The White Angel Murder (10 page)

“
Smells like bacon, holmes.”

Stanton stepped up onto the porch. It was too late for subtlety so he flashed his badge and crossed his arms; he couldn’t afford to let them see he wasn’t packing a firearm. “Someone called 911.”

“
Ain’t no one called 911 from here.”

“
Look guys, someone called 911. Female. Said her boyfriend or someone was beating on her. Just let me talk to her and make sure she’s okay and I’ll get outta here.”

The men looked to each other. They mumbled something in Spanish and Stanton made out the words,
dumb bitch
.

One of the men entered a code on the door. “They in 2-C.”

Stanton walked through without looking at them. It had the feel of a compound and he’d just gotten past the sentinels. Not five miles from here was a police station and a courthouse but there was no law here. He suddenly felt foolish for not carrying his gun with him.

The front lobby was orange carpet and walls with a staircase leading to the second floor. The mailboxes were covered in graffiti and most of them had been pried open. He wondered how the people here got their mail or if they were so disconnected from the rest of society that mail didn’t matter.

He walked up the stairs to apartment 2-C and knocked. A young woman answered.

“
Are you okay?” he said.

“
Who the fuck are you?”

“
I’m the police. Someone called 911 and said there was a domestic disturbance here.”

“
Ain’t no domestic disturbance.”

“
So you’re saying you don’t need any help?”

“
Do I look like I need any fucking help?”

“
No, you certainly don’t. Sorry to take your time.”

She slammed the door in his face and he left and went back to the first floor. It was enough. The men out front would think she’d called and when she denied it they would think she was lying. The boyfriend would deny hitting her, but everyone denied that. They wouldn’t think a cop made the whole thing up.

Francisco’s apartment was at the end of the hallway. He made sure the two men on the porch weren’t paying attention before crossing over into that hallway and hurrying across the soiled carpet. Stanton could smell cooking food; pork or beef. A Spanish television station was turned up somewhere and he could hear it through the walls.

Stanton knocked and then stepped to the side of the door. It opened and he saw the tip of a.38 caliber Remington sticking out.

He twisted and grabbed the gun, spinning to his left and tearing it out of the person’s hands. The man was short and bald with a thick goat-t. Stanton stepped back and held the gun firmly pointed at his face.

“
Inside,” he said.

Francisco stepped back into the apartment, not raising his arms. They walked down the hall to the living room and stood quietly as Stanton glanced around.

“
Is there anyone else here?”

“
No.”

“
You sure?”

“
Yeah.”

Stanton lowered the gun and held it out for him. “I’m Jon Stanton. I’m with SDPD.” He took out his badge again. He could see fury in Francisco’s eyes.

“
Do you know what you’ve—”

“
I don’t care about your hooker operation. I need your help.”

“
Fuck you.”

He was animated now, his arms beginning to move, his brow furrowed in anger. He grabbed the gun from him and held it pointed to the ground. Stanton had met him once a long time ago and remembered that he spoke perfect English. Now, his speech pattern was of someone whose primary language was Spanish. He’s been under too long, he thought.

“
Do you remember the Tami Jacobs case? She was killed in her apartment in La Jolla? I have it now. I have some questions about the investigation.”

Francisco stepped within an inch of his face. “Fuck … you.” He shoved him at the shoulders.

“
I just need five minutes and then you’ll never see me again.”

Francisco’s right hand was clinched into a fist and there was only the bare minimum memory that he was a police officer holding him back from smashing it into Jon’s face. Stanton could see there wouldn’t be any conversation tonight.

“
I’ll leave.”

When he was outside again he heard the two men on the porch laughing at him as he got into his older model Honda. As he drove away he looked up to the sky and saw a crescent moon hanging over the city; and on the rooftop of a building, a young boy with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

20

Saturday spent at Disneyland flew by in a heartbeat and on Sunday morning Stanton had to return his sons to their mother before heading to church. Their mother had once been Mormon but abandoned the faith before their marriage ended. Now, Stanton was informed by his son, they played on Sunday. Going to barbeques and parks and sailing with Lance’s friends. Melissa objected to the boys being exposed to church and a judge had agreed with her. It pained Stanton deeply that he couldn’t share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with his kids, but it was something he had to learn to live with.

The Gospel was important to him. Stanton read either the Bible or the Book of Mormon every night. It was his foundation. In a world he felt was crumbling around him, there was a shining gem that he could hold on to. It was necessary.

Church began with sacrament and the passing of bread and water symbolizing Christ’s body and blood. Then a young woman rose and spoke about faith. There were no professional clergy in the Mormon Church and sermons were given by members of the congregation.

After sacrament there was Sunday school. The topic was the symbolism found in the Book of Isaiah. Afterward was the priesthood session in which the men and women would separate for another lesson.

After church he went home and made a sandwich. He took it and a bottle of juice to the balcony and sat on the bare cement instead of a chair. The sun was particularly bright today and he went back inside the apartment and put on his sunglasses before coming back out.

Sunday was his day of rest. A commandment had been given to keep the Sabbath day holy and he tried his best not to think about Tami Jacobs. But she wouldn’t get out of his head. He would close his eyes and see her broken and torn body lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling as if calling for help. When he dreamt, it was of her now, or people associated with her. His mind always had difficultly putting up partitions between things in his life. They would become associations and everything would meld until all his thoughts were one compost heap of jumbled ideas and associations. From this heap, he would begin to reassemble what he needed.

Before he could eat his phone rang and he saw that it was a number he didn’t recognize. He answered and heard Jessica speaking with somebody.

“
Hello?” he said.

“
Hey, Jon. We’re out and about and I was wondering what you’re doing today?”

“
Nothing. Just relaxing.”

“
I made a picnic with my son and I’d like you to meet him.”

“
Sure. Why don’t you guys come down here. We could eat at the beach.”

Stanton gave his address and then went to put the sandwich in the fridge. When he opened the fridge door, he was embarrassed of what was inside. There was deli meat, bread, mayonnaise, ketchup, an old container of pesto sauce, and a few bottles of juice. Nothing else. Melissa used to do all their grocery shopping and going to the store made him uncomfortable.

Twenty minutes later a silver Volvo pulled to a stop in front of his apartment. He walked down and met them. The boy was handsome with long eyelashes, and fully involved on his Iphone.

“
Hey,” she said as she walked over to him. Instinctively, without a thought, she pecked him on the cheek. “Sorry. Habit.”

“
No worries. Who’s this?”

“
This is Andrew. Andrew, say hello.”

“
Hello,” he said without looking up.

“
He’s a real talker as you can see.”

Stanton looked down the beach and saw surfers coming back for a lunch break. “We should eat at the beach. Has he ever surfed?”

“
Once or twice.”

“
Hey, Andrew, do you like surfing?”

“
Yeah,” he said, finally looking up.

“
Well I happen to have a board just your size. You wanna head down with me?”

“
Sure.”

They went upstairs to the apartment and Stanton changed into a bathing suit. Mathew had a few suits here and he got one that would fit Andrew. They picked up two surfboards from the apartment storage room Stanton rented for a monthly fee and some surfwax and headed onto the beach.

The water appeared blue and clear; a soft breeze blowing over it and causing ripples. Jessica set up a blanket and began preparing sandwiches out of a basket she had brought with her. Stanton and Andrew were closer to the water, going over the basics of paddling and keeping your balance on the board. When Andrew felt ready, they ran into the water.

It was warm today and Stanton was glad he didn’t have to wear a wetsuit. He enjoyed the feel of ocean against his skin and the salty taste as it splashed up onto his lips. Morning was best, when no one was out here and the sun was just beginning to rise. It would sometimes reflect off the water so fiercely the entire ocean looked like it had been dyed orange. Night surfing was second best. It was occasionally so quiet Stanton could hear the cries of whales farther offshore.

They paddled out far from the beach and Stanton yelled a few instructions to Andrew before they caught their wave. Stanton lay flat for awhile, letting the wave dictate where he went before hopping to his feet. He glanced at Andrew and he was still lying on his belly. Stanton motioned with his hand for him to rise but he shook his head.

They surfed only half an hour before Andrew said he had had enough. Toward the end he attempted to stand once and immediately fell over.

As they walked back onto the beach Andrew said he didn’t like surfing.

“
You have to get used to letting the ocean be in control,” Stanton said. “We’re used to guiding ourselves everyday but it’s not like that out there. You have to give yourself up completely to the ocean. Once you do that, you’ll become just an extension of it and instead of fighting it you’ll be part of it. Some of the top surfers even say they can predict where the ocean will go, how it will move, just by feeling.”

“
Yeah, I guess.”

They ate sandwiches and drank Perrier until the afternoon. Andrew talked about school and his friends, about he and his father’s trip up to Alaska to fish, and about all the other things that were going on in his life. His mother grinned the whole time and Stanton knew he wasn’t normally like this. The ocean had that effect on people.

When they finished and were saying good-bye near Jessica’s car, she loaded Andrew in and gave Stanton a quick kiss on the lips. It was dry, but there was a sweetness and familiarity to it that Stanton had missed.

As they drove away he stood and watched, the image of Tami Jacobs in her bed pushed out of his mind.

21

Stanton went into work early on Monday. Their unit meeting was scheduled for ten o’clock and he wanted to get a few hours of work in before that. The floor was empty except for a few offices that had their lights on and he found the silence relaxing as he went to his office and booted up his computer. While he waited for the monitor to warm up, he looked out to the passing traffic and was grateful he had the window.

He logged into the SDPD intranet using the password the administrator emailed him and went to the human resources tab. He found the file for Francisco Hernandez.

Francisco’s life was a story Stanton had heard before. He had grown up in a gang and had a record as a juvenile that he had gotten expunged. At nineteen he had pulled himself away from his gang life and joined the police department to help clean up the degradation of his neighborhood he must’ve seen. He didn’t graduate high school but finished his GED later in life and then an associate’s degree in criminal justice at a local city college when he was twenty-two.

His third year on the force, he was involved in a shooting. A young Mexican kid tried to shoot him when he had pulled him over for speeding. Francisco managed to fire two rounds before being run over by the car. After any officer involved shooting, it was standard procedure to have a visit with the precinct psychiatrist and have him write a psychological profile and clear the officer for duty. Stanton searched for the profile, but didn’t find it. It was confidential and wouldn’t be in the HR file.

He rose and went to Tommy’s office.

Tommy had his feet up on the desk and was talking softly on the phone. So softly in fact that Stanton had thought he wasn’t in. He sat down across from him and waited. Tommy made a motion of one minute and then continued to speak. He appeared to be placing an order for something but when the conversation was done he said, “Love you.”

“
I need a favor, Tommy.”

“
So soon?”

Stanton threw an envelope with five thousand in cash on the desk. “That should buy me one favor I think.”

“
What happened?”