Detectives caught an unexpected break—cooperation from Eighty-Nine Family Bloods. Collect calls from Big Evil to members of the Eighty-Nine Family ordered anyone with info about Terminal’s final hours to notify his mom. Evil didn’t want to ask the boys to give the information straight to the police. He still had clout, but when one is serving an LWOP sentence, the general feeling from the homies, especially the young ones, is “What can he do to me? He’s in for life without.” Most knew Evil could still do a lot, but not like the old days. Once the Joint Task Force brought Evil down, Eighty-Nine Family was not the same. Though they were never a huge gang, like, say, Grape Street or Rollin Sixties who each had more than a thousand members. But, the seventy or so members the 89s did have were true hard-core gangsters. Real riders, ready to die for their cause, whatever that was. They didn’t even know. Now their ranks were depleted, cut down by bullets and long prison terms. Yet, when Evil let those still on the streets know that his mother could be in danger, to a man, they said they would tell her whatever they learned.
One of them, Showboat, told Evil he would talk to her immediately. After he did, Betty Desmond called Sal, got his voice mail, called Hart, got him.
She told him someone had seen Terminal drive away that night, after he threw a naked man in the trunk of a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme that was blocking the alley. Showboat wasn’t a Cutlass man, so he just said this particular model was from the 1980s. It was something to go on. Hart let the troops know.
“Shit,” Waxman said when he heard from Hart. “Johnny, I think that Sims, I think he had a Cutlass. It was a either Cutlass or the Buick, ugh, Buick had a version. What was it? Regal. It was a Regal or a Cutlass.”
“Okay, check out Sims with DMV. That’s a common name, so have ’em cross the address. Get a driver’s license picture, too.”
“Jesus, Johnny, I’m a damn detective, too. You gonna wipe my ass for me?”
Hart hung up.
An hour later, Detective Waxman’s phone rang. It was the DMV. Edward Sims had a blue 1984 Cutlass Supreme SL Coupe registered to him. Waxman got a chill. They agreed to e-mail Sims’s California driver’s license photo to the homicide table at Southeast Division, to South Bureau Homicide, to Press Relations downtown, and to Pelican Bay. Hart would notify the prison of the impending e-mail.
Don Ball, the Pelican Bay guard, went to the tier in the SHU where Big Evil was held. “What up, Big Red?” Evil said cheerfully. “When we gonna do a guards versus inmates game again?”
Big Red didn’t say a word. He just held up the DMV photo of Eddie Sims. Evil grabbed the bars and tried to shake and break them à la King Kong.
Detectives went to the Desmond house with the photo. Betty Desmond, who had taken a leave of absence from her job, was home and confirmed that that was the man who came to her house. Hart e-mailed the photo to Lyons. “Is this the guy who shot you?” was in the subject box. Lyons studied it for a long time, trying hard to focus on those terrifying moments on 2nd Street. He couldn’t say for certain it was the same man.
Meanwhile, the chief’s aides were setting up a press conference to announce Edward Sims as a “Person of Interest.”
“Stupid story is not even one day old and we got the suspect,” the chief said to Lieutenant Lucy Sanchez of press relations. Then he remembered Judge Reese. Damn, he thought, it would be nice to have the big breaking news press conference at five, but, shit, this can’t wait. “We have to protect the judge, Lucy. We can’t wait. Notify the media immediately. They need to put this picture out now. And the car and license plate.”
Those in the LAPD who were involved felt a surge. They were close to getting this guy. Only one detective was depressed over the recent development. Waxman. “Zeus all mighty,” he muttered to himself when he was alone. “I had a serial killer, the Evil Killer, give my kid’s car a tune-up.” On top of it, the kid hadn’t even noticed the car was running better. Waxman had to tell him, which brought an, “Oh, yeah, Dad, I thought something was different.”