his funeral. Not even a John Harris Jr.
* * *
It's the reality of the system that the loudest voices get taken care of, and money doesn't talk, it screams. If I were brutally honest, I might even argue the lack of resources excused the apathy. Modern police forces, no matter how sophisticated, struggle to clear half the new murders that occur. Adding something to the pile that probably wasn't a murder at all isn't good business.
I know, I know. But I'm a homicide detective embedded in the margins of society. If the LAPD didn't care, I wouldn't be here, right? You're getting ahead of me.
The fact of the matter was, if one suicide was an aperitif at a dinner party, six was the main course. A real juicy prime rib that basted in its own sauces for hours, tickling the noses of the waiting hungry. It didn't help that the media sent out a barrage of invitations through twenty-four-hour news channels, either.
After Twinkle was Grieves. Then Two-Time, Huck, and Sally.
For three days and three nights, Sally Wallace Rider set Los Angeles on fire. The fact that she was an attractive white woman helped her case. Pile on the relatable story of being evicted from her house after the real estate crash and the community college graduation photo her mother dug up and the story was the perfect gasoline. Five suspicious deaths, and what was the LAPD doing about them?
Robbery Homicide became involved at that time. It was a priority, but the sort that nobody expected to see resolved. My partner and I created murder books for the victims, we scrambled to contain any remaining evidence before it was disposed of, and we conducted sweeps of questioning on top of the increased patrols and area oversight. Skid Row was as locked down as it could be, at least as far as the public was concerned. And, I do admit, the nightly news footage sure looked good.
That was business as usual until David Blake was found dead. A suicide. Disemboweled. Exactly the same as the other five victims. Except David Blake was the son of a respected club owner who had recently opened a lounge nearby.
You can revitalize Downtown, but Skid Row don't change.
As you can imagine, the status quo wasn't good enough anymore. This wasn't a drug-related incident. Cult rituals were off the table. One of the better half had strayed to the wrong block and met a gruesome end. The Nickel had claimed a real victim this time.
Six murders in six months. It was a tough pill to swallow for my proud division. If you've ever seen a police chief sweat out some pointed questions, trust me, that was nothing compared to this. The sewage piped downhill, straight from the high mountain of central command to the ocean drain that was my desk. And so I was embedded undercover, a week before our best guess of when the next killing would occur.
Only, seven days had already passed without any progress. And the dirt from the street was getting unbearable.
* * *
"My man!" shouted a voice coming across the street.
It was Kerry, a mostly harmless regular who never had a drink in his hand but was always drunk. My best guess was that showing meant sharing, and the old man never gave anything away. I was a detective, though, and knew how to follow people without being seen. That made me one of the few who knew that Kerry kept a stash of hooch behind a broken piece of concrete wall in the back lot of the supermarket. For a man without a home, his supply was impressive.
"Ricky Kicks," he exclaimed as he reached me.
At the beginning of my time here, I'd just introduced myself as Ricky. And I arrived as disheveled as I could. Not a shave or shampoo in weeks. Sa
lvation Army from head to toe. I'd found the oldest, rattiest pair of All Stars in LA, laced them to my feet, and walked through a dumpster that was moist with something other than water. All that and still, when I introduced myself, I became known for my nice kicks.
"How ya doin' K?" I replied in my most offensive hillbilly impression. "Headed to the mission?"
"Nah, man. You needs to help me. You know that friend of yours, that ugly baldy sells voodoo charms in Indian Alley? He tryin' to kill me."
"I don't got friends, K." It was true that Tanner wasn't my friend, but I had cozied up to the self-proclaimed shaman over the course of the week. It would have been negligent not to.
"Whatever. He tryin' to kill me all the same. He said he gonna curse my heart or some such."
"Voodoo? You know I don't believe in any of that African junk. Every time you folk get scared of his curses you just give him more power."
Kerry's eyes widened frantically. "But he does have power. I seen it."
Before I could ask Kerry what he'd seen, a sprinting teenager spooked him. Kerry turned tail and ran. I shook my head. The kid wasn't involved in anything. That was clear when he rushed past and went through the doors of a local art gallery. My homeless acquaintance didn't care. The old man fled down the street and turned the corner to Fifth. To be honest, with the unsolved murders it was hard to fault any paranoia in the Nickel.
This investigation presented many challenges. Sisyphean, even, was the humble task of identifying the vast swaths of homeless men and women I encountered. Most of them were ghosts, but even the ones who used their real names had skeletons. They didn't discuss their pasts freely. Digging up stories came from schmoozing and bartering, and the storytellers were often as reputable as Aesop.
But I was good at my job, analytical if not heartfelt. Kerry was an estranged brother and son with no wife or kids who just couldn't keep an honest job. He'd made the mistake of looking for the easy money more than once, and his criminal record dissuaded others from taking a chance on him.
The shaman Tanner had been a more difficult egg to crack. A Haitian in Los Angeles, if you can believe that, with no kin on the coast to speak of. Besides a drug bust in Miami years ago, he was small time, going in and out of lockup for permit violations or drunk and disorderlies.
This backgrounding of repeat offenders was important: Kerry was doing time in County for a B and E during the first two murders and Tanner had been picked up during the second and fourth, as well as having an alibi for the fifth. They were both clear of the Skid Row Suicides.
I almost continued towards the mission until I noticed the crowd outside the King Eddy. My job was to be in tune with the street. If a big event went down in the Nickel, I had to know about it. Besides, the larger the group of locals I met, the more suspects I had.
I marched my All Stars straight for the commotion and gulped when I saw one of Tanner's flunkies holding Kerry in a headlock. I pushed my way through to the center of the mob.
"What're you boys doin' with Kerry?" I asked.
"He's the murderer!" cried Coco the flunky. I'd only seen him once before but it was no secret he worked for the shaman. Just another little fish navigating shark-infested waters—Coco was the only ID I'd been able to come up with though, so this minnow was still a mystery.
"Calm down," I urged the crowd. As a rookie beat cop, I'd seen firsthand what mob mentality could do to an entire city. I hated to imagine what they could manage with poor old Kerry. "What're you going on about, Coco?"
"I caught the old man stealing from Papa Tanner." There was a boo from the crowd.
"That don't make him no killer," I responded coolly.
"Then ask him why he be stealin' a chicken!" boomed a voice from the group. The mob parted, and the shaman Tanner himself stood there. The wide man resembled a hippo. Too much meat around his belly and limbs and not a hair on his head except for coarse whiskers circling his mouth. He was well-liked enough in the Nickel but, more importantly, he was feared. When Tanner had an agenda, the others went along to get along.
"I was jus' gonna cook it up, Papa," said Kerry. "Today's my birthday and I wanted somethin' better than the mission. I swear." Coco's strong grip around the man's neck was only loose enough to let him speak.
Tanner laughed. "That's not good enough, Kerry. Everyone be knowin' the killer makes his mark with the chicken." The mob gasped at the inevitable conclusion and the shaman played to them. "Tonight be a bad moon. I know these things. Stealin' a chicken on a bad moon means blood magic."
Old Kerry's eyes nearly dropped from his head. "I don't know no voodoo, Papa. I ain't lyin'."
It was easy for me to believe that because I didn't believe in magic at all. But that wasn't the point. What mattered was many of the desperate locals did believe, especially within the shaman's ranks. More on the nose, the murderer likely believed as well. I only qualify that as likely because my partner disagreed. He thought the ceremony was misdirection. He'd even laid out a convincing case. But he hadn't experienced the streets like I had. There were true believers out here.
Plus, the killer was so invested with the voodoo ritual that it made him predictable. It would be what eventually got him caught. So in his mind there had to be a reason for it.
"You know these things, Tanner?" I asked, trying to stave off the pitchforks. "You sayin' you know blood magic?"
Tanner beat his chest proudly. "I know enough to stay away. Blood magic makes a slave of the man who conjures it."
"So what do ya call all them potions and white powders you hawk?"
The man's yellowed eyes narrowed in amusement. "Great shamans are close to the spirits, white man. I know these things. I am familiar with death, yes, but I do not tempt it."
"Forget him, Papa," pushed Coco. "Let's slit the old man's throat and be done with it."
"No!" I yelled in my most authoritative law enforcement voice. It was commanding enough to pause the crowd. It broke character for me, but I didn't think I could let Kerry be dragged off the street and dumped in a ditch just to preserve my cover. I took in some air and laid my accent on extra thick to make up for my slip. "I won't be a party to a lynching without knowin' the facts. One stolen chicken ain't enough to take a man's life."
A couple of the old timers nodded their heads. They were probably the closest Kerry had to friends on the block, though if I managed to save his life, he'd surely count me among them.
Tanner was sharp. He immediately noticed the group's hesitation. "Like I said," he professed calmly. "It be a bad moon."
"And that's got what exactly to do with a pentagram?"
The shaman didn't know it, but I intended to expose his ignorance to the crowd. He was a huckster who mostly shoveled love potions. After the LAPD cleared him of the murders, I'd found a way to ask his opinion of the crime scenes without blowing my cover. It turned out the great shaman and his flunkies couldn't even make a respectable guess. Now Tanner had walked straight into a trap, and his lack of expertise would concern the crowd.
The only thing was, maybe I was the one who got blindsided.
"Those weren't pentagrams, Ricky Kicks," he said confidently. "Pentagrams be stars with five points. The blood markings be havin' eight."
He was right. Everybody had seen the symbols in the newspapers, of course. Any outlined star seemed like a pentagram near enough, especially when smeared with blood, but these were more rounded due to the extra corners. Like a Star of David that was formed by two overlapping triangles, this circular symbol was formed by two squares.
"Sorry," I said to deflect the point. "I don't speak devil magic."
"The killer doesn't draw pentagrams. He draws circles of power."
I harrumphed. It was clear that Tanner knew more than he'd previously admitted. As a cop, that shouldn't have surprised me. People didn't part from secrets without seeing some benefit. But now I'd given the shaman more ammunition to work up the crowd. The only response I could think of was ridicule.
"So
what? He's like a superhero or somethin'?"
"No," said Tanner firmly. "This be different. It be power of the spirit. Of the soul." Once again, the shaman addressed the mob and tickled their nerves. "The chicken blood guides the magic, but the human blood calls it. This is why the man kills, Ricky Kicks. This is why he is dangerous."
There were some hoots and hollers. One of the old timers who'd supported Kerry was among those jeering. The other slinked off in silence. I realized I didn't have a chance to turn the crowd against a longstanding member of the Nickel. I was just the new white boy on the block.
But I'd be darned if I didn't try.
"Well," I said, mustering my most resolute tone, "I ain't gonna let any o' you take 'im."
Tanner's face darkened. "We don't want to hurt you," he said. And even though it was broad daylight, I knew I was in a world of trouble.
Coco hollered as he brandished a knife. The blade was short and wavy, and it set off all kinds of alarms in my head. The loudest, of course, was that it was inches from Kerry's neck.
"Coco!" howled Tanner. "Not here!"
I didn't wait for the man's reaction. As Coco's arm moved for the kill, I hooked his elbow with mine. He didn't let go of Kerry, but I jerked Coco's arm behind his back so hard that the knife clattered to the sidewalk. As Kerry tried to break loose, something struck me on the back of the head and I wavered.
The mob closed in.
Untrained arms swung wildly but I battered them away. I lost sight of the shaman Tanner. Coco released his victim and reached for the knife. I lunged to stop him.
Now, maybe you've heard the saying about bringing knives to gunfights, but in this instance, I was too far undercover to carry a weapon. I was completely unarmed, and losing sight of that knife in that crowd was the scariest thing I could imagine.
Good thing for me the boys in blue were close. They'd kept an eye on me when they could. This was one of those moments. Sirens blared louder than the commotion and scattered the rioters. Two patrol units pulled up and took control of the situation, which is a nice way of saying they slammed whoever they could grab into the fence.