Dominion (10 page)

“What else can you tell me, besides it being a drive by?”

“Well, technically it
wasn’t
drive by It was drive up, walk up, then drive off. The walk up is considered big time macho, especially by Hispanic gangs. It’s just you,
mano y mano.
But the old drive by is more popular. It does the job and gets them on the road in a hurry. This was a combo.”

“How many in the car?”

“Well, it was left running in the street, not parked. Mrs. Burns saw the shooter jump in the passenger side. So it wasn’t a one-man job. At least two, shooter and driver. Could have been more in the backseat, who knows? No physical description of the perps. Don’t know size, color, age, what they were wearing, nothing. It’s frustrating.”

“What about the weapon?”

“We’ve got forty .223 shell casings.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out a casing, and handed it to Clarence. “Here’s one of them. Haven’t got the rest back from the technicians yet. There’s a huge backup in ballistics right now—too many shootings. Presumably the casings are all alike, so having forty won’t be much better than having one. We’ve got a partial left footprint coming up the porch steps. It matches perfectly a plaster cast of a full right footprint where the shooter stepped off the walkway onto the lawn during his retreat. At least we’re pretty sure it was the shooter. It had been dry all week and just rained earlier that night. The print was fresh. Size eight and a half, Air Jordans. That’s about it. Maybe narrows us down to a few million people.”

“So…is this case going to be solved?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. The initial window is gone. We’re into the tough part—trying to beat the bushes and find any witness, any clue. But I won’t give up. I’ve solved cases a week later, a month, three months, six months, two years. Some precincts have cold-case crews that have solved cases going back fifteen years.”

“So…are you optimistic?”

“The truth? Not really. Problem is, the killings don’t stop. If we could have one murder and just focus on it for however long it takes, it would be great. But we’ve only got five homicide teams. Manny and I already have three open cases, plus another dozen unsolved that can yank our chains anytime if there’s a new development.”

“So Dani’s just number three?”

“No. She’s still number one, but we rotate, go on call, and our number’s up again. Next homicide and she’ll drop to number two. That’s how it works. But I have to tell you, your sister’s case is really pulling my strings. I take it personally, the way it was done. Vicious. Mother and child. I want the perps. But I’m just being honest with you—the fact that we haven’t got much now suggests a good chance we won’t. The lieutenant’s always talking about case load management. There have to be priorities. The new cases get priority because if we put them on the back burner, we miss our best chance at solving them.”

“I’ve heard gang killings are low priority,” Clarence said.

“Not low priority. It’s just that there’s getting to be more of them. Hard to keep up with. And hard not to move on when there isn’t a quick solution. What can I say? We’re overworked.”

“So you’re going to let my sister’s murder fall through the cracks?” Clarence watched Ollie’s red neck get redder.

One of the advantages of black skin. Easier to hide your emotions.

“Nope. Told you that already. I’m doing my best. See this?” He lifted up a half-inch stack of papers held together by a metal clamp. “Those are reports from the uniformed officers who first arrived on the scene.”

He picked up another stack and pushed it toward Clarence. “These are interviews with neighbors conducted by Manny and me.”

He picked up a big bulging manila envelope. “These are the photographs from the scene, and the autopsy.” He kept the envelope on his side of the desk, his hand on top of it.

“I’ve gone over it all three or four times, looking for anything.” As Ollie flipped through the big stack of papers, Clarence saw yellow highlighting and red underlining and scribbling in the margins.

“I’m just trying to help you understand why I can’t give it my undivided attention,” Ollie said. “I’ve got other victim’s families just as anxious as you are.” Ollie’s eyes went to the office window. He jumped up and opened the door.

“Hey, Manny, come on in here. Say hi to Mr. Abernathy.”

Manny came over and nodded coldly to Clarence, flashing an unmistakable “what the heck is he doing here” look at Ollie. He didn’t extend his hand. Neither did Clarence.

“We were just discussing his sister’s case.”

“Think that’s a good idea?” Manny spit out the words as though they were stale chewing tobacco that couldn’t spend another moment in his mouth.

“Don’t know,” Ollie said. “But I’m trying to be accommodating. I size up the person and ask myself how much I should say. A skill you need to learn, Manny. Now look at Mr. Abernathy. What strikes you about him?”

Manny sized up Clarence, as if at a loss to come up with anything. “He’s big,” he finally said.

“Good, Manny. The eyes of a skilled detective, picking up the subtleties other people would miss. Now, what impresses you about him? Something positive.”

Manny paused, searching. “He doesn’t speak ghettoese.”

Clarence stared at him hard. Tacobender.

“You’ll have to excuse my partner, Mr. Abernathy. He doesn’t try to be offensive. It just comes naturally.” Manny looked unrepentant.

“Now, Manny,” Ollie continued, “what I see is a man who loved his sister and wants to see that the bad guys get caught. We can understand that, now can’t we?”

“But we shouldn’t let him get in our way. The time you spend holdin’ his hand could be used on the case.”

Ollie looked at Clarence. “Manny’s a former gangbanger. Fresno, wasn’t it? Still has that flair, don’t you think? What he knows could come in handy on this case. He’s like sixty grade sandpaper. He rubs on you, but he gets the job done. Right, Manny?”

“Speaking of the job,” Manny said, “I’ve got work to do. Later.” He looked at Ollie, not Clarence.

“Okay. Have a nice day. Try not to spread too much good cheer.” Ollie smiled and waved as Manny shut the door behind him.

“Charming guy,” Clarence said.

“Savvy guy. Glad he’s on our side.”

“Doesn’t he get to you?”

“Occasionally,” Ollie said. “He’s not Mr. Personality, but he’s fast, careful, and efficient. He hasn’t been a detective long, still on probation. Everybody is their first year in detective division. I’m breaking him in. By the time I’m done, maybe he’ll be as good as I am. But he’ll never be as handsome. Wasn’t gifted with a kisser like this one.” Ollie patted his own cheeks affectionately.

“What was he before? A patrol officer?”

“Yeah. That’s where we all come from. You pay your dues, emerge from the ranks. I recommended Manny. Saw him work uniformed in a few cases. His reports were clear and detailed. He’s perceptive, vivid imagination on how to pull off a crime. Comes with the gangbangin’. Knows how to think like a crook. That’s a gift for a detective, you know. Separates the men from the boys. Now, if we could just get him a personality.”

“So, there’s no other witness besides Mrs. Burns?”

“Not necessarily.”

“But you said—”

“Truth is, there could easily be witnesses. It wasn’t that late, and it was a Saturday night. In fact, I’m surprised they did it as early as midnight. Maybe they just got anxious and jumped the gun. People are out on the streets late in that part of town. I drove around same time last Saturday night, up and down the streets. I saw maybe eight people who could have easily seen something if it happened that night. You got this car squirreling off following forty rounds? My theory is there
was
a witness or two. Getting them to come forward is something else.”

“They don’t trust the police,” Clarence said. “They come forward and they think they’ll be arrested for the crime.”

“You got it,” Ollie said. “Irrational, but that’s what they think.”

Blacks are irrational, huh? Or maybe they’re smart enough to learn from experience.

“Let’s say you
do
find a witness,” Ollie said. “Try getting them to talk. Try getting them to go all the way to the witness stand. Either it’s a betrayal—they feel like they can’t snitch—or they’re afraid of retaliation. Sometimes the gangs fill the court when the witness testifies, and all of a sudden they forget their story. With gangs, usually we know who did it but we can’t prove it in court and it’s all a waste of time.”

“What do you mean you usually know who did it? How?”

“With gang killings, word gets out on the street. Guys brag about it to their homies, somebody overhears, tells all his friends. The ghetto grapevine. Next thing you know, one of our gang officers catches the word. Often it’s the girlfriends.”

“Huh?”

“The homegirls, the gals that hang around the set. It’s the latest gossip, bragging rights on whose man shot who. Usually within twelve hours everybody knows on the street. These guys are into building their reputations, and you can’t build your rep unless people know what you did. A Blood wants people to know when he kills a Crip. He wants credit for it. Puts up the newspaper clipping on his wall. You do the work, you want the payoff, and the rep’s the biggest part of it.”

“What makes you think you know so much about gangs?”

“Used to work gangs for LAPD,” Ollie said. “Before I transferred up here in ’86.”

Figures. LAPD. Racism capital of the world.

“Speaking of people knowing on the street,” Ollie said, “that’s what bothers me most about this case. Word
isn’t
out on the street. Typically we hear who did it. Hearing isn’t proof, but then we can focus in on the guy. If we can nail him on another charge, say shoplifting or possession, we can get a warrant to search him. We can do a ballistics match on his weapon, the whole nine yards. But this time, there’s nowhere to begin. No word on the streets. Totally quiet. That’s different. Really different. And that’s not all that bothers me.”

“What else?”

“Okay.” Ollie stood up and paced, like a professor getting wound up for a lecture. “Why do gangbangers do drive bys rather than go face to face? Mostly to take them by surprise and avoid being shot back. And of course, to get recognition and send a warning. The Italian gangsters started it back in old Chicago, and the Irish picked it up. In the sixties, the Hispanic gangs perfected it, and all the gangs do it now.”

Clarence took strange comfort in picturing Italians and Irish and other Anglos originating gangland drive bys.

“The difference is, in those days, the crooks shot each other. They seldom wasted women, children, or innocents. If they did, they got in trouble with the bosses, who conned themselves into thinking they were moral people. But today’s drive by is looser. It’s still aimed at an enemy, but it’s more careless. They can hit bystanders, even babies, and they may just think of it as casualties of war. Not like the old days.”

The good old days. When murders were careful, thoughtful, responsible.

“Okay,” Ollie said. “I can see how they could go after someone outside your sister’s house or even somebody they thought was inside, and your sister and niece could accidentally get shot. But that’s not what happened. This was thought out. They had to know it was your sister’s bedroom. But why your sister? I just can’t see why they’d go after her. It doesn’t make sense. Can you help me out?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Clarence said. “I asked my whole family. I mean, Dani didn’t greet the bangers with open arms, but there’s lots of anti-gang people in the neighborhoods. She’s just one among many. There’s nothing about Dani that could explain what happened.”

“Nothing we know about. The question is, what don’t we know?”

“I know her…knew her better than anybody.”

Ollie looked at notes in front of him. “No needle marks. No indications of drug use. No prostitution. Nobody she was sleeping with.”

“Who do you think you are, talkin’ about Dani like that?” Clarence was on his feet, leaning forward, his hands on Ollie’s side of the desk, his face inches away, close enough for Ollie to feel the heat of his breath.

“Hey. Chill. I said she
wasn’t
doin’ any of that. My point is, she was a model citizen.”

Clarence sat down.

“Maybe,” Ollie said, “she knew something she shouldn’t have and somebody wanted to keep her quiet. All I know is, it just doesn’t fit the profile.”

“What profile?”

“The kind of people who get hit. Lots of drive bys are just to scare people, warn them. If they get hit fine, but most people survive drive bys. But this was a makesure killing, a big-time hit, one of the biggest we’ve ever had in Portland. By L.A. standards, no big deal, but in Portland at most you might have a nine millimeter spray from an AK-47 or a MAC 10, a Tech 9, maybe an Uzi. A dozen shots, maybe as many as twenty. But forty automatic high penetration rounds targeted into a single bedroom?”