Grave on Grand Avenue (24 page)

“No, it really was the team. If Boyd and Azusa hadn’t come when they did, the perps would have been long gone.” And even Johnny—silly, divorcée-chasing Johnny—if he hadn’t had his reality TV meeting at Philippe’s, I probably wouldn’t have gone that far north on Alameda. “But thanks, Jorge. I really appreciate it.”

“Let’s hang out again sometime. The Far Bar was fun.”

It was okay,
I think,
but it would have been more fun with Nay, Rickie and Benjamin
. Jorge, however, doesn’t need to know that. “Sure,” I say. “You know where to find me.”

*   *   *

I ride along Main Street toward First, where the LAPD headquarters now stand. My dad claims that at one time he
wouldn’t walk down Main Street, neither alone nor with ten people. The alleys in the area were littered with hypodermic needles, and vehicles were constantly broken into, hustlers literally carrying lifted car batteries in the street. Pimps and prostitutes were common, and a porno movie house stood where a Japanese theater once was.

All I can say is that Main Street cleans up good. Nowadays you can fortify yourself with a bacon maple donut at the Nickel Diner, which still has a faint rough-and-tumble air about it. The building on the corner still has Victorian architectural features like turrets, bay windows, and dormers. The Grecian columns of the Farmers and Merchants Bank building proudly announce that there was once money there. The San Fernando Building on Fourth and Main has all this beautiful filigree, like a classic, fancy cake in a British bakery.

I arrive early at the modern, glass police headquarters. The auditorium, where an Asian American police association recently honored my aunt, stands alone on the northeast corner of the block. Behind it are grass steps, amphitheater style, which lead to a new memorial of fallen officers. It’s all brass plaques, each inscribed with an officer’s name, rank and date of death. The thin rectangles are a limestone wall, a wall that represents us, the LAPD. The memorial looks the most dramatic during the evening, when it’s lit up from the bottom. Even now, as the afternoon sun bears down and I can see the cupola of the old St. Vibiana Church in the background, I get a little choked up.

I take a seat on a concrete bench and make some phone calls, starting with Sally Choi, Benjamin’s sister and one of the best-known criminal attorneys in the city.

“Sally, it’s Ellie.”

“Ellie, it was so good to see you the other day.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Better. She’s been moved from ICU to her own room.”

“Yeah, I heard.” In all the craziness of everything, I haven’t been able to get to the hospital again. “I plan on coming by soon.”

“Good. She’s been asking about you.”

I like Mrs. Choi. She’s direct and touchy-feely in a good way.

“I had a question for you. A kind of legal question. I need to see a criminal file from an old case. Way back from nineteen sixty-four.”

“Nineteen sixty-four? Hmmm. I’ve had to dig up some old files from time to time. It’s a pain in the butt. Do you have the case number?”

“I can probably get it.”

“That’ll save you a lot of time. You’ll have to go to Foltz on Temple Street,” she says, referring to our criminal courts building. “You also may be able to find something in the newspapers. A lot of them are digitized now.”

I thank Sally, telling her to give my best to her mother.

About fifteen minutes before my appointment, I make my way through the building and up the elevators.

“I have a two o’clock appointment with Deputy Chief Toma,” I announce to Aunt Cheryl’s assistant, who is wearing a telephone headset.

“Oh, hi, Ellie.” The assistant acts much less formal to me than usual. “Go ahead and wait inside. Chief Toma is running late.”

My aunt’s office is immaculate. Even where she has piles
of manila folders, they are stacked completely straight, the edges all crisp and lined up. She uses only one pen, a Montblanc that Grandma Toma gave her when she made detective. She keeps it in its original case.

I hear the fast-paced clicking noise of high heels in the hallway. Aunt Cheryl has arrived. She’s wearing some kick-ass shoes, white pumps with a red and black trim.

“Hi, Chief,” I say as my aunt appears in her office.

Hearing my greeting, Aunt Cheryl gets a funny look on her face. I rarely call her by her title when we’re alone.

We spend some time talking about Friday’s arrest. About how I noticed the hospital worker with his pink bicycle and basket, and later spotted the same bicycle being stowed away in the warehouse.

“Why were you that far north on Alameda, anyway? Were you following the suspect?”

“No, just happened to stumble on him,” I say. I don’t mention the part about seeing Cortez with another woman.

Aunt Cheryl rises from her throne and closes her door completely, which has been a little ajar. “Listen,” she says, standing in front of me, “we’ve started meeting with the FBI on the Old Lady Bandit case.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“I told the agents that the Pascoal Fernandes tip came in anonymously, directly to me. You didn’t tell anyone outside our family about Pascoal, did you?”

I don’t respond right away. Aunt Cheryl gives me her dagger-eyed stare that would make an inmate on death row blubber and cry.

I clear my throat. “No, of course not,” I lie. I pray to God that Cortez has kept his lips sealed.

“Good. Nobody can know that you are related.”

My head is down.

“Ellie, do you hear me?”

“Yes.” I raise my head. “Yes, Chief.”

*   *   *

I slink out of Aunt Cheryl’s office as if I’ve been released by the vice principal at high school. Her assistant has left her station, so at least no one has to see me leave.

I get in the elevator. I’m alone, so I let out a long breath.

The elevator stops at practically every floor. Plainclothes detectives, some of whom I recognize, come in and out—including the man I need to talk to, Detective Cortez Williams.

He almost doesn’t get in when he sees me. He’s wearing a peach-colored dress shirt, a teal green and brown striped tie, and brown pants. Yes, I notice these things.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” he finally says as he stands next to me. I can feel the temperature rise in the elevator.

“Oh, yeah.”

“That’s great, Ellie. Really. I would have called to congratulate you sooner, but things are moving with some cases.”

One of the cases involves the Old Lady Bandit. A crowded elevator in police headquarters is an inappropriate place for me to bring up Puddy Fernandes, but I need to talk to Cortez about him—soon. “There’s something I need to discuss with you,” I tell him in a low voice. I don’t want to whisper, because that will draw even more attention.

“Sure, give me a call.”

“Ah, it’s kind of important.”

We lock eyes for a moment. He knows I’m serious.

“Okay, just let me know.” He gets off on the second floor, gives me a quick glance good-bye and the door closes.

As soon as I’m outside of headquarters, I leave him a voice message. I try to be as formal as possible. “Officer Ellie Rush here,” I say. “I just wanted to go over some details of a recent case. It’s probably good if we go over it in person.”

The rest of the day is boring and I’m so thankful for it. Back at the station, I again help Captain Randle proofread police reports. When I ask the captain where old paperwork is filed, he just groans. He says that he was recently able to get almost a hundred boxes of investigator’s case envelopes and property disposition requests that were stored in our station onto the destroy list. Like Sally warned me, getting access to Puddy’s old records will be a challenge. I think about what she suggested, checking out newspaper records.

Since I’ve lost my Los Angeles Public Library card, I decide to visit the mother ship. Central Library. I change into my street clothes in the locker room and just walk the eight blocks. It’s still light out and I remember something about parking—even validated parking—costing a fortune at certain hours.

Fifth Street is bustling around rush hour. There’re a ton of restaurants and small shops. Everyone wants to make a buck, or at least ten or twenty, to cover the high rents. I pull down my fanny pack so it’s not obvious that I’m carrying a gun. Then I remember the metal detectors, and it occurs to me that I’ll have to identify myself as an LAPD officer when I go in the library.

The library security department is pretty extensive for the
downtown branch. If you think about it, a library is a haven for all—the downtrodden, homeless and so on. It attracts all kinds of people, from the richest of the rich who sit on its board, to literally the poorest of the poor. Those with fat wallets, and those who want to take those fat wallets, are all sitting under the same roof, so there’s bound to be some trouble.

I walk through the shady garden that greets library patrons first—the Japanese peace bell, the long rectangular pools of water, lines from nineteen different languages embossed in the stairs. There are a bunch of people here: lovers making out, both secretly and publicly; men with stuffed grocery store carts taking a breather; latchkey kids.

With its magnificent Egyptian-like pyramid tower outside, Central Library is even more amazing inside. It’s airy, with colorful modern chandeliers hanging from its celestial ceilings. The library is really old and timeless at the same time. It’s my kind of place.

Taking off my fanny pack, I show my ID, badge and gun to the security guard. He takes a long time with my ID. It’s like he can’t really believe that I, who look as young as a high school senior, could really be a police officer. He radios someone and I drum my fingers on his little table at the front entrance. Really?

An older security guard emerges from the main lobby. He takes his time walking toward us and greets me with a big smile. We’ve met before, over a rash of pickpocketing in the library. “She’s okay,” is his endorsement for me.

I put away all the items that identify me as law enforcement and make my way to the checkout desk. In minutes I have a new library card and I’m already at a computer
terminal on one of the lower levels, plugging in my patron ID number.

It’s only been a year and a half since I was a student, but even in that short amount of time, technology has advanced. I’m able to quickly access the
LA Times
archives and from there, even search by keyword. It goes back, way back, even to the 1800s. I, however, just need the decade of the sixties. I type in “Pascoal Fernandes” and get all sorts of links to strange articles ranging from home improvement to cartoons. I add “bank robbery,” and the list is dramatically shortened to a single entry in September of 1964.

The original article is scanned, and it’s super brief, only about two inches long. The gist of it:
Pascoal Fernandes, 21, is accused of planning and driving the getaway car in a North Hollywood bank robbery.

There’s no mention of Ronald Sullivan, confirming the information Aunt Cheryl got from the retired detective. But the getaway car—that’s new information.

I do searches with different combinations. Nothing. I dangle my legs and people-watch for a while. A woman keeps walking by, muttering to herself. A man in a suit spends a lot of time poring over a corporate directory. The reference librarian sits on a high chair like I do, listening to whispered requests, typing on his keyboard, and filling out forms.

My mind wanders. Then, why not? I type in “Old Lady Bandit,” complete with the quotation marks. A few hits, including one in 1952. A suspect was arrested in three bank robberies, but it seems to have nothing to do with either Ronald Sullivan or my grandfather. And then there’s one in 1969.

Neither the bank’s name nor its exact location is identified,
but the dateline is Los Angeles. I don’t know whether that was a curious journalistic practice of the time—to hide the exact address of the crime (perhaps not to impede the investigation?). The story mentions that $20,000 was stolen. Judging from the size of the headline, this was a small fortune. The suspects apparently got away. The Old Lady Bandit escaped on foot, but a car presumed to have been intended as the getaway vehicle quickly followed. The vehicle is identified in the story as a yellow Buick Skylark, thought to be brand-spanking-new.

Oh no,
I think. I cannot believe this. My beloved Green Mile could have been the getaway car in a heist, a heist involving my grandfather. And Lita may have known this the whole time.

*   *   *

Math is not my strong suit. It never was, despite the stereotype that all Asians are supposed to be good in math. Mom is good at calculating grade point averages and totals on grocery store receipts, but not much beyond that. Dad, with his Scottish (and now Portuguese) blood, is the mathematician of the family. That’s probably why the obvious never occurred to me. Like if the Green Mile was around before Dad was born, how come its model year is five years after Dad’s birth year?

“Lita, you lied to me!” I say to her through her screen door before she has time to open it.

“
Querida
, you going to scream at me in front of the neighbors?” she says, waiting for me to cool down on her doorstep.

I do and I quietly enter her living room.

I try to keep my voice steady and monotone. “You told
me that Puddy Fernandes had the Green Mile when you first met him. Well, that’s impossible. Because the car is a 1969 model. Dad was born in 1964.”

“I didn’t quite say that.”

“But you made me believe it. What is going on?” It doesn’t take me long to lose it, but I’m pissed. I’m discovering that many of the elders in my life are liars. And not onetime liars, but perpetual ones.

“Sit down, sit down.” Lita gestures toward her rattan love chair. I grudgingly settle in one corner.

Lita sits in her matching rattan chair. “After serving his jail time for that first robbery, Puddy turns up one day at my mother’s house. Your father may have been five years old. My mother wouldn’t let him in. Told him that I had moved away. Far, far away. He didn’t know about your father. He left the Skylark for me with some strict instructions.”