L.A. Blues Page 4

  “How old are you?”

  “Seven and she four,” Sade said.

  I decided I might be able to get their vitals off the computer if the family was in the system or on public assistance.

  Starkisha, who had braided extensions in her head, which were curled into esses and looked like a baby Medusa, peeled her eyes from the television set.

  “What’s yo’ name?” she asked with a lisp through her snaggle teeth.

  Before I could answer, someone knocked at the door. I glanced up and saw Okamoto. He stood silently and watched me, willing to jump in, if necessary.

  Continuing the investigation, I was relieved the children knew their real names. I had cases where kids didn’t know their birth names and would be headed for kindergarten. I’d say, “What’s your name?”

  “Boo.”

  “Your real name?”

  “I said BooBoo.”

  But by no means, did this make these kids “BooBoo the fool-fool.” Neither were they dull-witted or bovine. They knew their street monikers, which was all that mattered in their world. These children knew how to cross streets at stoplights at the age of two, knew how to lie to the social worker and say they’d had a full course meal for breakfast when their crack-using mother hadn’t been home in a week, and knew how to list all the toys they’d received for Christmas when they hadn’t received any. And Lord, don’t put on a rap song. Those babies knew every word.

  I turned to Shirrell, who was leaning on the armrest of the sofa.

  “Shirrell, you’re going to have to be a big boy tonight. Do you have a grandmother who lives in town?”

  “Naw. She down south.”

  “Do you have any other relatives?”

  “Unca Pookie.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Yeah. He live behind the liquor store on the alley.”

  “Do you know the name of the street?”

  “Naw. But I know where it is.” Now this I didn’t doubt.

  “What is your mother’s name?” It felt strange talking about the deceased woman as if she were still living.

  “Mama.”

  The police report sheet read, “Jane Doe.”

  “No, what does your family call her?”

  “Lady Bug.”

  Do the children know yet? I wondered. The youngest girl’s lips puckered like a sewn together sleeve, and the oldest one was sucking on her thumb. Although Shirrell didn’t know his mother’s real name, he was a survivor. I had been there myself and I’d seen these children all my life. Sitting there, I wondered, What will happen to these babies?

  3

  After we interviewed the kids, Okamoto jumped on his Rover and called for back up, the supervisor, the homicide team and the coroner. The Emergency Response social workers weren’t able to come on the scene so once Homicide arrived, our supervisor, Sergeant Stubbs, sent us off to transport the children.

  When we left with the children, the coroner’s truck was just arriving.

  Squeezed into the back seat like a can of sardines, the three children sat flanked side by side on the drive to Uncle Pookie’s house.

  Absently, I shook my head. Why hadn’t I listened to my gut? This case was too close to home. I should have stayed home, instead of working this overtime on New Year’s Eve. How did my foster father, Daddy Chill, used to say that? “Guts—always listen to your guts. People can smile at you and hate you, but your gut won’t lie.” Well, tonight my gut was churning. Something, besides this horrible case, was definitely wrong, but what was it?

  The problem was I was trying to buy my place in Venice, which was listed as a rental with an option to buy. I lived there for the past two years, and I was just now thinking seriously about buying the place.

  “What grade are you in?” I asked Shirrell, who was sitting in the middle and, as the oldest had his arm around Starkisha and Sade, the baby. Starkisha’s owlish eyes, bright as yellow egg yolks, looked as if she never went to bed before four in the morning, took in everything. An indelible print in a child’s memory. I shuddered at the thought.

  “Second grade,” he answered. I remembered he was ten years old. “I got held back a lot,” he added as a way of explanation.

  “Oh, okay.”

  “What was that you were going to tell me about?” I turned to Okamoto just to kill time. When the shift started he said he had something important he wanted to tell me, but we’d have to be away from the station to talk about it. I knew he was planning to meet with Internal Affairs the next day. Then we got caught up on the second shift, and never had a chance to talk.

  “Here’s a key to my safe deposit box at National Bank downtown,” Okamoto said, handing me over a key. “There’s important information I want you to get if anything happens to me.”

  “What do you mean if anything happens to you?”

  I slid the key into my duty belt, and closed the pouch. Before Okamoto could answer, Shirrell interrupted us. “Here it go. Oooh, there go Unca Pookie house!” Shirrell pointed out the window.

  “Stop.” I held up my hand in a halt symbol.

  Okamoto nodded, then whipped the black and white over to the curb.

  Sure enough, there was a single story bungalow behind a liquor store near 36th Street.

  I had no doubt that Shirrell had often walked these five miles by himself from Hoover to this area.

  My heart started pounding as soon as we pulled up in front of the house, and for the first time in a long time on the job, I felt spooked. I didn’t know what it was. When Officer Okamoto let us out the car this time, my legs buckled in. I tried not to fall apart, but I was becoming more discombobulated with each second. A sense of alarm crept up my back.

  We weren’t sure if the children knew that their mother was dead and we hadn’t told them. From the chatter among them, I figure they think she’s alive. They reminded me of myself growing up—or at least they had a similar mindset. They were probably used to witnessing their parents fight. Domestic violence is what it’s termed in legalese and is considered child endangerment. For these kids this was just a way of life.

  The streets were even darker here than over at Hawaiian Courtyard’s. The walk to the back house seemed to take forever. My heart beat louder with each step.

  Uncle Pookie lived in a ramshackle backhouse, the porch leaning to one side, the step creaking as we climbed it.

  I balled up my right palm. It was damp.

  “I’ll handle it.” Might as well face my fears. I guess this was my way of running towards the fire.

  After I knocked, a drowsy male’s voice answered. “Who is it?”

  “L.A.P.D.”

  Finally, the door cracked open, and a sliver of light shimmered and danced onto the one-step porch. Uncle Pookie, a dark-skinned man, scratching his three-day old shadow, appeared suspicious. He appeared to be about forty years old.

  “What I do—I mean what’s up?”

  Officer Okamoto spoke in a stentorian voice. “We have bad news. Can we step in?”

  After Uncle Pookie reluctantly let us in, we stood in the middle of a miniature living room. Two children were sleeping on both ends of the sofa, a thin blanket covering them. Uncle Pookie was wearing a wife beater with small holes in it over a pair of brown sweat pants.

  A woman flew out of a back room, clasping her terry cloth robe, which was safety pinned together. Her sleep-filled, sable eyes widened with alarm. “Pookie, what’s goin’ on?”

  “I dunno, MiMi.” He nudged her. “Be cool.”

  My throat clammed shut and I wanted to scream, but somehow the sound remained lodged between my shoulder blades and my throat. I felt so conflicted, wanting to run, to not be there, to disappear. I despised the coward in me. Usually I was fearless, but I couldn’t help it. This case forced me to relive the night that changed my life, and just like the little nine-year-old girl, I was again rendered helpless.

  But, somehow, I pushed myself ahead. Run to the fire, I told myself. This was what
my therapist once told me I had to do—face my fears. I cleared my throat. I had a job to do.

  I spoke up before Okamoto continued. “Sir, is Lady Bug your sister?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “Elizabeth Black.”

  “Well, sir. There’s been a death.” I paused. “Her husband killed her.” I was amazed at how straightforward I was being. I guess, in a crazy way, I didn’t have any reservation about being the bearer of bad news.

  For a moment, Uncle Pookie’s mouth flew open. He took in a gasp of air as if it were his last breath. There was such a long silence, I didn’t know if he was having a heart attack. Then he pulled his elbows over his head, bent over, head in his hands, and broke down, sobbing. Mimi came forth and wrapped her arms around him. She began to softly cry with him.

  “I knew it . . . I knew that fool would kill that girl!” he cried over and over. Finally, he peered up at us through red eyes. “He killed his first wife down there in Louisiana!”

  In between sobs, I made out Uncle Pookie’s words. “That Lady Bug—may she rest in peace—couldn’t read her name if it was written in the clouds. Two years ago she left that fool down in Louisiana and then went back and got him. She been trying to put him out since last week.”

  So that’s why the bag of men’s clothes was packed by the door. Home sweet home. I scanned the faded wall pictures of a white Jesus, a sepia-toned picture of an older woman who could possibly be the grandmother and a portrait of Uncle Pookie’s family. I averted my gaze and held my breath. Lord, please don’t make me remember....

  “Sir, you’re going to have to get yourself together so that you can tell the children.

  “What is your name?” Surprisingly, my voice remained firm.

  Uncle Pookie looked up, his face ravaged with grief, an old razor cut, creating a crag along his jaw line.

  “Lawrence Mitchell.”

  “Mr. Mitchell, where does your mother live? I understand there’s a grandmother down south.”

  “Louisiana.”

  I thought about it. I didn’t want to have to place the children in foster care, if at all possible. It was late, and to find a shelter home at this hour would be difficult. The likelihood of them being placed together was null and void. I hated how my siblings and I had been separated from the gate so I didn’t want the children to be placed in the system. “Is there any way they can stay here until we can get them to Louisiana? Of course, we’ll have to do a criminal check—”

  “Please bring them babies in here. They just like my own. I don’t have no record.”

  I took down the names and social security numbers of the adults in the house: Lawrence Mitchell and Mimi Cross.

  “I’ll go back and have Okamoto run it on the car computer. If everything checks out, I’ll get the kids for you.” I was relieved to get out of this room stifling with grief.

  I handed him the slip of paper. “Please run the criminal check on Lawrence Mitchell. We’re going to let him tell them.” I nodded my head towards the children sitting out in the car.

  I paused, before continuing. “If he checks out clean, the kids can stay here ’til DCFS does an Interstate Compact on the grandmother.”

  We both returned to the squad car.

  “Just wait a minute, kids.” I turned my head and talked through the glass partition in the squad car. “You’re going to your Uncle Pookie’s. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Meantime, Okamoto ran the criminal check on the car’s computer, and, unfortunately Lawrence Mitchell came back as one of several aliases. He had outstanding warrants, many drug-related charges, prior arrests, and even two strikes.

  “Uh-oh. We won’t be able to place them.” Okamoto let out a low whistle.

  I glanced over at the computer and saw a list of drug trafficking charges. A Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charge, better known as a RICO charge. “Maybe I need to check this out.”

  Shirrell, Starkisha and Sade were still sitting in the squad car back seat, hands folded in their laps.

  “Wait here,” Okamoto said, stepping back out the car. Hot-headed as always, he bulldozed back up to the door and I charged behind him. “I got this,” he said, throwing a hand up for me to follow behind him but to draw my weapon.

  Like a cannon hurtling through the night, I heard an unidentified male voice bellow out, “It’s the police.”

  The next thing I knew a barrage of bullets blasted through the air and all the oxygen escaped out my lungs. I felt a burning sting burrow into my upper chest, and then pierce through my shoulder. An unknown force pulled me down into darkness, but I struggled to remain conscious.

  In a daze, I crawled back to the front of the squad car. I finally pulled my piece out my holster and fired back, but I was shooting aimlessly. I was not even sure where the bullets were coming from. I thought that they were coming from Uncle Pookie’s house, but I wasn’t sure. I crawled back to the driver’s side of the car and struggled to open the front door.

  “Get down,” I whispered tersely to the children in the back. I heard the rat-tat-tat-tat of bullets flying all around me. “Stay down.” It wasn’t really necessary for me to say this. The children already had their heads ducked down, as if they were used to dodging stray bullets.

  I finally made it to the mic on the driver’s side of the squad car and uttered the worst two words in a police officer’s vocabulary.

  “Officer down!” I passed out.

  4

  “She’s coming to.” Shirley’s voice was the first one I heard when I woke up.

  “Nurse, she’s conscious. Z, can you hear me?” I felt her hand gently touching my hand.

  A wave of paranoia crashed over me. Who? What? When? How? Where am I? Suddenly I heard the sound of my heart monitor. Beep, beep, beep, beep. I peered over at the machine. Everything was blurry and it took a while for it to come into focus, but when it did I could read the blood pressure, which was 150 over 90, which was high for me. The smells of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant mixed with a musty odor.

  “Where am I?”

  “UCLA Medical Center.”

  Suddenly everything came rushing back to me in a whoosh, like a nightmare you can’t wake up from.

  “Where was I hit?”

  “In the left side below your shoulder. An inch over and it would have hit your main artery. But God is good.” Shirley teared up as she spoke. “It’s a good thing you had on your vest.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Three days.”

  “Where’s Okamoto?”

  Before Shirley could answer, I sniffed something. It was a sour and musty stench. It was me. I smelled funky.

  “Dang. Don’t they wash you up in here?” I asked, sniffing myself.

  “Don’t worry, Z,” Shirley said. “I’ll wash you.”

  As Shirley gently washed me, I glanced around and saw vases of floral arrangements. My eyes settled on a group of orchids, which were my favorites. Listening to the slosh of the warm water on my body, my mind drifted back to what I’d asked Shirley. “Moochie, you didn’t answer.”

  Shirley acted as if she was deaf and dumb. She was quiet for what felt like the longest time. She finished washing me, and went to the bathroom, then emptied the wash pan. “Where’s Okamoto?” I asked for the second time.

  Shirley finally spoke. “He’s gone.” She paused. “Z, he’s dead.”

  At first my eyes became teary and I rubbed them like I did when I was sleepy, but the next thing, I was boohooing loud, deep wracking sobs. All I could see was Okamoto and me getting wasted together on our off days. He was more than a partner—he was a friend. “It should have been me. I should have gone in first.”

  Shirley reached down and hugged me. “It wasn’t your time. Only God knows when it’s our time.”

  I thought about how they used to tease us, calling us “Cheech and Chong.” How Okamoto kicked this racist cop’s ass for talking abou
t me. I wiped my eyes, and tried to stop crying.

  “When’s the funeral?” I asked between sniffs.

  “It’s tomorrow.” Shirley plumped up my pillow, and eased me into an upright position. “You can’t go. You’re not ready for discharge yet.”

  I started crying all over again. Suddenly I felt paranoid and my heart started palpitating. “Am I safe here?”

  “Yes, they’ve had police guards around your room twenty-four seven.”

  “How about the children we had gone to place? Are they okay?”

  “Yes, they are fine. The children were placed in foster care, and the Uncle is in jail, so at least they caught the shooter.”

  “How about the husband who killed his wife?”

  “He turned himself in.”

  Shirley’s cell phone rang, interrupting our conversation, and she said a few, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh’s.” She hung up, and turned to me, trying to look upbeat. “I have a surprise for you. This should cheer you up.”

  I heard my hospital door open, looked up and, who should sashay in but my surprise guest.

  “Hey, mija,” a familiar voice called out. “I came as soon as I heard about it on the news.” There, in front of me, stood Chica, whom I hadn’t seen in years. She was rocking acid jeans, a turquoise halter top tied beneath her bosom, showing her stomach which sported no stretch marks, and she was back up to her regular size six. The next thing I noted was she’d cut her once waist-length hair to shoulder-length. This time it looked healthy. The last time I saw her and her hair was shorter, I knew she was going “crack head bald.”

  “Hey, girl,” I responded as she reached down and hugged me. “Ouch.” My face scrunched up in pain as she hit my bandages.

  “Sorry, boo, ” she apologized.

  For a moment, I was speechless. In fact, I was kind of in shock. The last I heard, Chica was in the pen. In fact, when I last saw her, about six years ago, she was so emaciated, her front looked like her back. She’d lost her behind, which used to be J-Lo curvy. Clearly turned out and caught up chasing the elusive rock, Chica had hit below bottom. Tricking. The whole nine yards. The last time we crossed paths, Chica was at Shirley’s at the time, trying to hustle money under the guise of wanting a meal, and professing she was going to straighten up and go to rehab. I heard that lie before and I was so disgusted with her, I just shook my head and left the house, not even speaking to her. I was sick of her using Shirley.