Knot in My Backyard

by Mary Marks

  “Can’t,” Ron answered, shaking his head. “The wife’s expecting me home for dinner. Thanks, anyway.”

  “My doc would kill me,” Tony wheezed.

  After they left, I poured Sonia and myself each a glass of Santa Margherita Chianti and ordered a delivery pizza. A long evening lay ahead of us: sorting and packing personal hygiene products into extra-extra-large zippered plastic bags.

  We set up the toiletries in an assembly line on the kitchen counters and filled over fifty sacks. Then we added rolls of toilet paper and a pack of white athletic socks to each one. Finally we piled them in my living room, covering the furniture and the floor with packages for the homeless.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, Sonia and I finished off the pizza at around eight-thirty. I hoped the activity over the last few hours had burned off enough calories for one last slice. She removed the clip from the back of her neck and let her hair flow in a brown cascade over her shoulders. (So what if she touched up the gray? I would, too, if I possessed hair like that.) The loose hair relaxed her features, and I once again saw what I briefly glimpsed a few months ago—a soft and attractive woman. I just wished she’d lose the green eye shadow.

  “Thank you so much for all your help and hard work, Sonia. I really have to give you credit. You did a fabulous job of collecting all these donations in just two days.”

  She washed down the last bite of pizza with a sip of wine. “It’s because of the Internet and social networking. I just went to our Yahoo group and posted an urgent message to all the neighbors. I also posted on Facebook and tweeted. People were incredibly generous.”

  Yes. And they can also be incredibly greedy. Greedy enough to blackmail and commit murder.

  Sonia looked at the clock, disappointment tugging at her face. “I thought Yossi said he’d call tonight. I hope he remembers about tomorrow morning.”

  “You really seem to like him.”

  As long as Sonia had lived across the street from me, I’d never seen her with a man.

  She smiled shyly. “Is it so obvious?”

  Well, she couldn’t be more obvious if she spray-painted red hearts on his white truck.

  “I think he’s got a clue.”

  “Do you think he likes me back? What should I do?”

  What were we—in seventh grade?

  “I think you should take it slow. Don’t push too hard. When he realizes how great you are, he’ll come around.” I really hoped I sounded sincere. In truth, I had no idea what Crusher liked in a woman or why he’d fixated on me.

  She headed home.

  At around nine-thirty, the phone rang.

  “Is she still there?” Crusher asked.

  Oh, for the love of God.

  “No.”

  “Good. She scares me.”

  “Why? Sonia’s an attractive, single Jewish woman who cares about others and has a big heart.”

  “Yeah, but she’s so intense.”

  “Intense is a good thing. I think you’re man enough to handle intense.”

  Silence.

  I’d struck a chord, so I went in for the kill. “Intense women make intense lovers.”

  More silence.

  He grunted. “Hnnh. See you tomorrow at ten. I’ll bring donuts if you make the coffee.”

  “Done.”

  By ten on Sunday morning, I was up and dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and my freshly laundered white athletic shoes—again. A large pot of coffee steamed on the counter. Cars and motorcycles began filling my street: Lucy and Birdie, Sonia, Crusher, Carl, and six other bikers. Fifty-plus large bags of toiletries took up all the space in my living room, so everyone crowded into my kitchen for coffee and donuts. Carl seemed quite taken with Birdie. He said she reminded him of his grandma.

  Sonia clipped her hair at the nape of her neck again and the green eye shadow was back. Crusher flicked his eyes in her direction a couple of times. He definitely seemed curious. If only she’d let her hair hang loose, he’d see what I saw.

  Ed walked in at about ten-twenty, face taut. He kept rubbing his hands together. “Hey, Martha. Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  I led him down the hall toward my sewing room for privacy. “You don’t look so good, Ed. What’s going on?”

  “I just heard from Simon. I’m not going with you this morning, and Simon and Dana won’t be here either. His contact in the US Attorney’s Office tipped him off. They’re pushing the DA to arrest me and close this case.”

  “How can that be? The Feds don’t have jurisdiction in Martin’s murder.”

  “No, but they represent the Army Corps of Engineers. The corps may have something to hide and they’re afraid of exposure if the investigation continues. Since the police don’t have any other suspects, the Feds want me arrested and the case closed.”

  I reached out and took Ed’s hand. “What are you going to do?”

  “Simon told me to wait at home. He and Dana are trying to get hold of the DA today, even though it’s Sunday. He’s going to try to delay any arrest warrant to give us time to find those witnesses. We’ve got to find them, Martha.”

  “I’ll do my best, Ed. You know I will.” I prayed we’d find a lead to Javier and Graciela today in the wildlife reserve. I gave Ed a hug before we returned to where the others were, and he fist-bumped his buddies on the way out the door.

  Then I got everyone’s attention. “Thank you all for your hard work in making this thing happen. We’ll load the truck and caravan over to the reserve.”

  I shuddered a little as I thought of what happened there with Switch just four nights earlier. I morbidly wondered if there’d be bloodstains on the asphalt.

  “My friend Hilda will meet us there and take us down to where the people are camping. They’re expecting us. I’d like you guys to keep order down there, but make it friendly. We’ll hand out one package of toiletries and one blanket or quilt to each person for as long as the supplies last. When we’re through, we’ll leave. Hilda has asked us to respect their privacy.”

  “What about your witnesses?” Lucy piped up.

  Darn! I forgot to tell Lucy and Birdie not to let on they knew anything.

  Sonia zeroed in like a smart bomb on a hideout. “What witnesses? Are you talking about the murder of that coach? Was there a homeless witness? Do you think they’re down in the wildlife reserve?”

  I cleared my throat and tried to finesse. “The police believe, and so do we, there may have been a homeless witness to Dax Martin’s murder. While we’re down there, we’ll ask around.”

  I was deliberately vague. I didn’t want to give her any information that needed to be kept secret.

  I should have known Sonia would never accept such a fuzzy answer.

  “If the police know about a witness, what makes you think they haven’t already gone in there and found them? Why are you doing this? Do you know something they don’t?” she grilled.

  Our country could use someone like Sonia in Homeland Security.

  Crusher stepped forward. “We just want to help prove that Ed is innocent. If we can find someone who witnessed the murder, that person could identify the real killer and get Ed off the hook.”

  Sonia smiled and bounced a little on the balls of her feet. “Well, this is exciting.”

  Crusher raised his eyebrows.

  Lucy looked at her watch. “We’d better get started, if we’re going to be there by eleven.”

  Outside, Crusher laid a tarp on the truck bed. The blankets and quilts were carefully stacked down the left-hand side. The zippered plastic bags filled with toiletries were carefully stacked on the right side. Then he covered everything with another tarp and tied it down, finishing by ten minutes to eleven.

  Crusher walked over to me. “Wanna ride with me?”

  “I think I’d better take Lucy and Birdie in my car. Maybe Sonia could ride over with you.”

  He gave me a cynical look.

  “This whole giveaway started with her idea. She worked really hard to get the
donations. It’d be nice if she could ride in the lead car. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Crusher grunted, caught Sonia’s eye, and waved toward the cab of the truck. “Time to roll.” She didn’t need to be asked twice.

  The truck led the motorcade east on Burbank Boulevard, followed by my Corolla with Lucy and Birdie inside, and a string of seven bikers with a purple VE on each of their backs.

  If we slowed traffic with our convoy, gawkers in other cars slowed the flow even further. While a group of Harleys riding together in formation wasn’t an unusual sight in Southern California, it was highly unusual to see bikers escorting a car full of women of a certain age.

  CHAPTER 24

  Crusher’s truck took an unexpected turn to the right, about one hundred yards before the freeway and far away from the spot where Switch grabbed me. I followed him, wondering what he was doing. Then I saw Hilda standing at the side of Burbank Boulevard, pointing us toward an access road not visible from the street. The truck slowly bounced ahead of us over the poorly maintained path, down toward an overgrown wild area at the bottom.

  The access way was too rough for my car, so I parked on the shoulder of Burbank Boulevard and walked over to Hilda. She still wore Quincy’s gray corduroy pants with the same embroidered blouse from Guatemala. She gestured toward the bikers.

  “I didn’t know you were gonna show up with so many reinforcements.”

  “Do you think they’ll scare the people down there?”

  “After having to put up with Switch for so long? I don’t think so. Everyone knows these are the guys who got rid of him.”

  “About how many people are there today?”

  “I’d say at least a hundred. Word got out.”

  “Oh my God. We only brought enough toiletries and blankets for fifty.”

  “Face it, Wonder Woman. Whatever you can do for them is more than anyone else is doing. Be careful on the path and watch where you step down there. I’m right behind you.”

  Lucy and I tried to help Birdie negotiate the path downward, but she was having a tough time with her arthritic knees. Carl caught up with us and put one strong arm around Birdie’s tiny waist, lifted her slight body in his arms, and carried her to the bottom at a moderate jog. Birdie hung on for dear life and shrieked with laughter as her white braid swung from side to side.

  I looked at Lucy. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t heard Birdie laugh like that in a long time.”

  Neither Lucy nor I could figure out what Birdie ever saw in the prissy old Russell Watson, or why she had long ago settled for their joyless fifty-year marriage. She was as generous as he was penurious, as outgoing as he was fusty.

  Birdie channeled her creativity into sewing exquisite appliqué quilts. Because she and Russell were childless, she directed her natural affections toward everyone else around her. No matter where she was, Birdie became the beloved sister, friend, aunt, earth mother, or, in Carl’s case, grandmother. Birdie’s sweetness was a gift Russell Watson didn’t deserve.

  The closer we got to the bottom of the path, the more I saw that the wildlife reserve covered dozens of acres. In the near distance, a man-made lake offered habitat for local and migrating birds. Right now, a few Canadian geese foraged for food in the grasses and reeds on the edges of the pond. A white egret had flown the short distance from the coast over the Santa Monica Mountains to pluck an unwary frog or lizard for lunch. A family of mallard ducks occasionally quacked as they lazily pedaled across the water.

  The older cottonwoods and willows chirped with the songs of dozens of avian species from tiny hummingbirds and blue grosbeaks to the raucous cawing of big black crows. The wildlife reserve was one of the few places left in Los Angeles that provided nesting ground, food, and shelter for over two hundred species of birds and dozens of other small animals.

  The shade of the trees offered prime real estate for the homeless during the hot summer days. In sparser areas, pieces of canvas and sheets of blue plastic hung from the branches of scrub oak and taller bushes to provide shady crawl spaces. Several one-person pup tents in faded colors peppered the area like igloos. Plastic tarps covered with sleeping bags and bedrolls were scattered on the flat ground or were shoved under low-growing bushes as bivouacs.

  A miasma of untreated sewage and stagnant creek water hung in the warm air. I pushed an empty sardine can off the path with my toe. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a scrap of something white, caught on a twig nearby, fluttering. It was a piece of used toilet paper.

  Lucy pulled a clean tissue from her pocket and covered her nose. “Mother of God. What do they do for toilets down here?”

  Hilda pointed to a ridge of dirt near a clump of coyote brush. “There’s an open latrine over there, but some of the crazier folks just squat wherever they feel like it.”

  Lucy still pressed the tissue against her nose. “How do they stand this?”

  Hilda shrugged. “Where else are they going to go?”

  Lucy wasn’t satisfied. “Well, what about social services? Shelters? Government aid?”

  “Government aid? The homeless don’t vote. Who’s gonna give them aid?”

  By the time we arrived at the truck, Crusher and the other bikers had removed the tarp and were encouraging people to form a line, advancing the women to the front. Most of the homeless were compliant. Two rough-looking men yelled profanities and tried to muscle their way forward. One look from Crusher and the boys calmed them right down.

  The diversity of the homeless population surprised me. I assumed the homeless were pretty much the same as Hilda. White, jobless, English-speaking adults either mentally ill or down on their luck. I was learning differently.

  Sonia stood at the back of the truck, poised to hand out blankets and supplies. “There are too many people, Martha. How do you want to do this?”

  I hated to send away people empty-handed. “Why don’t we give them a choice? Either a bag of toiletries or a blanket. That way we can help twice as many people. Lucy and Birdie can help you distribute the items. Hilda and I are going to walk around.”

  As I expected, everything ran smoothly after a couple of minutes under Sonia’s direction. Bikers stood in the truck and unloaded items, handing the quilts to Birdie and bags of toiletries to Lucy. Sonia directed people to one of the two women, depending on the item they wanted.

  Hilda and I headed toward a cluster of tents and bedrolls. “This is where you’re gonna find your witnesses. The Hispanics stick together in their own section.”

  Undocumented immigrants made up the largest proportion of homeless in the Sepulveda Basin. They were usually single men with no English-language skills, no jobs, and no family to help them. We found several men who seemed afraid to join the line at the truck.

  I hoped a smile and my high-school Spanish would be enough. “Buenos días.”

  They just looked at me.

  “Javier and Graciela? You know them, you guys? Los conocen ustedes?”

  No response.

  One of the men stood. He wore a frayed white T-shirt and jeans covered in plaster dust. “Porque?”

  Now I was in trouble. How to explain in Spanish what I needed? In slightly off-kilter Spanish, I tried my best, but when I said the word “policía,” the man’s face turned blank and he stepped back. The other men on the ground tensed up, ready to run.

  I held up my hands. “No, no, hijos. Yo no soy de la policía. Solo quiero ayuda mi amigo.” (“No, no, sons. I do not exist of the police. Only I wish help my friend.”)

  With my broken Spanish, I explained Javier and Graciela lived near the river behind my house and might have seen the murder. I merely wanted to talk to them to discover if they saw anything.

  The man stepped back, broke eye contact, and studied his calloused hands.

  Hilda whispered in my ear, “Did you bring any money?”

  I’d come prepared. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a twenty. “Información?”

>   The man looked at the others and wiped his nose on his arm. “Sí, señora.” He stared at the money in my hand. The couple’s last name was Acevedo, and he confirmed they were looking for a ride to Mountain View, four hundred miles north of Los Angeles. They were taking temporary refuge with a church in Van Nuys.

  I turned to Hilda. “Do you know which church they’re talking about?”

  “I think so. A group from a little place called The Heart of Zion comes down here pretty regular to help these people.”

  I smiled at the man and handed him the twenty. “Muchas gracias.”

  I needed to get over to the church today to find our witnesses before they left Los Angeles.

  We walked back toward the truck and passed a wiry old man watching us from behind a tall bush. His wild hair and beard were full of bits and pieces of what looked like crusts of food and dried leaves, and he stank of urine.

  Hilda put her hand on my elbow and hurried me forward. “That man is probably an old vet. Most of ’em are loners. Either the fighting or the drugs made ’em crazy. Best to keep a distance.”

  She told me most homeless veterans ran out of government resources. They usually suffered from brain injury, PTSD, or drug addiction. Like other individuals who were mentally ill, they tended to be unpredictable loners who avoided contact with the world except when they went out to panhandle or scrounge for food. Because of their survival training, the vets were the ones most likely to adapt to the harsh outdoor conditions.

  There were two families with children, folks who were victims of the economy and first lost their jobs and then their homes. Hilda told me I wouldn’t find many single homeless women in the wildlife reserve who weren’t prostitutes. Unless they were protected by a pimp, a partner, or a family, they could be raped and assaulted.