Land of Shadows (19 page)

Tori's bloody Nike sat in the evidence room at the Forensic Science Center, Number 13 in a queue of thousands, each ancient item needing DNA testing. The city council had given the LAPD several million dollars—from federal grants, private donations, recycled cans, change from everyone's car ashtrays—to process backlogged DNA evidence. Sometimes the results came too late, and the victim had already died or the bad guy had already died. Sometimes the results came but not soon enough, and innocent men were freed from prison, finally exonerated by proteins that never belonged to them.

I nodded, then said, “Yep. Damn spooky. And if I had been named after a tiny French general, I'd be worried right now.”

“You like him for both, then?”

“Yes,” I said, flat and final.

“Then I'll help you. I'll do whatever you need to take the son-of-a-bitch down.”

I didn't know if I would take Mr. Shoot First, Ask Questions Later up on his offer—discretion was not his strongest quality. Still, I nodded as my eyes found the silent monitor:
TMZ
cameras were now following Kanye West up Rodeo Drive.

Alma slipped our sandwiches before us. Glistening slices of meat were piled high on kaiser rolls next to steak fries as thick as bamboo poles.

“Is Tori the reason you became a cop?” Colin asked.

“Yep. Typical, right?”

I had not intentionally planned a career with the LAPD—growing up in my neighborhood, you didn't trust the police. They stopped you for no reason. They harassed you in Westwood and Venice and anywhere blacks weren't supposed to be. And they had never found my sister.

I had earned degrees from UC Santa Cruz and then UCLA Law, doing well at both schools. But then I had flunked the bar exam. Twice. I didn't want to leave Los Angeles and take the bar in Nebraska just to pass, so I enrolled in the police academy.

Mom had not been thrilled with my decision and days passed before she started talking to me again. “Why am I supposed to be happy about this? Because now my
other
daughter will be taken away from me?”

But I wasn't “taken” anywhere. I had kept my wits about me as a patrol cop, working downtown and then the neighborhood that I knew, busting people who had sat next to me in algebra and metal shop. When I made detective five years ago, I had never seen such relief in my mother's eyes.

“You think your sister's alive?” Colin asked as he squirted yellow mustard on his corned beef.

I smeared spicy brown mustard on my bun. “The cop in me says she's dead, but the little sister in me won't believe that. The little sister tells herself to keep hope alive, that hope springs eternal, and umm … God willing and the creek don't rise.”

Colin hoisted his beer and said, “To optimism, a disease worse than herpes.”

We toasted.

After two large gulps of margarita, I said, “My mother's more conflicted than I am. She just wants closure. If she found out Tori's dead, then that would be awful, but at least she'd know for sure. Unfortunately, that makes her feel like she's a bad person for wanting closure.” I took another gulp, and felt the tequila loosen strings that kept me as tight as a girdle. “At least Monique's mother gets to bury her.”

“What does your husband think?”

I nibbled on a piece of pastrami. “He thinks I should let it go, but…” Another gulp of margarita. “We don't talk about it anymore. Talking always ends in an argument. To him, I'm ‘emotionally unavailable' because Tori takes up the space in my heart that should belong to him, blah-blah-fuckin'-blah.”

The meat tasted rubbery now. Freakin' Greg. Ruining my meal even though he was thousands of miles away.

I reached over and jabbed the tattoo on Colin's arm. “Never seen a tribute to snack food mascots on a cop's arm. What's the deal?”

He said nothing for several moments. “You know my father is in the Air Force. That means he goes away for long stretches of time. Being a kid, that was tough, not seeing your dad for months … But every time he'd come home, we would sit on the porch, just us two. And he'd pull out a box of Cracker Jack from his rucksack and we'd sit there on the porch, eatin' and talkin'. I'd tell him about baseball or girls I liked or…”

His eyes twinkled as he stared at his arm. “Those were some of the best times of my life.” He waggled his head and sighed. “So I got a tattoo.” He took a long pull from his beer.

“Why did you come to LA, though?”

“Wanted the beach,” he said. “Wanted to get away from…” He studied his beer bottle, his thoughts lost in the suds there.

“Homesick yet?”

He smiled. “I miss the lightnin', the hikin', mountains…” He laughed, adding, “That's about it.”

I said nothing as I stirred the slush in my glass. I envied Colin—he had a dad who came back every time he went away. What was
that
like?

“Homicide Special Section,” Colin said, sensing that he should change the subject. “That's bad-ass. When should you hear back?”

“Don't know.” And I didn't know. It had been a month since I'd completed the final interviews, and there had only been silence.

Colin bit into his corned beef and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. “This is good.” He took another bite, and then another.

I watched him eat. Greg gobbled his food the same way, then whined about the meat sitting in his gut like a ball of dark matter.

Colin's cell phone chimed. He wiped his fingers on a napkin, pulled the phone from his jacket pocket, then glanced at the display. He frowned and muttered, “Shit.”

“Lieutenant?”

“I wish.” He sat the phone facedown beside his plate and stared at the last quarter of his sandwich. “Dakota, my ex. She's been calling all day.”

“She wants you back?”

He drummed the table with his fingers and chewed his bottom lip. “Who knows what she wants. She says she's forgiven me. That I should come home.”

I forked a piece of corned beef off his plate. “End of relationship haiku.”

He counted on his fingers—five-seven-five—and that perfect smile of his peeked from the gloom. “I'm a poet and didn't even know it.” He took some of my pastrami.

“Why'd you do it?” I asked.

“The girl in the park?” Beer bottle to his lips, he smirked. “Why is it any of your business?”

“It's not.” I raised my glass for another toast. “May you be in heaven a full half hour before the Devil knows you're dead.”

 

25

Tori, Golden, Kesha, and I arrived at Crase Liquor Emporium smelling of sweat, tobacco, and synthetic strawberries. Tori wandered the candy aisle while I grabbed packages of Twinkies and a grape soda. Golden and Kesha quickly purchased packs of Sno Balls and cans of Cactus Cooler, and left the store to talk to three shady-looking guys in the parking lot.

I found Tori still wandering the candy aisle. “You gonna get something?” I asked her. “We have seven minutes left.”

Her eyes shifted to the front of the store. “No. I changed my mind. We should go.”

As I started toward the cash register with my Twinkies and soda, Napoleon Crase shot from behind the potato chips stand. He grabbed Tori's arm and shouted, “I finally caught you.” His face was pockmarked and oily. His Afro tilted left.

Tori cried out and pulled away from him. She shrieked, “Let me go,” as two packets of Starbursts fell from beneath her shirt. “Lulu, help me!”

Terrified, I dropped my snacks and screamed. Then, I wet my jeans.

Napoleon Crase sneered at me, and growled, “You better get on, you little
bitch
.”

I dashed out of the store. I didn't even stop to explain to Golden and Kesha what had just happened. I ran ten blocks, passed Howell's Bakery, the Laundromat, and the YMCA. I ran against red lights, dodged cars and buses, ignored the world and the people in it. I ran up the hill until I had reached my apartment.

Mom came home two hours later, nerves already jangled from teaching kids who hadn't paid attention during the regular school year. I rushed into her arms and told her everything. Leaving the apartment. Meeting up with Kesha and Golden. Buying chips and soda. Tori stealing and being caught. Leaving Tori behind and running home.

After screaming “What?
What?
” and having me tell the story two more times, Mom raced toward the front door, wild-eyed. “I'm gonna drive around. Go back to the store and see if I can find her. You stay here just in case she comes back.” With that, she ran down the stairs, forgetting to close the door behind her.

For an hour, I stood at the living room window, staring out at our apartment complex, hoping that I'd see my sister climbing out of a car or strolling past the mailboxes. For an hour, I prayed and tugged my ear and held my breath.

Mom eventually returned. Alone. “Did she call?”

I bit my lip and shook my head.

Her shoulders slumped. Her purse slid off her arm and landed in the middle of the living room. Then, she trudged to the kitchen, grabbed the telephone receiver from its base, and called 911.

An hour later, Detective Tommy Peet was seated on our couch, taking my statement about all that had happened. “Someone needs to stay by the phone in case she calls,” he instructed. “Don't worry. We'll find her. Girls like her disappear like this all the time. She's probably with a boyfriend or something.” He left our apartment with a school picture of my sister in his pocket.

For dinner that night, Mom tried to broil round steak, but it burned. I ate two bowls of Cap'n Crunch instead. Then, I helped her fold laundry as we watched a rerun of
227
. At every commercial break, Mom would smile at me and say, “It'll be okay,” even though the phone still had not rang.

Tori didn't come home that night.

When questioned, Napoleon Crase said that Tori had been stealing from him for months and that he had ignored it. But today, he couldn't let it slide, so he caught her. He threatened to call the cops, but she begged and cried and pleaded with him not to. She paid for her stolen candy and left the store very much alive. But he couldn't explain the abandoned pack of Starbursts near the Dumpster behind his store. He could not explain Tori's wristwatch—her last gift from our father—found on the asphalt beneath his Cadillac. Nor could he explain the single white Nike Huarache, women's size 6, also found near the Dumpster, seemingly pristine if not for that perfect drop of blood.

 

26

At home, the damp air smelled of salt and kelp, and my skin tingled from the cold. I lingered at the open garage door. So still. So quiet. Parked cars filled the streets—everyone was home tonight. A dark-colored truck with no plates had pulled into the last open spot a few condos down from mine. I wouldn't have noticed it, but cigarette smoke wafted from the driver's-side tinted window toward me. The driver didn't leave the truck, and even though I couldn't see the face, I sensed him looking in my direction. As I stood there staring, the truck pulled back out of its space, U-turned, and rolled south, away from me and into the fog.

Inside, I stored my guns in the closet safe and took a long hot shower. Ten minutes later, I retreated to the sun deck with my iPad, a glass of wine, and a shipping box from Amazon.

It was almost 9:30, and a small band in the courtyard a block away was playing Bob Marley's “Stir It Up.” The thump of bass and drums drifted on the air along with the smells of night-blooming jasmine. A heron with unblemished white feathers alighted on the grassy island across the street, in search of a last-minute snack even though the sun had already dropped behind the Pacific.

I was off the clock but homicide detectives never stopped working—even though we tried to separate home life from casework. We lay in bed, our minds not sleeping. We sat in Adirondack chairs, our minds far from the crossword puzzle or magazine on our laps. We thought about relaxing but our thoughts quickly turned to that missing puzzle piece—
who did it?

I didn't come out to the sun deck to think about Monique Darson and I had intentionally left her diary on my desk at work so that I wouldn't be tempted to read it during my downtime. But I grabbed my iPad and started swiping around the dead girl's Facebook page.

Monique Darson knew her killer—I was convinced of that.
Who was he?
One of her 2,133 Facebook “friends”?

If I visited every profile, would I find the man behind the green-highlighted telephone number?

Had he left one of countless messages of grief that now filled her Wall?

We miss you!

RIP Baby Girl.

Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Monique's last status update had been posted a little after ten on Tuesday morning, several hours before her death.
Rise shine give God the glory!!
She had also posted a picture of her and Butter wearing matching head scarves and similar sleepy expressions.

I tapped on Photos and found more than twenty-five hundred pictures in her cyber albums.

“Geez,” I said, rubbing my jaw, “where do I even start?”

At the pictures of Monique in a choir robe? Or maybe the picture taken in front of a Red Lobster. In it, she wore a gray pantsuit and stood beside a young man, tagged as Von Neeley, who wore a bow tie and a three-piece suit.

And then, there was the picture of Monique sitting in the bed of a glittery red El Camino, licking Derek Hester's shoulder tattoo while he threw up gang signs. And another picture of Monique hoisting a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, faded and sloppy, with Derek behind her, his hands groping her seventeen-year-old breasts.

Monique Darson had more lives than Garfield.

But then, didn't we all?

I returned to her Wall.