Some Degree of Murder (11 page)

Toni Redding sat sideways in one of the three chairs in the small room, her thin shoulders hunched over. She adjusted her flannel shirt by reaching her handcuffed left hand around and tugging on it. She looked up at me when I entered.

“You the detective?”

I nodded and closed the door behind me. I plopped the case file down on the table, followed by the notepad and pen. The sounds echoed around the tiny room.

“Turn around,” I told her.

She understood and turned around, offering her wrists up. I unlocked the cuffs and removed them, slipping them in the small of my back.

“Thanks,” she said, rubbing her wrists.

“You’re welcome.” I sat down and pushed the case file aside. I wrote her name, the date and the time at the top of the notepad. Then I looked up at her. Her long, blonde hair hung limply to her shoulders and her angular face would always be one step behind beautiful.

“The patrolmen out there think you might have some information for me.”

She nodded as she spoke. “First, I want to know something. If I give you this info, will you make those assholes out there drop this bullshit charge on me?”

“That depends on the information.”

She rubbed her upper arms with both hands. The t-shirt under her open flannel was a faded Disneyland souvenir. I looked for methamphetamine sores on her neck, but didn’t see any. Her face wasn’t broken out, either. My guess was that she was into heroin. “I might know something about Fawn, the girl they found at the bingo lot.”

“I’m listening.”

She bit her lip and looked down at the table. When she looked back up at me, she said, “Do you know Officer Paul Hiero?”

“Yes.”

“Well…he and I are…” she smiled slightly.
“Friends.”

“Don’t bullshit me.
Don’t even think about bringing an officer’s name into this conversation. If you do, you’ll destroy any credibility your story may have.”

She bowed her head.
“I’m sorry.”

“How do you know the victim’s name?”

“If I tell you about Fawn, will you drop this new charge?”

“
What do you have to lose? Either you don’t tell me and you go to jail. Or you tell me and maybe you don’t go to jail. It’s not like you can take your information down to the pawn shop and get ten bucks for it.”

“You better not screw me over.”

I pushed the file aside and put the notepad in front of me. “How did you know Fawn?” I asked her.

“I met her out on Sprague.”

“Was she working?”

“Not right away.”

“But eventually?”

“Kinda,” she said. “It’s more complicated than that.”

I tapped my pen. “Okay, let’s back up to when you met her. When was that?”

“A couple of weeks before she died. Maybe three. I don’t know exactly.”

“And how did you meet her?”

“She just appeared one night down on Sprague. She was walking around, talking to people. I figured she was a new girl. You know, from out of town? Anyway, she came up to me and we just hit it off. We talked and had coffee and stuff.”

“Did you know she was fourteen?”

Toni shook her head. “No. She said she was nineteen at first, but after we talked for a while, she said she was only seventeen. I believed her. She looked about seventeen.”

“What else did she tell you?”

“That she lived in Seattle and she’d run away from home.”

“She said Seattle?”

“Uh-huh.” She gave me a confused look. “That’s not true?”

“Why’d she say she ran away?”

Toni shrugged. “She didn’t really say. All she said was that her parents were assholes.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. I didn’t push it, you know? Her business. ‘Sides, I know how a lot of parents are assholes. Mine were.”

“How long was she hanging out around East Sprague?”

“Right up until…until she…” Toni’s eyes teared up.

I stood up and left the room. Glenda kept a box of tissues on her desk and I grabbed several and returned to the interview room. “Here,” I said, handing her the tissues.

“Thanks,” she said. She had stopped crying, but used the tissues to wipe her eyes and nose.

“Do you know where she stayed during those two weeks?”

She nodded. “I rented a motel room for her.”

“Where?”

“The Eastside.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why? Why did you rent her a room?”

“She paid for it. I just put it in my name because she said she didn’t have ID.”

“She paid for it?”

“Yeah,” Toni said. “She had a bunch of cash for the first week or so. She rented that room and even paid for dinner at Zip’s one night for both of us.”

“How long did the money last?”

“I don’t know for sure. But after about a week or so, she got kicked out of the motel”

“What did she do when she ran out of money?”

Toni took a long breath and chewed the inside of her mouth again. “She told me that she was out of cash and needed to work. I told her it wasn’t a good idea.”

“But she was persistent.”

“Yeah, she was. Told me she was a ‘ho in school and loved sex. I didn’t know if it was just talk or not. I told her that most of what we did wasn’t sex, anyway.”

“Did you show her the ropes, then?”

She shrugged. “Sorta. I mean, I didn’t tell her to do it. I just told her what I d
o. What I don’t do.”

“
Why’d you take her under your wing?”

“I got to know her. And I could tell that the only reason she was pissed at her parents is because they had rules. Shit, she even had a stepfather who cared about her. All my stepfathers ever did was try to fuck me.” She stopped and looked away for a second.

“Go on.”

“I told her she should go home. She said she could never ask her parents for money. That’s when I told her she should work a week or two and earn enough to take the bus back to Seattle and just put all this behind her. I told her she still had a chance at a normal life. She still had a chance for someone to love her.”

“What did she say?”

“She said okay. So we worked a few days together, then she just disappeared. I figured she listened to me and went home.”

“Without saying goodbye?”

“On the street, people leave all the time without saying goodbye.”

“What about when she turned up dead? Why didn’t you come forward then?”

“Because I didn’t know who killed her.”

“But now that you’re in a jam, your information is valuable?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Did you two ever work separately?”

“Some. I tried to keep an eye on her, but some of my dates took longer than others. Plus, she got a lot of business. Fresh meat and all.”

“So she just didn’t come back from a date?”

“No. She didn’t show up one night. The night before…”

“The night she was murdered.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I got out there around eleven and she wasn’t anywhere around. I figured she probably caught a ride already. When she didn’t show up around midnight, that’s when I figured she took my advice and went back to Seattle.”

I sat and thought for a while, running over our conversation in my mind. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask her about Fawn Taylor. I removed the picture of Serena Gonzalez from my stack and put it in front of her.

“You recognize this girl?”

She looked at the picture for a few seconds, then shook her head. “No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

I stood up and gathered my papers. “Wait here.”

“What about my charges?” she asked.

“You’re not going to jail today,” I told her. “We’ll see about the rest.”

She was visibly relieved as I left the interview room and closed the door.

McLaren was right on me. Bates looked up from his conversation with the secretary and ambled over.

“She give you anything?” Bates asked.

“Yeah.

“All right then. What do want to do about her?”

“Give her a ride home, if she’s staying in the city. Tell her that if you see her out on East Sprague again today, she goes to jail on all of this.”

Bates looked at McLaren and jerked his head toward the interview room. I removed the cuffs from the small of my back and handed them to McLaren, who took them and went inside. While he was handcuffing Toni, Bates leaned in close to me.

“She was dropping Paul Hiero’s name really heavy,” he whispered.

“I know. She tried it in there, too.”

Bates shook his head. “Hiero better hope
that asshole Hart doesn’t get wind of it over in IA.”

“He won’t be hearing it from me,” I told him.

“Me, neither. But if this bitch doesn’t shut up…”

“I know.”

McLaren walked Toni out of the interview room, so he stopped.

Toni looked directly at me. “Thanks,” was all she said.

Traffic whizzed by on Sprague as I talked with Mr. Saccamano.

“Where the hell are you, Virg?”

“At a payphone in front of some meat market.”

“That’s alright. I’m calling from that little Korean laundry around the corner from the shop. Fucking phone dodge. If it weren’t for the Feds, we could talk on the damn telephone like white men.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Saccamano laughed. “Yeah, it would. It would be real goddamn nice. But enough of dream land. You makin’ any progress up there?”

“I’ve got a line on some potential players. If it doesn’t pan out by the weekend, I’ll bag it and head home.”

“Do that
. I can use your help.”

“Alright, Mr. Saccamano. I’ll give you a call in a day or two.”

I dropped the receiver on to the hook and turned around. A tall blonde stood in front of me. She wore a tight red mini-skirt and black spandex top. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and her lips were painted a brilliant red which clashed with her deep green eyes. “Wanna date?” she asked with a hint of a smile.

“No, thanks.”

She shrugged and turned back to the street, watching the passing cars. Her ass was a little big for the skirt, but her legs were smooth.

“Hey,” I said.

She turned around and crossed her arms, forcing her breasts up and her nipples out against the spandex.

“How much?”

“You a cop?”

“Not even close.”

“Grab a titty then.”

Even though it was broad daylight, I reached out and tweaked the nipple on her right breast.

“That was free,” she said with a smile. “It’s forty for head, sixty straight in.”

“Sounds fair.” I glanced around, hoping to find a pimp or BSC member watching over her.

“What are you looking for?”

“A pimp.”

“You’ve done this before, sugar?”

I nodded.

“Where to?”

“I’ve got a room at the La Playa,” she said to me. “Room number seven. That’s where we’re going.”

I followed her as she wiggled down the street, her high heels clicking loudly. My eyes watched passing cars, hoping that a bored cop wouldn’t drive by.

We walked past the Brotherhood of the Southern Cross clubhouse and under their cameras. I smiled when I realized what she was doing. She just showed them who her trick was and they never had to step outside. Very slick.

She opened the door and let me step inside first. The room was plain with no personal items anywhere. “Do you live here?” I asked.

“Nah,” she said and pulled the door closed behind her. “I think of this as my office.”

She stood with her feet shoulder width apart and her hands on her hips. “What’s it gonna be, cowboy?”

“I got a couple of questions.”

“Sure, sure,” she said, “but let me save you some breath. Yes, you have to wear a condom. And, no, I won’t let you do me in the ass or smack me around. We agree to any freaky business up front and if you try something that we didn’t agree to, I walk outside and someone comes in to have a talk with you. Got it?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’m serious,” she said.

“
Those weren’t my questions.”

I pulled out my money clip and tossed two hundred on the small desk in the room.

“What do you want for that?” she asked, suspicion firm in her eyes.

“Questions mostly.”

“What kind of questions?”

“What’s your name?”

“Grace.”

I showed her Fawn’s picture. “Grace, have you ever seen her down here?”

She never looked at the picture. “I thought you said you weren’t a cop.”

“I’m not. I’m her father.”

Grace’s eyes flicked down to the picture. “Yeah, I saw her around here for a few days at the most. Nothing more than that, I think.”

“Was she working?”

Grace stared at me.

“It’s okay. I need to know.”

Grace nodded.

“Did she have a pimp?”

“Not really a pimp.”

“Was she paying protection to someone?”

Grace didn’t answer, her eyes challenged mine.

I considered waiting her out but knew my questions would get back to them if I pressed too hard.

“Was anyone giving her a rough time?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You hear most things that happen on these streets?”

She nodded. “That’s how we survive.”

“Who should I talk to about her protection?”

“Anyone but me, honey.”

“Okay.”

“You got any more questions?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Want something for the rest of those bills, cowboy?”

“Not right now.”

“Whenever you want, baby.”

I nodded at her.

“But you know it’ll cost, right?”

“It always costs, Grace.”

She opened the door. “That it does, baby, that it does.”