by Miles Corwin
“What’s this?”
“The DVD of the Sung shooting. I know you’ve seen it. But I thought you’d like a copy.”
As Pardo drove off, I flipped through my yellow legal pad where I’d jotted down Latisha’s daughter’s address. She was a fourteen-year-old freshman at Crenshaw High School named Darnella Ferguson. I recalled that although she had her father’s last name, she’d never met him. After her mother was killed, she moved in with the family of her best friend, a girl she called her play sister.
When I’d interviewed her a few months ago, she tossed me out of the house and called I.A. to complain. She blamed me for her mother’s murder. I dreaded seeing her again, but I knew I had to start there. If she heard about me nosing around the case, she might call I.A. again. I had to appease her, convince her that if she wanted her mother’s killer caught, she had to cooperate with me. And I needed her. Family members often know details about victim’s lives that are invaluable; they sometimes pick up critical leads on the street.
I cruised west on Florence, hung a right on Western, and a left on a side street, through a run-down neighborhood with cracked sidewalks and potholes big enough to crack an axle. I killed the engine in front of a white stucco box that looked like an enormous sugar cube.
I rang the bell, and as I waited on the porch, I heard rap blaring from a box in the living room. The door swung open and Darnella’s friend gave me a quick once-over and yelled, “Hey girl, that police is here to see you again.”
Darnella pushed past her friend, stepped out onto the porch, and slammed the front door. She had her mother’s high cheekbones and amber-colored eyes. She slapped a hand on her hip and said, “How many times I got to tell you, I ain’t talkin’ to you. You done enough already. You pesterin’ and pesterin’ my mamma got her killed.”
I felt so nauseous, I had trouble standing. Leaning against the wall for support, I said, “Can I come inside?”
“My mama talked to you, and look where it got her.” I could see a pulse beating on her forehead. “What you need to say, you say here.”
“I want to find out who killed your mother.”
“Some police been here a while ago. Tell me he takin’ over the case and you gone. Far as I know, he didn’t do shit. Now you say you takin’ over the case and he gone.”
“He’s not gone. And I’m not taking over the case. I’m just helping out. The more detectives you have investigating a homicide, the better.”
“Y’all a little late, ain’t you?”
“A murder investigation is never closed.”
“So what you want from me?”
“Before she was killed, did your mother ever say anything to you that you think, looking back on it, might be important?”
“Like what?”
“Did she ever see anyone following her? Did she mention any people she might have been afraid of? Did she ever get a phone call that frightened her?”
She shook her head.
“Did you ever see her talking to any officers besides me and the detectives from South Bureau Homicide?”
“No.”
I asked her a few more questions, but she had little to offer.
“Please, Darnella, I need your help,” I said, feeling my throat catch.
“Why you care so much?”
“This case is very important to me.”
“It’s very important to me, too.” For the first time, her voice didn’t have a tinge of hostility.
“Will you help me?”
“I’ll try.”
“All right. Anybody she was friends with who’s particularly plugged in?”
“Plugged in?”
“Well-connected in the neighborhood. Knows a lot of people. Hears a lot of things.”
“One lady I can think of. Juanita Patterson. She manages that thrift shop where my mama worked. They were friends. She know everybody in that ’hood.”
“She work Saturdays?”
“Six days a week, she there.”
I sped over to Figueroa and parked in front of the thrift store. I recalled interviewing Juanita right after Latisha was killed. She didn’t give me anything then; I hoped I’d have better luck a year later.
The thrift shop, which was lined with racks of shirts, coats, and trousers, and large metal bins filled with socks, belts, and T-shirts, smelled of cleaning solvents and musty clothes. I waited until Juanita, a heavyset woman with a red bandanna tied over her hair, finished ringing up a customer. Handing her a card, I introduced myself.
“I know who you are,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “You the cop who got Tisha shot.”
I slipped my hands in my pockets and made tight fists, trying to calm myself. “I’m trying to find out who killed her, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
“I not speakin’ to you. Now or ever.”
“I think it’s important—”
“Get,” she said sharply, pointing to the door.
As I left the thrift shop, I recalled that they employed parolees from halfway houses to do the sorting. Last year, I’d interviewed a few of them. They weren’t much help, but I thought I’d try again. I walked behind the thrift shop and spotted two hard cases wearing tight T-shirts, unloading boxes of clothes from a truck. Both had the ripped chests and biceps of ex-cons who had thrown a lot of iron in the joint.
I introduced myself and asked them if they’d heard anything in the past year about Latisha Patton’s murder. They said “no” simultaneously, without looking at me, and continued to unload boxes.
I walked back to the street and was about to unlock my car, when I heard a low whistle. I looked up and saw one of the ex-cons, in the shadows of a narrow driveway squeezed between the thrift shop and a check-cashing shop, motioning for me with his forefinger.
“It be hazardous to a brutha’s health talkin’ to you in broad daylight.”
“I understand.”
“When I was comin’ up, I knew Latisha,” he said. “She friends with my big sister. She passed a few years back.”
He stared off into the distance. I waited for him to continue.
“I got sumpin’ for you. Month or two ago, friend of mine talkin’ to a neighbor of Sweet Maxine. She a nice ol’ lady who always baking cookies and such for the young ’uns in the neighborhood. It turn out that Sweet Maxine heard some fool talkin’ ’bout that Chinese who got capped last year.”
“You mean the Korean guy who owned the grocery store at Fifty-fourth and Figueroa?”
“Yeah. That the one. I know Latisha seen something on that killin’ and that why someone take care of her.”
“What did Sweet Maxine hear?”
“Can’t rightly say. All I know is the neighbor say Maxine heard sumpin’, but she ain’t talk to no police. She scared for her own self.”
The man told me where Sweet Maxine lived and disappeared down the back end of the alley. I clenched my fist and pounded it into my palm.
I drove a few miles west, through a working-class neighborhood where all the lawns were freshly mowed, and parked around the corner from Maxine’s house so neighbors wouldn’t see a police car in front. I walked up the steps to the porch of a tidy bungalow. When I saw the row of collard greens planted along the side of the house, I knew Sweet Maxine, like so many of the older blacks in South Central, had grown up in the South. Ringing the bell, I could see an eye peering at me through the peephole. I held my badge up.
A gray-haired woman in her seventies opened the door. She wore a powder blue cotton housedress that had frayed sleeves, but looked freshly ironed, and white orthopedic shoes. “How can I help you, young man?”
I showed her my badge. “Can I come inside?”
“Yes, you can.”
I followed her to the sofa and sat next to her. The tiny living room was immaculate, with plastic slipcovers on the sofa and the chairs. Grammar school and high school pictures of two girls, who I assumed were her daughters, lined a mantel over the fireplace.
> “Do you have a card?” she asked.
Handing it to her, I was relieved when she studied it for a moment and dropped it on a coffee table. She didn’t seem to recognize my name or my connection to the case.
“I’m investigating last year’s murder of Latisha Patton.”
“That was a terrible, terrible thing,” the woman said, pursing her lips and shaking her head.
“I heard that you might have some information that could help me.”
She clasped her hand on her lap. “I don’t think so.”
“I understand that you heard something about the case.”
She stared at her hands. “Not really.”
“How long have you lived in this house?”
“My husband and I moved out here from Louisiana in sixty-one. Bought this place in sixty-six.”
“Neighborhood was a lot different then.”
“Sure was. None of this gangbanging and dope selling and gunshots at all hours of the night and young girls selling their bodies for rock cocaine and no-accounts killing each other in the street like they’re dogs. Back then, this street was filled with lots of nice families. Lots of nice kids.”
“You looked out for each other’s kids then.”
“Sure did. That’s the way it was back then.”
“Nobody’s looking out for Latisha’s daughter.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Her mother was murdered and nobody will help the police try to find the killer.”
“It’s a different world today. Back then folks around here tried to help the police.”
I pointed to the pictures of her daughters. “If one of those beautiful girls were murdered, wouldn’t you be angry if a witness wouldn’t come forward to help the police? And what if this predator then killed another young woman?”
Maxine pulled a lacy white handkerchief out of the front pocket of her dress and gripped it in her right hand.
“Can you imagine how this would prey on the conscience of the witness?”
Maxine dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “I’ve always been cooperative with the police. My late husband used to be a neighborhood watch captain. It’s just that I’m frightened. Latisha tried to be a good citizen. She tried to help. And look what it got her.”
“That will not happen to you. Tell me what you know, and I’ll do everything I can to keep your name out of the investigation.”
She gripped both ends of the handkerchief and pulled tight. “I just heard one little thing.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it was?”
She stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket. “All right then. I spend a lot of time in my backyard, tending to my roses. An alley runs behind my backyard and there’s an old sofa there. A low element hangs back there sometimes. Boys and girls, smoking marijuana and putting God knows what kind of poison into their bodies.
“About a month ago, I was out there in the early evening. I heard two youngsters who were out on the sofa, gabbing.”
“Exactly what did they say?”
“I heard one of them say something like, ‘If there’d been a reward for the Chinaman, Water Nose might have dimed off the fool.’”
“Who’s Water Nose?”
“I have no idea.”
“Anything else you hear?”
“Just enough to know they were talking about the man who killed that Oriental grocer last year.”
“Bae Soo Sung? Who ran the store at Fifty-fourth at Figueroa?”
“Yes. That’s who they were talking about.”
“Do you know who those kids were?”
“No idea. I usually make it a point to go right inside when they start gathering there.”
“Ever call the police on them?”
“It’s safer to just go inside and close my back window. I don’t want those boys doing anything to my car, my house, or to me.”
“Could you tell their race by their voices?”
“African-American. Definitely not a Spanish voice.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and I handed her my card. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”
I drove back to Felony Special, pulled up a chair in front of a computer, and checked CalGangs—a statewide law enforcement gang file—but was unable to find a Water Nose. I then walked across the squad room to the gang unit and opened a green metal filing cabinet—known as the Moniker File—which contained the names of thousands of gang members, and included their address, street names, tattoos, and gang affiliation. But, again, I couldn’t find a listing for Water Nose. Finally, I called the Southeast watch commander and asked for the cell number of Chester Pinson, the gang sergeant who’d given me some background on Reginald Fuqua.
I called and told Pinson about my interview with Sweet Maxine. “You know a Water Nose? I can’t find him in the system.”
“I know every O.G., banger, and pooh butt in this division,” Pinson said. “But I never heard of a Water Nose.”
“If you haven’t heard of him, maybe he doesn’t exist.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’ll tell my guys tonight to jam some of these gangsters and see if they can ID this guy. And I’ll put the word out to some of my snitches.”
“If you find anything, call me. I don’t care what time.”
CHAPTER 34
I returned to the squad room and spent the next few hours typing up the notes I had taken from Pardo’s murder book, compiling a chrono, and putting together my own murder book for part two of my investigation into Latisha’s murder. At ten, I left the station, stopped for some shabushabu and a Sapporo in Little Tokyo, and headed home.
My ringing phone woke me the next morning.
“One of my snitches has something for you.” I recognized the voice. It was Chester Pinson.
“You’re working early on a weekend, Sarge.”
“I need the overtime. Got two kids in high school. I’m saving for college. Anyway, I’m sure Felony Special will authorize it.”
“They will, but hold off.” I told him to wait until the end of the D.P.—the twenty-eight-day deployment or pay period—until he called Duffy.
“Why?”
“It’s a long story. So where do you want to meet?”
“Southeast.”
“I’ll head right over.”
“Not so fast, homeboy,” Pinson said. “With my snitch, you play you pay.”
“Okay,” I said, laughing. “On my way in, I’ll stop by the ATM.”
I parked behind the bland, blocky Southeast Division station on 108th Street and crossed the squad room. Pinson and his snitch, a stocky black man in his early thirties with long, filthy dreadlocks, waited for me in a corner interview room.
“This is Vernon Tilly,” Pinson said to me, nodding toward the snitch.
“Let’s get right to it,” I said, sitting on a metal chair across from Tilly. “Who’s this Water Nose?”
Tilly grinned sheepishly—revealing a few missing lower teeth—and rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers. “First, I need some remumeration,” he said, mispronouncing the word.
“Vernon, Vernon, Vernon,” Pinson said, as if he were mildly scolding a child. “You know it don’t work that way. Tell us what you know. We’ll evaluate the information. Then we’ll pay you what it’s worth.”
“It not about the coin,” Tilly said, sounding indignant. “My moms need medicine for her glaucoma, and I gotta pay for it. If it weren’t for that, I’d be jawin’ with y’all for free. They takin’ a life these days for nuttin’. I ain’t wit’ dat. So I just tryin’ to be a good citizen. Help make my ’hood a better place.”
“We’re both well aware of how seriously you take your civic responsibilities,” Pinson said, giving me a surreptitious wink.
Tilly tugged on a dread and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “This is on the down-low, right?”
“Always,” Pinson said. “And I can vouch for Detective Levine. He won’t reveal where he got th
e information.”
“Aiight,” Tilly said.
“Now be a good citizen and tell us who Water Nose is.”
“They ain’t no Water Nose.”
“That’s not what you told me on the phone,” Pinson said, irritated.
“That ain’t his street name,” Tilly said.
“Look,” Pinson said. “It is his street name. We know that because a confidential informant told us. We want to find out who Water Nose is. And we want to find out where he lives.”
“They don’t call him that.”
“You’re full of shit,” Pinson said.
I leaned over and patted Tilly on the knee. “Vernon, take your time. We’ve got all morning. Tell us what you know about the guy we’re calling Water Nose.”
“What a nose.”
“What?” I said.
“What a nose.”
Pinson impatiently drummed his fingers on a thigh.
“This is beginning to sound like Whose on First,” I said. Leaning forward, I studied Tilly for a moment. “So you’re saying his name is not Water Nose.”
“That what I tryin’ to tell you.”
“His name is What A Nose?” I asked, astonished. I had never heard a nickname like that before.
Tilly nodded excitedly and shouted, “Yes!”
“I assume he has a large nose,” I said.
“He do. He got a big monsta nose. It wide. It long. It ugly.”
“Unbelievable,” Pinson said. “I never thought I’d need a white boy to translate Ebonics for me.”
I turned to Pinson and whispered, “My informant thought they said Water Nose, so I didn’t get a computer hit.”
“Tell us a little bit about this What A Nose,” Pinson said to Tilly.
“I don’t mean to dog the dude out, but he a big dummy,” Tilly said.
“He’s slow?” I asked.
Tilly tapped his temple with a forefinger. “Not much here.”
“Does he live on the southside?”
“Yeah.”
“You know where?” I asked.
“Naw.”
“What’s his set?”
“Five Deuce Hoover.”
“What’s his real name?” Pinson said.
“Don’t know that.”
“Does he know who killed that Korean grocer last year or the woman who was a witness?”
