“What else you got?”
Frank swallows. She squints at the paper in her hand. “Uh, the Mazettis. John Mazetti. Quite a drinker. He and Saladino used to get into it.”
“Where’d you find this all out?”
“Apparently most of it’s local legend, but the Chief of Police verified it. He’s a Soledad native, went to school with Saladino’s girls. Was awfully protective of them. Kept insisting I was on the wrong track looking into them.”
“Well,” Lewis points out, “whoever killed Saladino whacked him hard enough to crack his skull. Takes a lotta energy, lotta adrenaline to kill someone like that. Not saying a female couldn’t do it, but. . .” she spreads her hands wide. “ME couldn’t see any defense wounds, no broken hand bones, arm bones. And ain’t no other wounds, which makes me think he was taken by surprise. So probably not the girls, but maybe not a stranger either—if some Joe-blow come up an gonna jack you, he gonna point a gun at you or a knife, he gonna threaten you. You gonna be prepared to defend yourself. And some old Joe-blow decide he gonna rob a laborer, he ain’t gonna hit him so hard as to kill him. He don’t want to kill nobody, just want some money. Let’s say he did kill Saladino by accident, he sure as hell ain’t gonna stick around and bury him.”
“And he was found under the framing, so whoever buried him must have known they were going to be pouring concrete sooner or later.”
Lewis speculates, “A construction dude. Saladino’s a dick. They get in a fight. Dude whomps him too hard. Oh shit. Looks around. Quick, bury him here.”
Frank argues, “You just said no defensive wounds.”
“They have words. Saladino thinks they’re done arguing. Dude’s still pissed. Picks up a two-by-four and whacks him.”
“Hard enough to kill him?”
Lewis turns palms up in a supplicating gesture. “Hey, man, adrenaline’s a funny thing. Ain’t no telling what a man do when he all hopped up.”
“What were they arguing over?”
“Who knows? Sound like it could be anything with Saladino, always runnin’ his mouth. Money? Way the guy was workin’? A woman? Maybe Saladino stole the dude’s boo.”
“He sounds like an ass, but no one’s accused him of philandering. Yet.”
“Phi-lan-dering,” Lewis repeats with a grin. “That’s a good word. Maybe they just arguin’ over how to do the job. It’s late, right? End of the day? Dude been doin’ it one way, then Saladino breeze into town and say now we doin’ it this way. You know we seen people killed dead for lesser ’an that.”
“Truth. And we’re seeing a pattern with Saladino’s drinking, his mouth. You keep working names. Try and find the uncle, his wife, any relatives. Maybe someone down here who worked with Saladino. I’ll keep talking to the daughter, see if I can’t shake something loose. Maybe go back up next weekend, see what her ex has to say. And Saladino’s sister. If I can get Pintar to cover for me.”
“I bet she’ll cover. I think she misses being on the street. It’s almost like she enjoys rolling on a scene in the middle of the night.” Half-heartedly Lewis adds, “Sure you don’t want me to go?”
“Naw, I got it.” Frank knows that once or twice last weekend she’d have gladly traded places with Lewis, but now she can’t remember why. “We got any kinda money trail? Any financial on this guy?”
“Nothin’ to speak of. Why?”
“Come on, girl. The three motives for murder.”
Lewis ticks off, “Money, pride, and pussy.”
“That’s about it.” Frank stands and arches her back. “Sooner or later, what they all boil down to. Keep on it, sister. I’mma check on a couple names from up there, see where they go.”
“A’ight, LT.”
“Hey,” Frank turns. “How ya feelin’?”
“I was on time this mornin’, wasn’t I?”
“You were. That’s good. Hang in there.”
“Like I got a choice?”
“There’s always a choice, Lewis.”
Before reviews and bureaucracy sideline Frank for the day, she makes a quick call to Gomez and asks which of Saladino’s in-laws on his wife’s side might still be alive.
“Hell’s bells,” the cop says. “Mary Dusi. Let me think on that. I know her sister died a couple years back. Off the top of my head, there’s Carly Simonetti. She’d be Mary’s niece. And Carly’s brother Jeff, her nephew. He’s still out to the Dusi place. They lease it for grapes. Their father was . . . oh, I can’t think of his name, but he was one of Mary’s brothers. I know she had a bunch of ’em, but I don’t know what happened to ’em all. I’m sure the kids would know. Might want to start there.”
“Good deal.” Frank takes the names she’s jotted down and gives Lewis the paper. “Check these out. Get me addresses and phone numbers.”
Seeing Braxton sign out, she asks where he’s going.
“Knock on some doors about my shooting.”
Frank nods. It’s been ages since she rode with him. And she really doesn’t want to sit through back-to-back meetings. Copying his estimated return time next to her name, she tells Braxton she’s going to roll with him.
He looks surprised but says, “That’d be great.”
Trim and of average height, Braxton has such completely unremarkable features that Frank’s still not sure if she could pick him out of a lineup, but the kid’s instincts are good and he’s willing to learn. Until Figueroa, his career was behind a desk, but he has always wanted a detective shield and is eager to work the street, even if that street’s in South Central.
They pass the corner on Slauson where a DL Blood was gunned down by a Raymond last week. Frank notes the shrine that has sprouted at the base of the building. “See that hood weed? Keep an eye on it. The DLs claim east of the 110, but it varies on the west. They beef hard with the Raymonds, so if that shrine starts getting bigger they might be escalating for payback.”
Braxton nods.
She tells him, “Turn left.”
He does but asks why.
“There’s an old gal lives right . . . here. Pull over.”
He slides against the curb next to a carefully manicured lawn. The houses on the block are small but lovingly tended.
“Years back, before the priest scandals came out, her daughter killed the bishop at the United Church of All in Jesus. Claimed he’d been molesting her since she was eight and she’d had enough. Beat him to death with a candlestick.” Frank shakes her head. “It was a mess. She confessed right off, never denied it. Said she’d do it all over again. They sent her off to juvy, then she got life in Chowchilla.”
They get out of the car. Frank stretches and Braxton asks, “Why are we here?”
“That bishop was one of my first cases. I’d heard things about him on the beat, rumors, that kind of thing. Never gave ’em much credence until I knocked on Betty Lacey’s door,” she nods at the house they’re approaching, “and saw her daughter sitting on the couch, still covered in blood. ‘I did it,’ she says right off. ‘I killed Bishop Patrick.’ Her mama was heart-broke. Killed me to have to take her daughter in. I made it a point from then on to take care of Betty. Keep an eye on her, check in now and then, see how she’s doing. And Betty, good God-fearing Christian that she still is, believes it’s her duty to keep an eye on the ’hood.”
A tiny, white-haired bird of a woman swings the door open before Frank can knock. “Officer Frank!”
“Miss Lacey.”
The woman takes both Frank’s hands and holds them warmly. “How are you?” she asks.
“I’m well. And you look fit as ever.”
Miss Lacey lets go to clasp her hands in prayer. “Thanks to the Lord. Come inside, come inside.”
She herds them into an immaculate living room sparingly decorated with paintings of Christ in his various adventures. Frank introduces Braxton, and after a bit of small talk gets to the point.
Miss Lacey has heard about the man killed at the Pik-Wik. She tells the cops all she knows about the shooti
ng but contributes nothing new. Dismayed she can’t be of more help, she promises to ask around. As a respected community volunteer and member of her congregation, Miss Lacey’s reach is far and wide; Frank leaves empty-handed but well pleased that Miss Lacey is on the case.
“You watch,” she tells Braxton as they walk to the car. “A week or ten days, we’ll get a call. She’ll have something.”
Braxton’s back on Slauson when Frank says, “Whoa. Hold up.”
He steps on the brake and the driver behind them lays on his horn. Frank points to a used furniture store. Faded yellow paint peeks through in spots not covered with graffiti.
“Read that wall. What do you see?”
The car behind roars up alongside and the driver, a shaved Hispanic with a droopy mustache and tatted head, starts yelling obscenities.
“Seriously?” Braxton mutters. “He doesn’t recognize an unmarked?”
Frank leans across Braxton, smiles brightly, and flashes her badge. “Is there a problem?”
The driver swears in Spanish and speeds away. Braxton bends over the wheel to study the graffiti. “Gosh, there’s a lot.”
Instead of asking if his last rotation was in Mayberry RFD, she punches his hazard lights. “Concentrate on what hasn’t been crossed out, what’s new.”
“Let’s see. Looks like 1 Bloods, Rollin’ 30s.” Muttering other clicks, he makes out a Florencia 13 tag.
“Okay. Stop. You got black gangs and a Latino gang that haven’t been x’d out yet. Now look at what has.”
Another driver honks and he says, “I should really park.”
She points at an overlay of local 18th Street clicks, all crossed out with One Blood and F13 tags. “Look at the tagger on those.”
“Hey, it’s the same guy.”
“Yeah. And see the two lines and three dots under his name? You know what that means?”
“Thirteen. Mexican Mafia.”
“That’s right. La eMe. Same guy’s in both gangs. Could be an alliance. You don’t get a lot of interracial mergers, and it wouldn’t be a big deal if the Florence weren’t so heavy into dealing for the eMe. See all those 59 HCGs tagged over with 1 Bloods? This is Hoover Criminal territory. We get 1 Blood in a beef with HCG, backed by F13 against 18th Street, and we’re gonna be lookin’ at enough overtime to retire early.”
“Slick,” he murmurs admiringly.
“Stick around long enough, it becomes easier than reading the back of a cereal box. Quit holdin’ up traffic.”
A block later they slide past a tag on the side of a house.
“What’s that say?”
Braxton slows. “That’s easy. East Side Eight Tray crossing out a Rollin 60s. The tagger’s name is KrayZ.”
“Who they feud with?’
“Who don’t the 83rd feud with?”
“See?” Frank grins. “You’re gettin’ it.”
Chapter 14
When they get back to the office, she sees Lewis has left early but there is a neatly typed list of contacts on Frank’s chair. She picks up the paper and dials the number for Carly Simonetti. A machine answers. Frank doesn’t leave a message. She dials the second number, then Googles North Salinas High Class 1968.
She strikes out on the phone call, but scores with her search. Dialing the given contact number, she wonders how she did her job before the Internet.
Nancy Snelling is the website author and one of those people who lives more happily in the past than the present. She is delighted to talk about the Saladino girls, verifying that Mike and Sal were an item throughout high school, and that Cass went steady with Pete Mazetti at least through their senior year.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Of course. I heard Pete proposed before they were even out of school. He wanted to marry Cass before anyone else could steal her away. Those two. They were nuts for those girls. You should talk to them. They followed the girls down to Los Angeles the night their mother died.”
“Pete and Mike did?”
“Oh, yes. They heard about Mrs. Saladino and went to the hospital to find the girls, but they’d taken off already. The boys went after them.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Everybody knew. Pete took his father’s truck and was grounded for a week. The whole school was buzzing about it. The girls didn’t come back to school and the principal—that would have been Principal Clark back then—was thinking of suspending them. The only reason he didn’t was because of the extenuating circumstances. That the girls’ mother had died. They chalked it up to that and let them come back.”
“When did Mike and Pete get back from LA?”
“Oh, right away. They only cut the one day, and Principal Clark let their parents deal with them.”
“What did they say about their trip?”
“Nothing specific that I remember. As I recall, they were pretty hangdog about the whole thing.”
“How so?”
“Well, the girls took it hard, being parent-less and all, and I think their beaux took it hard, too. Everyone was upset, not knowing what was going to happen to poor Sal and Cass.”
“And what did happen?”
“Like I said, they were allowed to come back to school. They were both just a few months shy of eighteen. They’d have been legal adults before the paperwork could have gone through to make them wards of the state, so the Mazettis let them stay on at the ranch and they graduated with their class.”
“Did you ever see the father around after he disappeared?”
“No, never. No one ever saw him again. Poor fellow. What a tragedy.”
“It is.” Frank plays to the woman’s sentimentality. “The least I can do is try to figure out who murdered him.”
“Oh, my. Oh dear. I had no idea. Whe—”
Frank preempts a spate of prurient questions. “I understand the girls had plenty of suitors, besides Mike and Pete.”
“Oh, yes. They were quite the pair. Beautiful girls, both of them. Like peas in a pod on the outside, but inside they were night and day. Sal was always very quiet and thoughtful. Introspective, I guess you’d call it, but Cass—my Lord—she was a hell-raiser, if you’ll forgive my saying so.”
“What kind of hell? If you’ll forgive my asking.”
“Drinking, partying, carrying on with boys. Cass had any number dangling on a string at one time.”
Frank asks for names and Snelling reels off a half-dozen. When she asks about Saladino’s relatives and friends, Snelling confirms the contacts Gomez gave her and adds three more.
“How well do you remember Domenic Saladino?”
“Very well, unfortunately. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Mr. Saladino was the town drunk, in jail more weekends than not.”
“That must have been embarrassing for the girls.”
“Oh, it must have been mortifying. I think Sal suffered for it, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at Cass.”
“What about girlfriends? Who’d Cass and Sal hang around with?”
“Cass didn’t have many girlfriends. Girls that hog all the boys tend not to be too popular with other girls. Then there was poor Sal.” Snelling’s voice lowers. “She and Leslie Ferrer were best friends, inseparable, always huddled in a corner of the library, noses crammed in a book. The kids made fun of them, and called them names.”
Frank has guessed but asks, “Like what?”
“Oh, you know how awful kids can be. Because they were together all the time, well, you know, there were rumors.”
“That they were lesbians?”
“Well, yes.”
Snelling sounds uncomfortable and Frank pushes: “Were they?”
“Oh, who knows? Probably not. Leslie went on to marry Mike Davies and Sal married Mike Thompson. Funny they both married Mikes.”
“Does Sal ever come to reunions?”
“No. She explained to me once that high school wasn’t the best time for her. I can understand that.”
“Why’s that?”<
br />
“Well, as if it wasn’t bad enough that their father was the town drunk, both of the Saladino girls were a little, well, odd.”
Frank has been wondering if Snelling would get around to that. “In what way?”
Snelling struggles to explain. “Now, don’t think I’m crazy, because everybody knew this about the girls. They had what you might call a gift. Well, what some people would call a gift. Me, I’m not so sure. It was the funniest thing, but you could give the girls something, say a ring or a book, and they could tell you where it had been. Rattle off a whole history of the darned thing. It was uncanny, but frankly, I found it creepy. It smacked of bad religion.”
Letting the comment pass, Frank asks about Sal’s purported healing abilities.
“Oh, I know people swear by it, but if you ask me it’s all quackery.”
“But you said the girls could see things, that they had—”
Snelling cuts her short. “I really don’t know anything about it. I never trucked with any of that.”
Glancing at the wall clock, Frank disengages gracefully from the conversation and hangs up. She slings her suit jacket over her shoulder and palms the light switch. For a moment she stands in the dark. She thinks about Sal and what she might be doing, maybe standing in the yard with dogs all around and the shadow arm of the mountains curling around the cabin.
Then Frank is leaning against the wall. From high above, she circles over the darkening mountains and an ocean made red by the sinking sun. She swirls in a silence complete but for the wind. Below, coppery fires dot the dusky canyons.
Frank comes to against the wall. She leans against its unyielding solidity, trying to reason out the visions, but Marguerite and the fortune-teller both warned that reason and logic wouldn’t be any help. She pulls her phone out and hits a speed dial.
From his breathless answer and the splashing in the background, she knows Darcy is giving Destiny her bath. “Bad time?”
“No, I’ll put you on speaker. What’s up?”
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