“If you’re such a storm master, why’d you let us get soaked the first time I came here?”
“Why not? The land was thirsty. I’m glad the rain came.”
Sal flicks the head off her cigarette and crumbles the rest over the water.
Copying her, Frank asks, “Are there trout in there?”
“Um-hum.”
“Do you catch them?”
“Sometimes. But not from here. Pete keeps a pond stocked behind the ranch.”
“Speaking of which, I better get going.”
As they walk, Sal asks if Frank can stay longer next time. “I have to show you one more thing. It’s the last.”
“You have to?”
“Yes,” Sal answers soberly. “Can you?”
“Thing is,” Frank says to the mountains, “this is probably my last trip for a while. My boss is getting tired of covering for me.”
“I see.” Sal’s eyes pierce Frank and she gets the feeling Sal sees more than she lets on. “Well, whenever the next time is, make it a couple days.”
“What is it you have to show me?”
“You’ll see. But it takes time to get there.”
“On horseback?”
Sal nods.
“My ass is already starting to hurt.”
And already Frank is pondering how to break her promise to Pintar.
Chapter 33
Leaving Soledad, driving south on the 101, Frank refuses to look at the mountains. She senses the Lucias’ long, doleful stare but will not meet it. It’s best to forget the watchful range, to pretend she was never held in its arms.
In Gonzalez she stops at a liquor store. The smell of stale booze and spilt beer is reassuring. She buys Buglers and a bag of Drum. In the car, she rolls a clumsy cigarette. She smokes without glancing west. Back on the highway, she returns Caroline’s call. The conversation is stilted and disengaged. Claiming fatigue, Frank wriggles from their tentative date.
At home, after miles of pressing Sal and Bone and Buttons from her mind, she lights a fire in the barbecue and chars a steak. Slicing bloody chunks right off the grill, she eats without benefit of plate or napkin. A muddled dusk settles over the city. She rolls a smoke and watches the night’s benign arrival. When the sky is as dark as it’s going to get, she drags her mattress into the yard and lies under the few stars bold enough to compete with the city lights.
She wakes cold and shivering. Instead of crawling into bed, she retrieves more blankets and falls deeply into dreams of high mountains and black pines. Traffic wakes her before the alarm. She lies a minute, pretending the susurrus is wind in sycamores. The spell is broken by a horn blast.
In the morning meeting she is vague about the weekend, explaining once again that she has come back with more questions than answers. As the meeting breaks up, she motions Lewis into her office. Frank hasn’t typed up her notes yet, giving Lewis the opportunity to crack, “Fred Flintstone’s more plugged in than you are.”
“Got a prettier wife, too,” she says, shuffling through papers. “Got nothing on Roderick Dusi. Sal seemed surprised when I mentioned he was down here. Said she forgot he worked with her old man. The uncle only hired him when he was desperate. Didn’t tell me shit about him. But we know he was there. We know he fought with Saladino. Know the uncles,” she quotes the air, “wanted to kill him. Had a history of mental illness. I want you to dig deeper on him. Everything you can find.”
Lewis is nodding, writing, not waiting for her boss’s notes.
“Gets better. John Mazetti—the guy who owned the ranch? Saladino’s boss? He was having an affair with Saladino’s wife.”
Lewis whistles. “Saladino know?”
“Don’t think so. Bad as his temper was when he was drinking, I think Mazetti’d have been a dead man if Saladino knew. He was already jealous of Mazetti—”
“How you know?”
“Sal—the daughter—she said he used to accuse his wife of wishing she’d married Mazetti instead. They had a history. All grew up together—”
“Damn. S’like Bonanza meets Melrose Place.”
“Mazetti knew where Saladino would be. Big, strong guy. Angry. Motivated after his lover was beat. Again. Saladino wouldn’t have defended himself if Mazetti caught him unaware or came on him all friendly-like. Have you accounted for him yet after Mary Saladino died?”
Lewis wags her head. “None of the auction places in Merced keep records that far back, and if he didn’t buy anything they wouldn’t a had a record of him being there anyway.”
Frank lifts a finger for each point. “Opportunity. Motive. Means.” She stops to scratch a note to herself. “I should’ve thought to see if I could find who handles the Mazettis’ books. Might be something going back that far, about his trip that week. Okay. Here’s another thing’s been rolling around in my head. His daughter Cass, Sal’s sister.
“Cass is drunker than Stingy Jack when she dies, but she’s a good driver and can handle her liquor. She’s been on that road her whole life. She’d have known the turn was coming, even blind drunk she’d have known to slow for it. The old cop on the scene, the sister, neither remembers skid marks in the road. There’s no obvious cause of accident other than a postmortem .16 Blood Alcohol Content. Which could have been exaggerated postmortem results, and if it wasn’t, if that really was her BAC while she was alive, that would have been nothing for her. By all accounts, she could drink anyone under the table.”
Frank tosses her pad on the desk and kicks back with her feet on it. “I’m not buying it was an accident. I think she killed herself.”
“How come?”
“That’s the question. What makes a pretty, talented, popular young woman drive herself through the windshield? I’m betting something drastic, like maybe you killed your father, or you know who did, like maybe your uncle, but you can’t say. That’d be hard to live with, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, but you ain’t got nothing to back that.”
“Don’t I? People don’t just wake up one morning and decide to kill themselves. Things happen that lead to the decision, that build up to it.” Frank counts on her fingers again. “Her mother’s dead. She did nothing to stop the beatings. She’s furious with her father. Blames him. Supposedly can’t find him. I think that’s bullshit. If you’re that angry, that’s incentive enough to live, to find the bastard and hunt him down. They don’t do that. The girls give up right away. Why? ’Cause they know where he is. No sense in looking. One of them killed him. Maybe Cass. She’s the wild one, the reckless one with the temper. They find him that night, they argue, things get outta hand, Cass grabs a two-by-four and connects in a rage. She doesn’t mean to, but now what are they gonna do? They’ve got a dead body on their hands. Bury him quick. Right there. The girls are smart enough to know they gotta be pouring a foundation soon. Dig him down. Hurry home. Pretend nothing ever happened.”
Lewis looks skeptical. “Possible,” she admits. “But what about the boyfriends? See, this is the way I’m feeling it. They go down there. The uncle tells them where the girls are. They get there, and one of ’em takes on the old man. Get into a fight.”
“No defensive wounds.”
Lewis waves. “An argument. It escalates. One of the boys pop him. They all four bury Saladino. They all in on it. That’s why Cass kill herself. Can’t handle the pressure. ’Specially girl drink like she do? She know she gonna spill it, get someone she love in trouble. Don’t make sense, the girls popping they old man. ‘At’s something a boy up in his blood about a girl would do.”
Nodding, Frank says, “Maybe Pete. He’s a shystie bastard. Real possessive of Sal. Might be Thompson, but I’m not feelin’ him. Sal says he’s an awful liar. Or—” Frank drops her feet onto the floor and turns back to the paperwork on her desk “—could be we’re both fulla shit and some long-dead wino popped Saladino for pocket change.”
“Maybe so,” Lewis agrees, standing to go. “Maybe so.”
“Close the door, please.”
She does and Frank stares at her phone. She owes Caroline a call and a date. She wonders what Sal is doing, how cool the morning is, and what the creek will look like when all the leaves have fallen. She wishes she’d thought to take pictures. Going online, she scrolls through images of the Santa Lucias. None look right. They don’t fill the craving in her heart.
The retirement papers catch her eye. She pulls them out and calls Caroline. “Hey,” she tells her voicemail. “It’s me. Nothing on the agenda tonight. Holler if you’d like to do something.”
But right after lunch the squad catches a drive-by. Tatum is next on the rotation and Frank rolls with him. The victim is an eight-year-old girl riding her bicycle home from school. The bullets sprayed into a quiet Dalton Street home were meant for her older brother. The bicycle has pink tassels on the handlebars. They match the girl’s anklets and the barrettes in her hair.
Pintar arrives on scene to deal with the media. It’s a small crowd, as even pretty eight-year-olds don’t rate much South-Central airtime. Frank goes inside the house, where the mother and father and younger brother huddle on the sofa. The son who was the intended target has fled. She steps carefully around shattered glass in the front room, listening as Tatum asks for a photograph of the boy.
“He didn’t do anything. Why do you want him? Why you don’t go find the punks that did this to my baby girl?”
Tatum starts to explain that their son can lead them to the shooter, but Frank interrupts. “Whoever did this to your daughter is going to know your son’s coming for them and they’ll be waiting for him. We want to get to your son before they do.”
The mother nods and goes into another room. She comes out with three freshly printed pictures of her son, his arms around his mother and sister, all grinning for the camera.
Tatum puts out an APB while Frank takes the brother aside.
“What’s his street name?”
“I dunno.”
“Yeah, you do. It’ll help me find him faster, and maybe keep him alive. Who’s he claim?”
“I dunno.”
Frank sighs. “Do you love your sister?”
He nods.
“Your mom and dad?”
He nods again.
“Do you have any idea how hard this is gonna be for them, how much it’s gonna hurt that they’ve lost their baby girl?”
The boy tears up and tries to choke them down.
“Can you think how it’ll be if they lose their baby girl and their oldest boy? I don’t want whoever did this to your sister to kill him, too. You know they’re gonna be lookin’ for him. If I can find him first, I have a chance to protect him. If I don’t, your parents are gonna lose two of their babies. You want that, to be the only one they got left?”
He shakes his head at the floor. Frank squats next to him and leans in. “Who’s he claim?”
The boy is staunch in his brother’s defense.
“Nobody’s gonna know you told me, and the longer you hold out, the more time you give for the guys who shot your sister to find your brother. Trust me, little man, you don’t want that on your head. Who’s he claim?”
He mumbles, “One Bloods.”
“What’s he go by?”
“Lil’ Hook.”
“Alright.”
She stands. Her leg is cramping. She gives his shoulder a squeeze and leaves to find Tatum. “I’mma take the car. You finish up here.”
“Where you going?”
“Find their boy.”
Frank idles through late afternoon traffic, pausing next to the furniture store she pointed out to Braxton. Every 1Blood and F13 tag is crossed out with a 59 HCG tag. “Shit.” She turns around and heads for the Rec Center.
An ex-banger and old street friend runs the center, and she’s glad to find him in. “Colgate.” She pumps his hand and they catch up briefly before Frank hands him the print. “You know this boy? One Blood, goes by Lil’ Hook?”
Colgate squints at the grainy print. “Yeah, I know him. He just a tagger.”
He hands the paper back. “What you want with him?”
“I think he’s jumped in. Someone—I got a hundred bucks on a 59 HC—iced his baby sister, and Lil’ Hook’s gonna take me right to him.”
“Last I heard, Ones be kicking over to a casita somewhere by Roosevelt Park.”
“That’s east side.”
“Yeah, you know the lines blur all the time. Street word is F13 making a big push into 18th turf and scooping up all the little sets, promisin’ a nibble of the eMe pie.”
“Hm. Tasty. Hollah at me if you hear anything?”
Colgate nods somberly. “Will do, Frank.”
She places a call while driving east. The sergeant at the bureau Gang Enforcement Unit is out and she speaks to another GEU cop, trying to narrow the casita’s location, but the guy is clueless. She hangs up, staring at her phone, wondering what in hell he gets paid for. Scrolling through her address book, unconsciously reading the surrounding street traffic, she presses the number of a Newton Division cop. “Stacy Vandewort. Frank Franco. How you doing?”
“I get any better, I’m gonna be dancin’ with the stars. How about you? Long time no see.”
“Nothing’s changed. Same shit, different day. Stacy, tell me what you know about a Florencia casita somewhere on Central, might be starting to blend with One Bloods.”
“Yeah, I can think of one or two. Why, what’s up?”
She explains how Lil’ Hook is probably gathering his posse even as they speak and that she’d like to preempt a payback. “The Warthog,” as the overlarge woman is called, promises to meet her in forty. Frank cruises into the neighboring division, slowing to check out Newton’s graffiti.
She calls Caroline to tell her she won’t be able to make it after all, and is oddly relieved. Not wanting to know what that’s about, she concentrates on a west-side tag over an east-side click, surprised the westies have expanded this far. A woman walks a dog on the other side of the street. The dog is black and thin, like Bone, with only a stub for a tail. She double-takes the owner, certain it’s not Sal, and then she is sitting on the shore of a gold-dappled pond under green trees and blue sky.
There are women before her, younger women, laughing and splashing in the cool water. The sun is a comfort to her old bones. Her fingers blindly work long stems into the start of a basket. Beside her rests a grizzled hound, head on its paws. Spying a spot in the circle of blue sky, she glances up with a greeting for the vulture whirling there. The younger women laugh at her. She accepts the harmless derision with a warning that they will see, they will see.
A truck honks and returns her to the black tar and brown air of South-Central. She takes a breath to clear her head and looks for the dog. It is gone.
The afternoon is spent surveilling casitas with The Warthog, checking in with Tatum and later the GEU sergeant. He doesn’t have any intel on Lil’ Hook or who capped his sister, but he assures Frank he will keep his ear to the ground. Back at the station, night is coming hard. Frank pushes away the purple mountains that rise in her head. She grabs Tatum and they start running down sources and snitches. Colgate calls just before midnight with a name. They run it through the system and by four a.m. have enough information on the 59 Hoover Criminal to wake a judge for a warrant.
By 0730 hours they are assembled with backup at a derelict home under the Harbor Freeway. At Tatum’s announcing knock, bangers in boxers and T-shirts leap from windows like fleas from a dead dog. One is the 59 they’re looking for. The rest of the day, she and Tatum take turns breaking him in the box. The case is only thirty hours old when Braxton comes into the squad room waving a plastic bag with a crappy Raven MP-25 recovered from the banger’s baby momma’s apartment.
Disgusted and exhausted, Tatum asks the 59 what the hell he was thinking. “What makes you keep such a piece-of-shit gun when it’s so hot?”
The dissed banger is exhausted, too. He looks at the wall and yawns.
Frank chimes in, �
�Yeah, you can replace that junk for a hundred bucks, easy. What you such a cheap ass for?”
“Ain’t cheap,” he argues, then says proudly. “I’m prudent. Ain’t rich like you policemans.”
Frank nods. “You got a point. We get new weapons every six months whether we want ’em or not.” Tatum twists his head toward her, but she continues, “Guess if I was buying my own I’d be prudent, too. But, man, couldn’t you have got nothing better than a Raven? I mean, if you’re gonna be keeping ’em and all, why not step to something dope, get you’ self a real gun?”
“Shit, motherfucker, that ain’t my only piece. I got others way better ’an that.”
Frank gives him a big smile. The 59 has just tied himself to the weapon. With luck, ballistics will tie his weapon to the murdered girl. Frank steps out of the box and lets Tatum finish. On the way downstairs she calls Pintar with the update.
“Nice work,” her boss says. “You must be one happy detective.”
“Yeah,” she lies. “See you tomorrow.”
Frank unlocks her car. She sits, scrolling through messages. Two are from Caroline. Frank puts the phone down and reaches into the glove box. Extracting Drum and Buglers, she slowly rolls a smoke. The October evening is chilly. Lights wink at the dusk and encourage night to come along. She fights onto the freeway and drives with the window down, cigarette balanced in the corner of her mouth. Ash falls into her lap. It would be so easy to keep driving north into the dark hold of the mountains, to sleep under their quiet watch.
The cigarette burns her lip. She squints through the distracting smoke and pain. Disappointed she can’t bear the heat anymore, she flicks the butt away. The phone rings into the passenger seat. She flips it over, reads Caroline’s number, and switches it off. A couple miles later, she relents, texting Caroline that she has to get some sleep and will call tomorrow.
Caroline texts back, Are u avoiding me?
Don’t be silly. Beat. Up 36 hrs. xxoo.
Frank hits Send and powers the phone off again, satisfied that at least the middle of the text is true.
Chapter 34
There are no new cases during the week, but Frank stays busy. She cruises with her cops on their cases, visits with Colgate, Miss Lacy, and a dozen other contacts. Out of respect for the family, she attends the funeral of a Rollin ’60s banger, and stops in at Drew Memorial to see an old informant dying from AIDS. She stays in touch with Mary and goes to lots of AA meetings because that helps keep her from thinking about Sal and the mountains.
Hold of the Bone Page 23
