When I awoke a few hours after laying my head on the pillow, I wasn’t sure I’d really slept at all. Nothing had kept me this preoccupied since I was traded to the New York Giants. Then back to the Niners. What a life!
I jumped out of bed, showered, shaved, and had my uniform on in record time. I didn’t even bother with a cup of coffee, and I realized as I drove to the motel, it was the first time I’d gone to bed without having a few drinks to smooth out the wrinkled nerves.
I parked in front of the Motel, on the road, and put my portable flasher on the dash. Being a cop had its advantages.
The man at the front desk had dark hair, skin, and eyes. I’d call them black and shifty, because they were. They became shiftier when I approached the counter. I looked him over and saw he wore the attire of his home country, which was somewhere where they usually wore turbans, I’m sure, though he didn’t wear one. The room smelled of curry and body odor. I’d rather have been holed up in a car with Rat, than in that room.
“I need some information about a man who checked into your hotel about four days ago. He would have checked in with a younger teen. Six foot tall and bald.”
A grin spread across the man’s face, and the stains on his teeth nearly made me gag.
“That describes half my customer.” His English was so accented, it was difficult to understand.
“What about the other half of your customer?” I couldn’t stop myself from the sarcastic remark.
It wasn’t a good start for me, since I needed information, and I needed to be nice to this guy. I had no desire to get a warrant.
“You smart ass.”
I nodded, “Yes, I am.”
He smiled bigger at this. “Me too.” He turned around and pointed to the camera in the corner of the office. “We got cameras. And they work.”
Incredible. So many places had fake cameras to scare people.
“How long do you keep your tapes?”
“You old school. We have discs. And we keep for a long time. Can’t overwrite them, so we buy the good kind with lots of information on a disc. Camera is motion operated. But we also have cameras in the hotel, and those we only keep seven days, because we overwrite the video.”
My turn to grin. “Can I see your tapes from Tuesday night?”
“Sure, you show me warrant, I give you tapes.” Not so smiley now.
“What if I told you I needed to see these tapes because I think the man I’m looking for killed the boy he checked in with?”
“I say, very sad. Then I say, warrant, please.”
“Thanks for your help.” I walked out before I said anything I’d regret.
Once out the door, I said, “Shit!” Then I went back to my cruiser and radioed in to the station.
Rhoden wasn’t due in for the day, so I took matters into my own hands.
I wasn’t on duty, officially, so I had to tread lightly. I didn’t want to piss off the powers that be, so I went back to the station and checked in with my lieutenant.
“Christianson, aren't you working nights this week?” He looked up from his paperwork.
“Hey, Lieutenant Doozier, I caught a case last night, and I was trying to follow up on it.” I invited myself in and sat on the chair in front of his desk.
“You get the overtime approved?” The furrows between his brow deepened.
“That’s just it, I’m new to this kind of thing. I found, or was led to, a dead body in the alley off Geary. Definitely a murder.” I didn’t know how much detail he wanted, and he seemed anxious about something else.
“So homicide is on it. How does this involve you?” He picked up the travel mug from his desk and drank from it.
“I’m working with them. They caught an APE the night before, so I told them I’d do the legwork.” I hoped the APE would get his attention.
“Yeah, the council woman’s husband. Who is your victim?” He took another sip from his cup.
“John Doe, known on the streets as Romeo.” And I just nailed the coffin shut on my chances of getting approved for overtime.
“You’re working a runaway’s murder? I doubt overtime will be approved.” He put the cup down and rested his arms on the sides of the chair.
“I’ll work it for no pay. This kid deserves to have his murderer put away as much as the politician does. Just because he’s a throwaway kid, doesn’t mean he doesn't deserve justice.” I could feel the heat rising in my face, and I told myself to calm down.
He pulled up a screen on his computer and looked. “Detectives Rhoden and Milliken know what you’re doing?”
“I guess. I mean, I told Rhoden I’d be looking into who the kid was and talking to the boys on the streets.”
“What do you need from me?”
I told him about the boy, what Rat had told me, and how I’d gone to the motel to get information and video.
“It’ll be good to see if we can make out the boy’s face, and get a sketch artist on this. I’ll do what I can to get you approved for overtime, but it’s slim. And get an affidavit for a warrant, then get the tapes.”
I could give a shit about the overtime. I just wanted approval for the warrant. I stood. “Thank you, sir.”
The lieutenant stood. “When you have it filled out, bring it to me. I might want to make some changes before we present it. And then, I think I have the perfect judge to sign it.”
I suppressed the grin threatening to overcome my face. I was going to catch this son of a bitch. And hopefully find out the identity of the boy to tell his parents the horrible news. But closure was important, too. Or so I tried to tell myself.
Doozier called after me as I walked down the hall. “Make sure you get DNA off the body. We might be able to get an I.D. from the Missing and Exploited Children database.”
I called Rhoden on her cell phone and left a message when it went to voicemail. I didn’t want her to be blindsided and be pissed that I’d continued to work the murder. I told her about the warrant, the motel, and that I’d be requesting DNA.
When I looked into getting DNA, Milliken apparently had more invested in the boy than he let on. He’d already requested DNA samples. As expected, we were unable to get fingerprints because of the fine and exacting work of the rodents in the alley.
I took my affidavit to Doozier for a final look, and he called the judge he had in mind. The judge was happy to approve the warrant, and after three hours of busy work and feeling like I’d been chasing my tail, I was headed back to the motel.
5
It was simply amazing how attitudes changed with that little piece of paper we call a warrant. I showed it to the clerk, who I believed to be the owner, and he pulled a box out from under the counter.
“I knew you’d be back. Tenacious, you are.” He didn’t smile this time, just pushed the box at me. “You’ll look at them here?”
I’d wanted to take them back to the station, but if I found something, maybe this gentleman could help. I’d have to go back to my car and get the Vicks from the trunk. I didn’t think I could stay in that office long without puking.
Rasheed, who was the owner, in fact, set me up at his office desk, and even put the CDs in the computer for me.
“I think this is the right day, Tuesday. But if not, I also pulled the day before and after. You let me know.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “You need coffee? Donuts?”
What was it with police and donuts? Doesn’t everyone eat donuts?
“I’d love a cup of coffee.” I’d had almost no sleep, and it was already after noon and I had yet to even eat. “And donuts sound good too.”
“Can I ask a question?” He had a hint of conspiracy about him.
“Okay?” I was afraid I’d have to answer, and even more afraid of the question.
“If I help you solve, I get an autograph?”
I laughed. “I’ll autograph anything you want, even if I don’t solve the murder.”
I swear he almost jumped in the air. “Thank you, thank you.”
I started the tapes, trying my best not to fast-forward. Can we say boring?
“Coffee, black, and glazed.” Rasheed put a paper cup and plate on the desk. “Can I be of help?”
I paused the tape. “I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’ll find.”
“If you tell me about the boy, maybe I know him. Maybe I have details.”
I thought about his offer. It couldn’t hurt to share non-confidential information.
“These boys bring me lots of business.” He shook his head. “I know it’s bad, but they’ll do it somewhere else if not here. The boys don't usually accompany the men checking in, you know. It’s best you start with the hallway video first.”
“This boy’s name was Romeo. And the man he came in with was tall, thin, and bald. Usually he wore a ball cap, but I don’t know for sure what kind. Drove a dark colored minivan.”
Rasheed’s eyes went wide. “Wait.” He scampered from the room.
When Rasheed came back in, he had a younger girl with him. She too wore traditional East Indian clothing, and I guessed her to be around seventeen years old, or so. Her black hair was covered with a hijab.
“Tell him the story you told me about the parking garage.” He looked pointedly at her.
She looked at the floor the entire time she spoke. “The man in the SUV, he had a single bag when he checked in. Then I saw him leave, and he had a bellhop cart. One bag and one huge bag. It looked heavy, and he struggled to get it in his car.”
My heart raced. “What did this man look like?”
Still with her head down, but her eyes peering up, she said, “Tall, with no hair. He wore a hat.”
“A ballcap?”
“No, it was like Indiana Jones.”
The change of hat didn’t mean anything. This was my guy. I knew it. I just needed a minute to decide how to proceed. Did I keep looking through the videos.
“When and where did you see him?”
“I work late at night, so it was Wednesday morning.”
I said a silent prayer before I asked, “Wednesday morning, as in late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning?”
She nodded.
“Where were you when you saw him?”
She looked at her father, then back to the floor. “It was a slow morning, and I was playing with the cameras in the parking garage. I can make them move so I can look around the garage. Sometimes I see the rats. Sometimes I see drug deals. Wednesday morning I saw the man.”
I could have jumped up and hugged her, but I knew better. “What time did this man check in? And what time did you see him in the garage?”
“He checked in around ten or eleven. I saw him in the garage around maybe three.”
I jotted down the times on my notepad. I’d now be able to narrow down my search.
That’s when the girl blew me out of the water. “His name is Aaron Cook.” Then she blurted out the numbers of the license plate on the SUV.
I couldn’t stop myself, I jumped up and hugged her and her father together. Group hug! You could have heard a pin drop.
When I released them, the girl smiled, and her father looked like he wanted to grab a shotgun.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m just so happy. You may have single-handedly solved this murder for me.”
I sat back down and went over the details again. The name, the license plate, the color of the vehicle. What time he checked in and out. I wanted to badly to go and run the license plate and see if it was registered to Aaron Cook. I curbed my enthusiasm and fast forwarded to the places on the tape closest to the times Rasheed’s daughter had mentioned. I found it in a matter of minutes. And there was something more.
6
Standing in the shadows of the registration office was the boy of medium height and average size. Rat had called him fat, but he wasn’t fat. He was normal sized for a twelve to fifteen year old. He had unkempt dark hair, and his clothes looked dirty in the black and white video. If only he’d look up, so I could see his face. Maybe the boys at the station had equipment to blow up the video. I marked the exact time on the tape in my notebook, then moved to the parking garage video.
A tall man, wearing a fedora moved quickly into view. He pulled a bellhop cart that had two bags, one was a small duffle bag, the other was a large plastic bag, maybe several plastic bags over each other. He opened the back of his SUV, tossed the duffle bag in, then looked around the parking garage before he tried to lift the plastic package into the car. It was heavy and awkward, and he tried several different positions to get a good fix on the unwieldy package.
And that’s when I saw the tear in the bag. I looked closer at the video as the man finally rolled the package up from the cart, over the back bumper, and into the car. From the tear, I swore I saw hair. Hair. Romeo was in that bag.
Again, the lab tech guys would have to blow up the video to see the details, but I was sure it was Romeo’s head. Could there be blood, fiber, saliva, anything that would prove it had been Romeo in that bag?
I rewound the video and watched it again, then I popped it out of the computer and said, “Rasheed, I want to thank you and your daughter for everything.”
Rasheed frowned. “My daughter? This is my wife.”
Oops.
“Oh, I’m sorry, she looks so young, I just thought…”
Rasheed grinned. “She is very young. But not so young it’s illegal.”
And now I was creeped out. Poor girl. Arranged marriage for sure.
“Either way. Thank you. This is everything I need. I’ll have to take these two CDs with me, but I promise they’ll be kept safe, in case they’re needed for other evidence.”
“Who will pay me to replace them?”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I handed him a twenty, hoping he’d be satisfied. He snatched it out of my hand so fast, there was no question it was more than enough.
Once I was back in my car, I placed the CDs in an evidence bag and sealed them. I wrote the necessary information on the outside, then picked up my phone and called Rhoden. Maybe I should have called Milliken, but I didn’t think he liked me.
“Rhoden,” she said, a bit tired sounding.
“It’s Officer Christianson. I have a strong lead on Romeo’s killer.” The excitement made me spit the words out so fast it sounded like one word.
“Who?” Irritated.
“Romeo, our John Doe kid from last night. I have a lead.” I spoke with less enthusiasm now. I could tell she didn’t give a shit.
“Nick? What the hell are you doing? We aren’t investigating that case. We’re—”
I knew it, they had no intention of finding the asshole who killed this boy.
“Yes, I know you’re not investigating it, that’s why I am. And I have a lead. If you don’t want to follow up on it, I’ll go back to Lieutenant Doozier and take it up with him. I can follow up on it myself.” I knew I sounded like a dick, but I didn’t care.
“That’s not how things work Christianson.” I could hear her adjusting her phone. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Tell you what, I’ll be in Doozier’s office in about fifteen minutes. You can meet with me there, or not. I can tell this isn’t your priority, but it is mine. I’m going to do right by this street kid.” I hung up the phone, then radioed in for information on the license plate.
My cell phone rang. It was Rhoden. I ignored it.
The results came back to a 1998 Chevy Blazer, registered to Aaron Cook out of Alameda. Bingo. I drove back to the station, wanting desperately to go Code 3, but trying to keep my cool.
On the way, I radioed dispatch to let them know I needed to speak with the lieutenant, and that I’d be there in a few minutes.
When I arrived at Doozier’s office, he wasn’t alone. Rhode and Milliken occupied the chairs in his office. It was now standing room only.
As I approached the office, I heard Milliken say, “He’s in over his head, sir. And he’s not following protocol or cha
in of command.”
I walked in and said, “He, as in me?”
Dead silence.
I stepped up to the lieutenant’s desk and asked, “Can you open this and fast forward to the place on the video that I have here?” I handed him the evidence bag and my notepad. I’d jotted down the exact time our suspect arrived on camera.
Rhoden and Milliken looked at one another.
Doozier did as I asked, but he didn’t turn the screen for the homicide detectives to see. Once he viewed the scenes I’d indicated he turned back to the detectives.
“So, tell me what you have on this John Doe case so far.” He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk.
Rhoden and Milliken looked at each other, then looked at me.
“Well sir, I have—”
Doozier put up his hand to silence me. “I’m asking the homicide detectives, not you.”
Oh, shit. I’d stirred the pot, big time.
“We have a street kid, at least we are pretty sure he’s a street kid, found in the alley off Geary. It looked as if he’d been beaten to death and left in the alley at least a day.” Milliken looked from the lieutenant to me and back. “We’re still waiting for the lab to tell us if there was a rape.”
“Don’t give me the bullshit. I want to know what leads you have, what you’ve been doing to find this boy’s killer.” The lieutenant’s tone was sharp.
Rhoden spoke up. “We’ve been working the council woman’s husband’s murder, sir.”
“So one murder case is more important than the other? And it takes the two of you, attached at the hip, or whatever you two are attached by, to get the job done? One can’t get me answers on this boy?”
Silence.
“Okay then, well let me tell you what a wet behind the ears beat cop has gotten so far. He has a time and place for the boy, and the killer. He has video of the night the boy went missing. We have the license plate of the vehicle, and it’s registered to the same man seen with the dead boy in the registration office when he checked in to the motel.” He glared at them. “Tell me, you have anything even close?”
Monday's Child Page 3
