by Baxter Clare
She checked her view again, expecting to see lightning but there was only the smudgy maroon sky. She pulled her robe tighter.
Normally the sensuous slide of silk against skin delighted her. Tonight it felt only cold. Everything felt cold—the burgundy chenille spread, the antique velvet chairs, the king-size mahogany bed frame—all the rich textures she loved felt cheap and lifeless.
The Mother paced through her anxiety. It wasn’t new. It always happened before a big vision. Sooner or later she would wake up on the floor or in a chair, not knowing how she got there. Concerned faces would be around her, waiting for reassurance. She didn’t mind the visions. It was the waiting that vexed her. But the Gods would reveal the vision in time. In Their time. And only if she had prepared properly.
She scrutinized an altar near the window, making sure it was clean and well-tended. Red candles burned amid bowls of rice and honey. Bananas curved around sprays of red hibiscus flowers and black rooster feathers. A plate of fresh crabs and an open bottle of rum stood waiting.
The Mother dipped her hand into a jug of water. Sprinkling the shrine, she murmured an ancient invocation. Wetting her other hand, she washed them together. She crossed the room and pushed a chair the size of a throne from her desk. Opening a satin-lined drawer, she gathered a chain of cowry shells, a wooden mat, and a thick cigar. She pulled a box of matches from her pocket and lit the candles on the desk. One was white, the other red. The Mother opened the mat, sprinkled it with water, and then laid the cigar between the jug and the candles. She turned the lights off. The words of a language as old as the wind melded with the candle shadows dancing against the wall.
Now she was ready. Now They would surely come.
4
Lewis and Bobby Taylor were climbing the steps ahead of her. Frank slowed down to eavesdrop on their conversation. Bobby was explaining, “If you do your job right, you won’t be a nigger or a bitch. You’ll just be a cop. Period. That’s all they’ll see you as. But if you don’t pull your weight or back your brothers, then you’ll be worse than a nigger. You’ll be outside forever and nigger will be the nicest thing they’ll call you. It’s all about being the best cop you can be, is all. And that’s not to say it’s always about justice or law. It’s about being treated the way you want to be treated, and you’ve got to earn that.”
“I been earning it eight years,” Lewis complained. “How many more times I gotta prove I’m down?”
“Every day,” was Bobby’s reply. “Every new partner, every new case.”
Frank followed quietly behind, pretending to scan one of the memos in her hand.
“Yeah, well they don’t give you grief. You’re not having to prove yourself every day.”
“I’ve been here a long time. These guys know who I am. I’ve been through hard times with them. And good times too. When you’ve been around a while and had enough beers with them, and backed them on enough busts, covered for them, then they’ll trust you too. But right now, we don’t know who you are. You’re being tested, Lewis. So just do your best and forget the rest, understand?”
“Yeah, I understand,” Lewis blew out. “It’s just hard sometimes.”
Bobby answered, “If you wants it easy, sistah, best be givin’ up this po-leece bidness and getting’ yo’ black behind down to Sunday school, be teachin’ lil’ chilrens instet.”
It was the first time Frank had heard Lewis laugh. It was a good sound and Frank was grateful Bobby was taking the rookie under his wing. The Ninety-third Homicide Squad had taken some fire lately but it looked like they were going to come out all right.
When Frank had pinned a series of murders on Ike Zabbo, one of her own detectives, her accusations had unraveled the squad. Nook, the last of her good old boys, had quit in solidarity with his indicted colleague and the rest of her detectives furiously questioned Frank’s loyalties. Then only a few days after she’d dropped that bomb, Zabbo was gunned down in a parking lot and the nine-three finished unraveling.
Even though it was well outside their jurisdiction, her detectives had clamored to work Zabbo’s case alongside the big boys at South Bureau. Frank had forbidden it, adding fuel to their already incendiary acrimony. Even Noah had come down on her. He was the only one with balls enough to voice the squad’s increasing frustration about her dispassionate stance regarding Ike’s violent, and as yet, unsolved murder.
Frank had warned her crew with deadly sincerity that unless they felt like pursuing new careers they would forget about Ike Zabbo and leave the investigating to South Bureau. After that she’d stormed into her captain’s office demanding four new hires. Not one, not two, not three, but four. She’d been under-staffed for years and was crippled without Ike or Nook. More importantly, she’d needed an infusion of new blood to stop the nine-three’s hemorrhaging.
Foubarelle had produced, allowing her to bring Lewis on from Robbery and Darcy James in from another division. With Jill back from maternity leave and Foubarelle working on the fourth hire, Frank felt like she was finally heading a decent squad again. There were gaps, but overall the team was solid.
Lewis was raw and sensitive, but she’d proven her street ability as a uniform. Frank had been watching and waiting to bring her aboard. Lewis had the perseverance and curiosity that was vital to homicide. Her skills were still weak but that was to be expected. Frank had paired her with Noah because she’d learn a lot from him, if she was willing. So far they were still testing each other. Noah delighted in pushing her buttons but took equal time in teaching her the intricacies of interviewing the parents of a dead child or how to look at a crime scene before entering it. Lewis paid sharp attention to her partner, constantly alert for tips as well as gags.
Johnnie Briggs and Jill Simmons were working together. It was a problematic combination, but Frank couldn’t afford to put Johnnie with someone new nor could she have him operating on his own. Johnnie was a loose cannon and he needed a seasoned partner who could rein him in, which Jill reluctantly did. For a while his drinking seemed to have tapered off; he was actually getting to the 6:00 AM briefings clean and on time. Since the business with Ike though, his sick calls had increased and when he did show up he was often bleary and shaky.
Jill handled her partner with a loose disdain, not really wanting to be back at work, and certainly not partnered with Johnnie Briggs. Her heart was home with her infant daughter but she did what was required. Frank suspected it was only a matter of time before Jill took the chair opposite Frank’s desk to tell her she was quitting.
Bobby—quiet, plodding, and dependable as ever—was showing the new guy the ropes. Darcy James III barely topped five feet eight with his shoes on and Bobby loomed well over six feet. Bobby was slow and deliberate, where Darcy quickly and intuitively interpreted a situation. When pressed, Darcy was equally forthright with his opinions, while Bobby, after considerable deliberation, usually offered a more politic answer.
Then there was Taquito. Frank sighed quietly. Lou Diego had been doubly wounded, first by his partner’s alleged treachery, then Frank’s refusal to stand by one of her own men. He blamed her for Ike’s death. He refused to talk about it and would leave the room whenever Zabbo’s name was mentioned. In his own time, with his own logic, Diego was dealing with the reality of Ike’s betrayal and the position he’d put the whole squad in. Frank didn’t push him. He was a good cop and she didn’t want to lose him, but she wondered if she already had. She accommodated his unspoken rage, hoping time and latitude would help him come around.
Even Foubarelle seemed to have calmed down. He was still an asshole, but after four years the captain was learning to stay out of Frank’s way and let her do what she did best, which was produce stats for him. Bottom line, that was all Fubar wanted. He wasn’t a people man, nor committed to an ideal. He just wanted to see how far his star could climb. Frank enjoyed high clearance rates for a different reason. Her motivation was unconscious, but every murder solved was a vindication of her past. Frank needed homicide as
badly as the captain needed numbers.
Tossing some of the memos in the trash, she filed others, and took the rest out to the bulletin board. She was pinning them up when Jill and Johnnie walked in with a suspect. He spit, protesting weakly while Johnnie sat him down, and Jill told Frank, “Now this is the damnedest thing. Darcy came up to me this morning and asked if KD here worked in a restaurant. I said, no, the lazy bastard doesn’t work at all. He just mooches off his girlfriend like an overgrown tick. So Darcy asked where the girlfriend worked and I told him she was the night manager at the Jack in the Box on Florence.
He said we might want to check the refrigerators over there. I didn’t think much about it, but I had to ask the girlfriend something anyway, so we went over. She didn’t want us looking around but she finally consented, and look what we got.”
Jill held up a .44 in a plastic bag.
Frank frowned.
“In the fridge?”
“Right where Darcy said. Pretty freaky, huh?”
“How’d he know to look there?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” Jill bunched her shoulder. “I just hope the ballistics match.”
Twelve hours later Frank had another cleared case for the captain’s stat sheet. Darcy James had a note on his desk to see Frank.
5
Jill rushed in ten minutes later than her usual ten minutes late. Bobby finished his meticulous briefing, while her colleagues watched her scramble for notes and a cup of coffee.
“Anything from you?” Frank asked Darcy.
In his basso profundo, he rumbled, “What my partner didn’t cover would fit on the end of a gnat’s ass.”
Bobby and Darcy were both quiet men, but where Bobby’s voice was as soft as a spring breeze, Darcy’s sounded like a V-8 at a red light. Jill pulled a chair up, waiting expectantly for Frank to continue. Frank was silent for a few uncomfortable beats.
“Nice of you to join us, Detective Simmons. When we’re done, get with Bobby and Diego. Find out what you missed. Maybe tomorrow you could try for your usual six-ten. What have you got?”
Jill looked imploringly at Johnnie but he was picking his fingernails. She flipped through pages in her notebook, stalling. “Let’s see-ee.”
“Want me to get another box of doughnuts?” Noah asked. “Or maybe I should just go ahead and order lunch.”
“Okay, okay. Hang on. Let’s see. We followed up on the names Cheryl gave us.”
Jill was the only one who used Lewis’s first name, and Frank thought it was good the two women had a chance to work together.
“Porfiero Hernandez was one of them. By his own admission was friends with the vie. Last time he saw him was around two PM the day vie died. He said”—she paused to decipher her own handwriting—“He said … vie was going to go by his aunt’s and then after that he’d meet him—Hernandez—at Brenda’s Pool Hall. That was supposed to be around eight. Vic never showed. Hernandez played a few games, watched a few, left around ten.”
She paused and Johnnie added, “We’ll take his picture over and see if anyone can put him there.”
“Was he with anybody else?”
Johnnie supplied a name from memory and Frank was pleased to see him on the ball this morning. Today he’d shaved with no cuts, and was fidgeting restlessly like the old Johnnie. He was a couple dozen pounds overweight but his clothes were clean, and amazingly enough, pressed.
“Yeah, and get this,” Johnnie said in his gravelly smoker’s rasp. “This guy lives right in front of where we found your Colonel. He was parked right in this guy’s driveway.”
Flipping through a folder, Lewis asked, “What was that name again?”
Johnnie repeated it impatiently, spelling it for Lewis like she was brain-dead.
“Booyah,” she said, holding up a rap sheet. “Tito Carrillo. That’s one of the names Danny Duncan’s sister gave me.”
Frank glanced at Noah, who almost imperceptibly shook his head. Pointing to the rap sheet, he asked his partner, “When’d you get all that?”
“Last night,” she replied smugly.
“Did you plan on telling me about it sometime?”
“Well, I tried tellin’ you this morning but you and your home-boy”—she sniffed at Johnnie—“were too busy playing which yo’ paper dolls.”
Johnnie laughed and Noah looked as innocent as a choirboy. Lewis’s position on the LAPD women’s soccer team had inspired the boys to high artistry. They’d gotten a picture of Brandi Chastain’s famous pose and pasted a Polaroid of Lewis’s face over Chastain’s. Then they’d cut a bullet-proof vest out of a catalogue, clipped it into the shape of a bra and glued it over Chastain’s infamous sports bra. They’d even added a tiny shield with Lewis’s name printed on it and a full gun belt on her waist.
When Frank had come out of her office for a second cup of coffee, Lewis had been glaring at the masterpiece hanging on the bulletin board. Frank had nonchalantly filled her cup, thinking that the line between sexual harassment and kidding around was easily crossed. This was where knowing her crew as well as she did enabled her to make the distinction between true malevolence and ritual razzings. Before returning to her office, she’d clapped Lewis on the back and deadpanned, “Need to work on that farmer’s tan.”
Pulling her detectives back on track, Frank commented, “Glad to see somebody actually working around here. What else you got?”
Still unaccustomed to her role as primary detective, Lewis shifted a little nervously, if not proudly.
“Well, this guy Carrillo? He’s got a rap sheet from here to Orange County. Mostly all drug charges. Most of them dismissed or settled. His homey, Hernandez, was busted with him twice, in January, and last June. Both on felony possession charges.”
Waving another rap sheet, Lewis continued, “I checked on the other homes Duncan’s sister told me about. Alejandro Echevarria. Known associates.” Lewis paused dramatically, then said, “Carrillo and Hernandez. They’ve all three of ‘em got a bucket of aliases, they’ve all been busted for felony drug possession or narcotics trafficking, and all three of ‘em Nicaraguan.”
“Ollie North in there?” Noah cracked.
Lewis ignored him. Her eyes sparkled as she leaned toward Frank.
“I’m thinking maybe little Danny Duncan was trying to get out from under his auntie’s skirt and get some action going on his own, know what I mean? Maybe auntie”—Lewis said “aunt” like “haunt”—“didn’t like junior straying so far and decided to show her boy what was up.”
“If that’s true, then we’re fucked,” Noah said. “There’s no way we can touch her.”
Frank silently agreed. Maybe this was the big thing she’d felt in her living room last night. If it was, that wasn’t so bad. She could handle a crack lord. Narco had gone after Mother Love half a dozen times but the worst they’d done was make her lay low for a couple of weeks. Crackheads had hopped around the streets like fleas jumping off a dead dog, but within a month they’d crawled back under their rocks, back to sucking on pipes and bent antenna rods.
“You talked to her yet?”
Lewis shook her head, asking her partner, “We gonna do that today?”
“I’d hate to see all your hard work go to waste. Let’s go talk to the upstanding citizens on your list before we hit the Mother. Maybe they’ll drop something we can work her with.”
Lewis nodded disappointedly, but seemed to understand Noah’s logic. They broke up after another ten minutes and Frank snagged Noah.
“How’s paperwork coming for the Colonel?”
“Unless Sister Shaft did it after typing her 40-page suspect list, it isn’t.”
“That’s what I thought. You get it started. I’ma roll with your partner this morning.”
“That’s not much of a deal,” Noah complained.
“You’re right,” Frank grinned, “but I want to see your girl in action.”
“How’d she get to be my girl?” Noah grumbled. “You’re the one that’s a god to her.
”
“How’s that?”
“Christ, she thinks you can walk on water.” Noah’s eye somersaulted when he said, “She says you’re an inspiration and that she appreciates how you’ve kept your eye on her. That you picked her when you could have had any of a dozen vets. You’re her angel for sure. She’ll be flyin’ backwards out there tryin’ to please you.”
Frank smiled, remembering her mentor. She’d have rather cut off and pickled her toes than disappoint Joe Girardi. Frank started prioritizing her day as Darcy stepped into her office.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. Sit down.”
He settled easily into her old vinyl couch. She thought it curious he hadn’t taken the chair on the other side of the desk.
“How’d you know about that .44 in the refrigerator?”
“Just a hunch.” He shrugged.
“Helluva hunch.”
When he didn’t offer anything more, Frank said, “Explain it to me.”
“There’s nothing to explain. I just kept thinking about a .44 in a refrigerator. A stainless steel one like you’d find in a commercial kitchen. I knew Jill had a vie shot with a .44 and that they couldn’t find the weapon. It was just a SWAG,” he concluded, some wild-assed guess.
“That’s all?” Frank drilled him with her blue beams on high.
“That’s it.”
Frank studied her cop a beat longer.
“Nice heads up,” she finally said. “Leave the door open.”
She watched Darcy leave. Her new cop came with a clean record. He hadn’t given Frank any cause for suspicion, but then again, neither had Ike Zabbo, and she thought she’d known him a hell of a lot better than Darcy James. Lewis interrupted Frank’s rumination.
“Noah says I’m riding with you this morning.”
Frank grunted, “In an hour or so,” and followed Lewis into the squad room. Frank wanted the time to get some background on Mother Love Jones. If Lewis was right, she was riding a pretty fast horse. Frank considered reassigning the case to Noah, but only for a second. She had confidence in Lewis. There were nuances she couldn’t be expected to know yet, but under Noah’s tutelage and Frank’s watchful eye she felt Lewis could handle the case.
