down here, and bury it.”
I kicked a rock and sent it flying across the lot. “That’s what I was afraid of.” I stared into the distance. I knew I was only a few blocks from where Latisha was dumped. I thought about her, splayed on that street corner, half her head shot off. Sweat trickled from my armpits down my side.
“Don’t worry, Ash, we’ll get ’em,” Pardo said without much conviction. “When things slow down a little, we’ll get right back on it.”
I asked him if he could spare a few minutes while I looked through the murder books. He pulled them out of the trunk, set them on the backseat, and fired up a cigar. Although Pardo had warned me, as I flipped through the pages, I felt increasingly disappointed. He and his partner hadn’t done much with the case. They conducted a few fruitless follow-up interviews and rustled up a handful of gangsters who didn’t know much.
After about ten minutes, he knocked on the back window. “Sorry, Ash, gotta be at the coroner’s in fifteen minutes.”
I shut the books, feeling frustrated. What the hell did I expect? Did I really think I could flip through some pages in the backseat of a squad car and unearth the golden key that would unlock all the secrets?”
I climbed out of the car and thanked him.
“Anytime. Next time we’ll grab lunch. I’ll bring the books, and you can check them out a little more leisurely.”
“I want to ask you for a favor, Tommy.”
“Sure.”
“Let’s keep this talk we’ve had on the Q.T. You know Duffy. He doesn’t like his guys poaching on other units’ cases. But this is more than just a case for me. So I want to nose around a little without him finding out.”
“No problem.”
“I appreciate it.” As I climbed back into my car, he said, “Hold up. I’ve got something for you.” He opened his trunk and handed me a paper bag with a flat plastic case inside.
“What’s this?”
“The DVD of the Sung shooting. I know you’ve seen it. But I thought you’d like a copy.”
As Pardo drove off, I flipped through my yellow legal pad where I’d jotted down Latisha’s daughter’s address. She was a fourteen-year-old freshman at Crenshaw High School named Darnella Ferguson. I recalled that although she had her father’s last name, she’d never met him. After her mother was killed, she moved in with the family of her best friend, a girl she called her play sister.
When I’d interviewed her a few months ago, she tossed me out of the house and called I.A. to complain. She blamed me for her mother’s murder. I dreaded seeing her again, but I knew I had to start there. If she heard about me nosing around the case, she might call I.A. again. I had to appease her, convince her that if she wanted her mother’s killer caught, she had to cooperate with me. And I needed her. Family members often know details about victim’s lives that are invaluable; they sometimes pick up critical leads on the street.
I cruised west on Florence, hung a right on Western, and a left on a side street, through a run-down neighborhood with cracked sidewalks and potholes big enough to crack an axle. I killed the engine in front of a white stucco box that looked like an enormous sugar cube.
I rang the bell, and as I waited on the porch, I heard rap blaring from a box in the living room. The door swung open and Darnella’s friend gave me a quick once-over and yelled, “Hey girl, that police is here to see you again.”
Darnella pushed past her friend, stepped out onto the porch, and slammed the front door. She had her mother’s high cheekbones and amber-colored eyes. She slapped a hand on her hip and said, “How many times I got to tell you, I ain’t talkin’ to you. You done enough already. You pesterin’ and pesterin’ my mamma got her killed.”
I felt so nauseous, I had trouble standing. Leaning against the wall for support, I said, “Can I come inside?”
“My mama talked to you, and look where it got her.” I could see a pulse beating on her forehead. “What you need to say, you say here.”
“I want to find out who killed your mother.”
“Some police been here a while ago. Tell me he takin’ over the case and you gone. Far as I know, he didn’t do shit. Now you say you takin’ over the case and he gone.”
“He’s not gone. And I’m not taking over the case. I’m just helping out. The more detectives you have investigating a homicide, the better.”
“Y’all a little late, ain’t you?”
“A murder investigation is never closed.”
“So what you want from me?”
“Before she was killed, did your mother ever say anything to you that you think, looking back on it, might be important?”
“Like what?”
“Did she ever see anyone following her? Did she mention any people she might have been afraid of? Did she ever get a phone call that frightened her?”
She shook her head.
“Did you ever see her talking to any officers besides me and the detectives from South Bureau Homicide?”
“No.”
I asked her a few more questions, but she had little to offer.
“Please, Darnella, I need your help,” I said, feeling my throat catch.
“Why you care so much?”
“This case is very important to me.”
“It’s very important to me, too.” For the first time, her voice didn’t have a tinge of hostility.
“Will you help me?”
“I’ll try.”
“All right. Anybody she was friends with who’s particularly plugged in?”
“Plugged in?”
“Well-connected in the neighborhood. Knows a lot of people. Hears a lot of things.”
“One lady I can think of. Juanita Patterson. She manages that thrift shop where my mama worked. They were friends. She know everybody in that ’hood.”
“She work Saturdays?”
“Six days a week, she there.”
I sped over to Figueroa and parked in front of the thrift store. I recalled interviewing Juanita right after Latisha was killed. She didn’t give me anything then; I hoped I’d have better luck a year later.
The thrift shop, which was lined with racks of shirts, coats, and trousers, and large metal bins filled with socks, belts, and T-shirts, smelled of cleaning solvents and musty clothes. I waited until Juanita, a heavyset woman with a red bandanna tied over her hair, finished ringing up a customer. Handing her a card, I introduced myself.
“I know who you are,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “You the cop who got Tisha shot.”
I slipped my hands in my pockets and made tight fists, trying to calm myself. “I’m trying to find out who killed her, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
“I not speakin’ to you. Now or ever.”
“I think it’s important-”
“Get,” she said sharply, pointing to the door.
As I left the thrift shop, I recalled that they employed parolees from halfway houses to do the sorting. Last year, I’d interviewed a few of them. They weren’t much help, but I thought I’d try again. I walked behind the thrift shop and spotted two hard cases wearing tight T-shirts, unloading boxes of clothes from a truck. Both had the ripped chests and biceps of ex-cons who had thrown a lot of iron in the joint.
I introduced myself and asked them if they’d heard anything in the past year about Latisha Patton’s murder. They said “no” simultaneously, without looking at me, and continued to unload boxes.
I walked back to the street and was about to unlock my car, when I heard a low whistle. I looked up and saw
