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

by M. L. Hamilton

  Two warehouses away from the one they wanted was an alleyway. Magdalena edged to the opening of it and looked down. It was as dark as all the others and she was sure housed any number of San Francisco’s homeless, but there were two of them and she knew Venus could fight in a pinch. She’d heard stories the other whores told when someone tried to move in on one of Venus’ regular johns.

  She wished she had thought to bring a flashlight, but she wasn’t sure whether they even had one at the flat. For the most part, the flat was a crash pad and any number of people occupied it from time to time. Rarely did anyone think to buy food or other necessities, like toilet paper. Most of what they had came from shoplifting at the corner market.

  “Come on, let’s see if we can get behind it.”

  Venus gave her a skeptical look. “You want to go down there?” She pointed into the darkness.

  “Yeah, there’s two of us.”

  Venus turned her until she could grab her shoulders. “Look, girl, what is this about? Why are you so insistent about this? It’s just a stupid warehouse. El Griego probably delivers drugs here or something.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you care?”

  Magdalena clasped Venus’ forearms. “I want to go home, Venus. I want to see my family again, but I can’t until I atone for what I’ve done.”

  “What the hell have you done? You did whatever you needed to survive.”

  Magdalena sighed. “You don’t understand. It’s still a sin. I have to make up for that sin.”

  “By doing what?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I believe I’ll be given a sign from God, like this.” She held up the scrap of paper between them.

  Venus looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “A scrap of crusty-ass paper is a sign from God?”

  “Anything can be a sign from God, Venus. You just have to know where to look for it.”

  Venus exhaled and dropped her arms. “Okay. I’m not letting you go into that alley alone. Let’s get this over with and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

  Magdalena hugged her impulsively. “Thank you for believing me,” she said.

  Venus gently pried her arms loose. “Unless you’re gonna pay for that, no hugging.”

  Magdalena laughed and grabbed her hand, dragging her into the alley. They cautiously skirted the dumpsters. Once they heard something squeal and a dark shape zipped to the end of the alley and disappeared. Venus shivered, but they kept going. At the end, the alley met another one, which led behind the warehouses. It sloped down to a drainage ditch, lined with grates, which they avoided, but here there were yellow security lights on the backs of the buildings. Using the added light, they moved swiftly toward their mark.

  Magdalena knew which one it was because it was the only single story building on this side of the block. There was a cargo bay with another rolling door on the left side and a narrow, wooden staircase on the right that led to a single security door with a window in the middle of it.

  Magdalena halted at the bottom of the stairs and studied the entire building. There were no signs, no markings to indicate who or what operated out of this structure. Each of the warehouses on either side had a placard that read the name of the business, but not on this one.

  Venus shifted nervously. “Okay, you’ve seen it. Now let’s go.”

  “Not yet,” said Magdalena. “I want to know what’s inside.”

  “You can’t get inside there. Everything’s locked up.”

  “Just give me a second, okay?”

  “I don’t like it back here. This is freakin’ me out. Someone could come and kill us, hack up our bodies and dump them down the sewer, and no one would ever know.”

  Magdalena scowled at her. “We’re the only ones here.”

  “For now.”

  “Just give me a moment and we’ll go. Now, let me listen.”

  She tried to hear any sound coming from inside, but all was quiet. They couldn’t even hear the sound of tires on the asphalt from out front. Drawing a deep breath for courage, Magdalena bolted up the stairs and crouched on the landing.

  Venus stood in the alley, staring up at her with wide, frightened eyes, but she said nothing. Taking a couple of deep breaths, Magdalena jumped up and peeked into the security window on the door, then she squatted down out of sight again.

  Studying the wood planking beneath her feet, she tried to process what she’d seen. There was just a cargo bay beyond the security door. A few muted security lights lit up the floor and she saw one moving van parked in the middle of it. Rising, she took a longer look.

  The huge cargo bay, the van, the rolling doors leading to 16th Street. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she tried to see past the metal pillar to her left. A number of tires were stacked along the wall, probably twenty to thirty of them, and two red gasoline cans with yellow spouts. Further left was a glass-walled office with a metal desk inside.

  She shifted back and looked at the van. It said ‘Los Hermanos Moving’ on the back door. A picture of moving boxes had been painted below the title. Magdalena noticed it had New Mexico plates.

  She frowned.

  “What are you doing?” hissed Venus from the alley. “We’re gonna get caught.”

  “There’s no one here,” Magdalena said over her shoulder, her eyes drawn back to the truck. What was in that truck? She needed to know.

  She curled her fingers around the doorknob and turned. It was locked. If she stood on her tiptoes, she could see a deadbolt and then the doorknob on the inside. Taking a step back, she surveyed the glass. Wire had been woven through the glass for security purposes and it was double paned. Still, a small person might be able to wedge her hand between the wires and unlock the deadbolt.

  Turning, she surveyed the alleyway, but she didn’t see anything heavy enough to break the glass. Besides Venus would have a fit if she tried to do that. In fact, she wasn’t going to wait much longer. Magdalena could see the fear on her face, hear it in her voice. She was terrified.

  Bounding down the stairs, she grabbed her friend’s arm and turned her back the way they’d come.

  “What did you see?”

  “Not a thing,” said Magdalena, lying to spare her friend worry. Another sin needing to be forgiven. “It was empty.”

  “Good,” said Venus, then grabbed her hand and urged her into a jog as they headed for 16th. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Magdalena allowed her to pull her along, but she was already planning a return trip.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Get up, sleeping beauty,” came her voice.

  Marco opened his eyes to see Rosa standing in the bathroom door, a towel around her body and hair. “What time is it?”

  “6:00AM. Come on. We’ve got to get to the hospital. I want to question the mother of the boy who was shot.”

  Marco rolled to his back, scrubbing his hands across his face. Sleeping with her probably hadn’t been one of his smartest ideas.

  “Let’s go. Tick tock, tick tock.”

  He threw back the sheets and sat up, looking around for his clothes. She’d folded them neatly on the chair by the dresser. He stalked to them and grabbed the pile, then headed for the bathroom. She was toweling off her hair over the second sink outside the bathroom and he could see her admiring his backside in the mirror as he walked past. Showering gave him time to regret his rash decision. It was unprofessional and probably violated some regulation or another.

  He hadn’t even been inside the shower five minutes before she was banging on the door, telling him to hurry up. He finished, dressed, and pulled his hair back in a short ponytail, then met her pacing by the door.

  He didn’t think he was going to be allowed coffee, even. They left the room and met her partner, Joe Miller, in the lobby. Miller already had his sunglasses in place, dressed in a crisp black suit with shiny shoes. Marco leaned forward and looked out the glass doors of the St. Francis. Early morning San Francisco fog obscured the sunligh
t. In the same clothes as yesterday with a day’s growth of stubble, he felt shabby and unkempt compared with the DEA agent.

  Rosa grabbed two lunch bags off the check-in counter and passed him one. He opened it and looked inside. The hotel had put a dry bagel and a little circular packet of cream cheese inside, nestled against an apple. He noticed that Miller had one too.

  “Let’s roll.”

  “Coffee?” Marco dared to venture.

  She pointed around the corner of the counter where two silver, electric pots stood. He walked to it and grabbed a cup, searching for the one marked caffeine. “You want one?”

  “I don’t drink coffee. I won’t pollute my body with that stuff.”

  Of course not. Apparently Cosmopolitans weren’t pollution. “Freakin’ huge-ass mistake,” he muttered to himself. “Miller?”

  The idiot actually looked to her for permission. She shook her head slightly, snapping out her glasses and putting them over her eyes.

  “Had my share earlier.”

  Earlier. It was 6:30AM.

  “After my morning run.”

  Ah. Marco gave a lift of his chin and struggled to put the cap on the paper cup. Picking it and his lunch bag up, he followed them out the door. The valet had their blue Chevy Impala pulled into the lane before the hotel, and he passed Rosa the keys. Marco walked out to the Charger, reaching into his pocket for his own keys.

  “You can ride with us,” she called to him.

  He waved a hand and pulled open the Charger’s door. “No frickin’ way,” he said as he sank into the seat and settled the cup in the cup holder, throwing the lunch bag into the passenger’s seat. Looking into the mirror, he rubbed a hand across the stubble. “You gotta stop doing this shit. You’re too damn old.” Putting the key in the ignition, he started the car. “You probably should stop talking to yourself too.”

  He let her take the lead, then pulled in behind her. The quiet drive to the hospital let him gain control over his mood. The paper cup of coffee didn’t hurt. He dug the dry bagel out of the bag and gnawed on a corner of it as he drove. He liked the early morning fog in San Francisco. He always imagined the City slowly waking up, shaking off the fog, just the way he eased into the day.

  Once at the hospital, the two DEA agents crossed the parking lot. Marco walked behind them, noticing the way they didn’t talk to each other. In fact, they didn’t even turn toward each other, but stared in opposite directions as if scoping the place for perps.

  He hung back as they approached the reception counter. Rosa did the talking, while Miller scanned the waiting room. Then they headed to the elevators as if they were wired together, moving in tandem.

  The elevator ride to the second floor ICU was made in silence. Marco watched the numbered lights above the door, but the agents stood, hands clasped in front of them, similar black suits, polished shoes, sunglasses in place. If he didn’t know better, he would think they were both androgynous.

  The elevator dumped them out in front of a glass-walled nurse’s station. A nurse saw them and was buzzed out to greet them. Beyond the nurse’s station, Marco could see rooms with glass partitions, housing the sickest of the sick in a hospital. Some had privacy curtains covering the glass, but most were open, so the nurses could have a quick look at the patients, all hooked up to various machines and breathing tubes.

  Alvarez and Miller both snapped out their badges and presented them to the nurse.

  She was a tall, spare Middle Eastern woman with a long face. She smiled knowingly. Marco guessed she dealt with her share of aggressive cops, working the ICU. “I was informed by reception that you were coming.”

  “We’re here to see the mother of Ernesto Ortega.”

  “Yes, I know.” She motioned down the hallway, away from the bank of windows. “This way. There’s a private waiting room you can use.”

  She led them to a small room with a blaring TV. Three walls were solid, but the one leading to the hallway was glass, the curtains pulled back and tied away. A long sofa and two armchairs separated by a side table were the only furnishings. A number of outdated magazines lay scattered on the tabletop. The nurse crossed to the flat panel television and turned it off, then headed back toward the door.

  “I’ll bring his mother to you,” was all she said before disappearing around the corner.

  Alvarez and Miller stood where she’d left them, taking up the center of the small room. Marco eased around them and sank into the furthest armchair, stretching out his long legs. They never said anything while they waited. After a while, he reached over and picked up a magazine, leafing through it. It was a gardening magazine and he wasn’t much interested in flowers, to be honest, but it was better than staring at them, standing like statues with sunglasses on.

  “Are the sunglasses regulation?” he asked, turning a page.

  Alvarez shifted around. She didn’t turn her neck like normal people, she shifted her whole body. She hadn’t been like that with him last night, he observed, giving her a lazy look.

  “We try not to be recognizable, distinguishable when we are out in public.”

  He nodded. “Must make seeing a bitch though.”

  He could see her brows draw down behind the glasses. Miller shifted around the same stiff way she did and studied him. Marco shrugged and flipped another page.

  A moment later the nurse came back with Daniela. The young woman’s face was puffy and her eyes were bloodshot. Marco leaned forward and closed the magazine, settling it on the table again.

  Alvarez and Miller whipped out their badges and showed them to her. “Agents Alvarez and Miller with the Drug Enforcement Agency of the United States government.”

  She looked confused. The nurse squeezed her elbow and left again.

  “We wanted to ask you about your son’s shooting yesterday.”

  She had a bulky sweater on and her arms were crossed over her stomach as if she were hugging herself. “Okay?”

  “Where exactly were you when it happened?” demanded Rosa.

  “I was in the house.”

  “Who else was with you at the time?”

  She looked at Marco and he could see recognition in her face. “My mother. My son and I live with her.”

  Marco pushed himself to his feet. “Why don’t you sit down? You look exhausted.” He stepped between the two agents and led her to the sofa, then he took a seat next to her. He gave Rosa a pointed look and nodded at the other two chairs. The agents sat down, looking stiff and out of place. Marco motioned for them to remove their glasses and they did so. “How is your boy?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t know yet. He’s on a ventilator, but he survived surgery. They said that was a good sign.”

  “I’m sorry this happened to you and him.”

  She nodded and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Where was the boy when he was shot?”demanded Rosa.

  She blinked at Rosa, then drew a deep breath. “Our front yard. He was playing basketball.”

  “Who was watching him?”

  “Who was watching him?” Daniela repeated. “We were. My mother and I were both home.”

  “I meant, who was watching him when he was outside? A seven year old boy? Surely someone was supervising him.”

  Marco gave Rosa a glare, but she ignored him.

  “We were keeping an eye on him from the living room.”

  “So he was unsupervised?”

  Daniela started to speak, but Miller pulled out a pad and wrote something on it.

  “Hold on a moment,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap. “He was in his own driveway in his own home. He knows not to leave the yard.”

  “Ms. Ortega, who wants you and your son dead?”

  Marco stared at her in bewilderment. So did Daniela. A tear spilled over her eye and rolled down her cheek.

  “What?”

  “Inspector D’Angelo answered a call last week for a drive-by that you were involved in. Your car was shot in the tire, a bullet went t
hrough the windshield and embedded in the back seat where your son usually sits. Yesterday, your son was shot in the stomach in the driveway of his own home. That is not coincidence. You are obviously a target, or your son is. Which is it?”

  Daniela rose to her feet. “How dare you talk to me like that! Why are you questioning me when you should be finding out who did this!”

  Alvarez and Miller rose also. “Because you are obviously the key to this entire case. Is it an ex-husband, lover?” Rosa gave her a narrow-eyed look. “Drug dealer?”

  Marco sat up straight, stunned. Peyton would never question someone like this. She would win them to her side first before she turned on them and she would never treat a victim like a criminal.

  “This is an outrage…” began Daniela.

  “It certainly is. I asked you a straight forward question and I expected a straight forward answer. I’ll ask it again in case you didn’t understand it the first time. Who wants you and your son dead, Ms. Ortega?”

  Daniela trembled. “How would I know that?”

  “I think you do. I think you know exactly who wants you dead. What is your real name, Ms. Ortega?”

  “What?”

  “We did a little digging into your background, but the funny thing is, there really isn’t one. What year were you born? What is your social security number? Where is your son’s birth certificate?”

  Daniela gaped at them, shivering and hugging herself, then she turned toward the door. She was gone before the agents could respond. Silence huddled over the room as soon as she left.

  Marco put his hands on his thighs and stood up. “That was frickin’ brilliant, if you ask me. So glad I got the opportunity to see real professionals in action.”

  “She’s obviously hiding something.”

  “Obviously, but you ain’t gonna find out what from her. Not now.”

  “What did you want me to do?” asked Rosa, going toe to toe with him. “Ask her nicely. Pet her and stroke her and beg her to tell us who wants to kill a seven year old boy?”

  “It probably would have worked better than that.”

  “Are you questioning my methods?”

  Marco started for the door. “Not questioning. Questioned. You’re both a hot mess.” He didn’t wait for them as he headed for the elevator.