Murder on Bamboo Lane (6 page)

The camera is on a tripod in the living room, aimed toward my parents’ flowered couch, where we all sit.

“You better not mail these Christmas cards to any of my friends,” Grandma warns Mom as the camera flashes shot after shot.

Mom keeps going back and forth between her seat on the couch’s arm and the camera to make sure we all look good. Grandma, who has a blinking issue, only has her eyes fully open in one picture, the same picture in which I’m not smiling.

“That’s fine,” I say. I’m with Grandma on this. The fewer people who receive our family Christmas card, the better. Mom finally relents because she decides that she can Photoshop a smiling face from another photo over my frowning one.

“I have to get going,” I finally say. I have nowhere to go, but I’ve had my fill of family time. Shippo apparently has also had enough of my brother’s bedroom, since he practically runs out when I open the door.

Mom follows us outside. “Tell Benjamin not to study so hard. We miss seeing him.”

Me, too
, I think.
Me, too.

• • •

It’s still relatively early, nine o’clock, but I’m afraid to call Nay, in case the group from earlier in the week has decided to continue the party into Saturday night.

I have other friends I could call, but all they want to know is if I know of any cute policemen they can date.

With Shippo riding shotgun, secured in his doggy seat belt, I guide the Green Mile down Figueroa and notice the lights in one of the corner Catholic churches are still on. A banner out front announces a health fair that was scheduled for there today. The thing about Catholic churches, especially those in the hood, is that they are always open 24-7.

I’ve visited this church a couple of times. Not for mass—I stopped going after high school. Dad’s the only Catholic in our immediate family. He goes to a parish in Little Tokyo; again, he likes hanging out with Japanese people more than we do. Grandma Toma calls herself a nonpracticing Buddhist, which I think may work for Buddhists, but to be a nonpracticing Catholic is an oxymoron. So I’m officially not Catholic, though I occasionally stop by the office next to the chapel here to chat with the priest.

Father Kwame is from Ghana, on the west coast of Africa. He’s small, way smaller than me, in both height and weight. I’m usually pretty proud of being bilingual in English and Spanish with a smattering of Japanese. But Father Kwame speaks seven languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, which puts me to shame.

I leave Shippo in the car but crack the window open so he can get some fresh air.

After ringing the doorbell for Father Kwame’s office, I hear the priest’s voice over the intercom.

“Hi, Father. It’s Ellie Rush.” Shippo whimpers from the car.

The buzzer immediately sounds, and I open the door into the small, carpeted reception area.

“Ellie, you are looking well,” Father Kwame welcomes me. “Come in, come in. Have some tea with me.”

I look back at the Green Mile, Shippo’s tongue sticking out of the crack.
I haven’t forgotten about you, sweetie.
“Ah, would it be okay to bring in my dog?”

“Of course, of course. Sister Agnes took her cat with her to her apartment.”

We sit in his corner office. Shippo seems to somehow know we’re in a semi-holy place, because he puts his paws together in front of him on the floor. Father Kwame brings me tea in a cup and saucer and returns to his chair behind his desk. A floor lamp in the corner makes the room feel cozy and intimate.

“How was your health fair?” I ask after taking a sip of the tea.

“Full house, as usual. Line around the block. But you didn’t come to talk about our fair.”

What gives me away? I take a big breath and begin. “I kind of feel lost, Father. Like my friends have abandoned me. And I can’t relate to my coworkers. Everyone seems to be in different worlds. And I’m in between all of them.” I don’t say anything about my family.

Father Kwame leans back in his chair and presses his fingers together. His skin is dark, almost blue-black, but his palms are pink.

“I think that you are on the cusp of discovery.” As always, he speaks deliberately, choosing each word carefully. “You are discovering something true about yourself. And you have to do that alone.”

“Well, it sure feels lonely.” Damn lonely.

“You have two legs, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Two legs that are strong.”

Ah, yeah. Especially since I started biking every day.

“Then you are meant to walk. And walk forward, not backward. Maybe your friends are way, way in back. You can wait for them, yes. But I think that it’s your time to keep going forward.”

I take another sip of the tea. I don’t quite get Father Kwame’s analogy. But in a strange way, his words do help. At least I know what I’m feeling isn’t so weird, under the circumstances. Maybe for right now, it’s okay. Maybe I am supposed to feel alone.

AVENUE 26

I feel better the next morning. Good enough to shower, make breakfast, and get into a clean T-shirt and a pair of jeans, all by ten a.m.

I’m officially off today, so I could go out to see a movie, visit a museum or something. But instead I head to work.

I pull out my personal bicycle, an old one from high school, and Shippo immediately knows I’m going somewhere without him. I give him some extra doggy treats and try to kiss his nose good-bye, but he sniffs loudly and turns away toward his dog bed.

My backpack fastened and my Glock secured in my fanny pack around my belly, I pedal down Figueroa. My neighborhood is quiet on Sunday mornings. A few shop owners are washing down their parking lots, and a steady stream of customers go into the
pan dulce
bakery on the corner.

My cheeks are stinging from the crisp air in the half an hour it takes me to arrive at the police station. A lot of homeless, too, are just starting to rise, and those who don’t recognize me do a double take. You don’t find too many young women in civilian clothes casually riding non-police-issue bikes on this block.

When I enter the station lobby, I see Captain Randle’s also in, but he’s clearly here in a professional capacity—he’s dressed in his uniform. He’s talking to one of the councilmen I saw at the Metro Club on Monday. Neither one of them looks too happy, so I walk with my head down into the hallway that leads to the squad room.

I sit at one of the computers and start working on a few overdue reports.

“Rush, you’re not on schedule today.” Captain Randle comes up from behind, causing me to jump in my chair. He’s the kind of man you never want to disappoint; he commands a high level of respect.

“Just thought I’d catch up on some work,” I tell him.

He smiles. “I’m hearing good things about you.”

My face feels hot. Captain Randle is always busy. Somebody always waits in line for his last five minutes. The fact that he’s taking the time to pay me a compliment is a big deal.

After Captain Randle leaves, I spend about an hour finishing what I need to do. Then I unzip my backpack and take out my personal notebook, the notebook on Jenny Nguyen’s case.

In its pages, I find Susana Perez’s brother’s name and details about his car. It would be such an easy, routine search on the computer. But this being LA, home of celebrities, police officers have been implicated in selling private information to the tabloids. The rumor is that our computers’ hard drives and search histories are routinely checked to discourage privacy violations. So, don’t go looking into the arrest record of a guy or girl you just met in a bar, we were warned during probation.

But this is part of a legitimate investigation, I tell myself. Susana Perez’s brother is no Hollywood actor. He’s a regular soldier, serving in the Middle East. For me to check up on his vehicle is actually my patriotic duty, isn’t it?

I input the Ratmobile’s license plate number.

Susana was right: Jenny has taken good care of the car. For the past six months, no moving violations, no parking tickets. We’re not going to be able to locate Jenny’s mobile living space via LAPD records.

I think back on my conversation with Susana at the coffeehouse. She mentioned that Jenny sometimes parked on the PPW campus. Now, no street in Downtown Los Angeles is going to allow parking beyond one evening; if Jenny had parked the Ratmobile on a Chinatown street, it would have been ticketed and most likely towed away by now. But PPW? PPW has its own security, the “Parking Nazis.” They could definitely still have the Ratmobile.

I pack up my papers and go outside to retrieve my bicycle.

I call Nay’s number, and she picks up on the first ring.

She doesn’t even bother to say hello. “Please, please tell me you didn’t try to run over Benjamin and Kari on Wednesday night.”

“Kari? Is that what her name is?”

“Ellie.”

“I wasn’t trying to run them over, okay?” I guess it’s all out in the open now. “Where are you?”

“At the library. I’m waiting to get to some reserved reading. Damn professors.”

I’m so glad that I don’t have to deal with required reading anymore. “Nay, is that guy in Parking Services still hot for you?”

“Like any of this hotness could wear off.” I can picture Nay air caressing her ample upper torso area.

“Do you think that he’ll do us a little favor?”

• • •

Nay’s Patrick is soft and pudgy with a shaved head.

The two of them first met when she was working at the research library. It was her job to call Parking Services whenever someone was illegally parked in the spot reserved for their deliveries. Since an open piece of concrete is more coveted than anything else on our campus, Nay called Patrick almost every day.

Nay says she has a special hold on Patrick. I believe her. I’ve seen her charm in action before—she’s used it on waiters, cashiers and special-event workers. She puts herself together well—better than I do, for sure—and when she opens that mouth of hers, certain men swoon. Patrick is apparently one of those men.

“Okay, so here’s the license plate number.” Nay holds my open notebook out to him.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“But you will do it,” Nay practically orders him.

He types in the number, then shakes his head. “The car hasn’t had any tickets from us. Not even one.”

That’s pretty amazing, since everyone at PPW gets at least one or two tickets a year from the Parking Nazis.

Nay and I exchange looks. Another dead end.

“Wait a minute,” Nay says. “Do you have a car here?”

“Yeah, you want a ride, girl?” Patrick places his arms around Nay’s waist.

“Don’t touch me.” Nay pulls away. “Where do you park?”

“Where everyone else parks.”

“I know this college ain’t paying for your parking,” Nay speaks with experience as a former library employee.

I know what she’s getting at. “You all can’t be parking in the regular lots,” I say.

Patrick gets up from his computer. He starts to pace. “There’s no way she would know about it. I mean, that’s our secret place.”

“Where is it?” Nay asks.

Patrick remains quiet.

“Patrick, c’mon, where is it?” Nay’s voice gets lower, more sultry.

He shakes his head in submission. “You know where they’re building those new dorms?”

“The ones on the west side of campus?” Those dorms are taking forever. They were scheduled to be finished while I was still at PPW.

“Well, there’s a three-story parking garage over there that’s still under construction. There’s been a labor dispute with the subcontractors.”

“You guys are parking there.” Bingo.

“But no one else really knows about it. You’d have to be in the building department or maybe even housing to know what is going on.”

I noiselessly snap my fingers. “Or the Census.”

“Come again?” Nay asks.

“Jenny worked for the Census. I think Pan Pacific West was in her territory.”

“So?”

“Remember when Rickie did part-time work for them? He was telling us how he had to find out how many dorms were being built and how many students they could hold.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m sure Jenny probably knew about the dorms and the delay. She probably even went over there in person to check it out.”

“Show us.” Nay turns to Patrick, working her hypnotic spell over him.

He’s a goner, and he knows it. He tells another worker that we’re claiming that our car is being illegally towed away and he needs to check it out. The three of us climb into his golf cart and travel through the heart of the campus. I’ve only been back here once since graduation, and seeing students walking with their backpacks gives me a pang of nostalgia. At the same time, I realize, from their perspective, I look exactly like them.

Patrick parks the golf cart on the side of the driveway leading into the parking lot in progress. There are clear plastic and blue tarps flapping from the top. Cement bags are stacked on one side of the first floor, across from six parked cars.

Patrick gets out, while I take a slim jim that’s hanging on a hook in the back of the golf cart. It may come in handy if we find the Ratmobile.

He points to a white Camry. “My car’s over here.”

I scan the five other cars. No Honda Accord, at least not one from the 1990s.

“How about the next floor?” I say. I set off at a run, with both Nay and Patrick puffing behind me. Nothing up here except more bags of cement.

“Third floor?”

“Why would she park way up there?” Patrick asks.

Privacy, I think as I continue running, the contents of my backpack banging against my spine.

I see it as I turn the corner. Behind a hanging blue tarp is a dirty black Honda, circa 1994. I lift the tarp. The license plate matches. Bingo! We found it.

Careful not to touch the body of the car, I look in the window. A 7-Eleven coffee cup is in the cup holder. A pillow is on the back seat; there is a wash basin with water still in it on the floor, and a towel hangs from the back of the passenger side seat. Jenny’s home sweet home.

Wrapping my hand in my shirttail, I try the trunk. It’s locked, of course.

“Ohmygod, you found it.” Nay, breathing heavily, finally appears on the third floor.

I unzip my backpack and pull out my bike gloves. “Nay, don’t touch the car,” I chide her as she approaches the Honda.

“Okay, okay.”

Patrick, totally out of breath, follows Nay.

I hand him the slim jim. “You’re probably better at this than I am.”

“I don’t know if I should be doing this,” Patrick says again.

“Do it,” demands Nay. “You can tell the police that you just found this abandoned car and needed to get in.”

“Yeah, and when they find out it’s Jenny’s, you’ll be a hero,” I prod.

I don’t think he quite believes me, but he does it anyway. It barely takes him a minute to slide the thin metal strip down the side of the window and click open the lock. No wonder the Honda Accord is the number one stolen vehicle in the nation.

I slowly open the door. I’m relieved that there’s no alarm and then check the glove compartment first. Nothing unusual. Just the registration slip.

“You guys can’t go through her things,” Patrick complains.

“She’s an LAPD cop, okay?”

Nothing under the seats. Jenny was indeed immaculate.

Patrick’s radio begins to squawk. You need a trained ear to make out what the dispatcher says because it just sounds like gibberish over static.

Patrick unleashes a four-letter word.

“What?”

“Our stupid clerk told a cop who happened to come by our office that a student’s car was being illegally towed. He saw my golf cart parked on the side and was wondering if everything was okay. He’s down there now.”

I carefully look over the side wall.

Great. It’s Mac, and he’s got his best concerned-public-servant look on his face. Today must be an especially slow day for the Central Division.

“That’s the prick, Mac,” I tell Nay.

“Oh, let me see, let me see.” She sneaks a peek, too. “He looks like an asshole,” she says, but I know that she’s just being a loyal friend. On the outside, Mac looks completely innocuous. Hell, if I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t hesitate to go to him for help.

“Now I’ll have to tell him about this car.”

“No, you don’t,” Nay pipes up, but I shake my head. Patrick has stuck his neck out far enough for us. If he gets into trouble, eventually we all will.

“Just give me fifteen minutes to look in the trunk.”

“I can’t stall him for that long. I can give you ten.”

I nod. “Okay, ten.”

As Patrick grunts down the parking lot, Nay and I immediately get to work. I pop open the trunk, and tell Nay, “We have to put everything back exactly the way we found it.”

Jenny was definitely a neat freak. She had plastic bins that hold her clothing, each one labeled:
JEANS+Ts
,
SWEATERS/SWEATS
,
CH CLOTHING
, and
UNDERWEAR/SOCKS
. I’m not interested in those things. I pull out the bins marked
WORK AND PERSONAL ITEMS
and
SCHOOL
.

“What are you looking for?” Nay asks.

“I’m not sure.” I lift off the lid. The
WORK
bin is only half full. I’d been hoping to find a computer, but there are only a few items, nothing electronic.

“What’s that?” Nay asks, pointing to something that looks like a wooden child’s toy.

“An abacus,” I tell her.

“That’s what I thought. How weird. Why would Jenny be using that? Doesn’t she have a calculator on her phone?” Nay has a good point, though as far as I’m aware, no phone was recovered from the crime scene, either.

“People still use them.” I remember going to the bank in Little Tokyo with Grandma Toma to exchange dollars for yen before our summer Japan trip a few years ago. I was surprised when the bank teller took an abacus out to determine how much yen we were supposed to get.

I see a red spiral notebook with silly stickers on the outside. I catch my breath—is it a diary? If it is, this is a gold mine. I lay the notebook on one of the plastic lids.

“That’s from those Botan Rice Candy packages,” Nay says, pointing to the stickers. “The ones in those little boxes with the naked baby on it?” Nay is the queen of sugar, mostly processed. She knows her candy, both domestic and foreign. “You know, those boxes of Japanese candy, the ones wrapped in that edible rice paper? Instead of prizes, they now have these cute stickers in the boxes.”

“Looks like she sure bought a lot of them,” I say. I carefully open the notebook with my gloved hand and start taking photos of each page with my phone.

After I finish, I open the box labeled
SCHOOL
. Still no laptop. Nothing except books and papers. Nay, meanwhile, impressed with Jenny’s sticker collection, starts taking photos of the cover with her own phone, just for fun.

I spy down below, and see no one. Even the golf cart is gone. Then I hear voices and the hum of the cart’s engine.

“Nay, they’re coming,” I hiss.

I place the notebook back in its bin, snap the lids back onto the plastic containers, slip both of them back in their rightful places, then quietly shut the trunk and pull Nay’s arm toward the side staircase. We go down the unfinished concrete steps until we reach the bottom—the bottom of the steps, that is. There’s still a gap of four feet to the ground. Not sure what they were thinking, but maybe that’s why the construction project is still in limbo. I jump down first and then turn around and reach out for Nay.