Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 02

by Twisted

  She said, “Smart people have a right to talk, Isaac. It’s the dummies who get on my nerves.”

  Finally, a smile. But it faded quickly. “I’m here to observe and to learn. I appreciate your taking the time.”

  “No prob.” She headed down Hollywood Boulevard to Western, then over to Los Feliz, figuring to catch the Golden State Freeway then switch to the 10 East all the way to Boyle Heights. “The first girl is named Bonnie Anne Ramirez. She lives on East 127th. You know the area?”

  “Not well. It’s mostly Mexican, there.”

  And he was Salvadoran.

  Telling her subtly, We’re not all alike?

  Petra said, “Bonnie’s sixteen but she’s got a two-year-old baby. The father’s some guy named George who doesn’t sound like a prince. They don’t live together. Bonnie dropped out of school.”

  No comment for half a block, then Isaac said, “She was nervous?”

  “A defiant nervousness. Which could just mean she doesn’t like the police. She has no record, but in a neighborhood like that you could get away with plenty of stuff without having your name on a file.”

  “That’s the truth,” said Isaac. “The FBI estimates that for every crime an apprehended criminal commits, another six go undetected. My preliminary research shows it’s probably higher.”

  “Really.”

  “Most crime doesn’t even come close to being reported. The higher the crime rate in a given area, the more that’s true.”

  “Makes sense,” said Petra. “The system doesn’t come through, people stop believing.”

  “Poor people are dispirited in general. Take my neighborhood. In fifteen years, we’ve had our apartment broken into three times, my bike’s been stolen, my father’s been mugged and had his car ripped off, my little brother’s been held up for lunch money, and I can’t tell you how many times my mother’s been threatened by drunks or junkies when she comes home from work. We’ve been spared anything serious, but you hear gunshots at least twice a week and sirens a lot more often than that.”

  Petra said nothing.

  “It used to be worse,” he went on. “When I was a little kid, before the CRASH units got active. There were blocks you just didn’t walk. Wear the wrong shoes and you were dead. CRASH worked pretty well. Then, after the Ramparts scandal, antigang policing was cut back and the bad stuff started to rise again.”

  His mouth set and his hands had balled.

  Petra drove for a while. “I can see why you’d study crime.”

  “Maybe that was a mistake.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The more I get into it, the more it seems to be a waste of time. Most of my professors are still hung up on what they call ‘root causes.’ To them that means poverty. And race, even though they consider themselves liberal. The truth is, most poor people just want to live their lives, like anyone else. The problem isn’t poor people, it’s bad people who prey on the poor because the poor lack resources.”

  Petra mumbled assent. Isaac didn’t seem to have heard. “Maybe I should’ve gone straight to med school. Get out, finish my specialty training, make some money, and move my parents to a decent neighborhood. Or at least get my mom a car so she doesn’t have to fend off the drunks and the junkies.” A beat. “Not that my mother would ever learn to drive.”

  “Scared?”

  “She’s kind of set in her ways.”

  “Mothers can be like that,” said Petra. How would you know? “Okay, here we go. The freeway looks pretty good.”

  Bonnie Ramirez lived with her mother, three older brothers, and little Rocky in a tiny, yellow clapboard bungalow that sat behind rusting chain link. Block after block of similar homes comprised the tract. Built for returning GI’s, the houses ranged from decrepit to sparkling.

  Effort had been made to keep up the Ramirez home: the two-pace lawn was sunken and brown but trimmed, and impatiens in uneven beds struggled with the early, spring heat. A baby stroller sat on the wooden porch, along with a plaster pedestal spray-painted gold that served no apparent purpose.

  Bonnie wasn’t home and her mother was caring for Rocky. The toddler slept in a crib set up in the nine-by-nine living room. The floors were wood and the ceilings were low. The house smelled of good food and Pine Sol and just the merest whiff of dirty diaper.

  Anna Ramirez was a short, broad woman with hair dyed red, puffy cheeks, and flabby arms. The cheeks were so bountiful they pushed her eyes up and turned them to slits. It gave her a suspicious look, even though she took pains to be cordial. Her voice and speech inflections were that same Boyle Heights singsong.

  She invited them to sit and brought out cans of soda and a bowl of pretzels and told them Bonnie’s dad was a Vietnam vet who’d survived the war only to die in a heavy equipment accident while excavating the foundation for a downtown office building. Removing his photo from the wall, she brandished it like a religious article. Nice-looking guy in full-dress uniform. But bad skin—unfortunate legacy for Bonnie.

  Petra said, “Any idea when Bonnie’s returning?”

  Anna Ramirez shook her head and frowned. “You just missed her. She comes and goes. She was out last night, slept till ten, left.”

  “Out late?”

  “Always.”

  Rocky stirred in his crib.

  Petra said, “I don’t want to wake him.”

  “It’s okay,” said Anna. “He sleeps good.” She glanced at the pretzel bowl in Petra’s lap and Petra ate one.

  “Can I get you something else to eat, Officer?”

  “No, thanks, ma’am. Do you know why we’re here?”

  “That shooting in Hollywood. Bonnie told me about it.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “That it happened out in the parking lot. She heard the shots but didn’t see anything. She said she talked to a lady cop. That was you?”

  Petra nodded.

  Anna Ramirez looked over at Isaac. Studied him. “You look like my nephew Bobby.”

  Isaac smiled weakly.

  Petra said, “One of the kids who was shot was a girl we still haven’t been able to identify.”

  “No parents asking about her?”

  “No one’s come forth, ma’am.”

  “That’s sad.”

  Little Rocky peeped. Shifted. Bellowed. Anna Ramirez went over and removed him from the crib. Poor kid was flushed and dyspeptic-looking. Swaddled in too many blankets for the heat.

  Anna sat back down and lay her grandson across her commodious lap. Rocky burped, frowned, went back to sleep. Circular dumpling of a face, curly black hair. Very cute. Petra noticed that his nails were trimmed and the blankets were spotless.

  She said, “He’s beautiful.”

  Anna Ramirez sighed. “Very active. So . . . this girl . . .”

  “I was wondering if Bonnie knew her,” said Petra. Realizing she’d used the singular since entering the house. Should she include Isaac? He was sitting there, upright and stiff, looking like someone waiting for a job interview.

  “You didn’t ask Bonnie if she knew her?”

  “I did and she said no. I’m just following up.”

  Anna Ramirez frowned. “You don’t believe her.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “It’s okay. Sometimes I don’t believe her.”

  Petra hoped her smile was empathetic.

  Anna said, “Her brothers all finished school, two of them are in J.C., but Bonnie never liked school. Down deep, she’s a good girl . . .” She glanced down at Rocky. “This was kind of a— So now I’m being Mama again, so okay, it’s okay. It’s hard to tell Bonnie anything, but I’m insisting she’s definitely gonna have to get at least her GED. What kind of job can you get without that?”

  Petra nodded.

  Anna sighed again.

  “Anyway, ma’am, when she gets home, if you’d be so kind as to give me a call.”

  “Sure,” said Anna. “This girl, you think she could’ve been with Bonnie?”

&nb
sp; “I really can’t say, ma’am.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Short, a little heavy. She wore pink sneakers.”

  “That could be Jacqui,” said Anna Ramirez. “Jacqui Olivares. She’s short and she used to be much fatter till she lost weight. But she’s still not skinny. And she’s got problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Two kids. A boy and a girl. And she’s only seventeen.”

  “Have you ever seen her in pink sneakers?”

  Anna touched a finger to her mouth. Rocky stirred again and she bounced him gently on her knees, smoothed sweaty hair off his little brow.

  “No,” she said, “I never noticed that. But Jacqui doesn’t come around here no more. I told Bonnie I didn’t want her here.”

  “Bad influence,” said Petra.

  “You bet.”

  “I have a picture of the unidentified victim, ma’am, but I need to warn you it’s not pretty.”

  “A dead picture?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I seen dead people, saw my Rudy dead, go ahead.”

  Petra produced the least deathly of the morgue shots and handed it to her. Anna said, “That’s not Jacqui, I never seen this girl.”

  The address Sandra Leon had given wasn’t far from the Ramirez home, but when they got there, Petra knew she’d been had.

  The numbers matched a boarded-up bodega on a run-down stretch of abandoned homes backed by weed-choked alleys. Graffiti everywhere. Angry young men with shaved heads and eye-filling tattoos cruised the rutted streets, bopping, staring, sneering.

  Petra got out of there fast, drove to Soto Avenue, not far from the county morgue, and into the lot of a busy-looking gas station where she bought coffee for herself and a Coke for Isaac. He tried to pay her back but she wouldn’t hear it. As they drank, she got the number for Western Pediatrics Hospital, asked for Oncology, and waited a long time to be connected.

  The secretary on the other end said “That’s confidential” when she asked for Sandra Leon’s address.

  Petra lied easily. “I have reason to believe that Ms. Leon is in danger.”

  “Because of her illness?”

  “Because of a crime. A multiple murder that she witnessed.”

  Long pause. “You need to speak to her physician.”

  “Please connect me.”

  “The last name is . . . Leon . . . okay, here it is, Sandra no-middle-name. That would be Dr. Katzman. I’ll put you through.”

  What Petra got on the other end of the line was a soft, male voice on tape. “This is Dr. Bob Katzman. I’ll be traveling for the next two weeks, but I will be picking up messages. If this is a medical emergency, the Oncology on-call extension is . . .”

  Petra hung up and reconnected to the secretary. “Dr. Katzman’s gone for two weeks. All I need is Sandra Leon’s address.”

  “You’re with the police?”

  I am the police, honey. “Detective Connor.” Petra spelled it. “Hollywood Division, here’s my badge number and you can call to verify—”

  “No, that’s okay, I’ll give you Medical Records.”

  Five minutes later, Petra had the address Sandra Leon had listed on her intake form.

  The girl had signed herself into care.

  “Is she an emancipated minor?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said the records clerk.

  “Is there any adult’s name on the form?”

  “Um . . . doesn’t seem to be, Detective.”

  “Who pays her bills?”

  “CCS—Children’s Cancer Service, it’s a county fund.”

  “No family members,” said Petra.

  “She’s not the only one,” said the clerk. “We get runaways all the time. This is Hollywood.”

  The other address Sandra had used was on Gower north of Hollywood. Minutes from the station. If you were in an energetic mood, you could walk.

  Petra got back on the freeway. “See what I mean,” she told Isaac. “Tedious.”

  “I think it’s interesting,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “The process. How you go about putting it all together.”

  Petra didn’t believe she’d put anything together. She glanced over at Isaac. Not a trace of irony on his face.

  He said, “I also find it interesting the way people relate to you. Bonnie’s mother, for example. She clearly saw you as an authority figure and that caused her to be respectful. She’s a conventional woman, proud of her husband’s military service, takes her responsibilities seriously.”

  “As opposed to her daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “Generation gap,” said Petra.

  “Generational breakdown,” he said. “People in Bonnie’s generation see themselves as free from convention and regulation.”

  “You think that’s bad?”

  Isaac smiled. “I’ve been instructed by my dissertation committee not to make value judgments until the data are all in.”

  “We ain’t in school. Go a little crazy.”

  He fingered his tie. “I think an extremely open society is a double-edged sword. Some people take advantage of freedom in a healthy way, others can’t cope. On balance, I’d opt for too much freedom. Sometimes, when I can get my father to talk, he tells us about El Salvador. I know the difference between democracy and the alternatives. There’s no country as great as America in the twenty-first century.”

  “Except for people who can’t cope with too much freedom.”

  “And they,” said Isaac, “have you to contend with.”

  Gower Street. Unit eleven of a twenty-unit apartment complex the color of honeydew melon set midway between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue.

  “Okay,” said Petra, getting out of the car. “Let’s see what our little fibber has to say for herself.”

  When she scanned the mailboxes near the front door, unit eleven was registered to Hawkins, A.

  No Leon on any of the slots.

  The front door was unlocked. They climbed the stairs and walked to the rear of the hallway where number eleven was tucked. Petra rang the bell and a very tall, black man in a green sweater and brown slacks answered the door. White snowflakes were printed at the neck and cuffs of the sweater, a ski-thing in June. An intricate zigzag cornrow sheathed his high-domed head—one of those architectural masterpieces NBA pros liked to sport. Rapidograph pen in one hand, ink stains on his fingertips. What Petra could see of the apartment was spare and well-kept. Drafting table pushed up against a window. A cloud of incense drifted out to the hall.

  “Yes?” said the man, twirling the pen.

  “Afternoon, sir,” said Petra, flashing the badge. “I’m looking for Sandra Leon.”

  “Who?”

  Petra repeated the name. “She listed this apartment as her address.”

  “Maybe she lived here once upon a time, but not for at least a year, because that’s how long I’ve been here.”

  “A year,” said Petra.

  “Twelve months and two weeks to be exact.” Twirl, twirl. Big grin. “I promise you, my name’s not Sandra.”

  Petra smiled back. “What would it be, sir?”

  “Alexander Hawkins.”

  “Artist?”

  “When I’m allowed to be. Mostly I work at a travel agency—Serenity Tours, over at Crossroads of the World.” Another grin. “If that matters.”

  “It doesn’t,” said Petra, “unless you know Sandra Leon.”

  “Is she an attractive young lady who appreciates art?” said Hawkins.

  “She’s a sixteen-year-old girl who may have witnessed a murder.”

  Hawkins turned serious. “No, I don’t know any Sandra Leon.”

  “Is there an in-house landlord or manager?”

  “I wish. These luxury accommodations are shepherded by Franchise Realty headquartered in the golden city of Downey. I was just on the phone with their answering machine. Little insect problem. I can give you the n
umber, know it by heart.”

  Back in the car, Petra called the company. The previous occupant of unit eleven had been a family named Kim and they’d been there for five years. No Leons had rented any apartments in the building during the seven years Franchise had managed the place.

  She hung up, told Isaac. “Sandra lied twice. And that makes me real interested in her.”

  Back on the phone, she left a detailed message for Dr. Bob Katzman.

  Isaac said, “Now what?”

  Petra said, “Now we return to the station and I try to locate little Ms. Leon. When I hit a wall, which will probably be sooner rather than later, I’ll take a closer look at those files of yours.”

  “I’ve been looking into June 28 to see if there’s some sort of historical significance. The best criminal link I’ve come up with is that John Dillinger was born on that day. I suppose that could be inspirational to a sociopath. But Dillinger was a bank robber, a grandstander, very dramatic, the epitome of a conspicuous felon. From what I can tell, this killer’s just the opposite. He’s been picking a variety of victims in order to embed his pattern.”

  This killer. Pattern. The kid was convinced of one dark hand behind all six cases. Ah, impetuous youth.

  As Petra began the short drive back to Wilcox, Isaac said, “Something else took place on June 28. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. June 28, 1914. Essentially, that began World War One.”

  “There you go,” said Petra. “Someone’s declared war on the good folk of L.A.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  It was the wound pattern that snagged her.

  Six P.M. As predicted, she’d hit the wall on Leon sooner rather than later. She phoned a nearby Mr. Pizza and called out for a small deep-dish with everything on it.

  Across the room, Isaac remained at his corner desk, scribbling, punching his laptop, jotting down notes. Making a big show out of being inconspicuous. When the pie came, she went over and offered him a slice. He said no thanks, tailed her back to her desk, hung around as she opened the greasy box.

  Petra selected a slice and began picking cheese off the pointed end.

  Isaac said “Have a good evening” and left the station.

  She poured herself more coffee, played with strings of mozzarella, picked up one of the files. Drank and ate and began to read. Getting grease on the folders. Being a little cavalier about it.