The Crime Writer Read online

  “Junior?”

  He strolled over, sat down beside me, and straightened out my pronunciation of his name.

  “Sorry. Is this your work? I’m not a cop, just an admirer.”

  He glanced at the folded paper and smiled. “Yeah, thass me.”

  “Painted it last Thursday night?”

  “How you know that?”

  I pointed to the pigeon feathers stuck to the concrete. “Paint was still wet. And this picture was dated. What time were you there?” It took me a moment to read his hesitation. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you snuck out.”

  “Late. I’d guess from, say, eleven forty-five to ten to two.”

  “How sure are you?”

  “More sure about the ten-to part.” He showed off an impressive Sanyo. “My watch beeps on the hour. I got a beep when I was biking home, ’ bout halfway.”

  The time stamp on the first crime-scene photo had read 2:07 A.M. Which led to my next question. “Why didn’t you finish your piece?”

  “Got interrupted.”

  “By a car?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you see what kind of car?”

  “I see everything, homes.” Sensing my eagerness, he fixed his brown eyes on me. “Ms. Caroline say it okay for you to be here?”

  “Didn’t say it wasn’t.”

  “Uh-hunh. You seen her yet? I mean, laid eyes?”

  “No.”

  He grinned wolfishly.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  I turned to see a woman standing over me. Her face, at first glance, was like a shattered, beautiful mask. Scars divided it, one starting at her hairline, curving around her temple, another beginning under her eye and bridging the bumps of her lips, splitting the edge of her mouth.

  I dropped my coffee mug. It was probably due more to the zealous glaze job on the ceramic than to shock, but either way the effect was the same. I felt like a prissy Jane Austen heroine, teacup trembling on saucer as gossip came back from the ball. My mortification grew with each embarrassing arc the intact part of the mug described on the concrete, and Junior’s stifled laughter didn’t help.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I lost my grip.”

  Her expression revealed nothing. The indentation in her lips didn’t align, and the path of the longer mark seemed equally haphazard. The scars were faded, the color blending, the skin slightly dappled in places from what I guessed were healed-over grafts. She was graying, but not by the strand or lock. All her hair had dulled slightly to a dusty sandalwood. It was lank, taken up in a twist around a pencil. Her features, glimpsed through the damage, were stunning. Icy green eyes, delicate mouth, lovely bone structure that accented her cheeks.

  I offered my hand. “I’m Drew Danner.”

  “I recognize you from your murder trial.”

  Junior looked at the boy in the lime green sweatshirt, who mouthed, Hells yeah.

  “Junior, go to your room please.”

  “Ms. Caroline—”

  “Now.”

  He hustled. I would’ve hustled, too.

  “What do you want, Mr. Danner?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what happened to me. I just had a few questions for Junior.”

  “So you thought you’d come out here and interview one of my boys without getting approval from me?”

  I forced a smile. “Be nice to me, I had a brain tumor?”

  “Not gonna work here, buster.”

  “Drat.”

  “Clean up your mess and leave.”

  She left me on the planter. The remaining kids laughed at me, the Down syndrome kid included, and the boy in the sweatshirt stuck out his tongue. I wanted Junior’s description of the car that had interrupted his spray-paint job, but could see no acceptable way to get to him. Now.

  I collected the ceramic shards in my palm and found a trash can a few steps up a hall. From the other room, I heard Caroline’s and the counselor’s raised voices.

  “Judge Celemin has had it. He misses another appearance, he’s going straight to the hall.”

  “What can we do, Caroline? I have to bail out Patrick—now—and the driver flaked. It’s okay, there’s nothing—”

  “No, it’s not okay. I didn’t double-schedule staff, and now he’s gonna wind up in the hall because of me.”

  I left them to the joys of charitable enterprise.

  I was pulling out when a bang on my window startled me upright. Caroline Raine gestured for me to roll down the window. I had the sense that when Caroline Raine suggested you do something, you did it. She thrust a document onto my steering wheel. “Here. Sign this. No, here. Now you’re a Big Brother. Through our facility. Take Junior to court—you’re already late. It’s just one hour out of your day, and you’ll save him from juvenile hall.”

  I pictured the book jacket: Tuesdays with Junior. “Are you kidding me?”

  “You can question him all you want on the way. Not that it’ll get you anywhere.”

  “How do you know I’m not some psycho?”

  “Clinician’s eye.”

  “I was up for murder.”

  “By reason of insanity is pretty tame compared to these kids. Junior’ll eat you for lunch.”

  “After what I’ve been through,” I said, “I’m probably toxic. I think I can handle a kid with some attitude.”

  20

  “So you got interrupted?” I asked. “By what kind of car?”

  “Quit pushin’ me, homes. I got court. I always get nervous when I got court.”

  “How often do you have court?” That got the look it deserved. “What for this time?”

  “Sprayin’, what else?” Junior fiddled with the radio, started bopping to a beat that made the windows rattle. “What’s your story, homes?” he shouted. “You stared down a murder one?”

  I adjusted the volume and told him, asking myself the whole time what the hell I was thinking recounting all this to a bored juvenile delinquent. The repetition, like rewriting, helped me clarify the holes and weaknesses, the detours requiring further investigation.

  When I finished, Junior surprised me. “Thass fucked up, homes. You know what you need? You need you a dog.”

  “A talking dog who solves crimes?”

  “Someone broke into your house, cut you up and shit. A dog would protect you, homes, watch your back. I had a Doberman-rotty mix. You had a dog like that, you wouldn’t need to worry ’ bout shit. Not in your castle.”

  I conceded that it wasn’t a bad point. We pulled up to the Eastlake Juvenile Courthouse. I glanced at the graffiti patterns on the back of Junior’s jean jacket as he climbed out. “Given the grounds for your appearance, you think you might want to leave your jacket in the car?”

  “No way, homes. I gots to repre sent.” He kicked out a leg, showing off a white PRO-Ked. “This and my kicks, this my old-school tagger gear.”

  My watch put us forty-five minutes past the court-appointed time. “We’re late.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Junior said, skipping along. “Judge Celemin love me.”

  Judge Celemin glowered at us, black robes gathered high on his shoulders like a vulture’s wings. “So pleased you could join us, Mr. Delgado. I trust you weren’t too put out trying to make it here?”

  Junior beamed. “Not at all, Your Honor.”

  The judge shifted his predacious attention to me. Given our tardiness, the public defender had moved on to another case across the corridor, but Judge Celemin had demanded that “Mr. Delgado and whoever was responsible for his transportation” appear regardless. “This is the second time Mr. Delgado, at the tender age of fourteen, has violated his probation by being apprehended in possession of spray-paint cans. You’re his Big Brother?”

  I found myself sweating. “Guilty as charged, Your Honor.”

  “You might want to think about the quality of the moral instruction you’re imparting.”

  “I have in fact been giving that a fair
amount of consideration lately, Your Honor.”

  “Surely your own recent experiences have taught you what the Sixth Amendment affords, Mr. Danner?”

  I drew a complete blank. I used to have a great fear that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. And it had been a great relief to discover that I was correct. Still, no professed grown-up wants to come up short on a topic taught in sixth-grade social studies. You get a certain distance from your schooling and you realize to your chagrin that you are that illiterate asshole who can’t find Maryland on a map or name the planets in order. “I assume it’s not the right to arrive late to court.”

  “Your guess is correct, Mr. Danner. Now, Mr. Delgado was down to his last shot here and elected to show up late, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”

  “It was my fault,” I said resignedly. “I got caught up with…an appointment and picked him up late.”

  An appointment? Light on your feet, Chandler.

  And I’d thought that Judge Celemin’s expression could not have evidenced more revulsion. “Well. You will return tomorrow at the same time with Mr. Delgado’s attorney, and we will settle this matter definitively.”

  “Tomorrow’s a bit hard for me, but I’m sure someone else can—”

  “What in the sentence I just said implied to you that I was inviting a discussion?”

  “Nothing, Your Honor.”

  “I need an adult’s guarantee that this minor will be here tomorrow.”

  “Me?”

  “You are an adult?”

  “Some might take issue with that, Your Honor.”

  “I among them. But in the flawed justice system, Mr. Danner, we must work with what we have. As for your busy day tomorrow? I hate to inconvenience you. I’m an hour behind on my docket, so I know how difficult it can be when one’s schedule is compromised.”

  Junior chuckled the whole way out to the parking lot.

  “Spit it out.”

  “How ’ bout we go to the movies, Big Brother?”

  I screeched the car over and said, “I’m done playing this game. You’re gonna tell me about the car you saw or I’m dumping your ass out here.”

  He glanced around. “Nice neighborhood.” Still, he looked uneasy. “Okay. I was tagging the bridge when I saw some headlights. I hauled ass.”

  “But you saw the car?”

  “Brown Volvo. One-a them wagons. Dent on the front wheel well. I could see ’ cuz the paint was flaked off.”

  “Which side?”

  He looked at his hands, made an L with his thumbs and forefingers. “Right side.”

  “Old Volvo, new Volvo?”

  “I just recognized the ugly-ass shape. A Volvo’s a Volvo, homes.”

  “Good point. Did you see the license plate?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course?”

  “When you bombing and a car come up on you, you always check the plate. See if it’s the pigs. E with a circle around it at the beginning of the numbers stand for ‘exempt.’ That’s how you can tell an unmarked cop car.” He smiled, pleased with himself. “But there wudn’t no E. This one started with a seven. That’s all I can tell you, homes. Lucky seven.”

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “Hayell no. I didn’t stick around. I bolted when he was busy parking.”

  “Anyone else around?”

  “Yeah, a convent of nuns was coming through. I like to do my tagging with lotsa witnesses around.”

  “Where’d the Volvo park?”

  He pointed to a spot off the photograph. “Down here.”

  I recalled a dirt apron under the ramp on that side. Which could mean tread marks from tires or shoes.

  “I want you to show me. How do I get to the ramp from here?”

  We listened to music, Junior’s head lolling back against the headrest. “Turn right here. Left. Now right. Okay, stop.”

  I was at a curb in front of a row of tiny houses. “Where are we? This isn’t the ramp.”

  Junior hopped out and jogged for the nearest front door. “Just come inside a sec.”

  I scrambled after him, swearing at him in a manner unbecoming a Big Brother.

  I banged through the screen door. Junior was standing in the dim and cramped entryway, whistling around his fingers.

  “This my cousin’s,” he said by way of explanation.

  From the back of the house strutted a peacock of a man. Black suit, broad-brimmed black hat, black tie, black shoes—one twist of the ethnic dial and he could’ve been a Hasidic diamond merchant. He turned his somber face to Junior, his mouth twitching.

  “This is Hector,” Junior said.

  Hector said, “Get your fucking dog outta here.”

  “Thass why we here, homes.”

  “Don’t ‘homes’ my ass, Junior. Knock the ghetto crap. All you niñitos forgetting your brown pride.” He headed for the door. “I’m going out. That bitch better be gone by the time I get back, or I’m hauling her ass to the pound.” He shot his cuffs and left.

  I said, “Oh, no.”

  Junior opened the back door, and a Doberman-rottweiler mix padded in, rope leash dangling from her bull-like neck. “Get you one of these, no one ever gonna fuck with your house again. Look at her. Ain’t she beautiful? Name is Xena. The princess warrior. She a vicious killer, homes.”

  “I don’t need a vicious killer.”

  “Look, look.” He tugged on the rope. Xena growled.

  “I don’t need a Xena. I just want to see the ramp.”

  “Want something to eat, homes?”

  “We’re going. I want to see the ramp.”

  “Ain’t gonna show you the ramp unless you take Xena.”

  “I’m not taking Xena.”

  “You gonna let a perfectly good guard dog die when you need one?”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “You said you did.”

  “I was being nice!” I yelled.

  Junior took a step back, and he rubbed his head. “I can’t let Xena die.” His eyes were wet now.

  “Oh, Christ,” I said.

  He hugged Xena around her neck and started crying. “They gonna kill you, Xena.” He was rocking and holding his dog, who’d accommodatingly slumped over to complete the pietà. “They gonna take you to the pound and inject you with poison.”

  This went on, with minor variations, for several minutes.

  “All right,” I finally said. “I’ll take the goddamned dog.”

  He smiled and jumped up and down, and I remembered he was fourteen. Then he held out his hand, palm up. His tears had stopped with a single twist of the spigot.

  “What’s this?”

  “This a top-notch guard dog you getting here. Fitty dollars.”

  “I gotta pay to rescue Xena?”

  “Hayell yeah.” Junior smiled. “She a princess warrior.”

  I gave him my best Big Brother grin. “No. Fucking. Way.”

  Xena stood on all fours in the backseat, sticking her head between us. The broken streetlights around Rampart did little to check the evening’s arrival.

  Junior asked, “Can we stop and get some spray paint?”

  “I fear that would be defaulting on my role-model obligations.”

  He sucked his teeth and slid down in the seat, arms crossed. “You a writer, homes. What would you do if your art was illegal? Stop doin’ it?” We pulled under the familiar freeway ramp, and he glanced around. “Is this shit legal? Taking a minor to fuck wit’ a crime scene?”

  “A minute ago you were a cross between Beelzebub and a Ginsuknife salesman. Now you’re a minor?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His point was stronger than my retort.

  “Look, if you get more spray paint, you’ll violate your probation and wind up in deeper trouble.”

  “I don’t care. I like probation. I get to stay at Hope House. Ms. Caroline’s fly. I don’t want to leave. Free food and board, and I can still spray.”

  “I think you
might be missing the point.”

  “‘Point.’” He blew out his breath in disgust at my ignorance.

  He skulked over and showed me where the brown Volvo had pulled in. The dirt had been fanned by the wind and trampled by innumerable feet. I was disappointed, but still happy with the lead Junior had given me. A brown Volvo, dent in the right front wheel well, license number starting with seven.

  Back in the car, Junior let Xena lick his face while I called Lloyd, getting voice mail for his work and cell and the answering machine at home. I was just getting ready to pull out when there came a hard rap on my window and a flashlight beam in my face.

  I rolled down the window and found myself looking down the wrong end of a pistol.

  21

  The cop kept the pistol trained on Xena, who was obliviously scratching her jowls on Junior’s armrest.

  “Can I help you, Officer?”

  “Let’s see some ID.”

  I handed over my ID. He looked at it warily, then moved his flashlight from my face to Junior’s. “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  The flashlight came back to blind me. “Are you aware that this kid is underage?”

  “Oh, wait. No, no, no. I’m his Big Brother.”

  “Sure you are. And I’d imagine you have some documentation to that end?”

  I could picture the expression on Preston’s face.

  “No, I don’t. The signed paper is at Hope House, this boy’s placement facility.”

  “Phone number, please.”

  I looked at Junior, and he rattled off a number. The cop disappeared back into his squad car. Between Xena’s satisfied growls and Junior’s giggling, surprisingly still audible despite his hand clamped over his mouth, I tried to formulate a game plan.

  Before I could, the cop reapproached. “There was no answer.” He stood back from the car, gun drawn and pointed at the princess warrior. “Is that your dog, sir?”

  “Yeah,” I said wearily. “It’s my dog.”

  “Get out and leave her in the vehicle. Both of you.”

  I looked back. A large man was aiming a pistol at my head, and Xena was slobbering happily all over my headrest.