A Cold and Broken Hallelujah (10 page)

I was damp with sweat by the time I was three blocks from home, but once I settled into an easy pace, I began to relax and let my thoughts drift away from the motivations of Omar, Francisco, and Pedro, and I began to think about Bishop. Whenever I work a case with an unidentified victim, I feel a strong need to discover not only the circumstances of the crime itself, but to also unravel the mystery of who that person was. This isn’t unusual—most homicide detectives I know feel the same way. Typically, though, the process is enmeshed in the investigation itself—determining the victim’s identity is central to understanding the circumstances of the murder and vital to making the case. This one was different. While I’d closed investigations with unidentified victims in the past, I’d never had so tight a case for a John Doe. We could close this with what we already had on the record. Of course it would be even more solid if we could tell Bishop’s story to more fully humanize him, and it would tighten the noose even more to have a real picture of the motives behind the teenagers’ acts, but those weren’t necessities from a legal perspective. There are always unanswered questions in any investigation. The difference now was that I was becoming obsessed with finding the answers I wanted, rather than the ones I needed.

By the time I reached the stretch of million-dollar houses along the waterfront and stopped at the end of Appian Way on the tip of Naples Island, the sky was dark, and a nearly full moon was rising above Alamitos Bay and ghosting its way through the marine layer. I thought of Bishop walking along the Los Angeles River on the other edge of the city. I couldn’t quite see it from where I was standing, but I knew the San Gabriel met the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the marina. I wondered if Bishop had walked along this river, too, separated as it was not just by six miles of Long Beach coastline, but by a socioeconomic divide that seemed unimaginable even to me.

Walking home, I decided to head west on Second Street and get something to eat. In the past I would have gone to the ShoreHouse Café, an old nautically themed diner that I’d first gone to when I was a student at Cal State Long Beach that had a long tradition of making up for its bad food by being open all night. Thus it was one of the few places in Belmont Shore where you could find some hot food to help sober you up after the bars closed. But the ShoreHouse, like so many other local neighborhood businesses, had closed up shop to make way for a new, upscale gastropub called Simmzy’s. I’d heard the place was good, though I hadn’t eaten there yet. The quality of the food had never really been the point.

At the other end of the commercial stretch of Second Street, I stopped at Super Mex and put in a takeout order for a carne asada burrito.

While I waited for my dinner, I crossed the street and went into Apostrophe Books looking for a new copy of
The Grapes of Wrath
. I knew I had one buried somewhere in my garage, but I didn’t want to spend the time digging through the storage boxes to find it. The bookstore was small, really just one wall of books and another of cards and gifts. I was hoping the Steinbeck novel was enough of a perennial that they’d have it in stock.

I walked up and down the shelves, and when I didn’t see it, I inquired at the counter.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have that in stock,” the young woman said. “Would you like me to order it for you?”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks.”

“We do have
Of Mice and Men
.”

“I don’t think that one’s thick enough.”

She smiled politely but didn’t say anything.

“For some reason,” I said, “that sounded funny in my head.”

She kept smiling, and I thanked her and left the store before I could make things any more awkward.

Rereading the book wasn’t going to solve the case. But still it felt necessary, as if the story itself might somehow pull me closer to Bishop and help me understand him.

I picked up my food and walked home. A light harbor breeze had blown some of the humidity away but brought with it vague traces of the stewing scent of industrial runoff and stagnant water.

Without Steinbeck to keep me company, I decided to practice for a while. The Online Banjo School with Tony Trischka was probably as good as any music lessons on the Internet could possibly be. I’d been working at it for months, but I’d only worked my way through about a third of the beginner’s section. I’d made the leap from forward rolls on “Boil Them Cabbage Down” and second-guessing my readiness for the same song with mixed rolls when I decided to throw in the towel for the night. I wiped the Saratoga Star down with my gray Deering Care Cloth and put it back on the oak stand in front of the picture window in my living room. I pulled the curtains closed, turned off the lamp, and sank into the couch.

My copies of the case files were spread out on the dining-room table. I could see them stacked in piles around my MacBook from where I sat. I wanted to go back to them and keep reviewing and analyzing them, but I knew from experience that no matter what my impulse was, my mind needed some downtime occupied with something else—anything else, really—if I was going to be able to maintain any kind of perspective. So I fought the urge and stayed where I was.

Thumbing the remote through the entire channel rotation on the cable box, I gave up on finding anything interesting to watch and settled on the KABC 7
Eyewitness News
. I remembered believing, as a child, that the “Eyewitness” in the name of the broadcast somehow distinguished it from the other local news shows. They couldn’t call it that if it wasn’t different, right? I dozed off thinking of Jerry Dunphy and trying to remember Dr. George’s last name.

I managed about two hours before I woke up to Dr. Oz spewing unsubstantiated bullshit for people uninformed enough to get medical advice from a talk show. I turned off the TV, brushed my teeth, popped a Vicodin, and went to bed, where I stared at the ceiling in the dark, listened to radio news from the BBC, thought about Bishop and Jesús, and didn’t sleep.

Usually the second or third night after I catch a big case brings with it enough exhaustion for a good five or six hours of sleep, but that night it didn’t. I was still awake at four in the morning when KPCC broadcast Garrison Keillor’s
The Writer’s Almanac.
It was the birthday of two writers I’d never heard of and the anniversary of the date
On the Road
was published. I remembered being annoyed by the book in college, but my recollections were cut short by the poem Keillor read—“Wrong Turn” by another writer I’d never heard of named Luci Shaw. I spent one more hour in bed thinking about my dead father who’d been shot responding to a routine domestic disturbance call and my dead wife who may or may not have known she was pregnant at the time of her accident and the way life is really just a series of losses, one after another after another, and how the moment we realize that is the moment we begin to die.

I fucking hate poetry.

When the first light of morning glowed in the window, I got out of bed and took a hot shower. The water rinsed away some of the thoughts that had kept me awake, and I wallowed in the few moments of relaxation it brought me. Over the years, I’d learned how to relax through my insomnia, to breathe deep and let go of my tension and worry and find some degree of restfulness in the dark hours of the night. Most of the time I was pretty good at it. That night, though, I hadn’t been able to will myself into that state of mind. I’d have to make do with the shower and a few gallons of coffee.

As I toweled off, I reminded myself to call the landlord and ask him not to switch out my showerhead.

I put on a pair of shorts and thought about going out into the garage and searching through the boxes of books on the shelves along the back wall, but I thought better of it. I got out my Kindle and downloaded the e-book instead. At the dining-room table, I sat down with a freshly filled Smith & Wesson mug and started reading.

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth . . .

9

Z
IPLOC BAG, QUART-SIZED, CONTAINING
: O
RAL-
B
TOOTHBRUSH
,
ONE
; C
OLGATE
T
OTAL
T
OOTHPASTE
,
THREE-OUNCE, NEARLY EMPTY
.

I was at my desk in the squad room planning my schedule for the day when Patrick came in. He was halfway across the room when Ruiz leaned out his office door and said to him, “Don’t sit down.”

Patrick dropped a bike helmet and courier bag on his chair and headed straight into the lieutenant’s office. Somebody got killed and he was next up in the rotation. Patrick was still new enough to the squad to feel the rush of excitement that came with being the lead detective on a fresh case. He’d been doing excellent work all around, but the murder rate was down in Long Beach this year, so this was only his fourth time in the driver’s seat.

When he came out I said, “What did you catch?”

“Drive-by in Cambodia Town.” I could tell he was experiencing that odd mix of emotions that only a homicide cop can understand and identify with. No one without sociopathic or psychotic tendencies can be glad at the news of another person’s death, but there is a kind of surge of adrenaline and sense of purpose that can be very powerful. It is without doubt a dark and complicated feeling, shared with firemen and soldiers and paramedics and emergency-room workers, that comes from knowing that you can only be at your best and only really achieve any kind of fulfillment when what is at stake is literally life and death. I know I’m better at investigating murders than I have ever been or will ever be at anything else. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good enough at to make me forget my chronic pain and my grief and to engage me so fully and completely that I’m lost to anything else. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done that’s truly allowed me to achieve that transcendent mental and emotional state that athletes and artists sometimes refer to as “flow.” I get there often when I’m working a case. Especially in the early stages. A lot of cops don’t like to think about this obsessive aspect of our work, but it’s a fact of life for many of us. It’s also why we drink and why we divorce and why we search for a higher power and why we eat our gun barrels. It’s why my father, just a few months before my sixth birthday and his own death in the line of duty, told my mother, “Don’t ever let him be a cop.” It’s why whenever I hear someone quote Joseph Campbell’s admonition to follow your bliss, I shudder.

Patrick, though, hadn’t thought as much about all of that. He just tried to contain his enthusiasm beneath a respectful countenance and got to work.

“Good luck,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“Marty going to meet you there?”

He nodded and slung his courier bag over his shoulder. I’d partnered with Marty myself on my first rollout as primary. Patrick could do a lot worse. Marty was the most senior member of the squad. His regular partner, Dave Zepeda, was out on medical leave with a broken foot. Supposedly, he injured himself when he was climbing off the small sailboat he kept in Alamitos Bay. When he’d been in the station a week earlier, everyone old enough to remember
Jaws
had hit him with “This was no boating accident!” jokes. I thought he’d appreciate it when I told him everyone was misquoting the line. Richard Dreyfuss actually says, “This was not a boat accident.” People always get that one wrong. That fact didn’t lighten Dave’s mood, though. He just grumbled some about assholes and crutched his way back to the elevator. Most people don’t sweat the details the way I do.

So Marty was, for the time being, partnering with Patrick.

As I watched Patrick leave, I wasn’t sure if the emotion I felt was envy or sorrow.

It wasn’t long after nine when the phone on my desk rang.

“Homicide,” I said in the voice I had honed to a dull edge over the years. “This is Beckett.”

“Hello, Detective. This is Julia Rice.”

I paused.

“We spoke yesterday?”

“Of course, Ms. Rice. I didn’t expect you to call so soon.”

“I wanted to get the photos to you as quickly as I could.”

“We appreciate that.”

“They’re all in the file. I’m afraid it’s too big to e-mail. I have them on a flash drive, or I can upload them to a website that—”

“Are you at home? I’m only two blocks away. I could come by and pick them up.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll bring them to you. I’m going to be staring at a computer screen all day anyway. It’ll do me good to get out.”

Twenty minutes later, I met her downstairs and she handed me a small beige envelope with the flash drive inside.

“I hope there’s not too many there. The description wasn’t terribly specific, so I erred on the side of inclusiveness.”

“That’s good. We’re glad to have anything that might be even a remote possibility.”

“I really do hope it helps.” She used the word “hope” a lot. I wondered if I should infer anything from that.

“So do I. Thank you for your help, Ms. Rice.”

“Please,” she said. “Call me Julia.”

“I will,” I said.

“What’s that?” Jen asked as I inserted the drive into my computer.

“Julia Rice dropped it off. It’s the pictures she mentioned to us yesterday.”

“She made a special trip?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Jen didn’t answer. She just grinned and shook her head.

It was early still, especially for someone working nights, but I dialed Henry Nichols’s number anyway. When his voice mail picked up, I assumed he was still asleep and left a message asking him to call me back as soon as he could. With luck, we’d be able to get him into the station that day to look at Julia’s photos and see if he could find a shot of Bishop anywhere in the batch. I felt hopeful, but I assumed it was Julia’s attitude affecting me. Generally, I agree with Stephen King that hope is a dangerous thing. And also that the road to hell is paved with adverbs.

“You want to bring him in or take the photos to him?” Jen asked.

“Bring him in,” I said. “I think the change of location might help him focus.”

“Get him lunch and set him up in the conference room. Give him the VIP treatment.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Want me to do the talking?”

“You’ve got a rapport going with him,” I said. “You mind?”

“Not at all.”

When he called me back, I explained what we wanted to do and asked if he could come in around noon. Then I went over to Modica’s Deli and brought back five different kinds of sandwiches and a bunch of sides. Nichols would get a good lunch and so would the rest of the squad.

Jen met him when he arrived and led him to one of the nice administrative conference rooms. I brought the food.

“What kind of sandwich would you like? Turkey, roast beef, ham, pastrami, or vegetarian?”

“Wow. That’s a good selection,” he said. He seemed to be in much better shape than he had been the last time we talked to him. He was understandably more awake and alert, but he seemed somehow sharper, too. The khakis and white long-sleeved button-down he was wearing helped. “How about the roast beef?”

“You got it.”

I dug through the bag and found the wrapper with the big black “RB” written in Sharpie on top. I slid the sandwich, a Coke, a bag of chips, and a stack of napkins across the table to him. Then I let Jen take over.

“Thanks for coming, Henry,” she said. “We really appreciate it.”

“Sure. I’d really like to help if I can.”

“How are you doing today?” she said. It was a little late in the conversation for that question, but she’d picked up on the change in his demeanor too.

“Good,” he said. “I’m having a good day.”

“They’re not all good, are they?”

“No, ma’am, they’re not.”

She took a bite of her sandwich so he’d feel comfortable taking one of his. When he was almost done chewing, she asked, “Was it a good one when we talked to you last time?”

“No, and it got worse after I saw you. No offense.”

“None taken.” She gave him a warm smile. “Everything going okay with work and the new place?”

“It is. I’m just trying not to get too comfortable.”

“Why?”

“Just worried that something might still go wrong, you know?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” she said with an authority in her voice that even convinced me.

“I hope not.”

She kept smiling and he took another bite of his roast beef. “Is that good?”

“Yeah, really good, thanks again.”

She chatted a bit more as we worked our way through lunch. We both paced ourselves against Nichols, and when the food was nearly gone, she explained what we wanted him to do.

“So just look at all the pictures and look for Bishop?”

“That’s right.”

Jen slid the laptop in front of him and showed him where to click to advance to the next photo. We moved in closer to him, Jen on his right and me on his left, so we could watch the faces as he clicked through them. He took his time with each one and studied it intently before moving on. Occasionally he’d give his head a little shake or mutter a soft “no” or “uh-uh” under his breath. When he got to the end and hadn’t seen Bishop’s face, he said, “Could I go through one more time?”

“Of course,” Jen said. I could tell that she was glad that he volunteered without having to be asked.

He clicked through all of the pictures again, and when he finished, his shoulders rounded and he lowered his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay.” Jen put her hand on his forearm. “Don’t worry.”

He looked up at her, a realization dawning in his eyes. “Wait. Oh, man. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”

Henry had a story, and thanks to Jen, he was comfortable enough to tell it.

Things had gone well at the VA, and for the first time in weeks, Henry felt that his luck might be changing for the better. The first check had been issued to him for the back pay and the Wounded Warrior benefits he was supposed to have received after his injury in Afghanistan. A stupid clerical mistake had denied him his due for more than a year. But things were looking up. He’d been able to get a shower at the shelter and had gone to a good laundromat by the hospital to wash his clothes. The VA had also confirmed his spot on the waiting list for transitional housing. In group, everyone had congratulated him and smacked his shoulders. Good news went a long way these days. He might even be out of the van by the end of the month.

After he’d finished cleaning everything he owned—he even washed the van at the coin-operated car wash on Broadway—he put almost all of the rest of the money in his Wells Fargo account. He had more than enough to cover the deposit at Century Villages. He thought again about the sixty extra dollars he’d kept out of the check for a new phone. Before he came home from active duty, he’d never been much of a second-guesser. He followed his instincts when that seemed appropriate, made a plan when necessary, but either way, once he committed he was all in.

Not anymore, though. Now every decision, even the smallest, was an ordeal. Especially every purchase. But he reassured himself. He’d even run the idea past Dr. Winston, the VA psychiatrist, who’d reassured him.