The Deepest Cut (7 page)

When Kissick saw the corpse, he released a perverse laugh. “Guess the homeless guy, Kevin, was right. The deceased
is
a clown.”

Scrappy was wearing a clown costume. Voluminous, shiny fabric with orange, red, and purple stripes was gathered in ruffles at his wrists and ankles. Pompoms in primary colors were sewn down the front. Askew on his nose was a big, red plastic honker attached by an elastic band around his head. An oversize Afro wig, striped pink, green, and yellow, was on the ground nearby.

“A clown suit?” Vining looked at the others for an explanation.

Caspers held up both hands in an elaborate shrug.

Vining looked at Lam as if he might have an answer. All he offered was “You got me.”

“Maybe he was dressed up for a kids’ party,” Kissick said.

“What kind of parent would hire him to entertain kids with those gang tats on his face,” Vining mused.

“The gangbangers’ Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” Kissick began taking photos of the victim and scene with his personal digital camera.

Vining added, “The kids bring their teddy bears dressed in gang colors.”

“Little do-rags on their heads,” Caspers joked.

The detectives laughed.

Absorbed with different concerns, Bambi pointed at the blood splatter. “He wasn’t facing the wall when he was shot. I think he was standing sideways. See this pattern here?”

Vining moved in for a closer look. Scrappy was on his back. His right hand still clutched a can of black spray paint that had stained his fingers. His eyes were wide open. He had a long, narrow mustache that was just a line of hair extending around both sides of his mouth to his chin. He had been a good-looking guy. The mustache accentuated well-shaped lips and a strong chin.

The bullet wound was easy to see through closely shorn hair that looked like velvet. His gang affiliation, NLK, was tattooed across the back of his scalp in ornate letters, three inches tall, inside a crown that signified “Latin Kings.” Three dots tattooed down his cheek meant
Mi Vida Loca.
Ironically, a clown face was tattooed on his neck. In street gang lingo, it meant “Smile Now, Cry Later.”

Vining knew they would find more tattoos across his abdomen, done in blue “prison ink” culled from Bic pens. The tattoos were a map of his life.

She turned her attention to the fresh graffiti marring the beautiful mosaic.

Kissick asked, “Nan, did you say that this guy used to be your informant?” When she didn’t acknowledge him, he called her again. “Nan …”

Vining was gawking at the graffiti. The bold, three-foot-tall black letters spelled:

Now everyone except Bambi was looking at her.

“Nan, what’s up?” Kissick asked.

The blood pulsed in her head while at the same time she felt she was being drained of blood. “He was here. He murdered Scrappy and he painted that tag.”

She looked at Kissick. “T B. Mann painted that tag.”

SEVEN

C
ASPERS SCRUNCHED “T. B.
WHO?
”

Vining stared off and briefly closed her eyes, not believing she’d uttered that name in front of everyone. “It’s what I call the man who attacked me.” She added defensively “I have to call him something.”

Bambi didn’t look up from her work, but straightened a little while leaning over the body, reacting to the moniker T. B. Mann as if someone had lobbed a pebble at her. Lam remained silent.

Kissick was direct. “Nan, what makes you think he was here?” She pointed her latex-clad hand at the graffiti. “Look at the C and the O. Those curlicues … They’re identical to the notes he wrote me.”

“He wrote you notes?” Caspers’s flippant facial expression alone bordered on insubordination.

Kissick silenced him with a raised hand. “You’re confident about that?”

“I’ll never get that handwriting out of my head.” She darted her index finger at the writing. “It’s all right there. The C and the O.”

Caspers was undeterred. “So Nan, you’re saying that the guy who stabbed you also shot this homeboy execution-style, then
spray-painted this tag, then put the paint can in Scrappy’s hand, and then pressed Scrappy’s finger on the nozzle to make it look like he painted it.”

Vining conceded, “I know it sounds nutty.”

Lam asked, “Why China Dog? Why not ‘Vining one-eight-seven’?”

Caspers walked to the wall and pointed. “This thing. Is this what you call a curlicue?”

Bambi protested. “Watch where you’re putting your clodhoppers in my crime scene.”

Lam sagely rubbed his chin, but Vining could tell he thought she was cracked.

She threw up her hands. “It
is
nutty.” She thought it best to confirm what they were thinking and what she logically felt, even though the little hairs still standing up on the back of her neck told her otherwise. Battling intuition, she told herself that her obsession with T. B. Mann was like being in love— everything reminded her of him.

She offered a terse “Forget it. Just a crazy idea that flew into my head.”

Without further comment, she asked, “Bambi, may I have a look?” After getting the go-ahead, she walked to the corpse and leaned over to look into his dead eyes. “Old Scrappy. I was first on-scene after his girlfriend called nine-one-one when he’d beat the crap out of her. Broke her nose and nearly put her eye out when she was five months pregnant with his son. He was high on meth and didn’t like the way she was talking to one of his homeys.

“He went away for that, but not long enough. After he got out on parole, I caught him with a joint and I flipped him. He gave me a good tip about an old drive-by shooting murder up on El Sereno. Gave me decent information for a few years. For twenty bucks to buy drugs, he would have sold out his best friend. He was a player in NLK once, but his drug use got out of control and they sidelined him.”

She drew her gloved index finger across the three tattooed dots on his cheek. “They didn’t give him the moniker Scrappy for nothing. Can’t say I’m surprised to find him with a bullet in his head, but what was he doing here?”

“And why tag that wall?” Lam asked.

“That mosaic is probably valuable,” Kissick said. “Looks like they were getting ready to move it out of here.”

“Tara, how’s it goin’?” Vining called out to the supervisor of the PPD’s Forensic Services Unit, who was walking from the darkened, partially demolished offices, making her way with a high-powered flashlight.

Tara Khorsandi’s blue jumpsuit made her look even more petite. Walking over to the detectives, she was carrying a clipboard and was accompanied by a portly Latino, who was also in a jumpsuit and had a camera around his neck.

“No blood or weapons,” Tara said. “There are footprints everywhere from the workmen. This is going to be a bear to measure and sketch. There’s a bunch of offices still intact. We’ll have to go through everything again once it’s daylight.”

“Let’s do a videotape,” Kissick said.

“That’s what I was thinking,” she said.

“Anyone else camping here other than that one homeless guy?” Kissick asked.

Tara shrugged. “Don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell. There’s refuse in the offices. I’m going to talk to the lieutenant and see if we can’t get more floodlights in here. We’ll be back.” She and her companion left.

Bambi began unbuttoning Scrappy’s clown suit. Beneath it, he wore a white, sleeveless T-shirt and baggy jeans. A gold Saint Christopher’s medallion was on a chain around his neck. On his feet were expensive Air Jordans.

She went through his jeans pockets, handing Scrappy’s cell phone to Kissick. Vining looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the recent calls and contacts list.

From a case on the ground, Bambi took out scissors and cut open the front of the T-shirt. Then she took out something that looked like a meat thermometer. Without hesitation, she stabbed it into Scrappy’s chest beneath his left pectoral, taking the temperature of his liver to determine the time of death.

Caspers involuntarily grunted and looked away.

Bambi gave him an impish grin. “Haven’t seen that before, Detective?”

Kissick patted Caspers on the shoulder as the younger detective shuffled a few feet away. “He’s never been first on-scene at a homicide before.”

“You ought to ride along with me one night.” Bambi smiled.

Caspers leaned against a bulldozer. “That would be great,” he muttered. His complexion suggested otherwise.

Bambi watched the thermometer. “I estimate he’s been dead about two to four hours.”

Kissick looked at his watch. “That puts the TOD between eight and ten o’clock tonight. Plenty of people in Old Town then, but this area is off the main drag. People park on the streets here, though. Maybe someone walking to their car saw something.”

Lam helped Bambi roll the body over. She found a wallet in Scrappy’s rear jeans pocket and turned it over to Kissick.

He took Scrappy’s driver’s license from it and gave it to Caspers. “Alex, run that license number through DMV. Find out if any of the cars parked around here are registered to Scrappy.”

“Got it.” Caspers eagerly accepted the job and the change of scenery.

Vining looked at a photo that Kissick had taken from the wallet. It was of a young Latina and a small boy. “That’s Scrappy’s girlfriend. The one he beat up. The baby would be about five now.” She found a photo of Scrappy with a different woman, who was holding an infant.

“Word on the street was that Scrappy was trying to get out of the life since his last stint in prison for selling drugs. He’s got a new baby momma,” Lam said, using street jargon. “Trying to make the world a better place.”

Kissick examined a business card he’d found. “Aaron’s Aarrows. Human Directionals. Marvin Li, Owner. Address is on Las Tunas Boulevard in San Gabriel.”

Vining threw up her hand when the solution to the mystery hit her. “That explains the clown suit. Scrappy was one of those guys with the arrows. You know, the ones that stand on street corners with the big arrows that advertise new apartments or store openings.”

“That’s right,” Lam said. “They wear stupid hats and costumes and
twirl the arrows around, distracting drivers. I saw a guy advertising Liberty Insurance dressed as the Statue of Liberty.”

“It seems like a complete waste,” Kissick said. “But every weekend, there’s an army of those guys all over the city. Someone must figure it’s worth it.”

Vining said, “The Scrappy I knew wouldn’t have been caught dead standing on a street corner in the hot sun, wearing a clown uniform, dancing with a plastic arrow.”

“There’s talk that some of those guys are lookouts for drug dealers,” Lam said.

Bambi got to her feet. “I’m done with him.” She packed her equipment into her case. “I’ll call again for the meat wagon. We’re busy tonight. From here, I go to El Monte. Homicide and suicide.”

“These hot nights,” Kissick said. “Brings out the gremlins.”

“Unless you need me for anything else, I’m taking off,” Lam said. “Talk to my guys. See what’s going down on the street.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Kissick said. “I need to deal with that homeless guy.” He turned to Vining. “You coming?”

“No.” She didn’t offer further explanation about why she wanted to remain with the corpse.

Kissick didn’t ask, and left the area.

Vining heard the voices of the forensics team coming from other parts of the building, but she was alone with Scrappy. She walked to the mosaic wall and studied the graffiti. She examined the C and O and the other letters that had appeared in T B. Mann’s notes. It was completely illogical to think that T B. Mann had been there, had murdered this gangbanger and painted that tag. It did not fit his M.O.

She squatted beside Scrappy and thought of the photo of his sweet-faced son. She hoped the little boy would escape the lure of street gangs, but if tradition held, it was unlikely.

She picked up the multicolored Afro wig from the ground. “Shit!” she exclaimed when something flew out from beneath. It startled her so much that she reached for her Glock and fell backward onto her butt at the same time, landing on Scrappy’s upturned hand, and facing the floodlight, which blinded her.

The creature that had flown out brushed her face with its wings. She
swatted madly at the air while trying to blink away the whiteout. Her vision returned and she saw fluttering near the floodlight. She heaved a sigh. It was only a yellow butterfly with black spots. As she got to her feet, it fluttered into the darkness beyond the floodlights.

While dusting off her slacks, she heard a commotion on the street outside the building. One voice was especially strident, and female. She heard Kissick’s voice, remaining calm, yet forceful. There was more arguing, this time in a foreign language that sounded Asian.

As Vining strode toward the entrance, the drama outside moved in. Silhouetted by the streetlights, she saw Kissick, Lam, an unidentified, tall young man, and a petite woman. The woman was speaking agitatedly, gesturing dramatically with long, slender arms.

Lam, fluent in several Chinese dialects, was doing his best to keep up with the angry, well-dressed Asian woman.

She might have been in her forties but possessed the type of ageless beauty that made it hard to tell. She was slim and elegantly dressed in a black suit with a lilac-colored blouse. The fabrics were understated but draped her body in a way that whispered “expensive.” Her hair was slicked back into a tight bun, revealing huge diamond drop earrings. A large, round diamond in a simple setting on a chain was nestled into the hollow at the base of her neck. She wore little makeup but indulged in dark red lipstick on sharply outlined lips. She wore no rings. Her nails were short and painted the same bloodred as her lips.