Sixty-Seven
She had been jittery all night, needing a hit more than she needed food. Regina Campos didn’t care what kind of drug she took, she just needed to get high on something – anything. She had no money, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. She knew exactly what to do to get her fix. By the age of sixteen, Regina had already learnt that any man would melt like butter if you knew what to do to him in bed.
Regina was only eighteen, and if you asked the few people who knew her, they’d probably describe her as average. She was of average height, with an average body and average looks. In a crowd, no one would give her a second glance. Her hair was neither long nor short, and in high school she’d been an average student, until she dropped out. But she was charming, and she sure knew how to get what she wanted out of people.
Regina had had a string of good-for-nothing lovers and casual encounters. Actually, they were good-for-one-thing lovers – drugs. Her newest good-for-one-thing lover, if she could even call him a lover, was a slob, an ex-convict, who lived in a housing project in Bell Gardens. He was overweight, had the stamina of a 90-year-old man in bed, and got his kicks by wearing women’s panties. Regina couldn’t give a dry spit for how he got turned on. All she knew was that he could get her drugs.
She’d called him late last night, desperate, but he told her over the phone he wouldn’t be in all night. She could come over in the morning if she wanted to.
It had been a long night of waiting for Regina.
She took the stairs up to the third floor like a marathon runner. By now she was so frantic for a hit she was grinding her teeth like a bunny. She didn’t even think twice about the fact that the door to apartment 311 was unlocked, although her lover never left his door unlocked.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside the smelly apartment.
‘Hello, babe,’ she croaked. She’d been smoking so much crack lately it’d started damaging her vocal cords.
There was no response.
She was about to start searching the apartment for him when she saw something that was much more appealing – a silver box sitting on the small dining table. Next to it was a square mirror, and on it Regina could see residues of a white powder. Her little brown eyes lit up like a 4th-of-July sky.
‘Babe?’ she called again, with a lot less enthusiasm this time. Who cared where he was when her payment was already there, waiting for her?
Regina approached the table and ran her middle finger along the mirror, collecting all the leftover residue. She quickly brought the finger to her mouth and rubbed it against her gums before licking it, as if it’d been dipped in honey. Instantly her gums went numb and she shuddered with delight from the strength of the drug. That was very good stuff. She opened the box and looked inside. There were five hand-folded paper wraps. Regina knew exactly what was in them. She’d seen plenty of those before. Her lips spread into a huge smile.
For once Christmas had come early.
She grabbed one of the wraps, unfolded it and tapped some of its white powder onto the mirror. Her eyes searched the table for something she could use as a snorting tube.
She found nothing.
Regina took a step back and looked around. Under the table she saw a rolled-up five-dollar bill.
This was turning out to be a fantastic day.
She picked it up, tightened the roll-up, and brought it to her nose. She didn’t care for arranging the powder in a straight line or anything, she just needed some of it to reach her bloodstream, and fast. Closing one of her nostrils with her finger, Regina sucked in a deep breath through her nose.
The drug-high hit her almost instantly.
‘Wow.’
That was the best thing she had ever tried. No stinging or burning effect, just pure bliss.
She moved the rolled-up bill to the other nostril and sucked in a second deep breath.
This had to be what paradise felt like.
She put the bill down on the table and stood still for a moment, simply enjoying heaven.
Outside the day was already hitting 86°F. Regina felt beads of sweat starting to form at the top of her forehead. The drug had also bumped her body temperature up. She undid the top button of her shirt, but she needed to splash a little cold water on her face. She turned around and made her way to the bathroom. As she reached the door, she was engulfed by a strange sensation, like something crawling up the back of her neck. It made her shudder on the spot.
Her hand paused momentarily over the doorknob and she looked around herself, almost feeling a second presence.
‘Babe, are you in here?’ she called, moving her face closer to the door.
Again, no reply.
The tingling sensation at the back of her neck quickly ran down her spine, spreading through her whole body.
‘Wow, that really was some good shit,’ she whispered to herself.
Regina twisted the handle and pushed the door open.
Paradise became hell.
Sixty-Eight
By the time Hunter and Garcia got to apartment 311 in Bell Gardens, the forensic team’s investigation was in full swing. Four people dressed in hooded white coveralls were stepping over each other inside the tiny flat, doing their jobs. In the living room, a young forensic agent was dusting a wooden sideboard for prints. A woman armed with a handheld vacuum was collecting fibers and hairs from the floor. An older agent with a spray bottle and a portable ultraviolet light was looking for blood droplets on a silver box that was sitting on the dining table. All the while, the official crime-scene photographer was snapping away at everything.
Detective Ricky Corbí and his partner, Detective Cathy Ellison, were standing in the corridor just outside the apartment. Another three uniformed police officers were busy conducting the standard door-to-door.
‘Are you Detective Corbí?’ Hunter asked, coming from the badly lit stairwell.
The tall black man turned around and faced Hunter. He was around fifty years old, with a scowling face topped with tight-cropped hair sprinkled with just a little gray. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, a brown suit, and, judging by his physique, he’d probably played football when younger, and was still very physically active.
‘That’d be me,’ he said in a baritone voice. ‘And by the looks of you two, you’re Homicide Special.’ He offered his hand. ‘Detective Hunter, I presume.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Call me Robert.’ Corbí’s handshake was firm and strong. His palm was slightly tilted downwards, which Hunter knew from experience was usually a sign of an authoritative person or a controlling personality. From the word ‘go’ Corbí was indicating that he was the one in charge there. Hunter had no intention of opposing that authority.
‘Call me Ricky. This is my partner, Detective Cathy Ellison.’
Ellison stepped forward and shook Hunter and Garcia’s hand with almost the same firmness as Corbí. She was about five feet six in height, trim but slightly stoop-shouldered, with short dark hair, cut in a textured, graduated style. Her eyes carried the intensity of someone who took her job very seriously. ‘Call me Cathy,’ she said, quickly studying both detectives.
‘As I told you over the phone, the reason why I called you is that we found this in the victim’s living room,’ Corbí said, making a slight head movement towards the apartment, and handing Hunter a business card. ‘It’s one of yours, right?’
Hunter nodded.
Corbí reached inside his breast pocket for his notebook. ‘Thomas Lynch, better known as Tito. He was out on parole from Lancaster. Been out for eleven months. According to his record,’ Corbí faced Garcia, ‘you were the arresting officer seven years ago, and the one who got a confession out of him.’ He paused and reassessed his words. ‘Or should I say, you convinced him to cut a deal. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that since he was released he became some sort of informer for you guys.’