CHAPTER TWELVE
I left the courthouse without running into anyone I knew (or, if I did, I never saw them) and returned to the office in a daze. The look on Ray’s face after I hit him and the satisfaction of bringing him to his knees ruled my thoughts. I felt vindicated, yet scolded myself for acting so impulsively.
Back in my office I made a to-do list: talk to the neighbor who saw the kid leave the house the night Shanae was killed; try to confirm Tina’s alibi; find out more about Shanae’s friend, Little D; file appeals and motions. I made a mental note to call Hirschbeck ten times a day, or until he would give us something on that damned audit and agree to check the computers. I still wanted to find out where Cooper was hiding in Philly. If he was, in fact, in Philly. Those tasks, plus various and sundry other matters, would keep my plate full for a while. Full enough to push Ray into the far recesses of my mind.
I picked up the phone, then punched in Duvall’s cell number. When he answered, I said, “How are the Carolinas?”
“Lovely, as always. I’d enjoy it more, if it weren’t for this family business we have to take care of.” He explained that they were cleaning out his mother’s house before she went into an assisted living facility. Mom wasn’t happy about it. I couldn’t blame her.
He sounded tired and frustrated. I listened to him grouse and inserted a supportive “uh huh” now and then. Listening to Duvall’s travails wore me out. I had my own shit to deal with.
When there was a break, I said, “Duvall, I hate to bring up business at a time like this.”
“What do you need?” He sounded relieved.
“Can you recommend an investigator I could use while you’re away? I tried to find Cooper at the Philadelphia address you gave me and struck out.”
I recapped my conversations with Marzetti and Elva McKutcheon. My description of Elva made him laugh.
“Try Alex Kramer,” he said. “She’s in Baltimore. Her number’s listed online. I’ve worked with her. If anyone can find Cooper, she can.”
“Thanks. I’ve got too much going on here to find Cooper myself.” I cradled the receiver on my shoulder and entered Kramer’s name and city into Switchboard.com. “By the way, have you ever heard of a guy named Little D?”
“Little D? Sure. Got a lot of street cred, as they say. Don’t tell me he has something to do with this embezzlement case.”
“No, this is for another matter.” I filled him in on Tina’s situation.
“Little D’s okay. I’ve worked with him whenever I’ve needed information from places in P.G. County where I ain’t quite dark enough to pass for a local. See what I’m saying?”
“So he’s a private investigator?”
“Well, technically, no . . . not licensed. He does favors for people, and he usually gets a little something for his efforts. He could help you find witnesses or do background checks for your murder case—unofficially, of course.”
Oh, good, I thought. Another expense with no receipt. I pondered where to place it on my Schedule C. “Does this Little D have a name?”
“Darius Wilson, Jr. He’s Little D and his dad’s Big D.”
“How far can I trust this guy?”
“Well . . . he won’t double-cross you or do anything you specifically ask him not to do. He may use a few methods you don’t like, but only when he needs to. You have to understand the kind of crowd we’re talking about. They don’t always respond to ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Tell him you know me. He’ll treat you right.”
“Okay. Long as he doesn’t kill or torture people, I can live with that.”
“Let’s put it this way—I’ve never seen him kill anyone. And I don’t think what he does qualifies as torture so much as persuasion.”
“That makes me feel a whole lot better. Are we talking about breaking thumbs or kneecaps here?”
“He won’t do it, if you specifically ask him not to.” A low current of anxiety surged under my skin. What would this guy do if you gave him no direction?
“I’ll have to watch what I say. Assuming I use him.”
“I’d advise you to. Are you going to canvas the neighborhoods around Suitland all by your lonesome? I mean, some of these folks may have no problem talking to you. But if this involves a girl gang, there may be some you can’t take on alone. When it comes to gangs, a lot of people require the gentle art of persuasion to start talking.” Duvall paused. “And it never hurts to have someone looking out for your back. You’ve blundered into enough dangerous situations in neighborhoods where you wouldn’t expect trouble, so why take any chances in this case?”
“Thanks for pointing that out,” I said. My tone was acidic. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. “I’ll keep it in mind. Nobody in law school told me that my cases might require protection from a knee-breaker named Little D.”
Duvall chuckled. “By the way, don’t let the nickname fool you. Little D is anything but little.”
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I chose to ignore Duvall’s warning for now and visit Shanae’s neighbor. Before going, I called Hirschbeck again and left another message. Maybe it wasn’t fair to push so hard after the death of one of the company’s own, but my first concern had to be Brad Higgins.
I drove to Hillcrest Heights where Shanae and Tina had lived. The neighborhood of small brick ranchers, paired by common walls, was off Fairlawn Street, not far from Branch Avenue and Iverson Mall—the kind of mall where you wouldn’t find a Lord & Taylor or Nordstrom. A small lawn of half-dead grass and a stump fronted their house. I pictured tiny Shanae firing up a chainsaw and felling the lone tree. So much for those damned leaves.
I went to the house next door to Shanae’s, a clone except that its owner had cared for it. Yellow chrysanthemums grew between a pair of azalea bushes, and a tall maple arched over the lot, its branches like protective arms. The house’s brown shutters appeared freshly painted. A pot of purple and yellow pansies hung outside the front window. A faded green mat with “Welcome!” in white script lay on the front stoop.
I rang the bell and noticed a thin elderly black man raking leaves across the street. He stopped and looked at me then resumed raking. But I caught him shooting me sidewise glances.
A short woman with cocoa-colored skin opened the door as far as it would go with the chain in place and peered at me. She wore a yellow floral housedress and brown cardigan.
“Mrs. Mallory, isn’t it?” I said. I handed her one of my cards. She looked it over with a slightly bemused expression. “I’m representing Tina Jackson. She’s been accused in the, uh, unfortunate death of her mother.”
“Dear God, tell me that isn’t so!” The corners of the woman’s mouth curled down and her brown eyes, like hot fudge sauce, gleamed. Worry lines furrowed her brow.
“Unfortunately, it is. I understand you saw Tina or someone who looked like her leave the house Wednesday night.”
“Well . . . yes, I told the police that. But Tina wouldn’t have killed anyone. I told them that too.”
“What time did this person leave the house?”
“I think it was a little after eight. I’d drifted off in fronta the TV and a noise woke me up. People yelling. At first, I thought it was the TV, but no one was yelling on the program. So I got up and looked out the window,” she said. “That’s when I saw her.”
“Are you sure it was Tina?”
“I couldn’t be sure. But who else would it be, leaving her house at that time?”
“Did you get a good look at her face?”
“Not really.” She squinted. “She wore a skullcap, pulled way low. The collar of her jacket was turned up, so it was kind of hard to see.”
“What made you think it was Tina, if you couldn’t see her face?”
“She was about Tina’s height and her complexion was light, like Tina’s. And, like I said, she was coming outta Tina’s house.”
“Maybe it was a friend?”
“I dunno. Tina don’t bring too many friends over.”
“What else was she wearing?”
“Kind of loose-fitting pants with the jacket. You know, what the kids like to wear.”
“But you couldn’t swear it was Tina. Are you even sure it was a girl?”
“Well, I couldn’t swear it was Tina, no. But I think it was a girl. She was carrying a purse.”
“Can you describe the purse? Did it look like Shanae’s?”
She paused. “It was one of them satchel purses. I may have seen Shanae carry one, but then you see them all over, you know?”
I saw a ray of hope in this woman’s lack of certainty. She couldn’t positively identify Tina. And whoever it was could’ve been carrying Shanae’s missing purse. Could it have been someone from the gang? It would explain the lack of forced entry, if one of Tina’s friend’s had asked Shanae to let her in. But why would a gang member want to kill Shanae? A chilling possibility crossed my mind. Surely, Tina wouldn’t have asked someone to do it, or even paid them. These days, the notion of kids as hired killers wasn’t beyond the pale.
“I’m sorry, how rude of me.” Mrs. Mallory broke the silence following my plunge into morbid thoughts. “Why don’t you come inside so we can talk.”
“Actually, I didn’t have much more to ask.” But Mrs. Mallory had already scrabbled the chain off its groove and opened the door. She was a plump woman, with graying hair and a round, friendly face, its features only slightly eroded by time and the burdens of living. She gestured for me to come inside.
“Was there anything else you saw that night?” I asked, as she led me to a small living room. We sat on a sofa covered in nubby brown fabric. It sagged under our weight. “Anything at all?”
“Why no.” She wrung her hands as she spoke, as if washing them. “I did see Tina come by earlier that day. I remember thinking she should’ve been in school. Then, I heard her mother yelling at her. These walls are thin. They argued quite a bit . . . .” Her voice trailed off and her expression turned wary. Her words were damaging to Tina. And she looked like she knew it.
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
She shook her head. “Not so I could understand it. They was both cursing a lot. But I couldn’t tell you what it was all about.”
“Anything else you remember about that morning?”
“Tina didn’t stay long. They had words and she left.”
“Did you see Shanae at any point after that?”
She nodded, still scrubbing her hands beneath an invisible tap. “I heard her talking to this man outside. He came by to visit in the afternoon. Some friend of hers with a fancy green car.”
Little D, I thought. “When was that? Do you know how long he stayed?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. I just remember they were outside, talking. It was ’round four. She walked him to his car.”
“You’re sure it was four?”
“Yeah. I remember ’cause my stories were going off.”
“Did you see Shanae at all after that?”
“Not alive. I was the one who . . . found her.” Her lips pursed and her eyes were wet. “God rest her soul,” she said, her voice cracking. “Poor woman. But I’m sure Tina couldn’t have done such a brutal thing.” She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know they didn’t always get along, but Tina was a shy, quiet child. They had words, that’s all.”
I thought about Shanae’s history of anger management problems and Tina saying alcohol fueled her mother’s abusive behavior. It reminded me of the interviews you see on the news, after a murderer is caught. “I can’t believe it,” the neighbors say. “He was so quiet. So nice.”
Least Wanted--Chapter 12