AFTER TAKING A STATEMENT FROM LIZ PORTER, AFTER INTERVIEWING FIVE MALE pediatricians in Dr. Akira’s office, after tying Pepe and Luke to chairs outside Trina Porter’s hospital room, I snatched the keys to the Crown Vic from Colin’s hand and raced back to the Jungle.
Teddy bears and candles had been left at Raul Moriaga’s front door—memorials for the man killed by ghosts. Some teddy bears had been slashed, and white stuffing now drifted around the courtyard. Most candles had been knocked over—and one upright candle held a small turd instead of a wick.
Regina Drummond hugged me before I could even say, “Hello.” This morning, her eyes glistened with joy instead of sadness. She had ditched the kimono for jeans and a T-shirt. She had recently visited a salon—her hair smelled of flat-ironed oil sheen. She looked fine, on the mend—but so did a wound wearing a fresh scab. One stupid move, and she’d be weeping again.
“That reporter from OurTimes called me,” she said, wiggling her nose. “He feels … skeevy, though.”
I laughed. “No comment, but I’d trust your gut.”
“They moved my court date,” she said. “Maybe they’ll have some mercy on me. Ain’t no punishment worse than …” Her nostrils flared—the scab was threatening to rip off.
Early-morning sunlight filled a living room that testified to an active existence. The apartment smelled of toast and bacon, and a plate of it sat on the couch next to an open Essence magazine. The television, broadcasting an episode of Maury, showed the titular host and a young black woman named Visa, there now to identify all the men who could’ve fathered her two-year-old daughter, Pleasuria.
“Where’s your mother?” I asked.
“At my auntie’s in Lancaster.” Regina sat beside me on the couch. “After what happened yesterday with Raul—”
“He didn’t do it.”
She blinked at me, then her eyebrows crumpled. “What you mean?”
“His DNA doesn’t match what was found on Chanita.”
Her face hardened.
“Did you know that folks were gonna go after Raul?” I asked.
“Nuh uh.”
Right then, I believed in Santa Claus more than I believed Regina Drummond.
“So the man who killed my daughter …?”
“Is very, very close to being caught.”
She sighed, then aimed the remote control at the TV. With one click, Maury and Visa disappeared. “But he ain’t been caught yet?” That scar would be off any minute now.
“I just have a few quick questions, and I tried calling—”
“Phone got cut off,” she said with a shrug. “Had other things to worry about. Bills? Please. I’m having a hard enough time comin’ up with the cash to pay for Nita’s headstone.”
I eyed her a moment: was she being truthful or was she up to her grifting ways? “Before I leave, give me the mortuary’s number. Me and my partner, we’ll handle it, okay?”
A smile brightened her face, and her eyes shone with tears again. Too moved to speak, she simply bobbed her head.
No matter what Regina Drummond did for a living—kiting, grifting, fraud—her comeuppance shouldn’t have been the murder of her daughter. And that daughter certainly didn’t deserve death and no headstone as payment for her mother’s sins.
“What did Chanita do last summer?” Pen poised to write, I waited for Regina to say “camp” or “summer school” or … anything.
Instead, she shrugged. “I was … away most of the summer. I know she hung out at the park a lot, taking pictures. She sent me some. Just like the picture I gave you, the one with them purple flowers. I’m thinking she was with Mr. Bishop or somebody.”
I scribbled in my notepad. “Did Chanita have a regular pediatrician? You know, for physicals, shots …?”
“I take her to a clinic over on Crenshaw,” she said. “Women & Children Medical Group. It’s in the shopping area right across the street from the funeral home. The cobbler place is next door. There’s a camera store there, too.”
“What’s the doctor’s name?”
“Umm … Doctor …” She reached beneath the coffee table and grabbed the accordion file there. She thumbed through papers and receipts. “I don’t remember his first name, but his last name is Fletcher.”
I wrote the name as though my pen had been dipped in molasses. “Is he an older man? A young guy? Black? White?”
She shook her head. “Not a black guy. White or maybe Latino but not Mexican. Anyway, he’s around your age. Cute. Very sweet. He’d give us samples when I couldn’t afford the entire prescription. Sometimes, he didn’t even charge for the visit cuz he just wanted Nita to be well. He’s doing God’s work.”
I hustled back to the car.
God’s work.
Phone to ear, I made a call.
Vaughn Hutchens’s hello sounded ragged and thick.
“Sorry,” I said, “I know it’s early.”
“I’m up,” she said. “Talking to Donald about the arrangements for Laynie’s service.”
“Donald?”
She paused, then said, “Laynie’s father.”
Something inside me twisted and burned. Because now he was back?
“I saw the story on that dead Mexican,” she said. “Is it true? Did he do it?”
I told her about Moriaga’s innocence … in this case.
She sighed, then asked, “And the new girl who escaped?”
“She gave us some information, which is why I’m now calling you. Did Laynie see a regular doctor?”
“Laynie was at the doctor’s office all the time,” Vaughn said. “Sometimes, she’d go on her own since my hours were strange. She went to Mercy Medical Group, down the hill on Santa Rosalia. Across from where those new condos are.”
“Crase Parc and Promenade?”
“Uh huh.”
“Do you remember her doctor’s name?”
“Dr. Fletcher.”
I thanked Vaughn, then ended the call. My T-shirt stuck to me—I had sweated enough for three women. And now ice was forming where I had sweated. I shivered as my mind played images of meeting Zach in the park, of his text messages to me, talking in the Starbucks parking lot, my hand in his …
No. Too much.
My mind scratched it all, then twisted those memories into balls of paper. I called Colin. “Both girls went to the same doctor,” I blurted as soon as he answered. Then, I told him about my conversations with Regina and Vaughn. “Both girls saw the same doctor but at different clinics. His name is Zach Fletcher.”
“I’m looking at the list to confirm,” Colin said.
I held my breath as he flipped through the pages.
The page turning stopped. “Yep. He’s on the list.”
“I know him.”
Colin didn’t speak at first, but then said, “Come again?”
And I told Colin that Zach Fletcher had been courting me or gaming me ever since Wednesday. That on Saturday night, over coffee, he’d told me that he worked at the clinic near the cobbler place. That the message written on the card Zach Fletcher had sent with the flowers yesterday had also referred to Where the Wild Things Are.
Hope you land in a place where someone loves you best of all.
“Shit, Lou,” Colin whispered.
“The girls went with him because they trusted him,” I said. “And they trusted him—”
“Because he was their doctor.”
And I trusted him because he was a doctor.
I groaned, then rubbed my face with my free hand. My stomach and head hurt—my brain was kicking both and calling me “stupid” and “blind” in between kicks.
“So what’s the plan?” my partner asked.
“Let’s find out where he lives,” I said. “Get his license plate number from the DMV and put out a BOLO. I’ll drive to one of the medical offices—send a car over to cover me.”
“Yep,” Colin said. “And keep your radio on.”
I turned the key in the ignition. “See you on the other side, partner.”