Wendy Hornsby: Bad Intent

The third book in the Maggie MacGowen series, 1994

I am indebted to so many people. To begin with:

Terry Baker, who offers succor and shares room service.

Beth Caswell, the Frick to my Frack time and again on the rubber chicken circuit.

Jan Burke, for whom there will always be a duck on my bike and Myers at my house (Sedona Sedona).

And my editor, Jennifer Enderlin, who is both patient and wise.

I can't forget Officer Doug Senecal, Metro Division, LAPD, who lent his handsome mug and impressive pecs to the Cause, as well as the ever-ready Dragnet.

Thank you.

It ain’t none of my grandbaby’s fault. He’s a good, Jesus-lovin’ boy. Like I say, it ain’t his fault Kenny Jackson got hisself killed. You ax me, I say it’s the lying police should hang they heads for takin’ away the baby daddy, puttin’ him in that jail for his child’s whole damn life. What’s he suppose’ to do? Fourteen years my grandbaby daddy been in that jail, fourteen years for something he ain’t even done. You lock up an innocent man that way, who’s gonna see to it his boy come up right? He ain’t got no mother. He ain’t got no one but me. I tell you this, for damn sure I ain’t got no help from the lying mothuhfuckin’ poh-lice.

Etta Harkness looked directly into the lens of my video camera, but she was playing to the crowd we drew, changing her answer to my question to please them, to feed their anger; the signs they carried said things like “No More Police Brutality” and “Justice for the Brother.”

LAPD had the intersection beyond the courthouse cordoned off so that a few busloads of protestors couldn’t get to the demonstration that was massing in front of Parker Center, the city’s police administration building. Because of my camera, we drew the frustrated overflow unable to get past the corner. I didn’t know what the issue was, but the mood was easy to read and, I confess, had me worried about getting away intact. The weather didn’t help-it was over a hundred degrees and not yet noon.

What Etta was saying was of no use to me, or to my documentary project: the question had been about how her grandson Tyrone, age fifteen, had managed to get himself charged with murder. But I let her run on, kept recording as she slipped into heavily accented ghetto-speak for the crowd, didn’t comment when she changed the story, transferred blame from her own broad shoulders to the police, because I wasn’t sure what the mob would do if I put my camera down.

Just about the time the light flashed on, warning me my battery charge was low, the police let six or eight news vans through their barricade. The vans parked at the curb in front of the courthouse and began disgorging jeans-clad video crews and fully made-up on-camera talent. Our spectators were drawn away, magnetized by prime-time news possibilities.

When they were gone, I turned off my camera and faced Etta without the lens as intermediary. “What was all that about?” I asked. “What happened to ‘the boy’s dad was a con and his mother was a junkie’?”

“They was.” Etta had the grace to blush, a deep rose that glowed under her mocha-colored makeup. “But the police never helped me none.”

“What about Officer Flint? You told me Officer Flint bailed out little Tyrone all the time.”

“I didn’t mean him.” She touched a tissue to her sweaty upper lip. “It was them others.”

“Right,” I said. If truth is beauty, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then I guess that, by extension, truth must also be a matter of personal preference. At any rate, a variable. “You want to go somewhere cool and have a soda before I walk you to the bus stop?”

Etta dabbed at her temples. “I thought I might go on by the police station and see what’s happening. I don’t get downtown much.”

“Suit yourself.” I handed her all the change I had in my pocket, for the bus. “I’ll be in touch.”

Before she walked away toward the line of police in riot gear, she said, “Say hey to Officer Flint for me.”

“Sure,” I said, but I thought it was about time for me to do more than say hey to the man.

I had turned my life, and my fourteen-year-old daughter Casey’s life, upside down to be with Mike Flint. We had agreed, we would spend two and a half years together in L.A. while Mike finished his twenty-five years on the LAPD and pensioned out. I could do that time standing on my head, as long as it meant breakfast every morning with Mike. But Casey and I had been in town for almost a week, and the one person in this city of three million I had not seen much of was Mike Flint.

I walked into the courthouse, stopped at the first pay phone, and dialed Mike’s office.

“Homicide Specials.” A familiar voice. “Detective Merritt. Can I help you?”

“Depends,” I said. “Can you sing all three verses of ‘You Are My Sunshine’?”

Merritt laughed. “Hi, Maggie. Let me get Mike.”

A pause, then, “Flint here.”

“MacGowen here,” I said. “What did you do this time?”

“Give me some choices.”

“Look out your window. There are a few hundred demonstrators on your lawn. I thought you might be in trouble again.”

“No more than usual. Do you have any clothes on?”

“None.”

“Damn, I wish I could walk out of this place right now.”

“That’s why I called. I’m still downtown. Meet me for lunch.”

“Sorry.” Mike’s baritone was deep, cranky. “I’m waiting for a warrant to come down.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Could get ugly. The witness I’ve been looking for? Neighbors saw her at her mother’s house this morning. The old lady won’t talk to me, but if she doesn’t decide to get helpful real soon, I’m gonna take my tire iron, rip the bars off her front door, and ramshack de’ place. As soon as I get the warrant.”

“Give me an address, I’ll bring my cameras.”

“Not a chance.”

“You okay, big guy?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’m just real tired of the way this goes down. No one wants to talk to me. The daughter saw a murder, for chrissake. All I want to do is bring her in, get her statement before the killer gets to her. I explained this to her mother, but do you think she’ll help me even if it means saving her own daughter? No way.”

“Perspiration is coursing down between my pert breasts,” I said. “Forget the old lady.”

Finally, he laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I will if I want to. Come out for an hour. The old lady will wait.”

“Sorry, baby,” he said. “Listen, I located the people you need to talk to for your film. LaShonda DeBevis works for the L.A. County Library, the Lennox Branch. The last known address for Hanna Rhodes is her grandmother’s.” He gave me a number on Grape Street in Watts.

“Forget Hanna,” I said. “I don’t have time to track her down.”

“Trust me, she’s worth the effort,” he said. When Mike is sure about something, he can be very pushy about it. “If you want to talk to people who grew up in the projects, you can’t do better than LaShonda and Hanna. Just don’t tell anyone where you got the information. I can draw a two-day suspension for unauthorized use of the DMV files.”