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

by M. L. Hamilton

  “I missed you the last two nights.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I missed you. I think I’ve come to peace with you having a roommate.”

  She smiled, especially when he lowered his head toward hers again, but he stopped before their lips touched and stepped away from her. “D’Angelo,” he said.

  “DA,” came the response at her back.

  She turned and saw Marco settling his coffee on his desk. He gave her a side-long look before pulling out his chair and dropping into it. She could feel a strange current between the two men, although if she were honest, most of it was coming from Devan. They were so different. Both tall and lean, but Devan was the consummate professional – stylish and sexy in a pressed suit and perfectly cut hair, a man of power. Marco was devastatingly handsome of course, but he had a raw, edgy look to him.

  “I have bad news for both of you,” said Devan, no longer her lover, but the polished district attorney. “My boss wants Athena arraigned this week, whenever the court has an opening.”

  “You told us you’d buy us 72 hours, Devan?”

  “I did, Peyton. The 72 hours are up.”

  “She still can’t speak. You said it yourself, she can’t help in her own defense.”

  “I’m sorry, Peyton. I’ll stipulate to that before the judge, but our job is to prosecute people and we’ve given her as much time as we can.”

  Peyton looked at Marco, but he didn’t offer her any solution. Maria approached them at the moment. She gave Marco a sultry smile, but she didn’t seem her usual antagonistic self toward Peyton.

  “You got a message this morning, Brooks,” she said, handing it to her.

  Peyton took the message. It was from the director of the shelter where they’d dropped Venus. Sorry. Olivia snuck away in the middle of the night sometime. We just discovered her missing this morning at breakfast. Peyton crumbled the message in her fist.

  “Venus ran away from the shelter,” she told Marco.

  He started to say something, but Devan interrupted him. “Wait. Isn’t that the hooker who witnessed the shooting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s the only eye witness, Peyton. This is bad.”

  “You think?”

  He gave her a surprised look. She realized she’d never been short with him before.

  “Peyton, she’s the only chance Athena has of getting off. Without her testimony, that girl is going to prison. How could you let her get away?”

  Marco blew out air and swiveled his chair around to watch as Peyton squared up with Devan. “What did you say? How could I let her get away? She wasn’t a criminal, Devan, she was a witness. What exactly are you suggesting I could have done to keep her?”

  “You could have arrested her on some charges. Kept her locked up here. She was a prostitute, Peyton.”

  “For how long? How long were we supposed to legally hold her? Months, the year or so it takes you to give someone their right to a speedy trial? And what exactly were we going to hold her on again? We’re homicide, Devan, not Vice.”

  He drew himself up, making himself taller, the trial lawyer with all of his super powers at his fingertips – intelligence, intimidation, language. “If I can venture a criticism, it seems to me that your entire case has been botched. You can’t identify half the players, your witnesses disappear, and every lead you track down leads you to a hundred other places.” He pointed at the white board. “No one can figure out anything in all this chaos.”

  From the corner of her eye, she could see Marco close his eyes and lower his head.

  Peyton took a step closer to him. “Good thing you’re here to offer a criticism. How the hell would cops ever be able to work anything out without uptight, arrogant piss-ass lawyers telling them where they’ve gone wrong. By all means, District Attorney, why don’t you solve the case, arrest the perps, and then put them in prison. Superman obviously doesn’t need us lowly grunts following him around.”

  She turned and headed for the break room.

  “Peyton,” he called after her.

  “I’m getting a donut because that’s about all us cops are good for, isn’t it?” she shouted over her shoulder.

  “Wow,” she heard him say. “I don’t think I handled that well.”

  Marco gave a short laugh. “You know the saying you brought a knife to a gun fight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You brought a grenade and she took it, shoved it down your pants, then detonated it.”

  “Blew my balls off,” agreed Devan.

  Peyton turned the corner of the break room and gripped the counter hard. Freakin’ idiots! She could feel the anger simmering inside of her. She hated it when men tried to tell her how to do her job.

  She hadn’t realized Captain Defino was in the room until she felt her hand on her shoulder. “Now you know why I refuse to wear glasses. A woman in this business is always having to kick some ass.”

  Peyton just nodded, then she spied the coffee cake from the corner of her eye and pounced on it.

  * * *

  Marco sipped at his coffee as the captain left the break room and went back to her office. He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he go after his partner or let her calm down on her own? Usually he voted for letting women calm down on their own, and he didn’t feel on firm ground where Peyton and her boyfriend were involved.

  He opened the file and looked at the pictures Jake had taken of the teenager they arrested yesterday, the head in a box, and the drive-by on Eddy. The randomness of everything made this one particularly difficult. He slammed the file closed and braced his head on his hand.

  And then there was the suggestion that Javier had made. He didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know how to approach it, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore. He knew Peyton sensed he was keeping something from her. He knew it and he didn’t know how to broach the subject without hurting her.

  She came out of the break room and stood looking at the white board. Marco kept his back to her, trying to summon up the courage to say what needed to be said. He wished she just hadn’t had a fight with Devan.

  “Devan’s right,” she offered with a sigh, giving him the opening he needed. “We really don’t have anything. The minute we identify one of the players, we get side tracked by something else.”

  “It’s the gang connection. We don’t know enough about the Aztecas.”

  “You’re right, but if Javier can’t give us the information we need, I don’t know what else we can do.”

  Marco pushed his coffee mug away and swiveled toward her. “There is something else we can do.”

  She turned from the board and studied him. “What?”

  Marco made a fist and tapped it against his desk a few times, trying to force the words out. “Javier suggested we talk to Luis Garza.”

  She went still, no flicker of emotion on her face. Then, carefully, her chin tilted upward. “What?” she repeated.

  “He ran the Aztecas for a few years, Brooks. He should be able to give us their internal structure, maybe names, something more than we have now.”

  Her eyes roved over his face. “When did Javier suggest this?”

  “A few days ago.”

  “And you’re just telling me now.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “And keeping this from me protects me how, Marco? I can forgive Devan for his mistakes, he doesn’t know me that well, but you? I thought we were partners. I thought I could trust you with everything.”

  “You know that you can, Peyton, but this…I didn’t know how to tell you this. And then Captain Defino said…”

  “The captain knows? You told her you wanted to question Luis Garza, but you didn’t think you should tell me?” Her voice rose so loudly that everyone in the squad room looked over.

  Marco caught Jake’s concerned look before turning back to her. “All right. Tell me what you would do in my place, Brooks? Tell me how you would handle something like this if I was on
the receiving end?”

  She shook her head at him, then walked to her desk and grabbed her coat. She paused and leaned on the corner of his desk, bringing herself close to him. “I would have told you, Marco, because I trust you with my life.”

  She spun around and headed toward the outer doors. “Tell Defino I’m going to see Athena,” she barked at Maria, then threw open the half-door. It slammed into the counter behind it and sprang back. A moment later, Peyton disappeared through the glass doors of the precinct.

  Marco watched her go, then he covered his eyes with his hand. She was right. He should have told her that day, but it was too late to fix that now.

  “Who is Luis Garza?”

  Marco lowered his hand and looked up at Jake. He was standing by her chair, his hands curled around the top of it. Marco supposed he had a right to know.

  “The man who murdered her father.”

  Jake looked confused. “How?”

  “Routine traffic stop, but Garza was hauling dope. He freaked out and shot him cold. Ben died on the way to the hospital.”

  Jake looked up at the white board, but didn’t say anything for a few moments. “It’s not easy to stare into the eyes of someone who killed the person you love. It’s one of those hurts that never goes away.”

  Marco met his gaze and saw bleakness there.

  “You think you’re over it. You think you’ve compartmentalized it, but then it ambushes you. You shouldn’t have let her be ambushed, Adonis.”

  Marco lowered his gaze to her chair and stared at the empty seat. “You’re right,” he said.

  * * *

  Peyton took a seat beside Athena. A nurse or someone had dressed her in a bright yellow sundress, combed her hair, and placed her in a wheelchair. Then they’d wheeled her into the common room and parked her in a corner where the feeble sunlight filtered through the window and caressed her.

  Around her were other residents of the hospital. Most were quiet, but a few whispered to themselves or rocked themselves distractedly. A handful played a nearly silent game of cards at a white resin table.

  The hospital was clean and people weren’t screaming or cursing. It was almost normal, except the young girl in the yellow sundress looked like a made-up doll for all her animation. Peyton wondered how you could be as still as she was, how you could sit for hours without showing signs of life. She’d seen her whimper and cringe, but now she just seemed plastic, empty, a shell.

  Athena’s hands were folded around the arms of the wheelchair. Peyton reached over and covered the left one with her own. “I wish you’d help me out, Athena. I wish you’d talk to me, so I can get your story. The D.A. is going to arraign you this week and I really want to testify on your behalf, but we need to know what happened to you.”

  She waited, but Athena simply blinked and continued to stare straight ahead.

  Peyton’s eyes lowered to the crucifix around the girl’s neck. She decided this might be a better way in. She remembered Venus telling her Athena could sing gospel music. “When my father was alive, we went to church every Sunday. He never missed a sermon. He always said he needed something to break up the sinning.” She smiled in memory. “He wasn’t much of a sinner, but he sure liked to pretend his soul was in mortal danger and the only thing standing between him and hell was the Reverend Theodore C. Brown.”

  “I liked the Reverend Brown. He’d get so excited, he’d be covered in sweat by the end of the sermon. I loved the way his big voice would thunder and quiver like he was his own force of nature.” She laughed. “At home, my daddy would pretend he was Reverend Brown. He’d have my mama and me laughing so hard, we couldn’t even speak.”

  She looked out at the room. A few of the nurses were listening to her and one or two of the patients, but there was no change in Athena. Still, it comforted Peyton to think of her father and remember all of the silly things he did.

  “Hands down, though, my favorite part was singing the gospel. Lord, it was so joyful. All those voices raised in song, the dancing, the music. I would sing right along with them. I didn’t have a very good voice. Never could carry a tune, but what I lacked in talent, I made up for in enthusiasm.”

  “It embarrassed my mother, but my father would wave her off and pick me up. Together we would sing our hearts out, drowning out everyone around us. Mama would glare at us, but eventually she’d start laughing, then we’d know we got her.”

  Peyton patted Athena’s hand on the back, then released her. “Come on, girl. Help me out here. I want to send you home. I want to send you back to your mama and papa.”

  Suddenly Athena’s eyes shifted to Peyton and seemed to bore into her. Peyton didn’t move, hoping, praying for a word, but after a moment of staring, she simply turned and looked away.

  * * *

  Peyton pulled into the precinct parking lot. Marco was just unlocking the Charger, prepared to go home. The clouds had rolled in and the lights outside the precinct looked like fog beacons at sea. After leaving Athena, she’d just driven around. She wound up at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park and sat, tossing the bun of a hotdog at the ducks. She was usually so good at corralling her emotions, but not here, not in this situation.

  She parked next to him and climbed out. He paused and turned, leaning against the car as she came up to him. She put her hands in her back pockets and rocked on her heels. They didn’t say anything for a moment.

  Finally, she looked up at him. “Jake still here?”

  “Yeah, he’s waiting for you to return. He’s been wandering around the office, grumbling. Don’t think he likes the hours we keep.”

  “Then he should get a car.”

  “What I told him.”

  She rocked back on her heels again. “I owe you another apology.”

  His dark brows rose, but he didn’t respond.

  Peyton had to smile. “For snapping at you earlier.”

  “I’m sorry too, Brooks. I should have told you as soon as Javier suggested it. I just didn’t know how.”

  “I know that.” She felt tears start in her eyes and was determined to hold them back. “It’s just…the thought of seeing him again, of looking into that soul-less face, makes me feel physically sick inside, Marco.”

  “I know, Brooks.”

  “But I’ve got to do my job and we need to question him. Javier is right.” She blinked hard, trying to keep the tears from spilling. Marco looked down and cuffed his boot against the asphalt, giving her the time. She pressed her fingers over her heart. “I just don’t think I can do it.”

  He lifted his head, his hair sliding back from his face. “I’ll do it, Peyton.”

  She drew a deep breath, then forced a smile. Coming forward, she placed her hand on his arm and rose on tiptoes, kissing his cheek. “You’re always watching my back, partner,” she whispered in his ear.

  He met her look, then tucked a curl behind her ear. “Always, partner.” Then he glanced toward the precinct. “Devan is watching from inside.”

  Peyton gave him a confused look and backed up. “So?”

  “So, you should go smooth things over with him. He was upset earlier and he’s been back twice now.”

  She squeezed Marco’s arm, then released him. “Did you put in a call to San Quentin?”

  “Yeah, we can see him at 10:00AM tomorrow. Defino wants to go with us.”

  Peyton swallowed hard. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

  He pushed himself off the car and lightly punched her shoulder. “Come on, Brooks, man up.”

  She smiled as he pulled open the car door. “Thank you for understanding.”

  Marco paused and looked back at her. “You got to give some of the credit for that to Jake.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Have a good night.”

  “You too, Brooks,” he said, giving her a wink. “You too.”

  Peyton waited while he started the car and drove away. When she looked up, she could see Devan watching through the windows of the squad room. Biting her lip, she headed for he
r next apology.

  * * *

  Peyton woke and lay listening to the sounds of the house. Pickles was snoring on his bed in the corner and Devan’s even breathing beside her told her he was asleep. She looked over her shoulder at the clock on her nightstand. 2:00AM. Shit.

  She forced herself to lie back down and tried to think of other things, but her thoughts kept coming back to the day her father died. She and Marco were chasing down a wife who had shot her husband after years of abuse. She’d just completed her first year and Marco was a rookie. They didn’t usually pair two green cops together like that, but both of them had graduated at the top of the academy. They were considered the “dream team”.

  They were just going to make the arrest when her phone rang.

  Captain Defino told her she was sending Cho and Simons to arrest the wife, that she and Marco needed to get to the hospital. Then she said the words every cop dreads. “Your father’s been shot.”

  Arriving at the hospital, they found the emergency room in turmoil. Cops were all over the building, converging here to pay honor to one of their own. The moment she walked in the door, they all turned and stared at her. She felt like she was walking a gantlet, walking through them all to where her mother stood, sobbing.

  Alice fell into her arms and Peyton would never forget the first thing she said. “He’s gone.”

  Blood rushed to her head and she reeled, the weight of her mother pushing her down. Then she felt Marco’s hands on her elbows and the next thing she knew, she and her mother were on the ground, holding each other. Peyton hadn’t cried, had focused all of her attention on keeping her mother together and praying that she’d heard wrong.

  Later, when she was alone, the suffocating panic had set in and she woke to find herself sobbing in her sleep.

  Even now, Peyton could feel the edges of that panic if she tried. She rolled over so she wouldn’t wake Devan and threw back the covers, climbing from the bed. In her shorts and tank top, she walked to the door and pulled it open, pushing back her hair. The light was on in the kitchen and when she rounded the corner, she found Jake there, searching through her cupboards.