Vigilante (6 page)

“We’re two plainclothes detectives headed inside the apartment house located at 1414 Lorena Street on a one-eighty-seven investigation,” Hitch said. “You know the building.”

“Yeah, the White House. Gang shit hole,” the lady cop’s voice replied.

“We might have something and then again maybe not,” Hitch continued. “If we need to make an arrest, we’re gonna want you guys to show the flag. We’ll keep our rover on. If we need help we’ll give you two squawks.”

“Roger that,” the woman’s voice came back. “Our ETA your location is three minutes. What’s the apartment number?”

“Six-Fifty-Seven,” Hitch said. “We’re drawing a lot of interest out front, so we’re going in now.”

The cops in A-56 squelched twice in acknowledgment.

Hitch clipped a Rover hand unit to his belt; then we got out of the car and headed into the building. There were two teenaged gangbangers on lookout duty lounging on the front steps. I could tell from their alert, feral postures that they, like everyone else, had made us the minute we pulled up. Because they knew we were cops they didn’t want to start anything, but that didn’t stop them from insolently mad-dogging us.

“How ya doin’, guys?” Hitch said pleasantly as he walked past. Neither of them replied.

The ground floor was empty. I noticed movement on the front steps behind us and saw the two lookouts walking away. Both had cell phones to their ears, spreading the word.

The elevator arrived and we got in and rode silently up to the sixth floor. So far, so good. We exited and walked down a corridor still rich with the smells of morning cooking. At Apartment 657 we stopped.

I knocked and a minute later saw the dim pinhole of light disappear from the peephole as someone on the other side of the door put their eye to the lens. I held up my badge.

“What you want?” a man’s voice called out.

“We’re here to see Carla Sanchez,” I said through the solid wood door.

“’Bout what?” the man challenged.

“Is she in there? Open up! Police business.”

“You got a warrant?”

“We just want to talk,” I said. “There’s no need to turn this into an incident.”

A moment later the door opened a crack. A huge bald
veterano,
about thirty years old, with a large black
WF
tattooed on the side of his shaved head, glared out at us. Both arms were fully sleeved with elaborate gang ink. He took a menacing stance, placing his bulk in the threshold, and blocked our way.

“You can talk to me,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“Carla’s old man. Julio. What’s the
trato
?”

“We’re here to talk to Carla,” I said. “We can get a warrant and come back with a SWAT team and have the talk in custody, or we can all sit down and have a friendly chat right here. Your call, Mr. Sanchez. But if we come back with SWAT, the ABGs on the roof will go nuts and this building will become the Dead House, and that’s the
trato.
”

He swore softly in Spanish.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” Hitch asked.

“Let them in, Julio,” a woman’s voice said from behind him. Then she pulled the door wider and we got our first look at Carla Sanchez. She was large as Chava had said, maybe three hundred pounds, but only a little over five feet tall. She wore a lightweight long-sleeved white sweater over a tank dress that only came to her knees. She had large, corpulent arms and thick legs with ankles that looked like brown tube socks stuffed with sand. Her black hair was cut short. Because of her girth she looked uncomfortable just standing there.

“How about doing what the lady says,” I suggested to Julio, who was still blocking our way.

He picked up his cell phone from the charging dock by the door and hit a number, then spoke a short sentence to somebody in Spanish. I understood enough to know Julio was getting some muscle to come over and stand in the hall. Hitch caught my eye and we traded a look as Julio finished the call.

“Suit yourself,” Julio said, putting the phone back in the dock and finally stepping aside.

We walked into an overfurnished apartment. It was neatly kept, but none of the pieces coordinated. Late-morning sun was streaming through the windows.

Hitch moved to my right to check out the back hallway, looking into each bedroom. A moment later, he returned to the living room, caught my eye, and nodded. The apartment was clear. I turned my attention back to the Sanchezes.

Then I saw it.

Sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa was the missing ceiling fan.

CHAPTER

8

The fan wires had frayed and were hanging out of the fixture. They matched the ripped-out wires I’d seen hanging from Lita Mendez’s ceiling. I looked at Hitch, who nodded. It was physical evidence corroborating Edwin Chavaria’s story. “Can I sit down?” I asked, trying to ease the tension.

Carla nodded, anxious to get off her feet. She moved painfully on swollen ankles over to a large chair, which, I noticed, had six stout legs to support her prodigious weight. When she eased herself down, she and the chair both groaned. Julio remained vigilant, standing by the door as I settled onto the sofa across from Carla. Hitch took a spot behind me where he covered my back.

“Tell us about your relationship with Lita Mendez,” I began.

“I got no relationship with that
rulacho.
Last week she rented the apartment I used to live in. I hadda get outta that barrio ’cause Evergreen put a check on me.”

“A check” was gang slang for a murder contract. If a rival set had put a contract out on this woman, it indicated she was a lot higher in the food chain than just some random gang
chica.
She might be what they called
la mas chingona,
one of the rare gang females who were strong enough in the set to merit the title of shot caller.

“Did you see Lita yesterday?”

“I know the bitch is dead,” Carla said. “If you’re over here tryin’ to put me behind that murder, you’re wastin’ your time. I got an alibi. I was with Julio, right here, all last night.”

“She was with me,” Julio said predictably.

“If you were here, how do you know she’s dead already? The body was only discovered a few hours ago,” Hitch said.

“Don’t tell me they don’t got no jungle drums in your old hood,” Carla said, turning to Hitch. “
Torrones
invented that shit. Ten minutes after you found her it was already old news.”

This was a very hard woman. She’d been down twice. She’d survived the gangs in Tehachapi Prison. Her sheet showed she’d had her share of write-ups for violence on the inside. She held my eyes, never looking away.

“We know you were over there last night. We have a witness who saw you at her house in a loud argument at around eight or nine. He got your license plate. Stop playing us or you’re gonna get arrested and we’ll finish this with you in custody. I’m trying to cut you some slack here.”

She looked at Julio, then back at me.

“Yesterday … yeah, okay, so now I remember. Yeah, I saw her yesterday. But like you said, it was early.”

“Tell us. Don’t leave anything out and start at the beginning.”

“Bitch had my ceiling fan.” She nodded at the fixture on the coffee table. “I used to live in that apartment. Like I said, it’s Evergreen turf. I was only on those blocks ’cause my
tia
lived there. She rented five years ago before Evergreen took over the block. She was too sick to move. I was caring for her, but then she decided to go back to Mexico to be with her sister in Durango. As soon as she left, I knew I hadda get out.”

That sounded like BS to me. If Carla was a shot caller for White Fence, living on an Evergreen block was a short step up from suicide. It seemed more likely to me that she was probably only there occasionally and the house on North Savannah was an outpost that she rented to help her White Fence drug
traficantes
encroach on Evergreen turf. When it got too dangerous, she ended up withdrawing.

“Besides, I wanted to move back here once Julio got off state paper,” she continued. “Leasing agent was Vanessa Valente. She rented my aunt’s place to that
puta,
Lolita Mendez, but some of my belongings didn’t get moved. I was supposed to get my fan, which I bought with my own money, and a primo area rug I got from Crate and Barrel and some other stuff. Bitch wouldn’t give my property. Said it was hers now.”

“So what happened?”

“What happened was I drove over to get my stuff back. I asked her nice and she stands there and fuckin’ disrespects me. Calls me a fat
cerdo,
so we had words.”

“Words.”

“Yeah, I got in the bitch’s face; then she knees me and slams the door.”

“If she wouldn’t give your fan back, then how come it’s here?”

“That’s ’cause a Julio,” Carla said, looking fondly at her husband. “He got mellowed out in jail. Tells me to stop bangin’ with the bitch and just buy the damn thing.”

“You bought it?” I looked over at Hitch.

“Yeah, she bought it,” Julio said from the door. “You think we’re animals? That we’d kill over a stupid fan?”

That’s exactly what I thought, but I didn’t say it.

“Explain what happened next,” Hitch said.

“I called her on the phone,” Carla went on. “Was about ten, ten thirty that same night. I’m a big woman. I’m always too hot. We ain’t got no air in this building, so I told her I needed my fan back. I had it installed over there with my own money, but she’s saying it’s attached and it goes with the apartment. I finally offered her twenty dollars. After giving me a buncha shit she says okay, if I’ll pay her twenty-five. So me and Julio drove over about eleven. I went in and bought my damn fan back while he sat in the truck and covered my back.”

“Can you prove any of this?” I asked.

“Julio is my witness. He was there.”

“Besides Julio.”

She glared at me. She was beginning to sweat despite the fact that it was February and, with the storm coming, the apartment was cold.

“Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”

“She ain’t takin’ no poly,” Julio said. “That shit gets rigged.”

“Polygraphs are used to eliminate suspects, not include them,” I explained. “You’re already a suspect, so failing the test changes nothing. If you pass the poly, we start looking for Lita’s killer somewhere else. Besides that, we can’t use the results in court—good or bad. That’s why a polygraph favors an innocent suspect.”

“She ain’t takin’ no polygraph,” Julio repeated.

Carla was still sweating and now unbuttoned her sweater and removed it. It was then that I saw multiple scratches on both of her heavily tattooed arms.

“How’d you get those scratches on your arms?” I asked her.

“We have a cat.”

“You sure you didn’t get them in your fight with Lita?”

“The bitch kneed me in the groin, then slammed the door. She didn’t scratch me. I got this from our cat.”

“Where is the cat?”

“I don’t know. He’s a tom. He roams a lot. All the people in the building feed him. He’s like everybody’s cat.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know his fucking name.”

She was starting to fidget. I looked over at Hitch, who was shaking his head. She was obviously lying.

“Miss Kitty,” Julio contributed from his post by the door.

“That’s a pretty crappy name for a tomcat,” Hitch said in amusement. Then he motioned me over. I stood and walked to where he was standing.

He leaned in and whispered, “Back bedroom. Two bags fully packed. I think these two will be in Mexico if we don’t delay their trip.”

“We’re gonna ask you to leave now,” Julio said from the door. “The interview is over.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” I said, and stepped away from Hitch to give him a better field of fire in case this got iffy.

Then my partner pulled his Glock 9 as I took my handcuffs off my belt.

“I knew this was coming,” Julio sneered.

“You’re under arrest. Let’s all stay cool,” I said.

“
Pendejos,
” Julio muttered.

“We’re only arresting you as material witnesses,” I explained. “Be nice and maybe you’re home by lunch. Turn and face the wall, Mr. Sanchez. Lace your fingers behind your head.”

He turned and assumed the position while I shook him down and cuffed him. Hitch covered both of them from across the room. Then Hitch and I helped Carla to her feet and attempted to cuff her, but Hitch’s cuffs wouldn’t fit around her gargantuan wrists. I’d seen cuffs not fit a man before but never had that happen on a woman.

“You want to give A-Fifty-Six a piece of this?” I said to my partner.

Hitch reached into his hip pocket and squawked his radio two times.

A few minutes later the officers from A-56 were standing in the doorway. They turned out to be a Hollenbeck dog and cat patrol team. The man, Gately, was a redhead with a buzz cut. One of those standard wide-armed weight-lifting types, tough as hickory. His partner, George, was a medium-sized, compact woman with blond hair pulled back in a bun.

We led Carla and Julio out of the apartment and locked the door for them. The four guys Julio had called as backup were standing in the hall.

“Beat it,” the giant red-haired patrol officer snapped.

“You got six seconds; then you’re all under arrest,” his partner threatened.

After a moment, they reluctantly dispersed. We led the Sanchezes down the hall. As we passed the other apartments I could hear doors opening behind us and turned once to see half a dozen Chicanos staring daggers at our backs.

We got Carla and Julio downstairs and into the patrol car, where we Mirandized them without incident.

“Transport them to Hollenbeck Station for booking as material wits,” I told the uniforms.

As the patrol car pulled away, Hitch said, “I hope that’s your good side.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“We’re being photographed.” He pointed up the block at the white Econoline van with the
V-TV
emblem on the side, parked at the curb. Nix Nash stood near the back of the van, mike in hand, cameras rolling. He had us framed over his shoulder as he did a stand-up right in the middle of Lorena Street.