Murder on the Down Low (22 page)

Special still hadn’t answered her question. “Arrest you for what, Special?”

Vernetta hurried past a long row of secretaries’ cubicles and didn’t stop until she reached the bank of elevators in the twelfth floor lobby.

“They wanna talk to me about Eugene.” Special spoke in shallow breaths, as if she had just run up a flight of stairs. “Somebody vandalized his car this morning.”

Vernetta hung her head and closed her eyes. She was almost afraid to ask Special if she’d had a hand in the crime. “So did you do it?”

“I can’t believe you even asked me that. Do you know how many women in this city hate Eugene for what he did to Maya? There’s a girl at my job who despises him almost as much as I do.”

Vernetta recalled a conversation she’d heard at the beauty shop. Eugene definitely had a growing list of haters.

“They’re waiting downstairs.” The panic in Special’s voice escalated with each syllable. “They want me to buzz them inside.” Vernetta could practically see her friend pacing back and forth across her living room, one hand on the phone, the other glued to her tiny waist. “I told ’em I knew my rights and needed to call my lawyer first.”

“Good,” Vernetta said. “Just tell them—”

“No,” Special whined. “I want
you
to talk to them. Please, come over.”

Vernetta thought about all the payroll records waiting to be reviewed. Technically, she needed the firm’s permission before running off to act as Special’s attorney. But she didn’t want to go to O’Reilly or any other partner to explain. Anyway, it was highly unlikely that anyone at the firm would find out. Special was her best friend. She had to take the risk.

“I’m on my way,” she said, exasperated. “Call Nichelle and ask her to meet me at your place. Tell the police your lawyers are on the way. And whatever you do, don’t let them upstairs. Make them wait in the lobby.”

Vernetta practically sprinted back to the conference room and snatched the jacket of her pantsuit from the back of her chair. “I have a family emergency.” She wiggled into her coat. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She could tell that Haley was dying to know more.

“So who was that?”

“My cousin.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Yeah, keep your big mouth shut.
But Vernetta knew that in a matter of minutes, Haley would start blabbing that Vernetta had run off to save some family member from being dragged to jail.

“Just finish reviewing those last two stacks of records from the Norwalk plant. We can finish the rest tomorrow.”

Vernetta pulled up in front of Special’s apartment just as Nichelle was getting out of her car.

“Special claims she didn’t have anything to do with it,” Nichelle said. “But I’m not sure I believe her. She still hasn’t admitted sending that vile email to Eugene’s law firm or throwing nails in his driveway.”

“Let’s just hope she’s telling the truth this time.”

Vernetta had a key to Special’s apartment and used it to open the double glass doors that led into the lobby. She looked around, expecting to see the two officers, but the lobby was empty. “The elevator in this building takes forever. Let’s take the stairs.”

When they reached the third floor landing, they heard a commotion coming from the vicinity of Special’s apartment.

“What in the world is going on in there?” Nichelle said, verbalizing the same uneasiness that Vernetta felt.

She had a vision of Special pinned to the floor, wrestling with the two officers as they struggled to slap handcuffs on her wrists. They rushed to the door and just as Vernetta was about to knock, her hand froze in mid-air. The sound emanating from inside sounded like laughter. Vernetta tossed Nichelle a confused look. Nichelle tossed the same look right back at her.

She gave the door three quick raps. When nothing happened, she knocked again, harder this time. It still took a while before they heard the approach of footsteps.

Special opened the door with a devious grin stretched across her pretty face. She was wearing cutoff jeans with a tank top tied into a knot just above her belly button. The straps of her three-inch, high-heel sandals were wrapped around her long, muscular legs, almost to the knee. Her hair was fanned out across her shoulders, with her bangs swept seductively across her right eye.

When   they   stepped   inside,   they   saw   two   cops—one   black,   one Hispanic—relaxing on Special’s sofa, eating from two small saucers. The officers looked up, but never stopped stuffing their faces.

Special introduced Vernetta and Nichelle as if they were uninvited guests, then gave the two cops a much perkier introduction. “This is Officer Fred Donovan.” Special extended her arm and pointed her index finger in the direction of the black cop. “And this is Officer Manny Gomez.” She actually giggled. “And don’t worry, I followed your instructions. I haven’t answered any questions. But I decided to feed my two new buddies while we waited for you guys to get here.”

The black cop reached for the glass of milk sitting on the coffee table in front of him. “This sweet potato cheesecake is incredible,” he said, guzzling down his milk. “I had no idea they even made this kind of cheesecake. You don’t find too many women in your age bracket who can throw down in the kitchen like this.” When he smiled up at Special, his eyes zeroed in on her cleavage.

Vernetta looked from the cops to her scantily clad friend. The dessert they were chowing down on came from Harriett’s Cheesecakes Unlimited. Not Special’s kitchen.

Officer Gomez wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set his empty saucer on the coffee table. “It’s time for us to get down to business.” His black uniform had a snug fit, especially around the biceps, which Vernetta estimated to be a good twenty inches in diameter. He pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket and flipped it open.

“First—”

Vernetta cut him off. “Instead of starting with your questions, Officer,” she said with an appropriate level of deference, “I have a few questions of my own.”

Special waved her off. “Girl, that ain’t even necessary.” She perched herself on the arm of the couch next to a smiling Officer Donovan, then smiled up at the other cop. “Go ahead, Manny. Ask away.”

Vernetta was ready to wring Special’s neck. “You called us over here to represent you,” she said testily. “I think you should let us do that.”

“That was before I had a chance to get to know Fred and Manny.” She winked at Gomez.

“Special, I don’t think you should—”

Officer Gomez followed Special’s lead and ignored Vernetta’s protests. “This shouldn’t take too long.” He scanned his notepad. “An individual by the name of Eugene Nelson claims that you spray-painted graffiti on his house and vandalized his car sometime before five a.m. this morning. Did you?”

“Of course not,” Special said.

“Okay, good.” Gomez scanned his notepad again. “He also claims that you tossed nails in his driveway a couple of weeks ago.”

“Not guilty.” Special held up her hand like she was taking an oath, which made her tank top rise up, revealing more of her flat stomach.

“Okay. And did you hack into his law firm’s computer system and send a defamatory email to everybody in the firm two days before that?”

“C’mon, Manny,” Special purred. “Do I look like a computer hacker to you?”

Officer Donovan devoured a huge forkful of cheesecake. “Not to me.”

“Okay, then.” Officer Gomez shoved his notepad back into his front pocket. “Case closed. Can I have some more sweet potato cheesecake now?”

The two cops broke into hearty laughter. Special picked up Manny’s saucer and scampered away to fetch his second serving.

Before Vernetta could say anything, Nichelle took the lead. “So . . . uh, you’re done with your questioning?” she asked, amazed.

“Pretty much,” Officer Donovan said. “This Nelson guy didn’t see any of this stuff happen. Like we told him, vandalism is a very difficult crime to solve. Without an eyewitness, he’s screwed.”

“Let’s face it,” Gomez added, “as much as his name has been dragged through the mud lately, a lot of people are probably gunning for him. He didn’t do himself any favors by filing that countersuit.”

“You got that right,” Officer Donovan agreed. “Guys like him make me embarrassed to be a black man.”

Special pranced back into the living room carrying another saucer of cheesecake. She bent over to hand it to Officer Gomez, at the same time, treating Officer Donovan to a view of way too much of her tight little tush.

“Here you are, Manny,” Special cooed. “Would you like another piece too, Fred?”

W
hat do we want?
Justice
! When do we want it?
Now
!”

J.C. was a block away from Parker Center, but heard the chants before she even caught sight of the haphazard crowd marching in front of police headquarters in a ragged procession.

“There’s no justice for African-American men in this city!” A middle-aged black man with dreadlocks bellowed into a bullhorn. “Four prominent African-American men are gunned down in a matter of days and the LAPD couldn’t give a damn!”

J.C. rolled down her window and turned off the radio, slowing to a crawl as she passed the protesters.

“Somebody’s   killing   African-American   men—our   best   and   our brightest—and the police don’t even bother to warn the black community that we’re at risk.”

Even before J.C. got a good look, she knew the ringleader was Leon Webber, a community activist who was always Johnny-on-the-spot when any issue arose involving L.A.’s African-American community. A reporter motioned him off to the side for an interview and he readily followed.

J.C. made a U-turn, parked, and jogged across the street. She stayed clear of the TV cameras, not wanting to be mistaken for a protester. She listened as Webber spouted off to not one, but three reporters.

“We have the murders of four African-American men—an engineer, a doctor, a star football player and an investment banker—in less than two weeks and the LAPD is treating them like they were gangbangers. If four white men had been killed under the same circumstances, somebody would’ve called in the F.B.I
and
the C.I.A. The LAPD simply does not value the life of its African-American citizens. Not the poorest African-American in Watts or the wealthiest one up in View Park.”

“Exactly what would you like the police to do?” one of the reporters asked.

“To care!” Webber fired back. “They haven’t even warned us that there’s a killer on the loose gunning for us. How irresponsible is that? The word I’m hearing is that there’s some white supremacist group who’s vowed to kill every professional African-American man in this city. If
I’ve
heard that, I know the police have, too. But they’ve chosen to do nothing about it because they want us all dead.”

J.C. couldn’t stomach any more. She returned to her car and drove around back to the lot where employees parked their personal vehicles. She had just removed her knapsack from the backseat when Detective Jessup snuck up behind her. She flinched.

“Wow, you’re a little jumpy there, Detective. That’s not good for a cop.”

She pulled her bag over her shoulder and stepped around him.

“Did you see that excuse for a protest out front?” Detective Jessup followed her into the station. “Those people have too much free time on their hands.”

“They’re absolutely right about our failure to warn the public. That should’ve been done a long time ago.”

“That’s not our call. We don’t know for sure yet that the murders are even connected.”

Yes, we do.

J.C. wasn’t able to shake Jessup until she escaped into the women’s locker room. Two patrol women waved as she walked in. J.C. was one of only three female detectives, and the women patrol officers looked up to her. Whenever they had problems with a sexist male partner or wanted advice about a promotional path, they consulted her.

Katrina, a single mother who’d been on the force for only two years, took a seat on a bench near J.C.’s locker.

“Did you see that story about the shootings in the
Sentinel
?” Katrina asked.

“No,” J.C. replied. “But I heard Larry Elder’s radio show yesterday.”

“So, what do you think?”

She shrugged. “I don’t buy the theory about white supremacists or gang retribution.”

A female desk sergeant hollered into the locker room. “Detective Sparks, the lieutenant wants to see you.”

More than a week had passed since J.C. stormed out of Lieutenant Wilson’s office. They now spoke to each other only when absolutely necessary. When she reached the lieutenant’s doorway, he was just finishing up a call.

“We’ll get to it right away,” he said into the receiver. “I’m about to assign an officer to the job right now.”

Lieutenant Wilson hung up the telephone. “Have a seat.”

J.C. slowly sat down, wary about what was in store for her.

“I have a job for you,” the lieutenant began. “The mayor’s office is getting a lot of calls about these shootings, and that poor excuse for a protest out front isn’t helping. When there’s heat on the mayor, there’s heat on us. We need to do what we can to diffuse it.”

“And just how do we do that?”

“The mayor’s putting together a team to handle communications between the Department and his office. I’m designating you as our liaison.”

“Why me? Detective Jessup would love this opportunity.”

“You’re a lot smarter,” he said. “And cuter.”

J.C. didn’t smile. The lieutenant wanted to pretend as if their run-in had never occurred. She didn’t.

“Mayor Caranza is also planning to hold a press conference. The chief is trying to talk him out of it. It doesn’t do any good to talk to the press when you don’t have anything concrete to tell ’em. But there’s an election just around the corner and you know how politicians are. Always trying to get their mugs in front of the cameras. Anyway, you’ll need to be there.”

J.C. moved to the edge of her seat. “Why do I need to be there?”

“The mayor feels safer when he’s surrounded by cops.”

J.C.   wanted   no   part   of   this.   Lieutenant   Wilson   was   intentionally withholding information that could lead to catching the killer solely because of his homophobia and fear of stigmatizing black men.