Knot in My Backyard (A Quilting Mystery) (16 page)

The older cottonwoods and willows chirped with the songs of dozens of avian species from tiny hummingbirds and blue grosbeaks to the raucous cawing of big black crows. The wildlife reserve was one of the few places left in Los Angeles that provided nesting ground, food, and shelter for over two hundred species of birds and dozens of other small animals.

The shade of the trees offered prime real estate for the homeless during the hot summer days. In sparser areas, pieces of canvas and sheets of blue plastic hung from the branches of scrub oak and taller bushes to provide shady crawl spaces. Several one-person pup tents in faded colors peppered the area like igloos. Plastic tarps covered with sleeping bags and bedrolls were scattered on the flat ground or were shoved under low-growing bushes as bivouacs.

A miasma of untreated sewage and stagnant creek water hung in the warm air. I pushed an empty sardine can off the path with my toe. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a scrap of something white, caught on a twig nearby, fluttering. It was a piece of used toilet paper.

Lucy pulled a clean tissue from her pocket and covered her nose. “Mother of God. What do they do for toilets down here?”

Hilda pointed to a ridge of dirt near a clump of coyote brush. “There’s an open latrine over there, but some of the crazier folks just squat wherever they feel like it.”

Lucy still pressed the tissue against her nose. “How do they stand this?”

Hilda shrugged. “Where else are they going to go?”

Lucy wasn’t satisfied. “Well, what about social services? Shelters? Government aid?”

“Government aid? The homeless don’t vote. Who’s gonna give them aid?”

By the time we arrived at the truck, Crusher and the other bikers had removed the tarp and were encouraging people to form a line, advancing the women to the front. Most of the homeless were compliant. Two rough-looking men yelled profanities and tried to muscle their way forward. One look from Crusher and the boys calmed them right down.

The diversity of the homeless population surprised me. I assumed the homeless were pretty much the same as Hilda. White, jobless, English-speaking adults either mentally ill or down on their luck. I was learning differently.

Sonia stood at the back of the truck, poised to hand out blankets and supplies. “There are too many people, Martha. How do you want to do this?”

I hated to send away people empty-handed. “Why don’t we give them a choice? Either a bag of toiletries or a blanket. That way we can help twice as many people. Lucy and Birdie can help you distribute the items. Hilda and I are going to walk around.”

As I expected, everything ran smoothly after a couple of minutes under Sonia’s direction. Bikers stood in the truck and unloaded items, handing the quilts to Birdie and bags of toiletries to Lucy. Sonia directed people to one of the two women, depending on the item they wanted.

Hilda and I headed toward a cluster of tents and bedrolls. “This is where you’re gonna find your witnesses. The Hispanics stick together in their own section.”

Undocumented immigrants made up the largest proportion of homeless in the Sepulveda Basin. They were usually single men with no English-language skills, no jobs, and no family to help them. We found several men who seemed afraid to join the line at the truck.

I hoped a smile and my high-school Spanish would be enough.
“Buenos días.”

They just looked at me.

“Javier and Graciela? You know them, you guys?
Los conocen ustedes?
”

No response.

One of the men stood. He wore a frayed white T-shirt and jeans covered in plaster dust.
“Porque?”

Now I was in trouble. How to explain in Spanish what I needed? In slightly off-kilter Spanish, I tried my best, but when I said the word
“policía,”
the man’s face turned blank and he stepped back. The other men on the ground tensed up, ready to run.

I held up my hands.
“No, no, hijos. Yo no soy de la policía. Solo quiero ayuda mi amigo.”
(“No, no, sons. I do not exist of the police. Only I wish help my friend.”)

With my broken Spanish, I explained Javier and Graciela lived near the river behind my house and might have seen the murder. I merely wanted to talk to them to discover if they saw anything.

The man stepped back, broke eye contact, and studied his calloused hands.

Hilda whispered in my ear, “Did you bring any money?”

I’d come prepared. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a twenty.
“Información?”

The man looked at the others and wiped his nose on his arm.
“Sí, señora.”
He stared at the money in my hand. The couple’s last name was Acevedo, and he confirmed they were looking for a ride to Mountain View, four hundred miles north of Los Angeles. They were taking temporary refuge with a church in Van Nuys.

I turned to Hilda. “Do you know which church they’re talking about?”

“I think so. A group from a little place called The Heart of Zion comes down here pretty regular to help these people.”

I smiled at the man and handed him the twenty.
“Muchas gracias.”

I needed to get over to the church today to find our witnesses before they left Los Angeles.

We walked back toward the truck and passed a wiry old man watching us from behind a tall bush. His wild hair and beard were full of bits and pieces of what looked like crusts of food and dried leaves, and he stank of urine.

Hilda put her hand on my elbow and hurried me forward. “That man is probably an old vet. Most of ’em are loners. Either the fighting or the drugs made ’em crazy. Best to keep a distance.”

She told me most homeless veterans ran out of government resources. They usually suffered from brain injury, PTSD, or drug addiction. Like other individuals who were mentally ill, they tended to be unpredictable loners who avoided contact with the world except when they went out to panhandle or scrounge for food. Because of their survival training, the vets were the ones most likely to adapt to the harsh outdoor conditions.

There were two families with children, folks who were victims of the economy and first lost their jobs and then their homes. Hilda told me I wouldn’t find many single homeless women in the wildlife reserve who weren’t prostitutes. Unless they were protected by a pimp, a partner, or a family, they could be raped and assaulted.

“Hilda, you’re a single woman down here. How do you manage?”

“These people come to me when they’re sick. They need me because I’m the only ‘doctor’ most of them will have. If anyone dared to hurt me, the rest of them would probably kill him. I’m prob’ly safer down here than anyone else.”

She pointed to a small tent under the trees. “Switch got hold of some runaway kids—boys and girls. In exchange for food and a raggedy bedroll, he pimped ’em out in parking lots and behind seedy bars in Van Nuys. The tent is where he used to keep ’em.”

I stopped and looked at her in shock. “Where are those kids now?”

She shrugged. “In the wind, I guess. As soon as your guys took out Switch, they saw their chance and ran.”

We were now close enough to see all the packages and blankets had been distributed. Many of the homeless stood around the truck, smiling and chatting with Lucy, Birdie, Sonia, and the bikers. One woman rubbed soothing hand lotion into the skin of her cheeks and cracked lips. Another gently fingered the ties on a quilt made up of multicolored square patches.

The sound was faint at first; but as it got closer to the basin, the chopping helicopter became unmistakable. The big black-and-white bird stopped above us and hovered. A police helicopter. Not low enough to kick up dust, but near enough to send people scattering.

As I looked up, someone in fatigues stood next to an army jeep parked above us on the Sepulveda Dam service road. I suspected it was Army Specialist Lawanda Price.

I moved sideways. The ground gave way slightly under my foot and something wet seeped through the bottom of my shoes. I’d just stepped in a pile of garbage reeking of rotting fish.

Hilda wrinkled her nose and looked at me. “I told you to watch where you stepped down here.”

I dragged my feet several times over a clump of dry grass in a futile effort to clean my shoe.

Sonia pulled out her cell phone. “Where are you? Well, hurry up. You have to get over here now. There’s going to be a confrontation with the police.”

Sirens pierced the silence.

Oh, God, please don’t let it be Kaplan. Worse. Don’t let it be Beavers. My shoes stink to high heaven.

CHAPTER 25

At the first sound of sirens, all the homeless people hurried to scoop up their meager belongings and scattered over the wildlife reserve, heading for the trees and sprawling parkland beyond. Lucy and Birdie lost the color in their faces and stood close together, holding hands. Hilda had vanished.

Sonia clasped her hands together and bounced nervously up and down on the balls of her feet. “Oh, my God. Are we going to be arrested?”

Crusher took a step toward her. “Listen, everyone. We did nothing wrong. Don’t argue, be polite, and, if they do arrest us, just be cool.”

A dozen policemen in riot gear appeared on the path above us, shields raised and batons in hand. They looked like giant beetles with the visors of their shiny helmets pulled down over their faces and their bodies encased in protective padding. A couple of stripes adorned the sleeve of the leader, who I guessed was a sergeant. None of us dared move as they advanced in a wide phalanx toward where we stood.

Sonia smiled. “Oh, my God. Let’s do a sit-in like the old days!”

Lucy looked at the ground. “I’m not going to sit on that!”

Crusher frowned at Sonia. “Were you even old enough to’ve sat in?”

“Well, I was a school kid during Vietnam, but I wanted to. Now we have the chance. We could protest the conditions down here.”

Lucy frowned at her. “That’s pointless. Who would know?”

Just then another helicopter appeared above. The second copter had
EYEWITNESS
NEWS
and a big 7 painted on the side.

Sonia pointed to the sky and grinned. “A lot of people would know. I called a friend.”

Of course she did. She was the yenta.

The army jeep previously parked on the service road had vanished. I was certain Price was the one who called the police. She didn’t want us to be in the reserve, and I was pretty sure I knew why.

Price probably hadn’t counted on the news cameras also showing up. When they did, she must have left the area to avoid being implicated in this fiasco. After all, calling in the police to enforce law and order was one thing. Calling in the riot squad to harass a small group of volunteers distributing free supplies to the homeless was quite another.

Whatever intimidation Lawanda Price hoped to accomplish unobserved, Sonia thwarted by that call to the news media.

A voice shouted out a command: “Stand where you are and put your hands on your head.”

“Do as you’re told,” Crusher urged quietly.

Everyone complied, but Birdie. Her arthritic shoulders made bending a problem.

When the police got close enough, the sergeant told Birdie, “You too, lady.”

Birdie’s newly adopted grandson Carl—all six feet of him dressed in black—stepped between Birdie and the cops.

Birdie twisted the end of her white braid and peered at the cop from behind Carl. “I’m sorry, dear. I’d like to comply with the police. I’m a big fan of
Law and Order,
but I can’t. My arthritis, you know.”

The cop pointed to a spot of ground away from the rest of us. “Okay, Granny. Step over here.”

Carl looked ready to pounce on someone. Birdie lightly patted his side and stepped out from behind him. She walked over to the cop, craned her neck to look in his face, and pointed an arthritic finger at him.

“Shame on you, young man. There’s absolutely no reason for you to be rude and disrespectful to me or anyone else. Absolutely no one addresses me as ‘Granny.’ My friends call me ‘Birdie,’ but you may call me ‘Mrs. Watson’!”

Carl snorted. Lucy’s mouth hung open. I looked around. All the bikers were grinning. Even some of the cops smiled. Sonia thrust a power fist in the air.

Really?

The cop in charge looked up at the news chopper and over his shoulder at his troops. One of them urged, “Go on, Sarge. I’ll stay with her.”

The trooper slowly led Birdie over to the side and nodded once. “Ma’am.”

She hung on to his arm for balance. “Thank you, dear.”

At the sergeant’s command, several officers stepped forward and searched the men for weapons. When none were found, he glanced again at the news choppers. “Okay. You can lower your arms.”

Crusher crossed his arms across his barrel chest. “Why are we being detained, Officer?”

“Trespassing.”

“This is public parkland. We have a right to be here.”

“Your truck doesn’t,” the sergeant growled.

Crusher maintained his cool. “That hardly warrants a riot squad and a search. A ticket, maybe.”

“Suspicious activity gives me a right to stop and frisk.”

“Nothing suspicious going on. We were just distributing blankets and gear to the homeless. We needed to transport the items in, so we brought a truck. We stayed on the path so as not to disturb the wildlife habitat.”

The sergeant squared his shoulders. “There’s wildlife here, all right. Drugs, prostitution, and thieves. This-here’s their habitat. We got a report of gang activity.”

“Do we look like a gang?”

The sergeant glanced from the bikers to Birdie and me and back to Crusher. “Yes and no.”

“Well, just ask the people who live here what we were doing.”

“Yeah? What people?”

I looked around. Every soul had disappeared. Who could blame them?

A reporter spoke into a microphone with a television camera aimed at us from the Sepulveda Dam service road, where the army jeep used to be. I raised my hand to speak.

The sergeant looked over at me. “Yeah?”

“Who called in the complaint?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear the officer admit the army had called.