JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps (6 page)

Daryl nodded. “He sounds like a good resource. I'll make double sure I see him tomorrow then."

“Good. See you later, man."

Daryl left the office and took a look at the address Ray had scrawled. It was in Boyle Heights, only ten miles out of his way. It was only seven o'clock, still relatively early. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to look up this Danny Hernandez character on his way home.

He did precisely that. He detoured east on Interstate 10 heading for East Los Angeles.

The confessional booth he was seated in at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic church was growing hot and stifling in the lateness of the day. Father John Glowacz was just about to get up and leave for the day when he heard the outer door of the confessional booth open. A figure stepped in and closed the door. He settled in his seat behind the screen and crossed himself, waiting for the person to sit down and begin the liturgy.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” The voice that came from behind the screen was spoken in a hoarse whisper. The priest detected an eerie familiarness to it but couldn't quite place it. “It has been one week since my last confession."

“I'm listening, my Son,” Father Glowacz murmured.

There was silence for a moment. It had been unbearably hot all day and at the latter part of the afternoon and early evening the confessional booth had been stuffy and hot. The priest loosened his clerical color, wiping sweat from his neck. He hoped this one would hurry it up.

The silence dragged on for a moment. The priest was just about to urge the poor soul on when there was a strangled gasp from the other side of the screen. “I..."

“Yes, my son?” Father Glowacz urged. It sounded like the poor soul was really struggling with something bad. Andthere was something familiar about that voice. Had he heard this penitent's confessions before?

The whisper was choked and garbled. “I've done some ...
bad
things, Father."

“God forgives all those who confess their sins, my son,” he said, his stomach suddenly growing leaden.

“Does He?” The whispered voice held a hint of doubt.

“Yes, He does."

“Thank ... Jesus...” the whispered voice cracked.

There was silence for a moment. Father John Glowacz took a deep breath, licked his lips, and urged him on. “Go on, my son."

The figure behind the screen cleared his throat. “Nothing I tell you goes outside of these walls, right Father? It's all between you, me, and God, right?"

“That's right, my son."

“Good.” More clearing of his throat. No matter how much he cleared his throat, the penitent's voice still sounded hoarse and whispery. “Because I've done some bad things."

“Well, let's hear what they are before we decide how bad they are, eh?” Father Glowacz's heart was beating hard. His hands were shaking. It couldn't be, it just couldn't be who he was thinking it was.

“Okay.” The penitent paused again, as if trying to decide which sin to confess first. “I did it again."

“Did what again, my son?”
Oh God, no
!

“I told myself I wasn't going to do it anymore,” the whispered voice went on, becoming slightly falsetto. “Especially since the one I got over a month ago is still with me. But.... I just couldn't
help myself
.” His voice squeaked slightly, cracking in its hoarse, deep tone.

“What did you do, my son?” Father Glowacz's stomach felt leaden with dread.
It's
him, he thought. It's him, oh why God why—

There was a shuffling from behind the screen, as if the person sitting on the other side of the confessional was shifting in his seat. There was a squeak of the bench as if the person was leaning forward.

And then he confessed. And Father John Glowazcz sat on his side of the confessional booth, his mouth gaping open in horror, his hands trembling, his heart racing with fright as the madman confessed his sins once again to him.

Chapter 3

The apartment complex Danny Hernandez lived in was the best looking building on the block. In a neighborhood consisting largely of small, clapboard style houses badly in need of paint, and small apartment complexes looking worse for the wear, the building Danny lived in was a sight for sore eyes. The paint on the building was fairly recent, at least five years old. It was a seven unit complex with a long narrow driveway that wound to the rear of the building where the carport was housed. Danny lived in apartment number seven, at the top of the stairs. Daryl climbed the stairs, noting that in spite of the rambunctious shouts of children from houses and apartment complexes in the neighborhood, the tenants of this building were fairly quiet.

Daryl knocked on the door. A moment later the door was opened and Danny Hernandez was peering out at him through the half-opened door. “Yeah?"

Daryl flashed Danny his shield. “Mr. Hernandez, my name is Detective Daryl Garcia. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Danny opened the door wider and now Daryl got a better look at the man. He was small and wiry, standing five foot five and probably topping the scales at one hundred and twenty pounds. He was shirtless, dressed only in a pair of ratty jeans. His arms and chest were heavily tattooed, a vast myriad of black inked figures: ships at sea, eagles, Indian Gods, Jesus and His Blessed Mother, a bare breasted woman with long flowing hair. It was nice work, better than most of the tattoos most gang members adjourned their bodies with. Daryl stole a quick glance at the living room behind Danny; the television was tuned to the evening news and the room looked nicely furnished and neat. His eyes rested back on Danny and he smiled. “Just a few minutes of your time is all I'm asking."

“Did you talk to Detective Ray Skipp?” Danny asked. His voice was still inflected with that East LA barrio accent, but it retained enough of a tone that lent a semblance of intelligence to the man. His brown eyes danced with eagerness, his features were open, friendly. Daryl could easily picture this amiable young man, who appeared so eager and helpful, as a former die-hard gangbanger. This man was obviously one of the lucky ones; a man who had miraculously turned his life around and was now dedicated to helping others. It was rare to encounter them, but in Daryl's mind he had a high degree of respect for former gang members who had turned their lives around completely and worked to try to help those around them do the same.

“Yes, I did talk to Detective Skipp,” Daryl said. “He suggested I see you since I'm working on the murder case of the ... individual that was found at the river a few days ago."

“Good. Come on in.” Danny stepped away from the threshold, bidding Daryl entry.

Danny motioned to a couch against the wall and the two men sat down. Danny was leaning forward, eager to help. He picked up the remote control of the television and turned the volume down. “What can I help you with?” he asked.

“Ray told me that you might know who our friend at the LA River might be,”

Daryl said. He pulled out a pad of paper and pen from his shirt pocket. “I'm eager to hear who you believe it is."

“Okay, man,” Danny said. He put the remote control down on the cluttered coffee table and faced Daryl. “Now, I'm only going by what the description in the paper said, which was a Hispanic male between twenty-one and thirty, slightly overweight at about one ninety or two hundred pounds, five foot eight, a scar on his right bicep.” Yesterday the man's right arm was fished out of the river two miles downstream. “The story I read said the coroner thinks the body might have been in the river for something like, three days?"

“Right.” Daryl said, nodding.

“And that he might have been dead for a week?"

Daryl nodded affirmative.

“Well, okay here it is then,” Danny leaned forward. “This guy I used to hang with back when I used to gang bang, guy by the name of Javier Ramirez, I still see him around the neighborhood, know what I mean? He still bangs with Eighteenth Street, but we're cool, you know what I mean? I got him through rehab once but he fell off the wagon and got back into using, got back into the gang and shit. But I still try to help him out, you know? Try to get him to come to some meetings, go to church, come to my support group."

“What support group is this?” Daryl asked.

“I lead a support group at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church for young Hispanic men who are caught up in the whole gang trip,” Danny said, making motions with his arms.

“You know, homies that are either in a gang and want to get out, or former gang members that need to talk about the shit they've been through. Kind of like AA, but this is open to guys who are either in a gang or not in one."

“Isn't that a deadly combination?” Daryl asked. “I mean, former gang members and present ones all in the same room?"

“Not with my group,” Danny said proudly. “Shit, I got guys from four different gangs that come to my meetings. These are guys that would normally be killing each other in the street, but in my meetings they embrace each other as brothers. And they carry that brotherhood out in the streets where they're trying to lay a truce.” He nodded.

“It was working real good there for the last four years until this killing shit started."

“Did Mr. Ramirez attend your meetings?"

“Yeah, but he attended very sporadically,” Danny said reflectively, as if he was already speaking of the dead. “He was in and out of jail the last two years or so for drug dealing. He got married, but I don't think that settled him down much. I think he
wanted
to settle down, you know, but he was still hooked, you know what I'm saying?"

Daryl
didn't
know what Danny was saying—figuratively, he did, but literally he couldn't understand how the lure of getting fucked up, getting shot at, stabbed, the risk of getting thrown in jail or killed was preferable to settling down with a good woman and your child. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Ramirez?"

“Two weeks ago,” Danny said, and now he looked somber. “He came to the meeting and hung around till it was over. Then he pulled me over, gave me a hug, said he was through with gang banging. You should have heard his voice, man, he sounded like he was going to cry. He was literally thanking me for keeping on his ass all those years. It had finally sunk in.” Danny's voice slipped a notch. “He was through with it, man. And this time I believed him."

“So what happened?” Daryl asked, already knowing the answer.

“He didn't show up last week,” Danny said. “I was concerned, so I called his house. His wife answered the phone. She sounded angry. Said that what Javier told me about quitting the gang and going straight was bullshit. She said she hadn't seen him in a week and that he was probably using again."

“What was he into?” Daryl asked.

“Speed,” Danny said. “And crack."

Daryl jotted this down, as well as a brief version of the story Danny had just spun out. Speed and crack. Nothing worse than a gangbanger on amphetamines. It made them more prone to violence.

“Did you check his former hangouts, talk to any of his buyers?” Despite this first meeting with Danny, he was already recognizing him as an experienced counselor who would be well tapped into the criminal underground for his counseling purposes.

“Yeah,” Danny said. “Nobody had seen him since ... well, right after he showed up at the last meeting, which would have been almost two weeks ago."

“No word of him at all from the street?"

“None."

“What about his former homeboys?"

“They haven't seen him either."

Daryl was writing all this down. “Do you know if Mr. Ramirez's wife called the police to report him missing?"

“No, she didn't,” Danny said, rather disappointed. “She said, ‘fuck him. Javier can go fuck himself. I don't want him around anymore.'” He shrugged helplessly. “I called myself about a week ago, but nobody's come around to talk to me yet. Except for you.

Shit, I had to flag Ray down when I saw him driving down Broadway and tell him about it. I'm glad I did now."

So am I
, Daryl thought, jotting down some more notes.

Danny looked restless. He leaned forward on the couch as Daryl jotted his notes.

“The paper said that so far all you found is the body, arms and legs. You haven't found his head yet?"

“That's correct,” Daryl said, clicking his pen and putting it back in his pocket.

“We haven't found his lower arms and hands either."

“Damn,” Danny whistled. “So, you can't like, ID him or anything yet."

“Right now identification will be pretty tough, but with the description you've given me of your friend, we might be able to work with the remains we have in coming up with an ID."

“Yeah?"

“Yep,” Daryl said, putting his notepad away. “We can identify people now a lot of different ways. We can check Mr. Rameriz's criminal record and check his physical description; see if he has any tell-tale scars or tattoos, or if his medical record shows anything like, say, broken bones, We can check our still unidentified man at the morgue and if we got a match, bingo! We can even use DNA to identify him."

Danny nodded, solemn again. “Good. I'm really worried, you know. I don't want it to be Javier, but then I gotta know. You know what I mean?"

“Yes,” Daryl said, rising to his feet. He had gotten some useful information out of Danny about a possible identification and now he was feeling tired. But his mind was still running in overdrive with a thousand questions. He turned to Danny with another thought on his mind. “Mind if I ask you something else?"

“Sure."

“There's some shit going down between four gangs. Eighteenth Street, the Los Compadres Mafia, Boyle Heights Thirteen and another group, can't remember which."

“Tortilla Flats,” Danny said.

“Right. They're killing each other because they think that one of their own is responsible for the killing."

Danny nodded. “I know. I've tried talking to some of the younger homies I know from Eighteenth Street. They're convinced the guy you found is somebody from Eighteenth Street, too, but they don't know what I suspect, that it might be Javier."