Land of Shadows

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  He nodded. “Fatburger. Damn good.”

  “We’re about to see a body.”

  “Yup.”

  I gaped at him—damn good or not, filling your stomach full of burger, then going to a death site wasn’t the smartest thing to do. “Where’s the RO?”

  A light-skinned black patrol cop stepped away from the small group of bystanders and shouted, “That’s me.”

  I grabbed my leather organizer from the passenger seat of the Porsche and pulled out a pen. “So, what’s the deal—?” The responding officer’s name tag read SHEPARD.

  “The site’s security guard called in saying he had found a body,” Shepard explained. “I arrived at 7:05 P.M., and got a statement from the guard. His name is James Mason and he says he was doing rounds when he noticed that the front door to unit 1B was open. He went inside, smelled it, looked around, and found Jane Doe hanging in the closet of the master bedroom.”

  “He touch her?” I asked.

  “He says no,” Shepard stated. “I reached the unit at 7:08 P.M., found the girl, then came back down to notify Lieutenant Rodriguez. Then I called Dispatch to send an ambulance, even though it was clear the victim was dead.”

  “And how did you know she was dead?” Colin asked, a pen poised over his steno pad.

  Shepard’s eyes flitted down to Colin’s rep tie and fancy boots. He chuckled but couldn’t respond out of deference to Colin’s rank.

  So, I responded to Colin for him. “Don’t know what goes on in Colorado, but living people in this state don’t smell like rotten pot roast.”

  Colin’s cheeks reddened. “I know that. Just askin’ a question. Just doin’ my job.”

  Shepard turned back to me. “After notifying the coroner, me and my partner secured the scene.”

  “This guy Mason got a jacket?” I asked.

  “A deuce and a 415.”

  Drunk driving and general disturbance went together like chips and dip.

  “Did you FI this Mason guy?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Shepard said, then nodded to the quartet behind the yellow tape. “Now I’m interviewing the folks over there, but so far no one’s seen anything strange. My partner’s inside.”

  Colin said, “Good job.”

  Shepard rolled his eyes, all This guy …

  I turned to my partner. “Ready to meet the dead?”

  Colin did that smile-bite-thing. “I’m always ready.”

  Yeah. That’s what they all say. Especially the ones with their guts filled with meat. And then they fall to their knees and land facedown in a pool of their own vomit.

  3

  Shepard’s partner, a weasel-like cop with slicked-back hair, guarded unit 1B. According to him, no one had entered the condo since his and Shepard’s initial search. And even though this was now my investigation, he told Colin (because Colin had a penis) about entering the condo.

  I frowned and snapped my fingers in the uniform’s face. “Hey. This is my crime scene, understand?”

  Weasel Cop’s nostrils flared as he offered a solemn nod.

  Freakin’ broads were taking over the LAPD. What next? Pink Glocks and Spanx instead of bulletproof vests and all-steel Walther PPKs?

  Weasel Cop finished his daring tale of finding Jane Doe in the closet and glowered at me, certain that I’d lose my shit at the scene, screw everything up—it was just a matter of time.

  I placed a hand on Colin’s elbow. “Okay, so don’t figure nothing out yet. Just look, all right? Can’t have tunnel vision going in.”

  “It’s a suicide, not an assassination. No grassy knolls here, my friend.” He pulled away from me. “You don’t have to hold my hand—I’m not a crime scene virgin, all right? And didn’t you say somethin’ the other day about finding solace from a pine tree?”

  “Palm tree.” Jerk. I pulled a travel-sized jar of Noxzema from my jacket pocket and slid a coat of cream beneath my nostrils. “Need some?”

  Colin said, “Nope,” then plucked a pair of latex gloves from his own jacket pocket.

  “Just keep doin’ you, Rough Rider.” I tried not to laugh as I plucked gloves and a Mini Maglite from my other magic pocket. “Ladies first.”

  No one thought Colin would last a week in the Southwest. A generous soul, I gave him a month. In his first three days as an LAPD detective, the angels had been on his side. Day one: a stop ’n rob got hit, but the banger who did it forgot to wear a stocking and so we all saw the sprawling BLOOD 4 LIFE prison tattoo beneath his eyes. Patrol cops picked him up two hours later. Day two: a shooting left a hooker nicknamed Hoo (short for Hoover because of her … ahem … specialty) bleeding out in an alley off Coliseum. Vice caught the john, a social worker who immediately confessed. And day three, today: a Jane Doe suicide.

  Twelve years as a cop and I still wasn’t accustomed to the sickly-sweet smell of death. “Dead” had a taste—like you’ve eaten globs of rotting hamburger meat while sucking on pennies. That flavor clung to your taste buds, impervious to Listerine and obliterated only by time. But I put on my big-girl panties at every body dump and dealt with the horror. That smell, though … It bothered me. And I wanted it to bother me because it reminded me that this rotting corpse used to be someone’s kid, used to be someone’s mom, used to be someone.

  My eyes watered from the smell as Colin and I stepped across the threshold of unit 1B.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Is it me, or do you smell something weird?” I winked at my partner.

  Colin didn’t answer—he was sipping air like a guppy trapped in a dirty tank.

  I clapped him on the back. “You okay, bro?”

  He wasn’t okay, but he nodded and clicked on his flashlight.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have stuffed your face before coming here,” I scolded before clicking on my own flashlight.

  The condo was near move-in condition, only needing appliances, carpet, and faceplates for the electrical outlets. But you could check “buzz of a thousand blowflies” off that list, because this condo had plenty of buzz. Ten steps from the front door through the tiny living room was the patio. And the view from that patio? The Sears at the mall across the street. Some view for $400,000.

  “You look over here and I’ll look over there,” I instructed.

  A rookie detective, Colin shone his light at the ceiling.

  “Hope floats,” I said, “but blood and bone drop.”

  Puzzled, he scrunched his eyebrows. “What?”

  I pointed to the concrete ground. “Scan down here, too, Colombo. Because there’s this thing called ‘gravity.’”

  He blinked at me. “Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

  I shone my flashlight on the tiny foyer’s ground. No skid marks. No blood. In the living room, the size of a decent walk-in closet, I crouched on the balls of my feet and peered closer. Some parts of the concrete appeared cleaner than other parts. Darker. Like it had been recently wiped down. I directed a beam of light at the white floorboards, a place blood splatter could land. Clean.

  At the entry to the master bedroom, I looked up, I looked down, I looked everywhere.

  No blood.

  In the middle of the room, I crouched into a catcher’s stance again and scrutinized the concrete walls and floor. Nothing strange. Well, except for the intense drone of those flies.

  I drew closer to the bedroom and the buzzing intensified. As I stepped across the threshold, dread filled the pit of my stomach. I took a step, and then another, toward that closed closet door.

  As I reached out to touch the doorknob, I muttered a quick prayer. “Please help me to see.”

  4

  On the morning of Valentine’s Day 1988 (the fifth Valentine’s Day without my father), my mother, Georgia, stood before the bureau mirror in her bedroom, holding a bottle of Tabu perfume. She sprayed her wrists, her long neck, and behind her knees. Then, she smiled the way a woman smiles when she knows another’s nose will enjoy those scented places.

  Days before, Tori and I had noticed the recent primpin
g and perfuming. We had noticed the looseness in her shoulders, the late-night telephone calls, the smiles not meant for us. According to Tori, Mom of Perpetual Mourning now had a man.

  And on this morning, she caught my reflection staring at her from the bedroom doorway. “Why don’t you hang out with friends tonight?” she said. “Tori’s going to a dance, and I … have plans.”

  I gawked at her—she never let me hang out with friends after sunset.

  Mom lifted an eyebrow, then turned around to face me. “You do have friends, don’t you?” She sounded just like Tori.

  Dumbstruck, I nodded. “Shawnee said I could come over whenever I wanted.” Shawnee lived in the Tahitian Towers just a few blocks south of my apartment building.

  “Think I can trust you to sleep over there tonight? You’re almost thirteen. I think it’s time.” She sat the perfume bottle on the dresser. “Just as long as that little whore ain’t there.”

  After school, I walked home with Shawnee. Kimya (six months pregnant and rechristened “that little whore” by moms everywhere) sat on the porch of Shawnee’s apartment unit. Kimya’s tight New Edition T-shirt rode high, showing a belly striped with stretch marks and bulging with a kid she’d already named Ransom Unique. “Dang, y’all took forever,” she complained. “I been sittin’ here since two.”

  Shawnee slipped a key into the front door lock. “We get out later than St. Anne’s, remember?” St. Anne’s was the School for the Colored and Knocked Up.

  Shawnee’s mother, Miss Linda, worked as a clerk at Paramount Studios, and their apartment reflected her devotion to Hollywood. Framed posters—Fatal Attraction, The Golden Child, Crocodile Dundee, and on and on—hung on every wall, and countless videotapes and screenplays were crammed into cabinets and piled high on every flat surface.

  For dinner that night, Miss Linda ordered us Chinese food and sat cans of Shasta on the kitchen table already crowded with yellow legal pads of her own scripts. Before leaving for her date, she gave us each a tiny box of Godiva chocolates and told us to “be good.” And once Miss Linda’s old Honda Civic rumbled out of the carport behind the apartment, we carried our dinner from the kitchen and to the coffee table in the living room.

  Kimya shoved her can of soda between the couch cushions. “I’m thirsty.”

  “We got sweet tea if you want some of that,” Shawnee said as she pushed Eddie Murphy Raw into the VCR.

  Kimya frowned. “I want a real drink. A grown-up drink.”

  “Who a grown-up?” I asked, nibbling an eggroll.

  “If you can have a baby,” Kimya reasoned, “then you a grown-up. And if you a grown-up, then you can have something stronger than a stupid-ass soda.” She rubbed her belly. “Both of y’all can have babies, so y’all is grown-ups.”

  Shawnee chewed on her knuckles, then sighed. “Follow me.”

  Our journey ended in the dining room and in front of a filled liquor cabinet. “What you want?” Shawnee asked.

  “Let Lulu choose,” Kimya said.

  “Umm…” I grabbed the only alcohol that I knew—the purple velvet bag of Crown Royal whisky. My father’s brand.

  On my third glass of 80-proof Canadian whisky and Shasta cola, I staggered to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. Then I passed out.

  The next time my eyes opened, the digital clock on Shawnee’s desk read 8:43 P.M. Tori stood over me. Her lipstick and eyeliner were smeared, and her breath reeked of cigarettes and beer. “Get your bag and come on,” she spat, pulling me from the bed.

  Shawnee and Kimya had disappeared, and Miss Linda, arms crossed and frown in place, saw Tori and me to the front door. Each step I took tore a chunk out of my flesh—I’d be a Lilliputian by the time I climbed into my own bed.

  “Thank you, Miss Linda,” Tori shouted as we headed to the sidewalk. “Sorry for the trouble.”

  The fresh air made it easier to breathe—I wanted to drink it and then bathe in it. My knees wobbled and the top part of me moved ahead of my lower half, like a fanned-out deck of cards.

  Tori trudged several steps ahead, actively ignoring me while rapping the lyrics of “Fuck Tha Police.”

  “Mom home?” I croaked.

  She glared back at me. “What do you think?” One of her boyfriends had needed a good chew after dinner, and had left a fresh hickey as purple as a huckleberry on Tori’s neck. She grabbed a lighter and a pack of Kools from her purse and lit up. The cigarette’s fiery tip bobbed in the dark and smoke snaked around her head.

  “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” I asked.

  Tori said nothing and pulled on the cigarette.

  “Well, I’m not. My stomach was empty.”

  She blew smoke into the air, then, in her best Joan Collins voice, said, “You, darling, are a spoiled bore. Overprotected and scared of Jesus and mom and your own shadow. Can’t even get fucked up properly without needing somebody else to rescue you. You’re lucky I was home when Linda called.”

  Her words hit me in the gut, and just like that, tears and snot gushed down my face and onto my T-shirt already crusted with vomit, whisky, and soy sauce.

  Tori threw her cigarette into the street and reached into her purse again, this time pulling out a wad of tissues. She handed them to me and watched as I dried my face. “I have so much to teach you, Lulu.”

  At home, we retreated to our bedroom. “Take a hot shower,” my sister instructed as she pulled a set of my pajamas from the dresser. “So hot that it hurts. Then, pop three aspirin before you get into bed. Oh—brush your teeth. Twice.”

  Lessons one, two, and three.

  The next morning, the bright sun pulled me from sleep just five minutes later than my regular waking time. My head didn’t pound and my breath … well, it stank but not like a corpse had been reanimated behind my molars.

  I followed the fragrance of toast and bacon to the kitchen. Tori sat at the counter, dumping ketchup over her eggs. She wore the tank top version of her green-and-white Dorsey High cheer outfit.

  “Hey,” I said, climbing onto the empty stool, “I don’t feel hung over.”

  The hickey on her neck no longer existed, courtesy of mom’s bottle of Fashion Fair Copper Blaze foundation. “How the hell would you know how ‘hung over’ feels?”

  I dropped my eyes—I didn’t know—and stared at the tattoo on her left biceps. “When did you get that?” I asked, jabbing at the black, swirling letters. “Who’s G-Dog?”

  She slapped at my hand. “So what’s your story? Mom’s gonna want to know why you came home last night. And if you say that Miss Linda brought you, then she’s gonna call over there and thank her. And if you say I brought you … You can’t say that I brought you.”

  I stared at the countertop. “I … umm…”

  Tori stuffed her mouth with eggs. “Tell her a version of the truth but leave out the parts where you fucked up. She’ll believe you—she always believes you. I bet that she’ll throw you a parade.”

  “Okay,” I said, eyes burning with tears. “But I don’t know how … What…?” A tear slipped down my cheek.

  Tori dropped her fork, then used a napkin to wipe my face. “This is what you’ll say…”

  Ten minutes later, I was deep into my fish story. “And when they pulled out the whiskey bottle,” I was saying to Mom, wide-eyed, “I knew it wasn’t right. Shawnee listened to me but Kimya didn’t—and I swear that I didn’t even know that Kimya was gonna be there. So I left and ran home.”

  Mom poured coffee into her mug, then squinted at me with bloodshot eyes. “Good. That was a brave thing to do. I’m still not happy that Kimya—”

  Tori sashayed into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and grabbed an orange from the crisper. She was now wearing her long-sleeved cheer uniform.

  “Victoria,” Mom said.

  Tori turned and her green-and-white pleated skirt went whee!

  “Did Lulu tell you about her adventure last night?”

  Tori rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I care about Lulu’s a
dventures. By the way, I still need fifty dollars to pay off my class ring.”

  Mom frowned. “By when?”

  “By today.”

  “Today?” Mom screeched. “Tori, why the hell—?”

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Tori asked me.

  I nodded. To Mom, I said, “Leadership Class has a field trip to City Hall today, remember?”

  Mom, eyes hot on Tori, waved her hand: I was dismissed. “Victoria, what is your problem? You are becoming more and more…”

  Before leaving the kitchen, I glanced back at my big sister and mouthed, “Thanks.”

  Tori glared at me, then winked.

  5

  There she was, my newest Jane Doe, hanging in the closet just like I had been told. A black girl, couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, her body teeming with wriggling maggots and blowflies. Some of the hair behind her right ear looked gummy and matted. Blood? Even though she was now bloated with gas, I could still tell that she had been a little thing. She wore a blue-and-yellow cheerleader’s uniform, the tank top with the word VIKINGS printed in white, and a white-striped skirt torn at the hem. Stained white anklets. No sneakers.

  Where are your shoes? How did your skirt tear? Why are you here?

  Her legs were splayed before her and her hands had been tied behind her back with a yellow Vikings scarf.

  My mind scrolled through a list of Los Angeles–area high school mascots. Who are the Vikings?

  Jane Doe also wore a green-and-red Gucci web belt around her neck, pulled so tight that her eyes had bugged and her tongue stuck out from between her lips. The rest of the belt had been looped around the closet’s crossbar. An iPhone sat near her left foot.

  For just a moment, my heart broke and I almost dropped to my knees—I had wanted all of this to be a mistake, a practical joke, or even a modern-day Lazarus story that ended with Jane Doe coming to and explaining that she and her buddies were just fucking around and it all got a little out of hand.

  But I’ve never experienced those stories. I’m labeled “homicide” for a reason.