Riptide (19 page)

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Casey answered.

“It’s what you’re
thinkin’
, man.”

“You cops don’t give a shit about us,” his friend chimed in. “You don’t even live in the
neighborhood
.”

Someone from the top row called out, “They live in Simi Valley with all the other fascists!”

“How ’bout it, Porky,” yelled the first guy, the one who’d touched her hair, “you live in these parts?”

His friend echoed the question. “Yeah, Porky, what say you? Huh?
What say you?
”

The word “Porky” excited the other malcontents scattered throughout the audience. They started to chant the word. Casey shifted his weight, his face reddening.

“Porky... Porky... Porky...”

The hippies were getting into it, too. For them it would always be 1968.

Sandra waved her arms as if semaphoring. “Let the officer speak.” Her plea quieted the crowd for the moment.

Casey cited the department’s COMPSTAT figures to explain that violent crime rates had actually declined in Pacific Area. A woman with a reedy voice shrieked that the cops were cooking the books. She’d seen an article about it in the
L.A. Reader.

“No one is fudging any numbers,” Casey said. “Our area commanders are just as concerned about safety as you are. They’ve seen a significant, ongoing downtrend in crimes across the board, especially violent crimes—”

The pair behind Jennifer started stamping on the bleachers.

“No way, man, my nephew was
shot
just last week!”

“Cops
want
us shot! More of us get killed, easier it is for white folks to move in and take over!”

“What d’ya say ’bout that, Porky?”

“Porky... Porky... Porky...”

Casey gave up and yielded the floor to Draper, who didn’t look happy about it.

Draper was smart enough not to compete with the crowd. He stood facing them in cold silence until the commotion died away. In the unflattering overhead light his face looked more sallow than usual, his eyes lost in dark hollows. He seemed to unman the noisier elements of the audience.

“Sandra Price is right,” he began, speaking softly enough that people were obliged to stay quiet if they wanted to hear. “There
are
three unsolved homicides in this division. The most recent was on Centinela Avenue in Mar Vista. That one happened on Monday night.”

He was talking about the Diaz killing. Jennifer thought of the bloated tongue, the bloodshot eyes.

“The other two occurred seven months and eighteen months ago, respectively. We believe they were so-called stranger homicides, meaning the victims didn’t know their assailants. Those are the most difficult cases to clear. In the same time period we’ve had three other homicides in Pacific Area, and solved them all. We—”

“You didn’t solve nothing!” screamed someone in the top row. “You rigged them scenes. You put cases on them people!”

“You
framed
those brothers!” another man shouted.

Instantly the kids behind Jennifer were on their feet, shouting, “Frame, frame, frame!” They stamped on the bench where she was seated, their heavy sneakers slamming down on both sides of her. “Frame, frame,
frame
!”

Chaos rippled through the stands. Other chants broke out, a babble of slogans competing with each other. The man in gray dreadlocks repeated his war cry: “Right on!” The sweatshirted figure swayed frantically, clutching his knees.

Jennifer eyed the exit, estimating her distance to the door. She wasn’t sure she dared leave. The men behind her might follow. She could be safer in here...unless a riot broke out...

Above the hubbub rose a long earsplitting shriek:
“An-ar-chy!!!”

The shrieker was a young woman strategically positioned in the middle row, directly opposite the dais, who rose to her feet and unzipped her nylon jacket. She wore nothing underneath. Her bare breasts, several sizes too large for her, sprang into view. She shrugged off the jacket, let it fall, and stood topless, arms raised.
“An-ar-chy! An-ar-chy!!!”

The crowd burst into whistles and hoots. The photographer, no longer bored, snapped off a rapid series of shots.

Lady Godiva had made the scene.

Draper and Casey exchanged a glance, shrugged, and walked off the dais and out of the room with as much dignity as possible. As Casey passed Jennifer’s seat, he nodded to her almost imperceptibly. Draper didn’t look her way at all. Then they were out the door, pursued by the topless anarchist’s screams.

Jennifer knew why they hadn’t openly acknowledged her. In this crowd it wasn’t safe to be pegged as a friend of the police.

With the enemy no longer in the building, the protesters lost their enthusiasm. Sandra Price had given up trying to speak. She looked sad and disgusted.

nineteen

The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex dive a few blocks from the high school. Sandra must have chosen it solely for its proximity. Certainly it wasn’t the atmosphere, which consisted of drunken men playing pool while mariachi music blared through tinny ceiling speakers.

Jennifer wasn’t complaining. She’d expected Sandra to beg off their meeting after the debacle in the gym. But the woman was resilient. She dismissed her disappointment with a shrug. “Some nights are asshole nights. Goes with the territory.”

It was her only comment about the evening until she and Jennifer were seated at a corner table, dipping blue corn chips into a bowl of salsa.

“What a piss-poor excuse for a rally,” Sandra said, contemplating the undipped chip in her hand as if it were a tarot card. “Piss-
fucking
-poor.”

“It might not have been so bad without the exhibitionist,” Jennifer offered.

“Hell, no. She saved the day. Served as a release valve for the tension. I’m honestly grateful to her.”

“You expected her to show up, I guess.”

“Yeah, she’s always there. I’ve probably seen her titties more times than her boyfriend has. They’re real, too.”

“How would you know?”

“I asked her once. She offered to let me cop a feel. What the hell, I took her up on it. There’s no silicone in those funbags.”

Jennifer laughed. Sandra reminded her of Maura, only in a socially conscious edition. Both women were brassy and loud and unconcerned with anyone’s opinion. They would probably hate each other’s guts. She remembered a passage in Sandra’s speech about gentrification as a symptom of capitalism run amok. Yes, she and Maura definitely would not see eye to eye.

“It’s too bad Draper got drowned out,” Jennifer said. “He could have connected with them, if they’d given him a chance.” She wasn’t so sure about Casey.

Sandra pursed her lips. “I don’t know. The cops were part of the problem, too.”

“How so?”

“They could have been more diplomatic. What was that crap about the crime rates going down in Venice?”

“Most crimes
are
down—”

“Not here, honey. If the statistics don’t show it, it’s because people just aren’t reporting all the bad stuff that goes on.”

“If they don’t report it, how can they expect the police to help?”

“Why
should
they report it when the police never help, anyway?”

“That’s a pretty fatalistic attitude.”

“It’s reality.” Sandra blew out a deep breath. From a distance she’d appeared to be Jennifer’s age, but up close she looked at least ten years older. “The cops don’t give a damn.”

“I’ve seen Draper at work. I consulted on one of those homicides he cleared. He put in a lot of hours, really knocked himself out. He cares.”

“None of them care about us. They care about the rich people in their upscale digs. Neighborhoods like Dogtown are just a sewer to them.”

“The case Draper solved was
in
Dogtown.”

“So you know all about Dogtown, do you? That where
you
live?”

“Well...no.”

“Didn’t think so. Bet you don’t even live in Venice. You’re over in Brentwood or West Hollywood.”

“I’ve lived in Venice all my life, except for college.” She regretted the qualifying phrase. It sounded snobbish.

“Canal district?” Sandra challenged.

Jennifer held her gaze, refusing to be guilt-tripped. “That’s right.”

“Not nearly the same thing as Oakwood or Dogtown. Those are the trouble spots. You don’t live there, and you don’t even
know
anybody who does live there. Right, honey?”

“My brother—” She stopped herself. She didn’t want to drag Richard into this, especially since she’d already said she suspected someone close to her of criminal acts. She tried another tack. “When I was a kid, the canal district hadn’t been gentrified. It was a mess, like every other part of Venice. Back then,
every
neighborhood was high-crime. Things
are
getting better.”

“Sure—in those neighborhoods. You know why? Because they’re moving all the poor people out. All the
black
people, all the
Latino
people, all the people who don’t
fit in
. Shipping them off to South-Central or East L.A., as far from the beach as possible. Wouldn’t want any undesirables spoiling the scenery for the tourists and the millionaires.”

No, Sandra and Maura definitely would not get along. “The district is changing,” Jennifer said. “So what?”

“It’s not just changing. It’s losing its soul.”

“If you’re so concerned about crime, you ought to be glad the gangbangers are moving out.”

“
Gangbangers
being a polite way of saying
minority teenagers
.”

“Don’t give me that crap. You saw the people who showed up at your meeting. Are you going to cry if some of them have to relocate?”

“You don’t see the real issues, because to you it’s all about
other
people. It’s not about
you
. You’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

“That’s the oldest cliché in left-wing politics.”

“Hey, honey, if the shoe fits...”

“So who am I, then? One of the tourists or the millionaires?”

“One of the white folks who’re glad their property values are going up. Glad the skin tones in this community are getting lighter.”

Jennifer took a breath. “Look, are you going to help me or not? Because I didn’t sign up for sensitivity training.”

To her surprise, Sandra laughed. “Sensitivity training. I like that. I like the way you redialed me after I blew you off, too. You ever see that episode of
Mary Tyler Moore
where Mr. Grant tells Mary she’s got spunk? That’s what you’ve got. You’re Mary Tyler Moore.”

Jennifer had trouble picturing Sandra Price settling in for a night of classic TV comedy. “Well...thanks. I guess.”

“Of course, you know what Mr. Grant says right after that. He goes, ‘I hate spunk.’”

Sandra laughed again, a hearty laugh, and Jennifer found herself smiling.

“I get a little emotional,” Sandra said. “Some of the stuff I say is just frustration talking. There’s a lot of frustration. A whole damn lot.” She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Okay. Unsolved crimes. Here we go.”

For the next half hour, while dining on an enchilada and refried beans, Jennifer filled her notepad with names, dates, and details. Sandra knew the cases intimately. She had studied them with obsessive thoroughness. She’d spoken to neighbors and relatives of victims and somehow obtained information that could only have come from the coroner’s office. She knew at least as much as any cop.

Her disquisition covered three unsolved homicides, six assaults, and four disappearances.

The first homicide victim, eighteen months ago, was Mary Ellison, a secretary who stayed late at the office, typing documents for a conference in the morning. After midnight she left the building and walked to her car. She made it halfway across the parking lot before her skull was crushed from behind by what might have been a brick or a cinder block. The weapon was never found. There was no postmortem mutilation, no sign of theft, and her clothing had not been removed or disarranged.

The second victim, seven months ago, was Elizabeth Custer, a teenage runaway living on Venice Beach. She was found strangled in an alley off Ocean Front Walk, Venice’s concrete boardwalk. Her time of death was estimated as two AM. Again, no mutilation or molestation, no theft—not that the ragged seventeen-year-old had owned anything worth stealing.

Jennifer listened, saying nothing. She was acutely aware that twelve years ago it could have been her own name in a police report, her body found beneath an underpass or in the utility room of a shopping mall.

The police had not connected the two murders. The M.O.’s were different—blunt force trauma, strangulation—as were the victim profiles and the neighborhoods in which the crimes occurred.