The Deepest Cut (10 page)

They needed more whiteboards.

In her cubicle, she stashed her purse inside her desk drawer and wedged her briefcase on the floor between her desk and a low filing cabinet. Taking off her jacket, she draped it over a hanger on a plastic hook attached to the cubicle wall. Another hook held a hanger with her Kevlar vest, marked with a bright yellow badge on the breast and
POLICE
in prominent yellow across the back. She wore this when serving warrants or engaged in other high-risk operations.

Without sitting, she grabbed a coffee mug decorated with a photo of her, Emily, and “I Love You Mom.”

In the coffee room, she was glad to see that someone had made a fresh pot. For once, she didn’t find just burnt dregs in the bottom of the carafe. She filled her mug and dumped in powdered creamer and a scant teaspoon of sugar.

On the counter was a box from Winchell’s doughnuts. All she’d had to eat that morning was a banana in the car. The assortment in the box had been picked over, but someone had left half of a chocolate
doughnut with chocolate sprinkles. Even though her GI tract would make her pay later, the fried dough beckoned.

Nibbling the doughnut, she circled back to her desk, taking the long way past the two offices for the lieutenants and the large corner office shared by the four detective sergeants in charge of the different detective units. A large window there overlooked the suite. The exterior windows gave a view of Garfield Avenue to the east and Walnut Street to the north. The windows on Walnut faced the Spanish Renaissance-style Central Library, built in 1927. Across Garfield was the somber Superior Courthouse. Farther south was City Hall. The huge wedding cake had also been built in 1927. Its landmark Spanish Baroque dome glistened after a years-long renovation and retrofitting.

Vining’s boss, Sergeant Kendra Early, in charge of the Homicide-Assault Unit, was already at her desk. Vining wasn’t surprised. Everyone involved in the recent gang war violence had been working long hours. The strain was showing.

While Sergeant Early possessed a wickedly dry sense of humor, her typical demeanor was solemn, an effect enhanced by permanent dark circles beneath her large eyes. Vining saw how Early intentionally injected levity into meetings with the people under her command, cracking jokes, knowing their jobs were hard enough as it was.

African-American, petite, round, and in her forties, Early wore her hair in a short Afro and had been lately applying a reddish rinse to cover gray. It was her sole cosmetic enhancement. She wore no makeup. She had a habit of rubbing her eyes, digging in the pads of her fingers with such force it was surprising she didn’t hurt herself. Right now, she sat stock-still as she listened with rapt attention to Jim Kissick, who was sitting in a chair in her office.

They appeared to be discussing documents arrayed on her desk. He was leaning over them, pointing, and speaking animatedly.

The office door was closed, which was unusual. None of the other three detective sergeants were there.

When neither Early nor Kissick looked up as she passed, not raising a finger or an eyebrow to acknowledge her, Vining’s suspicions were piqued. Nothing had transpired with the Scrappy Espinoza murder to merit an intense and confidential discussion. Kissick couldn’t be
coming clean about their romantic relationship, could he? Wouldn’t Early pull them both in? Was he talking about her harebrained “curlicue” theory and how she’d seen T. B. Mann’s handprint on the Scrappy murder? She decided it wasn’t that. It wasn’t Kissick’s style to tell tales.

Holding her mug of coffee, she kept walking, deciding she was letting her mind run away with her. She passed Tony Ruiz’s cubicle.

“Morning, Tony.”

No response.

And women are accused of being on the rag.

Most other days, she would have let it go. But today … She leaned to look into his cubicle, which was catercorner to hers.

“What’s up, Tony?”

“You oughta know.”

“Why should I know?”

“Oh, pillow talk.” He gave her a simpering smile.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Again, you oughta know.”

Alex Caspers shuffled past, nursing a grande Starbucks coffee.

Ruiz said to him, “Look what the cat dragged in. That’s one thing I’m not gonna miss. Dealing with Casanova’s morning-afters.”

Caspers croaked in a thick voice, “Morning.”

Vining gave him a piercing stare, to which he responded, “What?”

The whites of his eyes were unnaturally bright, suggesting a liberal application of Visine. His complexion was sallow and he’d cut himself shaving.

“Did you stay out all night?” Her tone was more statement than question.

“Not all night. None of us got much sleep, right?”

“Nice …” She lowered herself onto her chair, disappearing behind the walls of her cubicle. She had plenty of work and little time for personal dramas.

“Caspers …” She knew he’d hear her through the cubicles’ fabric walls.

He uttered a drowsy “Yo.”

“I have a lead for you to follow up.” She picked up a sheet of paper
on which she’d photocopied the Aaron’s Aarrows business card and Scrappy’s paycheck stub. Without standing, she dangled it over the top of the cubicle into Caspers’s area. When she felt him take it from her fingers, she added, “Find out what you can about that business and Marvin Li, the owner. Tony …”

“Yes, ma’am.” He managed to make sarcasm drip from even that brief utterance.

“Did you write up your interview with our witness, Kevin?”

“Kissick took that over, remember?”

“You were the first to question him. Your report needs to be in the file.”

“You’d better touch base with Kissick about that.”

She frowned at the cubicle wall in the direction of his desk. “Oh-kay …”

Her eyes trailed to a bulletin board above her desk on which she’d displayed mementos and photos. She’d recently installed a couple of new ones, including a nice shot of her entire family during a recent dinner at Mijares, a favorite family-style Mexican restaurant in Pasadena. She and Em were there, as was Granny. Her mother, Patsy was there with her current beau and prospective fifth husband. Her younger sister Stephanie was with her husband and their two young boys. Looking at the photo anew, Vining was struck by how mature Em looked. She seemed to have grown up overnight.

Beside that was a photo that Emily had taken for her photography class. Her teacher had heaped praise on it and was going to submit it for inclusion in a city-wide exhibit. In the background were the imposing gates of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. The 1924 two-story structure, with a courtyard garden and pond, was originally a custom-built home designed to look like a Chinese palace, complete with a teal-green pagoda roof. The iron gates were painted brick red and decorated with serpentine dragons. The gates were rounded at the top and set inside a cream-colored arched entryway that was decorated with an elaborate bas-relief frieze. A pair of Chinese-style stone lions guarded the entrance.

The photo was in color, but the primary hues were shades of cream, gray, and red. On the sidewalk in front of the closed gates, a
young man, dressed in a long black coat, was bent over, picking up a red hibiscus flower from the sidewalk.

Emily’s teacher had praised the intense detail in the shot, the effective use of red, and the contraposition of the formal gates and lions with the casual act of the youth reaching for a flower that was incongruously on the sidewalk.

Vining had often looked at this photo, but today it commanded new interest. The boy’s face was in profile, a shock of pale skin visible between his black hair and the high collar of the coat. She took a magnifying glass from her desk and rose from her chair to examine it more closely. She realized it was Ken Zhang.

“Nan, do—”

She wheeled around at Kissick’s voice, clasping the magnifying glass to her chest. “Jeez …”

“Sorry.” He gave the magnifying glass a questioning look. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure.” She returned the glass to her desk drawer.

“Early wants to have a brief meeting.”

“Okay.”

She walked ahead of him down the row of cubicles.

“Nice suit,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“New?”

“Sort of.” Under her breath, she asked, “Does this have something to do with what you and Sarge were talking about behind closed doors?”

“Yes,” he replied, not offering a further explanation. “By the way, I turned over that bloody shirt to Forensics. Tara’s taking care of it personally.”

She dubiously pulled her mouth to the side. “It’s evidence in an old case. The Crime Lab won’t get to it for months.”

“It’s become a high priority. Tara’s going to have it expedited.”

“Why is it now a high priority?”

As they rounded a corner, passing Ruiz’s area, Vining saw him packing items from his desk into a box. “What’s going on here?”

Kissick only said, “A lot.” He let her enter Early’s office ahead of him and closed the door.

The sergeant stood and extended her hand to Vining. “Good morning, Nan. Have a seat.”

Vining pulled a chair over. Kissick sat in a chair beside her. The papers on Early’s desk that she and Kissick had been discussing were gone.

Early didn’t begin speaking right away, but silently studied her. Only a few seconds passed, but it was sufficient to make Vining uneasy. She recalled Ruiz’s comment about “pillow talk.” That was it, she decided. Her and Kissick’s affair had been exposed. They’d been discreet, but his behavior had become more casual. Their work hadn’t been compromised, but maybe their relationship was creating a distraction for others or … Who knows? She’d warned him. She would take the fall for it. He had more seniority and less controversy. Early was going to transfer her out.

“Nan,” Early began.

Vining’s palms grew clammy.

“You’ll be taking the lead on the Scrappy Espinoza homicide. I’m assigning Jim to a special project.”

TEN

V
INING BLINKED, NOT CERTAIN SHE’D HEARD CORRECTLY. SHE WAS
relieved, yet not. She looked at Kissick. What did he know and when did he know it? And why hadn’t he told her?

He was the master of the dead stare. She was unable to read him.

Early did little to answer Vining’s unasked questions. “Jim’s going to be working another investigation. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute.”

Viningwas certainly capable of spearheading the Scrappy Espinoza investigation, another round-up-the-usual-suspects gang murder. Even with the possible Chinese connection, it was all the same— taking names, asking questions, getting answers. But the thought of not having Kissick to back her up made her a bit uneasy. She hated to admit how much she’d come to rely on him. They were a
team.
Their alliance, that had at first been only professional, had become personal, too. She also had to admit a twinge of jealousy. He was off to do something interesting while she was left to sweep up. What gives?

“There’s another change.” Early languidly blinked. Some had mistaken her low-key persona for sluggishness. They had also felt her swift reprisal. “Ruiz is transferring out of detectives. He’ll be working on a multiagency task force in conjunction with the DEA.”

Privately delighted with this news, Vining just nodded. So that’s
what Ruiz’s venom toward her had been about. When he’d had to work with her, he’d been civil. Now the veil had been pulled away and she was surprised to see the depth of his animosity.

The transfer sounded like a lateral move, although some would perceive it as a demotion, even if the job classification was the same and there was no pay change.

Transferring a problematic cop to a different job was a strategy sometimes used to juice his enthusiasm and improve his performance. Often, the transfer was to an area where there was less risk to the public and other officers. She didn’t know if that was part of the strategy with Ruiz. She didn’t care. Glancing toward the suite, she saw Ruiz leaving with his box. She tried not to gloat.

Early continued. “Alex Caspers will be working with you until Jim completes his project, which we figure might take a week. With any luck, we’ll have this Scrappy Espinoza case wrapped up before then. Use Sproul and Jones as much as you need. In terms of Jim’s special project…”

She paused. “He’s going to be following up new leads in your attempted murder.”

Vining couldn’t hide her surprise. Unlike Kissick, she hadn’t mastered the dead stare. What new leads? She couldn’t be talking about the bloody shirt. If it concealed a hair, fiber, or bodily fluid that led them to a name or location, then their work would begin.

“Jim, why don’t you explain?” Early picked up a manila file folder from her desk and handed it to him.

From it, he removed four sheets of photocopy paper.

Vining knew the images on them well. They all did. They were copies of the four grisly drawings found on the pad of art paper in the mute transient Nitro’s backpack.

The mysterious stranger the PPD had nicknamed Nitro had entered their lives a few weeks ago. They guessed that he was in his early twenties. His skin was pasty white; his spiky hair was also nearly white, with dark roots. His eyes were an innocent cornflower blue. He had been well-dressed with some cash on him. What he didn’t have was ID. No one could explain his behavior that day. Nitro, if he could, wouldn’t. He would not speak. Not one word.

In the middle of the Labor Day holiday, in the middle of Old Pasa dena, Nitro had stripped down until he was nude except for penny loafers, socks, and a beat-up pearl necklace. He then ran through the streets, eluding a horde of PPD officers until one finally managed to tackle him. They would have considered him just another nut, perhaps more colorful than most, except for that spiral-bound drawing pad in his backpack that hinted at something sinister.

Among Disney-like drawings of cute animals and flowers were four charcoals of women either being attacked or threatened with violence. Not just any women. The details were sparse but evocative.

One depicted Vining’s stabbing. She was drawn from the shoulders up, a knife deeply embedded into her neck. A shiny, black trail of blood flowed from her wound. Her lips were parted in what could be horror or ecstasy. Her attacker was standing close to her. As close as he’d stood in real life. The drawing showed only the back of his head, but in her wide eyes, his shadowy image was reflected.