CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lennon turned onto Geary and walked with what she hoped looked like purpose toward the few girls who strolled the block waiting for a john to make an offer. It’d been three days since she’d found out that Ambrose Mars , or whatever his name was, was a lying fraud who belonged in prison, and had her gun and badge taken by Internal as they began their investigation. At first, she’d holed up in her apartment in stunned silence, trying to make sense of what had happened. Then she’d gotten angry and broken a few dishes on her tile floor. But when that had failed to satisfy, she’d decided the only way she’d find peace, or justice, was if she went looking for it herself.

She’d been duped and deceived, and at this point, she had to assume that even the intimate moments they’d spent together had been part of some greater plan to infiltrate the department, or steal evidence, or whatever he’d ultimately been there to do. And it enraged her, but it also ate at her pride, and if she was going to be honest with herself, she had to admit that it hurt her too.

Ambrose was the first man she’d really connected to since Tanner. And though she felt stupid for being conned, she also felt guilty because in some sense, it felt like she’d betrayed Tanner by giving even a small portion of her heart—the heart she’d promised to him —to a lying criminal.

I’m just ... not great in relationships. What was that? A way to give her an out before he used her? An out she hadn’t taken?

What was his point, though? Why had he taken a risk like that? If he was apprehended, he’d serve prison time.

God, she felt stupid. Stupid and gullible and pathetic. And she was driving herself crazy with questions that had no answers. And she suddenly had all this time on her hands. She could sit around and stew and beat herself up over the situation. Or she could do something about it.

She didn’t currently have police powers, and so she’d have to be creative—and smart—but decided that a personal investigation wasn’t going to hurt anyone. And if Mars had impersonated an agent to find out more about the “BB” pill case, then maybe he knew something she didn’t. Maybe this was bigger to someone than even the police understood. She was certain other inspectors had taken on the case since she’d been removed and sent home, but that meant the whole investigation was behind, as they’d have to read through the case, reexamine evidence, interview people who’d already been interviewed and try to get up to speed. All while juggling the cases they were already in the middle of.

But she’d collected some leads before getting attacked in that tent, and dammit, she was going to throw caution to the wind and follow them. The people she intended to interview didn’t want anything to do with the police, a double-edged sword that meant they might not talk to her. But they were also very unlikely to report her, should they be suspicious. Maybe the leads wouldn’t go anywhere. Or maybe once she was reinstated, she’d already have a leg up. Either way, it seemed worth it to try. And who knew, maybe she’d run into the criminal known as Ambrose Mars, because if he’d been interested enough in the “BB” pill case to infiltrate the police department, he likely still was. Which meant that he, too, would be searching for more answers toward whatever end he had in mind.

As soon as the sun had begun its descent, she’d headed to the TL, hoping it was late enough that there’d be at least a little traffic but early enough that the women would have a few minutes to speak with her.

That was, if they were willing at all.

First, though, she’d stopped in at the bar called the Cellar that Darius Finchem had mentioned, a dank underground establishment that would likely fail a firesafety inspection. It was creepy, but she’d gone early enough in the evening that there was still light spilling in through the entrance, and there were barely any customers.

Because you’re chickenshit. And fine, she didn’t really want to be there when the party, such as it was, was in full swing, though she would come back if she struck out on Geary. And, no surprise, the lone bartender hadn’t given her any information about supposed women who worked the back rooms. In fact, he’d outright denied knowing anything about that at all. So here she was on Geary now, hoping for a bigger break than she’d achieved at the Cellar.

There was a woman wearing a skimpy black dress, eating an apple and mumbling to herself on a bench, and though she was dressed like a prostitute, Lennon decided she’d leave her to her mumbling. Instead, she approached a woman in a pair of tight red shorts who leaned back against a light pole, smoking a cigarette. But when she attempted to speak with her, the woman raised her hand, showing Lennon her long spiked fingernails, and said, “Take off, pig. I’m not doin’ nothin’ your boyfriend isn’t happy to pay me for.” Well, at least Lennon wouldn’t have to flash an empty badge holder and hope no one noticed. People living here clocked her in a moment. Fine. That made things easier, in light of her current circumstances.

“I just have a few questions,” Lennon called after her.

But the woman raised her hand and shot her the bird, and then yelled, “Fuck you!” in case Lennon hadn’t taken the gesture to heart.

She sighed. Tommy had always had better luck getting information from the working girls. They’d proposition him first, but when he politely declined in that charming way of his, they still seemed sort of eager to please him anyway, in whatever way they could. Her? Not so much. “What the fuck are you lookin’ at?” asked another girl Lennon had started to approach. Lennon gave her a thin smile and turned the other way.

After a few more unsuccessful attempts, she decided that this was getting her nowhere and turned to leave. Wallowing in her misery at home wasn’t very empowering, but at least she knew how to be successful at that. “You lookin’ for information?” a woman wearing a pink tutu and silver thigh-high boots asked.

Lennon stopped, hope rising. “Yes. I just have a photo. I was hoping someone would look at it.” She started taking out her phone.

“Two hundred fifty bucks,” the woman said.

“Two fifty? That’s—”

The woman turned and started sashaying away. “Hey, two hundred. It’s all the cash I have on me.”

The woman turned, looking her up and down. “Two hundred and that phone case.”

Lennon glanced at the phone case she’d bought less than a week before on Amazon for almost seventy bucks. It’d been a bit of a splurge, but it was supposed to be military-grade rated, and with her job—

“Fine.” She removed her phone from the case and held it out to the woman.

“And that necklace.”

Lennon gaped. “No way.” Her mother had given her that necklace.

The woman shrugged again, and once more turned away. “Fine,” Lennon called after her, and again the woman walked back. Lennon unhooked the necklace and placed it in the woman’s open palm.

“Cash?”

“You have to look at the photo first.”

“Sis, I ain’t gotta do nothin’. Cash ,” she demanded, stressing the word.

Lennon stared at the woman’s open palm again. She reached for her small key chain wallet, hanging around her wrist. What the hell was she doing? Was she really about to turn cash over to a woman who was already obviously robbing her? But what other choice did she have? She pulled the two hundred dollars in twenties she’d taken out of the ATM on the way here, intending on doling out twenties for information, and handed the entirety to the woman. Then she opened her phone to the photo of the victim so far only identified as Cherish and showed it to her.

“That’s Cherish,” she said, her expression going slightly slack when she obviously realized it was a photo of a dead woman.

“Yes,” Lennon said. “Do you know her last name or where she lives?”

“No idea.” She started to turn away, but Lennon gripped her arm gently, and the woman jerked, pulling her arm away, but turned back toward her.

“This woman was murdered,” Lennon said. “Cruelly murdered. She was young, you know that. She looked to be about twenty years old. Not even old enough to drink. But she worked down here, putting herself at risk with men who didn’t give a damn about her. One of them might have taken her life. I’m trying to bring her justice. I’m trying to make sure this”—she shook her phone with the picture of Cherish on it—“doesn’t happen to another woman who works these streets.”

The woman hesitated, glancing up the block and then back the other way before returning her gaze to Lennon. “Please,” Lennon said. “Please help me make the person who did this pay.”

“I really don’t know her last name.” She glanced around again as though making sure no one saw her talking to an obvious law enforcement officer. “But she lived over on Ellis Street in the Tills Apartments. I don’t know the unit, but her roommate’s name is Brandy Wine. Gotta be her workin’ name, but that’s the only one I know her by.”

Brandy Wine. “Thank you,” Lennon said as the woman turned and began walking away quickly. “I appreciate it,” she said softly.

Lennon walked hurriedly to the place where she’d parked her car, her heart giving a hard knock as she approached. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Someone had broken the window of her Subaru. She leaned in tentatively, taking in the ransacked middle console that—less than an hour before—had held her sunglasses, some change, and her car charger. Those things were all gone, and her steering wheel was a mess of broken plastic and hanging wires.

“Airbags,” someone said behind her. She whirled around to see a man holding what looked to be a window-washing device, a bucket of soapy water on the ground in front of the window of a laundromat, the light emanating from inside making it easy to see the glass. “They’re a hot commodity. Thieves get a pretty penny for them.”

“Yes, I know.” She groaned. She’d done plenty of reports on stolen airbags when she was a police officer. Car break-ins were so common in the city that in many neighborhoods, people chose to leave their windows down. Thieves might still target your car, but at least you wouldn’t have to replace your window.

“Looks like just the one airbag,” the man said. “Lucky.”

Lucky. Right. Good fortune was really having its way with her. “Did you see who did it?”

The man shook his head. “They’re quick. I just came out here. You could knock on some doors, see if anyone else saw something, but I doubt it. People don’t blink an eye at it anymore.” He gestured up the street, and at first she wasn’t sure what he was pointing at until she realized there was broken glass sparkling from the gutter for as far as she could see, making it clear just how common it was.

The man turned back to the laundromat window. “You can’t change it,” he told her. “Police don’t give a shit, so you just have to learn how to minimize the damage. I’d tell you to take the bus, but that’s risky too.” He dipped his long-handled device into the bucket and then brought a big soapy spongeful of cleaner to the window. Lennon turned back to her vehicle and opened the door to inspect the seat. Thankfully, most of the broken glass had landed on the floor. She picked the few pieces off her seat and dropped them in the empty cup holder of her center console and then climbed inside, hoping no rogue slivers would pierce her ass.

Her career as a lone ranger was already off to a booming start.

She lowered her visor and saw the twenty-dollar bill she kept clipped there for emergencies that the thieves hadn’t found. “Ha!” She decided the money was a sign not to let this setback deter her, and so she pulled out her phone and did a Google search for the Tills Apartment complex the woman had mentioned. She was almost surprised that it really did come up and that the woman hadn’t lied and bilked her out of two hundred bucks and a couple of personal items. The address was listed, and Lennon whispered it under her breath, committing it to memory before opening the link and glancing over the page.

The building, what had once been a residence, was owned by the Tenderloin Development Company. The tagline read: Serving 25 individuals who currently experience mental health challenges and who were previously unhoused .

There were many such apartment buildings in the Tenderloin, low-income housing that had once been SROs and now catered to underserved populations. She put her car in gear and pulled away from the curb. In her rearview mirror, she saw that the line of cars on Geary had doubled in size since she’d arrived. The johns had gotten off work and decided they deserved some stress relief.

A car was just pulling out in front of the Tills Apartment, and Lennon swooped into the spot and got out. If thieves were going to steal her other airbag, at least now they wouldn’t have to break a window.

She set her mouth as she looked up at the structure. There were fire escapes connected by ladders up the front of the building and a metal gate protecting the entrance. Lennon scrolled to the bell that said B RANDY L OPEZ and pressed it. A minute later, the intercom buzzed, allowing her entrance, and Lennon pulled the gate open and climbed the stairs to apartment 3A. When the door was pulled open by a young woman with black bushy curls holding a toddler, Lennon said, “Brandy?”

“I thought you were DoorDash. Who are you?”

Lennon flipped open her empty badge and quickly flipped it shut. “I’m Inspector Lennon Gray, and I just have a few questions.”

The woman’s expression curved into derision. “If this is about that dude who—”

“This is about your roommate, Cherish.”

Brandy’s mouth gaped slightly. “You know where Cherish is?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Her body was found a little over a week ago. She was murdered.”

The woman let out a groan and leaned back against the wall, wrapping her other arm around the little girl and bringing her closer. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Where?”

“Shit,” the little girl repeated.

Brandy put two fingers to the toddler’s lips. “No,” she said. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry to break the news like this,” Lennon said. “Cherish wasn’t carrying ID, and I only found you through a woman on Geary who recognized Cherish from a photo.”

Brandy stared into space for a minute and then pushed herself off the wall, putting the little girl on the floor, taking her hand and turning. “Come on in,” she said.

Lennon started to enter when she heard Brandy’s buzzer. “There’s my food,” she murmured. “Hold on.”

Lennon followed her into the tiny apartment, which was clean and neat except for an overturned basket of toys. The woman buzzed in the DoorDash driver. She waited at her open door until a young woman appeared, handed her the food, then turned back toward the stairs.

Brandy brought the bags in, and Lennon waited while she set the toddler up in a high chair and cut up a burger and fries into bite-size pieces.

“How long did Cherish live here with you?” Lennon asked after Brandy had washed her hands and turned her way, drying her hands on a dishcloth. She tossed the cloth on the counter and gestured to the two-person table, and Lennon squeezed herself in and sat down.

“Only nine months or so,” Brandy said, taking a seat as well and smiling over at her daughter, who was busily shoving fries in her mouth. “She wasn’t on the lease, so she wasn’t supposed to be living here. But she slept on the couch and shared the rent.”

“Where did you think she was when she didn’t come home?”

“With a trick. She’d done it before, gone home with some guy who paid her to stay the weekend. Cherish also worked this club where men sometimes would pay her to go home with them.” A look passed over her face that told Lennon that Brandy was troubled by the club she’d mentioned—likely the Cellar—and she understood why. “She’d come home all blank-like, sometimes with bruises, and she’d get directly in the shower and stay there so long I knew the water had to be cold.”

“Are you in the business, Brandy?”

Her gaze moved to her daughter before she nodded. “I’m trying to get out. Maybe I’ll have to, now that Cherish won’t be here to watch Nadia. It’s tough, though, you know? Especially without a diploma or a GED.”

Lennon nodded, even though, really, she didn’t know. She’d been raised by loving parents who had her back, no matter what. They showered her with affection and praise, and if she ever tried to walk any street anywhere for any reason that put her in danger, her dad would pull up in his car and haul her into the back.

They weren’t even thrilled that she was an inspector working in rough areas of the city, even though she was usually armed. “So no idea if she actually went home with a customer?”

“No. I just assumed. Shit,” she said again under her breath.

“Is there anything you can tell me that might help us identify the person that did this? Was Cherish dating anyone? Had she gotten into a fight with someone recently?”

Nadia pulled a piece of burger apart and tossed the section of bun on the floor. “No, Nadia,” Brandy said halfheartedly, leaving the food on the floor where it lay. “Uh, no, Cherish wasn’t dating anyone. If she fought with anyone, I didn’t know about it. But Cherish was real chill. She wasn’t a fighter, you know?”

Lennon nodded. “Brandy, I don’t know if you knew, but Cherish was pregnant. About three months or so.”

Brandy seemed to deflate a little. She heaved out a sigh as Nadia launched a piece of burger onto the floor. “Yeah, I know. Stupid chick let ’em go bare. I told her she was gonna get knocked up again, and she did.” She met Lennon’s eyes. “The thing was, she wanted to keep the baby and get her other kids out of the system. She said she was gonna get herself better, get a legitimate job, something her kids could be proud of.”

Lennon held back the cringe at the news that Cherish had other children, and that they were in the system. Now they had no chance of ever knowing their mother.

“Anyway,” Brandy said, “Cherish went on and on about it. Some doctor was gonna help her. She was gonna get her boys back too. Blah, blah, blah.” She used her hand to gesture a flapping mouth.

“A doctor?” Lennon asked. “Like a therapist?”

Brandy shrugged. “I guess.”

“Do you remember his name?”

Her eyes moved to the wall behind Lennon’s head. “No. I called him the Candyman.”

A chill went down her spine. The name conjured the eighties slasher film, which felt far too close to home in this particular instance. “The Candyman? Why?”

“I don’t really remember. Something she said? I don’t know. Maybe because she seemed happy when she came back from seeing him, though. Like he was going to solve all her problems. Anyway, I just started thinking of him that way.”

Horror flicks aside, the Candyman might also be another name for a pill pusher, right? Lennon pictured those homemade purple pills. Maybe this doctor not only prescribed medication but made his own for reasons unknown. “Did he prescribe medication to her?”

“I don’t know. Hold on.” Brandy stood, left the room for thirty seconds while Lennon watched Nadia smear greasy pieces of burger on her cheeks. She smiled at the toddler, who gave her a—literally—cheesy grin back. When Brandy reentered the room, she was holding several prescription pill bottles. She put them down on the table in front of Lennon, who looked at them each in turn. They were prescribed to Cherish Olsen. “Dr. Frede,” she read the prescribing physician’s name aloud.

“That doctor is someone Cherish saw online, so he’s not the Candyman. But those are all the meds she was on,” Brandy said.

Online. Great. Now doctors were diagnosing and prescribing medications over the internet. What could possibly go wrong? Lennon read over the labels again. She’d have to look up a couple of these, but she recognized one for depression and another for anxiety. “Can I take a look at her things?”

“Yeah, sure. Like I said, Cherish had the couch. Her clothes are in the hall closet, makeup in the bathroom. But other than that, it’s really all she had.” She stood up and gestured to Lennon to follow her. When she opened the hall closet, situated right next to the front door, a whiff of stale perfume hit her nose. Brandy stood back as Lennon riffled through the clothing—a few tiny dresses and shiny pants clipped to a hanger, but also jeans and sweatpants. On the floor sat various pairs of platform heels and a pair each of sneakers and flip-flops. Clearly Cherish had had two very different personas.

None of this would help. “Did she have a purse or a wallet she carried with her? A cell phone?”

“Yeah, but she took it with her. She never left her phone behind.”

And yet, no phones had been found at the scene. Lennon nodded as Nadia started yelling for her mom. “Okay. Thank you for your help, Brandy.” She pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “Will you call me if you remember the doctor’s name or anything else that might help?”

Brandy took the card, studied it for a moment, and then stuck it in her pocket. “Sure.” She worried her lip for a moment, and Lennon waited while she obviously gathered her thoughts. In the other room, Nadia’s yells grew more demanding, and she started banging on her high chair. “Cherish seemed different in the last few months ... I don’t know if it was something that doctor gave her or what, but ever since she did that podcast, she had this like, fire inside, to change her life for the better. I don’t wanna know how Cherish died. But ... did she suffer?”

Did she suffer? Almost definitely. But why would she leave this woman with that knowledge? “She died quickly,” she said, something occurring to her. “Wait, you just mentioned a podcast? What was that about?”

“Oh, that? That’s just a way some people in the TL make a few bucks. It’s called The Fringe . I never watched it, and Cherish didn’t make much of it either. She took the cash and bought her kids some stuff. She seemed happy about that. But that was before she started going to the Candyman. Anyway, I think you can catch that podcast online. Me? I’m not into a buncha sob stories. But I guess some folks are.”

The Fringe. Nadia was now using her spoon or cup to bang on the high chair tray. “I’ll let you go,” Lennon said. “Thanks again.”