by M. Z. Kelly
I’d recently been in counseling to deal with some issues regarding my adoptive mother not telling me about my birth mother until recently. Lindsay had gone to one of the sessions with me and had broken down, telling me and the therapist that her father had molested her when she was a girl. She’d also told Natalie and Mo what had happened. I knew that my friends only wanted the best for Lindsay, but, given their history, there was no telling what kind of trouble they’d stir up.
“You’re a big worry wart,” Natalie said. “Mo and me already treat Lindsay like our little sister. We’ll take care of her.”
Mo seconded what Natalie had said. After listening to her go on about it for a few minutes, I decided it wasn’t worth arguing about. Mo then changed the subject. “What’s the latest with the girl you guys found in the cave this morning?”
I tried not to discuss my cases with my friends and was noncommittal. “If you watched TV then you know almost as much as I do.”
“Heard it was some bad shit that went down,” Mo continued. “I’m gonna put some feelers out on the streets, see what I can find out.”
I knew that Mo had a lot of contacts from when she worked the streets as a pimp who tried to get girls off the stroll. While I had no plans to discuss the case with them, I also knew that we could use all the help we could get.
“Let me know what you hear.” I yawned, finally feeling the effects of my wine, as I moved the conversation in a new direction. “So, what’s happening with Hollywood Girlz?”
My friends had recently gotten parts in an Internet sit-com. From what I knew about the show, they were supposed to be roommates to a small time actress, played by Carly Hogg, who also lived in our apartment complex.
“We’re in production hell,” Mo said. “They gotta come up with the funding to pay the writers and studio people. In the meantime, we’re on hiatus, so we gotta concentrate on our PI business.”
“Hey, I just remembered something,” Natalie said, changing the subject. “Lindsay told us that you and the cowboy are history. She said you kicked Buck to the curb.”
Her reference to the cowboy was because I’d been dating a detective who was originally from Texas that I’d met while on vacation with my friends on Catalina Island. Buck McCade’s mentally ill ex-wife had begun stalking me when she’d learned we were dating. I’d recently broken off the relationship after seeing a counsellor where I’d come to understand that I was choosing relationships to try and make up for the losses I’d suffered in my life. I also knew that I couldn’t be involved in a relationship where there was a potential stalker involved.
“I’ve decided to put any relationships on hold for a while,” I said, confirming what Natalie had mentioned. “I need to be sure I’m making the right decisions before I get involved with anyone again.”
“Kate’s vagina is in mothballs,” Mo said, looking over at Natalie.
That was Natalie’s cue to demonstrate that she lacked any tact. “Maybe her magic muffin will end up extinct.” She looked at me. “You might even end up in a museum someday with a sign that says you were a Vaginasaurus that withered up and died from lack of use.”
I laughed and stood up. “All I’ve got to say is that I feel sorry for the museum visitors. I’ll see you both later.”
Half an hour later I was in bed, again thinking about the girl we’d found in the cave. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I imagined that I was having a conversation with her, maybe like that dead girl in the book The Lovely Bones. We were sitting on a bench somewhere surrounded by clouds as I said to her, “Tell me who did this to you.”
Her sad, dark eyes found me for a moment before his gaze drifted off. “A monster.”
I reached over and took her hand. “Does the monster have a name?”
She brushed a tear and found my eyes again. “Yes, and neither of us is going to rest until you find him.”
I started to ask her his name when the darkness swallowed us up. We were in a place without light or dreams; a place where a monster hid in the shadows of the night and there would be no rest for either of us until I shined the light of justice on him.
SIX
Bernie and I arrived at the station at eight the next morning, after I stopped for a latte at Starbucks. I’d drifted in and out of a restless sleep all night, seeing images of the dead girl and having imaginary conversations with her. It was something that I mentioned to Ted after settling in at my desk across from him.
My partner broke off a piece of the muffin I’d bought him and regarded me for a moment. “We’ve probably all been there in one form or another, wanting to do the right thing by the victim. Sometimes making it personal by imaginary conversations isn’t so far-fetched.”
“Thanks for not telling me that I’m losing my mind.” Ted’s lips turned up but he didn’t respond. The thought crossed my mind that he might have been thinking about his deceased daughter, so I changed the subject. “Anything on our victim?”
He shook his head. “Oz wants to meet with everybody in his office in half an hour. Guess you saw the morning paper?”
I hadn’t seen the paper, so he handed me a copy of the Herald-Press. The murder of the girl was on the front page. They were calling her killer, The Stone Canyon Strangler.
“I wonder how they know our vic was strangled?” I asked, looking over at Ted.
My heavyset partner brushed a hand across his wide forehead and shrugged. “An unnamed source, according to the article.”
I tossed the paper back on the desk. “I’d like to find the unnamed source one of these days and tell him to keep his big mouth shut.”
“Got a feeling he’s got an unnamed brother or two out there who would step up, take his place.”
We both knew that details of our investigations were leaked, sometimes even before we left a crime scene and made it back to the station. Working the high profile cases in Section One only compounded the problem, often leaving us trying to do damage control behind the media coverage.
We assembled in the lieutenant’s office a few minutes later, Bernie finding a place in the corner to take his morning snooze. When Oz had taken over Section One a few days earlier, he’d expanded his office into an adjacent conference room. The result was a spacious, homey workspace where we all felt comfortable and at ease.
Oz had picked up some muffins on the way to work and, when Selfie and Molly joined us, we took a moment and chatted about our personal lives.
“I’m seeing a new guy named Olaf,” Selfie said with a cryptic smile. Our crime analyst had gone light on the metallic piercings this morning. I only counted a dozen in her brows and lips.
“Wasn’t that the name of the guy in that kid’s movie, Frozen?” Oz asked, smiling at Selfie. “I think my grandkids said something about him once.”
“Yeah, but my guy is a lot warmer than the movie character. He doesn’t have a carrot for a nose, either.”
“Olaf’s a snowman,” Ted explained for my benefit.
“My kids love that movie,” Molly added. “I’ll bet they’ve watched it at least fifteen times.”
Our secretary was in her mid-thirties with red hair and green eyes. She’d recently confided in me that her husband had cheated on her and had moved in with his girlfriend, leaving her to raise their two children. I sympathized with her, given that my ex had done the same thing to me a couple of years back. I was just thankful that I didn’t have any kids to raise on my own.
“Okay, let’s get down to it,” Oz said, leaning back in his chair after some more chatter.
I noticed that our lieutenant, whose given name was Alfonso, had several characters from The Wizard of Oz on a shelf behind him, probably given to him by line staff that the Great and Powerful had worked with in the past.
The lieutenant went on, “I don’t have to tell you that the press is already all over our case. There’s a strong wind blowing from city hall and if we’re not careful the stink is gonna land on us, given my predecessor’s indiscretions.”
> Our former lieutenant, Fred Conrad, had recently been removed from his duties after it was learned that he was hooking up with prostitutes in his spare time. As it turned out, Conrad had been frequenting a hotel where Mo had once worked getting prostitutes off the streets. When she’d mentioned what had been happening to Natalie, a sting had been set up using my gorgeous friend.
Conrad had been caught with his pants down—literally. I was told that our Internal Affairs Division had video of our former lieutenant exposing what little God had given him and asking Natalie if she’d take care of him. My friend had responded by taking care of the lieutenant’s career. He was now on suspension and facing certain termination of his employment.
“Molly and I got in at seven this morning,” Selfie said, after the lieutenant was brought up to speed on our case. “We ran our victim through the databases of girls reported missing in the past sixty days.” She glanced at Molly. “We think we might have something.”
Molly handed each of us a packet of information. My heart ached for the victim’s mother as she told us what they’d pieced together. “Three days ago a girl named Jenna Lee Collins was reported missing to the Seal Beach PD by her mother. Mom said that Jenna went for a walk on the beach and never returned. The physical description matches our victim.”
“Anything in the way of prints in the system?” Ted asked.
Molly shook her head. “Nothing that we’ve found, so far. We’re having the vic’s prints sent over from the coroner’s office this morning, so we’ll see.” Our secretary exhaled. “The reports indicate that Jenna had a small tattoo on her ankle. It matches the one our victim has.”
I pushed down my anger, remembering the SID technician who’d made light of the tattoo. I picked up the Missing Person’s Report, confirming what Molly had said, as she added, “Jenna is fifteen and active with her church, according to what her mom reported.”
“Let’s see if the prints are a match to anyone in the system before we ruin her mother’s life,” Oz said. He turned to Ted and me. “The autopsy?”
“I talked to my friend Brie a few minutes ago,” I said. “It’s scheduled for this afternoon. Ted and I will be there.”
“What about a bug guy?”
Selfie answered, “There’s a forensic entomologist who teaches at UCLA.” She looked at Ted and me. “I could give him a call and see if he can meet you later today.”
We agreed with what she’d proposed. Oz then said, “Since this homicide is unique, to say the least, let’s also enter it into VICAP and see if we come up with anything that’s similar.”
VICAP was the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program that maintained the largest investigative repository of violent crime cases in the United States. The VICAP data included homicides, missing persons, and sexual assaults. If there was a similar crime having occurred anywhere in the country it would likely be in the system.
As we were gathering up our paperwork, about to leave his office, Oz asked us to wait for a moment. He leaned back in his chair and his voice grew serious. “Just a word about our new unit.” The lieutenant’s blue-green eyes seemed to find each of us as he looked around the room. “Everyone knows that Section One was formed to handle high profile, difficult cases. The brass is desperate to prove its worth.” He paused and ran a hand through his white hair. “I don’t give a shit about any of that.” His eyes softened, maybe the hint of an emotion surfacing. “This is about a dead girl, someone senselessly slaughtered, and the people she left behind. We work the case for them, just like we work any case. This isn’t about the brass or the press or anybody else who might think Section One needs to prove something. This is about finding justice for our victim and putting the bastard who did this behind bars forever. Nothing else matters.”
As we stood up, I blinked back a tear. What our lieutenant had said touched me, making me realize how seldom I’d felt supported by my superiors in the past. For the first time since becoming a part of Section One I felt like we were all on the same page, working together for the right reason—for the victim.
After the meeting broke up, Ted and I ran into Christine Belmont and Alex Hardy outside Oz’s office. My pleasant thoughts about us all working together faded. The arrogant duo, also a part of Section One, had made our lives miserable in the past, undercutting us on a prior case.
Belmont was thirty-something and attractive in a soap opera diva way, with dark hair and sultry eyes. Hardy was a mushy ball of lard with a big mouth and a bushy moustache. Hate might be a strong word to describe my feelings about them, so let’s just say I despised them.
“Heard you two caught the Stone Canyon Strangler case,” Christine Belmont said. “Good luck dealing with the press.”
“We heard the vic was full of bugs,” Alex Hardy chimed. “Maybe you should call a pest control company.”
“Funny,” I said, bristling at his feeble attempt at humor. I hated the way some cops disparaged victims. I decided to let him know that, in no uncertain terms. “We’ve already got a tip that the bugs are a local variety. In fact, we’ve recently learned the source is right here at the station.”
“What are you talking about?” Hardy demanded.
“The bugs are native to bushes. We think their habitat might even be the one that’s under your big schnoz.”
Ted and I walked away as they went on a rant, disparaging me and Bernie, and asking Ted how he managed to work with someone who was mentally unstable.
“Sorry about you having to work with a mental case,” I told Ted as we settled in at our desks again.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” He glanced over at Belmont and Hardy who were still glaring at us. “The fact is, my life was pretty dull until you and Bernie came along.”
Ted and I had only worked together for a few weeks. My partner was well read and engaged in something he called Zazen. From what I understood, the meditative discipline allowed the practitioner to detach from external stressors in the environment by suspending judgment.
All I knew was that when I was around Belmont and Hardy, I felt like I was a Zazen failure. I once told Ted that the only way I could suspend judgment about the two detectives was if they were rendered blind and mute.
Ted and I pushed paperwork around and had ordered in some lunch before we were called back into Oz’s office that afternoon. I saw that Selfie and Molly were already there as we took seats around the table again.
“We just got a hit on the victim’s prints that came over from the coroner’s office,” Selfie announced. “Jenna Collins’s prints were on file because of some work she did with some foster kids as part of her church group.” Our crime analyst’s dark eyes found us. “She’s a positive match for our victim.”
“Where do her parents live?” Ted asked.
“Mom lives a couple of blocks up from the ocean in Seal Beach,” Molly answered. “The parents are divorced. No other children. Not sure if dad’s in the picture.”
“Let’s move on this as quickly as possible,” Oz said. “Her mother needs to know what happened. I don’t want the press somehow finding out before we talk to her.”
I blew out a lungful of air, dreading the next couple of hours. “We’ll make the notification and then head over to the coroner’s office from there. Jenna’s autopsy is scheduled for late this afternoon.”
“I’m still working on getting in touch with the entomologist,” Selfie said. “I’ll let you know if he can meet you later.”
***
Erin Collins lived on the second story of an apartment complex two blocks from the ocean in Seal Beach, a small community just south of the much larger city of Long Beach. We heard voices from inside the residence even before we knocked on the door.
“Are you here about Jenna?” a man asked after he answered the door. He looked to be in his mid-thirties with curly brown hair. My first thought was that he might be Jenna’s father.
“We’re with LAPD,” I said. “Is Mrs. Collins home?”
A woman who was blonde and slight of build peered around the man. “Did you find my daughter?”
I introduced Ted and myself, showed them my ID, and we were invited inside. My first ever death notification skittered through my mind as I prepared to deliver the news that I knew would haunt our victim’s mother for a lifetime. I also knew there was no other way than to be direct and factual during a notification, and then prepare for all hell to break loose.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to inform you that a girl’s body was discovered yesterday. Jenna’s fingerprints were a positive match to her. I’m afraid she’s gone.”
“That’s impossible,” the man, who we’d learned was Joshua Graham, Jenna’s church pastor, bellowed as Erin Collins slumped down to the floor in a fit of hysterics. The next half hour was filled with uncontrollable bouts of crying, denial, and questions about our victim.
“The girl…you think is Jenna…” Collins managed to ask after we took seats on her sofa. “How…”
I reached out and took her hand. “She was found in the hills near Hollywood…in a canyon.”
“She must be the one who was on TV yesterday,” Graham said, brushing tears from his cheeks. His voice had an angry edge. “What makes you think…she’s…Jenna?”
“As I mentioned, there were fingerprints taken of the girl. They matched some prints of Jenna’s that were on file…” I looked at Erin Collins. “They were taken when she worked with foster children.”
“That was a church activity,” Graham said, his gaze falling away and his emotions taking over again. “I can’t believe this.”
Collins continued to hold onto my hand. “How…how was she…”
“The coroner is still trying to determine that. We might know something more later today.”
