Skies of Ash

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Who?”

  “The girl who wears all those stupid barrettes in her hair? Cosplay Kelly. She wants to move over to Creative, so she bought me a coffee to kiss my ass.”

  “Did it work?”

  “I pointed out that she misspelled ‘Revelation’ twice on my last press release. Then, I told her that she’s lucky she still has a job.”

  I chuckled. “So I guess that’s a no.”

  “Wanna grab a quick bite later?” he asked. “Tokyo’s having QA issues, and I won’t be home until late.”

  “How about dessert?” I asked.

  “Dessert. That means you naked on my bike.”

  “And then, afterwards, a trio of crème brûlée.”

  “Sounds good. Hit me up when you’re home.”

  We ended the call. Bust-a-Cheat had timed out. Fine. I considered that, and all the other apps I had purchased since buying the device.

  An app to stream music.

  An app to read books.

  An app to bust your unfaithful mate.

  Too much information.

  Bust-a-Cheat would give me an ulcer by Boxing Day.

  I eased back onto the freeway. As cars separated into different lanes—downtown here, San Bernardino there—I pressed Bust-a-Cheat until all the apps wiggled, until an X appeared at the top corners of each square. I tapped one X only, Bust-a-Cheat. The icon blipped away, and then my muscles relaxed, tears of relief welled in my eyes, and all suspicion and doubt became foam that would dry and evaporate—and soon I would forget that I had ever doubted him.

  Until the next time.

  17

  THE TWO-STORY BUILDING THAT HOUSES THE SOUTHWEST DIVISION OF THE LOS Angeles Police Department is located on Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard, a major valve of South Los Angeles. A major valve with no coffee shops, no ATMs (except for the machine in our lobby), and lots of churches.

  Noontime meant siesta, and the squad room was unusually quiet. Luke’s head drooped over his belly as he caught snatches of sleep. Pepe typed and yawned, typed and yawned some more. The fluorescent lighting tubes buzzed. The soundproof interview rooms where suspects and their mommas came to cry were all empty.

  It had been three days since I’d sat at my desk. Three days since I’d smelled stale coffee, Luke’s cheap cologne, and the rankness of weed on a perp’s jacket. Smelling all of this now made my skin tingle and my mind reel with memories, like Proust and his cookie but six times more fucked up.

  My desk almost faced a window, but I wasn’t missing much. Kids ditching school. Hookers. Thugs. Homeless. Cops. Traffic. Poverty. Pigeons. No, my view consisted of Colin’s cubicle, its walls tacked with so many pictures of him skiing, tanning, and smiling that you thought he had died too young, too soon.

  “At least we’re not the asshole of LA,” Lieutenant Rodriguez always touted. “Seventy-Seventh is a real shithole.” Zak Rodriguez had been my boss and mentor since I’d stopped flunking the bar exam and chose instead to mete out justice as a sworn officer of the LAPD. At six foot six, he hadn’t planned to bust in doors and wrestle Bloods to the ground. He’d dreamed of being paid millions of dollars to tackle other big men in big arenas. He’d been on his way to doing that until cancer took away his mother—and his spirit.

  He now towered over my desk, a pack of Camels in one dragon-sized hand and a can of RC Cola in the other. “So the Chatman case is where?”

  I had just sat at my desk to scroll through the hundred e-mail messages clogging my in-box. Reporter, reporter, spam. “Not sure,” I said. “It’s all very strange—the people I’ve talked to so far say the Chatmans were a happy family. But, first: people lie. And, second: happy families don’t carry handguns and stow packed suitcases in cars with full tanks of gas. Normally.”

  My boss shrugged. “Maybe the gun was for protection since they’d been robbed before. And maybe the suitcases were for emergencies, like earthquakes and riots and whatnot.”

  “Maybe.”

  “How much longer to turn ‘maybe’ into ‘definitely’?” He paused, then added, “Would be nice to close this out for the year.”

  Ah. The coveted clearance rate.

  “It’s solvable.” I stretched, and the bones in my shoulders clicked like toppling dominoes. “I should have the arson and coroner’s reports in hand sometime soon. Those should answer most of my questions. Then, we’ll make an arrest and you’ll throw me a parade and—”

  “She’s here!” Colin sauntered into the squad room holding a foil-covered plate. “Guess who picked up Porto’s for lunch? And guess who saved you some?”

  My stomach jitterbugged as I took the plate and peeled off the foil.

  “What’s that she got?” Pepe asked.

  “Taggert saved me some potato balls,” I said, my mouth full.

  “Hey, no fair,” Luke whined. “You snooze, you lose.”

  “Leave her alone,” Colin said. “She’s got my balls in her mouth.”

  I shoveled in another lump of potatoes and ground beef, then said, “And they’re delicious, too.” Eating had energized me, and my body felt buoyant again.

  “Let’s get an update,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said as he settled on top of my desk. “Lou, you can talk in between eating Taggert’s balls.”

  Everyone took a seat as I pulled a small whiteboard from beside my file cabinet. I set that up on a worktable, then cleared my throat. I leaned back in my chair and then told them about my meeting with Dr. Maria Kulkanis, about Juliet Chatman’s Valium prescription, about Juliet’s use of the word “trapped” when speaking about being pregnant again. “What bothers me the most about this case is that Juliet had as much a motive for killing herself as her husband did.”

  “What motive does Christopher Chatman have?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked. “Other than ‘nobody wants to kill your wife and kids except you’?”

  “Don’t know,” I admitted, blushing. “I’m just being prejudiced: men suck.”

  “After the autopsies, after Lou got the warrants in, I went through the family’s medical records,” Colin said, flipping through his notepad. “As far as drugs, Juliet had the Valium scrip. The kids didn’t. Cody had a Ritalin prescription, though, and he’d gone to the emergency room a few times for suspicious burns.”

  “Kid was a firebug, right?” Pepe asked.

  “Yep,” Colin said. “But back on Thursday, looks like he’d gone in for a bruised ulna.”

  “How’d he get it?” I asked.

  “Roughhousing,” Colin said.

  “Busy day on Thursday,” I said, looking to Luke.

  “I talked to the guy who owns the shop where Mrs. Chatman bought her gun,” Luke said, taking my cue. “Sam Duffy’s his name. Said she came on Thursday—he doesn’t see many black women in Gun Runners. He remembered that when she first came in, he looked at her driver’s license and saw that she’d come from LA. She told him that she wanted protection, that she didn’t have any experience firing a weapon. This second visit, she seemed nervous, but that didn’t strike him as much as her just bein’ in the store.”

  With a black marker, Colin started a timeline on the whiteboard. “It takes ten days to buy a gun. So ten days before last Thursday was Monday, November twenty-sixth.” He wrote “JC BUYS GUN.”

  Then, we filled in other dates we knew: Juliet Chatman’s last doctor’s appointments, the date of the fire, Juliet at Gun Runners, Cody in the emergency room. Arms crossed or leaning forward, we all stared at the whiteboard in silence.

  “Can I hear the 911 call?” I asked.

  Pepe tapped a few keys on his computer keyboard, and soon the familiar blurp of an incoming emergency call answered by a female operator filled the squad room.

  Operator: Fire and paramedics. What is the address of the emergency?

  Juliet Chatman: I need help! Help me! My house is on fire.

  Operator: Okay, ma’am. What is your address?

  Juliet Chatman: Oh god… Oh no! Wake up, baby! Wake up!

  Operator: M
a’am, what is your address?

  Juliet Chatman: [static] trying to kill me![coughing]

  Operator: Ma’am—

  [Dial tone.]

  Operator: Ma’am?

  The call disconnected.

  For another minute, we all sat there, barely breathing, not speaking, soaking up the abject fear in Juliet Chatman’s voice.

  Wake up, baby!

  She was pleading with Chloe.

  A flush crept across my face and burrowed beneath my skin. I swallowed hard, then asked, “What time did that call come in?”

  Pepe peered at the computer. “Three thirty-one that morning.”

  “She used her cell to make that call?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Pepe said. “The R/O got to the house at 3:51 and called it in again—fire trucks were en route already because of Virginia Oliver’s call at 3:45.”

  “Oh yeah,” Colin said. “ ‘Sounded like God frying bacon.’ ”

  I handed out assignments:

  Luke would handle the Chatmans’ phone records.

  Pepe would delve into the family’s finances.

  Colin would liaise with Forensics and handle the murder book.

  Lieutenant Rodriguez would manage media inquiries.

  I would do all of this and more, while also interviewing family, friends, and the husband.

  Just as we were about to break, my e-mail alert chimed.

  Quigley had sent over a PDF.

  I hit PRINT.

  Luke and Pepe read the hard copy of the fire report as Colin, Lieutenant Rodriguez, and I peered at my computer monitor and the nineteen pages of sketches, floor plans, and photographs.

  The summary detailed the square footage and number of rooms in the Chatman house. Three pages detailed the on-scene investigation: what had been on fire upon the fire department’s arrival and preliminary observations of where the fire had started and had found its victims.

  “ ‘Lab analysis shows,’ ” I read aloud, “ ‘a household petroleum product.’ ”

  “What?” Colin asked. “Like oil or Vaseline?”

  I pushed away from my desk and rubbed my bottom lip. “How would a household petroleum product—say, Vaseline—catch fire?”

  Lieutenant Rodriguez continued to read the report. “ ‘Point of origin… electrical outlet in the upstairs hallway bathroom.’ ” He cocked his head. “And how would it spill into an electrical outlet to spark and hit those paint cans and rags?”

  “He or she used a trailer,” I said. “Does the report mention newspaper or dryer sheets? Typical trailer trash?”

  The men read in silence until Colin said, “No mention of a trailer, but the investigation ain’t over.”

  Lieutenant Rodriguez’s gray eyes had turned the same color as the pewter sky outside. He grunted as he hopped off my desk. “This is bigger than we thought.”

  “Devil’s in the details,” I said. “And you know I live and breathe details.”

  “El diablo sabe más por viejo que por diablo,” he countered.

  The devil knows more for being old than for being the devil.

  My muscles tensed—he was right. I hadn’t lived on this planet long enough to know everything there was to know about evil. And despite living for the details, I didn’t even know what I didn’t even know.

  18

  SPENCER BROOKS WAS IN THE CUTTING ROOM AND COULDN’T BE DISTURBED. SO I left him a voice mail. “Juliet Chatman’s emergency call came in at 3:31 A.M., which confirms your finding lots of carbon monoxide in her lungs. She was alive for much of the fire. Hope that helps.”

  It would: the devil was in the details.

  I pulled from my bottom drawer a small white Christmas tree with tiny red and green bulbs and a miniature polar bear clinging to the top. I sat it next to my fuchsia orchid that never saw the sun and was slowly dying on the corner of my desk.

  I clicked back to my virtual in-box, and, just like that, its contents had grown by twenty. Brooks had received my voice mail and had e-mailed me his thanks. Another message had been sent by Sam Seward, the assistant district attorney assigned to the Monique Darson murder case. My stomach lurched as I scanned the preview pane of Sam’s e-mail: “grand jury summons… Max Crase… competence trial.”

  As I read, my eyes burned and my nose twitched.

  A forest… in the middle of the Pacific Ocean…

  “Colin,” I snapped. “Stop stinking.”

  My partner now hunkered over me, his eyes twinkling like liquid blue topaz. “Put your panty hose on. We got visitors.” He tapped a bulb on my Christmas tree. “You being ironic?”

  I sneezed three times. “Maybe if you wore more cologne, you’d kill me all the way.” I plucked tissue from the box on Pepe’s desk and blew my nose.

  “Ladies love Armani,” he said, sauntering toward the interview rooms.

  “Ladies love oxygen, too,” I said, following in his overscented wake.

  A moment later, we sat in interview room 3, the nicest of the three craptoriums used to interrogate suspects and their loved ones. This room had retained nearly all of its gray soundproof padding and had sufficient ventilation for two people. Across from us sat the short, balding white man from Don Mateo Drive and his mousy-haired playwright-wife, Delia.

  “Eli Moss,” he reminded me as he crossed his hairless pink calves. Underarm sweat rings darkened his red THING 1 T-shirt. The pockets of his green cargo shorts had been stuffed with who knows?

  Delia wore an eggplant-colored sweater two sizes too big, thick black leggings, and shearling boots.

  They had dressed for two of California’s climates.

  “So what can we do for you today, Mr. and Mrs. Moss?” Colin asked.

  “It’s more, what I can do for you.” Eli thrust out his chin. “I created something of a minidocumentary of the fire.” His lungs, filled with self-satisfaction, expanded beneath his shirt.

  All my forward thinking froze and I blinked at him. “Why would you do that?”

  A vein throbbed in the middle of his forehead. “I’m a filmmaker, remember?”

  I didn’t remember, but I still said, “Ah, yes.” Then, I blew my nose.

  His nostrils flared, but he swallowed to tamp back his anger. “See, I wasn’t home that night.”

  “Okay, so where were you?” I asked.

  “My other job,” he said. “I work at the airport. Anyway, I wasn’t home that night, but everyone else in the neighborhood was. And almost everybody used their phones to record parts of the fire.” He nodded as a huge smile spread across his face. “So I took everybody’s snippets of video—”

  “I actually used our video camera,” Delia interjected.

  “And the footage Delia got,” Moss continued, “and edited it all together.” He sat back in his chair with a smug smile. “Later, I’m going to make a documentary about it. Then, I’ll enter it in Cannes or Sundance. Win a few awards and everything. But I’m here today to give you a sneak peek at what I have so far. For your investigation.” He pulled a DVD from his stained khaki rucksack. “For your eyes only.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the disc.

  Delia cleared her throat, then said, “I saw Christopher leave the house on Monday night.”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  She nodded. “I was getting ready for bed and heard his car start around eleven that night. I peeked out the window and watched him back out of the driveway.”

  I cocked my head. “Was he alone or was Juliet with him?”

  “He was alone.”

  “Was the house dark? Had the others gone to sleep?”

  “Guess so.”

  “You see him leave late like this a lot?” Colin asked.

  Delia nodded. “At least twice a week. When the fire…” She took a deep breath, then slowly released it. “When the fire started, I thought he had come home by then. It was late or early, or… We didn’t notice that his car wasn’t in the driveway until he showed up.”

  “How long have you known t
he Chatmans?” I asked.

  Delia and Eli looked at each other the way couples do when they’re unsure of the answer.

  Eli scratched an angry red splotch on top of his balding head. “Maybe six, seven years?”

  “They have any enemies?” I asked.

  “Everyone has enemies,” Delia said. “We often call them friends. Or lovers. Or—”

  “Heh,” Eli said, rubbing his jaw. “Didn’t think we’d be asked serious questions. We just wanted to drop in and give you the film.”

  “So you’re a documentarian.” I pointed to his rucksack. “Are you taping our conversation right now with a hidden camera?”

  Eli turned the color of pomegranates. “Is… that a problem?”

  “No,” I said. “When it is, you’ll be the first to know. So: enemies?”

  “Like in the neighborhood?” Delia asked.

  “In the neighborhood,” Colin said. “At work, school, wherever. Were they assholes? Sounds like the boy was a Grade A jerk, settin’ shit on fire, gettin’ into fights, bullying little girls. And his old man: last night, in Mrs. Emmett’s living room, we talked about him and that dog-faced redhead he was bangin’ on the DL.”

  I blanched and kicked Colin’s foot. Dude, take it easy.

  The couple considered each other again with bit lips.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Colin continued, not taking it easy. “In this room, you can speak ill of the dead. We want you to. Helps us figure out why they’re dead.”

  “The boy setting fires,” Eli said, shaking his head. “A phase. Nothing more. Boys do stuff like that, y’know? I’m sure you played with matches when you were a kid.”

  Colin said nothing.

  “They’re actually nice people,” Delia said. “They work hard, love their kids, go to Mass every Sunday. No strange visitors at the house. No mysterious comings or goings in the middle of the night. Everyone on the block likes them, but you can easily imagine people being jealous.” She tugged at her sweater sleeve. “You don’t have to actively do anything for people to hate you.”

  “Think he has Mob connections?” I asked.

  Eli’s right knee, close to popping out of its socket from all the bouncing, abruptly stopped jiggling. “The Mob? Why would he fool around with gangsters?”