“What did you do?” I asked.
“I told the child to show me.”
“Will you show us?”
“Around here,” he said. He narrated as we walked. “It’s trashy here now, and it was trashy then, too. Henry Woodsonhe owned the station-kept some old wrecks in back he cannibalized for spare parts. A couple of Cadillacs, I recall, and a Bonneville.” He pointed out where these had been, dark oily patches on the ground. “Drunks used to climb into the cars to sleep. The girls should have known better than to be messing around out there, but they got a little fire going in an empty oil barrel and they were trying to keep warm.”
Shabazz stopped and looked around for bearings. Then he held out his hands in front of him, defining a big circle, maybe the oil barrel. “The girls were just about here when they heard the shots. Even fifteen years ago shots weren’t unusual. But the children were scared, so they started to run toward the cafe across the street where LaShonda’s mother worked. They ran smack into Charles as he backed out of the men’s facilities. They saw a gun in his hand. And they saw Officer Johnson lying on the floor inside.”
By then we had walked all the way around to the Clovis Avenue side where the restrooms had been. The doors and plumbing were long gone, most of the interior walls were gone, too. Standing opposite the restroom door, I could see daylight through the far wall of the old service bay.
Shabazz pointed toward the floor. “This is where the officer was lying when I saw him, face down with his head between the bowl and the sink. There were six bullets in his back and his head, I hear, but all I could see was blood.”
We had to step aside so that Guido could play around with what I was sure was an arty interior pan. He didn’t need us for that, so I moved away where the human smell was not so intense. Mr. Shabazz came with me.
I asked him, “Mr. Shabazz, even if he was an armed, streetwise cop, would a nice boy like Wyatt Johnson use a public restroom in a neighborhood like this after midnight?”
He blushed a little again. “Maybe not for the purpose it was intended. No one has ever answered why he was here. He was not robbed, you know.”
“Maybe the girls interrupted Conklin before he could finish some kind of business with Johnson,” I said.
He shook his head. “They met him on his way out.”
Guido joined us. “I don’t know how much time we have left, Maggie. Better give me your parting shot now.”
I looked around, chose open space for a backdrop. With James Shabazz next to me and Guido’s lens two yards in front of me, I said, “Mr. Shabazz, when Tyrone Harkness was still in diapers, his father was sent to prison for the rest of his life. If he had not been convicted of that crime, how do you think young Tyrone’s life might have been different?”
Shabazz shook his head. “No different. If Charles had not been sent up for that murder, he would have served time for something else. The most positive influence he could have on his son’s life was his absence from it.”
I paused for fade-out. Then I said, “Miss anything?”
“Let me think,” Guido said, flexing his arm, stiff from supporting the shoulder-held camera. “We have Mr. Shabazz I.D.‘ing Conklin as the shooter. No, I guess that’s everything.”
“Real funny, Guido,” I said. His words gave me a hot spot in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with Barragan’s salsa.
Shabazz said, “A private joke?”
“He’s needling me,” I said.
“Go ahead, Maggie. Ask him if he knows Mike Flint.”
“Officer Flint?” Shabazz said. “Of course I know him.”
Guido raised his camera again. “Tell us about him.”
“I have been watching the news,” Shabazz said, hesitant, as if feeling his way through a mine field. “I heard the names of Charles Conklin and Officer Flint linked.”
“I don’t have much juice left, Mr. Shabazz,” Guido said. “So, cut to the chase. Did Officer Flint coerce, threaten, bribe, intimidate LaShonda DeBevis and Hanna Rhodes to make them identify Charles Conklin as the man who shot Officer Johnson?”
Shabazz stroked his chin and posed for Guido, giving him a three-quarter profile. “I can’t answer that. Even if he did nothing overt, certainly Officer Flint’s size, his color, the authority of his position intimidated the children. I was not present during the questioning, I do not know whether he told the girls what to say. This I know, the truth they told was dangerous to them, and they would not have told it unless they were equally afraid to hold back. Does that answer your question?”
“No,” Guido said. “She wants to know if you like Officer Flint. Do you think he is redeemable?”
Shabazz smiled. “Do you like him, Miss MacGowen?”
“Yes I do. Very much.”
“Then, let me say this. Officer Flint operates under his own code. Now and then his code is in direct opposition to the laws he and his fellow officers have sworn to uphold. From my experience, Officer Flint did not always bother with the niceties and delays of due process.”
“You’re begging the question,” Guido said. “Yes or no. Do you like the guy?”
“Put that way,” Shabazz said, “the answer is no. I detest him.”
Chapter 15
“‘A truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent,” I said.
“Deep.” Guido yawned. “Very deep. Where’d you get it?”
“William Blake.”
“Deep and mystical. The question is, who’s telling the truth?”
“All of them. None of them,” I said. “The big question is, what is the intent?”
“Heavy.” Guido was hot, so I had bought him a couple of beers for the road. He finished one and opened the other, but he was already too sleepy to hold it upright. Wasn’t necessarily the beer. Guido sleeps like a cat, short naps whenever he can get them. The last thing he said to me was, “Fix the air conditioner, will ya?”
I put Eric Clapton in the tape deck and headed west on Century. Guido paid no attention to where I was going. He dozed, now and then rousing himself enough to sing toneless harmony to the choruses. He didn’t notice when I bypassed the Harbor Freeway and continued west when I would have turned north to take him straight home.
I found the Lennox branch of the county library in a small county administration compound on Lennox Boulevard, next to a sheriff substation.
It wasn’t until I pulled into the parking lot behind the library that Guido sat up and looked around. “You lost?”
“No,” I said. “I thought we might drop in on someone.”
He was fully alert as soon as he opened his eyes. “Like who?”
“LaShonda DeBevis’s former co-workers. Won’t take long.” I opened my door.
“I’ll wait,” he said. He got out of the car and found a tree to sit under.
Inside the library a couple of classes of what looked like first- or second-graders were getting their first library cards, handing in signed permission slips, printing their own names in the space the librarian showed them. The big rug in the children’s section was covered with little ones who had finished the process. They seemed more intent on the stiff new cards they clutched than on the story being read to them. Happy, proud faces.
I went to the information desk and handed the librarian there my business card, the Maggie MacGowen one. She was a tall, slender black woman, with lace on her collar and flecks of silver coiling out of the bun at the back of her neck.
“I’m researching a film,” I told her. “I want very much to speak with LaShonda DeBevis. I know she isn’t here anymore, but I hoped someone would be able to put me in touch with her.”
“I can’t give you an employee’s home number.” The librarian frowned over my card, apparently trying to make some connection in her mind, or reach some difficult decision. “I believe LaShonda is out of town for a few days, but I will call her for you and leave your message.”