City of Saviors, page 18
In this case, “good” meant “tomatoes” and “bad” meant “tomatoes.” And because of that, I needed a helluva primer and decision tree to tell me if it was good that the DNA in the two human samples (the tubs and Washington’s stomach) were not a match because that meant Eugene Washington didn’t have parts of the owner of those hands stuck between his back molars but that he’d eaten someone else.
I grabbed the phone to return Farmers Insurance agent Mira Roberson’s call. But her line went straight to voice mail. I left my cell phone number and told her to call me at any time. No such thing as after hours during a murder case.
Luke and Pepe had gathered Eugene Washington’s medical records and had left a folder on my desk.
Colin flipped through pages that provided a glimpse of our victim’s health. “Oh, wow,” he said.
“What?”
“About five years ago, Eugene Washington ate something that had coconut in it. And he didn’t have his EpiPen with him. Fortunately, he was close to a fire station, and the heroes saved him.” Colin looked up. “He has a prescription for epinephrine—it was renewed and filled during his appointment last week.”
“Again,” I said, “I didn’t see EpiPens anywhere in that house.”
“Me, neither,” Colin said, “even after digging down in that filthy armchair.”
“Do they test for human remains in your blood work?” I wondered. “Or do they simply suggest that you lower your cholesterol? Eat less red meat?”
Then, I opened the folder that contained Washington’s financials. Two sheets of paper. “Looks like he had a checking account at Excelsior Bank of California.” The balance: $17,053.66. “Seems like a lot of money but . . .” My eyes jumped around the page. “How did he get income?” The next page in the folder came from the Veterans Administration. “According to this statement, he received checks from the VA each month.”
“Maybe he cashed the checks at the bank, then pocketed the money.” Colin pushed away the medical records. “Do we tell the church that Brother Washington ate people?”
I said, “Hunh. What is the protocol for that?”
“Hell, yeah,” was Luke’s response.
We found him and Pepe at the taco stand across the street having late breakfast or early lunch. Luke was attacking a breakfast burrito as thick as my thigh while Pepe smoked and nibbled a greasy torta. Colin ordered a smaller breakfast burrito for me and a tamale plate for him, and as we ate I caught Pepe and Luke up on the Washington case.
“And how’s the house search going?” I asked.
“They gridded out that narrow swatch of land on the north side of the house,” Pepe said. “No more alerts from the dog.”
“So that’s three possible sites,” Colin said. “North side, back fence, and garage.”
Pepe lit his third cigarette. “How long you think those hands were in the box?”
Luke swiped egg from his mustache. “Can you live without hands?”
“They’re hands,” I said, “not lungs.”
We finished our meal, then lumbered across the street to the parking garage.
“Where to?” Colin asked as he climbed into the passenger seat.
I twirled the car keys around my index finger. “Let’s see if the man with no hands is at home.”
Ladera Heights was one of three neighborhoods comprising Black Beverly Hills. From cardiologists to sports stars, residents enjoyed backyard tennis courts, swimming pools, and breathtaking views of Los Angeles—and at a cheaper price than 90210. Despite the benefits of segregation, the residents here suffered with the same ninety-degree heat as their northerly neighbors. Survival came via Frappuccinos, tank tops, and paisley-printed umbrellas. The entire city perspired enough to fill our drought-stricken reservoirs.
I made a right turn onto Corning Avenue and eased past an atrocious three-story Tudor, a pleasant ranch, another ranch, and a Mediterranean. FOR SALE signs. Glistening Bentleys. Hispanic gardeners. Quartets of power-walking seniors wearing shorts and polo shirts.
At 7170 Corning, a bronze Mercedes-Benz sat in the circular driveway of a yellow house that combined the rambling sprawl of a California bungalow with the front-door-flanking windows of a Cape Cod. A butter-hued woman wearing a brown wig and a violet housecoat opened the massive front door. She clutched a shih tzu to her bosom and scowled at Colin above her readers as though he’d already tromped crap-covered shoes across her shag carpet. Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” blasted from a stereo system somewhere in the house.
I flashed my badge. “Good morning, ma’am. Is Mr. Little in?”
She blinked her enormous eyelashes, sending my way a draft of gardenia, jasmine, and musk. “You’ll have to speak a little louder, honey, if you want me to hear anything you’re saying. My hearing’s bad today. See, I’ve been down all week with this horrible cold goin’ round.”
As Wagner’s soprano soared over the horns, reeds, and bass drum, the old woman scratched the dog’s ear and told us about her bronchitis misdiagnosis. Then, she shared her son’s opinion that she was suffering from earwax buildup and her opinion that big pharma controlled the weather and therefore controlled everyone’s health.
The dog in her arms didn’t flinch. Such an obedient, quiet dog. Such a stiff . . . stuffed dog.
“So I’ve been going on,” the woman said as she scratched the taxidermied pooch’s head. “How much money do you need?”
Colin chuckled. “We’re not fund-raising. We’d just like to speak with Mr. Little.”
She squinted at him. “Who?”
Colin shouted, “Oswald Little, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “Ain’t no Orenthal Miller living here.”
I wrote Oswald Little on my notepad, then showed it to her.
“No. Nobody by that name lives here.” Then she told us that her name was Hermie Bellman, short for Hermione, and that her husband, Donald Bellman, bought their house a few years ago. “But wait a minute,” she said. “Oswald . . . His name sounds a little familiar. He may have been the previous owner. See, my husband handled all of that, but he died two years ago, on Thanksgiving. Heart attack.”
Back in the car, I booted up the Crown Vic’s ancient laptop. According to the county assessor’s records, Hermione and Donald Bellman had purchased the property at 7170 Corning in 2012. It had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a swimming pool.
“Oswald Little pulled permits for construction in 2011.” I scrolled down the page. “The house was put on the market in 2012. Sold for 1.5 million.”
Colin whistled. “He probably took that money and flew to Fiji.”
I googled “Oswald Little.” A formal portrait of the man popped up on the “About Us” page for Excelsior Bank of California—senior vice president. Two more links to a PDF from July 1995 from the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons located on Figueroa Boulevard announced that Little had been elected Grand Junior Warden. The second Prince Hall PDF, this one from 2000, announced Little had received a service award.
Oswald Little also drove a 2000 Jaguar, was not an organ donor, and had donated $6,000 to Al Gore’s presidential campaign.
“Another connection,” I said. “Eugene Washington’s only bank account was at Excelsior.”
And then, the laptop died. It would resurrect in three hours as it typically did.
I pushed the dead computer away from me, then said, “I’d just come back from T.J.Maxx and there was my baby Puccini, dead on his favorite chaise. Now: how much money do you need?”
Colin exploded into laughter. “How long did it take you to realize the dog was dead?”
And then, we laughed and laughed.
Poor lady.
Gina Cisneros at Social Security owed me a favor since I’d arranged for her heavy-handed husband to be picked up on a bench warrant. She paid me back now by telling me that Oswald Little, Social Security number ending in 6539, had been receiving Social Security checks ever since his retirement in 2010.
“Do you have an address for him?” I asked.
“Yep,” Gina said. “He’s at 11317 Garth Avenue, Los Angeles, 90056.”
“As recent as . . . ?”
“As last week,” she said.
“Garth Avenue: that’s still Ladera Heights, right?” Colin asked after I’d ended my call.
“Yep. Two streets over.” I turned the key in the ignition. “Let’s go see a man about his hands.”
28
DRIVING TWO BLOCKS FELT LIKE DRIVING THREE MILES. BEHIND ME, THE SUN HAD drifted to its late-morning spot in the sky, and I feared that my traditional workweek—and the last Friday before vacation—would end without resolution. Part of me saddened—every victim deserved their case to be solved, no matter their prior villainy or their diet. If I had to pick a case that had loose threads, though, it would have been this one. Eugene Washington did not have a widow blowing up my phone with a voice wet with tears and sorrow. But he had Bernice and Ike, and they loved him for their own reasons. And, ultimately, solving any case was for those left behind.
On Garth, I parked in front of a ranch-style house a few yards away from the Mediterranean two-story with the blue-and-gray flagstone driveway and an address plaque that read 11317.
Colin whistled. “Nice.”
“But one of these things is not like the other,” I said.
“Which thing?” he asked. “The Jaguar parked in front of the three-car garage? Or the banged-up truck with planks of rotten lumber in the back?”
“That truck looks mighty familiar.”
Colin swiveled the laptop computer in his direction, then mashed the power button. “Still dead.” He smacked it, then squinted out the window. “That truck looks like Ike’s—” The computer monitor blinked on, and Colin started typing across the keyboard before it died again. “It is Ike Underwood’s truck, and the DMV has him living here at this address.”
My nerves exploded like tiny firecrackers all over my body. “You mean, construction guy and Eugene’s fishing buddy Ike Underwood? He lives here?”
“Yep.” He tapped the keyboard. “But the 2000 Jag belongs to Oswald Little.”
I sighed, then sank in my seat. “Remember back on Tuesday when I thought this case was gonna be easy? All so simple then.”
“We going in?” Colin asked.
Dread churned like pancake batter in my belly. I kept my eyes on that truck as though it would disappear at any moment. “No,” I said. “Let’s just watch.”
“Why?”
I turned Colin’s question over and over again in my mind—and the answer kept slipping between my fingers like mud. “Something’s not right, and my gut’s telling me to just . . . watch. It’s Friday—my gut’s never wrong on Fridays.”
And so we sat. At the gray colonial, a teenage girl talked on her cell phone as a toddler boy rode his tricycle around the driveway. On the sidewalk, dog walkers carried leashes in one hand and golf clubs in the other. The water-delivery truck stopped in front of the ranch-style. A postal carrier passed over the vacant-looking contemporary without leaving mail.
Colin took a few selfies—Colorado smile, Colorado steel, Colorado bored.
I gave him the side eye. “Who are those for?”
He blushed and his ears turned bright pink. “For future use.”
Thirty minutes and ten liters of sweat later, we were still watching Oswald Little’s home from the car. As we sat, my mind fluttered like a butterfly from one subject to the next.
Is Lena gonna have Chauncey’s baby?
Is Sam gonna come through and take me away?
What’s my blood pressure right now?
Who did Eugene Washington have for dinner?
Who is he texting?
Even as his eyes remained primarily on the house, Colin’s fingers never stopped tapping his phone.
At the house, both the water truck and the postal carrier had delivered mail and two bottles of water, but no one opened the door to retrieve either. Water bottles meant someone lived there. There were no newspapers or circulars languishing on the lawn to suggest vacancy.
At one thirty, Colin said, “Think somebody’s gonna come out and get the water?”
“Don’t know.”
“We going in?”
“Give me a minute.”
His stomach growled. “You hear that?”
“Nope. My son says I got earwax buildup.”
“You realize we haven’t eaten since—oh, hell.” He pointed to his right.
A resident of the ranch-style wandered from the house and down to our car. The plump woman had the same nose as the pug in her arms.
Colin and I pasted on smiles as she bent at the window. She smelled like sweet melon and vanilla, and thanks to being around Eugene Washington for four days, I had the strange urge to bite her chubby cheek.
Colin said, “Good afternoon.”
She placed the panting pug on the grass. “Y’all are cops. Is there something going on? Should I be worried?”
Smiling, I said, “Absolutely no reason to worry. We’re just observing.”
“Nothing to see really,” she said. “It’s pretty quiet up here. A few parties every month but nothing dramatic. Ain’t no drive-bys in this part of town.”
“Do you know all your neighbors?” I asked.
“Pretty much.” She pointed to the colonial. “She’s a lawyer. He’s an executive something at Sony. Two kids.” She pointed to the Tudor. “He’s a surgeon. She’s stay-at-home. Big Democratic-party donors.” Up and down the block she went. Consultant, judge, professor, Black Republican—can you believe it? At Oswald Little’s Mediterranean, she said, “He owns a construction business. Widowed. Really sweet.”
Confusion flicked inside my head. Construction? According to my search, Oswald Little was a senior VP at Excelsior Bank.
“How long has he lived there?” I asked.
“Since 2012, at least,” the woman said. “So, about two, three years.”
“What about his roommate?” I asked.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know anything about a roommate.”
“You know his name?” Colin asked.
“Oz,” she said. “Can’t recall his last name.”
“Is he bald? Beard, mustache, short?” I asked.
“Nuh uh. Tall, broad, head full of hair. Reminds me of, oh . . . what’s his face.” She closed her eyes as she tried to remember. “You know who I’m talking ’bout. The black guy.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “He was in that show with what’s her face.”
She snapped her fingers, and pointed at me. “Yeah. Him. That’s who Oz resembles.”
But Oz didn’t have a head full of hair.
We thanked her, then watched as she led the pug back into the house.
“Who’s what’s his face?” Colin asked.
“No idea. Nor can I figure out if Ike lives here or not.”
Colin brought out his Tic Tacs from his pocket. “What do we know for sure?”
“That Oz Little’s name is on that house and on that Jag.”
The door to the pug owner’s house opened again. “Excuse me,” she shouted. “The black guy in The Matrix. That’s who Oz looks like. Just older.”
I gave her a thumbs-up, then turned to Colin. “She’s talking about Laurence Fishburne.”
“And that’s not Oz. That’s more like Ike.”
I flipped through my binder and found the phone number for Ike Underwood.
After three rings, he answered. In the background of his world, heavy equipment beeped and scraped. Men shouted above the noise.
“Hey, Mr. Underwood,” I said, putting light into my voice. “How are you?”
He chuckled. “Just confused, you know? Tryin’ to help out around here but you all won’t let me.”
“I’m calling to change all of that—we do need your help. In a big, big way. My partner and I, we’re out and about right now, but can you meet us back at the station around six o’clock?”
Ike paused, then said, “You want me to leave the house?”
“Only for twenty minutes or so.”
With great hesitation, he finally agreed.
“He sounded thrilled,” Colin said.
“I know. Can’t wait to hear how all of this is connected.”
“Maybe he’ll bring Oz.”
“Who, according to Social Security—”
“Is still alive and lives at this address.”
I tugged at my ear as snippets and space junk whirled through my mind—I needed time to think and to connect the dots by discarding that junk. But my cell phone rang and interrupted my brain’s slow-mo analysis.
“Glad I caught you.” It was Mira Roberson from Farmers Insurance. “It’s Friday before the holiday, and I know some people leave work early on Fridays before holidays.”
“I am not one of them,” I said, smiling. “How can I help you, Mira?”
“I have a claim,” she said, “but I wanted to talk with you first before we pay it out.”
“Sure. Who are we talking about?”
“Eugene Washington. He died early this week.”
“That’s correct.” I grabbed my binder from the backseat, then put the phone on speaker so that Colin could hear. Then, we explained to the claims agent the condition in which we’d found Eugene Washington’s records.
Mira Roberson was silent for a moment before saying, “Wow.”
Colin said, “Yeah.”
“So the policy is for two hundred and fifty thousand,” she said. “Taken out last September. I know you’re investigating his death right now, but is there any reason to deny the claim?”
“It depends,” I said. “Who’s the beneficiary?”
“Let me check. The beneficiary is . . .” Her fingers pecked at a computer keyboard. “The beneficiary is Oswald Little.”
29
WITH FRIDAY-EVENING HOLIDAY TRAFFIC AND AFTER A QUICK ROLL THROUGH McDonald’s drive-through, we reached the Prince Hall Grand Lodge on Figueroa Street an hour later. Although the long stone-gray building took up most of the block, it did not exude the ostentatious magnificence of the marble-clad Scottish Rite Temple on Wilshire Boulevard. This lodge needed more white columns and fourteen-foot statuary of historic men made of travertine. And then . . . everything else.
