Private Deceptions (12 page)

When I got back to my office, I immediately checked my messages to see if Mrs. Childers had called, which she hadn’t. It was late and she might not be able to get out of the house to meet me. What I had to tell her would keep until morning anyway, because to be honest, it wasn’t much. And on top of that it was only speculation. I could only speculate that Jake was hiding. And if Rocky was a man of his word, which I couldn’t count on, he would tell Mrs. Childers all about the events of the evening, anyway. Still, I decided to wait awhile, just to see if she would show.

It still bothered me that we never found any camera equipment in Jake’s apartment. The pictures and the video were quality. It was obvious that Jake took his photo sessions seriously. I got the pictures from the file cabinet, along with my bottle of Johnnie Black. As I sat there drinking and looking at the pictures, two things hit me all at once. The pictures were definitely taken in at least two different places. I popped in the videotape we copied from Jake’s apartment. I sat watching, without really watching, fast forwarding for the most part. Comparing the video to the still pictures that I had, and tried to get a sense of where they were taken. I turned off the video, I had seen enough. I began to sort the pictures into piles based on outfit or the lack of one. The difference in location was apparent now. The second thing that hit me was a bit more subtle. Some of the pictures appeared to be taken in rapid session. Maybe taken with a high-speed shutter. That in itself wasn’t all that, but it was the angles they were shot from. The camera wasn’t on a tripod, or some other stationary object. Somebody was taking the pictures. Pamela taking the pictures while Jake did LaShawn and vice versa?

"But, no it isn’t."

I looked closer at the pictures and thought back to what Lisa Ellison told Rocky.
He thought it was Pamela, but it was LaShawn.
It was LaShawn in every picture with Jake. What little outfit there was may have been different, but it was LaShawn. If it was LaShawn in every picture having sex with Jake then what was Pamela’s involvement in this?

Other than the one picture of her and LaShawn at the party, there wasn’t anything to connect Pamela with Jake. LaShawn came courtesy of Rocky and Mrs. Childers couldn’t say definitely that Pamela knew Jake. The cause of death connected her to LaShawn, but not Jake. "Pamela Hendricks, you begin to interest me." Now I needed to know where Pamela lived, and I didn’t want to ask Kirkland. The need for Mrs. Childers to make an appearance just became more business than personal. It was better that way. Keep it strictly business.

But my mind was on Mrs. Childers. Wondering why she hadn’t at least called. Maybe Rocky told Chilly that she had hired me to find Jake and he did something to her. I was surprised that he didn’t want her to know anything about Jake being missing, or that he was looking for him. He didn’t seem to be the type of guy that it would matter to.

What was going on between Chilly and Jake? What shit wouldn’t work? The answer to one would lead me to the other. And that would lead me to Jake. By two in the morning I had given up on her, and had begun to nod out. "Time to get out of here." But I wanted to finish up my case notes with my new observations before I left.

But my chair was so comfortable.

The next thing I knew, the sun was shinning bright, I had fallen asleep.

I left another voice message for Mrs. Childers. Since I hadn’t heard from her, I didn’t have much of a choice. I either had to ask Detective Kirkland for Pamela Hendricks address or make my third search of Jake’s apartment. I chose the latter. This was starting to get old. I was on my way to search this apartment for the third time, and was starting to realize it took more than just the title to do this type of work.

But I liked it.

So if I was going to continue doin’ it, I would have to be more thorough, more organized. I arrived at Jake’s apartment, but this time I was prepared to stay awhile. I brought a camera, tape recorder, and a pad. This time I went from room to room and took pictures of and cataloged everything. I wrote down and recorded my observations, no matter how small or insignificant. Everything mattered.

I came across what I was looking for, Jake’s address book. There under H, as it should be, I found Pamela’s address. Determined not to have any need to return, I photographed the entire book. I was about to leave when I looked out the window. There they were. The police. I should have known that they would have the place under surveillance. I knew as soon as I walked out, they would take me into custody for questioning, and my notes, pictures, and the tape would become evidence in the investigation. I turned on Jake’s computer and scanner. I could scan the notes and made a wav file of the tape. Then I downloaded the pictures from the camera and e-mail them to myself.

"Did Kirk give you much grief?" Wanda asked.

"Nah, threatened to lock me up for breaking and entering. But he really just wanted me to give him something. Kirk already knew, but he made me tell him that Mrs. Childers was my client."

"Kirk’s good, Nick. Very good. How long did they hold you?"

"A couple of hours, more or less."

"What did you give him?"

"Nothing really, ’cause that’s what I had, nothing. He had connected Pamela Hendricks to Mrs. Childers and wanted to push the money laundering angle down my throat. But I got the feeling that he really didn’t buy into it and wanted to know if I did."

"Did you?" Wanda asked.

"I was starting to, but I needed to be sure." I was starting to get a little tired myself. I closed my eyes and leaned back.

"What else?"

"The coroner still hasn’t officially assigned a cause of death in any of the cases." I was getting tired of answering questions.

"Did Kirk think that you were a suspect in the deaths of Pamela Hendricks and LaShawn?"

"No. If he did he never said."

"Other than Pamela Hendricks and LaShawn, how many more were there?"

"Five."

"He share any of the details?"

"Just time frame." I opened my eyes and Wanda was staring at me. But she looked away quickly. "He said the first five died within a 48 hour time frame. LaShawn died two days later and Pamela died almost two weeks after that."

"I got the impression that Rocky didn’t seem surprised to hear that LaShawn and Pamela were dead."

"I got the same impression. And after looking at the pictures, I needed to know what Pamela Hendricks involvement in all this was. I thought that if I knew more about her and why she died, I would be closer to the answers that I needed. Kirk let me go with his blessings to take a look around in Pamela’s apartment."

"His blessings?"

"Crime scene. That’s where her body was found."

"Ooh."

When I got there, I was met by a uniformed officer who let me in and told me that the scene had been tampered with once already.

"By who?" I asked.

"Seems she had a roommate." The cop said. "Chick named Felicia Hardy. She got in, took her stuff, and disappeared."

"Any idea where she went?"

"Nope. She just vanished. She used to be a cop. Quit the force a few months back to go to school full time."

"Any relatives?"

"What do I look like, huh? Check with personnel."

"Well, you knew all that other stuff." He unlocked the door and I followed him in.

"Yeah, well, Kirk told me all that stuff and said to help you anyway I can. So I figured he wanted you to know."

Kirk was helping himself by helping me. Nevertheless, I didn’t think he’d let me have a look at an ex-cops file. I looked around the apartment. As promised, most of the roommates stuff was gone. The room looked like it had been hit by a very focused hurricane. Once I had my gloves on, I rambled through it, looking, but really not expecting to find anything. If she was a cop, she wouldn’t leave any clues to where she was goin’. There wasn’t so much as a piece of paper. I left the room and closed the door behind me.

Everything else in the apartment was untouched. I looked in the kitchen, there were signs of a struggle. Then I checked the spot where her body was found. "Do you know if they found any drug paraphernalia?" The officer checked the inventory sheet. "I don’t see any." I went in Pamela’s room and sat down on the bed. I was sure now that the pictures and the video hadn’t been taken here.

Sitting on the dresser was a picture of Pamela and a woman I’d never seen before. She was pretty, very pretty. It was taken in the living room. Maybe it was Felicia Hardy, maybe not. Since I was collecting pictures, I took the picture out of its frame and put it in my shirt. I would give it back to Kirk if he let me see her file. After one last turn around the apartment, I thanked the cop and left. I figured I’d check out LaShawn’s apartment.

"Nick! Nick Simmons!"

I didn’t recognize the voice. I turned around. The mailman was walking quickly toward me. "Nick Simmons, how you doin’, man?" he grabbed my hand and shook it. It was obvious that he knew me, but I had no idea who this man was.

"I’m okay."

"You don’t remember me, do you?"

"I sure don’t," I said reluctantly.

"It’s me, Reggie."

"Little Reggie McCray."

"Yeah."

"I sure didn’t recognize you." Little Reggie McCray was now about six three and all muscle. "And look at you, Reggie. How you been?"

"Been doin’ good, Nick. What about you? You look good, prosperous, you know."

"Thanks, man. I been doin’ all right, Reggie." Seeing Reggie took me back to the old days coming up on the block. "You get around the way much? How’s your mother?"

"She’s fine, Nick. Still living in the same house. Me, my wife and my son live upstairs."

"How’s that lyin’ ass brother of yours?"

"Frankie’s dead."

"I’m sorry, Reggie. I didn’t know."

"Frankie got shot when Black took the neighborhood to war."

"I’m sorry. How’d it happen?"

"You know Frankie always wanted to be down with Black, but you know Black wasn’t havin’ it. He tried to get all of us to stay in school. Make something of ourselves; you know what I’m sayin’? Black was the one who got me this job. But anyway, Frankie was on his way to bein’ a thug nigga. Used to hang outside y’alls old spot; what was it called?"

"The Late Night. I remember. We wouldn’t let him inside, so Frankie used to hang outside with the rest of the wanna-bees."

"Yeah, that was Frank. Well that night I saw him take a gun from between the mattresses. I asked him what the gun was for? He said that Jimmy Knowles and Charlie Rock sent some people to kill Black outside his house. But Black killed them. Later that day Black caught them at some restaurant on White Plains Road and Black killed both of them. Frankie said that was gonna start a war and Black would need him. He said that he was going to prove himself to Black. That he had to be ready when his chance came. That night Frankie stepped up.

"Black told me that he had just sent Freeze to get the car, and him and Bobby were waitin’ outside. He didn’t see the car coming, but Frankie did. He yelled, ‘GET DOWN, BLACK!’ Everybody dropped except Frankie. He pulled the gat and started bustin’. He got hit with three shot’s. By that time Freeze rolled up with the car and Black and Bobby went after them. They caught up with them on bumpy ass Barnes Ave. Black said they lost control of the car and ran into a parked car. After they got out the car and started runnin’; Black and Bobby went after them. Freeze drove up ahead and cut them off, and killed the driver when he tried to run. Black and Bobby followed the other one into a building. The guy ran up the steps to the roof, bustin’ shots all the way. So when he gets to the roof he’s out of bullets. He starts backin’ up beggin’ Black and Bobby not to kill him, until he gets edge. He tried to run again and almost falls off the roof, but Bobby grabs him."

Black said, "Who sent you?"

"Vincent sent me! Please don’t let me go!" The guy yells.

"Who?"

"Vincent, Vincent Martin! Don’t tell him I told you; he’ll kill me." Black said he was cryin’ and shit.

Black said, "He ain’t gonna kill you, ’cause he’s a dead man. Stop cryin’ like a bitch and die with some honor. Drop him, Bobby."

"When they got back to the club they told Black that the ambulance came and they did what they could but Frankie was dead."

"I’m sorry," I said again. I didn’t know if I was apologizing because his brother was dead or because I ran out on the war to fight someone else’s. It didn’t matter, it was probably both and I felt guilty for not being there.

"Don’t sweat it, Nick." Reggie said, as if he were absolving me of both crimes. "It was a long time ago."

"Thanks, Reggie." It did make it a little easier. Everyone had moved past those years. Everyone but me. "Reggie, you know the girl that got killed in this building?"

"Yeah, Pamela was cool people."

"Did you know her?"

"Enough to know she was cool. I’ve been delivering her mail for seven years. We’d talk sometimes, you know."

"You know her roommate?"

"I seen her. She only been staying there for a few months."

I looked around to make sure the cop was gone and pulled the picture out of my shirt. "That her?"

"That’s her. What’s your interest in this, Nick?"

"I’m a private investigator. Somehow Pamela’s death is tied up in a missing person’s case I’m workin’ on."

"Oh, yeah. I heard that you started doin’ that after you got out the army."

"If I could find out a little more about Pamela, it might lead me to my guy. You wouldn’t know if Felicia Hardy filed a change of address card?"

"Cops asked me that already. I told them no."

"I knew it was a shot in the dark."

"I said I told the cops that. And she didn’t fill one out. But what I didn’t tell them was that a couple of days after that, Felicia met me outside the post office."

"What did she want?"

"She said that she was leaving town and didn’t want to leave a forwarding address, but she was waiting on some important mail. She gave me a hundred dollars and an address if I’d send it to her and forget about it."

"Where’d she go?"

"LA."

"Can you give me the address?"

"I think — wait a minute." Reggie dug around in his bag and pulled out a piece of paper. He handed it to me. "That’s the address."

"Thanks, Reggie."

"No problem, Nick. I got get movin’," Reggie said, as he walked away to continue his route. "Hey, Nick!" he shouted. "Come around the way sometime."

"I’ll do that. Hey, Reggie. Thanks for reminding me of what I should already know."

As I drove back to the office, I looked at the picture of Pamela Hendricks and Felicia Hardy. I didn’t think her having to go to LA right away was a coincidence. I gave some thought to what was going on around me. If there was no drug paraphernalia found in the apartment, how did Pamela die? Kirk had to be thinking murder. In an ex-cops apartment.

Once I was back in the office, I left another message for Mrs. Childers that I would be out of town for a couple of days. Then, I called Chésará, but she wasn’t home either. Next I called Jett to let him and Monika know what I had found out, which wasn’t much, and told him I was going to LA. With that taken care of, I called to make airline reservations and got a room at the Marriott Courtyard near the airport.