These Women

by Ivy Pochoda

  7.

  SOUTHWEST IS BUZZING WHEN ESSIE GETS BACK. A FEW NEWS vans are parked outside. News travels too fast these days. She glances into a conference room and sees four photos of the recent victims on a board: Chriselle Walke, Jazmin Freemont, Katherine Sims, Julianna Vargas.

  Deb’s right. She’s not going to let it go. There’s a problem to be solved, a puzzle. And both of them know how Essie’s mind works. Maybe Deb is counting on this.

  Essie sits down at her desk and flips through her notepad. Her eyes land on the name Orphelia.

  She puts her own hand to her throat, right where that scar had been smiling at her during their interview that morning. Makes her shiver. She tugs at the collar of her shirt to cover her skin.

  Orphelia. What was her last name? Essie searches for her notes. Orphelia Jefferies. At first, she can only locate her rap sheet.

  It takes her an hour to find the incident report. Feelia Jefferies. Not Orphelia. Taken to MLK hospital with a wound to her neck. Found on Fifty-Ninth and Western. Interviewed postsurgery. Could not identify attacker—says he was white, possibly Latino. Victim was a prostitute.

  Like that excuses it.

  Essie pages through the report. There’s not much to it. No follow-up.

  She doesn’t recognize the names of the officers who interviewed Orphelia. Probably transferred or retired. Not worth tracking down. The case didn’t matter then. It’s dead and gone.

  There’s a photo of Orphelia in the hospital. The wound is stitched but still fresh. Essie puts her hand to her neck again.

  That cut.

  Just like Julianna’s. Just like—

  She goes to records. Requests a file. A photo falls out. A close-up of Lecia’s head, bagged, smothered, a six-inch-long crescent wound at the base of her neck. A bib of blood. Just like Julianna’s. Just like the other women whose photos Essie has seen. She notes the date. Six months before Orphelia had been attacked.

  She flips through Lecia’s file, then pulls the file on the rest of the unsolved cases from that period. Tips and leads and dead ends. Arrests and discharges. A whole tangle that went nowhere.

  She catches the names of local activists and community organizers who’d demanded the police take action, do something, address the fact that women were being hunted in South L.A. A roster of women picketing the station and the mayor, asking someone to pay attention. Demanding someone—everyone—listen.

  Essie knows she doesn’t have time to read the whole thing. Only enough time to make a copy, which she tucks into her bag.

  Then she checks the incident report for Feelia Jefferies’s attack. Six months after Lecia Williams’s murder. What if Lecia wasn’t the last? What if what Lecia did and who she was really didn’t matter? What if she had been right and Dorian wrong?

  What if the answer was much more simple.

  Essie double-checks the address she’d jotted down that morning.

  She stops by the desk sergeant on the way out. It’s Clemson. An old-timer. Been sitting there for decades.

  “This woman came in this morning. I found her waiting for me,” Essie says. Clemson hadn’t been on when Orphelia had arrived but he checks the log. “You know her?” She shows him a picture from her old sheet. “She got a decade plus on that now.”

  Clemson puts on his readers and squints. “Yup.”

  He passes the picture back. Essie wants to slam her hand on his desk. Because why the hell is he making her ask the obvious. “And?”

  “Been coming in for years. Always got some complaint or another. I’m surprised they let her see you.”

  “What kind of complaint?”

  “You know what they’re like. All the drugs. Makes them paranoid.”

  “And her paranoia is what exactly?”

  He raises his eyebrows like why bother? “Thinks some white lady is stalking her. Been going on about it for years. I let her down easy and send her on her way.”

  “How come you don’t believe her?”

  Clemson laughs. “Good one, Perry.”

  IT’S FIVE P.M. The sky is a thin blue. Cloudless. But there’s a wash of something, smog or smoke. Traffic is thick on Western, but Essie is able to weave through it on her bike.

  Orphelia’s apartment is on the corner in a boxy stucco two-story building with no balconies, built over a large carport. The windows are gray with soot from Western.

  Clue: Ditsy SoCal Architecture. Answer: Dingbat.

  Terrible name for a terrible design.

  Essie checks the block, looking for possible vantage points a stalker might take. There are several. Other carports, a recessed doorway of a building diagonally across Western. A large ficus.

  There are a few faded names next to the doorbells but most are unmarked.

  Two men are sitting to the right of the door on camp chairs between two scruffy bushes. “Looking for someone?”

  “Orphelia Jefferies.”

  “No shit,” one man says to the other. “You hear that?”

  “I did.”

  “Maybe she isn’t crazy after all.”

  “How’s that?” Essie asks.

  “You the white lady she says is harassing her?” the first man says.

  His friend uncaps a beer. “Always on about it. Screaming out her damn window or taking her noise to the street. White lady did this. White lady was here. You all see that white lady standing outside my window?”

  His buddy slaps his knee. “Shit,” he says. “And the white lady’s right here, ringing the goddamned bell!”

  The two laugh as if this is the funniest thing in the world.

  “So how come you been stalking Feelia?” the first man asks.

  Essie sighs and pulls her badge out of her jacket. “Here’s how come,” she says. “Now which one is her bell?”

  It takes Essie a moment to convince Orphelia she’s really the detective from the station. The men don’t let up.

  How come she don’t believe you?

  Maybe you are the one stalking her.

  White lady stalking her, my ass, but here she is.

  Finally, the buzzer admits Essie.

  Orphelia’s place is on the second floor.

  “No shit,” she says opening the door. “No fucking shit.” She’s wearing a teal velour tracksuit. The hooded jacket is zipped up over her scar.

  She leads Essie inside. The apartment is small, cluttered, and tidy. Framed photos on every surface. Pillows and stuffed animals.

  On one wall is a large media center with an old flat-screen and dog-eared books—mostly self-help. Facing it are a set of sliding windows with heavy curtains that are closed. The apartment is lit by the overheads and a halogen.

  “This is a trip,” Orphelia says. “LAPD paying me a house call because I said pretty-please.”

  Essie opens her backpack and pulls out the files she’d copied at the station. “Can we have a seat?”

  “We can do whatever the fuck we need to now I know you’re taking my complaint serious.” Orphelia fiddles with her zipper. “But how come you’re taking me serious?”

  “Let’s sit, please,” Essie says. “There are a few things I want to discuss with you.”

  “Like?”

  “Please,” Essie says, gesturing at the maroon sofa with the file.

  “So this shit is not about the white lady stalking me?”

  Essie sits on the couch, hoping Orphelia will follow her lead. When that doesn’t happen, she opens the file and pulls out the photos of the women who’d been murdered nearly two decades ago. She fans them on the table.

  She watches Orphelia cast her eye over the pictures. “Who the fuck are they?”

  “Why don’t you sit?”

  Orphelia folds her arms over her chest. “Why don’t you tell me how come you turned up at my place showing me a stack of pictures of dead ladies?”

  There will be stages like grief. Denial. Pain. Argument. Acceptance.

  If only she would sit.

  “Orphelia, these pho
tos were taken from 1996 to 1998.” Essie taps one: “This was taken December 1997. About a year before you were attacked.”

  Orphelia’s hand hits her sternum. “Attacked is beaten and bruised. I wasn’t fucking attacked. Had my throat slit, left for dead in an alley. ’Cept I wasn’t dead.”

  Essie taps another photo: Lecia. “And this, six months before you.”

  “What do they all have to do with me?”

  “Did the police follow up with you?”

  Orphelia laughs. “The hell does that mean, follow up?”

  “Did they ask you more questions? Show you a list of suspects?”

  “I’ll tell you what they did. Fuck-all is what. Took my statement at the hospital and then ghosted.”

  “They never came here? Never asked you for information?”

  Orphelia laughs again. “Ask me for information? You know what I did back then?”

  “I read your sheet.”

  “What kind of information I was going to give them? As far as the police were concerned I put myself in the way of an occupational hazard. Like getting your throat slit from time to time was part of the job description.”

  Essie pulls a piece of gum from her pocket and pops it in her mouth.

  “You need a cigarette, Detective.”

  “Never,” Essie says.

  She wants Orphelia to sit. It seems easier to break the news that way.

  She snaps her gum. It’s almost like notifying the next of kin.

  “Orphelia,” she says. “The women in these photos were all victims of a serial killer who operated in South L.A. until eighteen years ago.”

  “No shit,” Orphelia says.

  She doesn’t get it. Not yet.

  “I believe that the same man who killed these women attacked you.”

  Orphelia’s hand flies to her scar.

  “It’s possible you’re the only known survivor.”

  “Huh,” Orphelia says, like someone told her she should consider rearranging her furniture. “So this visit has nothing to do with my own damn complaint.”

  “You never tried to figure out who attacked you? You never followed up?”

  Again, Orphelia’s hand flies to her scar. “Figured they’d come to me. And they didn’t.”

  “So you let it drop?”

  “Men do all sorts of fucked-up shit out here. Get away with most of it. Anyway, who the fuck’s going to listen to me—lady sucking dick for twenty bucks a pop?” She adjusts one of her door-knocker earrings. “I don’t do that shit anymore, mind you. So, they catch the guy?”

  “No,” Essie says. “Not yet.”

  “So that’s why you’re here? You want to ask me questions? I’ll tell you all about it. I was outside the liquor store. Some guy pulled up in a fucked-up family car—a station wagon or some straight-dude shit. White. I can’t remember. Tell you the truth, I don’t want to fucking remember. All I know is he wasn’t black. Asks me if I wanted to try some of his South African wine. Next thing I know, I’m rolling around in his car. And my head’s spinning like a motherfucker. Then there’s this pain and for a moment it feels like I’m breathing through my neck.” Her hand flies to her scar. “I came to in an alley. First thing, I thought I was blind. Then I realized there’s a bag half pulled over my head. Down to my nose.”

  “A plastic bag?” Essie picks up the file. She scans it quickly. This detail is missing.

  “Did you tell the police who interviewed you about the bag?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Who the fuck knows what I said.”

  Essie’s certain now. Orphelia’s one of the victims of the earlier spate of murders. Except no one made the connection. She didn’t mention the plastic bag and the detectives didn’t bother to ask, or forgot to ask, or thought it was easier not to ask.

  Orphelia glances down at the photos. She picks up one. Then another. Then another. “Same motherfucker killed all these women?”

  “That’s what we think.”

  “Same as cut my throat?”

  “It fits the pattern.”

  “And he killed how many after me?”

  “I think you were the last.”

  “I was the last nothing. I fucking survived.”

  “Maybe that’s why he stopped.”

  Orphelia lets out another soft, rolling laugh. “So I did you all a favor. Saved you the trouble of tracking him down.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Essie says.

  “So this is what you came all this way to tell me? I was nearly done by a motherfucking serial killer.”

  “I thought you deserved to know.”

  “Deserved shit.” Orphelia clears her throat. “Now what I deserve, Detective, is for someone, you perhaps, to take me seriously and get a goddamn restraining order on that lady who’s stalking me. See those curtains? You know the last time they were opened? Neither do I.”

  Essie pulls out a fresh piece of gum. She can feel her mind starting to fly: Morgan Tillett, hummingbirds, Julianna’s mother hoping against hope.

  “So you’re gonna do that for me, Detective, since I’ve been mistreated by the LAPD and all? You gonna get me a restraining order?”

  “If I had a name—” Essie begins.

  “If you had a name? If I had a name, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because I’d have taken care of this problem myself. But seeing as I don’t, I’ve been putting my goddamn faith in you all.”

  There are ways. Patrol cars. Stakeouts. But no one is going to sign off on these for a nuisance complaint against a ghost.

  There’s another tactic. PTSD counseling. Therapy. Ways to indicate to Orphelia that grief and fear often manifest in external ways.

  Essie takes out her pen and pad. “Now when did this start?”

  “Are you a motherfucking goldfish? I told you all this shit earlier today.”

  Essie flips through her notebook. Orphelia is right. It’s all there: white woman, lurking, middle aged (maybe), passing by liquor store, new job. Started just after Orphelia’s attack. Then underlined and circled: PTSD / Paranoia? She circles these words. Draws a line under them. Adds three exclamation points. The mind is a marvel: suppresses one violence and replaces it with an imagined threat.

  Essie clicks her pen. “And the last time you saw her?”

  Orphelia gives her a satisfied look. “Day before yesterday.”

  “Okay,” Essie says, gathering up the photos and tucking them back into her file. “I’m going to take a look.”

  “And if she doesn’t happen to be there right now?”

  “I’ll come back.”

  “I’m gonna keep my eye on you, Detective,” Orphelia says. “I’m going to hold you to your motherfucking word.” She leads Essie to the door and holds it open. “You fools owe me. That’s what you do. You owe me.”

  In the doorway, Essie stops. “One thing. You’re sure about the plastic bag?”

  “I’m motherfucking sure.” And with that Orphelia slams the door.

  8.

  “YOU A COP FOR REAL?”

  “You the shortest LAPD I ever saw.”

  “You some kind of kindergarten cop?”

  The men outside Orphelia’s have been tying it on since Essie went up. Now the afternoon drink has become the evening drunk and their voices are loud and sloppy. Say anything to a lady cop, of course. Seems like an easy target.

  “But for real, maybe this is the great white ghost haunting Feelia.”

  “You haunting Feelia?”

  “You her phantom stalker?”

  Essie spits her gum into a pile of cups and bottles next to the stairs. She pulls out her badge. “Got this at the ninety-nine-cent store up on Pico. Want it?”

  The trouble they’d get in carrying an officer’s badge. Still no guarantee it will curb their lip.

  “While I’ve got your attention, maybe you could answer some questions for me.”

  “LAPD got no height requirement?”

  “As a matter of fact they don’t,” E
ssie says. “I could be three foot one and you’d still have to come to the station should I arrest you.”

  “Easy, easy,” one of the men says, holding up his hands. “I’m innocent, Officer.”

  Essie takes a breath. The way she figures it, Orphelia’s white stalker is straight-up PTSD. Some sidebar paranoia that consumed her mind after she was attacked. Something that she thinks she can control as opposed to the thing she couldn’t. But Essie said she’d check it out. And she’s here. So.

  “This your regular spot?” she says to the two men.

  “Day in day out.”

  “No doubt.”

  “How long have you heard Orphelia talking about her stalker?”

  “How long is forever?”

  “And you’ve never seen anyone?” Essie asks.

  “Seen a lot of people.”

  “This is a big street.”

  “Busy street.”

  “Runs the entire city. North-south.”

  “I know,” Essie says.

  “So lots of people. Lots and lots of people.”

  “What I’m asking,” Essie says, “is if you’ve seen anyone in particular. Let’s say a white, middle-aged woman.”

  “Looking at one right now.”

  “With my own two eyes.”

  Essie knows how this would go if Spera were doing the talking. “I’m sure you know what I mean. Have you seen anyone watching this building?”

  “Don’t pay attention.”

  “None of my business.”

  “People do what they want.”

  She’s bled this stone dry.

  The sky is purple, fading to black. The cruise is about to pick up.

  Essie unlocks her bike. Tunes out whatever comments are hurled at her by the men in their camp chairs. Heard it all before. A thousand times.

  Yes, she’s sure she’s a cop. A detective even. Nope, she’s not a child playing dress-up. Nope, she didn’t steal her mommy’s badge.

  She rides a loop—down to Sixty-Sixth, over to St. Andrews, up to Sixty-Fourth. Down Western. Then the same loop but to the east, up on Denker and passing by Orphelia’s again.

  The men have gone inside. Taken their chairs. Maybe they think they said too much. Or maybe they were just satisfied and moved on to the next thing.