Grave on Grand Avenue

by Naomi Hirahara

  “Ellie, it’s so good to see you. It’s been a while. A couple of months?”

  Father Kwame doesn’t ask me if I want to come in. He assumes it. I walk inside and he follows me into his living room, which is the closest thing I’ve seen to a parlor in twenty-first-century Southern California.

  He goes into the kitchen to brew some tea—again, it’s just what Father Kwame does, so I don’t even bother to tell him not to.

  He brings the tea in ceramic cups on a tray. After he settles down in his easy chair with his teacup, he finally asks, “How are you doing?”

  “Crappy,” I say. Father Kwame’s not your typical Catholic priest. At least not like any other one I’ve ever met before. First of all, he prefers listening to talking or sermonizing. And he doesn’t seem to mind if you say something a little off-color or rude. In fact, he says that he prefers to hear someone’s true heart, not something prettied up or manufactured. So I give him my current truth. I tell him about Nay, the situation with my grandfather, and the death of Eduardo Fuentes. Even though in some ways it’s the least personal to me, the passing of the gardener has affected me the most.

  “I really feel bad for his family. He seemed like a man who was well loved, who people looked up to. I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but he was really kind.”

  “Maybe you can write his family a letter.”

  “No, that would be overstepping. This is still an active investigation. The family might be able to turn around and use my letter as evidence that Mr. Fuentes hadn’t been doing anything wrong. In fact, I actually doubt that he was. But the thing is, I have no proof.”

  “Will you go to his funeral?”

  “I don’t even know when or where it might be.” I’ve only ever been to one funeral, Grandpa Toma’s, and I was still in elementary school at the time. Besides, he was cremated, so all we had to do was bow to a photo of him in his fishing vest.

  “It wouldn’t be too difficult to find out,” Father Kwame says.

  Dammit. He would have to be a voice of reason. Ellie, I tell myself, you’re a cop. You have to get used to seeing dead bodies. “You’re right,” I say. “Do you mind if I look it up now?” I pull my phone out of my pocket.

  “Of course not. Your portable computer, yes?”

  I check the website of the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión first; there’s nothing there. I wonder whether there hasn’t been enough time for the family to make arrangements yet.

  The story does quote a pastor at an East Los Angeles church where Eduardo Fuentes was a member. I show Father Kwame the name of the church. Templo Arbol de Vida. The Temple of the Tree of Life.

  “It sounds Pentecostal,” Father Kwame says. “Those churches often use phrases like ‘river of life’ in their names.”

  Once I hear that the church may be within the Pentecostal denomination, I really don’t want to go to the funeral. What if they start speaking in tongues or something? I won’t know what to do.

  “You may have been the last person he ever talked to,” Father Kwame reminds me gently.

  “I’m pretty sure that I was.” I study Father Kwame over my now-cold tea. “You think that I owe it to him to go?”

  Father Kwame shakes his head. “No, he’s already passed. He doesn’t care anymore. But I do think that you owe it to yourself to attend. To pay your last respects to his family. And if you need someone else to accompany you . . .”

  “You’ll be my plus-one.”

  Father Kwame smiles. “You betcha.”

  * * *

  When I get home, I strip off my uniform and stuff it into my washer. It’s one of those tiny ones with an attached dryer above. However small those appliances are, they are a hundred percent better than my last apartment, which had no washers or dryers. Going to the Laundromat at ten o’clock at night in Los Angeles is no fun, I’m telling you. Definitely did my wash with my Glock around my waist.

  After tossing Shippo a bully stick, I pull a pint of salted caramel ice cream from my freezer and a spoon from my kitchen drawer. Plopping down on my bed, I look over the Don Quixote concert program while licking spoonfuls of ice cream. Shippo mimics me by chewing his treat. Like owner, like dog.

  I turn to the back of the program where all the musicians are listed and look for the name “Bikel.” I easily find an Oliver Bikel under the category of “Contrabassoonist.” I take out my phone from my pocket and Google the name, and an image of the musician who was wearing the Who T-shirt at the concert hall comes up. I think that he might be the same guy sitting in the back row of the orchestra during the Brahms performance. There’s a brief bio, too. In addition to all of his musical accomplishments, it says that he’s “an avid amateur gardener.” Maybe that’s why the Mr. Bikel mentioned in Boyd’s handwritten report was so emphatic about Eduardo Fuentes. It could be that he knew him as more than just a laborer who worked at the concert hall. Were Fuentes and the classical musician unlikely friends?

  Even though people talk about how LA is some kind of melting pot, the truth is that we pretty much stick close to people like us. Is Bikel an exception or is there another reason why he came to Fuentes’s strong defense?

  SIX

  I have my earbuds in as I leave Kermit at home and ride the Gold Line to work the next morning. It’s not even eight o’clock on Saturday. My phone rings; it’s my mother. We haven’t spoken since the fiasco at my parents’ house, but it doesn’t surprise me that it’s her. Who else would call me so early? “I’m calling to inform you that your father and I will be out of town tomorrow.” My mother sounds very businesslike, a secretary instead of a family member.

  “But tomorrow’s Mother’s Day.” And also my day off.

  “We were thinking that under the circumstances, it would be better to take a break from family activities.”

  “Dad’s that pissed? It’s not our fault that this Puddy Fernandes suddenly appeared in our life. We’re the victims, too.”

  Mom doesn’t say anything for a moment. “That’s his name? Puddy Fernandes?”

  “Well, I guess his legal name is Pascoal Fernandes. So Dad, Noah and I are part Portuguese.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re mostly Japanese.”

  “No, Mom, I’m only half.”

  “But in terms of your values, your upbringing.”

  “I think that we got some fine values from Dad and Lita.”

  “Hmpf.”

  “Anyway, isn’t that who you are really mad at—Lita?” I try to keep my voice level so not to attract attention from the other train passengers.

  “She shouldn’t have kept all those secrets from your father. For fifty years!”

  “So now you’re going to punish me and Noah for what Lita’s done? That’s not fair. And Grandma Toma, what about her?”

  “We were thinking about taking her with us.”

  “Mom, that’s not cool. Lita’s going to be really hurt.” Not to mention, it means Noah and I will have to entertain her by ourselves on Sunday. “I know that it’s none of my business, but I think Dad should meet Fernandes. Just to get it over with.”

  “I’m surprised that you would say that. Lita already confessed to Dad that he was the one who took your car. You’re a police officer. He’s a common criminal, a hood.”

  A hood? I haven’t heard that word used since my high school staged West Side Story. “So what, Mom? So we’re not a perfect, upstanding family? Is that so bad?”

  Mom doesn’t answer and then hangs up the phone.

  Even though there’s no sound coming in through my earbuds anymore, I don’t bother listening to music. I need the silence, the space, to process what is happening to my family and me. Dad is like Lita (and her mom, I guess) in that he always tries to see the positive side in everything and everyone. Whenever my mother wanted to discipline me, he’d always advocate for talking it out instead. Every drawin
g, every disastrous craft project, was a masterpiece. When I failed to get two serves over the net in our high school championship volleyball game, Dad claimed that we lost the game due to bad refereeing.

  Up to now, he’d only ever described his mom, Lita, in the most loving terms: Numero Uno Mama, Best Mother Alive, Ms. Fierce. She has three mugs that say “World’s Best Mom,” because Dad keeps forgetting that he’s already given her one before. Lita says that she’ll never tire of receiving mugs with that message. (Grandma Toma, on the other hand, would complain, “We already have enough mugs in this house. What am I going to do with this one?”)

  Now these two positive forces in my life can’t be in the same room. I admit that I’ve always taken both Dad and Lita for granted. For them to be at odds with each other makes me feel as if a crack has started to expand in my family life. I hope it can be fixed, but wonder if there will always be a mark where the break was.

  * * *

  Today, Johnny and I are assigned to patrol Grand Park. Grand Park used to be just a place near the courthouses and parking lots that my family just drove past during the weekends to get to Grand Central or Little Tokyo. A few fountains, some dying grass, nothing to write home about. Then, a few years ago, a transformation began to happen. The lawns became lush; walkways rolled out; neon pink chairs moved in. A narrow fenced-in dog park was even created for all the beautified dogs of downtown LA. Exercise classes are held on the main lawn, and now that a two-bit reality show star has started attending the yoga class, for some reason a higher-up thinks it will be good to have some nominal LAPD presence nearby. (I’m not even familiar with the cable channel that airs the show. The series is called something like the Real Divorcées of Bunker Hill or something like that.) Well, two bicycle cops are as nominal as you can get.

  Everyone and everything around here still seems hungover from the Cinco de Mayo celebration on Olvera Street last week. Instead of couples or groups of people, there are just a few solitary people wearing shades out walking their dogs. Aside from the yoga class, the liveliest presence here are the park’s trademark pink chairs.

  Johnny doesn’t seem to mind this assignment. In fact, he spends an inordinate amount of time watching the Real Divorcée. Dressed in a halter top and the tightest pair of yoga pants I’ve ever seen, she makes sure that her butt sticks out as far as it can as she assumes the positions of downward dog, then cat and cow. Her every action is being recorded by two video cameramen and a super bored-looking woman in her forties who’s probably the producer. If she’s this bored with the subject matter, I gotta think that certainly doesn’t seem promising for the future of the show.

  My phone vibrates and I sneak a look. It’s Nay. I tell Johnny that I’m going to check out the other side of the park and, entranced by Real Divorcée’s Booty, he barely acknowledges having heard me.

  Once I’m far enough away, I call Nay back, but only get her voice mail.

  I text: Hey, you called?

  No response.

  I wait a few minutes and then text again. You okay?

  Finally I get a reply: SORRY BUTT-CALLED BY ACCIDENT. SUPER BUSY. ON DEADLINE.

  On deadline? Since when is Nay worried about deadlines?

  I know being on the Squeeze staff is a big deal for Nay. She has dreams to be the next Lisa Ling. But she’s never put friendship on the back burner. I know I have, though, especially when I was at the academy. Maybe now I’m getting the karma that I deserve.

  I’m not going to get any updates on the Xus from Nay, so I consider my other alternative. The embodiment of hotness, Cortez Williams. I don’t want to call him, but it feels like my only option. I clear my throat. “Hi,” I say when he answers. “It’s Ellie.”

  “Hey, Ellie.” Cortez sounds like himself, like back when we first were getting to know each other. “Thanks again for the heads-up on that charter flight. We were able to pick up Mr. Xu. He was heading for a hotel that was just around the corner. We’ve investigated and determined that the Fuentes incident was an accident. So it’s all over.”

  “Does the Fuentes family know?”

  “We let them know this afternoon.”

  “How did they take it?”

  “Well, you know. They are pretty upset. But, according to all accounts, Fuentes was attempting to steal the cello. Mr. Xu pushed back and unfortunately . . .”

  “But why would he even try something like that? There was no getaway car. He’d just be running down Grand Avenue carrying this huge multimillion-dollar instrument? He was a pretty old man; he wouldn’t be able to get too far. It doesn’t make sense.” And what about Bikel’s statement? I don’t mention that out loud, though, since I’m not supposed to know about it.

  “Criminals often do things that don’t make sense.”

  But he wasn’t a criminal, I think to myself. No record. That much I had checked on my own. “Okay, but if the cello is that big a deal, then why did Mr. Xu—and, for that matter, Xu himself—just abandon it at the airport? Mr. Xu said it was worth five million dollars, but he leaves it to the baggage handlers? I’d have that cello checked out, if I were you. And not just by the place that Kendra Prescott recommended.”

  Cortez doesn’t saying anything. He probably knows it’s a good idea, but doesn’t want to admit he didn’t think of it first himself.

  “Where is the cello, anyway?”

  “We’re waiting for Xu, the musician, to claim it. Fang Xu wanted to take it with him, but legally it belongs to his son.”

  “Anyway, I’m really calling about my friend Nay Pram. Did you interview her that night?”

  “Yeah, just some basic stuff. Garibaldi handled it. It was obvious that she didn’t know much. Didn’t she tell you about it?”

  “Well, we kinda had a falling-out. I haven’t seen her since Thursday. She’s been putting me off. Guess she’s been busy researching and writing her articles.”

  “Those things happen, Ellie. Hard to be friends with civilians. Sometimes they don’t understand and you don’t understand them.”

  There’s a click on the line and Cortez has another call coming in. After we end the conversation, I feel like everybody has something important to do. Everybody except me.

  Johnny rides toward me and brakes a few feet away. “I got her number,” he reports.

  “Whose number?”

  “The reality show girl. Chale Robertson.”

  “The Bunker Hill divorcée? Johnny, isn’t she a little old for you?” I’m all for men dating older women, but Johnny usually prefers his dates a few years out of high school.

  “She still looks young. And she’s into biking. Like seriously into it.”

  “Just watch out that you don’t end up on her reality show. Captain Randle won’t like it.”

  Johnny’s not listening to me. He’s already texting something sweet and charming to the divorcée. While he does get tongue-tied at times, there’s nothing wrong with his thumbs.

  A little while later, Johnny gets called to join a group gathered around the Los Angeles Central Library. It’s some kind of protest about funding cuts. I, on the other hand, am supposed to go back to the station to complete some paperwork.

  Before I leave, my phone begins to vibrate in my pocket. It’s Google Alerts, notifying me of a post on an East Los Angeles mortuary. It’s a listing of Eduardo Fuentes’s funeral at his church, Templo Arbol de Vida. I quickly read the notice, which is all in Spanish. It’s tonight at seven o’clock.

  I make a quick call to the Catholic church in Highland Park. Father Kwame’s there and available. Despite my reservations, I guess I’m going to a funeral tonight.

  Once I return to the station, I park my bike on the wall with the others and check the air pressure in my tires. I accidentally rub some dirt and dead leaves from my wheel onto the side of my shorts. It’s all going into the wash, anyway.

  As I’m leaving, I run
into the patrol officers Boyd and Azusa. “Hey, Rush, want to get some drinks with us? We’re going to Grand Star.”

  I haven’t been to the Chinatown hangout in months. “No, thanks. I can’t tonight.”

  “Hot date, huh?” Boyd says.

  “Yeah, something like that.” I don’t tell them the date is for a funeral, which I’ll be attending with a Catholic priest. Just permanently stamp “Loser” on my forehead, okay?

  * * *

  Father Kwame is waiting for me outside of the Templo Arbol de Vida church, which actually is a former bungalow in East Los Angeles, on a residential street just off of Whittier Boulevard. I’m a little late—I went to my place after work to change into a simple black dress—but judging from the other people gathered outside, the funeral hasn’t started yet.

  As we walk in, I accidentally brush against the knee of an Asian man in an ill-fitting suit, sitting in the last row.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I immediately say.

  He glares at me.

  Wow, Mr. Cranky, I said I was sorry. And why is your knee sticking out into the aisle, as if you’re ready to bolt at any minute?

  Father Kwame and I sit in the second row from the back in front of the mad-dogging man. From our seats, I can’t see the family, though I spot a couple of blond heads in the fourth row. Everyone else here seems to be Latino. Not just Latino, but all Spanish-speaking. Luckily, that’s not an issue for us, since Father Kwame, who can speak several languages, and I both speak Spanish.

  The walls that probably once divided rooms in the house have been torn down to accommodate an open sanctuary that can probably fit one hundred and fifty people, tops. There’s a row of windows toward the front, all now covered with a thick velvet curtain. Three acoustic musicians sing in Spanish beside a gigantic cross made from what looks like driftwood. The song’s about what you’d expect in a Christian church: God, Jesus, blood.