Land of Shadows (3 page)

Days before, Tori and I had noticed the recent primping and perfuming. We had noticed the looseness in her shoulders, the late-night telephone calls, the smiles not meant for us. According to Tori, Mom of Perpetual Mourning now had a man.

And on this morning, she caught my reflection staring at her from the bedroom doorway. “Why don't you hang out with friends tonight?” she said. “Tori's going to a dance, and I … have plans.”

I gawked at her—she never let me hang out with friends after sunset.

Mom lifted an eyebrow, then turned around to face me. “You
do
have friends, don't you?” She sounded just like Tori.

Dumbstruck, I nodded. “Shawnee said I could come over whenever I wanted.” Shawnee lived in the Tahitian Towers just a few blocks south of my apartment building.

“Think I can trust you to sleep over there tonight? You're almost thirteen. I think it's time.” She sat the perfume bottle on the dresser. “Just as long as that little whore ain't there.”

After school, I walked home with Shawnee. Kimya (six months pregnant and rechristened “that little whore” by moms everywhere) sat on the porch of Shawnee's apartment unit. Kimya's tight New Edition T-shirt rode high, showing a belly striped with stretch marks and bulging with a kid she'd already named Ransom Unique. “Dang, y'all took forever,” she complained. “I been sittin' here since two.”

Shawnee slipped a key into the front door lock. “We get out later than St. Anne's, remember?” St. Anne's was the School for the Colored and Knocked Up.

Shawnee's mother, Miss Linda, worked as a clerk at Paramount Studios, and their apartment reflected her devotion to Hollywood. Framed posters—
Fatal Attraction
,
The Golden Child, Crocodile Dundee
, and on and on—hung on every wall, and countless videotapes and screenplays were crammed into cabinets and piled high on every flat surface.

For dinner that night, Miss Linda ordered us Chinese food and sat cans of Shasta on the kitchen table already crowded with yellow legal pads of her own scripts. Before leaving for her date, she gave us each a tiny box of Godiva chocolates and told us to “be good.” And once Miss Linda's old Honda Civic rumbled out of the carport behind the apartment, we carried our dinner from the kitchen and to the coffee table in the living room.

Kimya shoved her can of soda between the couch cushions. “I'm thirsty.”

“We got sweet tea if you want some of that,” Shawnee said as she pushed
Eddie Murphy Raw
into the VCR.

Kimya frowned. “I want a
real
drink. A grown-up drink.”

“Who a grown-up?” I asked, nibbling an eggroll.

“If you can have a baby,” Kimya reasoned, “then you a grown-up. And if you a grown-up, then you can have something stronger than a stupid-ass soda.” She rubbed her belly. “Both of y'all can have babies, so y'all is grown-ups.”

Shawnee chewed on her knuckles, then sighed. “Follow me.”

Our journey ended in the dining room and in front of a filled liquor cabinet. “What you want?” Shawnee asked.

“Let Lulu choose,” Kimya said.

“Umm…” I grabbed the only alcohol that I knew—the purple velvet bag of Crown Royal whisky. My father's brand.

On my third glass of 80-proof Canadian whisky and Shasta cola, I staggered to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. Then I passed out.

The next time my eyes opened, the digital clock on Shawnee's desk read 8:43
P.M.
Tori stood over me. Her lipstick and eyeliner were smeared, and her breath reeked of cigarettes and beer. “Get your bag and come on,” she spat, pulling me from the bed.

Shawnee and Kimya had disappeared, and Miss Linda, arms crossed and frown in place, saw Tori and me to the front door. Each step I took tore a chunk out of my flesh—I'd be a Lilliputian by the time I climbed into my own bed.

“Thank you, Miss Linda,” Tori shouted as we headed to the sidewalk. “Sorry for the trouble.”

The fresh air made it easier to breathe—I wanted to drink it and then bathe in it. My knees wobbled and the top part of me moved ahead of my lower half, like a fanned-out deck of cards.

Tori trudged several steps ahead, actively ignoring me while rapping the lyrics of “Fuck Tha Police.”

“Mom home?” I croaked.

She glared back at me. “What do
you
think?” One of her boyfriends had needed a good chew after dinner, and had left a fresh hickey as purple as a huckleberry on Tori's neck. She grabbed a lighter and a pack of Kools from her purse and lit up. The cigarette's fiery tip bobbed in the dark and smoke snaked around her head.

“You think I'm stupid, don't you?” I asked.

Tori said nothing and pulled on the cigarette.

“Well, I'm not. My stomach was empty.”

She blew smoke into the air, then, in her best Joan Collins voice, said, “You, darling, are a spoiled
bore
. Overprotected and scared of Jesus and mom and your own shadow. Can't even get fucked up properly without needing somebody else to rescue you. You're lucky I was home when Linda called.”

Her words hit me in the gut, and just like that, tears and snot gushed down my face and onto my T-shirt already crusted with vomit, whisky, and soy sauce.

Tori threw her cigarette into the street and reached into her purse again, this time pulling out a wad of tissues. She handed them to me and watched as I dried my face. “I have so much to teach you, Lulu.”

At home, we retreated to our bedroom. “Take a hot shower,” my sister instructed as she pulled a set of my pajamas from the dresser. “So hot that it hurts. Then, pop three aspirin before you get into bed. Oh—brush your teeth. Twice.”

Lessons one, two, and three.

The next morning, the bright sun pulled me from sleep just five minutes later than my regular waking time. My head didn't pound and my breath … well, it stank but not like a corpse had been reanimated behind my molars.

I followed the fragrance of toast and bacon to the kitchen. Tori sat at the counter, dumping ketchup over her eggs. She wore the tank top version of her green-and-white Dorsey High cheer outfit.

“Hey,” I said, climbing onto the empty stool, “I don't feel hung over.”

The hickey on her neck no longer existed, courtesy of mom's bottle of Fashion Fair Copper Blaze foundation. “How the hell would
you
know how ‘hung over' feels?”

I dropped my eyes—I didn't know—and stared at the tattoo on her left biceps. “When did you get that?” I asked, jabbing at the black, swirling letters. “Who's G-Dog?”

She slapped at my hand. “So what's your story? Mom's gonna want to know why you came home last night. And if you say that Miss Linda brought you, then she's gonna call over there and thank her. And if you say
I
brought you … You can't say that I brought you.”

I stared at the countertop. “I … umm…”

Tori stuffed her mouth with eggs. “Tell her a version of the truth but leave out the parts where you fucked up. She'll believe you—she
always
believes you. I bet that she'll throw you a parade.”

“Okay,” I said, eyes burning with tears. “But I don't know how … What…?” A tear slipped down my cheek.

Tori dropped her fork, then used a napkin to wipe my face. “This is what you'll say…”

Ten minutes later, I was deep into my fish story. “And when they pulled out the whiskey bottle,” I was saying to Mom, wide-eyed, “I knew it wasn't right. Shawnee listened to me but Kimya didn't—and I swear that I didn't even
know
that Kimya was gonna be there. So I left and ran home.”

Mom poured coffee into her mug, then squinted at me with bloodshot eyes. “Good. That was a brave thing to do. I'm still not happy that Kimya—”

Tori sashayed into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and grabbed an orange from the crisper. She was now wearing her long-sleeved cheer uniform.

“Victoria,” Mom said.

Tori turned and her green-and-white pleated skirt went
whee!

“Did Lulu tell you about her adventure last night?”

Tori rolled her eyes. “I don't think I care about Lulu's adventures. By the way, I still need fifty dollars to pay off my class ring.”

Mom frowned. “By when?”

“By today.”

“Today?” Mom screeched. “Tori, why the hell—?”

“Don't you have somewhere to be?” Tori asked me.

I nodded. To Mom, I said, “Leadership Class has a field trip to City Hall today, remember?”

Mom, eyes hot on Tori, waved her hand: I was dismissed. “Victoria, what is your problem? You are becoming more and more…”

Before leaving the kitchen, I glanced back at my big sister and mouthed, “Thanks.”

Tori glared at me, then winked.

 

5

There she was, my newest Jane Doe, hanging in the closet just like I had been told. A black girl, couldn't have been older than twenty-one, her body teeming with wriggling maggots and blowflies. Some of the hair behind her right ear looked gummy and matted.
Blood?
Even though she was now bloated with gas, I could still tell that she had been a little thing. She wore a blue-and-yellow cheerleader's uniform, the tank top with the word
VIKINGS
printed in white, and a white-striped skirt torn at the hem. Stained white anklets. No sneakers.

Where are your shoes? How did your skirt tear? Why are you here?

Her legs were splayed before her and her hands had been tied behind her back with a yellow Vikings scarf.

My mind scrolled through a list of Los Angeles–area high school mascots.
Who are the Vikings?

Jane Doe also wore a green-and-red Gucci web belt around her neck, pulled so tight that her eyes had bugged and her tongue stuck out from between her lips. The rest of the belt had been looped around the closet's crossbar. An iPhone sat near her left foot.

For just a moment, my heart broke and I almost dropped to my knees—I had wanted all of this to be a mistake, a practical joke, or even a modern-day Lazarus story that ended with Jane Doe coming to and explaining that she and her buddies were just fucking around and it all got a little out of hand.

But I've never experienced those stories. I'm labeled “homicide” for a reason.

And as a homicide detective in a big city, I had visited hundreds of crime scenes starring dead, black teenage girls. But this one girl … This cheerleader …

Tori.

I swiped at the slick cream beneath my nostrils to reactivate its scent but more to collect myself. “How long have you been here, sweetie?” I whispered.

The bigger larvae would help determine time of death—flies had found her and had lain eggs quicker than it takes a microwave to cook a frozen pizza.

Stiff-legged, I backed away from her and returned to fresher air in the kitchen.

Colin was writing in his notepad—he was the Usain Bolt of good report writing, and I almost hated to interrupt him. But I did. “Your turn.”

Without a word, he headed toward the bedroom.

As a cop—hell, as a decent human being—you try to make sense of horrors like this. Murder or suicide, though, a dead girl just
shouldn't exist
.

In less than two minutes, Colin plodded from the master bedroom and found me sketching the condo's layout in my binder.

“I'll have Zucca do 3D scans of the condo inside and out,” I said. “Once we leave, none of this will ever be the same again. And…” I looked up from my diagram.

His face was flushed and his eyes were moist. There was a chunk of who-knows-what on his chin.

“Oh, crap,” I said, tossing my pen on the counter. “You throw up in there?”

He steadied himself against the counter. “A little. But not in the closet. Near the window.”

“Am I supposed to give you a gold star for discretion?” I muttered a curse, then scribbled a note about his vomiting on the crime scene.

He rubbed his neck, then murmured, “Poor girl.”

“Yeah. Fancy belt for a hanging.”

“Is it real?”

“The belt? From just eyeballing it, yeah, it's real.” Back in the olden days, I used to patrol the garment district in downtown Los Angeles, a mecca for knockoff Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Coach products. I could spot a fake Chanel handbag quicker than I could spot a hooker on fire.

“School's out, right?” he asked.

“Yep.” I tapped the pen against the counter. “So was she going to or coming from a special pep rally or something? Hanging out with other cheerleaders just because or…?”

He shrugged. “You see the phone?”

“Yep. We'll tag and bag it later. And I'll have Joey check out the latest missing persons reports—she may be in there.”

He hid a burp behind his hand, then said, “So?”

“
So
, we need to find the Bad Guy. And our chances of that are cut in half if we don't catch a lead by Friday.”

He squinted at me. “Bad guy?”

I closed my binder and headed to the door. “Congratulations, Colin Taggert. This is your first murder.”

 

6

As soon as we stepped into the lobby, I took several gulps of fresh air, then slowly exhaled through clenched teeth.

“But how is this murder?” Colin asked.

“Her hands,” I said, barely hearing myself over the phantom fly-buzzing and the roar of blood churning in my ears.

“They were tied behind her back. So what?”

“How the hell could she bind her hands like that? Is she a contortionist?”

“I dated this chick,” Colin said, “who could wrap her ankles around her neck, and then do this weird, scooting thing with her hands.”

I scratched my eyebrow. “And you're sharing this with me because…?”