Trail of Echoes (34 page)

Colin's face had reddened until it had reached the end of the spectrum at purple.

“Did you know Allayna or Chanita?” I asked.

Nicole took a deep breath, then nodded. “He'd kick me or my girls out his office if one of them showed up.” She picked at her gold nail polish. “I didn't like them too much. Guess I was jealous or something.”

“He ever tell you to keep your…” Colin cleared his throat. “Special friendship secret?”

Nicole nodded again.

“And what if you decided
not
to keep it secret?” I asked.

Nicole met my eyes with her tear-filled ones. “He said … that everybody would know I'm a whore and that I'd go to jail—just like he would. That no one would want to be around me cuz no one likes girls who been to prison. And that the older girls in jail rape the younger ones and that I'd never get another boyfriend cuz he'd know.”

I glanced at my partner.

The vein in the middle of Colin's forehead was now banging against his golden skin. Jaw clenched, he took deep breaths to control his anger.

Brandi pulled her daughter into her arms but kept hard eyes on us. “I always thought he was too involved with my daughter. And I
really
got suspicious, cuz she was startin' to change. Acting all weird.”

“Weird, like…?” Colin asked.

“Whenever we went out,” Brandi said, “she'd wanna eat sushi, and I'm like, ‘We don't eat no damn sushi. Who gave you sushi?'”

“Mr. Bishop took me and some other girls to sushi after school,” Nicole explained. “Or he'd bring some and we'd eat it in his office at lunchtime.”

“This journal.” I pointed at the book but did not touch it.

“I stole it cuz…” Nicole caught her breath. “He ain't right. This book ain't…” She shivered with the heebie-jeebies. “I don't wanna go to jail.”

“She ain't done nothing to go to jail for,” Brandi said. “
He
the adult.
He
know better.”

“Your mom's right, Nicole,” I said. “You don't have to worry, all right?” Then, I asked Colin to take Brandi's and Nicole's fingerprints.

Both mom and daughter shouted, “Why?”

Colin held up his hands. “Just as comparison—both of you touched the journal, right?”

The duo nodded.

“We need to compare your prints against his.”

A small part of me was buying champagne and confetti. Was I now holding evidence that proved Payton Bishop killed Chanita Lords, Allayna Mitchell, and possibly Trina Porter?

Don't get excited. Keep calm.

I used a paper towel to pick up the journal, then hustled back to my desk with the book. I snapped on latex gloves, then held my breath as I flipped to the small, neat print on the first page.

Those notepads. Whiteboard markers, blank CDs

“Just a list.” I turned the page.

Lesson Plan for 9/21–9/26. Schedule Career Day Individual sessions, last name c

I flipped forward and stopped at an inserted school picture of a teen girl with long, flat-ironed hair and a bright smile. She was cute, a little wonky-eyed, curvy, skin the color of peanut butter. I plucked the picture from the crease and read the writing on the back.

To my favarite conciler. Love, Peaches
.

“Just a student,” I whispered. And with that spelling, a non-GAT student.

Onward.

Another picture, this one double-exposure. The girl wasn't as cute as Peaches—she wore heavy makeup to hide pimples, which only made the pimples look worse. Her fuchsia lips were lined black.

You are the finest man HERE. XOXX, Chrishonda.

“Just a student with a crush,” I whispered.

Seven more pictures, all girls, each addressed to Payton Bishop.

Did boys give school pictures to their male teachers?

Onward.

More lesson plans … More lists of school supplies … A five-by-seven snapshot on photo paper.

Oof!
The air left me as though I'd been sucker punched in the gut.

Peaches, the girl with the long hair and bright smile, lay naked on a pink comforter in a pink bedroom. Hearts, stars, and pink-inked words had been written on the back of the photograph along with, “
U know U want this.
”

Maybe she
 …
Maybe he
 …

My mind worked to explain away the snapshot, but my thoughts sputtered and stopped, a lawnmower out of gas. Was there an
innocent
reason for an adult to possess a picture like this?

Maybe she … Maybe he …

I wanted to tear up this picture and flush it down the toilet. Then buy a new toilet.

My hands shook as I slipped the picture back into its place. Didn't want to, but I had to turn the page and see how this ended.

JOY)AIRS.

OD
=
psamm

Bl
`
cicfo

MA[glove

Dh=kovyl

“Passwords?”

In the last pages, a slip of paper had been folded into a tiny square, then tucked into the journal's crease.

I unfolded it: www.littlelola.com.

I closed the journal with a
pop
. Enough. No pictures or mentions of Allayna Mitchell or Chanita Lords.
Hell, that could be in another journal.
I stared at my desk, at Sam's dying roses, at the picture of Syeeda, Lena, and I posing with a sombreroed donkey in Tijuana fifteen summers ago. A stone the size of Orlando sat in my gut.

Payton Bishop would be looking for this book.

He'd kill to have it back.

Back in interview room 1, every pair of eyes turned to me, hopeful and bright.

“Okay,” I said. “So this journal is not … good.”

Brandi whispered, “Thank you, Jesus.”

Colin's eyebrow cocked.
That bad?

I nodded.
Worse.

“When was the last time you saw your friend Chrishonda?” I asked Nicole.

“This morning, at service.”

“And Peaches?”

“She's my niece,” Brandi said. “I talked to her momma, my sister, last night.”

“Does your sister know about…?”

“Nuh uh,” Brandi said. “I'm not sayin' nothing to
nobody
until you say it's okay. Alice only know cuz Nikki on them pills and gotta go to the office to take 'em.”

“Miss Alice asked me what was makin' me so anxious,” Nicole explained, her knees jiggling. “And it just … poured out of me.”

I smiled at the girl. “So Nicole. When is the next big school event?”

“Tonight,” she said. “We play Orville Wright.”

I squinted as the idea gelled in my mind. “What if—?”

“I'll do it,” the girl blurted.

I chuckled. “I haven't even—”

“But you
will
ask me to do something,” Nicole said, nodding, “and I'll do it.”

 

46

Colin didn't want to hold Payton Bishop's journal even though it had been stuffed into a plastic bag. It now sat on his lap like a soiled adult diaper.

Drizzle from the platinum-colored clouds above spotted the windshield, and pedestrians already hoisted a rainbow of open umbrellas. Heart in my throat, I raced east on King Boulevard, shoving the Crown Vic between buses and cars, all Sunday drivers at twenty-five miles per hour.

“Put on some gloves,” I told my partner, “open the bag, and look for yourself. You shouldn't take my word for it.”

Sam texted me back.
Yes I'm here. Can we talk about last night now?

Colin glared at the journal. “I'm homicide, not …
this
shit.”

“You're a cop,” I snapped. “Don't know about training in the
Springs,
Detective Delicate Orchid, but I had to look at child porn, taste cocaine, and get blasted in the face with pepper spray, among other fucked-up things. Geez, Colin, make life nice and easy for once. Please?”

Colin opened the journal, still in the bag, to the picture of Peaches. “Aw, hell, Lou.” He closed the book. “So are we gonna arrest this Chester?”

At the sports arena, I made a left onto Figueroa. Five miles ahead, the city's skyscrapers peeked from behind the veils of marine layer and rain clouds. “I'd like to make an informed decision first.”

The tall white building of the district attorney's office looked dingy and lopsided beneath those stark gray clouds. Sam's office was located on the fourth floor, and the only light came from the open window looking out to Temple Avenue. He sat at his desk in jeans and a gray T-shirt, and my breath caught seeing him there. He smiled when he saw me, but that smile strained as he saw Colin trundling behind me.

“So this visit is business,” he said as he moved manila folders from the chairs to the credenza. “Your text didn't say.”

“Cuz I wanted to make sure you'd stay here,” I said.

He grunted, then moved back behind his desk. “So what's up?”

“This.” I placed the bag with Payton Bishop's journal in it on Sam's desk. Then, Colin and I plopped into the guest chairs.

Framed pictures sat on Sam's desk: his parents, his sister Phoebe, President Obama, his Jack Russell terrier, Roscoe. The note card I sent along with those sea-salt-caramel cupcakes now lived on the edge of his computer monitor.

“Remember when you told me to focus … somewhere?” I said.

Sam hesitated before saying, “Umhmm.”

I bit my lip, then stared at the journal.

Colin, eyes also on the journal, tossed a pair of latex gloves onto the desk.

Sam squinted at us, then picked up his coffee mug. He sipped slowly, then tugged on the gloves, pulled the book out of the bag, and flipped through the first pages. “Lesson plans, lists. And you got this
where
?”

“A student kinda stole it and gave it to us this morning,” Colin said.

Sam placed the book back on the desk. “Ah.” He clicked his nails against the coffee mug.

“Is it admissible in court?” I asked.

“Did you ask her to kinda steal it?” Sam asked, eyebrow cocked.

Both Colin and I shook our heads.

“Then, it
may
be admissible. No guarantee, though.”

“You should keep browsing, then,” I said.

Sam scratched his jaw. Then, he did as I asked, pausing at every school portrait he found, reading the salutation, freezing once he reached that five-by-seven bedroom shot. His jaw clenched, and his lips thinned into a grim line. “Does he know that you have this?”

I whispered, “No.”

He reached the page with the crossed-out words and the questionable URL. His eyebrows lifted and he grunted.

“So?” I held myself rigid, threatening to break in half if he said something I didn't want to hear.

“Are you now one hundred percent he's the one?” Sam asked. “Or even eighty percent?”

I shook my head. “Although this helps.” And then I told him about the postcards and figurines, and Bishop's self-regard as an enlightened truth teller inspiring gifted girls.

“He's supposed to come in and give DNA,” Colin added, “but he hasn't yet.”

Sam rubbed his mouth, then turned to type into his computer.

Colin and I glanced at each other and shrugged.

Sam kept typing, stopping to read every now and then before typing again. Finally, he pushed away from the computer. “Three years ago, Payton Bishop was dismissed from his prior position as vice principal at a middle school over in Mount Washington. Improper conduct with one of the students.”

“
What?
” I yelped.

Sam held up a hand. “In some ways, the charge was hard to prove. He pled to a misdemeanor—soliciting a minor for lewd conduct. He got a demotion and a transfer.”

“A
demotion
?” Colin screeched.

“With the understanding that if another student came forward, we'd go nuclear on him.”

Awed, I shook my head. “What the
hell,
Sam? Did you all need to catch him in the
act
?”

“A lot was unclear,” he said. “And in a case like this, the plea made sense. It was his first offense, combined with murky details and an unreliable witness.”

I sighed. “Unreliable because…?”

“Because he married her as soon as she turned eighteen, which means she'd never testify against him. So we had nothing.”

“Okay,” I said. “You all slapped his hand, which meant…”

“He wasn't required to submit DNA,” Sam said.

Colin scowled at him. “Are you
kidding
me?”

Sam shrugged.“You don't like it, but it's the law.”

“And the fox,” Colin said, “gets to stay in the henhouse.”

“So what do you want to do?” Sam asked.

I told him my plan and watched his face for any tells.

But there was no flushing. No twitching nerves. No clenched jaw. Sam was a poker-faced pro. Except for his eyes, which were now the color of stormy seas.

“Well?” I asked.

He sat back in his seat. “Defense could argue entrapment. Or his wife could back out of it after having second thoughts.”

“She's young enough to be pissed off, though,” I said. “She thought
she
was the only one, and now she finds out that he's messing around with other girls and possibly killed two?”

Sam squinted at me. “And if he catches on that she's working with us?”

“Then…” I shrugged.

Sam sighed, then clicked his teeth together. “If you wanna grab him for
this
”—he pointed to the journal—“you can. But then hold your breath and hope that his attorney loses the motion to have his client's little book of sick tossed out because of how it came into your possession. And unless you get hard evidence—hell, even circumstantial evidence—of him killing Chanita and Allayna, he's only looking at a year or so for the picture. Your call.”