He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. The smaller, darker eye squinted.
“Okay, sure, whatever you say,” he said and twisted in his chair.
“Where do you get your steroids?” I asked.
“I’m not giving anybody up so you can forget that.”
“Did I ask you to give anybody up? I’m a homicide detective, Hector. Why would I be interested in your doctor friend?”
“I don’t have no doctor friend.” Hector looked over at Gus then down at the table.
“I’m sorry, I mean your pharmaceutical friend. Is that better?”
Hector looked at Gus and back at the table again but didn’t say anything.
“You got this guy who puts this stuff together for you, don’t you? Makes it himself, I bet. Thing is, you think I care about that? I don’t. I just used your drug supply and your friends Dewey and The Barb as a reason for you and me to have this sit-down. It’s the other stuff I’m concerned about. The secret potion that gets slipped to an innocent young woman and knocks her out so bad she’s dead. Oh, wait a minute, she not dead. Funny, that. A drug brings you down so low, everybody, even the paramedic, thinks you’re dead.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said to the table.
“I think you do.”
He sat up straight in the chair and gave me a slight smile. “This psych game you been playing has been interesting. You think I’m a mouse and you’re a big cat. You want something from me, tell me now. You gonna charge me with something, do it. I’d like to call my lawyer before I answer any more questions.”
“Fine. You don’t want to help me. You know all the right things to say and not say. You know not to talk, to call your lawyer. Let me tell you something. I’m going to find out everything. Everything, you understand? If you know something about Autumn Riley and some strange drugs and who gave them to her or maybe just where she got her voodoo doll, you need to tell me.”
“I don’t know about that girl, okay? I don’t know about drugs she took or who she took them with, who slipped them to her or what. I sure don’t know about any voodoo.”
“You’re lying to me, Hector. Why would you do that? I’ve got witnesses that can refute everything you just said.”
He closed his eyes again and sat silent. I tried another tactic.
“You know, Hector, it’s the voodoo that really has me concerned. Some people believe that if you make a sacrifice it intensifies the magic, you know, like a spell. You ever heard of that?”
“Sure, everybody’s heard of that.”
“But you don’t know anyone who practices voodoo, who makes sacrifices?”
“Fuck no. Now, let me go. I’m not enjoying this conversation.”
“Your friends, Dewey and The Barb, practice voodoo. Didn’t you know that?” I stayed with the gentle tone.
“They aren’t my friends and what they do is not my problem.”
“You got a raw deal but I want you to listen to me. You weren’t meant to do evil, Hector. That wasn’t your destiny.”
“Not everybody who practices voodoo is evil, you know.”
“No, of course not.”
“Some don’t even sacrifice animals. Not every voodum believes in sacrificing animals.”
“That’s right. I’ve heard that somewhere. Seems you know more about it than I thought.”
“I’d like to call my lawyer now,” he said, looking at Gus.
“You’re not like those kids that torture the neighborhood kitten. Are you?”
The room was heavy with silence—then—“No.”
“You like animals, right?”
“More than people.”
“Can’t say that I blame you there.” I smiled at him but he looked away from me. “Life gave you some bad breaks and you made some decisions along the way. You want to know how I know? Not from a file, Hector. I had some bad breaks, too. I made some decisions just like you.”
He laughed. “Sure,” he said. “I bet you were cute when you were a kid. I can just see you on the street, begging for spare change.” He sneered and added, “I bet I could have got you a lot of cash. Woulda made bank with you, fo’ sho’. Stop with the psych shit, okay?”
“So you pimped runaways? That’s what you’re telling me?”
“I want my lawyer now.”
“You know what? You don’t need to call your lawyer, Hector. I’m going to let you walk out of here, no charge. I’m not even gonna mention your little drug habit to your probation officer. But let me say first, I gave you a chance. This was your best chance ever and you blew it. It’s going to go down hard and heavy after this. If you don’t believe me, that’s okay, just watch and you’ll see. Here’s my card. You think about what I’ve said to you. Prove to me you’re not the worse slime on the planet, why don’cha?”
“Can I go, now?” he asked Gus.
Gus stood up and opened the door.
“Before you go, Hector, I got a question for you,” I said and stood before him.
“Really, a question? You got a lot of those.”
“When Grace looks down on you, wherever she is, do you think she likes what she sees?”
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, put his head down, and lifted his heavily muscled body out of the chair. He was the same height as me. We stood there for a moment, face to face. His smaller eye squinted at me.
“No answer,” I said. “Seems like you got a lot of those.”
“Bye, Joan.”
“Bye,” I said and stood aside giving him room to exit. “You call me if you want to talk.”
Hector walked out of the tiny room. Gus and I followed. To Hector’s back, “I’m on the trail, Hector. I’m a mad mama bear and you’ll be seeing me again. You know that game hide and seek? I always won at that game when I was a kid.”
Hector stopped in his tracks. For a moment he just stood there, then he turned around and said, “Me, too. That’s another thing we got in common, you and me. Hide and seek. I’ll see you around, Joan.”
Gus and I watched as he trudged out the door.
“He knows plenty,” said Gus.
“We can’t let him walk out this building without a tail,” I said as I called surveillance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I WENT HOME, TIRED from not getting any sleep the night before, and was determined to get some rest, but my mind was racing. They say that yoga is good to calm the mind but to relax, I threw on some sweats, went out to my little yard, and practiced my karate moves. I stood in the middle of my small patch of grass and prepared to release some endorphins. After that, I meant to take a hot bath and work on my relaxation pose. I took several deep breaths, releasing my day, relaxing my mind, calming the chatter.
Outside the door of my house, a wild rose bush trained up the old oak tree and overhung the street. Several dancing banana plants and a big elephant ear philodendron offered a cooling shade on hot afternoons. Morning glories covered the chain-link fence and entwined with the bamboo that surrounded my yard and afforded me privacy.
My gate was an old wooden thing that I’d painted white. The yard was a sliver of Eden that I claimed in the world. A flock of wild parrots had escaped from a neighborhood pet shop and liked to terrorize the neighborhood with their loud squawking. They seemed to especially enjoy my yard and came to visit every so often. They were loud and rowdy and caused quite a commotion whenever they appeared. They hadn’t been by for a while and I missed them.
I bent over and stretched out my back, allowing air to flow freely out my lungs. I went through my karate drills, performing each kata with mind, body, and spirit. I started with basic blocks and strikes and evolved to kicks and eye-plucking moves. The katas transformed into a series of combinations, all finely memorized, systematically executed. A precise rhythm, gaining in momentum, created an explosive, dominating choreography until fight cries and deadly blows sang simultaneously. There was a body-sized bag in the corner of the yard that I gave several hard kicks. Lo
w kicks are the most devastating, not those high fancy things you see on television and in the movies. A hundred quick low kicks on the bag did the trick for me every time. As my lungs worked harder I found myself relaxing, I felt the fury draining from me.
A thin film of perspiration covered me from head to toe. My concentration was so intense that I didn’t hear the neighborhood dogs barking until I stopped for a moment, exhausted. In that pause of my warrior dance, I listened to the barking and rapidly approaching footfalls in the alley. I ran and hefted my body up the oak tree like a bear.
What looked like a chubby gangbanger in baggy jeans and a flannel shirt cowered in fear when he saw me. I merely stared at him as he continued down the alley, walking faster now. He was probably late getting home and his mother was going to give him hell. He glanced back over his shoulder at me, several times, just in case I decided to attack.
The moon came up that night big and yellow. I sat in my yard and pondered my life, considered what the future held for me. If I’d ever marry. That big moon peeked over the oak tree and I could almost feel it on my face. Before Gramma died, she told me that every time the moon looked down on me that it would be her, no matter what shape it was. And even when it wasn’t there I should know that she was always in the sky watching over me.
“Well, Gramma,” I said to the moon. “I could use a little tenderness, don’cha think?”
The moon kissed my face in sympathy at my foolishness but she was not in a talkative mood. I asked her to please, send me an appropriate lover. I told her that she could choose someone for me since I was so bad at it myself.
“Send me somebody that will make me a better person. Send me someone that will help me heal. I can’t live the rest of my life like this.”
Grandmother Moon knew me all too well. The galaxies that I would have to travel before I’d ever land on a planet where the words “I do” ever came out of my mouth were daunting. Not even the opossum came to visit me on any kind of regular basis. She told me she would send me my “appropriate lover” but I would have to be able to recognize him. And you know, that was just like something my own grandmother would say. Once, I asked her how to find a good man and she said it was simple, that the way was to be a good woman. Everything was always a riddle with her. And she knew my heart better than anyone.
I shook my head at my wild imaginings and went inside, fixed a tuna sandwich, and polished it off with some orange juice. What was the most important quality a man could have? Gentleness seemed like a good quality to ask for. You’d think I’d be capable of recognizing that. Laziness overtook me and instead of carrying my dishes into the kitchen, I placed them on the coffee table. I gazed for a while at the moon now peeking into the window of my living room.
As I was settling in on the couch, my eyes fell on Dr. Blanchard’s journal. I picked up the pages and leafed through a few until I came across something that caught my eye.
Victory! After months of frustration and refiguring of the formula, I have finally attained my first goal. Three subjects have remained in a suspended state for ten days. I will call my colleagues to report and initiate the next phase of the experiment. The Haitians are beginning to trust me. I have become an accepted member of this small community though they still test me constantly.
I imagined three people in a suspended state for ten days. Who were they and what did it mean to them? What did it mean to their families? Did they have families? Why had the Haitians come to trust the doctor and how was it that they accepted him into their community? It was clear to me that there was some connection between Dr. Blanchard’s studies, the Autumn Riley case, and Dani’s death, but what was it exactly? How could I prove it? A drug test on Autumn Riley might be illuminating, for one. Dewey had to be the connecting link. Maybe Hector would lead me to something. I took a deep breath and planned to make a new attack on locating Autumn tomorrow.
I flipped on the television and sat back, relaxing on the couch, preparing myself for a state of vegetation. I fell asleep watching a bad dating game show where the couples either pawed each other or spewed insults at each other. I woke up to percussive music and for a second thought I was back at Addams’s party. On the television, basketball players dribbled and did amusing basketball stunts then commanded me to obey my thirst.
The news came on and a weather report was followed by a newscast about Autumn Riley. Somebody had gotten a copy of the videotape from the morgue. During the report, they flashed photos of both Gus and me as the investigating detectives. The newscaster made no attempt to disguise the report as anything other than high entertainment. He was smirking and carrying on like it was the joke of the century. I knew that the coroner’s office didn’t leak the story and it wasn’t the tech guys.
I called the captain because I knew he had to make certain reports on an official level. Satch answered the phone.
“Sir, this is Joan. I need to know if you gave Autumn’s parents a copy of the tape.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
I told him about the news cast.
“We’re going to burn on this one,” he said. “That’s all there is to it.”
I hung up the phone and stared in dejection at the television and what was now a report of a missing child, Tommy, a ten-year-old boy. The missing boy’s family was Mexican, owners of a Los Angeles fast-food chain. There was some speculation that it was a kidnapping, but there had been no contact regarding ransom. The mother and father made tearstained statements and a photo of the kid was shown. I looked away, uneasy with the exploitation of the parents’ grief, and took my plate and glass to the sink to wash them.
I heard the reporter say the kid was last seen with his dog, Pancho. I know such news reports are necessary and often have helped to find kids, but I can’t handle the pain of the loved ones. I turned back to the television to see yet another photo of the boy with a big black dog. The reporter said that the breed of the dog was a Newfoundland. I thought the resemblance to the black dog that was hanging around the Autumn Riley crime scene was more than an interesting coincidence. I called Anthony Sauri, the guy on surveillance.
“Anthony, this is Joan Lambert, has anyone come by Autumn’s bungalow?”
“No, nobody.”
“Anything interesting on Hector?”
“Not much. He was in a Venice coffee shop chatting up the customers all day, then walked over to The Gold’s Gym and that’s about it.”
“Which coffee shop?”
“Abbot’s Habit.”
I knew the coffee shop, had been there myself plenty of times. It’s walking distance from my house.
“What’d you find on the dog?” I asked.
“I checked it out. The neighbors said it was a stray. Showed up around there a few days ago. Animal Control picked it up yesterday and took it to the pound.”
“Which pound?”
“Santa Monica, why? You going to adopt it?”
•••
ON THE WAY TO the animal shelter, if you can call them that, I dialed Rose Torres on my cell phone.
“Rose, this is Detective Lambert.”
“Yes?”
“Those black hairs you found at the Autumn Riley crime scene? Are they dog hairs?”
“Yes, Detective. How did you know that?”
“Just a wild guess. And how about those blond hairs that I bagged off The Barb, they dog hairs, too?”
“Uh, no, but I’m going to see if they match any hairs from the Autumn Riley crime scene. We will know by the time we go home tonight.”
“Call me immediately either way,” I said.
“Will do.”
“Thank you.”
I pulled into the driveway of the animal shelter. It was after hours and I had to convince the person on the speaker, who sounded sort of young but was the only person left in charge, that the dog was essential to my investigation. When he came out to greet me, sporting a Dodger baseball cap and a matching jersey in a size extra-large, he looked to be about
fourteen. He assured me that they hadn’t put the dog to sleep and insisted I wait while he called his supervisor to get the okay to let me in. Finally, after giving my badge number to his supervisor, we walked into the area where they keep the dogs, all concrete and little jail cells. It hit me strange that these creatures were being held for the crime of being unloved and unattached or just lost. I saw at least five dogs that I wanted to take home. The kid had no mercy and was giving me the hard sell on every dog I even glanced at. In one of these cages was the dog I believed to be Pancho, that I hoped was Pancho, so I could have a lead that would help find Tommy and who knows, maybe even Autumn Riley.
“You seem a little young for this gig, kid.”
“I’m fifteen. I have a social security card and the legal right to work.”
“Okay, then. You ever get any bloodhounds?” I asked.
“Nope, not really. The kind of people who buy bloodhounds don’t usually lose or abandon them.”
“Right. That figures.”
“But we have so many other dogs. Does a dog have to have a pedigree to deserve a good home?”
“No,” I said rather somberly.
“No, in fact, mixed breeds are healthier both physically and mentally.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that. But at this moment, I just need the big black dog.”
“It’s a Newfoundland. It’s right here.”
And sure enough, there he was in all his big black glory. The dog from the Autumn Riley crime scene was looking at me through a wire cage like I was the love of his life. His big ole fluffy tail wagged like he recognized me and had been waiting for me to come.
“He knows you.”
“Not that well.”
“You’ll have to pay the fees,” said the kid.
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