Trail of Echoes (25 page)

I nodded, then said, “Couldn't wait to get out of that suit, huh?”

Grit covered his khaki shirt and the golden hair on his forearms. No dirt, though, could diminish the tattoo of the bald eagle perched upon the USN banner. He shook a cigarette from the pack of Camels and stuck it between his cracked, thin lips. “Had to go back to work. I'm leading a walk with some Girl Scouts up in the park today. So I'd appreciate it if we sped this little discussion along.”

“Fine,” I said. “How did you know Chanita Lords?”

“I don't.”

“Why'd you come, then?”

He shook his head, then picked tobacco from his tongue. “I was one of the unlucky folks who found her. Just seemed like the right thing to do.” He sighed. “And my granddaughter mentioned that she knew Chanita.”

“Yeah? What's your granddaughter's name?”

“Can't tell you that,” he said. “Don't want you asking her questions without me or her daddy present. She's having a hard time as it is. She tried comin' today, but I didn't see her in the sanctuary.”

“She in the seventh grade?”

He took a drag from his cigarette. “You're not talking to her without her daddy or me.”

“Very nice of you to come to a girl's funeral,” I said, my gut twisting into a knot. “A girl you didn't even know.”

“That against the law?”

I crossed my arms, and my right hand brushed against the shoulder holster's soft leather. “Of course not. Chanita seemed like a good girl. Very talented.”

“Guess the bar is low for ‘good' nowadays.” He took a final drag from his cigarette, then dropped the butt to the ground.

“So she
wasn't
good?” I asked, staring at Jimmy Boulard DNA, now on the asphalt.

“From what I've heard, she engaged in behaviors that
good
girls shun.”

“Like what kind of behavior?”

“Like sexual behavior.”

“Thought you didn't know her.”

“I don't.” He smirked. “I got ears, though, and I'm not dumb. You ain't gotta do much to know what these girls are up to nowadays. The whaddya call it? Sexting. The naked pictures.”

I hid a yawn behind my hand.

“Oh, you bored?”

I shrugged. “Your misinformed outrage over Chanita's morality, or lack thereof, makes me sleepy, and frankly it pisses me off. Because who the fuck do you think
you
are?”

“You asked me a question,” he growled. “Don't be pissed cuz you don't like my answer. Hell, none of this surprises me. I just hate that them girls on the trail pulled me into this mess.”

“Yeah,” I said. “When they found you, you were clearing brush on that rainy afternoon.”

He nodded, either missing or ignoring my sarcasm.

“So is that a usual practice?” I asked. “Clearing brush during a storm?”

He offered a smile that showed stained, crooked teeth. “Well, you yuppies like your trails clear. I always get complaints about bushes being on the pathway. Imagine that.
Vegetation.
In the
wilderness
. Next, you folks will be demanding a Trader Joe's by the volleyball court.”

“And a vegan cupcake place where I can bring my Weimaraner after yoga.”

His smile died. “And here I was, planning to tell you all that I know.”

“And here I was, planning to let you go home today.”

He chuckled.

I chuckled but didn't mean it. “So, who do you think killed Chanita?”

“The amigo who moved into the neighborhood last summer.”

I cocked my head.

“We live across the street,” he explained, “and the neighbors are all whisperin' back and forth. And, yeah, he lives in Nita's building. Name's Raul Moriaga.” The park ranger glanced at a passing group of tight-jeaned teenage girls walking along Crenshaw Boulevard. The girls ignored us—Jimmy Boulard and I were both too old to be noticed. “He's been in jail before,” Boulard said.

“Who told you that?”

“Ain't nobody need to tell me shit. I got a computer and I got the Internet.” He squinted at me. “Things have changed since you moved out, Detective.”

My skin flushed. “You know I lived in the Jungle.”

“Like I said, neighbors are whisperin', I got a computer, and I got the Internet.”

I crossed my arms—sweat had dampened my silk shirt.

He chuckled, then said, “I heard that Moriaga used to watch her walk by all the time, that he'd make kissing sounds at her. She'd never be interested in a loser like that.”

“Ontrel Shaw ain't Sidney Poitier,” I pointed out, “and she was interested in
him
.”

Jimmy Boulard toed the cigarette butt. “Ontrel Shaw ain't nothing but a thug. Girls think he's exciting. Tough guy, my ass. Ontrel so big and bad, how he let Nita wind up dead?”

“Can you do me a favor?” I took out a small steno pad and pen from my back pocket and handed it to him. “Can you write down your name and new address since you no longer live with your son? Also, your phone number and any e-mail addresses, in print, all caps. Better to understand. Please?”

He blinked at me, took the pad and pen, and started to write using his left hand.

I watched him print, certain and then uncertain that he had written the nymph postcards.

He scrutinized what he wrote, then handed me the results.

“So this Raul Moriaga. Why do you think—?”

“Not just me.”

“Why do you and the neighbors think he's the one?”

“Assault,” he said. “Molestation. Rape. And for no reason. Just senseless.”

My limbs numbed. “Is there ever a
good
reason to rape, molest, or assault someone?”

Jimmy Boulard blinked at me, visibly agitated by my question. “You know what I mean. They come to our neighborhoods and they mess with our girls, and you cops know these cats are snooping around, but you hassle regular folks like me. I'm glad I only got sons. Don't ever have to worry about them being helpless, being weak. And I brought them up to stay away from gals like Chanita.” He snorted, then threw me a sideways glance. “
Is there ever a good reason.
”

He squinted at the girls who had just passed us. “I saw the oddest thing yesterday. I'm at the bookstore, just flipping through some magazines, and I look up cuz I smell all this perfume in the air. These two females walk past me. Look like the ones down there.” He nodded in the girls' direction—they were now talking to two guys in a tricked-out Nissan Armada.

“Lotta makeup. Lotta jewelry. One was wearing these pants with the word ‘Juicy' on the ass. They walked past me and right into the children's section. And they're talking to each other in these little girl voices, and I'm thinking,
What the hell?
Are they girls or are they women? Looking at them, you'd think they were twenty years old. What mother buys her twelve-year-old girl pants with ‘Juicy' on the ass? They're sitting there, reading
Where's Waldo
and Harry Potter, wearing whore's makeup and them pants. What's a man supposed to do in that situation?”

My breathing quickened, and I pushed out, “Be a man?”

Boulard continued to stare in the distance. “They think they're adults. But if you treat 'em like adults…” He looked back at me, his eyes dark and haunted. “You got monsters out there, Detective. You ever become a mother—and I can tell that you ain't—do all that you can to keep your daughter away from those monsters.”

He clucked his tongue. “That Raul Moriaga? He lives in another world. Yeah, you a detective and all, but trust me: that's a world you don't know nothing about.”

“Gee, thanks, Dad.” I placed my hands on my hips. “So: I need your DNA.”

He blinked at me. “Why?”

I laughed. “You obviously don't watch a lot of TV cop shows. There was someone else's body fluid on Chanita. I wanna check to see if that mystery fluid belongs to you.”

He eyed me and chewed the inside of his cheek. “You think
I
killed Nita?”

I fake gasped. “That thought never occurred to me.”

He blinked.

“Is that a ‘yes' or a ‘no'?”

“How long will it take?” His eyes ping-ponged between me and Crenshaw Boulevard.

“I got the Q-tip if you got the spit.”

“I didn't kill her.”

“You wanna know how many times I've heard those exact words? Probably just as many times as you get complaints about bushes on the trail. One more thing: can you show me the bottoms of your boots?”

“Why?”

“Because I asked nicely. Next time won't be so nice.”

He hesitated, then lifted his right boot.

I used my phone to take pictures of his soles. Then, I radioed Colin and asked that he bring Krishna over with her DNA collection kit.

A moment later, Colin and I stood yards away, watching the CSI tech run a long cotton swab along the inside of Jimmy Boulard's cheek. Krishna had also plucked the cigarette the ranger had just smoked and abandoned on the asphalt—you could never have too much spit.

“Krishna didn't pull much off the car,” Colin said. “What about this guy?”

I shrugged. “I can't read him. I sniff evil but not which kind. And standing there with him … He's a little over six feet, and pretty muscular for an old guy.”

“Strong enough to carry a dead girl to that trail?”

I shrugged. “Compared to our other suspects, he knows the park best.”

“He smart enough to send ciphers?”

“Possibly. He has a navy tat.”

“Can we hold him?”

“Not yet, but we can watch him.” I held up my tiny notepad. “And we'll see if the writing here matches the writing on the cards.”

My radio blipped. “Lou!”

Colin and I both straightened as though Lieutenant Rodriguez stood before us.

“I'm five minutes out,” our boss announced, “and I got a list.”

 

35

The fronds on the palm trees that lined Crenshaw were rustling, and seagulls circled overhead as clouds gained bulk and lost light. The sun fought to stay relevant, and I prayed that God would, for once, tilt the playing field in our favor.

Pepe and Lieutenant Rodriguez used the hood of Gwen's black Crown Vic to study the list of girls in the gifted and talented program at John Muir Middle School. Colin and I, at the car's trunk, studied the list from Madison. We were all comparing the lists of absent girls at Madison against Gwen's list of missing children since Thursday.

“Ten girls didn't go to school yesterday.” Colin had taken off his tie and had balled it into his jacket pocket.

“Read me the names,” I told him.

“Gracilyn Platt. Wakeisha Simmons. Teona Lewis…”

My eyes scanned the entries. “Those names aren't on my list.”

She is my enchanted goddess crowned with …

I grabbed my phone and typed into the search bar “Greek muse laurel hair harp.” Hits. Lots of hits. “Gwen!” I shouted.

“Yeah?” She was hunkered in the car's backseat with lists of her own.

“He calls the girl his ‘enchanted goddess' and mentions ‘laurel' and ‘harp' and … I think he's referring to Terpsichore, the Muse of dance. Any of these girls—?”

“Allayna Mitchell,” she blurted. “She's fourteen and she's a dancer over at—”

“You knew about her and didn't tell us?” I snapped.

“She's not one of mine,” Gwen explained. “The call came in after I clocked out.”

“Who caught it?”

“Darby Dean.”

I shook my head. “Who?”

“She just landed in Missing Persons,” Gwen said. “I don't like her cuz she keeps shit to herself like she's fuckin' Batgirl.”

“Found her.” Colin yanked out the report for Allayna Celine Mitchell, completed by her mother Vaughn Hutchens. We huddled around him. “Reported missing around three thirty this morning. She lives on Nicolet.”

“In the Jungle,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said.

Allayna was starting to fit the profile: middle-school-aged black girl who lived in the ghetto. Was she also Payton Bishop's student?

“Call Dean,” I told Gwen.

A moment later, a woman with a child's voice was complaining about being pulled out of bed. “I just closed my eyes after working, like, all fucking night. Everything's in the report.”

“No,” Gwen said, “it's
not
all in the—”

“Are you trying to, like, throw me under the bus?” Dean whined. “That's so not—”

“Hey,” I interrupted, “I don't know you, and I give zero fucks about your sleep. So I'm gonna need you to shut up and listen to what I'm asking you, all right?”

And then, I repeated the question Gwen had just asked her.

“She was supposed to, like, come home from dance class,” Dean said, “but she didn't.”

“What type of kid is she?” I asked.

“Her mother said some kids saw her as, like, stuck-up, but she was just shy. Vaughn showed me a video of one of her performances, and, oh my gosh, on stage, she, like, stopped being, like, this poor girl from the hood. It was, like, like … she'd been transported to, like, another place. Like she was under some weird spell.”

Enchanted goddess
 …

I flipped the pages of Allayna Mitchell's report to view the picture her mother had given Darby Dean: a caramel-skinned girl with large, cocoa-brown eyes and cheekbones sharper than whetstones. She was tall for fourteen and almost too thin to be healthy. She carried her head high—“dancer” eked from her pores even in this photograph taken in bad lighting.

“Maybe she came home,” Lieutenant Rodriguez said.

Gwen punched in a phone number.

I nibbled my lower lip.
Please be there. Please be there.