LA. Franco Mysteries: End Of Watch Part 11

"Started off in the East Village, then after my dad died we moved to the Lower East Side. We were in the Towers when Foster and Laurie got killed."

"The projects, huh? That musta been tough for a white girl."

Frank shrugged. "I did all right. My dad taught me how to take care of myself."

After squinting at a couple parked cars, Annie asked, "Any other white kids there with you?"

Frank grinned. "There were a couple of us. We stood out like maggots in a s.h.i.+t pile, but I was the only blonde. They used to call me aYella.' It wasn't so bad."

Frank squirmed. The projects weren't physically bad. She got knocked around a time or two, frightened sometimes, but nothing terrible happened. The bad part was what had happened to her on the inside. The projects taught her to rely on herself and herself only, to trust or care for no one. But as they pa.s.sed two kids skipping hand in hand with their mother she remembered that wasn't completely true. She'd gotten a lot of b.l.o.o.d.y noses defending kids who couldn't defend themselves. She hated the way the strong preyed on the weak, the trickle-down economics of the ghetto where the father beat the mother, the mother beat the kids, and the kids took it out on anyone smaller. Frank wasn't always bigger than her adversaries but she was always angry and her anger found outlet in perceived injustices. Injustices she could control.

A shriveled man hunched on a stoop brought Frank back to the present. "So your case with the little girl. Where'd you catch her father?"

"That's a h.e.l.luva note." Annie rooted in her purse for a pack of coffee beans. "A unit picked him up on the sidewalk. He knew we had the other perp and he was on his way home to blow his brains out. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I had a case like that. Couple years ago. Perp raped an eight-year-old so hard he killed her. Internal bleeding. The girl's father found him before we did. Tied him up in the machine shop where he worked and sliced the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's d.i.c.k off. Choked him with it. Felt kinda bad cuffin' him."

"Yeah, I know, huh?"

The women continued swapping stories, making the drive to Canarsie cheerful despite traffic and brooding clouds. They found a parking spot on Remsen and headed for the cemetery office.

"Good morning," Annie greeted the man inside, flas.h.i.+ng her badge. "NYPD Homicide. I'm Detective Silvester, and this is Detective Franco."

The man bowed his head nervously. "Good morning," he answered in a rich Indian accent. "What can I do for you?"

"We need to talk to your groundskeepers. It won't take long," Annie a.s.sured.

"Yes, yes." He nodded. "I get them for you."

He darted from the office and the women looked around.

Annie asked, "You thought about this yet?"

"About what?"

"You know." Her hand circled the room. "What you're gonna do."

"Not really." Frank frowned. "I think I got a little time left."

"Ain't you the c.o.c.ky one? How do you know some mope ain't gonna whack you tomorrow? Or G.o.d forbid"-she crossed herself-"we get in a car wreck on the parkway? You of all people," she chided.

"Why me of all people?"

"Bein' a homicide cop, for Pete's sake. Seein' what you seen. Of all people you should know there ain't no guarantees."

Frank had shaken hands with her mortality half a dozen times but had never considered what would happen next. "What are you gonna do?"

"Buried," Annie proclaimed, jabbing a finger at the ground. "Mahogany coffin, the works. I'm goin' out like a Viking, you know. In the most comfortable s.h.i.+p I can find, only not on fire."

Frank smiled. "You're somethin', Detective."

"Ya got that right, cookie."

The man returned, apologizing that the groundskeepers would be just a minute.

"No problem," Annie soothed. "Thank you."

"May I ask what you're investigating?"

"An old case. Thirty-six years old. See, the NYPD nevuh quits." She winked.

"Manny and Robert." He bobbed his head. "They will help you, yes? Please sit. They'll be soon here."

"Thank you." Annie was effusive in her praise, her charm wooing wits and perps alike.

They sat on the couch and Frank gave her an elbow. "You're good."

"You noticed." Annie sniffed.

Two men, one Hispanic, one Asian, both in work clothes, entered the office. Annie made the introductions, then they followed Frank to her father's plot.

Weaving around headstones Annie asked, "How often do you clean up the flowers left on graves?"

Manny, the Hispanic male, shrugged. "Depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On how bad they look," Robert answered. "When they start gettin' brown we throw aem away."

Annie looked around. "I can see the place is very clean, very professional. I should be so lucky to be buried here."

From her comment about "the works" and Viking funerals it sounded more like Annie had Forest Lawn in mind. Frank murmured, "On a cop's salary you should be so lucky."

"Amen. So tell me, Robert." She interrupted herself. "May I call you, Robert?"

"Sure."

They were standing at Frank's father's grave. There were no flowers, no candles. Just two headstones maintained by indifferent strangers. Frank concentrated on Annie and the groundskeepers.

"All right, Robert. So tell me, how often do you throw away flowers from this grave?"

He hefted his shoulder. "Not that much. Someone comes and changes them. There's usually fresh flowers. I don't know, about every two weeks?" He appealed to his colleague.

Manny dragged on his cigarette with self-importance. The detectives indulged him. He nodded. "Something like that."

"You say someone. Who's the someone? Male? Female? White? Black?"

"I don't know." Robert shrugged again. "They must come durin' the weekend. We don't work weekends."

"When was the last time you saw someone at this grave?"

"Oh, man, I don't know. I couldn't tell you. There's a lotta people come and go from here. I don't notice aem, you know? I'm workin'."

"There's a lot people come and go," Annie repeated. "But you never noticed anyone here?"

"No. I might have seen someone but I wasn't payin' attention, you know? I never seen anyone cryin' or sittin' for a long time like some people do, you know? You, Manny?"

Manny shook his close-cropped head. "Nah."

Frank came back to the frequency. "So there are fresh flowers about every two weeks, is that right?"

"About that," Robert agreed. "Sometimes I've had to throw aem away but mostly whoever brings the new ones throws away the old ones."

"The candle, too?"

"Yeah, I guess. Some a them you gotta toss acause they look old, you know? They're all peelin' or faded. They look messy. I've tossed a candle from here a couple times. Once or twice."

"What type of candle?"

Robert held his hands about ten inches apart. "The gla.s.s ones, you know? Religious candles?"

Frank nodded. "Can you remember what picture was on the candle?"

"No. There's too many. I can't remember aem all."

"Manny?"

He flicked ash on the grave. "I don't know. There was one time, though." He stared at the horizon like a Clint Eastwood character about to divulge the secret tragedy that turned him into a brooding vigilante. "I saw a priest here. Had the white collar and black coat, whole nine yards."

"When was this?"

Manny pursed his lips. "A long time ago."

"Ten years? Five years? Six months?" Annie prompted.

"Maybe like a year, year an' a half ago."

"What was he doing?"

"Changing flowers, I think. Something like that. I wasn't paying much attention. But a priest, the collar and all, it catches your eye."

"And you're sure he was at this grave?"

Manny shook his head, "Nah. Maybe. Coulda been, but I ain't sure. It was somewhere around here."

Frank asked, "You ever seen anything else here, besides flowers and candles?"

The men answered with head shakes and Annie told them, "All right, fellas, we appreciate your help, huh?"

The groundskeepers walked off, leaving Annie and Frank staring at the grave.

"So you got no family that coulda left the flowers?"

Frank wagged her head.

"No old friends? No war buddies?"

"Doubt it. My father and his brother both served in Korea but neither one of aem ever talked about it. I asked my father once and he told me it was nothing I needed to know about. After they were discharged they moved here from Chicago. All their friends were back there."

"They didn't make friends here?"

"Yeah, they had bar buddies but they were each other's best friend. I'm tellin' you, it's someone linked to the perp. Gotta be."

"Frank, I hate to be indelicate here, but what if, let's say, your pops, he had someone else in his life that you didn't know about? Someone special, huh? I mean, it's a possibility. Anything's possible and how would a ten-year-old know such a thing, right?"

"You mean another woman?"

"It's possible." Annie hefted her shoulders.

"Nah," Frank denied. "Not my dad. He was crazy about my mom. Yeah, sure, it's possible, anything is. But probable? Nah. I can't see it."

"Can't or won't, my friend?"

Frank stared hard at Annie before starting for the car. "We're done here."

CHAPTER 19.

Annie unlocked the car and as they slid in, she pressed, "I know it's not a pretty idea but you have to consider all the angles. Come on, you know that. And look what we got here-flowers, candles- it screams female. You gotta admit that."

Frank couldn't speak around the rage in her chest. As a cop she saw the potential of what Annie was saying. As a daughter, she was furious. Betrayal and logic silently warred as they crossed the East River. Coming into the city Frank allowed, "Well, whoever it is visits on a regular basis."

"Yeah, but I hate to tell you, we haven't got the resources to leave a man at the cemetery all day until whoever it is shows up."

"Don't have to. Em gonna do it."

"Whaddaya mean you're gonna do it? You gotta get back to LA. You got a job, don't ya?"

"Yeah. With years' worth of accrued vacation time. People take two-, three-week vacations all the time. Why can't I? It's winter, it's slow. I got a good crew that knows what to do without me. And if our mystery visitor shows up as regularly as it sounds like, then it shouldn't take more than a week or two. Maybe three, tops."

"I don't know," Annie worried.