“Deadly nightshade,” Zucca said, retrieving his tools. “Definitely not found in this park.”
“So if we find the origin of the deadly nightshade…?” Colin said.
“You’ll probably find where she was murdered,” Krishna finished.
I turned to my partner. “Up for more walking in the woods?”
25
Ten minutes later, Zucca and Krishna clanked down the service road with their boxes and kits. Colin and I, heading in the opposite direction, stopped at the lone park bench on the bluff.
“Like home up here,” Colin said. “Peaceful. Beautiful. My dad thinks it’s all freeways and smog and…” He pulled the digital camera from his pocket and began taking shots. “A shame someone would screw all of this up.”
“Yeah.” I gazed down the steep hillside. “He took her from the bus stop on Friday and left her in another area long enough to inherit its bugs, dirt, and leaves. When did he dump her?”
“Early Sunday morning?” Colin wondered. “Higher, farther back off the trail. Maybe he came back on Wednesday to check to see if she’d been found yet.”
“But why come back at all and take a chance getting caught? Maybe … he’s not the monster and was just some random dude who was on the trail like everyone else.”
I sighed. “Stop making sense. It does me no good.” I clicked my teeth as I thought. “And when did he do it? The guy in the hat. The guy with the bat. The guy eating green eggs and ham, whoever the fuck he is. The park opens at sunrise, a little after six A.M., and closes at sunset, a little after five thirty P.M.”
“A gate blocks the entrance,” Colin added. “But someone could easily hop over that.”
“An occasional visitor wouldn’t know that this bluff exists,” I said. “Ten trails, and not all end in wonderfully scenic spots like this.”
I pointed to a smaller trail that wound past bottlebrush trees, cactus patches, and very young California poppies and then across the green valley and up to those million-dollar homes. “What if he came that way instead of the bigger trail?”
Colin stared at the smaller trail for a moment, then bowed. “After you.”
Together, we half-slid, half-stumbled down the crumbling hillside. Red mud and wet grass rimmed the hems of our slacks.
“You almost forget you’re in the middle of the city,” I said once we reached flat land. “It must get dark as hell out here.”
He pointed to our left, at the huge radio towers equipped with glowing red bulbs. “Just those lights.”
We scrambled up a hill and then tottered down into a quiet neighborhood cul-de-sac. A yellow ranch-style house sat on one side of the street. Next to it was a brown ranch with palm trees and a manicured lawn. On the side of the hill we’d just climbed sat a white split-level home with ivy ground cover and, next to that, another split-level house painted salmon. New potholes were forming on Weatherford Drive because of all the rain and because part of the slope Colin and I had just climbed flowed onto the sidewalks.
“You take one side,” I said, “and I’ll take the other.”
Colin ambled toward the yellow house across the street.
I trudged to the nearby split-level and climbed the stairs to the front door.
The white house needed two new coats of paint, modern windows, and a gardener. Despite its shagginess, though, the house enjoyed a great northern view of the basin and an awesome southern view of Bonner Park.
A tanned, honey-blond woman wearing blue surgical scrubs answered the door. She took in my nice blue suit and damp gray shirt, then frowned at my muddy hems and hiking boots.“Yes?”
I badged her, then told her that I was working “a case” and that the person of interest may have passed through the neighborhood. “You seen anyone out of place lately?”
She shook her head. “It’s very peaceful here. No drama.”
“You live alone?” I tried to see past her but only glimpsed the walls of the foyer.
“Actually, I don’t live here. This is my boyfriend’s house, and he’s not home.”
“When does he usually get home?”
“Eight, nine o’clock.” A pager beeped from her hip.
“You’re a doctor?”
“Yes.” She pointed to the little black box on her hip. “May I?”
I nodded, then turned to see Colin strolling from the yellow house to the brown house.
“I need to get out of here,” she said with a regretful smile.
“What type of medicine do you practice?”
She grabbed her purse from a table I couldn’t see. “I’m a surgical resident at Children’s.” She stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her. “Should I be concerned? Is this about the dead girl in the park?”
Together, we walked down the stairs. “Yes, it is.” I pulled a business card from my coat pocket and offered it to her. “If you hear any neighborhood gossip, give me a call? And could you ask your boyfriend to call me as well? Since he lives in the area, I want to keep him informed.”
She took the card and read it. “Certainly, Detective Norton, although, like I said, I don’t live here. Only visit a few times a week. And he’s always working and rarely home. But if I hear anything, I’ll let you know. And I’ll make sure he calls.”
A moment later, Colin and I headed back down into the valley and toward the chaos of the dark woods. The wind gusted stronger than before, making the radio towers creak and the low grass bend. No one had been at the houses Colin visited, and so he’d left business cards in the front doors.
A hawk’s cry drew our gaze skyward. The large bird circled not that high above us.
“Why did he choose this park?” Colin asked.
Eyes on the raptor, I said, “Because he knows it.”
The hawk dive-bombed behind the hilltop, then swooped back into the sky. A small creature was now trapped in its talons.
“Why leave her on the trail?” he asked.
Something inside of me tightened into a tiny ball as I watched the raptor with its prize. “Because he wanted us to find her.”
26
Once again, the weather matched our moods—damp, dark, and uncertain. As Colin and I trudged back to the car, neither of us talked. Gusts of wind whirled around us, bearing the smell of dead things. Colin stopped every now and then to take pictures of tree trunks and puddles.
“This sucks,” I finally muttered.
Colin said, “Yeah.”
“My feet hurt,” I said.
“My ovaries hurt,” he said.
“My prostate—” My police radio chimed from my hip.
Unknown Caller.
I let the call go to voice mail. A moment later, nerves twitching, I listened to the message.
“Elouise, it’s Daddy.” Victor Starr’s voice—dark like chicory coffee with a hint of arrogant Louisiana. “I know you’re still upset with me, but I’m not goin’ away. Not until we talk. Say whatever you gotta say to me, just as long as you say something. Anything.”
Back in December, I had said plenty.
That afternoon, he had stood on my front stoop, and I had just ended my marriage with Greg after a Hail Mary in the bathroom. Still wearing a towel and nothing else, I had opened the front door, thinking it was my husband who’d plead for one last chance. But a tall man with my eyes and Tori’s nose darkened my porch, and before he could open his mouth, the realization that this man was my father had crushed me like burning bricks. He had looked the same as he had when he’d abandoned me on that morning so long ago. Just grayer. Wealthier. Rounder—a middle-aged gut from Porterhouse steaks and creamed spinach.
He had wanted to come in and talk.
I had said, “No.”
“Can we talk out here?”
“No.”
He had shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “You wanna call your mother?”
“No.”
“Don’t you wanna know why I left?”
I had glared at him—dragon-rage coiled i
n my belly, claws flexing, preparing to release the fire of ancient hatred. Of course I wondered why he left. But that’s it. Wondered. Even though I possessed technology to search for missing people, I had never typed “Victor Starr” into the search bar. Nor had I asked Mom if sex had been their problem. Like our talk last night, I had sought to avoid that topic just as I’d avoid drinking from a water fountain in Chernobyl.
All of my life, I sought to place blame for his abandonment. Naturally, I had blamed the person closest to me—my mother. That belief softened once my marriage started to necrotize and I realized that my power to control Greg was akin to controlling Halley’s Comet.
Until last night, I still wondered if Mom loved Victor Starr. But I had never asked that question, either. I needed Mom and Martin together. I needed Mom to have a happily ever after.
And so, after my litany of “No, no, no” on that December day with Victor Starr, I had closed the door on him, pulled on clothes, and then curled up on the couch to watch The Poseidon Adventure for the three hundredth time. Stubborn, he continued to knock and ring the doorbell.
Even if he’d been chased by bees or zombies or zombie bees, I still wouldn’t have opened the door for him. I chose to lay there, mourning Shelley Winters. There’s got to be a morning after. And there was.
Victor Starr finally stopped knocking and went away.
Although, not really. Because here he was again, leaving messages on my phone, tidal-waving my life, and, worse, upsetting Mom’s.
Fucker.
Mom will have her morning after, I decided as my partner and I reached the car. And I would give it to her.
Colin handed me a bottled water and a roll of paper towels. “You okay?”
“Victor Starr called,” I said, then guzzled from my water bottle.
His shoulders slumped. “Ah, hell.”
“Yeah.” I paused, then added, “I hate having this reaction. I should be happy that my father calls me, right?”
Colin shrugged.
“Your mom and dad ever gonna come out to visit?”
He forced himself to smile. “You wanna meet my folks already? We haven’t even slept together yet.”
I smirked. “Your folks would stroke out if you brought me home. What would they do with all their white sheets, cans of gasoline, and wooden crosses?”
“We got a big basement,” Colin said with a shrug.
“If they fly out, we can pretend that you’re up for a Medal of Valor or something. It would be like an episode of Three’s Company.”
“What’s Three’s Company?”
“I’m not that damned old, and you’re not that damned young.”
“Whatever, Lou.” He sighed. “Gonna take more than that for him to get over me bein’ transferred. At least with your dad, you’re the one in control.”
At least.
After cleaning my face, hands, and hems with wipes and slipping back into my nice loafers, I sank into the Crown Vic’s deep passenger seat. I closed my eyes to force my banging pulse to slow.
Colin interrupted the silence by rattling Tic Tacs and singing a Maroon 5 song.
Nausea washed over me, and I sat up in the seat. “Let’s hit Chanita’s school and see what we can see.”
Colin drove down twisty La Cienega, then turned right onto Parthenon Street. “You gonna call him back?” He reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a bottle of DayQuil.
“I’m gonna vomit.” I pawed through the compartment, searching for peppermint candy or a sock to sop up the prehurl spit collecting in my mouth.
Colin reached into his pocket and plucked out the little container of peppermint Tic Tacs.
I accepted the gift and dumped thousands of candies into my mouth.
“He’s only gonna keep calling,” Colin said.
I crunched and crunched, then shrugged.
We passed the Jungle’s neglected apartment buildings, where aluminum foil sometimes doubled as curtains. We passed still-abandoned Santa Barbara Plaza, with its dead and gone businesses shuttered with wooden planks. An evangelical church now leased space in the middle of the depressed complex that had, once upon a time, boomed with fish markets, soul food restaurants, cocktail lounges, and Crase Liquor Emporium. Every business had suffered from riot-related fires and the urban troika: unemployment, crime, and poverty.
But Victor Starr had escaped this hell, lucky bastard.
“I hate when you’re quiet.” Colin brought the medicine bottle to his lips and guzzled. “It worries me.”
The lump in my throat only allowed me to grunt.
He took another swig. “You okay? For real?”
“Sure,” I croaked.
“Lou, you can’t solve everything by yourself. Let me help.”
“Thank you, Iyanla, but I don’t need you to fix my life right now. Try again tomorrow.”
He tossed the empty bottle into the backseat. “We talk about all kinds of shit now, right? My sex life. Your lack of a sex life.”
“Oy.”
“Family, politics—”
“We don’t talk politics cuz you’re an idiot.”
“The point is, we’re closer now,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And we’ve protected each other from the Crazies. And we control the Crazies so that law-abiding citizens can make a run for it.” He tapped the steering wheel. “Guess what I’m saying is … I’m here for you, partner.”
I nodded. “Thanks, pal.”
“And this monster in the Saints cap—we’ll catch him. Know why? Cuz we don’t let the Crazies win.”
I chuckled. “You can rah-rah all you want but law-abiding citizens—even us cops—can’t control the Crazies, no matter how hard we try. It’s just a matter of time before they eke into the cracks of the kingdom walls. It’s just a matter of time before the monster confronts me or confronts you in a dark alley when we’re least expecting it.”
“So,” he said, smiling, “to capture him, all we have to do is search every dark alley.”
“What if he makes no distinction between light and dark?”
Colin rolled his eyes. “I hate when you go all Nietzsche on me.”
“I’ll go back to being quiet, then.”
We rode down spruce-lined King Boulevard and slowed as we neared Madison Middle School. The sprawling campus shimmered beneath the darkening skies as though it were Oz. But it wasn’t Oz. Far from. I had despised junior high school, the Land of Misfits and Bullies, and I hadn’t visited my alma mater since ninth-grade graduation. As I climbed out of the Crown Vic now, the aromas of cheeseburgers and chili mac, rot and mold came to welcome me home.
Tori had been missing during my time at this school, and now, standing here, my hands cramped from remembering the journaling, the crying and the not crying, the numbness … I didn’t want to be at Madison. And as Colin and I walked those corridors, grief crushed my heart like it had so many years ago.
27
Only the student lockers that lined the hallways had remained the same since the 80s. The metal detectors that guarded the entryways certainly didn’t exist twenty-five years ago. Students talking on rhinestone-studded Sidekicks—a new thing. Girls showing lots of leg and even more midriff—definitely new. Pregnant girls waddling down the hallways—wow. In some ways, they could have been my classmates and me—brown faces bright with youth and pimples. But holy moly guacamole, these girls of the new millennium. Curvier. And the boys? Rowdier. Miniskirts. Plain white T-shirts. Sagging khakis and tattoos? Not possible in ye olden days, where a skirt 0.5 centimeters above the knee got you a trip to the principal’s office and a pair of sweatpants to wear until sixth period.
“I’m guessing that locker is Chanita’s,” Colin said, pointing.
Down the eastern corridor, students had taped to the locker’s metal door flowers, notes, and homemade posters that read “We Miss You!”
“Maybe not.” I pointed at a locker down the opposite hallway, also festooned with RIP signs. Fart
her down still, another locker and more posters.
“Damn,” Colin muttered, “don’t these kids have enough normal shit to worry about?”
“Weird body things, stupid parents, and teenage love affairs?”
He nodded. “But now they gotta deal with their own mortality and mourning dead friends and—?” His face reddened. “Sorry. Forgot that you…”
I waved my hand, my attention now directed at the security cameras bolted to the walls at every corridor intersection. In the best of worlds, those cameras were currently working. In this world, though, I didn’t expect them to.
The administrative office had remained in the same spot, and, since my last year here, not much inside of it had changed. Dingy American flag hanging from the wall. Dusty intercom speaker box covered in cobwebs. More Hispanic mothers than black mothers clutching doctors’ forms and birth certificates—that was the only visible change.
We approached the end of the long Formica counter and the tall black woman consulting a ledger with one hand as the other futzed with her long hair twists. She peered at me with a pair of lies in blue contact lenses.
I badged her, then told her that we were investigating the murder of Chanita Lords.
She told me that her name was Alice and that she’d helped Detective Gwen Zapata back on Monday with the missing-child school notification form, which was now a part of Chanita’s school record.
The other workers heard our conversation, and the office dropped into silence. Those workers soon called waiting parents to the counter just to hear us talk.
“I noticed security cameras,” I said to the clerk. “I’d like to get footage from Friday.”
Alice sucked her teeth. “Those cameras been down for almost two weeks now.”
I scowled at her, sapped of all patience for people and their wack-ass security systems.
“Budget cuts,” she said. “What we supposed to do?”
I pulled the search warrant from the case file. “We’d like to see her locker—that still exists, doesn’t it?”
Alice nodded.
“And then,” I said, “we’d like to pop in on her counselor, Mr. Bishop.”
Trail of Echoes Page 14