Drawing Fire

by Janice Cantore

“Yeah, yeah. But some kids on the team came across a YouTube video. I couldn’t believe what I saw. What were you thinking? You could have been smashed beneath that train!”

  Abby frowned, ruminations of Rollins and Goddard and Murphy muffling her thoughts. Then she remembered Lil’ Sporty and the tourist’s video.

  “Ethan, I’m fine. It wasn’t really that close.”

  “Wasn’t that close?” He made a strangled sound, and Abby imagined him running a hand through his hair in exasperation.

  She closed her eyes, not certain how to respond and not wanting to have this discussion right now. “I couldn’t stop and watch the man be crushed.”

  “The image is stuck in my mind. Abby, I could have lost you.” The emotion in his voice bothered her for some reason, and she worked to squish the irritation. He didn’t deserve that.

  “I’m fine, really. I’m okay.”

  He was quiet, so she went on. “The upside is, I caught a serial killer, and he all but confessed.”

  Ethan sighed. “Your job is dangerous enough without you being reckless.”

  Anger flared, but Abby bit her tongue. This divide about her work had to be crossed, or she didn’t know how they could be married.

  “I didn’t look at it as being reckless, and I’m sorry it bothered you.” She paused, hesitant to tell him her other news, but knowing deep down that he deserved to hear the update.

  “I am glad you called, though. I have something to tell you. It might not make you any happier than the train video, but you need to know.” Bottom line, now that Luke Murphy knew who she was, everyone else would soon know. Abby didn’t want Ethan to hear about it on the Internet.

  “Promise me you’ll be more careful first.”

  “I will, I promise.” She told him about her encounter with Rollins.

  The line went silent for a minute.

  “I don’t know about this,” he said finally. “Opening this door doesn’t seem smart.”

  “I just want the truth about my parents’ murders—that’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Her voice faltered as emotion threatened to overwhelm her.

  “I thought you—we—had decided to trust God and let this alone.”

  “I wish I could explain everything behind my reasoning, but this isn’t a good time. I’m on my way to the station.”

  “We are going to talk about this soon.”

  Abby stifled a sigh and agreed before changing the subject. “Thank you for the roses. They made my day.”

  “Good. Please be more careful. And, Abby?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t put work before you and me, and before God.”

  “I would never consciously do that.”

  “Don’t let it happen subconsciously either.”

  Abby promised she wouldn’t and ended the call as she parked at the station. She grabbed a Kleenex and blew her nose, then double-checked her eyes in the mirror. They were bloodshot, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  Don’t put work before God. That stung.

  Until the conversation with Ethan, Abby had actually been more settled than she had been before talking with Woody. Now, among other things, she wished she had looked at the stupid train video when Megan brought it up.

  The station was still graveyard sparse and quiet. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, she quickly unlocked the door to the homicide office, entered, and flipped on the lights. On the way to her desk, she stopped in the records room and pulled the Triple Seven file from the drawer. The accordion file was wrinkled with age and use, bound in spots with tape. All of it had long since been transferred to a computer file, but today she felt the need to riffle through the originals.

  Coffee was already set to brew, the job of the last person leaving for the night. Abby hit the Start button and waited. Once she had a full mug, she sat at her desk, powered up the computer, and logged on as soon as she was able. When the phone rang, she was going to ignore it, but she saw that it was Gunther.

  “Hart,” she said tersely as she answered the phone.

  “Whoa, I expected your voice mail.”

  “Well, this is your lucky day. Maybe you should buy a lottery ticket.”

  “Ha. I always said you had more of a sense of humor than Asa. And a better poker face. What a secret you’ve been sitting on, Miss Morgan.”

  Abby’s jaw hit the floor. “What? How did you hear that? There were only five people in that room and it wasn’t even twenty-four hours ago.” She expected people would eventually hear, but so soon?

  “You’re not my only law enforcement contact. And I can keep secrets too. Are you going to reopen the Triple Seven case?”

  It took Abby a minute to collect her thoughts. Finally she sighed. “I have plenty on my plate right now.”

  “Not an answer. I assume you stayed below the radar for so long because of fear for your safety. Not worried now?”

  “I’d love to talk about this another time.”

  “Fair enough. Will you let me know if you reopen the Triple Seven? In case you’ve forgotten, I covered the story at the time.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. And you’ll be the first to know. By the way, what did you have on the Jenkins case?”

  “Crunchers.”

  “What?” Abby knew the junkyard, but until this moment she’d never connected it to Jenkins.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what it is about that place, and I’m not certain about the connection, but that name keeps coming up. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else. Later.”

  “Thanks, and later.”

  Abby hung up, still reeling from the progression of Ethan’s phone call to Gunther already knowing what she’d told Rollins. It was almost too much to process, and she had a lot of work to do. She held her head in her hands and prayed for clarity, peace—both of which eluded her. Grunting in frustration, she turned her attention to the hard copy of the Triple Seven file, the report number faded on the well-handled cover.

  My energy needs to go here for now. I’ll deal with the other later.

  Rereading what she knew by heart gave her a reasonable facsimile of peace. Puff and Puff More had been thorough and diligent. Would they really miss a suspect like Rollins right in front of their faces? They’d asked the hate question several times to Rollins and others: Who hated the Morgans enough to murder them and attempt to murder their child?

  Why, no one. Everyone loved them.

  Not everyone.

  Frowning, she glanced at her computer screen. Since nothing new in the old case had jumped up and bitten her, she opened her e-mail. Her in-box was loaded with messages from news organizations. Scanning the list for anything urgent or from a friend, she saw one from Luke Murphy.

  What could he want?

  Sipping her coffee, she opened the e-mail.

  Hi, hope it’s okay to contact you at work. I’d really like to get together and talk about your parents and my uncle. I bet you want to solve this as much as I do.

  She wanted to talk to him, yet she didn’t. As much as she wanted to kick down the door to Rollins, she feared this door Murphy wanted to open. Why?

  What are you keeping from me? Ethan’s voice; she had said nothing about Luke Murphy.

  There was no time to work it out, no time to smooth out the wrinkles in her life. The workday was starting. She and Roper were due in Jacoby’s office at eight thirty. From there, everyone would walk across the parking lot to the court building for the 9 a.m. meeting with the DA.

  Abby poured another cup of coffee and forced her concentration back to the granny murders. There was enough evidence to arraign Lil’ Sporty Davis and enough for a trial. She didn’t mind trials and testifying, but she bet Davis would cop a plea to avoid the death penalty. Placing the granny murder book on top of the Triple Seven file, Abby began a review. She was halfway through when Roper arrived.

  “Good morning,” he said with a grin. “I hear Rollins identified some loss.”

  “Yep, the case is getting st
ronger.” She braced for a question about who she was, certain Murphy would have said something. But Roper didn’t ask.

  He sat and started going through paperwork on his desk.

  She went back to her review, wondering if Murphy’s friendship with Roper would make it easier or harder to have him as a partner. It didn’t change the fact that she liked working alone with her own thoughts and hunches. Ideas and solutions came to her quickly if she wasn’t slowed down by having to explain her thought process to someone else.

  As if on cue, Roper interrupted her review.

  “I looked over the Jenkins file.” He whistled. “That’s a tough one.”

  Abby closed the Murray file, determined to think business, not personal preferences. Working the Jenkins case had become secondary to the granny murders, and she hated setting anything aside. Besides that, Gunther had offered another avenue of investigation. “It needs some legwork, time on the streets. I bet we can shake loose some information with a little effort. And I might have a lead. Walter Gunther said there might be a connection to Crunchers, which is the first I’ve heard.”

  “Wow, I wouldn’t have seen that, but then that place is so grimy anything is likely to stick there.”

  “I agree.”

  “After we meet with the DA, we’ll put some time in for Jenkins.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Abby formally put the Triple Seven file away and shifted to the present, going over aspects of the first granny murder she wanted to be certain Roper was familiar with. Technically, the Triple Seven was not closed and never had been. It was open-unsolved. People often thought of cold cases as closed, but that was inaccurate. Every open case, no matter how old, was assigned to an investigator as the contact person in the event new information came in. Asa had been the contact person for the Triple Seven as long as he’d been in homicide. No replacement contact had been assigned as of yet. Abby always assumed it would just be her next partner but now doubted that.

  One day the Triple Seven would be moved to the open-current file officially, but not today.

  Ethan, I’m trying.

  Still, the door Murphy was opening beckoned. What was there to lose in just talking to him? He obviously did care about finding the Triple Seven killers. He could be an ally. She knew the idea would bother her until she did something about it. When she had a chance, she’d make a call, ask him to meet. It might go nowhere, but it would at least answer some of the questions she had. She hoped.

  LUKE PULLED UP to a Laundromat in the city of Santa Ana. Or rather, it was a lavandería. Every business name on the weather-beaten strip mall was in Spanish. Santa Ana was an Orange County city squeezed in between Anaheim, Costa Mesa, and Buena Park. It housed a heavily Hispanic population and was plagued in areas with gangs and gang violence. This particular area was tired and poor, but not terribly dangerous. It was also not where the young girl he was looking for should be, but it was where she’d ended up after running away with her boyfriend.

  Crystal Smith had run away from the San Fernando Valley to be with her boyfriend, Ricardo. Luke had done a lot of legwork in the case; Crystal’s family only had a general idea of where she might be. He’d discovered Crystal and Ricardo living in a cheap motel next door to this strip mall. They were surviving on what Ricardo scraped up by securing day work.

  The Smiths asked Luke to confront the girl. “We’ve pushed her away. We were so angry and hurt to hear that she was pregnant at seventeen.”

  You’re right; anger and unforgiveness won’t solve the problem, and you don’t want your daughter and grandchild destitute somewhere.

  At the same time, they were afraid if they confronted her again, they’d push her further away. They’d asked Luke to contact her first. They didn’t believe that they could force her to come home; rather, they hoped Luke could persuade her to return voluntarily.

  Luke waited for Ricardo to leave for the day. Idly, he wondered what Abby or Bill would do in this situation. Crystal and Ricky were a gray area. Both seventeen, almost adults and old enough to be on their own. The police wouldn’t force her to return home. Add to that she was four months pregnant and she willingly left with Ricardo—Luke knew it would be a tough sell on every front to get the girl to go home.

  The only thing he could hope was that the contrast of where the girl was now against where she grew up would work to help convince her that going home to the valley was best for all involved. Luke prayed for wisdom as a battered pickup truck pulled into the hotel lot. Ricardo ran out, hopped in, and the truck pulled away.

  Luke got out of his truck, intending to knock on the hotel room door, when it opened and Crystal stepped out, dragging a garbage bag behind her. In the other hand she had a bottle of laundry detergent, so Luke assumed she was on her way to the Laundromat.

  He waited until she was inside the lavandería and packing clothes into a machine before he walked across the lot.

  Crystal was the only person in the place, Luke noted. Which was good, he hoped. He didn’t want to scare her.

  “Crystal?”

  She turned at her name, and the look on her face could only be described as deer in the headlights.

  Luke held up both hands. “Hey, I’m not here to scare you. I just want to talk; that’s all.”

  “Who are you?” She dropped the clothes in her hand and looked toward the door, wanting an escape route, Luke guessed. Crystal was a slight, pale girl, with only a hint of her pregnancy showing. It broke Luke’s heart that she looked as though she should still be playing with dolls instead of preparing to be a mother.

  “My name is Luke Murphy. I’m a private investigator. Your parents sent me.”

  “You touch me, I’ll scream.” She backed up.

  “I’m not going to touch you. I just want to talk.”

  “What about? You found me, so now my parents know I’m here. Me and Ricky will have to move again.”

  “Yes, I found you and I told your parents. They’ve known you were here for a week.”

  “My parents hate me.”

  Luke shook his head. “They don’t hate you. They said some things they regret, but they love you and they’re worried about you and the baby.”

  She chewed on a thumbnail and seemed to digest that.

  “I’m not going to lie—they’re not thrilled with Ricardo, but they want you home, and they are willing to talk to you about the situation without all the horrible stuff that was said when you told them you were pregnant.”

  “I’m fine here with Ricky. What if I told you to go away?”

  “I’ll leave, and I won’t bother you again. But would you speak to your mother? That won’t hurt, will it? If, after you talk to her, you want to stay here, they won’t force you to come home. They only want to know that you’re okay and that you have all you need for the baby.”

  Two women entered, chatting in Spanish. They eyed Luke, and he nodded and smiled. They moved to the other side of the Laundromat and began doing their laundry, continuing the conversation as they did.

  “Is my mom here?”

  “No, but you can talk to her on my cell phone. She’s waiting to hear, one way or another, how you’re doing.”

  Crystal turned away from him and finished filling the machine. She poured in soap, added her coins, and started the cycle.

  “Are you happy here, Crystal? I think that’s all your mom wants to know. And if you need any help. She’s ready to help. She only wants what’s best for you.”

  Luke stepped closer and leaned against a machine, watching the girl. He prayed this scene was never repeated down the road with Maddie. Mrs. Smith had told him how Crystal had been a straight A student with plans for college until she met Ricardo. Now she’d dropped out of school and run away. Would Maddie meet a boy and run off the rails like this? It twisted his gut in a knot to think it was remotely possible.

  “They know I’m here. . . . Have they been watching me?”

  “No, they’ve been praying, wondering how best to
help you.”

  “Praying?” She snorted. “They don’t go to church anymore.”

  “They do now. Crystal, everyone in this situation has made a mistake. You got pregnant too young, your parents reacted badly, and then you and Ricky ran away. All your mom wants is a chance to make her part of it right. Will you just let her talk?”

  She sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve, then looked at him, defiance in her eyes. “If I tell her to go away and stop bugging me, she will?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  She nodded after a minute.

  “Let’s go outside so you can hear.”

  She followed him to the parking lot, and he took out his phone, punching in the Smiths’ number. Mrs. Smith answered on the first ring.

  “She’s all right?”

  “Yes,” Luke said. “She looks fine and she’s agreed to talk to you.” Just before he handed the phone to Crystal, he thought he heard a sob from the phone.

  The girl waited a moment, then took the phone. “Mom?”

  Crystal spent twenty minutes crying on the phone with her mother. In the end, bridges were mended and the girl agreed to talk to Ricky about returning home, to be certain she received the medical care necessary for the course of her pregnancy. Her parents also agreed to speak to Ricardo and maybe help him find employment in the valley so that the two could be together and hopefully get married. Mrs. Smith had made it clear they didn’t condone what had happened, but a child had been conceived and needed to be cared for, and hopefully with everyone communicating, other problems could be solved as well.

  Luke left Santa Ana gratified. His first job as a PI had been with a seasoned investigator, a way to learn the ropes in order to get to the point where he could open his own business. The PI he’d worked for had retired from LAPD after thirty-two years in uniform, and Luke had learned a lot from the man and was eternally grateful for the experience he’d gained. He’d been assigned a lot of work for insurance companies and had taken classes in accident reconstruction. He participated in a lot of fraud investigations—once tracked down a treasurer who absconded with a church bank account to Mexico—and some bounty hunter work. He had also logged some unpleasant work conducting surveillance on cheating husbands and wives. But when he found his first runaway girl and reunited her with her family, he knew that would be what he wanted his business to concentrate on. Sure, there were some girls who fled abusive situations, and he’d been able to see that some stepfathers were charged, but a lot of girls were deceived into leaving home and then exploited, and those were the ones he felt compelled to work to save.