“Oh. You saw the license plate, sir?”
“Yeah, like I told her, I saw two numbers. A two and a C.”
“Did you get a look at the driver?”
“Looked like a white guy. Wearing a baseball hat.”
“Did you see a logo or anything on the hat?” Jennings asked.
He hesitated a moment. “Maybe there was something on it, I don’t remember.”
“What’d the driver look like?”
“You know, a white guy.”
“Old or young?”
“Neither.”
“Beard?”
“Uh, no beard, I don’t think.”
“Any distinguishing marks? Scars, moles — ”
“Just a white guy, ya know? Didn’t see no face. Drove by me real fast.”
“Did you see what color hair he had?”
Hollowes shrugged. “Nah, too dark. Too fast.”
“What about the car? Any dents, broken lights or windows?”
“Man, I don’t know. It happened fast, you see? Bang, boom, I ran over and saw the car leaving. Then I saw them bodies in the street.”
“I’m gonna give you my card,” Jennings said as he pulled a wallet out of his jacket pocket. “Call me if the car comes by here again, or if any of your friends say they saw something, okay?” He looked at Moreno. “You got his address?”
“Ain’t got no address,” Hollowes said.
Jennings had already guessed the man was homeless — which made the detective grateful for the information Hollowes had provided. In his experience, the homeless tried not to get involved, preferring to function outside of society,
“In that case,” Jennings said, “call us collect.”
Hollowes took the card and studied it.
“Oh,” Jennings said. “One last thing. Did you touch the bodies?”
“Touch them?” Hollowes asked, looking down at the ground. “Now why would I do something like that?”
“You know, to get some change, a buck or two for food.”
“I just took the cash, that’s all. Gotta eat, you know?”
“Did you take anything else?” Jennings asked. “It’s important that we know.”
“You see? Talk to the po-leece, get in trouble.”
“No trouble, Mr. Hollowes. We’re not gonna arrest you. It’s just that we have to know if you took a wallet, or anything like that. We’d need the identification to tell us who these people are.”
“No. Just the money. There was eight bucks in his wallet, twelve in hers. They were dead. They ain’t gonna miss it.”
“Did you move the bodies in any way?”
“No. I didn’t touch no dead bodies. Just took their money.”
Jennings nodded. “Thanks again for your help. We’ll be in touch.”
“They good people,” Hollowes said.
“Who are?” Moreno asked.
Hollowes indicated the bodies with the wave of a hand. “Them.”
“You know who they are?”
“Can’t remember their names. They help us get a place to stay on nights like this when the cold go way down to your bones.”
“You mean they did this for the homeless, like it was their job?” Moreno asked.
Hollowes nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Is there anyone who’d want to hurt them?” Jennings asked.
“None of us, that much I can tell you. They been good to us.”
Moreno nodded. “If there’s anything else you think of, please give us a call.”
Hollowes turned to walk away. “Them rich people think they can flash them fancy cars in our neighborhood...” he said as he walked off out of range of the streetlight’s glow and into the shadows of a nearby tree.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Jennings said to Moreno. “What the hell is a white guy doing driving a Mercedes in Del Morro Heights at eleven-thirty at night?”
“Taking a shortcut?”
“A shortcut on life, you mean. The guy’s lucky they didn’t catch him.”
“They?”
“The neighbors,” Jennings said as they walked back toward Saperstein. “It would’ve made our job easier.”
“How so? We’d have three murders to write up.” They exchanged a smile as Jennings fastened the top button of his overcoat.
“You know, this could’ve been personal,” Jennings said. “Something related to their work with the homeless.”
Moreno bobbed her head. “Possibly.”
“Detective,” yelled an officer who was jogging down the street toward them. “We just got a call from someone with a partial plate on the car.”
“Another witness?” Moreno asked.
“Don’t know,” said the man, who was heaving mouthfuls of vapor into the air. “It was an anonymous call. The desk sergeant thinks it was a female voice. She said she saw a dark Mercedes sports sedan,” he said, looking down at his notepad, “with a license of two, C, and O or U. Couldn’t see the driver’s face. Driver was wearing a baseball hat, and was weaving a bit about a block away from where we found the victims.”
“Did she say where she witnessed it from?” Moreno asked.
“No.”
“Have them run a voice print analysis. I want to know more about this caller,” Jennings said. “Anonymous tips are bullshit.”
“Can’t get a voice print.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Call didn’t come in on the 9-1-1 line. She called the division directly. They don’t record incoming calls. She was in a real hurry to get off the line. Didn’t want to get involved.”
They headed back toward the bodies as a light rain began falling.
“So what’s the story?” he asked Saperstein, who was placing a couple of plastic bags filled with specimens into a nylon duffel bag, out of the drizzle.
“Hit-and-run. The car left with a broken left headlight.”
“That’s it? A broken headlight?” Moreno shook her head. “I already knew that.”
Jennings, ignoring Moreno’s comment, reached into the male victim’s coat and removed a wallet. “What about the speed of the car?”
“Judging by the damage to the bodies and the tire marks down the street, the driver must’ve been accelerating. He came off that curve,” Saperstein said, nodding to the area down the street, “and brought it up to, oh, about fifty, maybe sixty, would be my preliminary estimate, at the time of impact.”
Jennings looked over at Moreno, as if to say You wouldn’t have known that.
“What else can you tell us?” Jennings asked, moving over to the woman’s purse and examining its contents. “It doesn’t appear as if the windshield was broken,” Saperstein said. “But I bet there’ll be clothing fibers on the wipers, and probably on the bumper or fender area.” He tipped his head back. “We should be able to get a partial tire print
