Murder on the Down Low (37 page)

She placed her groceries on the conveyor belt then moved over to the keypad in front of the clerk, swiped her ATM card, and held her breath. After a few long seconds, it cleared and she relaxed.

The clerk looked her up and down. She was a middle-aged bleached blond with cold, green eyes.

Special noticed that the woman had not greeted her with a cheery hello the way she had other customers. She must have recognized her.

Do not be afraid or dismayed
, Special repeated to herself,
for the Lord God, my God, is with you.

The clerk slapped her receipt on the counter without saying a word. Special waited for the woman to bag her groceries. There was no one else in line behind her. The woman put her hands on her hips and just stood there.

Special knew she should just pack up her stuff and get the hell out of the store, but her stubborn streak wouldn’t let her. “Are you gonna bag up my groceries?”

The woman grunted, then pulled out a white plastic bag and hurled Special’s frozen pizza inside.

“I have a twenty-year-old son,” the woman said snidely. She slammed the oranges into the bag. “Last year, somebody bashed his head in just because he’s gay. It scares me to think that there’s some homicidal, homophobic maniac running around killing people because of their sexual orientation.”

Special sucked in a breath.
Do not be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord, my God, is with you.

Still taking her sweet time, the woman picked up the Doritos bag and shoved it inside. Special heard a pop when the Doritos bag punctured. “I don’t know why they let you out on bail. After you’re convicted, I hope they put you
under
the jail.”

Special tried to call on God for strength. She wanted to turn the other cheek, but the devil was tugging at her soul.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” she said through tightly clamped teeth. “And I’m not homophobic.” She yanked the bag from the woman’s hand and grabbed the fruit punch bottle.

“I’m sorry somebody hurt your son. I just hope he wasn’t out there deceiving women by professing to be straight,” she hissed at the woman. “When something bad happens to gay men who do that, I just figure they got what they deserved.”

The woman gasped and her face paled in horror.

Special tore out of the store. She was in tears by the time she reached her car. She started up the engine and tried to collect herself before pulling out of the parking spot.

She drove back to her apartment coughing and sniveling all the way. When she turned the corner onto Buckingham Drive, she saw four police cars parked near her apartment building. In seconds, she broke out in a sweat. The park across the street was crawling with cops.
Were they here to arrest her again?
It wasn’t until she was just a few yards from the entrance of her building’s underground garage that she noticed a police car blocking the entrance.

She pulled her car into an open space on the street. As soon as she opened her car door, the same cop who had arrested her the first time ran up with his gun drawn. Two other cops also had their guns pointed directly at her.

“Put your hands up!” Crew Cut yelled.

Special was so terrified she couldn’t will her hands or any other part of her body to move. She was frozen solid with fear.

He repeated the order. “I said put your hands up!”

Sobbing and trembling, she finally raised her hands high above her head.

“Where have you been?”

“I went grocery shopping,” Special cried.

“Where?”

“At Ralph’s.”

“Which one?”

“Off the 90 freeway . . . on Lincoln. In the Marina. Why do you care?”

Crew Cut holstered his gun and charged forward. He whirled Special around, slammed her against the car and slapped handcuffs on her wrists. “You’re under arrest.”

“For what?” Special cried. “This is police brutality! I’m out on bail.”

“Not anymore. You just admitted violating the judge’s bail order.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You were supposed to stay within a three-mile radius of your apartment. That store is more than three miles away. I’m taking you in.”

“You can’t do this to me!” She was crying now and struggling with the officer as he tugged her toward a patrol car.

She noticed Martinez, dressed in a dark suit, standing off to the side, quietly watching. He was trying to send her to prison for the rest of her life. Their eyes met. Special’s registered fear and resentment. His communicated nothing.

The street was growing crowded with people. She could see the elderly man in apartment 104 peeking through his curtains. A white TV news van pulled up and a cameraman jumped out.

Crew Cut was about to toss her into the backseat of his patrol car, but waited for the cameraman to shoot some footage.

“This is a setup!” Special screamed. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“I predict you’re going to be looking at another murder charge pretty soon,” Crew Cut said, smiling at her. He stuffed her inside the patrol car and climbed into the front seat.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she whimpered through her tears.

“What I’m talking about is Gerald Dunn,” he said, his voice filled with glee. “The guy you whacked this morning.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! Why are you doing this to me?”

“Dunn is the man we just found shot to death in the men’s room over there.” He pointed across the street to the park. “The sixth man you murdered.”

I
thought you said Martinez was a straight shooter!” Vernetta yelled into her cell phone.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam replied. “And why are you screaming at me?”

“They just arrested Special! Martinez should’ve called us.” She was near tears. “The police ambushed her on the street with their guns drawn.”

“Ambushed her? What happened? Did they revoke her bail?”

“There’s been another murder and they’re trying to pin that one on her, too. She just called me from jail. I’m on my way down there now. Can you meet me?”

“I’m on my way.”

Vernetta and Sam arrived at the jail only minutes apart. They tried to get in to see Special, but were told it would be a while. Vernetta contacted J.C. to see what she might know, then asked Nichelle to meet them at a nearby sandwich shop. Vernetta, followed by Sam, had just stepped out of an elevator car when Martinez exited an adjacent one.

Vernetta hurried over to him. “Do you have a minute?” She had apparently invaded his personal space because he took a step backward.

“Sure,” he said.

There was never a trace of emotion, of any kind, on the man’s face.

Martinez hit the elevator button. “We can use one of the offices upstairs.”

The elevator ride was long and tense. Vernetta’s heart was filled with worry for her best friend. Her primary concern was getting Special out of jail as soon as possible.

Martinez escorted them to a room barely big enough for three people. He sat on the edge of a small table, facing them. “Have a seat.”

“I’m fine standing up,” Vernetta replied. “What’s going on? Why didn’t you give us a heads up that the police were planning to arrest Special?”

“We needed to get your client off the streets as soon as possible. She was already a prime suspect in five murders. Then another man is found dead just a few yards from where she lives. We don’t give
heads up
under those circumstances.”

“You can’t possibly believe Special had anything to do with killing that man.” There was too much anxiety in her voice, but she couldn’t restrain herself. “Her arrest has to be some kind of media ploy to appease the public because the police are too incompetent to figure out who really killed those men.”

“Ms. Henderson—” He paused. “May I call you Vernetta?”

“Sure,” she said, though she felt like telling him no. He must have read that on her face.

“As I’ve shared with you before, I have a very strong circumstantial case against your client. If you were to calm down and look at the facts, you’d probably agree. This is exactly why they say it’s not a good idea for lawyers to represent people close to them. I think your friendship with Ms. Moore may be clouding your legal judgment.”

Vernetta didn’t like the condescending way Martinez was talking to her. “You let me worry about my legal judgment. I suspect this case must be pretty personal for you, too.”

When she heard Sam jostle in his chair, Vernetta knew he felt her last comment was below the belt.

For the first time, Vernetta saw a flash of emotion in Martinez’s normally empty eyes, but she couldn’t tell what that emotion was.

“Every case I handle is personal for me, Ms. Henderson. My job is to put criminals behind bars and I take great pleasure in doing that. I believe your client is a dangerous serial killer and I’m glad we got her off the street before she could claim a seventh victim.”

“This is unbelievable. All you’ve got is a bunch of circumstantial evidence. Nothing else. What could possibly make you think Special killed the man they found this morning?”

“The guy was practically shot on her doorstep. Two women reported seeing her in the park earlier that morning.”

“So in other words, you have nothing. For all you know, somebody could be setting her up.”

Martinez lifted his shoulders and spread his arms. “If you’ve got evidence of a setup, I’m willing to listen.”

The room fell silent.

“How soon can we schedule the arraignment?” Sam asked.

“We’re not ready to charge her yet in today’s murder,” Martinez said. “She was picked up for violating the terms of her bail. I’m requesting a bail revocation hearing.”

“I guess that confirms that you don’t have enough evidence to charge her.”

Martinez smiled. “Not yet. But we will.”

Sam folded his arms. “We’d like to get that hearing scheduled as soon as possible.”

“I’ll see what I can do. But if you’re planning to oppose it, you’re wasting your time. She’s not getting bail. She’s too big of a threat to the community. I took some heat for not fighting bail harder after her initial arrest for Nelson’s murder. That decision apparently cost another man his life. Anyway, I have to run. I have a press conference in ten minutes.”

“Sounds like you’re running for office or something,” Vernetta said.

Martinez started to respond, then stalked out of the room.

V
ernetta and Sam watched Martinez’s live press conference on a 13-inch television in a room that J.C. secured for them at the jail.

Vernetta wanted to bash in the screen when Martinez branded Special “a deadly threat to the citizens of L.A.” and “an example of homophobia at its worst.”

She thought it was interesting how both the police and the D.A.’s office were skating around the issue of the sexual orientation of the other victims. They identified Eugene as a gay man, but steered clear of pinning the same label on the others.

“Well,” Vernetta said when it was over, “there’s one good thing about Special being in jail. She didn’t have to watch that crap.” She stood up and leaned against the wall. “We’re going to have to fight this case in the courtroom
and
in the media.”

Sam rested his arm on the back of his chair. “I agree. But first we need to establish a few ground rules. It doesn’t gain us or our client anything by antagonizing the prosecutor. That’s not how I like to work.”

“I wasn’t trying to antagonize him.”

“Whether you were trying or not, you did.” Sam was on his feet now. “I couldn’t believe it when you made that remark about the case being personal for him, too. Martinez’s sexual orientation is off limits. You’re going to end up being branded as homophobic as Special.”

“I’m not homophobic and neither is Special.”

“Looks that way to me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be defending this case if you think we’re all homophobic.”

“What I think is that you—”

Nichelle stepped into the room. “Stop it! Both of you! I could hear you all the way down the hallway. You should both be ashamed of yourselves. Special needs us. All three of us. So you two are going to have to find a way to get along. All this energy you’re spending bickering with each other needs to be used trying to figure out a way to get our friend out of jail.”

Vernetta rubbed her eyes. “You’re right.”

Sam fidgeted with an ink pen, then sat down.

“We should be able to see Special now,” Nichelle said. “Let’s go.”

While they were waiting in the visitor’s area of the jail, J.C. came out to greet them.

“I know you’re the enemy,” Vernetta said jokingly, “but is there anything you can tell us?”

J.C. led them over to a corner, then lowered her voice. “The camera they took from Special’s apartment is going to be sent out for analysis. I know she erased the disk, but it may be possible to retrieve the images.”

“That picture will prove Special was stalking Eugene,” Sam said. “That could really bury her.”

“Maybe not,” Vernetta said. “It’s possible the man in that picture could be Eugene’s killer. The fact that he hasn’t gone to the police means he has something to hide.”

“Maybe he’s on the D-L, too,” Nichelle said, “and is just afraid to come forward. Anyway, Special said she couldn’t see his face.”

“With all the technology they have these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t enhance the picture in some way so that his face is visible,” Sam said. “I think she’s going down.”

“Why do you have to be so negative?” Vernetta sniped. “If you can’t have a more positive attitude, maybe you shouldn’t be involved in this case.”

J.C. ushered all of them into a small office off the waiting area. “You two need to— ”

“I’m a lawyer, not a cheerleader,” Sam retorted. “And I call ’em as I see ’em. You may not want to believe it, but it
is
possible that Special killed Eugene and those other guys, too.”

“That’s it! If that’s your attitude, you don’t need to be on this case. We can try it without your help!”

“No, we can’t!” Nichelle exclaimed. “We need him. Everybody just calm down.”