Street Rules

by Baxter Clare

  Frank was drinking beer tonight and she traced a bead of condensation down the side of her Guinness bottle.

  “Who knows. Anyway, this is absolutely just between you and me.”

  Nodding her complicity, Gail said, “See? I might not be such a bad detective after all.”

  “Maybe not,” Frank granted.

  After coffee and Armangac, they sauntered back to Gail’s office, enjoying the silky night air and easy conversation. Frank waited while Gail prowled around in her purse for keys.

  “Tarrah,” she said holding them aloft. She caught Frank reflexively checking Gail’s empty, dark car, and chided, “Always the cop.”

  “Should make you feel safe.”

  “I feel a lot of things around you,” Gail admitted. “That’s one of them.”

  Frank didn’t know what to do with that and she examined the pavement at her feet.

  “So what do you think?” Gail asked. “We’ve had a couple dinners now. How would you feel about a real date?”

  “What do you mean a real date?” Frank hedged.

  “A planned event. Not something accidental after work or at the Alibi.”

  Frank nodded, seeking refuge again in the solid ground.

  “Gail,” she struggled, “I really enjoy your company. I like being with you. But I’m moving through some stuff right now,” Frank faltered. “Let’s just say it probably wouldn’t be wise of me to get into any kind of a romantic involvement.”

  She paused and Gail asked, “What sort of stuff?”

  “Old stuff. Stuff I should have dealt with a long time ago, and that I’m just now getting around to.”

  “I see. So does this stuff,” Gail stressed, “preclude something as innocent as a movie, or going for a walk together?”

  “No,” Frank allowed with a thin smile. “I just don’t want to mislead you. I don’t think I’m up for anything more significant than a fine friendship right now. And you might want more. I don’t know.”

  Holding a grin back on her lower lip, Gail said, “I’ve been single all my life, Frank. I’m not asking you to marry me. I just thought it would be nice to look forward to doing something together. Would that be so awful?”

  “Not at all. But I remember you saying something about being ready to settle down … and if you had that intention with me, it’s probably not such a good idea.”

  “Fair enough,” Gail said letting the grin loose. “So do you think you’d be up for a hike Saturday morning or would that be too involved?”

  “A hike?” Frank asked like she’d never heard the word.

  “Yeah, you know.” Gail waved a rashed hand, “Up on the Angeles Crest or something.”

  “I’ve never been hiking,” Frank answered, pulling on her chin. “Sound’s like something Boy Scouts do.”

  “What do you mean you’ve never been hiking?”

  “Which part of that didn’t you understand?”

  “How can you have never hiked?”

  “Hey. I grew up in New York City,” Frank insisted, “And now I live in L.A. Where am I supposed to have done all this hiking?”

  “All around,” Gail cried. “God, we’ve got some of the most beautiful country in the world right in our own back yard. We’ve got the Santa Monica’s, the San Gabriel’s, San Gorgonio. These places are beautiful. Anza Borrego in the spring, God! I can’t believe you’ve never been! Let me take you Saturday,” Gail pleaded. “We won’t do anything strenuous, just a short hike. I know a pretty little trail right outside of Altadena. What do you think?”

  “Would I need hiking boots?”

  The doc answered with the low chuckle that Frank found so attractive.

  “No, silly. Just tennis shoes. We’re not scaling Everest.”

  “How long would it take?”

  “As long as we wanted it to. Unless you really don’t want to do it. You’re enthusiasm’s hardly overwhelming.”

  Frank considered, finally relenting, “All right, Nature Girl. Show me.”

  “You be at my place Saturday morning at eight o’clock, and I’ll show you.”

  “I don’t need a backpack or a walking stick like those guys on the cover of “Outside”?”

  “It’s a two-hour hike, Frank, not a forced march across the Himalayas.”

  “All right,” Frank smiled. “See you at the Alibi Friday?”

  “Probably not. I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep for this arduous trek.”

  “Good idea. See you Saturday then.”

  “Okay.”

  Gail opened her door, but Frank said, “Hey. Do I need pitons and rappelling ropes?”

  “Yeah. For when I throw you over a cliff,” Gail laughed. “Don’t get too drunk Friday.”

  “Can’t. On call again.”

  “Are you on call every weekend?”

  “Nope. Just building up favors. Never know when you might need them.”

  Frank did as instructed, showing up at Gail’s condo at eight AM sharp on Saturday morning. The doc drove them out to the mountains behind Pasadena and they hiked until the day got too warm. Other than mistaking every stick in the trail for a rattlesnake, Frank had a good time. It was easy being with Gail and when they got back to the condo, Frank ventured, “You got a hot date tonight or would you like to come over to my place? I’ll throw some steaks on the grill, maybe rent a movie … you know, a planned event.”

  “Oh, my. Are you sure you’re ready for such a big commitment?”

  “Pretty sure,” Frank replied. “I’ve got to go into town. Get some work done. How’s six-thirty sound?”

  “Divine. What can I bring?”

  “Nothing. I got you covered.”

  A couple hours later, after a quick, hard run on the treadmill, then a shower, Frank started the coals for the barbeque. She didn’t have to rush though, because Gail was late. Half an hour later, she added more charcoal and lowered the temperature on the potatoes in the oven. Compulsive about being on time, it tweaked Frank that the rest of the world thought six-thirty meant seven or seven-thirty. But when Gail finally arrived, her color high from the morning sun and her eyes still holding all the warmth of the day, Frank forgot her irritation. Pouring her a glass of wine, they moved out to the patio and listened to the steaks sizzle.

  “I was taking my boots off after I got home,” Gail was saying, “and it dawned on me that Luis Estrella’s shoes still had blood in the grooves. A lot. Don’t you think that most of it would have caked off after he’d been walking around in the chaparral for a while?”

  “You’d think,” Frank nodded. “So either he wasn’t walking or he wasn’t wearing those shoes.”

  “Well he had to have been wearing some shoes. There was no evidence that he was barefoot. But maybe he wasn’t walking in them for very long.”

  Frank clacked the barbecue tongs open and shut.

  “Yeah,” Frank mused. “Maybe the latter. I went into the canyon where they found him and had a look around. He had to have gone through some relatively thick brush to get down there. I was walking around in broad daylight, straight, and I still snagged my clothes and got scratched up. I can’t imagine how he got down there in the dark, and half OD’d, without any more scratches and rips than he had. It’s almost like someone carried him in. And what was he doing up there in the first place?” she mused, warming to the intrigue.

  “Who knows? Maybe he was on the run. Maybe he wanted to go someplace where he could be alone, think about what he’d done.”

  “I can’t imagine a junkie being that reflective. And I can’t see him heading for the hills if he was scared. He wasn’t a nature boy. He was a city kid, like me. He wouldn’t run into the boonies for comfort. He’d go underground. Either in south-central or some other city where he could blend in, and not be too far from skag. He only had a couple hits on him. It doesn’t make sense that he was up there unless someone brought him up there. Brought him up there and dumped him. That would explain his shoes, and his clothes being so unmarked. See, no
ne of this is adding up to an accidental OD.”

  “Then how’d he get all that blood in his shoes unless he was there when his family was being killed?”

  “Maybe he was a witness. Maybe whoever did it needed something from him and couldn’t kill him right away. Maybe it was a buy that went sideways. I don’t know,” Frank admitted.

  “Maybe we’ll know more when we get the rest of the lab work back.”

  “Hope so,” Frank said. “This is a goddamn who-done-it, and no matter how bad the boys want to clear six names, I still don’t think it’s Luis.”

  “It’s that rogue cop,” Gail winked.

  “I’m starting to think you’re right, Detective Lawless. Let’s eat.”

  Frank had cleared the dining room table of all its junk. They ate on linens and china arranged around the flowers Frank still brought home every Friday night. After the steaks, they lingered over tiramisu and coffee. Frank poured grappa, but after Gail’s first sip she made a face and pushed the glass away.

  “Yuk. It tastes like kerosene.”

  Frank smiled.

  “Let me run some ideas by you. See what you think.”

  She started by explaining that buses were often the primary transportation for south-central residents, so she hadn’t thought much of it when she’d pulled the bus schedules out of Placa’s backpack. Then she’d been thinking about them on her way into the office that afternoon. Placa had been riding these buses all her life; where would she be going that she didn’t already know routes and times?

  When she’d gotten to Figueroa, Frank had pulled the four schedules out of Placa’s pack again. They were worn and greasy from use. She unfolded one to see dates, times, and circled stops, in red pen, blue pen, black ink, pencil. One in green crayon. She opened the other schedules. Same thing. Frank felt like she’d found treasure maps and the first thing she’d done was make copies of them.

  Drugs immediately sprang to mind; Placa must have been serving all over LA. Why else would she have been in Westwood, Brentwood, Bel Aire? Even Pasadena. All nice places, places where there was money. And maybe some cop was pimping her, finding the clients and sending Placa off to them.

  Then Frank remembered Placa’d had sex with a man only hours before she died. Maybe some cop was literally pimping her. Maybe that was why she’d come home — to change clothes from a trick. That might explain why she wasn’t strapped and why she didn’t tell anyone where she was going that day. Placa was smart enough to pull it off, ambitious enough too. She wanted to go to college. Maybe this was her tuition. But they hadn’t found any clothes that would support the theory. Frank couldn’t see Placa tricking, and certainly not for chump change. She’d make them pay and Frank doubted there was a big market for men aroused by girls in shapeless Tshirts and baggies.

  Gail had been listening carefully, but now she interrupted.

  “Well, I’m not a detective, but lam a doctor. Let me shoot some holes in that story before you go any further.”

  Bending a finger for each point, Gail said, “She appeared to be reproductively able, but she wasn’t using an obvious form of birth control. There was no abortion scarring, no sign of STDs. No apparent vaginal or anal traumas. Unless she just started turning tricks yesterday, I’d expect to see some evidence that she was promiscuous, and there is none.”

  The doc was right. Given the age of the bus schedules, Placa had been at this for quite a while.

  “All right, so here’s another idea. Let’s say she was pimping Ocho’s girl.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Gail shuddered, and Frank was thrown off track, charmed once again by the ME’s naivete.

  “Happens all the time,” Frank continued. “Women don’t have a lot of options, or protection in the ‘hood. Drugs, religion, children, death. That’s about it. And Placa was too smart for any of that. So let’s say she wouldn’t hook herself, but how about she gets Lydia on her side? Like I said, not a lot of options in the ‘hood. Placa was a ghetto star, maybe burning brighter than Ruiz, I don’t know. Gang girls try and hook their wagons to whichever star’s rising. They don’t want to crash and burn when their men do.”

  Trying to hide a yawn, Gail said, “You’re saying Lydia hitched her wagon to Placa’s star? Don’t you think that’s a little implausible?”

  “Not really. Placa was a charmer when she wanted to be. And smart. Throw in a hope-to-die OG and I can see her getting a huge kick out of pimping her rival’s girlfriend. I can see her laughing now.”

  “What would be in it for Lydia?”

  “Protection, money, maybe affection. I don’t think Placa would have tattooed Lydia’s name under her twat unless she cared about her.”

  Gail grimaced at the rough noun and Frank said, “Sorry.”

  “Why would Placa have sperm on her if Lydia was the hooker?”

  “Good point,” Frank said swirling the clear brandy. None of this speculation tied in to the shooter being a cop, but Frank played with the ideas anyway. It was mental gamesmanship and Frank enjoyed toying with even the weakest of leads; playing with ideas either strengthened or eliminated them. Despite the obvious weaknesses, she didn’t want to overlook any possibilities. She’d already done that when she’d assumed Ruiz was the shooter and that had put the case back to square one. And while the idea of a cop’s involvement was intriguing, it was also disturbing. There’d be hell itself to pay if a cop was the shooter. Before committing herself to that disquieting tack, Frank wanted to make damn sure she’d exhausted every other option, no matter how ridiculous it might seem.

  “Maybe Placa wasn’t above cutting off a slice now and then.”

  “Do you ever hear yourself?” Gail asked in amazement.

  “What?”

  “The way you talk. You sound like some of those wife-beaters.”

  “Sorry. Guess I’m not known for my sensitivity.”

  “I guess not. You’re so cold-blooded sometimes.”

  “Comes with the territory. Murder’s a pretty cold-blooded business.”

  Balancing her hands like full scales, Gail said, “The tender Frank, the brutal Frank. The warm Frank, the frosty Frank. Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile your two personalities.”

  Frank joked, “You should try living with them.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I know what you put up with every day. I see the results of it on my tables. I know you have to find a way to deal with that, but I hate to see your finer qualities subsumed by the heartlessness of your work.”

  Gail paused, seeing a grin start on Frank’s face. “What?”

  “Nothing. That just sounded so… Shakespearean.”

  “Well see? You talk like a wife-beater and I talk like a British Lit professor. Maybe brutal’s better.”

  “No,” Frank corrected, “I love the way you talk. It’s like listening to Mah-stuh-piece Thee-uh-tuh.”

  Gail laughed, and Frank felt uncharacteristically self-conscious under the doc’s scrutiny.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Already told you what L.A. stands for.”

  “I know,” Gail smiled. “I was thinking of something else.”

  “Shoot.”

  “The stuff you said you were working through. Can I ask what it is or would I be prying?”

  Playing with her snifter, Frank considered, then said, “You’d be prying. And I can tell you. Be good for me. Make my shrink proud.”

  Gail’s brow crunched in disbelief.

  “You have a shrink?”

  “Richard Clay. At Behavioral Sciences. They’re mostly a bunch of quacks over there, but Clay’s a good guy. I’ve worked with him, and I had to see somebody after I shot Timothy Johnston. He’s all right.”

  It was amazingly easy to tell Gail about Maggie and how she died, then about Kennedy and Delamore, and how she was finally dealing with the whole literally bloody mess.

  “Impressive,” Gail said when Frank was finished.

  “How so?” Frank asked, draining the last of her
grappa.

  “There’s a lot more substance to you than I originally thought.”

  Frank smiled, “More than just a wife-beater, huh?”

  Gail returned the smile, her eyes lingering on Frank’s. Looking away, Frank said, “I saw you hiding a yawn a while ago. Maybe we should call it a day.”

  “Probably,” Gail said. Frank cleared the dessert plates and Gail helped. When she started rinsing the dishes in the sink Frank stopped her.

  “Leave ‘em. I’ll get ‘em tomorrow.”

  “Wow. You cook and do dishes. Are you sure you don’t want a girlfriend?”

  “Pretty sure. But if I change my mind, you’ll be the first one to know.”

  “Promise?”

  “Absolutely,” Frank assured, walking Gail to the door.

  “Thanks for dinner. It was wonderful. And I had a great time today.”

  “Me too. Maybe we can do it again.”

  “Really? Even the hegira?” Gail chuckled, and Frank thought, damn, that’s the sexiest sound.

  “See?” Frank pointed out. “There you go again.”

  “There I go what again?”

  “Hegira. I’ve never heard anybody use that word in conversation.”

  Gail laughed and Frank made sure the doc drove away safely. For a long time she stayed under the red Pasadena sky, searching the darkness where Gail had turned the corner. When she finally went back into her house, she whispered as if trying to convince herself, “Pretty sure.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Frank hated Mondays. Not because she was going back to work, but because meetings ate up the day; press meetings, the lieutenants meeting, community building meetings, district attorney meetings — meetings ad nauseum. She didn’t catch Nook and Bobby until quitting time. Flapping the bus schedules in front of them, she asked what they thought.

  “Busy girl,” Nook said.

  “Busy doing what?” Bobby said, taking the words straight out of Frank’s mouth. She loved watching her detectives chew on a problem, and she sat back, letting them run with it. Slanging was their first thought too and they kicked it around, deciding it was a family thing. Their points were that Claudia, Gloria, and Chuey had all had possession with intent to distribute charges. They weren’t rolling in dough but were obviously living better than they could on AFDC and food stamps. Claudia probably handled the business end and the kids had done the running. Claudia’s offhand remarks about dealing here and there belied a sensitivity to the issue. It was likely there was someone else involved, someone bigger than Claudia who could put the screws to her, maybe even cap her family when necessary.