Beneath the Cracks (34 page)

"Another body?"

He nodded. 

"And this didn't warrant a phone call to
me?"

"You said you were tired," accusation
dripped from Crevan's lips.

"Well, what're we waiting for?  Let's
go."

"I'm not leaving you here, Helen.  If
you're coming, you're riding with us.  If you're going in that
bar, you're taking backup with you this time."

"Fine, I'll ride in your damned car."

The dump site was less than a mile away from
Uncle Nooky's bar on Third Avenue, tucked in a blind alley much
like the one where Detective Cox was found.  Instead of a
diner next door, an all-you-can-eat buffet was the dining
establishment using the dumpster that held our latest
victim. 

A small crowd had gathered, but uniformed
officers from Downey Division had already cordoned off the crime
scene. 

"Did you get my message?"

"About the pictures?" Tony asked. 
"Yeah.  Why?"

"Do you still have the digital camera in the
car?"

"Sure.  I figured I'd shoot the pics
over to you right away, but then we got this call."

"Could you take a few shots of the crowd
gathered around here?"

"Yeah, but they'll know I'm doin' it. 
We ain't got no night-vision option, Eriksson."  He procured
the camera from the front seat of the car and offered it up as
evidence. 

I adjusted the settings.  "The
photographs won't be as clear without the flash, but you should be
able to stand back out of the fray and take some decent pictures of
those interested in another homeless bum dumped in the trash."

"You think one of these folks is the
perp?"

"I won't rule it out until we have hard
evidence or a confession.  I find it odd that there's all this
interest in the body when none of the people in this neighborhood
mustered up an ounce of concern when we were trying to identify the
victims."

"Good point."

"Ma'am," one of the officers held the tape
up for me. 

I ducked beneath it.  "Who called it
in?"

"The bus boy.  He's back inside the
restaurant right now.  We got the call about forty minutes
ago, rolled to the scene and were told there's another body, dumped
just like the others."

"Is anyone from CSD here yet?"

"We called Forsythe.  He's on his way
with a team right now."

"Excellent.  Has anyone opened the
dumpster since the bus boy found the body?"

"No ma'am.  Nothing has been
touched."

I returned to the car, the trunk
specifically and rummaged through the kit for gloves and a
flashlight.  "Crevan, since you're so much stronger than you
look, you can hoist me up so I can get a good look inside the
dumpster."

"Shouldn't we wait for CSD to photograph the
scene?"

"I'm not going to move anything but the
lid.  There's something about this that doesn't add up."

Crevan followed me into the alley. 
"Like what?"

"I'm not short."

"Nope."

"But this dumpster is too high for me to get
a decent look inside without a step up.  Give one,
Crevan."  I flung the heavy metal lid.  Hinges creaked
and groaned in protest.  It clanged against the brick wall
behind the dumpster.  "Yet our bus boy came out with trash and
saw
a body in here?" It begged the question. Were boys as
big as the men in Darkwater Bay?  Whoever dumped our latest
victim had to be large too.  Or maybe more than one person was
involved.

Balancing myself with one arm on the rim of
the dumpster, I pulled the flashlight from my coat pocket with my
free hand and shined it down into the gaping container.  The
wide beam illuminated a swath of garbage and the thick, black sole
of a leather boot.  I shined the light up over faded denim
covering a long leg.  A chain, hooked through one of the belt
loops with a metal clasp crumpled in a metal heap beside the
hip.

My heart started sinking when the attire
didn't match that of the typical homeless man foraging for his
meager existence on the streets of Downey.  My search rose
higher, over the thick torso encased in a black leather jacket
until finally, the hands came into view:
Aces &88s
across the base of the fingers
.

"Detective Eriksson, are you contaminating
my crime scene before we've had the opportunity to properly process
it?"  Forsythe only sounded half irritated with my
impatience. 

"It's Batshit Crazy," I said.  "Let me
down, Crevan."

"Murder and mayhem, yes, never quite heard
anybody call them that before, Helen.  What've we got?"

Crevan shook his head, "No, Forsythe. 
You don't understand.  Helen knows the guy in the
dumpster.  It's his biker handle – Batshit Crazy."

I kicked the dumpster and cursed.  "I
should've gone back there when I had the first inkling that there
was more he could've told me!  Now the only two promising
leads I had are dead."

 I drew back my foot for another
spectacular kick when a hand rested on my shoulder.  "I know
it's frustrating, but when you kick that dumpster, you could be
moving evidence around in there, Helen.  Let us do our
job."

The urge to ignore good advice from Forsythe
was strong.  Instead, I channeled the energy into stomping
down the alley.  I would go back to that bar and start
shooting if that's what it took to get the answers I needed.

Crevan, in a spectacular demonstration of
precognition (either that or I was getting predictable), stepped in
front of me before I got around the corner.  "Don't do it,
Helen."

"Don't do what?"

"Use that tone with me for starters. 
You cannot go charging into Uncle Nooky's demanding that they talk
to you.  It won't work, and will very likely result in another
dead cop.  Do you have a death wish?"

"Of course not.  But they know
something. 
He
knew something, just like Denton did,
and now they're both dead.  How can you be so passive about
this, Crevan?  We take a tiny step forward in this case, and
all of a sudden, bodies start falling from the skies."

"Why don't we focus on what we can do right
now."

I rolled my eyes.  "Like what? 
Scry for the identity of our killer?"

"Like following up on that observation you
made at the dumpster."  Crevan pointed at the picture window
at the front of the restaurant. 

My eyes landed on a young boy, probably
mid-teens, who would've still been short if he wore lifts in his
shoes.

"How does a scrawny little kid like that see
into a dumpster when our resident Amazon needed a leg up to get a
good look?"

I watched the boy struggle to heft the
plastic bin filled with plates, glasses and refuse from a finished
meal away from the table.  "Simple," I said.  "He
doesn't."

Chapter 30

Demetrius Kostas was a freshman in high
school, working part time in his father's Greek buffet on weekends,
much to his chagrin.  His father was present at the time
Batshit Crazy's body turned up in the dumpster outside his
restaurant. 

To say that the elder Kostas was irritated
was an understatement.  His heavy accent only garbled his
English more when agitated.

"They do it to us because we are new, we are
different, we do not sound American!"

"Pops," his son wailed.  "Do you have
to be so paranoid?"

"Go on, Mr. Kostas."

"I tell bank, we have successful restaurant
in Manhattan.  My wife, she has sisters in this swamp and begs
me to sell. 
Sell, Papa
, she says. 
I need my
family
.  So I sell restaurant, and get robbed, I tell
you.  We move to this place so she can be with her sisters and
her mama, and bank does not care that I run successful business for
twenty-five years in
Manhattan
."

His affront over the perceived
discrimination by his lending institution might've been comical if
it weren't in part true.  I learned right away that Darkwater
Bay did not view all citizens equally.  My own bias aside,
Papa Kostas probably would've been better off staying in America's
melting pot on the east coast than yielding to the plea of his wife
to be near her family.

"So they tell me, I qualify for only
fraction of what it will cost to start new restaurant.  I tell
them, business will be successful in right location.  On
beautiful island called Hennessey, I could make great restaurant,
yes?"

"I'm sure you could," I agreed.

"But no.  They give me so little, I am
forced to start restaurant on this filthy street where people are
so poor they beg for scraps and crawl through garbage for my
leftover
keftedes
.  Can they come in and sit and
buy?  No!"

"Mr. Kostas how did Demetrius found the dead
man tonight?"

"Bah.  I tell him to take trash out and
he comes running back talking about dead man in trash
dumpster.  I say call police before all my customers
leave."

"May I speak with your son about exactly
what happened?" 

Kostas nodded and ruffled his son's hair
before speaking low and rapid, words I didn't understand but
Demetrius obviously did.  He nodded curtly.  "Papa –"

"Talk to nice detective lady.  Maybe if
you make her happy, she bring friends to dinner sometime."

I led Demetrius to one of the booths in his
father's now empty restaurant.  We sat, but I didn't speak for
a long time.

"So, don't you like, wanna know what I saw
and stuff?"

"I presume it was a dead man in the dumpster
outside your father's restaurant.  Isn't that what you told
the operator when you called 9-1-1?"

"Yeah."

"You look like you could use some fresh air,
Demetrius.  What say we go for a little walk?"

He glanced at his father who nodded and made
a shooing motion with one hand. 

"Can we go out the way you went with the
trash earlier?"

"I guess," Demetrius shuffled through the
kitchen, moving slower with every step.  "So I came out with
the bags through here," he gestured toward the side door that
opened into the alley.  "And when I threw it over –"

"Show me.  Would you mind?"

He huffed a heavy sigh and shoved the screen
door open.  Steam from the kitchen rolled out in front of us
into the chilly October air.  "I walked over to the dumpster
–"

"Okay, let's walk over there."

Demetrius led the way.  "Right here,
and I flipped up the lid.  That's when I saw him in
there."

"Interesting."

"Not really," he muttered.

"Oh, but it is, Demetrius.  You see, I
had to step up to see clearly over the side of this dumpster. 
Do you think you're taller than I am?"

"No ma'am."  His chin dipped to his
chest.

"So you can see why I'm a little perplexed
to hear you say you opened the dumpster and saw the dead man
inside."

"Lady, my pops might be paranoid, but he's
not completely wrong either.  I can't do anything that would
make it harder for him to keep this place open.  It might not
be as nice as the restaurant we had back home, but it's all he's
got now."

"Demetrius, if you really care about helping
your father succeed, you'll tell me what really happened in this
alley.  I can't help clean up this neighborhood if people
won't cooperate so I can arrest the criminals who want this place
to remain a slum.  Do you understand what I'm saying?"

He nodded.  "But if something happens
because I narced –"

"It will happen whether you tell me or
not.  These men killed a police officer, Demetrius.  They
killed him because he got too close to what they were really doing
down here.  You must tell me the truth about what you
saw.  Otherwise, I can promise you that he'll be back to make
sure you can't talk."

His eyes rounded into twin full moons. 
"Seriously?"

"I can protect you, but not if you won't
cooperate with me.  Tell me what really happened in this
alley."

Demetrius shuffled his feet and glanced back
at the kitchen door.  "You gotta promise that you won't tell
Pops everything I say."

For the second time in a few short hours, I
made an X over my heart. 

"I brought the trash out and sort of went
down to the end of the alley for a quick smoke."

"You're fifteen years old, Demetrius. 
You're not even old enough to buy cigarettes."

He plucked a three-quarter inch roach out of
his pocket.  "You can't tell my pops."

"So you got loaded,"
there goes my
credible witness
, "and then what happened?"

"I barely took one toke and the back door
opens.  This steam comes flying out into the alley and I
freaked, right?  I'm thinking that Pops is gonna catch me red
handed."

"Who came out the door?" 

"Pops just stuck his head out and yelled at
me to hurry up, I had more tables to clear."  Demetrius
scuffed his toe against the cobblestone alley and left a groove in
the mud covered stone.  "He's looking at the dumpster and I'm
thinking he's gonna see I'm not there and turn the other way, or
worse, smell the weed."

"He didn't do that, did he?"

Demetrius shook his head.  "He just
goes back inside, and after the fog kinda clears, I see this guy
pull some dude off the ground and toss him.  You know, like on
top of the trash."

I sucked in a steadying breath.  "Did
you see his face?"

"Not really.  He was huge, and all I'm
thinking is that I cannot believe Pops thought that hulk was
me."

"What did you do?" 

"I didn't know what to do.  I sorta
just pressed myself up against the wall and prayed that the dude
wouldn't look down the alley, you know?  And he probably
wouldn't have if Pops hadn't yelled out the door."