City of Saviors, page 13
At Crenshaw Boulevard, Syeeda pulled her car to my left. She rolled down the passenger’s-side window, then lowered the volume on NPR. “Lena just called,” she shouted through the window. “She wants to talk to us.”
“I’ll call her later,” I shouted back. “You got the pen; I got the sword. Go be productive.”
She blew me a kiss and turned left—she’d reach OurTimes in under a minute.
I continued my eastward trek.
The sky was already tinged pink and gray as the fires surrounding Los Angeles continued to blaze across drought-stricken forests. Down here on the ground, crackheads, heroin addicts, and garden-variety drunks were taking the deliberate, gimpy steps of people trying to appear sober. Working folks stood with the working girls at corners and bus stops. Near the carwash, a homeless man performed jumping jacks. Another morning in Los Angeles.
My phone chimed—a text from Colin. Brooks sent the autopsy report for EW.
As I texted, Almost there, my phone caw-cawed. “Yeah?” I asked my partner.
“Just read the report,” Colin said.
“Was I right?”
“There was coconut in his system. Yep, you were right.”
18
THE DETECTIVE’S BUREAU ON THURSDAY MORNINGS RESEMBLED THE DETECTIVE’S bureau on Sunday mornings. A hard Wednesday had led some exhausted Angelenos to drink away their despair, to wallop that jerk in the Cork’s parking lot, to smack his babymomma for demanding money for diapers and formula. On Thursday mornings, our clientele transformed back into respectable men that sat with bowed heads and gaped at their swollen, bloody knuckles, lamenting their tempers for drinking too much tequila, for the oppressive heat and that petty bitch who’d finally pushed him so far that he’d landed in jail.
Nothing more exciting on a Thursday morning than reading an autopsy report. Brooks had run tests looking for certain antigens in Eugene Washington’s blood—and had found a high concentration of proteins that were released during allergic reactions. That—combined with the throat swelling, the expanded lungs, the mucous plugging the airways—screamed anaphylactic shock.
“But it could still be accidental,” Colin said as he rolled over to me in his chair. He wore a clean tan shirt with a smart blue-and-cream tie. No taco sauce stain on the cuff, but it was only eight in the morning.
“True.” I continued clicking through the report. “Where’s stomach contents?”
“Didn’t see it. Does it matter? We know he ate something with coconut.”
“But I want to be sure.” I clicked “reply” to Brooks’s email, then typed, Missing stomach contents report.
“By the way,” Colin said, “Luke and Pepe went to pick up Washington’s medical records. They’re very happy that we don’t have to go back in the house anymore.”
The sticky note I’d left on Pepe’s monitor last night was still stuck there.
“Luke uploaded the pictures, and I sent them to you.” Colin rolled back to his desk to update the murder book with the new report. “I had to remind him to do that—just didn’t want them disappearing like the pictures from the Jackson case. You were out for that one. Total clusterfuck.”
“You’re taking care of business, aren’t you? Combed hair, Tic Tacs stowed—who are you? Captain America?”
He smiled, shrugged. “Just doin’ my job.”
I opened the pictures taken at my victim’s home, not really paying much attention until I clicked on pictures of the envelope found in the camera case and the wallet filled with seventeen hundred dollars in cash. The postmark in the upper right corner of the envelope had been stamped on December 1, 2005. The sender had mixed cursive writing with print—for “Eugene,” a printed lower case g and a scripted upper case N. The return address: 43239 Chariton Drive, Los Angeles, Calif. 90056.
“A lot of money to carry around,” I said, “especially for an old guy.”
“Maybe he didn’t want the IRS to know it exists,” Colin said. “He was in construction, right?”
I nodded. “Maybe Ike didn’t put him on the books for payday?” I then searched for Blessed Mission’s Web site. “I think Miss Bernice will have to wait a little while longer for her coins. She’s gonna be pissed.”
The incredible busyness of the church’s Web site should’ve come with a warning similar to those for video games and Japanese cartoons. Everything blinked, moved, and glimmered—from the Blessed Mission header to the tree-shield logo and copyright language in the footer. Links to videos and sermons and testimony, “Ways to Give,” and “Watch Services Live” sparkled, and some words even twirled. Every bit of the site had been casinoed.
Founded in May 1977, Blessed Mission seeks to change the lives of people so that they may grow in Christ and thrive—here on Earth and in the kingdom of Heaven.
Bishop Solomon Tate, dressed in a tailored gray suit, and First Lady Charity Tate, resplendent in a stormy sea-blue dress, greeted cyber visitors to their online home.
I clicked “Message from Bishop Tate.” My computer’s speakers boomed with gospel music—Mary Mary encouraging me not to give up now.
“What’s up with all the soul singing?” Colin asked.
I laughed, then hit the side of my monitor. “I think I won, but where does the money come out?” I muted the sound, then clicked here, there, and over there. “Can’t tell what they believe. A little holiness, a little Methodist, and a little Oprah.”
There were three services on Sundays. Tote bags and rugs with the church name and logo were on sale.
I clicked “Building Fund.”
The tree logo filled the screen—its bottom third was shaded green. The tree’s leafy top half—marked “$1 Million by December”—was gray. A PUSH PAY button sat in the soil beneath the tree’s trunk.
“They need to raise seven hundred thousand dollars by the end of the year,” I said.
“Or?”
“Or they turn into a pumpkin.”
“What else could they possibly build on that property?” Colin asked. “A Jiffy Lube?”
I kept clicking around. “Four thousand parishioners at Blessed Mission. Maybe Sister Charity really didn’t remember Eugene Washington yesterday. They got a kajillion people in the pews— how many of them are old gray black men? Forty percent?”
“My family’s church has close to fifteen thousand people,” Colin said. “The site used to be a Walmart. And give Charity a break—being first lady of a megachurch is hard work. Oh— she called me.”
My breath caught in my chest. “Pardon me?”
Smiling, he leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Last night, Charity Tate called to say thanks for everything and to talk about Mr. Washington. She feels bad about the way he died.”
Cold prickled along my arms. “She say anything . . . interesting?”
“Like, ‘I poisoned that old coot and let’s you and me run off to Aruba with his money’?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“No, nothing like that.”
I left the Web site and searched for “Blessed Mission” in Google.
The Times had included Solomon Tate in its investigation of popular ministers around the country. “Seven-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar salary,” I read from the article, “and a six-bedroom home in Ladera Heights.”
“Not as bad as what’s his face with the private Lear jet,” Colin said. “Or the fleet of Bentleys.”
“Ha. But that’s like saying chlamydia ain’t as bad as syphilis.”
“Bernice Parrish killed Washington.” He held up his index finger. “First, she’s shifty.” Another finger. “Second, that Joe Rice guy she’s sleeping with? He’s shifty, too. Or it’s that Oswald Little guy.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Oswald Little: he hasn’t shown up yet to collect his prize.”
“You gonna call him again?” Colin asked.
“Sure.” I tapped on the public records icon on the desktop, but an e-mail response from Brooks made me click away. I didn’t send over the tox report for stomach contents yet. Retesting them again. Strange results. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours.
“Wonder what he found?” I asked.
Colin snorted. “Fresh vegetables.”
My desk phone chirped. Lieutenant Rodriguez was calling. “What’s up?” I asked.
“In my office,” he said. “Now.”
19
MY BOSS TWISTED BACK AND FORTH IN HIS LEATHER CHAIR. CHIN IN HIS HAND, HE used his other hand to direct me to sit.
“Good morning,” I said, opening my binder. “So, we’re slowly making progress—”
“I didn’t call you in here to discuss the Washington case.” He squinted at me, then covered his mouth with his hand.
“Oh. Okay.” I closed the binder, then relaxed in my seat. “What’s going on?”
“How you feelin’?”
I shrugged. “Great.”
He grunted, then shifted in his seat. His gray eyes narrowed. “You havin’ any pain or having a hard time sleepin’ or anything?”
I tilted my head and stared at him. “Umm . . . Nothing remarkable.”
He considered me without speaking for several long moments. Then: “If you had to take a pee test right now, would they find anything?”
A flare shot in my gut. “Huh . . . ?”
“Answer the question: would HR find anything stronger than Tylenol or ibuprofen in your urine test? Like Vicodin, Percocet, Demerol, oxy?”
“Of course not. I haven’t taken anything.”
“Which is a problem since you’re in pain, right?” He cocked his head. “The vultures are circling, Lou. And you know they are, which is why you aren’t medicating.”
I bit my lip, then said, “I’m fine.”
He sighed. “Starting Sunday, thirty days. You’re taking vacation.”
“Excuse me?” Fear enveloped me like cold slime. “Why? I haven’t done—”
“You need the time, Lou.”
“Bullshit,” I shouted. “Someone’s trying to get me fired—” Banish me.
“You’re right,” he shouted back, “and I’m keeping that from happening right now. This ain’t a negotiation, Sergeant. Thirty days. You have plenty of time on the books, almost four months of vacation. That’s too much time.” He slid over a sheet of paper that he’d already prepared. “There are some who want you to take administrative leave or be put back on restricted duty. You know what that means. But this way, you get the rest you need using time that belongs to you. You get to keep your badge, your gun, your mobility. You can pop as many pain relievers as the doctor prescribes without guilt or worry. Now: sign on the X.”
I considered the document, but tears in my eyes kept me from reading a damned word. “I was injured within the course and scope of my job. I worked that shitty warrants desk job pushing paper for a month. I passed my physical and psych exams to return to normal duty, and now, you’re telling me . . . ? Maybe I should have my union rep put in a call.”
He sighed, squinted at me. “Will you trust me on this? Please?”
I glared at him—he wouldn’t glare back. Those gray vampire eyes had turned the color of doves.
Someone knocked on the door, and Lieutenant Rodriguez left his desk to open it.
Behind me, I heard Colin say, “We have a guest.”
“She’ll be there in a minute.” Lieutenant Rodriguez closed the door. “I’m gonna get a cup of coffee,” he told me. “Stay here and get yourself together.”
“So what do I tell my team?”
“That you and your girlfriends are going to Tahiti. The rich, crazy one can make that happen. Aloha.”
“But why now? Why am I taking time off all of a sudden?”
“Cuz the Groupon’s expiring.” He rolled his eyes. “Let me worry about that. Sign.” Then, he left me in his office.
I sat there as hot tears seared my cheeks. The three sisters had warned me.
What do men do to women they can’t control?
They banished us. Will they do the same to you?
Someone had sold me out.
Who?
For five minutes, I tried to come up with a list of rats, but my brain had shorted and I could only glare at the signed form.
Thirty days of vacation?
“Fine,” I muttered. Screw all y’all.
* * *
With Joe Rice behind her, Bernice Parrish strutted into the detective’s bureau like she held a key to the city. Wearing a zebra-cheetah print dress with a ride-or-die girdle beneath it and heeled ankle boots with peekaboo toes, Eugene Washington’s girlfriend dressed as though Queen Elizabeth would be taking her fingerprints in Buckingham Palace instead of a fat Latino detective with a mustache full of pan dulce crumbs in interview room 2.
Colin and I sat across the table from her. He then reintroduced us since my mind still remained on that signed form left on Lieutenant Rodriguez’s desk.
She stared at my head. “And you still ain’t gone to get your hair did.”
That brought me into the moment. I swiped at my bangs. “I haven’t—been busy trying to find who killed your boyfriend.”
“Where y’all got my cousin Joe waitin’?” she asked.
“He’s talking to other officers,” Colin said. “And Sergeant Norton and I will chat with him once we finish our time with you.”
Then, we went over the timeline again—the moment she reached the house, discovered Eugene dead in his chair, and the time she dialed 911.
“How come Ike Underwood can go off in the house now?” she asked. “He’s stealing what’s supposed to come to me.”
“What’s your relationship with Ike?” I asked.
“Ain’t got one.”
I waited for more.
She shrugged. “Ike don’t mean nothing to me.”
“You have no opinions about him?” I asked.
She poked out her bottom lip, then said, “He need to get himself a woman. That way, he can mind his own business. Now, about my soup pennies—”
“Yes,” Colin said, snapping his fingers. “We did find the bullion. So Ike won’t be able to steal that, if that’s your concern.”
Her eyes had widened. “Why ain’t y’all call me sooner then?”
“I did call.” I held up three fingers. “This many times. You didn’t call me back.”
“Cuz you ain’t mention that you had my coins. I just want what’s coming to me.”
“Bernice, you’ll get all that’s coming to you,” I assured. “What do you know about Oswald Little?”
Her mouth twisted. “Who?”
“He’s a friend of Gene’s,” I said.
“Don’t know him.” She swiveled her head on her shoulders. “Y’all gon’ let him in before me, too? And them witches. They’re over there every time I drive by. And they’re over there right now. Why ain’t you told them they was trespassing?”
“Because they’re on the sidewalk,” I said. “How many times a day do you drive by?”
She futzed with the hem of her dress. “Just four, five, six times. Joe thinks we need to make sure . . . you know.”
I didn’t know but I said, “Yeah. So Joe: you know he’s a convicted felon, right?”
She waved her hand. “He ain’t done half the things they say he done did.”
“No?” Colin said. “If he’s so upright, why didn’t you want him to know about the coins that Eugene left you?”
She squinted at him but then turned to me. “I didn’t want him to know cuz niggas are like fish—they like shiny shit, and gold is shiny. You know what I’m saying?” Then, she cracked up laughing, and then ripped a hanging string off the hem of her dress. “That’s why Gene had all them guns. He thought someone was gonna figure out he had money hidden off in his house.”
“But why so many guns?” Colin asked.
Bernice gaped at him, then laughed. “Why so many records? Why so many cats? Why so many—child, he a hoarder. He ain’t got one of nothing.” She laughed again, then shook her head. “Bless your heart.”
“But he never fired the guns,” Colin said, “and other than that one gun we found in the den—” Colin blushed—we weren’t supposed to mention that gun. He gulped, then continued. “Other than that, they weren’t in places he could’ve easily retrieved them.”
She smirked. “Somebody crazy if they wanna go off in there on their own.”
I cocked an eyebrow—she was right about that. “Neighbors said that you and Mr. Washington had an argument on Saturday night out there on the front lawn.”
She waved her hand again. “He said that I was cheatin’ on him. It was just a misunderstanding.”
“A neighbor also said you were kissing Joe Rice that night in the front seat of his car.”
She stuck out her neck. “I can’t kiss nobody now? No kissin’—that ain’t biblical. And one kiss don’t mean I’m sleeping with the man. That’s just ridiculous. Do you sleep with every man you kiss?” She hugged herself, then rocked in the chair. “Gene got all upset for nothing. See, Joe’s like a baby cousin to me, that’s all. Them people need to mind they own business and get a life.”
“I’m thinking Gene discovered that you didn’t care about him,” I said.
“I cared,” she said.
“Then why were you and Joe Rice making out for the world to see? Neighbors told us—”
“All that is my private business.” She folded her arms. “Ain’t nobody know how me and Gene felt about each other.”
“Speaking of your private business,” Colin said, “we learned a little something about yours.”
“Yeah?” She used a pinky finger to dig in her ear. “What you learn?”
“That you’ve been sued a few times. Bankrupt—”
“Is that illegal?” she snapped. “What does that have to do with me getting what my man left behind?”
“You need money,” I said.
“Who don’t need money?” she asked. “You don’t need money?”
I smiled. “I do, but you’re the one with liens and judgments against you.”
She stared at me and sat back in her chair. And she kept staring at me even as Luke interrupted our interview to take her fingerprints.
