BLUEBERRY pancakes and bacon sitting in a pool of syrup and melted butter are the perfect comfort food. I hadn’t planned on ordering anything, but Jackie wouldn’t let me sit and watch her eat. It made her self-conscious, she said. Purely to keep her company I told the waitress to bring me what she was having, but when the plate was set before me I dug in with enthusiasm.
With my mouth full, I said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Jackie. You saved my life.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, he wouldn’t a killed you. He would a roughed you up a little, but he wouldn’t kill a white woman in front of a block full of witnesses. Not even Sylvester’s that much of a fool.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, whatever he would have done wouldn’t have felt good, that much I know.” I tenderly felt at what I knew would soon be purpling bruises. “He just moved himself up to suspect number one in Violetta’s murder.”
Jackie took a huge bite of pancake and folded half a strip of bacon into her mouth. Once she was done chewing she said, “I don’t know about Violetta, but I do know he killed a woman once. I know that for sure.”
I put down my fork. “Sylvester killed someone?”
“One a his hos. She went behind his back with some other guy, I don’t know who. She was even giving her money to this other man. Sly heard about it, and he pulled her right off the street. He beat her up and then he kicked her so hard and so many times that she died. Right there, right in the alley behind the Dunkin’ Donuts.”
The pancakes lay in a clotted indigestible mass in the pit of my stomach. “He kicked her to death?” I said, my voice thick with nausea.
“Kicked her right to death. He evil, that Sylvester. And he a coward, too. Would never a fight a man, but he happy to kill a woman.”
“What was her name?”
Jackie shook her head. “It was before I turned out, so I didn’t know her. I heard about it from someone who saw it, though.”
“Who told you?”
She frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t know. Teeny, maybe?”
“Teeny who was killed by Charles Towne?”
“Yeah.” She took a last bite of pancake, scraped her fork through a puddle of syrup, and licked the tines with her small pink tongue, like a cat.
“When did this happen?” I said.
She shrugged. “Well, I been out almost ten years now. So longer ago than that.”
I sighed, my hopes for a conviction of Sly for this earlier murder evaporating. More than ten years ago was too long, especially if the only witness was a dead woman. I would have to talk Detective Jarin into bringing Sly in for Violetta’s murder. I hoped the assault on me would carry some weight in convincing the detective that Sly warranted a closer look.
“Do you know Sylvester’s last name?” I said.
“Do snakes have last names? I always figured he just sprung up out the earth. Everybody just calls him Sylvester, or Sly, if he can make them say it.”
After we ate, Jackie had me drive her back to the taco truck, where Baby Richard would provide her with the protection that she paid for. She assured me that she was in no danger, that Sly would never hurt another man’s woman, especially not her. I let her out at the curb, and watched her stroll over to her nephew. Together they glanced back at me and waved. How I had ended up protected by Baby Richard, I could only begin to guess. I think what it came down to was that Jackie’s saying so made it true.
First thing Monday morning, after a fitful couple of nights, I called Robyn and told her about Sylvester.
“I think he murdered Violetta,” I said. “But it’s just a feeling, and I’m worried about trying to convince Detective Jarin to bring him in based on a feeling.”
“It’s more than a feeling,” Robyn said. “The creep attacked you.”
“Yeah, and that’s good, but it’s not enough.”
“That’s good?”
“You know what I mean.” I related the story about the hooker Jackie told me about. “It could be just a rumor,” I said. “Maybe there never was a beating behind the Dunkin’ Donuts, or maybe there was but the woman didn’t die. I don’t know. But if you could do a search of unsolved cases looking for a prostitute beaten to death sometime before 1995, I could just skip Jarin altogether and go directly to Detective Sherman in the cold case unit.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll try to do it fast. Where will you be today, if I can find the information?”
“I just dropped the kids off at school, but I’m heading home now. You can call me there.”
What she did, of course, was call her father. Al didn’t bother to call me. About an hour after I hung up the phone with his daughter, he showed up at my house.
“What’re you doing here?” I said, when I opened the door.
“What am I doing here? That’s how you greet me?” He pushed by me and into the house. I followed him down the hall, through the ballroom and into the kitchen.
“You got coffee?” he said.
“I was just making a pot for Peter. He should be up pretty soon. He takes it pretty strong.”
Al shrugged. I poured him a cup and watched him ladle spoonfuls of sugar into it. His motions were jerky, like he was restraining himself. I’d seen him angry, but never like this.
“What’s up, Al? Is something wrong?”
“Is something wrong?” he repeated.
“Yeah, is something wrong? You seem, I don’t know, wound up.”
He smacked his dirty teaspoon down on the table, sending up a spray of coffee. “You’re damn right there’s something wrong!” he shouted. He was still yelling when Peter stumbled into the kitchen.
“What the hell is going on here?” Peter said. “Is it too much to ask to be able to get some sleep in this house?”
Al, who had paused in mid-holler when Peter staggered in, said, “It’s 10:30 in the morning.”
“You know he works at night, Al,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and level, as I had since he began his tirade.
“Coffee,” said Peter. “Good.” He poured himself a cup and took a deep gulp. “Now, like I said, what the hell is going on here?”
Al turned to Peter. “Do you have any idea where your wife is spending her nights? Do you know what she’s been up to?”
Peter nodded. “I know she’s spending them driving around godforsaken South Central. Why? I thought you went with her.”
“I went with her once. I did not go with her the other night when she nearly got herself killed by a murdering pimp.”
“Juliet?” Peter said. “What is he talking about?”
It took all morning to calm them down. It’s hard to say who was angrier, my husband or my partner. For the first time since I’d introduced them eight years before, they were in complete agreement about something, and that something was what a fool I was, what unnecessary risks I took, and how furious they were with me. Every time I thought I’d put the fire out, reassured them that I would never again go to Figueroa Street, that I’d never drive by that part of Figueroa Street, one of them would start up again and set the whole cycle of recrimination and abject apology going one more time.
Robyn, whose fault it was that I was in this position to begin with, finally released me from it. She called just as Peter was describing, in the detail only a writer of horror films could, exactly what Sylvester would have done to me if I hadn’t been lucky enough to be rescued by Jackie.
“Hey, Robyn,” I said. “Thanks for getting your dad on my case.”
“Somebody needs to be on your case, Juliet. You think you’re a cop, but you don’t have the most important tool in a cop’s arsenal.”
“What’s that? A .357 Magnum?”
“No, backup.”
That one word, more than all of Al and Peter’s shouting and cursing, took me aback. Because it was true, I went down there all on my own, without backup. Worst of all, once I was there, when things got dicey, I forced someone to act as my backup, and I had no idea what the ramifications of that act would be for her. Jackie had spoken so carelessly about her immunity from Sylvester’s violence, but I had no idea if that was true. For all I knew, for all she knew, she could be in terrible danger. And I had put her there.
I had to get that man off the street.
“What did you find?” I said.
“I found two possibles. A Sheila Jones who was killed in 1991, cause of death was internal injuries from a beating. And a Jane Doe, 1990, also beaten. Both those cases are unsolved.”
A sudden horrible thought crossed my mind. “Do you think this could be another serial killer? That either Sylvester or someone else killed them and then killed Violetta?”
“These two cases look really different from one another. The Jane Doe was a horrifically violent sexual assault, and the Jones case looks like a robbery. Her purse and jewelry were gone. Someone tore a gold necklace off her neck, breaking the clasp and leaving a few links. I suppose that could have happened after she died; bodies get robbed sometimes, but the fact that there’s no sexual assault in this case makes me think they’re different killers.”
Neither of them sounded much like Violetta’s murder, either. I jotted down the details anyway. When I hung up I found Peter and Al commiserating over the Dodgers draft picks. Clearly their shared rage had been a bonding experience for them. I’d never seen them quite so friendly before. Usually the most they could muster for one another was polite disinterest.
I called Detective Sherman, finding him at his desk. His reaction to my antics of the night before was not much more positive than my husband’s and Al’s had been. He modulated his volume, but the hectoring tone was the same.
“Jesus!” I said finally. “Okay, I get it. I was an idiot for going down there, and I’ll never do it again. Now will you please let me tell you about Sylvester?”
“Hm,” he said when I was done.
“Yeah, I know. It’s not much. But if you have some physical evidence from those two cases, maybe you can check it out.”
“This isn’t enough to bring him in, Juliet,” the detective said. “Not for the old cases. I can’t make an arrest based on unsubstantiated rumor. No judge will issue the warrant.”
“I figured as much,” I said.
“I like him better for your client’s murder,” he said. “He’s her pimp, he’s got a reputation for violence. It’s enough to justify a conversation. You know what, I’ll give that detective a call. What was his name? Gordon?”
“Jarin.”
“Yeah, Jarin. I remember him from before I moved out of the 77th Division. I could never remember his name back then, either.”
Relieved I wouldn’t have to speak to the man myself, I said, “You can tell him to call me if he wants.”
“I’ll do that. Now, will you promise me one thing? Will you promise me that you’ll just leave it alone now, let us do our jobs?”
“I promise I won’t go questioning dangerous men on Figueroa Street anymore, how about that?”
“Good enough,” the detective said.