The Deepest Cut

by Dianne Emley

  “I see. I’ll get you everything you need. Always glad to help take a bad guy off the streets. I was with the L.A. County Sheriff’s for twenty-five years.”

  “Yeah? Where did you work?”

  “Fifteen years at the Temple City station. Norwalk before that. Retired as a sergeant five years ago. The first two years of retirement were great, playing golf every day. Never thought I’d get bored, but I did.”

  They exited the elevator. The walls were decorated with glossy framed photographs of rain forest flora and fauna interspersed with product shots that Vining recalled from the sales brochure.

  “A friend told me the owner of this place, Mrs. Carranza, wanted her own security team. She’d contracted out and wasn’t happy. I talked with her, checked out what she needed, and made her a deal. I set her up with the CCTV and smart-card systems. Hired a crew of watchmen who only carry two-way radios. She was paying for armed guards and didn’t need to. Why have armed guards when the PPD response time is so great? She lets me run the show. I still play golf a couple of times a week.”

  “Sounds ideal,” Vining said.

  “It’s worked out.”

  “The owner seems very security-conscious.”

  “She is. She started this company in her kitchen and she takes it personally when someone steals from her. Terra Cosmetika is a high-end product. Some of their face creams sell for five hundred bucks an ounce. Employee theft is a big problem, even with all the controls we have in place. We’ve had a couple of trucks boosted. Not here, thank God, but on the road.”

  “Is this building patrolled twenty-four hours?”

  “Yes, one of my guys is always here. Most of the employees leave at five, but they have people on the customer service desk twenty-four/seven. Mrs. Carranza doesn’t believe in outsourcing. She’s very hands-on about how she runs her company.”

  Vining read between the lines and deduced that the owner was a control freak.

  At the end of the hall, they reached a windowed door with SECURITY painted on it.

  Balch took a smart card from his pocket and held it up to the electronic eye beside the door. The door unlocked and he pushed it open for Vining. She entered a large office that faced the corner of Orange Grove and Newcastle. Arrayed on a wall were framed photos of Balch and his six security officers with their names on plastic plaques beneath.

  Vining looked them over. Some seemed familiar. She recognized one guy as a PPD officer applicant who had washed out.

  A clean-cut young Latino who was dressed similarly to Balch looked up from where he sat behind a counter. His nametag said A. MONTOYA.

  “Albert, this is Detective Vining from the Pasadena PD.”

  Montoya stood to shake her hand.

  “Here’s the closed-circuit monitoring system.” Balch led her behind the counter where there was a row of television screens. Each had a label describing the areas being monitored and carried a split screen of broadcasts from at least two and as many as four cameras. The views changed continuously as feeds from different cameras were rotated.

  Vining was impressed. “Is there any corner of this building that’s not under surveillance?”

  “The bathrooms. Mrs. Carranza wanted cameras there, but I talked her out of it,” Balch said with a laugh.

  He pointed to a monitor. “This one shows the feed from the two cameras you’re interested in. They’re set up to cover the loading dock, but they capture some of the alley, too.”

  “The tire store is two doors west of you. Can you enlarge the image from the camera facing that way?”

  “Sure,” Montoya said. He typed at a keyboard. The split screen disappeared. They watched as a large truck backed into the loading dock.

  “The resolution’s not great,” Balch said. “You can’t see the rear wall of the tire shop, but the camera would have caught anyone walking down the alley.”

  “Could I have the surveillance recording for the past week from this camera?”

  “Can you do that, Albert?”

  Montoya again typed commands. “I’ll copy it onto a DVD for you.”

  “Thanks. Do your guards do foot patrols around the property?” Vining asked.

  “Every hour or so, we’ll take a stroll inside the building and around the perimeter outside,” Balch said. “I’ll ask our night-shift guys, Eduardo Gonzalez and Tanner Persons, whether they saw anything.”

  Vining scanned the CCTV monitors, taking a virtual tour of the building operations. Something on one of the monitors made her move in for a closer look. It was broadcasting a clear shot of the street in front of the building and the corner where Scrappy had last worked.

  “Could I also get the feed from that camera for the past two weeks?”

  “Sure thing.”

  While Vining was watching, a person in a wheelchair rolled down Newcastle to the corner of Orange Grove. She blinked and realized her eyes were playing tricks on her. It wasn’t a wheelchair, but a bicycle. A man got off the bike and leaned it against the wall of the building there and approached the human directional in the gorilla suit.

  “Albert, can you focus in on that corner?” Vining asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  The camera zoomed in closer. They watched as the guy on the bicycle, who was in street clothes, took the large arrow from the guy in the gorilla suit, who then walked toward a car parked on Orange Grove.

  “Must be relieving gorilla man for a break,” Balch said. “Who knew that holding an arrow is so important, they can’t leave that corner unmanned.”

  “You ever see anything funny with those guys?” Vining asked.

  “You mean other than being there day and night? Nope. We’ve had our eye on them. I thought they were casing us. As time goes on and nothing happens, I’m thinking, maybe not. I’ve gone over there and talked to them. They all have the same story. ‘I’m paid to stand here and twirl this sign. I don’t ask questions.’”

  “Did you report them to the police?”

  “After the first two weeks, I did. Whoever I got in dispatch sounded like she’d had complaints about arrow guys before. She said there was nothing the police could do if all they were doing was standing on the street, not bothering anyone. I took things into my own hands. I make sure that my guys on each shift go over there to say hello, just so they know that we’re watching. I’ve got a funny feeling that they’re up to something, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

  The guy on the corner was doing acrobatics with the arrow, twirling it over his head and around his back, dropping it, picking it up, and twirling it again.

  Montoya held up his hand to indicate the television monitor. “I see these guys all over the city with those arrows. What kind of a job is that?”

  “He’s a human directional,” Vining said. “It’s a skilled profession.”

  “Looks like a skilled joke to me,” Balch said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  AFTER VINING LEFT TERRA COSMETIKA, SHE DROVE ACROSS ORANGE Grove and turned onto Newcastle. She stopped near the guy with the arrow. She recognized him. He was George Holguin, an ex-con and a longtime member of Scrappy’s gang, the NLK— Northwest Latin Kings. He had voluntarily come into the station along with Marvin Li’s other employees, but he had spoken with someone other than Vining. He didn’t know who she was, but Vining suspected he’d made the Crown Vic as a cop car.

  She rolled down the window. “Where are the apartments that are for rent?”

  He swung the arrow to indicate Newcastle Street. “Up there. You’ll see them.”

  “Thanks.” Don Balch was correct— the arrow guys’ stories were consistent. She continued up Newcastle.

  Small World War II-era stucco homes lined both sides of the street. The residential neighborhood was being squeezed by burgeoning development on Orange Grove and Mountain. The neighborhood was still reasonably well kept, with most of the lawns green and mowed, the houses well painted, and the roofs in good shape.

  At the corner of Mountain, Vining
saw Victor Chang standing with an arrow. He was wearing a red Aaron’s Aarrows polo shirt and a plush toy dog on top of his head like a hat.

  Something about Chang bothered Vining. All of Marvin Li’s other employees were hard-core gangbangers and ex-cons. Li had given them the first honest job they’d ever had. Chang, however, had graduated from San Marino High School and completed a few courses at Cal State L.A., though he wasn’t currently enrolled there. His criminal record was clean.

  Marvin Li had explained that he’d taken eighteen-year-old Chang under his wing to save him from the gangbanger lifestyle. To Vining, that would entail Li keeping on top of Chang’s activities, going out for meals or a baseball game, being a father figure, not having the young man stand on a street corner with a stuffed dog on his head and hanging around with a crew of criminals.

  Vining spotted the PPD’s surveillance vehicle on Newcastle south of Mountain. It was a Yukon Denali with tinted windows that the PPD had confiscated from drug dealers.

  She pulled to the curb near Chang, grabbed her digital camera, and got out of the car. She had interviewed him at the PPD about Scrappy’s murder. Like the rest of Li’s employees, Chang said he didn’t know anything about it and it had been a complete shock. Vining felt that he, and the others, had been telling the truth. Still, none of them would submit to polygraphs.

  “Hi Victor. What’s going on?”

  He shrugged. “Working.” Holding the arrow by the two handles on the back, he passed it around his back, like a basketball.

  “Isn’t it humiliating, standing on a street corner, wearing a toy dog on your head?”

  “Are you trying to humiliate me?”

  “Mind if I take your picture?”

  “Yes.”

  She’d already snapped him before he protested. In the next shot, she caught him flipping her off.

  “I told you I didn’t want you to take my picture.”

  She put the camera inside her pants pocket. “I heard you. Say, Victor … you’re a smart guy. Why don’t you get a real job?”

  “Why are you jacking me up? I’m not bothering anybody.”

  “You’re bothering me. Why are you standing here? You already told me you’re working. Tell me something new.”

  He again twirled the arrow around his back, then grabbed both ends and jumped over it, like a jump rope.

  “Where are those apartments you’re advertising?”

  “I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “Victor, I’m just asking where the apartments are. Why are you so upset?”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “You just flipped me off.”

  “I don’t like talking to cops.”

  “Why? You been in trouble?”

  He muttered something under his breath.

  “What did you say?” She could see him struggling to keep his anger under control.

  “Are you done?”

  “No, I’m not done. I won’t be done until I find out what you’re up to out here, advertising apartments that don’t exist.”

  He walked away from her and continued his acrobatics with the arrow.

  Vining returned to her car. She called Sergeant Early to tell her what she’d learned at Terra Cosmetika and on Newcastle Street. “Any possibility of assigning a couple of cadets to go through the CCTV recordings?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Early said. “Countless hours of tedious work will cure them of any notions about the glamour of police work.”

  Vining laughingly agreed. “Any updates from the surveillance team?”

  “They haven’t seen any unusual traffic patterns that would indicate criminal activity. No people coming and going at all hours. The street rolls up at eight o’clock at night. It’s all normal.”

  “Except for the arrows guys in costume standing on each corner most of the night.”

  “If there was drug activity on that block, they’ve put a lid on it since Scrappy’s murder. You’d think the arrow guys would have disappeared, too.”

  “I want to check out everyone who lives on that block of Newcastle,” Vining said. “I don’t know what Li’s up to, but he’s up to something.”

  “Where are you off to now?”

  “Gonna meet with Sergeant John Velado, the San Gabriel Valley Asian gang specialist at the Temple City Sheriff’s station. See if I can get information about Vctor Chang. And I might pay Marvin Li another call.”

  “You taking Caspers?”

  “I’d rather have him checking names on Newcastle Street.” Vining remembered that Caspers had been more of a hindrance than a help the last time they’d interviewed Li.

  “Keep me informed. Stay safe.”

  Vining drove off, taking a look around and glancing in her rearview mirror, ever watchful for a shadowy figure that could be T. B. Mann.

  “KICKER CHANG.” SERGEANT VELADO LAUGHED AS HE LOOKED AT THE PHOTO on Vining’s camera. “What’s he got on his head?”

  “A stuffed toy dog.”

  “That surprises me, that Marvin Li can get those tough guys to wear costumes like that. Interesting that Kicker Chang is working for Li.”

  Vining was sitting in a rocky, rolling desk chair that Velado had pulled across the worn linoleum floor to his desk. Pairs of old Steelcase desks were bunkered together in a large open room that buzzed with activity.

  Velado said, “We suspect Chang of being involved in a string of violent robberies of Chinese-owned businesses in Temple City and San Gabriel. The employees were pistol-whipped. Kicked after they were tied up. Word is, that’s how Chang earned his moniker, kicking his victims.”

  He pulled a file from a holder on his desk and took out crime scene photos. “Chang’s a junior psychopath.”

  “I didn’t think he was a choir boy, but psychopath?” Vining rolled her chair to get a better look. The chair tipped slightly on its uneven wheels which made her jolt forward.

  “A couple of months ago, we questioned Chang in the murder of a businessman and his girlfriend in a condo on Coolidge Street in Temple City. It was an incredibly violent incident. Six guys stormed the place and poured dozens of bullets into the victims. We had an anonymous tip about the IDs of the triggermen. They’re associated with a set called Hell Side Wah Ching. Chang’s name was mentioned. Again, we weren’t able to get anyone to come forward. Gets very frustrating.”

  “I know,” Vining agreed. “Who was the businessman?”

  “Chinese from Hong Kong. Rumored to have been associated with the Fourteen K Triad there. They’ve had a long-standing dispute with Wah Ching over the control of prostitution in the San Gabriel Valley.”

  “So Chang does run with a gang.”

  “Suggests it, but doesn’t confirm it. These Asian gangsters don’t represent like the African American or Latino gangs. Victor Chang is a classic case of a guy who leads a double life.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ll show you.” Velado stood.

  As Vining moved to stand, the chair tipped back on one of its uneven wheels, almost toppling her.

  “They need to get rid of this thing.” Velado pushed the chair ahead of him as he walked, shoving it to roll into a group of disabled chairs in a corner. He walked to a tall bookcase that held a collection of yearbooks from local high schools. He ran his index finger down the titles until he found the one he wanted. It was from San Marino High School and was two years old.

  Velado flipped through the pages. “Vctor Chang was an honors student. On the gymnastics team and debate team. Here he is escorting the homecoming queen.”

  Vining looked at a photograph of a smiling Chang dressed in a tuxedo. An attractive young Asian girl wearing a strapless gown with a corsage, her hair done in an upsweep, was on his arm. There was also a photo of the homecoming queen giving a surprised-looking Vctor a kiss on the cheek. The breezy caption said: “Go Girl.”

  Velado went on. “Victor’s parents refuse to believe he’s a criminal. Course, they’re only here a few months out of the y
ear. They spend most of their time in Taiwan where his father has a business. A housekeeper looks after Vctor and his younger sister. That’s not uncommon among affluent Chinese families. We call them the ‘golden latchkey’ kids.

  “After we questioned Chang in relation to the double homicide, he went quiet. His name stopped coming up.” Velado continued to flip through the yearbook. “He may have been told to lay low. It was news to me that he had a job holding arrows on street corners in Pasadena. Here’s Chang with the photography club.”

  Vining glanced at the photo and was stunned by another face in the group. “Can I get a closer look?” She took the yearbook from him. Standing next to Chang, proudly displaying a camera with a giant lens, was Ken Zhang.

  She flipped through the class portraits, finding Ken among the freshmen. He was also in a candid shot of a group of kids that was captioned “Friends Forever.” Vctor Chang was in it, too, with his arm draped over Ken’s shoulders.

  “You know anything about this boy?” Vining tapped the photo. “Full name is Lincoln Kennedy Zhang. Goes by Ken.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. Is he still a juvenile?”

  “Yes. I’ve already run him through JAI. He doesn’t have a juvie record.”

  “Why are you interested in him?”

  “He’s a friend of my fourteen-year-old daughter.”

  “I see.” Velado returned to his desk and typed commands onto a keyboard. “No LASD records on him. Does your daughter go to San Marino High?”

  “She’s at Coopersmith. It’s a magnet school for the arts in Pasadena. Ken Zhang goes there now, too.”

  Velado turned to look at Vining. “Nothing comes up. You want me to ask around?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Be happy to.”

  Before Vining left, she made copies of the yearbook photos of Ken Zhang, Vctor Chang, and the double homicide crime scene.

  THIRTY-THREE

  VINING PARKED ACROSS THE STREET FROM LOVE POTION BRIDAL. Nearby was a van for a pest-extermination company that Vining knew held a team who was surveilling Marvin Li.

  She dodged traffic as she darted across the street. When she reached Love Potion’s extra-wide front door, it was pulled open by Marvin Li. Out came a lithe young Latina who was carrying a swollen garment bag draped across both arms.