Trail of Echoes

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Some of those tabs in my brain closed and the circles stopped circling and I saw.

  A moment later, now dressed in jeans and a black sweater, I poured myself a travel mug of coffee and left a note for Syeeda on the coffeepot.

  Thanks for letting me stay here. It means so much to me.

  Love you,

  L.

  44

  The fronds of palm trees lining King Boulevard rustled as heavy clouds the color of battleships gathered over the ghettoes of Southern California. It had been so wonderful to see the sun, if only for an hour. Seagulls gathered at every other intersection over bags of leftover fast food, their gold beaks scattering hamburger buns and shredded lettuce across the asphalt. Despite the approaching storm, despite my line of work, my breath came easy—like I’d just returned from Cabo after a long week of rum-filled, sexy nights.

  I called Colin. “Anything happen while I slept for five hours?”

  “Five hours?” he said. “Who you think you are? The queen? And, yes, two things came in. Number one: Ontrel Shaw’s DNA doesn’t match.”

  “I kinda expected you to say that. Number two?”

  “Neither does Jimmy Boulard’s.”

  That easy breathing hitched in my chest. “I kinda didn’t expect you to say that.”

  He chuckled. “So that leaves…?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Payton Bishop, who needs to give DNA, and Justin Abraham, Allayna’s ex, who didn’t do it, and I know that like I know that you’re picking Tic Tacs and bacon from your back teeth at this very moment.”

  He paused, then said, “How did you…?”

  “And Raul Moriaga is still on the list,” I continued.

  “He’s in the system,” Colin said. “Why aren’t his results back yet?”

  “I’m almost there,” I said, pulling into the station parking lot.

  The detective’s bull pen was strangely quiet. None of my team sat at their desks or wandered the corridors. Sounds of cheering came from the break room.

  “Oh hell no!” Pepe shouted.

  “He shoots like a girl,” Gwen added.

  Fifteen pairs of eyes were watching the Stanford versus Kansas game.

  Colin slumped on the raggedy futon near the watercooler. He saw me standing in the doorway and waved. “What’s up, Lou?”

  Shoulders tense, I strode back to the bull pen with Luke, Pepe, and Colin following me.

  “You bring breakfast?” Colin asked.

  “Not my turn.” I grabbed Chanita Lords’s growing case file from my desk and plodded to Lieutenant Rodriguez’s office with the trio still behind me. Soon, we all crowded around the big man’s desk.

  I pulled our Chanita Lords’s photograph of deadly nightshade. “Chanita took a picture of what killed her.”

  Lieutenant Rodriguez shrugged. “And?”

  “What is this?” I pointed to the rope segment at the edge of the picture.

  Each man squinted at the rope.

  Colin smiled and nodded. “That’s a swing.”

  Everyone else said, “Huh?”

  “A rope swing,” Colin said. “You guys never had one in your backyard?”

  “You know where I lived,” I said, eyebrow cocked.

  “I lived in apartments,” Pepe said. “No backyard.”

  Both Luke and Lieutenant Rodriguez nodded.

  Colin blushed, then grinned. “Didn’t any of you go to summer camp in the woods?”

  We blinked at him. Summer … camp?

  Colin gaped at us. “You tie rope around the limb of a big, strong tree, like an oak. Get a plank of wood, bore a hole at each end, pull the rope through, knot it, and you have a swing. Some folks use a tire—that’s what this looks like.”

  “I’ve seen swings like that on TV,” Luke said, nodding.

  I pointed at Lieutenant Rodriguez. “See? That’s why diversity in the workplace is so important.” I considered that rope and section of tire. “So we’re looking at a backyard again. A backyard with a strong tree and a tire swing.”

  “Like I said yesterday,” Colin said.

  “And where is this backyard?” Pepe asked.

  Lieutenant Rodriguez shrugged. “Can’t tell from the picture.”

  “Like I said yesterday,” Pepe pointed out.

  “And who’s certain it’s a yard?” I asked. “Taggert just said he played on them at camp.”

  The room dropped into silence.

  Lieutenant Rodriguez sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly. “Anything else?”

  “Can you find out what’s the holdup on Raul Moriaga’s DNA?” I asked.

  “So he’s still a possible suspect?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked.

  “Possible but not definite,” I said. “We haven’t been able to eliminate him, nor have we been able to confirm his alibi. He could be telling the truth or … not. We just don’t—”

  “That’s Lou’s opinion, sir,” Colin interrupted. “I think we have enough for an arrest warrant. If he’s registered, then I’m guessing that he’s probably on probation. Let’s grab him before he flees the state. Disappears into Mexico.”

  “Grab him for what?” I snapped.

  Colin shrugged. “Littering. Loitering. Some other bullshit misdemeanor.”

  I shook my head. “We need to be careful.”

  “Evading arrest,” Colin said. “He’s done it before—twice, right? He gave us a bogus number for the friend in San Diego he claims he was with the day Chanita went missing, or is lying to police officers something we should say ‘fuck it’ to? The mud on his shoes looks just like the mud in the park, and dumb-ass even admits that he talked to Chanita.” Colin rolled his eyes. “L.T., are we supposed to sit and wait because Lou’s scared of startin’ a race war?”

  “First of all, I’m not scared of shit,” I said, anger starting its familiar dirt-devil swirl in the center of my gut. “Second of all: starting a race war? One’s already under way, Colorado. You just don’t know what the hell you’re looking at. And, lastly, I don’t want to collar Moriaga yet cuz we haven’t even connected him to Allayna Mitchell’s murder.”

  “Yet,” Luke added.

  I squinted at him. “Don’t make me knock that cup of Kool-Aid from your hand.”

  “You know what an arrest like this could do for us?” Luke asked, peering at each of us with a gleam in his eye.

  “The black community would love us for getting this guy off the street.” Colin pointed to Lieutenant Rodriguez. “The mayor, your boss, would love us for closing this case.”

  “And if Raul Moriaga is innocent?” I asked, bristling.

  “I would never-ever use the word ‘innocent’ when we’re talking about some gonorrhea who’s raped a hundred girls,” Luke said.

  “Is Lou showing sympathy to a child molester?” Colin asked, his eyebrows high. “A pederast? A rapist?”

  My cheeks burned. “No. Hell no. It’s just … I want us to be careful.”

  Colin clucked his tongue, then cocked his chin. “John Wayne said, ‘Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.’”

  “And John Wayne Gacy said, ‘You can kiss my ass.’”

  “Lou.” Lieutenant Rodriguez gave a curt shake of his head.

  “Do any of you think for one minute that Raul Moriaga sent those ciphers?” I asked. “That he’s into mythology and nymphs and shit?”

  “You sayin’ Mexicans can’t be that smart?” Luke asked, squinting at me.

  “That’s what it sounds like to me,” Colin said, shaking his head.

  I gaped at them. “Seriously? You’re calling me racist?”

  “If the white sheet fits,” Luke said, then smiled.

  “Shut up, Gomez,” Lieutenant Rodriguez snapped.

  “Okay,” I said to our boss. “You tell me what to do then. Wait and be close to certain about Moriaga? Or arrest him and fuck up my case just so everybody can go back to see if Stanford will beat Kansas?”

  Colin groaned. “You’re be
ing a—”

  “Say the word,” I growled. “I dare you.”

  “Lou,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said, “maybe Taggert is right.”

  That dirt devil became an F1 tornado: still dangerous, but no one would die. Yet. “Taggert right about investigating a crime like this? In a city like this? With color at play? Really, L.T.?”

  Lieutenant Rodriguez rubbed his jaw. “One more day, all right?” He grabbed the handset from his phone. “Lemme see what’s the holdup on the DNA.”

  I shot Colin a glare and stomped out of the office.

  “I’m just doin’ my job,” Colin shouted after me.

  Before he’d come to Los Angeles, Colin Taggert would have never traipsed into Raul Moriaga’s apartment, would have never visited with Chanita’s family, would have sped past Ontrel Shaw and those Mean Bitches in the Jungle. He had dodged doing shit like this—finding out what people were hiding, being suspicious of everything and everyone, and having the courage to deal with threats and conflict …

  Still.

  Why did Moriaga give us a bad number?

  Where did that mud come from?

  That aquarium. All those girls.

  Maybe …

  45

  An hour later, I ended my call with the officer manning the front desk and tossed a ball of crumpled paper at Colin’s bent head. “We have a visitor downstairs. Could you be a dear and get her?”

  “Sure, but…” He paused, then swallowed. “Just wanna say, you know, about all that in L.T.’s office … Didn’t mean to, you know…” He cleared his throat, then blushed.

  I blinked at him, feeling my cheeks warm. “I … know you … work hard and … I…”

  He squinted at me. “You’re apologizing … to me?”

  “Umm … Just…” I cocked an eyebrow. “Attaboy. Now please retrieve our guests.”

  He hesitated, then pushed the triggers of Allayna Mitchell’s murder book and the three rings tcheted. “Who is it?”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I think it’s one of the sexy cheerleaders we met in Payton Bishop’s office. And forgive me for saying ‘sexy,’ but that’s who she’d be in the movie version of this twisted case.”

  He shrugged into his brown corduroy blazer. “Why is she here?”

  “Maybe she knows the owner of that dark SUV.”

  That’s what I hoped as Colin and I sat in interview room 1 across from hazel-eyed Nicole Brewer, one of the flirty Madison Middle School cheerleaders that had been draped over Payton Bishop’s desk on the day we visited. No tiny cheer uniform today. Instead, she wore a gold sweater dress still a little too snug for a middle-school-aged girl. Her mother, Brandi Washington, sat beside her with a purse-sized Bible on her lap. Brandi was also hazel-eyed and Sexy-Saved in her leopard print wrap dress. The mother and daughter held hands, four knees bouncing, matching eyes darting from the wall to the cans of Sprite on the table.

  “Miss Alice said we could trust you,” Brandi said.

  Colin squinted. “Who?”

  “She works in the office at school,” Brandi explained. “She wear them blue contact lenses. Anyway, we been tryin’ to figure this thing out on our own, but…”

  Nicole cleared her throat, then flapped her hand at her face. “I can’t even sleep no more.”

  “Nikki been in therapy,” Brandi explained, “and she takin’ Paxil now.”

  The girl clutched her hands to her chest. “I could get in a lot of trouble and…”

  Brandi patted her daughter’s shoulders. “Nikki, now what I tell you about that?” She smiled. “Nikki was baptized at service this morning. That’s one reason we here talkin’ to y’all.”

  I smiled. “Congratulations. That’s a very important step in life. Very meaningful. And sometimes it requires us to do the right thing, even when it’s … scary.”

  Nicole blinked. “Can I be synonymous?”

  I cocked my head. “So that no one knows who you are?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You’re a minor,” I said. “So your identity will be protected for the moment.”

  “For the moment?” Brandi sniped. “So he’ll know?”

  “I really can’t say right now, Ms. Washington. That’s up to the lawyers who will prosecute the case.” If there is a case. “And who is ‘he’?”

  “You gotta protect me,” Nicole shouted, “cuz I already stole something and … and … I can’t take it back.” She erupted into a sob and wept into her hands.

  “And I don’t want him coming after her,” Brandi said, “cuz then I’m gonna have to take care of it, you feel me?”

  Who is “him,” I wanted to shout. I wanted to shake Brandi Washington hard so that every information-stuffed flea and tick dropped off of her and onto my notepad.

  Colin scooted closer to Nicole and touched her shoulder. “We’ll do our best to keep you anonymous. I’ll see to it personally.” He avoided my pointed look cuz what the hell, we couldn’t guarantee shit.

  The cheerleader reached into her Michael Kors purse and pulled out a black hardbound journal with gold-edged pages. “It’s Mr. Bishop’s. I took it from his car on Friday, when he drove me home after the game.”

  “He was actin’ inappropriate,” Brandi said. “They was sitting in the car—”

  “But his woman called,” Nicole explained, “so he wasn’t payin’ me no attention. The journal was sitting there in the backseat next to my book bag. So when he parked and started talkin’ to her, I got out, opened the back door, and took it cuz I knew what was in it.”

  My stomach burned, and that fire spread up toward my chest and neck. “What did he do to you in the car, Nicole?”

  She closed her eyes. “He kissed me good-bye, but not like … not innocent-like, where you kiss the other person’s cheek. He used his … his…” She bit her quivering lip.

  Colin’s face had reddened until it had reached the end of the spectrum at purple.

  “Did you know Allayna or Chanita?” I asked.

  Nicole took a deep breath, then nodded. “He’d kick me or my girls out his office if one of them showed up.” She picked at her gold nail polish. “I didn’t like them too much. Guess I was jealous or something.”

  “He ever tell you to keep your…” Colin cleared his throat. “Special friendship secret?”

  Nicole nodded again.

  “And what if you decided not to keep it secret?” I asked.

  Nicole met my eyes with her tear-filled ones. “He said … that everybody would know I’m a whore and that I’d go to jail—just like he would. That no one would want to be around me cuz no one likes girls who been to prison. And that the older girls in jail rape the younger ones and that I’d never get another boyfriend cuz he’d know.”

  I glanced at my partner.

  The vein in the middle of Colin’s forehead was now banging against his golden skin. Jaw clenched, he took deep breaths to control his anger.

  Brandi pulled her daughter into her arms but kept hard eyes on us. “I always thought he was too involved with my daughter. And I really got suspicious, cuz she was startin’ to change. Acting all weird.”

  “Weird, like…?” Colin asked.

  “Whenever we went out,” Brandi said, “she’d wanna eat sushi, and I’m like, ‘We don’t eat no damn sushi. Who gave you sushi?’”

  “Mr. Bishop took me and some other girls to sushi after school,” Nicole explained. “Or he’d bring some and we’d eat it in his office at lunchtime.”

  “This journal.” I pointed at the book but did not touch it.

  “I stole it cuz…” Nicole caught her breath. “He ain’t right. This book ain’t…” She shivered with the heebie-jeebies. “I don’t wanna go to jail.”

  “She ain’t done nothing to go to jail for,” Brandi said. “He the adult. He know better.”

  “Your mom’s right, Nicole,” I said. “You don’t have to worry, all right?” Then, I asked Colin to take Brandi’s and Nicole’s fingerprints.

  Both mo
m and daughter shouted, “Why?”

  Colin held up his hands. “Just as comparison—both of you touched the journal, right?”

  The duo nodded.

  “We need to compare your prints against his.”

  A small part of me was buying champagne and confetti. Was I now holding evidence that proved Payton Bishop killed Chanita Lords, Allayna Mitchell, and possibly Trina Porter?

  Don’t get excited. Keep calm.

  I used a paper towel to pick up the journal, then hustled back to my desk with the book. I snapped on latex gloves, then held my breath as I flipped to the small, neat print on the first page.

  Those notepads. Whiteboard markers, blank CDs

  “Just a list.” I turned the page.

  Lesson Plan for 9/21–9/26. Schedule Career Day Individual sessions, last name c

  I flipped forward and stopped at an inserted school picture of a teen girl with long, flat-ironed hair and a bright smile. She was cute, a little wonky-eyed, curvy, skin the color of peanut butter. I plucked the picture from the crease and read the writing on the back.

  To my favarite conciler. Love, Peaches.

  “Just a student,” I whispered. And with that spelling, a non-GAT student.

  Onward.

  Another picture, this one double-exposure. The girl wasn’t as cute as Peaches—she wore heavy makeup to hide pimples, which only made the pimples look worse. Her fuchsia lips were lined black.

  You are the finest man HERE. XOXX, Chrishonda.

  “Just a student with a crush,” I whispered.

  Seven more pictures, all girls, each addressed to Payton Bishop.

  Did boys give school pictures to their male teachers?

  Onward.

  More lesson plans … More lists of school supplies … A five-by-seven snapshot on photo paper.

  Oof! The air left me as though I’d been sucker punched in the gut.

  Peaches, the girl with the long hair and bright smile, lay naked on a pink comforter in a pink bedroom. Hearts, stars, and pink-inked words had been written on the back of the photograph along with, “U know U want this.”