Land of Shadows (6 page)

I didn't blink. “Was I supposed to say something different?”

He smirked. “Then allow me to fuck up your day just a little bit more.”

I opened the Porsche's trunk and grabbed a protein bar from my gym bag. Taught to share as a child, I offered him a bar.

He declined, taking out his Tic Tacs and rattling the box. “Zucca gave me permission to handle the vic's phone,” he said as he crunched candy, “so I took a quick look through the call log. You know, who she called, what time, and what-have-you?”

“And?”

“And she's a girl with a phone,” he said. “She called every-fucking-body yesterday, including Colin Powell and Taylor Swift. There's a pattern in some of the numbers, but I said, ‘Fuck it, save it for later.' But the part that's gonna ruin your day? In the Notes app, I found the last entry she made. I wrote it down.”

I chewed my protein bar—it tasted like planks and raisins.

Colin found the page in his notebook, then took a deep breath before reading.

Dear mom and dad,

Please I hope you will forgive me. I love you so much and I wanted so hard to make this go a different way but I couldn't. It's not like I didn't want to be around you anymore but I couldn't breath. And Derek and me, were compliated right now. We are friends and that's it. He gorges me. I hope Von will to. It was to soon to get married and I am tired of talking about it. I'm tired of everything and everybody. And mom I did not steal that money. I am not macie. you never believe me I love you anyway.

Peace and blessings

Your babygirl that will love you forever

Monie

PS please rake care of butter. I will miss her too

I had stopped eating my bar sometime after hearing “I'm tired of everything.”

“Sounds like a suicide note to me,” Colin speculated.

“Let me see that,” I said, reaching for his notepad.

A plea for forgiveness, why she did it, one last request … Written on June 19 at 2:51
A.M.
Early this morning.

“But you don't buy it,” Colin said.

My gut was telling me not to believe it. My heart, though, ached for this girl named Monie who had parents, a dog named Butter, and people named Derek, Von, and Macie complicating her life. But I trusted my gut more. “This note's a ruse. I can't prove it but…” I handed Colin his pad. “Anything else?”

He nodded. “A patrol unit found an abandoned dark red 2012 Lexus parked at the Fatburger over at the mall. The officers went into the restaurant and asked if it belonged to a customer. But nobody claimed it.”

“A Lexus in this neighborhood at this time of night,” I said. “Sears is closed, so no late-night shopping by a desperate housewife. They check out Taco Bell?”

“Nobody stepped forward,” he said. “But the plates were personalized. ‘BabyGrl.'”

“I found a ‘Baby Girl' nameplate on her shoulder.”

“And the note on the phone,” he added. “‘Your babygirl that will love you forever.'” He flipped a page in his pad, then said, “They ran the plates, and the car's registered to Monique Darson, age seventeen. Lives on Garthwaite Avenue.”

“That's over in Leimert Park,” I said.

He handed me the slick telefax of her driver's license.

Monique Darson: born August 3, 1997, brown eyes, five-foot-one, one hundred pounds, organ donor.

A seventeen-year-old driving a Lexus … What was
that
about? Had she been dating a dealer? And Garthwaite Avenue: a nice street but definitely not fancy-pants Northridge Drive up in Windsor Hills. And: How had she moved from the car in the parking lot to the condos across the street? Did she walk? Was she carried? Was she alone?

Brooks would have to confirm officially, but Monique Darson was my Jane Doe. I sighed with relief and agitation—she had an identity now, but she also had people to mourn her death.

“The cheer outfit,” I said.

Colin dumped more Tic Tacs in his mouth, and said, “What about it?”

“If she was on the right track, she would've just graduated from high school. Again: why was she wearing her uniform?”

Colin narrowed his eyes, then said, “Nostalgia?”

I folded my arms and dropped my chin to my chest. “She's too young to long for the good ol' days.” I paused, then added, “Maybe someone she was with wanted to relive his.”

And we both thought about that while trudging over to the mall's near-empty parking lot with Zucca and Officer Shepard.

My stomach tightened as I stood directly across the street from the ruins of the Santa Barbara Plaza.

A small crowd had gathered outside Fatburger and Taco Bell, abandoning their King Fats and 5-Layer Burritos, Dr Peppers and Mountain Dews, to take pictures of the cops standing next to the abandoned Lexus. Wednesday night dinner theater in the hood.

We each clicked on our flashlights and searched the asphalt around the Lexus.

No blood. No ripped-off buttons. No bullet casings.

I pulled the shortest straw so I got to peek into the Lexus first.

The interior smelled of piña colada air freshener.

CDs lined the driver's-side sun visor.

A fuchsia, quilted Juicy Couture jacket and a little pink Bible sat on the passenger seat.

There was yellow dog hair on the cloth backseats.

There were no ashes in the ashtray—she didn't smoke. Just a receipt from the Ladera Center Petco. On Tuesday evening, at 7:13, someone had purchased a bag of Science Diet dog food and a doggie chew toy.

I popped open the trunk and found the food and toy. “If she wanted to kill herself, why buy food and leave it in the car you're about to abandon?” I took a step back and stared at the Lexus as though it would answer. Before it could, I spotted a pair of lemon-colored skinny jeans, a black tank top, and black Ugg boots in the shadows of the trunk.

“Think this is what she had on before changing into the cheerleader getup?” Colin asked.

I nodded. “So when did she change? Hell:
why
did she change?”

Colin searched the car's cabin next.

I turned to survey the entire parking lot. My gaze stopped on a dark green truck that slowly rolled north past the mall. The windows were tinted, so I couldn't see inside the cabin. Was this a looky-loo or—?

“Where's her purse?” Colin shouted.

I tore my eyes away from the green truck and said, “What?”

“Her purse,” he repeated. “You know, the bag you ladies carry that's filled with a bunch of crap nobody needs.”

Most teenage girls carried a purse stuffed with a phone, a bottle of perfume, a wallet, keys, earbuds, lipsticks, eyeliner, tampons, pens, chewing gum, a broken necklace, an earring without a back, and a book of matches. A field kit for surviving the City.

No shoes, and now, no purse? What was missing was just as important as what had been found.

“We'll log and collect everything,” Zucca said. “Better to take too much than not enough.”

I glanced toward the Fatburger. “Wonder if there's a surveillance camera that looks out to this part of the lot.”

A minute later, Colin and I stood in the tiny back office of the burger joint. The manager, a rangy woman who didn't look like she'd eaten much of her product, rolled the videotape from the security system.

Lots of cars in, lots of cars out. Impalas, Corollas, minivans, SUVs. No dark red Lexus.

Back in the parking lot, I wandered around, flashlight up, in search of a camera that could've captured the moment when the Lexus had been abandoned. No cameras.

As I returned to my team, the coroner's van crept past the mall. Brooks sat shotgun as another ME drove Monique Darson to 1104 North Mission Road.

I squared my shoulders, knowing that I, too, would have to drive to the coroner's office for the girl's autopsy. And then, I would have to do the part I hated more than attending autopsies: notifying the family.

 

9

Times have changed since he left this neighborhood a day ago. The yellow tape around the girl's Lexus keeps him from being close to the scene. And now, there are people—from Taco Bell, from Fatburger—so many people pushing him to get a better view.

A view of what? The car? The detectives? What? The best pictures are being taken across the street, inside unit 1B. And once the coroner's van (
there it goes!
) reaches the county morgue, the best pictures will be taken of the girl on a cold, steel table. Anyway, he knows how she looks—what he left behind, what he took when he left—and all of those images will stay with him forever.

Well. Not forever.

On cue, the spider pokes from beneath the skin near his left eyebrow. The flickering red, white, and blue lights of the patrol cars make the spider skittish. The creature spins there, above his eyebrow, then skitters to his hairline before settling above his left ear.

He touches his temple and pushes.

Something there pops and gushes, numbing his brain.

A white detective wearing cowboy boots stands at the tape, talking to the night manager of the Taco Bell. What is the cop telling him? And what did the manager see last night?

A black woman, shoulder-length hair, pretty but too tall, stomps over to the cowboy and the cook. A gold badge sparkles off her hip. She touches the white boy's elbow, nods, then asks the manager a question. Then, she turns on her heel and stomps back to the car with the white detective following her, his eyes on her ass.

He smiles—he hates a bossy woman, but this woman … This detective …

He glances up at the LAPD helicopter circling the scene and opens his mouth to shout, “What the hell are you looking for?” But he clamps his lips together and makes an
mmm
sound. What
are
they looking for? A gun thrown on a rooftop? Another body in the trunk?
Him?
Well, he's down here with the great unwashed and he didn't use a gun. Never has. Never will.

The spider pokes again, this time from the bridge of his nose.

He closes his eyes; takes in a long, deep breath; then blows out air through gritted teeth.

When was the last time he'd slept?

The sides of his head tighten as he thinks … thinks …

The spider retreats behind his left ear.

He opens his eyes again and focuses—so hard to do now—and sees that the female detective is moving toward him and the group of bystanders. “Shit,” he says.

The woman standing in front of him, the one holding a sleeping toddler, glares back at him. As though his curse is worse than her bringing a half-dressed, two-year-old girl to a crime scene. He glares at this bitch holding her ugly kid. She has the sense to turn back around.

Still, he had forgotten that he now stood in a public place—the spider makes him lose himself every now and then. Like that time when …

The detective stops and heads back to the Lexus.

He swipes the air. Tiny flies swirl around his head.
Maybe.
Or black spots that
look
like flies.
Probably.

“Sunday,” he says aloud.
That
had been the last day he'd slept. Four hours.
Maybe.

The black detective directs a photographer to take pictures. Inside the car. Inside the trunk. Her partner wanders around the parking lot with a flashlight, still searching for a clue, head down, eyes on the ground.

Just keep lookin'.

His hands now shake and his fingers wriggle like one-winged butterflies, and he can't hear the rumble of the approaching tow truck or the helicopter or anything at all. He closes his eyes again—the spider is behaving badly today.

He shouldn't have come here with all the lights, all the noise, and all the people.

He bats at the flies (or the spots or whatever they are) and hits the toddler's hand. One of the girl's eyes opens. She studies him, then slowly falls back asleep.

The two detectives stand together while looking back at the condo, then at the tow truck pulling in back of the Lexus. The white boy rubs his forehead, puffs out his cheeks. The woman tugs at her ear, then folds her arms. They're stuck.

It's only a matter of time.

They
will
figure it out.

Then? Then, it will be over before it even begins. And if
he
doesn't end it, the spider will.

 

Thursday, June 20

 

10

Dawn was two hours away, and the longest day of the year was just beginning, even though it felt like it had already happened. I sat in the Porsche, completing the first report for Monique Darson's murder book—injury extent, who found her, evidence recovered. Then, I completed a search warrant request for the construction trailer. I called Joey Jackson over and told him to take the warrant request to the courthouse and hand it to Judge Keener as soon as she popped open her first can of Diet Coke. That part of my to-do list checked off, I screeched out of the mall parking lot and raced east on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

At 3:12 in the morning, the city still slept. Despite their neon beckoning, Jack in the Box and Alex Fish Market were closed until a reasonable time of the day. Jehovah's Witnesses weren't up and out, either, so no one wandered the streets wearing nylons and neckties. The bail bond joints were open, but then bail bond joints were always open and always filled with baby mamas hoisting sleepy toddlers on their hips or
abuelitas
clutching purses to chests, sick and tired of That Boy messing up again, muttering that
ésta es la última vez que ella venga aquí, no más, basta
, but knowing that she
would
come here again even though this time was
supposed
to be the last time.

I didn't turn on the car's stereo—the engine's muted roar always helped me plan Next Steps. Hard to do, though, because my head hurt, my stomach growled, and my husband hadn't called me back. So I drove in silence, racing through the city I had vowed to protect, my gaze always moving, always searching …