Looking Glass

by Andrew Mayne

  “Is this the kind of discussion where I should have legal counsel?”

  “Do you normally need to have a lawyer when you talk to someone?”

  “Considering what happened the last time a police officer surprised me and told me they wanted to talk, it may have made a lot of difference.”

  “I get it. To be clear, you’re not in trouble. I want to help you avoid it.”

  “Well, that sounds ominous.”

  “It’s a courtesy, trust me.”

  In my brief experience being under the watchful eye of law enforcement, I have learned that the vast majority of cops are good people doing a very difficult job. Even the assholes I’ve had to deal with were looking out for everyone else. Unfortunately, they saw me as the threat.

  Another thing I learned from the late Detective Glenn, who laid down his life so Jillian and I could live, was that really good cops work on two levels.

  Like an actor who’s recited Shakespeare a million times and is actually onstage thinking about what to eat for dinner, or a surgeon who can suture you up in their sleep while they dream of the golf green, a skillful cop can go about asking you questions, getting you to talk, while behind the scenes he’s guiding you somewhere. Maybe it’s not to get that one little clue or slipup. Often it’s to suss you out and decide if you’re hiding something and how you hide things.

  Like scientists, they gather data points. They ask you questions they already know the answers to. They ask you embarrassing questions. They give you the chance to tell small lies so they can see how you handle the bigger ones.

  There’s a reason lawyers tell you to shut up when a cop talks to you. If you’re lucky, that’s the first and last time a cop ever speaks to you. It’s your only good guy/bad guy conversation. As for the cops, they do it every day. They’ve met a thousand liars and heard a million lies. Yours ain’t gonna fly. They won’t tell you that you’re full of crap—they’ll keep you talking, getting you to lie about a bunch of things, making notes in their head while you tell yourself that you’re the most persuasive motherfucker on the planet. They want you to walk away thinking you got away with it, or so panicked you screw up in front of them. It all depends on how they read you.

  As I follow him back to his office, a realization hits me, one that should have been obvious the moment the cop stopped me. This is Detective Corman. The one who wrote the reports.

  This is a surprise to me, because I’m fairly positive the woman in the records office didn’t call and tell him some guy was digging around in a nearly decade-old case of his.

  Corman was aware of me even before I set foot in the building. Probably even before I decided to come here. And that’s what has my mind racing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ACCOMPLICES

  Corman sets a water bottle in front of me and drops a stack of folders on the conference-room table before taking a seat on the other side. Through the glass window, cops in uniform and in plain clothes go about their work, talking on phones, typing at computers as staffers move from cubicle to cubicle, delivering messages and making idle chat. Take away the uniforms and it could be just about any other office except for the toned forearms and percentage of mustaches.

  “Your experience in Montana. I read up on that. That sounds like one hell of an ordeal,” says Corman.

  “Yes, it was,” I reply drily.

  “How much do you know about William Bostrom?” he asks, no doubt getting ready to tell me something I don’t know.

  “He’s a grieving father, a widower, and an accountant. Nice guy.”

  “William is. Most of them are.”

  “Them?”

  “Did William happen to tell you who his biggest client is?”

  “We didn’t talk about his business,” I reply.

  “His biggest client is a man by the name of Justice Mathis. He owns a dozen laundromats around Los Angeles, three check-cashing stores, and several used-car dealerships.”

  “Sounds like quite the entrepreneur.” I don’t add that it also sounds like more work than one accountant can handle.

  “Oh, he is. Justice used to have another name back in the day. They used to just call him Master Kill. He was the head of a Crips offshoot called the Ninety-Niners. That was the number of rival gang members they claimed to have killed after the head of the Crips and Bloods went to jail and there was a fight for control.

  “The funny thing about Justice was that, although he grew up near here, he wasn’t quite from here. His father was a lawyer. Justice went to USC to play football and was a little smarter than the rest of the clowns. He knew how to act street but think like a businessman.

  “Instead of giving his money to his thug friends, he sought out a more educated crowd, guys without a record, and had them put the cash into property and businesses—avoiding the kind of red flags that usually draw attention.”

  “So what are you saying?” I ask.

  “William is a crook who works for another crook. A dangerous one. A man that gets people killed.”

  “Then why aren’t you arresting him?” Bostrom’s locked office and sealed cabinets are starting to make a little more sense to me. But still …

  “Well, that’s not my department. These things take time.”

  I suspect the reason he’s talking to me is because William is under surveillance and someone pulled a file on his out-of-town, white-guy visitor.

  “This is all … troubling, but I really don’t care what he does for a living or who he works for. I’m here to help him find out what happened to his son.”

  “Right.” Corman pulls an envelope out of a stack and pushes it toward me.

  The last time a cop did this to me it was the picture of a body. “Who’s the victim?” I ask, not touching the envelope.

  Corman gives me small smile as he nods. “You’ve been spending time around cops. It’s William’s wife. Did he tell you how she died?” He stares at me, waiting for me to reply or to open the envelope.

  As restrained as I’m trying to be, there is a zero chance a guy with my curiosity is not going to look at the photo. I slide the picture out and immediately regret it. It’s an image of a young black woman on her side in a pool of blood with bullet holes in her head and torso.

  “That was a year before Christopher went missing. The photo was taken in the back room of a janitorial supply company in Lynwood that was actually a count room. The newspapers reported that it was a rival gang pulling a rip-off.”

  “And what do you say?” I ask, taking the bait.

  “The count room was one of Justice’s, we’re pretty certain. But we have a theory that he was actually the one that ordered the hit, killing three people.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because they were stealing from him.”

  “William’s wife was ripping her husband’s biggest client off?”

  “Brenda. That was her name. And yes. We suspect William was in on it.”

  I’m trying to put this sordid theory together in my head. “But you say that William still works for him.”

  “Yep. William knows that could have been him in the photo. He screwed with Justice and was taught a lesson. How could he keep working for him—fear? Maybe. It could be that he hasn’t quite accepted the fact that his boss is the one that ordered the death. Hell, maybe William was on the outs with Brenda. They both were using and fucking around back then. Could be he pulled the trigger.” Corman watches my reaction to that.

  I can’t reconcile the man I’ve been helping with a cold-blooded killer. Corman’s given me a lot to process, but none of it is relevant to why I came to Los Angeles. “And still there’s a missing boy. Do you think he was stealing from Justice, too?” I ask sarcastically.

  “I think that kid had two very fucked-up parents that are the reason he’s not around.”

  While I don’t know what to make of the idea that William would have been involved in his wife’s murder, I can’t see the man sticking by Justice if he tho
ught he killed his boy. Underneath the calm accountant is a man perpetually on the brink of rage. I don’t think he’d go quietly if someone took the last important thing from him.

  “You have kids?” asks Corman.

  “No.” It’s still a strange notion to me.

  “Well, you can probably assume that if someone hurt your child, you’d do everything you could to get revenge. There’s one exception to that: guilt. If you knew you were the reason it happened. You’d spend your time chasing your own tail in a guilt spiral. William’s a man looking everywhere for an explanation except the one place he doesn’t want to. His own actions.”

  “So you’re saying it’s gang related?” I ask.

  Corman nods. “That’s the prevailing theory.”

  “Then answer me this question …”

  “Go for it.”

  “What the fuck happened to Christopher? Putting a label like ‘gang related’ or ‘drug crime’ doesn’t solve the case. The facts are still the same. Someone took that kid, and we don’t know who.”

  Corman doesn’t flinch. He simply slides over a stack of folders about eight inches tall. “Take your pick.” He yanks one out from the middle and opens it to a mug shot of a rough-looking young man with a face tattoo of a hand grenade. “How about D’nal Little? He’s killed at least three men we know of, plus been involved in at least a dozen drive-bys between here and Las Vegas.” He yanks out another folder. “This is Chemchee Park. Nice guy. He’ll even kill your goldfish. Or Jayson Carver? He shot two ten-year-olds at a party. Some of them work for Justice. Others are thugs for hire. Any one of them could have killed Christopher.”

  “And the body?”

  “It could be in an oil drum in Bakersfield or ashes in the bottom of some incinerator in one of Justice’s chop shops. Chances are there’s not an atom of that boy left. Or maybe it wasn’t even Justice that did it. He’s got plenty of enemies that wouldn’t hesitate to strike close to him. My point is—”

  I interrupt him. “You’ve got every excuse in the world not to give a fuck. I get it. To you it’s solved—just not processed and convicted.” I drag the folders of would-be suspects in front of me and stare at the faces. “Let me ask you another question: Do any of these gentlemen strike you as intellectual giants?”

  “Clearly, no. What’s your point?”

  “His bike was found nowhere near his route home from school.”

  Corman shrugs. “He was gone for eight hours before he was reported missing. The kid could have been in Anaheim by then.”

  I pull my phone from my pocket and load the image of Christopher’s bike. Something was bothering me when I first saw it, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until now.

  “Take a look.” I push my phone in front of him.

  “It’s the bike. And?”

  “Did you fingerprint it?”

  “The bike wasn’t missing. The kid was.”

  “Okay. Sounds a little sloppy to me. But that’s your call. I’m just a scientist. But take a look at it again.”

  Corman glares at me. “What?”

  “You found the bike, but you know what you didn’t find? And maybe the reason you should have had it fingerprinted?”

  “You’re testing my patience.”

  “The bike lock.” I point to my phone. “There’s no bike lock. I can’t imagine there’s a kid in South Central that doesn’t keep one on his bike.” I zoom in to the shaft under the seat. “You can even see the scrape marks from the metal chain.”

  “That’s not exactly what I’d call a eureka moment. Maybe in the movies.”

  “Nope. It’s not. But it’s proof to me of one thing: you guys did a half-assed job and threw away the one piece of forensic evidence that was right in front of you. I don’t know if any of the suspects you just tossed at me are the kind to plan ahead or cover their tracks by moving a bike. Maybe I’m wrong. But Christopher isn’t his father or Justice. The kid deserved better.”

  “Okay, hotshot. You’re clearly enjoying telling us how to do our jobs. I figured that was coming.” He slaps another stack of folders. “Why don’t you have a look at these, too. Over a hundred missing children in the last ten years. But I suggest you take the files back to Texas and keep clear of Mr. Bostrom. And by all means, tell him we spoke.”

  The fact that Corman offers this up freely tells me that they’re watching Justice and William very closely and something may be coming to a head soon.

  While I don’t doubt the broad strokes of what he told me, Detective Corman clearly only sees what he wants to believe. There’s something more going on. Something I can’t yet pick up on.

  I have some questions for William, but I need to get some more information on him first.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  FOLLOW THE MONEY

  Who is the real William Bostrom? Grieving father or banker for South Central’s version of Pablo Escobar?

  Corman left me with a lot to think about, not to mention, inexplicably, a pile of file folders of other missing children. I can only interpret this as an attempt to show me that he’s an overwhelmed man. I get the sense that it’s his ready excuse if I do find something—although that seems even less likely, given what he just revealed to me about William.

  Now it’s time for me to gather some Bostrom information of my own.

  I rented a car and parked down the street from his house right before I called him and explained that I would be running a few hours behind.

  In an experiment, you want to eliminate the effect of the observer as much as possible. Whether it’s measuring wolf populations in Alaska or trying to find out which path a photon takes through a gallium arsenide grid, you want your subject to behave as if you weren’t there.

  Twenty minutes after I make my phone call, William pulls out of his driveway and heads away from my position.

  As he drives into Compton, I try to keep a block back so it’s not obvious that he’s being followed. His first stop is one of the laundromats Corman mentioned.

  William spends about fifteen minutes inside before getting back into his car. He doesn’t carry anything in or out.

  Eight minutes later we’re at another laundromat. Again, he’s in and out in about fifteen minutes.

  This continues for two hours as he stops in at ten more laundromats, same routine. As I watch William dart in and out of these businesses, I wonder how many of them are legitimate and how many are fronts for moving drug money—if any. The small bills and coins used at a laundromat wouldn’t seem like the best place to mask the twenties and hundreds used to buy drugs.

  If I had to guess, he’s making random visits to check the counts. Laundromats are almost all-cash businesses, making it easy for dishonest employees to steal from the till.

  I suspect that William and his employer, Justice Mathis, are clever enough to put hidden cameras in their businesses so they can watch for the little tricks like resetting machines and exchanging cash for tokens out of their own pockets.

  After visiting a string of laundromats, William takes us to a check-cashing store, where a line of people, mostly Hispanic, stretches out the door, all of them waiting to cash their checks or get an advance on their next payday.

  This part of the economy is fascinating to me. It’s been a target of regulatory reform, as the government has tried to shut down payday-loan stores that offer advances with rather exorbitant interest rates. While I understand the urge to protect the little guy, I’m not quite sure if turning them away from a legitimate business and into the arms of illegal lenders is in their best interest. But I’m a biologist, not an economist. All I know is that where one system subsides, another, more predatory system will swoop in.

  In any event, the check-cashing store seems to be doing brisk business. The exterior’s as clean and professional as that of most banks; it doesn’t look like a front for something else. Maybe that’s the point and why I’m not a cop.

  William gets into his car, and a minute later I get a text: I’ll be
running errands for another hour. Won’t have access to my phone.

  Well, this got interesting, unless he’s heading to a massage parlor.

  I keep a discreet distance between us as I follow William into a neighborhood north of Compton. He reaches the end of a cul-de-sac and pulls through an electronic gate in front of a two-story house.

  It’s dusk, but the house is brightly lit and I can see an older black woman walking past an upstairs bay window. She’s dressed in a fashionable blouse and is wearing the kind of capri pants my mother likes.

  I type the address into my phone and do a search to see who lives there. Property records say it belongs to Ocean Dream Holdings. A search for that company leads to the name of a Los Angeles law firm.

  Staring at my phone has completely shot my night vision, to the point that I don’t even see the man with the gun approaching until he taps on my window and tells me to get out of the car while shining a flashlight in my eyes.

  My first instinct is to drive off, but then I see another man standing directly in front of me with a phone to his ear.

  I decline to get out of the car but roll down my window. That’s when I see that the man who knocked on the glass is wearing a security guard’s uniform.

  “Can I help you?” I ask, trying to play it as calm as possible.

  “May I ask what you’re doing here?” he says politely, still keeping the flashlight in my face.

  Meanwhile, the other man, dressed in jeans and a baggy shirt, shoves his phone in front of me and snaps a photograph before walking away.

  I check the guard’s uniform again just to be sure he’s a rent-a-cop. “I’m minding my business. If you don’t mind taking the light out of my eyes, I won’t call the cops and accuse you of assault.” It’s mouthy, but it’s a public street.

  “We had a complaint that someone was peering into windows.”

  “Then I suggest you stop doing that.” While I banter with him, I keep my eyes on the other man. Clearly there’s something going on here. “I’m happy to leave.”