Cold Call (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 1)

by Dianne Emley

  “I’ll have what she’s having.” Somers nodded toward the little girl.

  The waitress sat a small bowl on a chipped saucer and pulled a silver scoop from a milky bath.

  “What’s a summer day without ice cream?” Somers smiled.

  Carmen responded with a tight smile. She dished chocolate ice cream from a cardboard vat with her back to Somers. The old man looked up over his newspaper. The little girl openly stared. The ancient air-conditioning unit whirred. The glass doors muffled the outside noise.

  “Make it two scoops?” Somers asked.

  Carmen rolled the spoon into the vat again and smashed a second scoop onto the first. She placed the bowl in front of him. The ice cream’s edges were already melted and creamy.

  “Something about ice cream on a hot summer day that makes you feel like a kid again, doesn’t it?”

  Carmen gave a quick nod.

  “Say, Carmen,” Somers began, “did you wait on the man who was murdered last week?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not on days?”

  “I was off that day.”

  “That waitress’s name was Carmen, too.”

  She looked at him, her brown eyes outlined with heavy liner. “I saw you at Alley’s funeral. You’re a cop.”

  Somers nodded and rolled the ice cream on his tongue.

  Carmen shook her head bitterly and turned back to her work, sponging down the chrome-lined linoleum counter. The yellow marble pattern was printed with faded silver star bursts.

  The little girl was still watching Somers. She brought a dripping spoon of brown ice cream soup to her mouth.

  Somers winked at her and then asked the waitress, “What did you see that day, Carmen?”

  “I already told that other one. The short one and another guy. They wrote it all down. Don’t you talk to each other?”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “You don’t look like a cop.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He showed her his shield and handed her his business card.

  Carmen looked the card over. “Okay. All right. This is how it was. He came in. Five-fifteen, about. Like he did every weekday. He had coffee. He looked at the newspaper.”

  “He didn’t have pie that day?”

  “Coffee. That’s all he ever ordered.”

  “He always only had coffee?”

  “His mama made his dinner. He was waiting to meet her bus.”

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “I asked him how his mother was and he didn’t understand. He finished his coffee. He paid. He left.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “The same thing they took him to the morgue in. Don’t you read your own reports?”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “His navy suit. With the pinstripes. A light blue shirt.”

  “He had other suits?”

  “Cabrón.”

  “He had other suits?”

  “A plain navy one and a plain gray one.”

  “Charcoal gray?”

  “Yes. Charcoal. This going to help you find his killer?”

  “Did he have his briefcase that day?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “What happened after he left the café?”

  “A vato stopped him in front. I was washing dishes with my back turned. I heard screaming. I ran out. He was on the sidewalk. Blood was everywhere. I went inside and called nine-one-one.”

  “With his briefcase.”

  “No.”

  “Wasn’t he carrying a briefcase with him?”

  “I told you I don’t remember.”

  “Didn’t he always carry a briefcase?”

  “Sometimes. Maybe. I don’t remember.”

  “You’re pretty observant, aren’t you, Carmen?”

  “I know what’s going on.”

  “You know Alley’s wardrobe and what he was wearing that day and what he ordered that day and every other day and you can recite the conversation you had with him. Pretty impressive.”

  She shrugged.

  “But you can’t remember whether he was carrying his shiny aluminum briefcase that his coworkers say he was never without. Something’s not right here, Carmen. Does it seem like something’s not right to you?”

  Her cheeks flushed.

  “Seems like you would have noticed if he wasn’t carrying his briefcase. You would have wondered whether the murderer took it. You would have looked around for it. Wouldn’t you? Carmen?”

  She squeezed the damp sponge over the sink and threw it on the counter, then marched into the galley on rubber soles past the cook, who was mopping up. A door opened. Things were jostled. Padded footsteps returned. She hoisted the briefcase onto the counter.

  “You try to do something nice for someone…”

  “What’s in it?” Somers asked.

  “Junk! It’s full of junk. Here.” She clicked the lid open. “See.”

  Somers put his big hand on the lid and closed the briefcase with a snap. “Did you remove anything?”

  “I wouldn’t take anything from a dead man.”

  Somers stood and the little girl twisted her head to look up at him. “Carmen, thank you for your cooperation.” He placed a few bills on the counter.

  Carmen folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the coffee station.

  “If you are ever unfortunate enough to be at a crime scene again, please don’t remove evidence.”

  “I was going to take it to his mama after the funeral.”

  Somers nodded. “I know you were.” He patted the little girl on the head, said “Ma’am” to her mother, nodded at the old man, and left. He unlocked the trunk of his car, which was parked in front of the café, and put in the briefcase. He looked up at the bright sun, which was beginning its downward arc in the lengthening afternoon.

  He took a few steps and squatted on the sidewalk. He looked north up Lankershim to see what Alley had seen, turned to look the other direction, then looked at the cement. The blood had been washed away, probably by a tidy shop owner. He opened the blade of a pocketknife and scraped at a chocolate-colored substance that had settled in the sidewalk cracks. He circled around while squatting and scanned the sidewalk and gutters. He used the blade to stir wrappers and cigarette butts that had worked up next to the storefronts, then crept crablike to the gutter and dragged the blade around in the refuse there.

  He got up and looked at the surrounding storefronts and upstairs apartment windows on both sides of the street. Then he started walking, zigzagging down the sidewalk, looking at the pavement, then up at the windows, then down at the pavement, squatting to dig at refuse and stopping to stare into storefront windows. He continued down the street like that until he reached the corner of Lankershim and Hortense. He looked up and a curtain in a third-floor apartment window dropped closed.

  Somers entered the building and walked up two flights of stairs onto a small landing covered with a threadbare carpet in a faded floral pattern. The air smelled of dust and mold and, very faintly, of lavender. He rapped on the door. No answer. A shadow passed in front of the peephole.

  “Hello! This is Detective John Somers with the police department. Please open the door.” He held his shield so that it was visible through the peephole.

  A shrill voice asked, “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the murder outside the Café Zamboanga last week. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “How do I know you’re with the police? Anyone can have a badge. Can buy one at the dime store.”

  “You can call my office, ma’am.”

  “Call your office? So what? Could be your friend sitting there pretending like he’s the police.”

  “Ma’am? Can I ask you some questions?”

  “Sure, go ahead. But I’m not opening the door.”

  “That’s fine. Can I have your name, please?”

  “What do you need my name for
? Isn’t this about the boy who was murdered?”

  “Yes, it is. Did you see the murder?”

  “Saw the whole thing. So what? So did everyone else on this street. Why are you bothering me?”

  “Could you please tell me what you saw?”

  “One of these young toughs walked up to the little crippled boy. You know, those toughs. You know how they do. I don’t even carry my purse any more. I pin my money and keys inside my clothes.” She was shouting now. “The way things are today. Terrible! Kill you just to look at you.”

  “What happened next, ma’am?”

  “I guess you are a cop. No one says ‘ma’am’ anymore.”

  “Will you open the door for me, ma’am?”

  “No!” she yelled.

  “What happened next, ma’am?”

  “They talked, then the tough stabbed the crippled boy and ran down the street and around the corner there onto Hortense and got into a car.”

  “He got into a car?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it? You hard of hearing?”

  “Where did he get into the car?”

  “Around the corner, there. Around on Hortense. I went to my bedroom and saw it out the back window. There was a car parked there and that young tough got into it.”

  “What kind of a car?”

  “A big, black car. Like a big, old Cadillac. Almost looked like a hearse.”

  “Do you think it was a hearse?”

  “No! It was big like a hearse. I think it was a Cadillac. With black windows—you know how they do.”

  “Did you see who was driving?”

  “The windows were black. I just told you that. Now don’t try my patience.”

  “Ma’am, thank you very much for speaking with me.”

  “Now, I didn’t get a good look at that young tough. And I didn’t see that car too well, either. So don’t come around here and expect me to identify anyone. I’m an old woman and I don’t see too well and I’ll tell that to anyone from the police who comes around here. You understand, young man?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Have a good day.”

  “Good as can be expected.”

  Somers jogged down the stairs and out onto Lankershim Boulevard and down the street to his car. A breeze blew hot, churning the refuse on the sidewalk. He bought a mango Popsicle from a street vendor, sat in his car, turned on the ignition, turned the air conditioner all the way up, and rubbed his temples. He took the wrapper off the Popsicle and held the Popsicle between his teeth as he pulled the car away from the curb.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Twenty-five-eighteen Camille was a tiny wood-framed bungalow with a wide porch and a low roof, built in the California craftsman style common in houses of the twenties and thirties. An overgrown palm tree stood in the front yard, shooting fifty feet straight up, its trunk shrouded with yellow fronds, its base covered with ancient ivy, thick with spiders, their webs white against the surface of the dusty dark green leaves. Aluminum chairs with patched plastic webbing were on the porch. A jangle of plants hung from the porch eaves in macramé slings strung with small shells. Iron bars covered the windows and an iron gate replaced the screen door. A glass wind chime tinkled in the breeze, which teased with promised relief but blew hot.

  Two mongrel dogs ran across the yellowed lawn and barked at John Somers’s heels, the hair on their necks up. A watchful shadow appeared in the doorway of the house across the street.

  Somers rang the bell, then knocked on the door’s wooden frame when the bell didn’t sound.

  A man Somers guessed to be about thirty and whom he recognized as one of the pallbearers at Alley’s funeral came to the door wearing a sleeveless T-shirt tucked into dark suit pants. Inside the house, Somers heard a television broadcast in Spanish and a jumble of conversation in two languages. He showed his shield and the man unlatched and opened the iron gate.

  “I’m Efrain Muñoz, Alley’s cousin,” the man said, holding out his palm. “I saw you at the funeral.” A faded gang tattoo was on the inside of his wrist.

  The living room was crowded with people, sitting thigh to thigh on the couch, on folding aluminum chairs from the yard, and on chrome-and-vinyl chairs from the kitchen. Somers recognized faces from the funeral but there were more children here. They must have been kept at home.

  “This is a detective from the police,” Efrain said to the group.

  There was loud silence. Everyone looked at Somers, appraising his red hair and freckles, his imp’s nose on the face of a big man, trying to reconcile his discordant image with the detectives they knew from television and the streets. A wide man with pomaded hair, another one of the pallbearers, got up from the couch, a gold tooth in his broad smile, and grabbed Somers’s hand with one of his and slapped his back with the other.

  “Welcome to this house, Detective.” He smelled of drugstore cologne. “The police are welcome here. You guys stopped a robbery in my store on the boulevard. I could have been killed.”

  An old woman sitting on a Naugahyde lounger in the corner crossed herself.

  “But, grace of God, the police got the guys.”

  “Tió Tito, why don’t you tell him about when they cracked Flaco’s head open for no reason,” said a young man sitting on the couch. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and his arms bore several blue tattoos, probably done by the local street artist with a blue ink pen. There was a cross emitting sun rays on his right biceps, a heart pierced by an arrow and dripping blood on his left, and CIRRUS STREET in three-dimensional block letters on the inside of his right forearm. A girl with long black hair, ratted high on top of her head, wearing white lipstick and heavy black eye makeup was sitting next to him, her fingers entwined with his.

  “Hello, Chuy,” Somers said. “And Blanca. Long time.”

  “Not long enough, azul.”

  “Quiet, hombre. I won’t have that attitude in my house,” Tito said.

  Chuy stood and slowly sauntered out the front door without saying anything, trailing Blanca.

  “My nephew,” Tito shrugged. “Acts tough, him and his homies, because they don’t got nothing. Care about nothing. Detective, sit down.” He pulled over a chrome-and-vinyl chair and placed it near Somers.

  Somers sat.

  “Can I get you a beer, a soda? Have something to eat. My mother made tamales.”

  “A glass of water would be great, thanks.”

  A woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen quickly moved to get the water. She handed Somers a well-worn glass tumbler painted with washed-out yellow flowers.

  “Detective, what can we do for you?” Tito asked.

  “I came to talk to the people who were close to Alley, to try to put the pieces together. Who else lives here?”

  “Alley’s mother, who is my sister, my wife and two daughters, and my mother, too.” He gestured toward the old woman on the Naugahyde lounger. She nodded at Somers regally. “We brought Alley and his mother from Mexico ten years ago so that he could go to go to deaf school here.”

  Other conversation had stopped except for whispering behind hands. Somers looked over the furnishings, which included a sofa and love seat in burgundy velour, a smoked-glass coffee table with a chrome base, and a chrome-and-glass wall unit, all sparkling new. The wall unit’s fluorescent lights spotlighted a flamenco dancer doll in one cubicle, dressed in stiff pink chiffon, and a gold plaster bull in another. A clutter of framed photographs was on a center shelf. A crucifix hung over the door. Two black velvet paintings of bull fighting scenes were on a wall above the television, which was a wide-screen model and new. So were the two videocassette recorders and the stereo with compact disk player that Somers had priced himself and decided was too expensive for him.

  “Mr. Muñoz, you said you have a store.”

  “Clothing store. Fifteen years.”

  “You look like you’re doing well for yourself.”

  “Yes, yes. But we all work. Me, my wife, and Alley’s mother, Maria. And Alley. He made good mon
ey, especially after he got promoted.”

  “Promoted?”

  “Oh, yes. They made him director of their Mexico business. Big job. They sent him to Mexico and everything. Very big job.” Tito nodded to emphasize how big the job was.

  “Who sent him?”

  Tito shrugged. “His bosses.”

  “Which boss? Who did he talk about?”

  “Oh, he talked, you know. He talked about lots of people. He loved his job. He was so proud when he got that job, Detective.” Tito put his hand on Somers’s thigh and leaned closer. “He got up so early in the morning. Put on his suit. Took his briefcase.” Tito puffed up to show how Alley looked. “I told him he could work in the store with me. But no. Not Alley. He’d say, ‘Tió, my future is there,’ and he’d point downtown.

  “Mr. Raab was the big boss. He gave Alley a gold pen with his name on it for Christmas. Alley was so proud of that pen. Put it in his pocket, here, he said, just like the big shots. Jaynie was his supervisor. There was Iris. Iris was his special friend. There was, ahh… let’s see… Teddy. I can’t keep them all straight.”

  “Why was Iris his special friend?”

  “She knew the sign language. Alley could talk, you know. But if you didn’t know him, he was hard to understand. And he was very proud. He knew he didn’t sound right. The way people looked at him. That hurt him. So with Iris, he had someone he could talk to in his language.”

  “What did he do on his trips to Mexico?”

  “Business.” Tito raised his palms. “He wasn’t supposed to say. It was confidential.”

  “He never told you what he did in Mexico?”

  “Took take care of business. If they told him not to say, he wouldn’t say. That was Alley. But he’d always visit his hometown and see his friends there.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Oaxcatil.”

  “W-A-C-A…”

  “No. O-A-X-C-A-T-I-L. Oaxcatil. Same name as the volcano there.”

  “How many trips did he make?”

  “Let’s see. Three . . no… two. He was getting ready to go again then… you know. I’ll show you.”