Croaker: Chalk Whispers (A Detective Fey Croaker LAPD Novel Book 4)

by Paul Bishop

  “Exactly,” Father Romero told him. Beyond him, the dank passage expanded into a large room with bunk beds lining the walls. There were tables and old armchairs scattered around, and freestanding wardrobes against the rough walls. Beyond the room were the entrances to three other passageways. “The catacombs were abandoned for years, dilapidated and crumbling. About seven years ago there was a civic movement to restore parts of the tunnels along with several historical buildings contained in them.”

  “I heard about it,” Rhonda said. “They called the area El Pueblo de Los Angeles and turned it into a historical monument celebrating the birth of L.A.”

  Father Romero nodded. “It gave us a scare, because we had already restored many of the catacombs for our own use, connecting them to the church. They worked wonderfully as hidden pipelines during the time when sanctuary for the refugees was needed. And they still work wonderfully in making the underground railroad for abused children and women truly underground.” The priest walked unerringly to one of the three exit passages and led his entourage into its depths.

  “You must be careful,” he said, taking out a flashlight. The jerry-rigged electric lighting had ended in the large room. “The tunnels renovated for the tourists are completely safe. We only renovated the passages we needed to run the operation, and then only to the point where they are usable. There are still many tunnels on the verge of collapse. Some are even poisoned with unstable pockets of methane gas from old landfills.”

  “Far from perfect conditions,” Hammer said. Tunnels had never been his favorite place. He was glad to feel Rhonda's reassuring hand on his shoulders.

  “You work with what God gives you.”

  “Where are we going?” Rhonda asked.

  The detectives had missed Alphabet and Brindle's briefing on the underground railroad. But, they had gone over the information when they brought back the composite.

  They knew they were on track again, as they had been when looking for clues at the crime scene. They didn't reveal the extent of their knowledge to Father Romero as there was always more to learn by listening to different sources.

  “What experience do you have with sexually or physically abused children?” Romero answered Rhonda's question with another.

  “We've seen more than enough over the years,” Rhonda said.

  “Then you'll know courts don't always make the right decisions.” This came from Ferris. “There are a lot of places in this country where money speaks louder than the rights of children. Places where women are considered hysterical simpletons if they dare accuse their husbands of molestation or abuse. There are court cases where young children have been returned to their abusive fathers even after fully documented evidence from doctors and psychologists proved they were being raped and abused. There's even a case where a video was shown of a father forcing his eight-year-old daughter to have sex with him, and yet he was still given unsupervised visitation rights because, even after the child's tearful testimony, the video was declared not to be in focus enough to prove it was the child's father on the screen.”

  Hammer sighed. “The law is far from perfect and has little to do with justice.”

  Rhonda directed another question to Father Romero, hoping to get Ferris off her hobbyhorse. “How large is this underground movement?”

  “There are about six hundred families involved nationwide with more coming every day,” Father Romero said.

  The passageway ended at a locked grate. Romero took a ring of keys from his pocket, unlocked the grate and led the way into a disused off-shoot of the L.A River.

  “All those involved are running from obsessive, abusive, and dangerous spouses who have the whole weight of the law behind them, including the FBI and federal task forces. Mostly it's mothers and their children, but there are also fathers who need the underground. We have several cases where, after a divorce in which the mother gets custody, the mother's new boyfriend abuses the child or children. When all legal venues have been exhausted, and there is no injunction to stop the abuse, then the fathers have nowhere to turn but the underground.”

  Hammer spoke up. “How do you determine these people you're helping are telling the truth? Maybe they're the abusers. Maybe they're just over protective, obsessive mothers with a psychotic fixation against their ex-husbands.”

  Romero shrugged. “It's not easy to get into the underground.” He led them up the bank to where a brown sedan was parked in a little used cul-de-sac. “The underground has a whole slew of volunteer lawyers and mental-health professionals who screen everyone who contacts us for help. The screening is demanding. They examine all the documentation in the cases, and then interview and evaluate the victims and the parents who are on the run with them. Once the evidence has been reviewed, they advise us if someone is right for the underground. We know how to test these people. If a molesting parent tries to run a scam we turn them in to the proper authorities.”

  “Sounds like a civilian version of the Federal Witness Protection Program,” Rhonda said, unknowingly echoing Fey's reaction when Alphabet and Brindle had explained the set-up to her.

  “You're close. But it's not an easy life. Those who enter have to be prepared to withstand great hardship. And we have to be very careful not to allow inductees to have access to information that would endanger the program if they were ever caught.”

  “You mean you've had people turn on you?”

  “Twice we've had inductees back out and give up the names of the people who helped them. The cases have been fought in court, and we've come out okay, but we learned our lessons. We know even the people we're trying to help can hurt us, so we take even more precautions.”

  “Is it worth it?”

  “Once you've spent time with the children, heard their stories and seen the looks on their faces, or examined the medical and court reports of their ordeals, there is never a doubt all the effort is worth it.”

  “What you're doing is illegal.”

  “Perhaps, but it doesn't make it wrong. You said yourself the law has little to do with justice.”

  “I take it we're about to be involved in a pickup?”

  Romero nodded as they all stood beside the car. “A dangerous one. The husband in has employed a private security specialist named MacAlister to get his daughter back.”

  “MacAlister,” Hammer and Nails said in unison.

  “You know him?”

  “If he's involved, you have major problems. He's an ex-cop who has joined the dark side. Works for some of the highest priced criminal defense attorneys. He specializes in witness intimidation and blackmail.”

  “He was a heavy-handed, rotten apple as a cop.” Rhonda said. “And he's far worse since he's been taken off the legal leash.”

  A thought struck Hammer. “Isn't he on permanent retainer to Devon Wyatt?”

  “He is,” Father Romero answered. “Bianca often went up against Wyatt in court. MacAlister was always there, a malevolent force.”

  “I wonder if Fey knows?” Rhonda said.

  Having been involved when Wyatt defended JoJo Cullen, they knew Fey hated the flashy lawyer, but they didn't know she was currently with him in San Quentin.

  “I doubt it,” Hammer said. “We'll have to get the information to her.”

  A thought struck Rhonda. “What do you think of MacAlister as Bianca’s torturer?”

  “He doesn't fit the composite,” Hammer said.

  “But he could be involved.”

  “It's definitely his style,” Hammer agreed. “If there were two people involved, it would have made the kidnapping and transporting of Bianca easier.”

  “The waters are getting deep.”

  Hammer took the car keys from Father Romero. “If you're up against MacAlister, you really do need us.”

  Romero looked at Ferris. His smile was serene. “As I told you, the Lord always provides.”

  TWENTY SEVEN

  Fey felt she had been holding her breath forever. She knew Dodge wasn't lying.
No matter how much evidence there was against him at trial. No matter how guilty he was of other murders and mayhem. No matter how ludicrous the supposition. There was an inevitability about his statement regarding her father.

  “No way,” she said, despite what her gut was telling her. “You killed Mavis Flynn. My father arrested you for it. You're using Bianca Flynn's death to mess with my head. Some freaky little revenge plan you've cooked up with your crooked shyster to get your case reheard?”

  Dodge sat quietly, watching Fey squirm in her chair, waiting for her to move beyond token denial. Eventually, he said, “I know what your father was. You know what he was. I know you do. I've heard your psychiatric tapes from the JoJo Cullen case.”

  “There will come a time Devon Wyatt will pay for what he did to me,” Fey said.

  “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord?”

  “He can have it back when I’m done with it,” Fey said. “By exposing my private life, Wyatt took everything from me.”

  “I thought your father took everything from me when he killed Mavis and set me up to take the fall,” Dodge said. “But I was wrong.”

  “Wrong about my father killing Mavis Flynn. Nothing else.”

  Dodge ignored the protest. “I was wrong because I am still here. I am still who I am — as you are — day in and day out. I have my soul, as do you. They can take my freedom; your dignity; my manhood; your private past, but they cannot take our inner core. We continue on, even though it would be easier for you to put a gun in your mouth, or for me to tie mattress strips around my neck and hang from the top bar of my cell. I lay on my bunk every day staring at that top bar. You touch your gun every day and think about kissing the tip of the barrel. We aren't very different.”

  Fey let silence fill the void for several long beats. Finally, she relented. “Tell me about it,” she said.

  Dodge's shoulders pulled back and raised up as if he were about to float from the chair. “Let's start with the first lie. I was an angry, young, black man, but I was never a true Black Panther. The movement was strong. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale had set us on fire. When Cleaver published Soul on Ice, we started a movement in LA because it was the cool thing to do. I became a Panther, not because I was po-litical, that came later, but because it was a good way to get chicks.”

  Fey had to laugh.

  Dodge grinned. “I got to tell you, wearing leather trench coats and black berets during summer in L.A. was not an easy cross to bear.”

  “Get on with it,” Fey said, but without harshness. Dodge's voice and story were verging on hypnotic. He was taking Fey out of the cold interview room, away from the physical and emotional chains they both wore.

  “The Panther rhetoric eventually rubbed off on me. I became po-litical. It would have been hard not to become po-litical. Black men in America were being killed, beaten, and incarcerated at a genocidal rate.”

  “Spare me the one-sided history lesson,” Fey said. “I'm not impressed. I've worked side-by-side with black cops all my career. Some of them were also po-litical, but they didn't rob and murder in retaliation.”

  Eldon shrugged. “To each his own. In my case, the movement became my reason for existence. Mavis called me in May of nineteen-sixty-nine. We had always been as close as family. She was a straight — worked at a bank — but she also supported the struggle. We sometimes used her as a go-between. She called me when she found out about an extra-large shipment of money leaving the bank in an armored car.”

  Fey remembered what Freddie Mackerbee told her about the armored car robbery. She quickly made the connections. “Inside information you used for the armored car robbery, in which the two security guards were killed.”

  Eldon looked surprised. “How do you know about the robbery?”

  Fey ignored the question. “The money was never recovered. One of the Panthers was killed. Two got away. You and somebody else. The other guy was never identified. You were arrested, but there wasn't enough evidence to charge you. It didn't matter because shortly thereafter you were arrested again and convicted of killing Mavis Flynn.”

  “You make it sound clean and simple,” Eldon said. He was becoming agitated. “You weren't there when the gloves came off in the interrogation room. They couldn't prove I was a killer, but they did everything short of killing me trying to prove it. If it wasn't for Devon Wyatt, they probably would have killed me.”

  “My heart bleeds. You were a killer. How did Wyatt get involved?”

  Eldon sighed in exasperation. “Money — how else?”

  “Money from the armored car robbery?”

  Eldon shrugged. “There was a lot of it.”

  “Who was the third Panther?”

  “There was no third Panther. The other player was a brother, but he wasn't po-litical. He came with the package from Mavis.”

  “Do you know who he was?”

  Eldon shrugged. “You can't figure it out?”

  Something dark moved in the back of Fey's mind, a shark swimming through a dark sea. It wasn't clear, but she pressed on. “Luther Flynn?”

  Eldon's expression didn't twitch.

  Fey nodded her head. “Then what happened with Mavis?”

  “After the fuss over the robbery calmed down, Mavis came to stay with me. She claimed Luther was diddling with her kids. He was a bad ass muther. Mavis wanted a divorce. She was scared witless of Luther, but she was more scared for her kids, Bianca and Cecily, so she took them and ran.”

  “Why didn't she go to the police.”

  Eldon sneered. “She tried, but Luther already held sway within the black community. He was an up-and-comer. Liberal whites were kissing his black ass big time. He had the courts in his pocket. Luther told the cops Mavis was angry with him for having an affair and was trying to get even by coaching the children to make allegations of sexual abuse against him. Nobody in those days really wanted to deal with the subject of incest. It was easier to say Mavis was a hysterical mother.”

  “If he was such a golden boy, why would Luther risk participating in an armed robbery with you?”

  “I never said it was Luther.”

  “Now, you get real.”

  Eldon shrugged. “Money is power,” he said cryptically.

  “Wasn't he worried you'd tell the cops about him?”

  “Me tell the po-lice? Anyway, I couldn't without implicating myself.”

  “And you're willing to talk to the po-lice now because you've come to Jesus.”

  Eldon was silent, fingering the medallion at his throat.

  It was Fey's turn to shrug. “What happened next?”

  “Luther knew how bad The Man wanted me for something, anything. He got court orders giving him custody of his children. He then told the cops I was harboring his wife and concealing his kids from him.”

  “And were you?”

  “Absoluetly,” Luther was indignant. “I heard what little Bianca had to say. There was no doubt in my mind Luther was molesting her. But there was no way any white cop or judge was going to take my word.”

  “What happened when the cops came to get the kids?”

  “We were all asleep. The kids were in the front room. Mavis and me were sleeping in a bed in the back room.”

  “Like that was it?” Fey asked.

  Luther shrugged. “Woman gots to pay her way.” The implications of the statement didn't appear to register with Dodge.

  Fey shook her head. First cousins wasn't incest, but it was close.

  “Mavis lived in fear Luther would come with his own thugs. But when the door was kicked in, it was your father and his partner, Kavanaugh, leading the charge.”

  “And you tried to shoot your way out using Mavis as a shield. Only problem was, you missed and shot Mavis in the back of the head.”

  “Lies!” Eldon bounced to his feet. Suddenly remembering where he was, he put a hand to the stun collar around his neck and immediately sat back down. His voice was filled with anger and frustration. “I loved Mavis. We'd grown up to
gether. I would never have done anything to hurt her. I never fired a shot.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “I didn't. I swear it.” Eldon's hands moved again to the medallion on his chest. “There were cops everywhere, but your father and Kavanaugh got there thirty seconds before all the others. I had a gun, but I couldn't get to it. Your father grabbed it and shot at me, but I was rolling away from him to dive out a window. He missed me, but hit Mavis who had stood up screaming.”

  “You want me to believe he was there to assassinate you?”

  “I can't change the truth. The other cops grabbed me. He didn't get a second chance. Blaming me for shooting Mavis, got him off the hook. Not only did he not get questioned about the shooting, but I got sent to the shelf because she was killed with my gun.”

  “If he was trying to assassinate you, why did he use your gun?”

  “I believe he was improvising. If I was shot with my own gun, it would have been cleaner for him. It would have been called suicide. No po-litical repercussions.”

  “What does it matter if I believe you or not? What's the point? It's old news.”

  “I want you to prove what really happened.”

  Fey laughed. “Why should I? It's already been proved.”

  “Because if you do, I will admit to being involved in the robbery of the armored car , which resulted in the death of the two guards.”

  “So what?”

  Eldon put the palms of his hands together. “Please understand, I want to atone for my sins, but I also want redemption for those I did not commit.”

  “You're already on Death Row, the same place you'd end up if you were convicted of killing the guards.”

  “Exactly. You have nothing to lose.”

  “But even if I could, why make the effort for a static result?”

  “Because I know why Bianca Flynn was being tortured.”

  This took Fey by surprise. “What?”

  “You prove I didn't kill Mavis Flynn, and I'll tell you how to prove who was behind the torture.”

  “Not from prison. You can't,” Fey said.

  “I can.”