Murder in the Tenderloin (Peyton Brooks' Series Book 2)

by M. L. Hamilton

  Defino patted Marco’s shoulder. “You’ve got it, Danny Zuko.”

  * * *

  Peyton was relieved to see Nurse Maelee when they arrived on Athena’s hospital floor. She smiled at Peyton, then gave Devan a quick once over.

  “Officer Brooks,” she said brightly.

  Peyton didn’t bother to correct her on the job title. “Nurse Maelee, this is Assistant District Attorney Devan Adams. He needs to see our patient, if possible.”

  “Certainly.” She turned around and searched the wall for a chart, then lifted it off the metal peg. She glanced at the writing. “She still isn’t talking. We can’t even get her to fill out her meal card, so she can pick what she wants to eat.”

  “Are the two officers still guarding the door?”

  Nurse Maelee closed the chart. “Yes, but we had to move them a few feet away from the door so she can’t see them. Even having them in her line of sight agitates her. The first day we had to give her a sedative until we caught on to what was upsetting her.”

  “I was hoping she’d be better,” said Peyton.

  “You and me both. Come on.” She circled the counter and led them down the corridor.

  “Everything else quiet since my last visit.”

  “You mean extra janitorial staff?”

  Peyton nodded.

  “I haven’t heard of anything,” offered Maelee. She entered Athena’s room and Peyton followed. The girl was lying in the bed, staring out the window, her eyes fixed on nothing. Her hair lay about her shoulders, looking tangled and greasy.

  “She hasn’t taken a shower or anything?” asked Peyton.

  Maelee settled the chart on the dinner cart and shook her head. “We can hardly get her to sit up in the chair while we change the bed. I’m trying to figure out a way to wash her hair…” The nurse was cut off by a moan from the bed.

  Athena had closed her eyes and as they watched, she pulled her knees into her chest, hugging them. A sound, like a wounded animal, escaped her throat and Peyton turned around to see what caused her distress. Devan had taken a few steps into the room.

  Maelee looked up at the same time. “I don’t think this will work.”

  Peyton agreed with her. Athena was beginning to rock herself and give whimpering noises. “I’ll try to talk to her, Devan, see if I can get anything, but you should wait outside. You can see what a state she’s in, let’s not make it worse.”

  Devan backed toward the door. “I think you’re right. See if you can get her to talk to you once I’m gone.”

  Peyton waited until he disappeared before she moved up to the bed. She covered Athena’s hands with her own. “He’s gone now. He won’t hurt you.”

  Athena gradually calmed, but she didn’t open her eyes.

  “Listen, Athena, I know that’s not your real name, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m trying to help you, but I need you to help me. I need you to talk to me, tell me what happened. If you don’t, I can’t help you.”

  Athena released her knees and reached up with her right hand to clasp the crucifix around her neck. Maelee nodded at Peyton to continue. She was obviously making some sort of progress.

  “If you tell me your name, I can contact your family, let them know where you are. I’m sure you’d like to see them, wouldn’t you?”

  Slowly Athena opened her eyes, but she didn’t look at Peyton. She fixed her eyes on the door and didn’t blink.

  Peyton sat down on the edge of the bed and tightened her grip on Athena’s hand. “Please, help me. Help me understand what happened. If someone hurt you, I can stop them. I can find them and make sure they don’t hurt anyone else. But I need your help, Athena. I need you to tell me what happened that night. Why were you at that building? Did you go inside? Did you see El Griego murder the first man?”

  She waited, studying Athena’s face, willing her to respond, but she got nothing. She sighed, drawing her hand away from the girl’s. Beside her, Maelee clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Thanks,” answered Peyton and got up to leave. This was a waste of time.

  * * *

  Marco met Javier at the entrance to the conference room. The two men shook hands. “Did you find out anything about El Griego?”

  Javier shook his head. “Nothing. None of my regulars heard of him, but that means nothing. Sometimes when a gangster buys it, his name becomes forbidden and no one will admit to having known him, especially if he was off’d because of something he did against the gang.”

  “I’m beginning to hate this case.”

  “Welcome to my world, man.”

  Marco turned the handle on the door and pushed it open. Abe was already sitting at the table with the precinct’s sketch artist, a man named Steve Eldridge. Steve looked a lot older than he was with a full beard and shoulder length brown hair. Marco never remembered him without sandals and a ratty tie-dye t-shirt. He wore a round pair of glasses like John Lennon once sported and his fingernails were always stained with paint. However, he was a brilliant sketch artist and Marco liked him.

  “Steve, how are you?” He held out his hand and Steve took it.

  “Good, you?” He scratched at a spot of paint on his stomach. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Running down a call with the D.A.” At that Abe’s brows rose into his hairline, forcing Marco to acknowledge him. “Abe?”

  “My own Angel’D, you’re looking especially angelic today.” He was playing with a piece of paper, folding it into tiny pieces.

  Marco glared at him. “Behave yourself.”

  Abe splayed a hand across his chest and gave Marco his most innocent look. “I always behave myself, except when I don’t.”

  Marco motioned Javier up beside him. Javier had a half-bewildered smile on his face. “This is Javier Vargas from the Gang Taskforce. We were hoping he might recognize the John Doe once we get the drawing done.” He indicated the chair next to him and took the one directly across from Abe.

  Abe continued to fold his paper. “We already started.”

  Marco studied the drawing in front of Steve. A Hispanic man in his late twenties was materializing there. “How close do you think you’ll be able to get, Abe?”

  Abe leaned over and looked at the drawing , his dreads swinging forward. “Not very. I can give you a general racial mix based on the bone structure, but that’s about it, and really I can only give you an approximation of the right side. The left was merely bone fragment and brain.” He made a face for Javier’s benefit.

  The other cop gave a short nod and continued watching Steve sketch.

  “Make the cheekbones just a smidge higher,” said Abe, watching his paper instead of the drawing. “The forehead should be a bit broader.”

  They all watched Steve sketch for a few more moments. Finally, Abe held his folded paper out to Marco with a wicked smile. Marco frowned at it, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking at anyway.

  “For you?”

  “What is it?”

  “Origami.”

  “Origami?”

  “Yes, origami is an ancient Japanese art of paper folding.”

  “I know what origami is. What is this?” He took the object and held it up for Abe.

  “An angel for my Angel.”

  Marco briefly closed his eyes and settled the paper on the table. He felt Javier’s eyes on him in confusion. This might not be worth a week off, but it sure ought to buy him a day at least. “Just concentrate on the drawing.”

  Abe returned to the drawing and gave a few more suggestions. Steve fleshed them out, then picked up the drawing and gave it to Marco. Both Marco and Javier looked at it.

  “Do you recognize him?”

  Javier shook his head, never taking his eyes off the drawing. “I wish I did. I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long shot at best,” said Marco. “We’ll make a copy and you can pass it around your division, see if anyone recognizes him. That’s the best we can do.�
�

  Javier shifted in the seat and faced Marco. “Actually, it’s not. You might try talking to Luis Garza. After all, he ran with the Aztecas for a while. He might recognize this one. He might be a holdover from when Garza was in charge.”

  Marco didn’t immediately respond. He could already see trying to present this to Peyton. Oh, lord, that wouldn’t go well. “I thought the Aztecas are different now, more organized than when Garza ran them.”

  “That doesn’t mean the players are completely different. It takes a while to move up in the ranks. You’ve got to earn it, you know?”

  Marco chewed his inner lip. “My partner is never going to agree to talk with Garza without being sure he’s got something to offer.”

  “She will if you ask her,” said Abe, playing with a new piece of paper.

  “Me? You’d have better luck than me? And I don’t like your odds, to be honest.”

  “Come on,” said Abe, giving him a smug look. “We’re her girlfriends. Me she goes to for the fun things, like sex and stuff. You handle the serious stuff.”

  “I’m not her girlfriend.” He glanced at both Steve and Javier. The two men were fighting smiles, avoiding eye contact with him.

  “You know she’d do it if you asked her. You just don’t want to ask her because you know it would hurt her to do it.”

  Marco studied the sketch some more. Abe was right, but he hated to admit it. If he asked Peyton to talk with Garza, she’d agree, but it would kill her to even see the bastard, let alone breathe the same air. There had to be another way around it. He just couldn’t ask her to revisit the most devastating experience of her life.

  “I’m not her girlfriend,” he muttered.

  * * *

  Magdalena leaned on the bus stop pole and waited for the bus to arrive. Mama had promised to pick her up after school, but she’d never shown up. Magdalena knew she shouldn’t get angry about it, or feel neglected. Her sister, Esperanza, was more important right now. In her head, Magdalena knew this, but in her heart she felt alone.

  Once she got home, her brothers would want dinner, and there would be dishes to clean from breakfast. Then the laundry had to be folded. If Mama got back late, she wouldn’t want to see the clothes still sitting in the dryer.

  Someone needed to go shopping. The cabinets were looking bare and Papa was the only one with a vehicle, a rusty, noisy pickup that they’d inherited from their grandfather. Papa hated driving that truck, said he was sure la migra was going to pick him up every time he left the house. If Mama was there, she would scold him into doing it, but Magdalena knew better than to scold Papa. He never raised a hand to his children, but a look from his eyes was enough to reduce them all to tears.

  She saw the boy from the corner of her eyes, but she stared straight forward, praying the bus would come. He sauntered over to her, all loose-limbs. He wore a jeans jacket and a bandana held back his hair. A white tank top peaked through the opening of the jacket and the top of his boxers showed over his low-slung jeans.

  “Hey, there, Lena,” he said, moving so close to her, she shrank against the pole.

  She wanted to correct him. Only her family called her Lena, but she liked the way he drew out the syllables, like it was honey on his tongue. “Felix.” She kept her head turned to the side, holding her books as a barrier before her. “Where are your friends?”

  He gave a careless shrug. “I ditched them when I saw you waiting here. I got a car, chica, I’ll take you home.”

  She blinked up at him, startled by his offer. They’d only said a few words to one another, most of it written in a note. She was definitely not getting in a car with him. “I’m taking the bus. It’ll be here soon.”

  “Suit yourself.” He reached above her, making her flinch, but he only curled his long fingers around the pole, leaning until the edges of his jacket brushed against her. “We don’t have to go to your house. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  Anywhere she wanted to go? Magdalena briefly closed her eyes. Unfortunately, that was impossible. She wanted to go back in time to before Esperanza got sick, when Mama and Papa had time for everyone.

  “Come on, chica, name it. I’ll take you there.”

  Magdalena shook her head. “You can’t. It’s not possible.”

  “’Course it is. I got a full tank of gas. Just name it and we’ll go. Los Vegas? New York? Abilene?”

  A laugh escaped her and she smiled up at him. “Abilene?”

  He smiled in return and Magdalena liked his crooked teeth. “I ran out of big cities.”

  She shook her head, shifting a little so she could see him better. “There’s Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit…San Francisco.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Yep, ‘Frisco. Got a cousin out there. He’s always telling me I should come.”

  “I’d like to see San Francisco,” she said.

  “Done. I told you I’d take you anywhere you want. ‘Frisco it is.”

  “And just what would we do for money once we got there?”

  He moved his hand from the poll and ran a strand of her black hair through his fingers. Magdalena knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t. It was so nice to spend a moment just talking to someone her age, flirting. Papa would hate it, but Papa wasn’t here. He was either at work or at the hospital with Mama.

  “I’ll get a job,” he said, his voice dropping into a lower register. It sent a shiver through Magdalena.

  “Doing what? You don’t even have a high school diploma.”

  “It’s easy to get money out there. My cousin says he’s always got more than he knows what to do with.”

  Magdalena gave a laugh. “How?”

  Felix tilted his head, giving her a pointed look as he continued playing with her hair. “How do you think, chica? What’s the easiest way to get money in the world? Drugs, chica.”

  Magdalena’s smile dried and she pulled her hair out of his fingers. “Leave me alone.”

  “Whoa!” he said, holding out his hands and taking a step back. “Don’t go all virgin on me, chica. I didn’t say I did those things, I just said it’s a way to get quick money.”

  Magdalena’s hand closed automatically on the crucifix. “It’s a horrible way to get money. It’s evil and wrong and illegal.”

  “How’s it wrong when people want the stuff? When they beg for it? I’m not telling them to do it. And as for the law, since when has the gringos’ law ever done right by us.” He made a scoffing sound. “Don’t tell me about that shit.”

  The bus pulled up to the stop, the brakes hissing. Magdalena glared at him and then moved off the sidewalk to avoid him. The doors opened with a hydraulic sound and Magdalena hurried up the steps and into the bus, dropping the coins into the machine.

  She sank into the first seat she found, clutching her books as tightly as she could. She wanted to look out the window and see if Felix was still there, but she was afraid any contact would encourage him and she had to put as much distance between them as she could. Dealing drugs? Lord, she had initially hoped he was kidding, but he wasn’t.

  No matter how attractive she thought him, Magdalena knew she had to end their friendship…association…whatever. Mama would have a fit if she knew and Papa would probably have a heart attack, then kill Felix as soon as he felt better.

  When the doors closed and Felix didn’t appear, Magdalena breathed a sigh of relief and rested her head on the back of the seat. Now it was time to forget about him. Never let him enter her mind again. Despite her resolve, she rose slightly and looked back at the bus stop, wondering if she could see him, but he was gone.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jake climbed the stairs in the dark. The light at the top was out again. No matter how often he complained to the manager, someone took the bulb out of the light and he suspected, used it in their own apartment. The narrow staircase and the dark, wood paneling didn’t help and made him feel a little claustrophobic until he reached the top.

  The carpet in the hall was faded and t
hreadbare, the walls papered with a peeling, yellow pattern that had once been white, the entire building looking neglected and dim, but at least a skylight in the ceiling allowed a little light to filter through. He shifted his briefcase to his left hand and reached into his pocket for his keys; however, as he came to his door, he noticed it was ajar.

  Pushing it open slowly, Jake peered around the door and surveyed the one room studio. The spot on the wall that his television had occupied was empty, the couch tossed on its face and all the drawers in the dresser he used as a television stand were open, the clothes hanging out or strewn on the floor.

  Jake pushed the door the rest of the way open and set his briefcase down. Edging to the bathroom, he shoved that door open and peered inside. His medicine cabinet had been rifled, the toothpaste, mouthwash and over the counter drugs thrown on the ground. For a moment, he sank down on the toilet and simply stared at the pill bottles. All of the memories of Zoë’s death came back in a rush, leaving him feeling as he did then, helpless and lost. He remembered the bathroom in Potrero Hill, the way he had thrown everything out of the cabinets, hoping to discover what had killed his wife, and finding nothing.

  Footsteps sounded in the main room, snapping Jake out of his memories.

  “Oh, shit!” came a voice.

  Jake sprang to the opening, startling the young teenager who lived next door.

  The boy had dark skin, his hair braided in cornrows, his trousers and t-shirt looking three sizes too big for him. He was the only neighbor who ever talked to Jake, ever acknowledged him in the least.

  He lifted big, brown eyes to the man. “Dude, you got robbed.”

  Jake forced his shoulders to relax. “Looks that way.”

  The boy looked around. Mikey, that was his name. “Dude, they took your TV.”

  Jake nodded, shifting to look at the spot too. It was the last nice thing he’d owned. “Yeah, they did.” He let his eyes sweep the rest of the room. Not only had they taken the television, but they’d taken his microwave, the dorm fridge, and his sorry-ass hot plate.