City of Saviors, page 22
I gave a “Hey, I’m here,” then ducked back out to speak with Brooks and Goldberg.
The two doctors stood a few feet away from the garage. A group of medical students were picking through bigger rocks while more experienced researchers ran smaller particles through sieves.
Spencer searched my face, then whispered, “You okay?”
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Same as it ever was.”
He shook his head.
“Worse as it ever was?” I put my finger to my lips. “Ssh. Our little secret.” Louder, I said, “Any luck so far?”
Goldberg swiped at his sweaty forehead. “Nothing yet, but we just cracked through. I don’t expect to hit anything for a moment.”
“Seems that the concrete in the garage was poured in the last seven, eight years,” Brooks said. “The concrete in and around the house is older, made of different sand.”
“And the dog alerted again in the garage, in that spot,” Goldberg added.
“Should we stay then?” Colin asked.
“If you can’t,” Goldberg said, “how close will you be?”
“Inglewood,” I said, “so no more than five miles away.”
Both Goldberg and Brooks shrugged. “We find the first bone,” Goldberg said, “we’ll stop and call you immediately.”
Colin and I trudged back across the lawn. He pointed down the block. “Your homies are here.”
The three sisters stood at the sawhorses with their arms out, their eyes closed, and their lips moving.
“Why the hell are they here?” Colin asked. “Gene’s been dead for five days now. Don’t they need to do laundry, go to Target, find a brunch near the marina or wherever?”
“They know something,” I said, “but refuse to speak anything other than King James.”
“So it’s like you when you know something,” he said, “and you hold it to your vest.”
I slipped my glasses over my eyes. “You’re keeping things to yourself, too, Cowboy.”
He smirked, then moseyed toward the Crown Vic.
“Fine.” I moseyed to the car, too, but couldn’t feel my feet—all the blood had rushed to my head. “I guess it’s like that now.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Your big secret.”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“Bullshit. You’re different now.”
He laughed, gawked at me, then laughed harder. “I’m different? You’re the one who’s different. Since you’ve come back, you’re one big tense muscle, constantly trying to prove shit.”
“I’m always trying to prove shit,” I said. “I’ve had to prove shit since my first hours on earth.”
“Here we go,” he said, flushing.
“Race and tits, right?” I cocked my head. “Those things don’t matter to you since—”
“I’m a white dude, correct?” He stopped in his step. “We’re partners, Lou. I’m not O’Shea. I’m not Whitaker. I don’t want your job. I think you’re better at this than all of us.”
I blinked at him.
A nerve stood out in the middle of his forehead. Spit had gathered at the corners of his thin lips. His eyes had turned stormy blue. “You have one big ol’ target on your back right now.”
“I know that,” I snapped.
“But I didn’t put it there, all right? I’m not aiming at it, either.”
“Uh huh.”
He studied me with narrowed eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’m—”
“What have you told L.T.?”
“About?”
I rolled my eyes. “Really?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve said nothing to anybody about how you’ve been feeling. How I think that—”
“What? What do you think?”
“You should’ve taken more time.” He sighed, then slumped. “I didn’t like partnering up with that jackass Moreno, but I would’ve preferred you taking the time you needed. That you still need.”
My eyes burned, but I pushed tears away with a sigh. “We need to get going.”
“Lou—”
I held out my hand. “Gimme the keys.”
He stared at me, then tossed the keys on the roof of the car. His glare softened, and he started to speak.
I had already opened the car door and slammed myself into the driver’s seat.
He was looking at me with hands on his hips and the sun on his back.
“You comin’ or what?” I shouted.
He climbed into the passenger seat. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize because you’re right.” I tried to toss him a smile. “Your wish for me is coming true.”
He squinted at me. “What does that mean?”
And I told him that Lieutenant Rodriguez was forcing me to take vacation. “But that’s between us, all right?”
He gulped, then nodded. “Right.” He frowned, then glared out the passenger’s-side window. Pissed.
But then, weren’t we all?
36
THE EDGE HAD ABANDONED COLIN’S FACE BY THE TIME WE PARKED BENEATH THE church’s shaded portico.
Before I could take the key out of the ignition, my phone rang. The number showing belonged to Neil aka Bang-Bang, our division’s quartermaster and on-site geek. “So that call from Belize,” he said from the phone’s speaker.
I slipped the pen from my binder, ready to write. “What about it?”
“It didn’t hit any towers in Belize,” he said. “Or any towers in Central America.”
“Huh? Where did it hit?”
“Malibu.”
Even after Bang-Bang had ended our call, I continued to stare at Malibu in my notepad.
Colin’s mouth hung open.
“Talk about being as far from Central America in every effin’ way,” I said.
“So, who left you that message then?” he asked.
I shrugged, then turned to stare at the church. “But when we talk to them, we don’t know any of this, right?”
“Call?” Colin asked, mock confused. “Yes—that call from Belize with Oz Little. Yes, he did sound very sad and very Belizean. Too bad he’s not around right now.”
We stepped into the air-conditioned lobby of Blessed Mission Ministries. Members of a uniformed cleaning crew stooped to shine brass and chrome fixtures while others swept, mopped, and emptied garbage cans. At the welcome station, a woman arranged a grand bouquet composed of orange, red, and yellow roses.
Colin wandered over to the giving tree, then pointed at a foil leaf. “There’s our man with no hands.”
The picture of Oswald Little on the cherubim branch was the same picture I’d found on Excelsior Bank’s Web page just a day ago.
“You’re back.” The woman’s familiar voice was soft and warm.
I tore my attention from the donor recognition to connect the voice with the face.
Perfect silver hair. Young-looking face. Instead of a sweater set, she wore a pink designer sweat suit and blue Nikes. She clutched a walkie-talkie in one hand and a tumbler filled with lemonade in the other.
“Sonia Elliot,” the woman reminded us.
“Church secretary,” I said, nodding.
She beamed. “That’s me.”
“Bishop and Mrs. Tate are expecting us today,” I said.
Sonia cocked her head. “News to me. I don’t think Charity’s here, but Bishop Tate’s in a meeting right now.”
I winked at her. “We’ll wait.”
“You can wait upstairs,” she said. “I’ll walk you up.”
“He have a good trip?” I asked as we followed.
“Oh, yes,” Sonia said. “He was only gone for a few nights, but we always miss him when he’s away from the fold.”
“So I hear Brandon plays football,” Colin said. “I did, too. High school and college.”
Sonia looked back at us. “Brandon’s gonna be a star. He has his daddy’s quickness.”
“And practice was Monday night, right?” I asked.
Sonia narrowed her eyes. “Must be a new schedule. He usually practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right after school.”
I regarded Colin with a cocked eyebrow. Charity Tate had claimed she’d been at football practice on Monday night and not dropping by Eugene Washington’s house with a killer cobbler.
As Sonia led us up the stairs, the walkie-talkie chirped and crackled with voices.
“Sister Elliot, the florist said we need another arrangement beneath the lectern for balance . . .”
“Sister Elliott, I just picked up the robes from the dry cleaner’s . . .”
“Sister Elliott, we need two signatures on this check . . .”
“You’re a busy lady,” I said.
“Blessed Mission can’t do one thing around here without me.” She keyed the radio, then said, “I didn’t authorize anybody taking a check to him. He hasn’t serviced the organ in over two months. If he has a problem, he can call me.” She shook her head, then shoved the radio into her jacket pocket. “These people are gonna kill me by the end of the day. Thank goodness you’re here so you can arrest ’em.”
Colin and I offered the polite chuckles we kept in our pockets like mints and matchbooks.
“Any progress on poor Brother Washington’s case?” Sonia asked. “I saw the digging machines this morning.”
“You must live nearby then?” I asked.
She nodded. “Up the hill. And because I’m the church secretary, people—even the bishop—rely on me for information. I make it my business—”
“To know everybody’s business?” I asked.
She wiggled her nose and her brown eyes twinkled. “Exactly.”
Sonia had been pretty back in the day—a nonthreatening, pasteurized pretty. Like a stewardess on a second-rate airline carrier. She was clutching to it—and to her relevance—with the track suit and the gray, coiffed hair.
I told her that we still had not resolved the case, that the machines and the digging involved a search for Eugene Washington’s will, and that his murder had turned into a real head scratcher. “Maybe it was just bad potato salad,” I said with a shrug.
On the second floor, she led us in the opposite direction of Bishop Tate’s office. “You can wait in here,” she said.
The conference room had modern oak chairs and a stylized oval table. Framed photographs of Bishop Tate—smiling with a councilwoman, shaking hands with the mayor, shaking hands with the governor, shaking hands with Stevie Wonder—covered the walls.
“Would you like something to drink?” Sonia lifted her tumbler. “Lemonade? I just made a new pitcher.”
“That would be wonderful.” My stomach growled—a request for that, along with a burger and fries.
Colin wandered over to the window and peeked out. The growl of earthmovers and the beep-beep-beep of trucks in reverse was faint but still audible.
Sonia frowned, then said, “All that noise. You’d think they’d give it a rest on the weekend.”
I sat at the table. “No one said progress was quiet.”
“I suppose it’s a positive thing, all the building.” She twisted her lips. “This neighborhood is safe again, so that’s good. And the politicians—they pay us some attention now that we’re not some rinky-dink church in the ghetto, like we used to be.” She laughed, so I laughed.
“You’ve been a member for long?” Colin asked.
She cocked her chin and smiled. “I’ve been with Blessed Mission since the very beginning, when we worshipped in that tiny, tiny space where the digital billboard stands. About fifteen years ago, we really started digging deep into the Lord’s work. Being faithful. I helped get the bishop and board of directors focused. Bake sales, rummage sales, magazine drives. We got busy, you know? And we bought some land, and then we bought some more land, and the Lord kept blessing us again and again. Tenfold. Let me show you.”
We followed her into a smaller space off the conference room. More like a walk-in closet, the space smelled of dust and old glue, stale breath and ancient memories. The pictures on these walls were of the smaller Blessed Mission building, when it had been as big as a donut shop. The bookcases were filled with photo albums of differing colors and sizes. The spines wore labels of years 1977–78, 80–82, and on and on.
Over twenty years ago, Mom and I had sat in the pews of Blessed Mission’s original home. We had clutched “Have You Seen Her?” flyers to our chests and had hoped that someone in the congregation would help us find my missing sister Victoria.
“And then we bought the business next door.” Sonia was pointing to the framed shot of Solomon Tate wearing a business suit. A young, fresh-faced Charity Jackson, her hair styled in an asymmetrical bob, stood with him in front of an old car lot. The large sign on the fence to their right said, “Future Site of Blessed Mission Ministries—coming 2011!”
“That’s where we’re standing right now,” Sonia said.
“The church has come a long way,” I said. “Bishop and Mrs. Tate’s work paid off, it seems.”
“They didn’t do it alone,” Sonia pointed out. “Trust me: they had a lot of help, if I do say so—”
The radio in her pocket chirped. “Sister Elliott,” a woman whined, “you gonna get back to me?”
“In a minute, Margie.” Sonia rolled her eyes. “Charity never has to deal with any of this.” There was an edge to her voice—it was thin as a razor blade, but that blade had been slicked with venom. “She throws up her hands, then tosses it to me. I have to handle it. Even something as simple as the mission statement.”
“To help and to heal,” Colin said. “Catchy.”
“Thank you.” She pointed to her chest. “That was me, not that I’m looking for credit.” She shrugged, then offered a good-natured smile. “To God be the glory. It’s all for Him in the end, isn’t that right?”
My smile and lifted eyebrows had frozen—someone was a little bitter. “That’s right. So you handle all the church records?” I asked. “Birth, death, baptisms, all that?”
“Me and my assistant secretary,” she said, nodding. “We’re a little behind our archiving with all the recent growth—people having lots of babies, old folks dying. My nephew tells me to make our records digital but . . .” She winced, then touched her neck. “I don’t trust computers.”
“Did you know Eugene Washington?” Colin asked.
She pinched her fingers together. “Just a little. He mostly kept to himself.”
“What about Oswald Little?”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “I thought he left Blessed Mission?”
“You tell me—you’re the secretary.” I winked at her.
“If you need, I can find out.” She sat her tumbler on the table. “Not that I’m complaining, but with so much growth, with so many people, I don’t get to know folks too good, you know? Especially the younger members and the members who don’t come as frequently. I hate that, but it is what it is.”
I gestured to the photo albums in the bookcase. “This is everything? Or should I say, ‘everyone’?”
“Can’t say yes to that. Only because I may not have every single announcement.” She tapped a large photo album with the spine labeled 1971. She then slid her fingers to the newer violet album three shelves over. “Like I said, so many people, it’s hard to keep up. And sometimes, folks drop off the radar.”
Like mom and me. No one had called us after that Sunday’s visit.
“May we look at a few albums?” I asked.
“Certainly.” The radio in Sonia’s hand chirped again. “What year do you wanna see?” she asked, her face showing strain.
“This year, 2015.” A shot in the dark.
She pulled the last violet album from the shelf and placed it in Colin’s hands. She touched it like a mother touching her baby. “Just don’t take anything—we don’t have extras.”
Colin said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Now,” the woman said, smiling, “I’ll get you those glasses of lemonade and I’ll go check on Bishop Tate.” Away too long from knowing all, Sonia keyed the mic on the radio as she quickstepped out of the small room.
Colin sat the album on top of a credenza. “You wanna see if Oswald Little’s in here?”
I flipped to the album’s last page. “He wouldn’t be. He’s still alive, remember? And Eugene Washington’s program won’t be in yet since his funeral isn’t until next Wednesday.”
Out in the conference room, a thin woman silently sat a tray holding glasses and a pitcher of lemonade on the conference room table. She padded out of the room as quietly as she came.
Colin left me in the archives nook, then returned a moment later with two glasses of lemonade. “I’ll hold your drink as you look,” he said. “I don’t think Sister Elliott would appreciate wet spots on her precious memories.”
I guzzled half my glass, handed it back to Colin, then dried my hands on my slacks. “Let’s see . . .”
Back in January, Sister Helen Montgomery had died. She had been ninety-two years old, but for the funeral program, her family had chosen a picture circa 1958 when she’d resembled Lena Horne’s darker cousin. She was survived by her twin daughters Bess and Tress and countless grandkids and great grandkids.
Handsome Marcus Sandford, fifty, former marine, thick lips, goatee, gingersnap skin, passed on Valentine’s Day. He was survived by members of Blessed Mission.
Sixty-seven-year-old Thomasina Jacobs succumbed to cancer in May. She resembled Ella Fitzgerald in her heyday, with chubby cheeks, raisin eyes, and a lovely smile. She was also survived by members of Blessed Mission.
Three more seniors had passed this year and had been survived by countless grands and greats.
“Could you take pictures of these programs?” I asked.
Colin plucked his phone from his pocket. “May I ask why?”
“Because I’m nosy. And because I have a niggling.”
Sonia Elliott popped back into the room. She no longer wore her jacket, and her phone was now strapped to her bicep. Her eyes darted over to the album and then to the programs I held. “Bishop Tate’s available now. Did you find everything you need?”
