Land of Shadows (27 page)

No spare tire. Just a young black woman curled into a fetal position. She was a beauty-shop blonde, a tiny girl who had been so cute in those photos on Monique's Facebook page. Now, though, the freckles on her nose and cheeks lay flat and lifeless. Now, those twinkling green eyes stared dully at her knees. Her mouth was open and the inside of her lower lip was crusted with darkened blood. There were brick-colored holes the size of salt tubs above her right ear and the middle of her neck.

“What is it?” Nova West shouted from the perimeter. “What? Tell me!” She sounded far away—like she had been hollering at us from the Darsons' porch around the corner.

We heard Nova's shouts but didn't answer her. We stood there in silence, staring at Renata Reese, who had been stuffed in the back of her car like a bag of old clothes. After we had all thought about that and had said a prayer to whichever deity had allowed this to happen, Jefferson toggled the switch of his Motorola and said, “I'm gonna need the paramedics and the coroner out here.”

Ten minutes later we were joined by three more detectives, more uniforms, an ambulance, and an air unit.

Even though this was Jefferson's murder, Colin and I still needed to talk to Nova about a dead girl not her own. But the grieving mother had collapsed on the sidewalk. A neighbor lady cuddled Jalen as she carried him back to the dingy pink house.

“We'll talk to Nova later,” I told Colin as we moved away from the crime scene.

There had been so many questions I had wanted to ask Renata.
Why was Monique at your house on Tuesday night? What time did she leave? What was her mood? Did she say who she was meeting that night? Was it any of the guys on this list her sister made? What do you know about Todd? Do you recognize this phone number highlighted in green?
Those questions would now probably go unanswered.

“When do you think it happened?” Colin asked.

“Last night. When no one was around.”

“Wouldn't someone have heard?”

“Oh, yeah. Because gunshots in this part of Los Angeles are precious and rare things.”

Colin chewed on that for a moment, then said, “Think her murder is related to Monique's?”

I glanced at the helicopter now making tight circles in the sky. “I don't wanna think that, but I will if I have to.”

Colin glanced back at the Taurus. “Maybe Renata knew something. Maybe she was planning to tell us but he—”

“
He
?”

“Mr. Green Ink. Maybe he wanted to stop her before she talked to us.”

“Maybe.”

There was nothing more for Colin and me to do on Sutro Avenue. Jefferson had his own team, and I had my own murder. I told Colin to hang around for a moment, just in case the other detectives needed context, then climbed into my car. It would be a twenty-minute drive to Cal State Los Angeles, and I would spend each of those moments holding my breath.

After my visit, I would slowly drive back to the squad room, my speedometer never moving past thirty-five. Maybe the muffins would be eaten by then. Maybe the cellophane would be stuffed in the trash can and the crumbs swept from tabletops and Luke's mustache. Maybe then I would get to pretend that those muffins never came.

Maybe.

 

38

Before I crossed the threshold of the Evidence Storage Unit, I switched my phone to vibrate and slipped it into my jacket pocket. In many ways, this place was a cemetery—parts of the dead were stored here, and that demanded respect.

It was freezing in this room where cold cases came to get colder. Not because they had been forgotten but because DNA and biological specimens like blood, spit, and semen degraded in heat.

Janice Feinberg, the unit's civilian manager, looked up from the computer monitor. “Good afternoon, Detective.” She regarded me without a smile; but then, she never smiled. Probably because she had watched over these boxes of Dead People's Things since 1966—from Robert Kennedy's murder to the infamous forty-four-minute North Hollywood shootout. With no break in the action, why would Janice Feinberg smile?

Since making detective, I came to the unit once a month to check on the status of evidence for any of my open cases: the spit on a coffee cup, the splash of semen on a dead nurse's smock, that perfect drop of blood on my sister's shoe.

And each time I visited, Janice Feinberg was seated at the same desk, with the same pair of glasses on the end of her nose, her slate blue eyes on the computer monitor, which had been the only change in her world.

My phone vibrated and I pulled it from my pocket.

Zucca had texted me.
Hair in desk is Monique Darson's.

My response:
Great & awful news.

Phone tucked away, I started the familiar trek to row KK.

There were so many boxes. Too many. How were we supposed to right all these wrongs?

Back in my patrol days, I had asked then-Sergeant Rodriguez that same question and he said this to me: “You eat an elephant one bite at a time.”

I reached row KK and found Tori's box on the third shelf from the bottom. It was lighter now and fingerprints had been left on the dusty lid. I pulled off the top—the white Nike Huarache was gone. The unopened packet of ancient Starbursts and the gold wristwatch had been left behind.

Hope burst in my chest and I grinned, even though I was surrounded by Dead People's Things.

Maybe now I would know.

Maybe now Napoleon Crase would be charged with Tori's murder and then connected to Monique Darson's death.

Maybe now I could give Greg that space I had saved for my sister.

And then?

Then, I would live happily ever after.

I considered the log sheet taped to the front of the box.

05/11 LLJ Nike, white.

Forensic scientist LLJ was now examining Tori's shoe.

But …

What if the DNA test proved that Napoleon Crase
didn't
do it? That the blood belonged to someone else and that person was
not
in the National Crime Information Center? Humans were only separated genetically by 0.5 percent of our total DNA. Not much, but enough to determine the innocent from the guilty.

I tugged at the small silver hoop in my left ear, not wanting to be in this room now, not wanting the shoe to be in LLJ's possession. My hands shook as I held that box, shook as though someone had been imprisoned behind my rib cage and was now grabbing the bars and trying to break out.

Not knowing: you can imagine the best of scenarios when you didn't know. For more than twenty years, that blood on Tori's shoe belonged to Napoleon Crase. For years I thought,
If only they could examine it …

Now that they were, there was a chance I had been chasing a shadow all this time. Now there was a chance that the sun would shine into that dark place and show me … nothing. Now there was the chance I'd realize that all this time I had been Don Quixote dressed in a Calvin Klein pantsuit.

I shook the evidence box again. A boulder had lodged in my throat and I couldn't swallow.

Maybe I should retrieve the sneaker before LLJ runs a swab over the blood. Steal back that shoe and destroy it just to keep my imagination intact.

It had been so long since Tori's disappearance that my hatred for Napoleon Crase had become a part of me. Not to have it anymore would be akin to losing my hand.

 

39

The purple roses were dying.

But then I had neglected the bouquet, relegating it to the edge of my desk since its arrival on Wednesday. No new water. No sunlight. No love. And now the petals resembled the new scales of a molting dragon. Unfortunately, the flowers weren't dead enough to throw away. Like many things in my life.

My eyes wandered back to the computer screen. The same screen that said
1 result
for Napoleon Crase's “secretary.”

Brenna Benevides, a pay-to-play girl, had been busted for prostitution every other year. Her government name was Oleta Brown and she specialized in sex games that, literally, took your breath away. She was stunning even in her mug shots. One parent had been black and the other parent was some kind of Asian. Brenna had long, shiny hair; big boobs; high cheekbones; and lips that men loved. In her industry, though, she was a senior citizen at thirty-one years old.

My iPhone vibrated on my desktop.

Syeeda's picture flashed on the screen. “Hey,” she said. “What's going on with the Darson case?”

I opened the PDF of Monique's autopsy report that Dr. Brooks had just e-mailed, then slumped in my chair. “Hello, dear friend. I'm well, thanks for asking.”

She snorted. “We've known each other since 1993. We can skip the foreplay, sweetheart. I forwarded an e-mail to you. Did you read it?”

“Is it the Daily Candy Shop-Til-You-Drop e-mail thing?” I asked, scrolling through my inbox. “Or is it…?” I clicked on Syeeda's last message—three PDFs.

Letter of Protest.

Special Events Permit.

A picture of Angie Darson, picket sign in one hand, a bullhorn in the other.

“Okay,” I said. “So what is all this?”

“Behold,” Syeeda said, “the power behind the anti-Crase, anti–Santa Barbara Plaza revitalization movement.”

I scrunched my eyebrows. “The Darsons. I know this. And? So?”

“Not
the
Darsons.
Angie
Darson. Cheese and bread, dude. Look at the shit I sent you.”

I sat up in my chair and eyed the three PDFs. And then, I
saw
. “She's the contact on the letter. She's the contact on the event permit. She's the one leading the march.”

“And
he
?”

My eyes scanned the documents again. “
He
is nowhere to be found.” I rubbed my thumb across my lip. “She's the one pushing Cyrus into this role of community leader, and he's…”

“Just not into it, obviously.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Wanna know what's even more interesting? The last approval for Crase's project went before the city council in April. The Darsons didn't show up.”

“Really?” My attention turned back to Monique Darson's autopsy report.
Remarks: Decedent originally presented to this office as a suicide victim. Contusion … 0.25 inch linear fracture … occipital bone … no hematoma … laceration with abrasion of scalp … presence of the post-mortem ligature mark suggests that suicide in this case is highly improbable.

Suicide: that had been the initial thought only two days ago. So much had changed since.

I yanked a dying petal from a rosebud. “Do you know anything else about Cyrus Darson? He's not talking straight to me and that pisses me off.”

“What's he being shifty about?”

“Who did he work for before Crase?”

“Is my finding out predicated on you giving me an update?”

“Yep.”

Syeeda huffed. “Fine. I'll call you back.”

I crumpled the rose petal in my palm—there was no crunch, still some give, still some meat. Again: just like many things in my life.

*   *   *

In the spirit of “Please like me, please?” Colin had pizzas delivered for lunch. Over greasy pepperoni pizza slices and cans of Coke, the Who Killed Baby Girl? team huddled around the whiteboard for a midday update.

“So where are we?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked as he folded his slice in half.

I told them about my meetings with Cyrus and Angie Darson, and then with Macie. I told them about finding Monique's best friend, Renata, stuffed into the spare-tire compartment of her Ford Taurus.

“I'll make sure Jefferson shares info with you,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said to me. “Make sure you do the same.”

After only taking two bites of pizza, the dough and cheese sat in my stomach as heavy as a gold bar. “During my meeting with Macie, she gave me a list of potential suspects. Well, more like the names of guys Monique had dated over the last two years.” I passed the list to Pepe. “I've only had a chance to hit one name: Todd Wisely.”

“Any reason you're starting with him?” Pepe asked.

“He plays basketball for UCLA,” I said. “And he's twenty-one years old.”

“‘Got me a big baller,'” Luke said.

“Exactly. But Todd's been at training camp up in Arrowhead since last week. He was nowhere near Los Angeles on the night Monique was murdered.”

“Says who?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked.

“Says Todd. Says his coach. I talked to both a few minutes ago.”

“So Todd is out,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said, ticking off his fingers. “And the church boy is out—”

“
Possibly,
” I said. “But not definitely.”

Lieutenant Rodriguez continued. “The gangbanger's out.”

“Yeah.”

“So we
may
have two people of interest?” he asked, two fingers in the air, a screech creeping into his tone. “And those two are Napoleon Crase and Von Neeley. After three days working this case?
Maybe
two?”

I cleared my throat as heat prickled my armpits. “I'd like to send a few vice cops over to Santa Rosalia to see if any of the girls or the tweakers saw anything that night.”

Lieutenant Rodriguez nodded. “Anything else?”

“A little more on the Crase angle,” I said. “I found his home address written on a slip of paper in Monique's diary. Macie, her sister, bought a car from his dealership—and so did Monique. That's where the Lexus came from.”

“Anybody see Crase with Monique Darson?” my boss asked. When I didn't answer, he crumpled his napkin and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Lou, I put you on this because you
usually
get results.”

“Pepe called Crase just a few minutes ago,” I said. “Asked him to come down today for an interview. Nothing formal. Just to talk. No lawyer needed.”