Trail of Echoes

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “You’re not talking,” he said, anxious now. “Sorry for just jabbering away.”

  Hot air burned my upper lip, and suddenly it was no longer dark skies and fifty-three degrees. The world tilted, turned crimson, and was hot as hell. I looked at my watch. One more minute.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  I smiled and nodded.

  Relieved, Victor Starr also smiled.

  Arms still folded, I leaned forward. “Stop harassing my mother,” I growled. “If you ignore my warning and contact her again, I will file a restraining order against you.” I stepped around him and stomped into the humid parking lot. I pulled out my phone with a shaky hand and, after several attempts with fingers that refused to cooperate, successfully texted Mom. Did as you asked and talked to him.

  Then, I slowly exhaled.

  Should I have said more? Asked him why?

  “No,” I muttered. “You don’t get to be a part of me in any way.”

  Except that he was a part of me. In every way.

  Just as I reached the back entrance to the station, my phone vibrated.

  Thank you, daughter.

  “Anything for you, Mom,” I whispered.

  Anything for you.

  29

  A burning bubble bounced around my belly. Thought that it would have disappeared after my brief … whatever with Victor Starr. But as I rode the elevator up to the homicide bureau, that bubble still floated there like a zeppelin refusing to explode.

  Hunched over his desk, Luke sneezed as though the largest pepper flake in the world had attacked his nasal passages. He blew his nose, then muttered, “Pinche Colin.”

  “Told you not to breathe behind him,” I said, then beckoned him to come over to me.

  He hesitated, then grabbed a few more tissues.

  I led him to the alcove near interview room 3.

  He leaned on the door, lips tights, mustache quivering. “What’s up?”

  I pointed at him. “Stop being an asshole.”

  “He lied to me, Lou,” he said. “All this time, he’s lied to me.”

  “He didn’t lie—he just didn’t tell you his sexual preferences—”

  “Which—”

  “Don’t matter,” I said. “When that homeless guy was about to stab you in the gut, did Pepe run away? No. He broke the guy’s hand. When you couldn’t see cuz you sprayed yourself with pepper spray, did he come up with a better story so you didn’t look like an idiot? Who sat with you, at your bedside when—?”

  “I never said he ain’t loyal,” Luke said, eyes burning. “He ain’t who I thought he was.”

  “So he’s a coward and stupid and has no business with a badge and gun?”

  Luke grunted.

  “So, whose unit you transferring to, then?” I asked.

  Luke gawked at me.

  “L.T. already gave me the okay. You can leave and join some Alpha Male clique with their guns and American flags and twelve-inch heterosexual dicks.”

  Luke sucked his teeth. “C’mon, Lou.”

  My eyes burned with tears. “No, you c’mon, Luke. You don’t wanna be family, fine. You know me: I ain’t beggin’ you to be where you don’t wanna be. Neither is Pepe. You hate someone that much, someone who’s had your back since forever, then I can’t trust you, and I will not work with you.”

  Luke sank against the door and his face reddened. “I just…” He shook his head and sighed. “Can I think about it?”

  I reached for the doorknob. “A day, and then I’m done.”

  Colin, seated at his desk, dragged his eyes away from his cell phone to look at me. “Everything okay?” He glanced in the direction of the alcove.

  “Just disappointed in people right now,” I said. “What are you working on?”

  “Murder book and Thai.” He paused. “And your dad? I see no blood on your shirt, so I’m guessin’ he’s alive?”

  “He is. Pickup Thai?”

  “Yep. What do you want?”

  “Pad Kra Pow, brown rice.” I plopped into my chair as Colin left his. It was now time to focus on somebody else’s screwed-up life. And Chanita’s glamour shot sat atop her case file.

  I logged on to our database and typed “Regina Drummond” into the search bar.

  Her mug shot popped on my screen. Soft scowl, hard eyes, hair this way and that as though cops had just yanked her out of bed. Arrested in 1991 for check kiting, but the case was dismissed. Arrested a second time in 2013 for check kiting, put on probation. Arrested last year again for check fraud. Court throws up its hands. Trial set to start in August.

  So Treasure and her Mean Girl friends weren’t totally off about Regina running schemes.

  Next search: Versace Lords, Chanita’s father, a tattooed humbug with a hare lip and cornrows. Currently doing time in Folsom for a little bit of everything: possession, assault, grand this, grand that. Pretty ambitious considering the slothlike vibe his mug shot gave off.

  “Time to play Six Degrees of Separation, LAPD-style,” I muttered.

  Ten minutes into clicking in and out of arrest records, including that of Regina’s hazel-eyed brother Paul, the one I’d loved so long ago, I gritted my teeth and rubbed my achy wrist.

  “Looking for deviants in Chanita’s life?”

  My skin warmed as I continued to nurse my wrist. “I know that voice.”

  “Yeah?” Sam dropped his black briefcase to the floor and sank into the chair beside my desk. He looked fresh in his blue pinstriped suit and gray tie. He crossed his long legs and placed an elbow on my desk.

  “Uh huh,” I said. “And why are you here today?”

  He frowned and pointed at my arm. “You hurt?”

  “I fell back at the park on Wednesday.”

  He held out his hand. “Let me see.”

  I glanced around the room.

  Colin had left for lunch, and no one was looking our way. So I held out my injured wrist.

  Sam brought it to his lips and kissed it. “Twice a day as needed.” His gaze landed on the striped roses he’d sent back on Wednesday, and he smiled. “I’m meeting with Detective Jefferson about the dead-tourist case. And I also wanted to thank you in person for the cupcakes. Salted caramel, my favorite.”

  “I should’ve let you stay last night.”

  “Next time?” he asked.

  “Next time.”

  Luke sneezed and sprayed the world with germs.

  Sam straightened in his seat. “And you’re doing what right now?”

  I waved at my computer monitor. “Trying to see who has the capacity to do sick shit like inject a teenage girl with bug repellant.”

  “And what have you learned?”

  “That almost everyone in Chanita’s family is deviant with the capacity to do sick shit like needles filled with Raid.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So, incarcerated: two of Regina’s brothers, for grand theft auto and second-degree manslaughter. Regina’s dad, Tracy Drummond, died in San Quentin five years ago. Armed robbery. Oh, and I found a little prostitution sprinkled among the aunts.”

  “All that in one family?”

  “I won’t even go into cousins and nephews.” I kicked off my shoes. “That’s probably why we’re not seeing Al Sharpton and those guys in front of TV cameras right now, holding news conferences, screaming about justice and how I’m not doing my job.”

  “Sounds like Chanita’s people aren’t the types the public typically rallies around.”

  “And that’s sad,” I said, “because Chanita, from what I’ve learned, was a great girl. She couldn’t help that she had miscreants for family.” I peered at him, then said, “They were my neighbors growing up.”

  He blinked. “‘Neighbors’ in the global sense or…?”

  “They lived in apartment five. I lived in apartment seven.”

  “Shit.” He frowned. “When you said you were from that area, I didn’t think, like…”

  I squinted at him.

  His
cheeks colored, and he cleared this throat. “It’s just that a lot of people, cops, say they’re from the rough parts of town, but they’re really … Any good news?”

  “I got to cross off two of Regina’s ex-boyfriends.” I lifted my hands. “Whoop-whoop.”

  “You goin’ to the funeral tomorrow?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Think he’ll be there?”

  Cold prickled my neck. “He’ll see her to the end.”

  “You know what I find interesting?” Sam said. “Chanita’s initial disappearance. She’s at school, and then … she’s not at school. At that bus stop, and then gone.”

  “Amazing,” I cracked.

  “Sarcasm before lunchtime?”

  I shrugged. “I find it interesting, but not all that surprising.”

  “She’s been in class all morning,” he said. “She goes to lunch, buys her hamburger or whatever. She eats. Twenty minutes later, she doesn’t show up to Home Ec, but no one saw her leave the campus. Last place she’s seen is the bus stop down the block.”

  “Boggles the mind,” I said, mind far from boggled.

  “You go to the school yet?”

  “We stopped by this morning.”

  “Aren’t there security cameras?”

  “Yes, but they’re all aimed at the Bentleys and Ferraris in the parking lot.”

  Sam rolled his eyes.

  “It’s a poor school, Mr. Seward. Those cameras are barely hanging on to the wall. I didn’t expect the system to work, and, alas, it doesn’t work. This ain’t Harvard-Westlake.”

  “You dinging me because I went to Harvard-Westlake?”

  I grinned at him and sang, “Different strokes—it takes different strokes.”

  “Says Miss Scratchin’ and Survivin’.”

  “At first, Regina thought Ontrel Shaw, the boyfriend, was involved,” I said. “But then she put all of her chips on Raul Moriaga, the neighborhood perv.”

  “He in the database?” Sam asked.

  I nodded. “Just waiting for the results and trying to confirm his alibi, but that’s a joke. A devious, lying bastard actin’ like a devious, lying bastard, what else is new?”

  “You know I’d love to have DNA,” he said. “Juries want that along with a confession and the testimony from an eagle-eyed nun who saw the whole thing going down in real time.”

  “I’m trying as best I can,” I said.

  “What else?”

  I told him about Chanita’s relationship with Payton Bishop.

  He frowned. “You talk with Bishop yet?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thoughts?”

  “He’s … disturbing.” And I told him that Bishop and I had been schoolmates, and about the girl students and their sweet treats, about Bishop’s interest in Chanita and their recent off-campus trip.

  Sam was squeezing the bridge of his nose by the time I’d finished.

  “Is there something…?” I asked.

  He plucked at his argyle sock, then let his hand drop to his thigh. “Off the record … Well … Just keep your old buddy in your sights.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ask for DNA, and if he doesn’t give it voluntarily, get a warrant and take it from him. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  I stared at him, then nodded.

  “Anything else?” Sam asked.

  I pulled out the framed picture of the deadly nightshade bloom from the case file. “When we searched Chanita’s room, I saw this.”

  Sam studied the photograph of the flower. “Am I supposed to hold it out in front of me and the puzzle will be solved or … what?”

  “Chanita snapped that picture. The berries for this type of flower was with her in that canvas bag. And, oh yeah, every last part of that flower is poisonous. And it doesn’t bloom until summertime.”

  “So she took this photo last year?” Sam asked.

  I nodded. “If we find out, one, where she was last year and, two, who she was with, maybe we’ll find the monster, who may be this guy.” I showed him the picture of the man wearing the Saints baseball cap. “Even though I’m not a hundred percent certain he’s the monster.”

  Sam grabbed his briefcase and stood. “Sounds like everything’s under control.”

  “Thank you for the unofficial advice,” I said. “Anything for justice, right?”

  He cocked his head and peered at me. “No. Anything for you.”

  30

  Why did some girls get kidnapped and murdered while other girls didn’t?

  As I drove to Syeeda’s house, this question stayed with me. Why Chanita? Why Trina? Why Tori and not her friend Golden?

  Did Moriaga and Max Crase see something in these girls that only evil men glimpsed?

  And why did some of us make it out of the ghetto? I made it, but Regina didn’t.

  Was it because of the adults in our lives? If so, why did I make it, but Tori didn’t?

  As I pulled into the driveway, my mind turned to other questions.

  Would the monster actually attend Chanita’s funeral?

  And if he comes, who would I be looking for?

  Exhausted, I collapsed on the overstuffed sofa in Syeeda’s living room. Raindrops fell, and a wet breeze lifted the silver gauzy curtains that hid the open window. The nerves in my head tightened as though I sat in a crowded Brazilian soccer stadium during the World Cup. I closed my eyes against the light from the lamp on the nightstand—not dark enough—then reached to turn off the lamp. Dark enough now, but the pain only worsened. The healing effect of Sam’s kiss had worn off now, and my wrist throbbed as though it was infected with glass and lava.

  Call him. Let him kiss the pain away again. And again. And—

  I placed a throw pillow over my face and took several deep breaths. Focusing and not focusing, waiting for my banging pulse to slow. In … out … In … Chanita … Out … Victor Starr … Shit. “This is not my beautiful home,” I said. “Or my wonderful couch.” I grabbed my iPhone from the coffee table and texted Sam. U around?

  I turned the lamp back on and grabbed the television’s remote control. Click. Reality show—competitive cake decorating.

  My iPhone whistled from the coffee table. A flare shot in my heart.

  Sender: Dr.Zach@hotmail.com. Hello? Anyone there? Wondering about you.

  The flare quickly died. “Brave soul.” I ignored the message, popped two Aleve from Syeeda’s coffee table stash, and rose to shut the window. Took a twenty-minute shower, then pulled on boxers and an LAPD sweatshirt.

  When I returned to the couch with a cup of peppermint tea and thirty Lorna Doone cookies, the red team was making a thirty-foot-tall, NASCAR-themed wedding cake. Sam had responded. At jail. Would rather be doing nothing with you.

  I texted back. I’d rather that too. Out came the laptop from my bag. I sat it next to Chanita’s expanding file folder and Trina Porter’s missing person report. Once upon a time, I never worked at home. Since the divorce, though, work had been the only thing I did right.

  The front door opened, and Syeeda banged into the foyer with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. “Honey, I’m home.”

  I tossed her a smile. “Missed you, kitten.”

  She trudged into the living room and dropped into the armchair. She looked wilted in her silk shirt and jeans. Her bun was more honorary than acting, and stray tendrils of hair frizzed about her head like a corona. “True or false: you banged Sam in the kitchen with a candlestick.”

  My cheeks flushed. “False. I used a horseshoe.”

  Syeeda grabbed a Lorna Doone from the pile on the table. “What happened this time?”

  “When Lena was telling you my business, did she tell you that she interrupted?”

  Syeeda popped the cookie into her mouth. “She left out that part. But she did tell me that she warned him that—”

  “Oh no.”

  “If he didn’t treat you right, she’d have him bumped off by Emil’s weapons homeboys.”

  “So Sam’s gonn
a stay with me cuz he’s scared of being dumped in a vat of concrete?”

  Syeeda slumped in the armchair. “That is, if he messes up before you mess up.”

  I snorted, then reached for my cup of tea. “Me? Mess up?”

  “Who’s Zach?”

  I gaped at her. “Lena’s mouth—”

  “Who is he?”

  I sipped from my cup, then said, “I met him at Bonner Park.”

  “Interested?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. “He’s cute, though. Nice teeth.”

  “Nice eyes?”

  I nodded. “And he’s a doctor.”

  “Your mom would love that.”

  “He’s been e-mailing me.”

  “So he’s interested,” Syeeda said. “Another great sign.”

  “It would be foolish to put all my eggs into the Sam basket.”

  Syeeda smirked. “Your eggs are getting old.”

  “Thanks, kitten.”

  She stared at the folder on my lap, then pried off her black riding boots. “Working?”

  “Uh huh.” I sat the cup of tea back on the coffee table.

  “The girl from our neighborhood?”

  “Yep. Guess what? I let my father talk at me today.”

  She reached for another cookie. “Oh boy.”

  I told her everything: new wife, new life, business owner. I told her that he seemed to know a lot about me, including my divorce from Greg.

  Syeeda jammed her lips together, then took a deep breath. “And what did you say?”

  “I told him to stay away from Mom and that I’d get a restraining order if he didn’t.”

  “Damn, Lou.”

  “Then, I went back to my desk to work on the case of another black girl living in the Jungle, abandoned by her father, then kidnapped and murdered.” I gave her a twisted smile. “Whew. At least Victor Starr made it out, right?”

  Syeeda shook her head. “Elouise—”

  “I’ve always envied you,” I said. “We practically had the same life. Lived a block apart. Dads both bus drivers. Moms who didn’t allow lazy thinking.”

  She came to sit beside me on the couch.

  “Remember when you started your period,” I said, “and your mom was out of town for that church retreat?”

  “Daddy drove to the grocery store,” Syeeda said, smiling, “and bought me the biggest purple box on the shelf.”