CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The door to the one-story black building standing between two parking lots was propped wide open. “Hello?” Lennon called, leaning her head inside and looking around. There was a wall directly in front of her, however, and another one to her right. Even with the door open, the hall to the left faded into darkness. Lennon paused, but then stepped inside and walked toward the small glow that came from the other side of the wall. “Hello?”

She’d looked up the podcast that Brandy had mentioned and found that the host was a man named Jamal Whitaker. It appeared he interviewed people—using a video format—who lived or worked on the streets, including prostitutes, pimps, drug addicts, and more.

She’d searched for Cherish on the website but hadn’t found anyone with her name, even though a few young women had resembled her. Close, but no cigar. She had a feeling she was on the right track, though—thanks to Brandy—and was eager to talk to the host.

She heard footsteps and halted as a man rounded the corner, then drew back slightly. “Hey, sorry about that. I was editing a video. I thought I heard someone, and then—” He gave his head a shake and held out his hand. “Hi. I’m Jamal Whitaker. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Mr. Whitaker. I’m Inspector Lennon Gray with the San Francisco Police Department, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?” Please don’t ask to see my credentials.

“Inspector? Is there a problem?”

“No. Your name just came up during an investigation.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, sure. Like I said, I was just doing some editing. Come on back. Let me get some light up in here.”

Jamal flipped a switch, and light flooded the small space. Directly in front of her was a single velvet couch and a coffee table with a camera off to the side. The entire studio was compact, including the kitchenette to her right. Just one thing in the room was massive—the computer sitting atop a desk nearby, the screen showing the frozen image of a grizzled old man sitting on the velvet couch. Her gaze hung on the still shot for a moment. The old man looked utterly out of place on the somewhat fancy piece of classic furniture, and something about the juxtaposition moved her.

“Can I get you a coffee? A bottle of water?”

“No, I’m good. Thank you.”

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked, waving his hand to a plastic chair near his desk. There were papers scattered across the surface, and she recognized the colorful invitation to the award dinner that had also been hanging on the bulletin board at the Gilbert House.

“No, that’s okay,” she said. “I won’t take up much of your time.” She looked back at the couch. “I didn’t realize podcasts used video.”

Jamal perched himself on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms. “Yeah. It’s growing in popularity. And with certain topics, visual content is much more engaging. I interview such a variety of people that my audience connects more when they can see the person who’s telling their story.”

That made sense. You could get even more information about a person just by watching their facial expressions, their body movements, and the like. She was always personally much more engaged by visual input rather than just auditory. Plus, if Jamal interviewed people who lived on the street, listeners experiencing their story would naturally want to see how their lifestyle had affected them physically.

“One of your more recent guests might have been a murder victim.”

“Damn.” Jamal blew out a breath. “I mean, I can’t say I’m too surprised. The people I interview tend to live pretty risky lives.”

“I know. And the woman’s death almost certainly isn’t related to you, and I didn’t find her on your website. But I’m hoping you might be able to give me some information.”

“Sure. What was her name? Her first name? I don’t ask for last names. And often, the name they give me is a nickname or a stage name or a gang name, or whatever.”

“Cherish.”

He took the side of his lip between his teeth. “Cherish. Cherish.” He met Lennon’s eyes. “Wait, prostitute? Young?”

“That’s her.”

“That was, what ... three or four months ago that I interviewed her?”

“That’s what her roommate said, yes.”

He pushed himself off his desk, walked around it to his chair, sat down, and started typing on the keyboard. “Yeah, I remember her. I did quite a few interviews that week, and when that happens, I usually stagger the posts. What’s your email? I have the interview in a Dropbox folder and can send you a link.”

“Great. Thanks, Mr. Whitaker.”

“Jamal.”

At least the department hadn’t confiscated her cards. She handed him one of those so he had her email in front of him, and a few minutes later, he looked up from his computer. “Sent.”

“Thank you. Are there any other videos you shot around the time of Cherish’s that you haven’t posted yet?”

“No. I’m all caught up except for hers, which is why I remembered it. The other most current are on the site. I’ve been in Los Angeles for the last six weeks on a production job, but I’ll resume shooting interviews here in the next couple of days.”

“Oh. So this”—she waved her arm around the studio—“isn’t the only work you do?”

“I wish. I find a lot of satisfaction in this work, but rent being what it is, this gig doesn’t pay all the bills. I take enough side jobs to keep the lights on. And of course, ad revenue helps too. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do it full time.”

As she nodded, he glanced back to her card. “Lennon,” he said. “Imagine all the people living life in peace.”

She breathed out a laugh. “That’s the one. My mom would love you.”

He smiled. “It’s a great name. And hey, I hope watching Cherish tell her story helps somehow. I remember her being one that was very lost, with a real messed-up past. Not that that’s unusual. I’ve been doing this for almost two decades, and I’m still not used to it.” He gestured to her phone. “Anyway, you’ll hear the details.”

“While I’m here, can I show you a few other photos and see if you recognize any of them?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Lennon pulled up the photos of the other victims she had on her phone and showed them to Jamal. “This one looks familiar,” he said when she got to the older woman who had been at the crime scene with Cherish. “But I can’t say for sure. I’ve interviewed thousands of people, and I spend a lot of time in the TL, so faces can run together. Sorry.”

“No problem. I’ll look through your site again.” She wasn’t looking forward to it. It’d been tough simply scrolling through once. “Can I ask why you do this? It’s gotta be pretty depressing, listening to heartbreaking stories all day of people who are experiencing really terrible lives.”

“It is and it isn’t. There are some real survivors that walk through my door, whether they’re living on the street or not. Whether others would call them crazy or not. And I think I can safely say that many of them would be labeled severely damaged . But so many have mustered these incredible survival tactics. These people walked through battles most of us can’t even imagine, Inspector. There’s a silent war going on in homes across America right this very second. Children are experiencing trauma that adults wouldn’t know how to deal with. Those people out there are the walking wounded, and in this studio, I get to find out the why . Maybe someday someone will figure out the what now .”

What now. What now, indeed. It was the million-dollar question. Not only because children and the adults they’d grow into were suffering. But because damaged people raised more damaged people, and the cycle went on and on, multiplying significantly over time. She’d scrolled through Jamal’s website and the lists and lists of videos of people who survived the streets. “Where do they go for help?” she asked. She knew where the police sent them. To the psych ward, or a shelter, or sometimes to a place like the Gilbert House, if it had a bed available. But she also knew that, more often than not, she saw those same people a few days later, right back where they’d started.

“That’s not my lane,” Jamal said. “I share their stories, and then I can only hope they find the help they need or accept it if the right kind is offered.”

She gave a single nod. The right kind. But what was that? It seemed to her that nobody knew.

Lennon perused the frozen meals in her freezer before pulling out a chicken enchilada and then popping it into the microwave. As it heated, she changed out of her pants and blouse and put on an oversize pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. She twisted her hair on top of her head and secured it, then washed her makeup off quickly. Her bruise had faded significantly, but the skin around her eye still held a sickly yellow hue under the concealer.

She entered the kitchen just as the microwave was beeping to indicate her less-than-gourmet dinner was ready. She knew she should make a salad or cook a vegetable, or at least put her dinner on a plate. But frankly, she was too tired and hungry to bother. No one was here to judge her, so who cared. She curled up on her couch and set her laptop next to her, booting it up as she ate a few bites out of the box of food.

Box of food. Her mother would be horrified by those three words.

Lennon had already read through Jamal Whitaker’s bio when she’d first gone to The Fringe ’s website, but she clicked on it again so she could read it more slowly now that she’d met the man in person. He’d come across as sincere, a man who genuinely cared about the people he interviewed. She’d asked him why he did what he did, but she hadn’t asked what first brought him to do it. Apparently, according to his bio, he’d had substance abuse issues and even lived in his car for several months in his early twenties, during which time he’d become acquainted with the streets and those who lived there. He was able to get his life together and went on to have a career in video production, one in which he obviously still worked, at least part time. But he never could quite get the patchwork people of the Tenderloin out of his mind, and so he returned to tell their stories. “Stories are what connect us,” he stated in his bio, making her think of Ambrose the liar, another lover of stories, if even that could be believed. She forced her mind back to Jamal. He wasn’t wrong. Stories did connect people. They were, perhaps, one of the few things that did.

Lennon went to her email, clicked on the message from Jamal, and brought up the video. The screen filled with a view of the couch she’d stood in front of earlier today, only this time there was a young woman wearing a pair of shorts curled up in much the same position Lennon was sitting in now.

Lennon hit play and sat eating the rest of her dinner as Jamal asked Cherish questions about her childhood, the food seeming to curdle in her stomach as she listened to the young woman’s story.

Lennon set the mostly empty box on the coffee table, stretched her legs, and brought the computer onto her lap so she had an even more up-close view of the screen. Speaking of the walking wounded Jamal had referred to earlier. Lennon felt a lump forming in her throat, as if that curdled food might not stay down. To be pimped out by your mother? When you were a kindergartener? How did you ever move past something like that? Maybe the answer was you didn’t—hence following in the woman’s footsteps, creating the same life for yourself you’d been cruelly subjected to before you even knew your ABCs.

Lennon went back to The Fringe ’s website and looked at the lists of categories. There were a seemingly endless number of interviews in each list. Prostitutes. Pimps. Addicts—drugs, sex, gambling. Those suffering from mental illness. She did a search for the name Anthony Cruz , and then Tony Cruz , and then simply Cruz , but there was no hit.

Again she perused the lists and lists of people Jamal had interviewed, overwhelmed in the pit of her gut. She was tempted to slam her computer closed. Did she really need to expose herself to more of this when she already dealt with these people every day she was at work? When she was employed, anyway. Wasn’t that enough? She could have an officer or someone else at the station wade through the videos when she got back, cross-checking each one against the photos of the victims from the crime scenes.

Her finger hovered over the X at the top of the screen, but after a moment she blew out a breath and scrolled to the list of videos featuring addicts. She watched a couple of them, hitting pause when she thought she recognized one of the men from the park. A heroin addict named Santiago Garza. She emailed herself the direct link to the video and then scrolled to the next one and watched that. When that one was done, the next one automatically began playing. Lennon sat there watching story after story of trauma and abuse. Ruined lives. Horror spoken of in monotone.

But God, so many of them were also surprisingly funny and sweet and charming. So ... human . Doing the job she did, it was easy to forget that. When she’d started watching the videos, she’d thought it would be more of what she’d been exposed to as an officer and then an inspector, but it was the opposite. It was a glimpse into the humanity behind the drugs and the sex work. And like Jamal had said, it was a glimpse into the why , even if the what now remained elusive.

Lennon startled and let out a small yelp when her phone rang, bringing her from the harsh world of homelessness and drug abuse back to the safety of her couch. She set her computer aside and reached for her phone, sitting on the coffee table, shocked to see that it was already one in the morning.

It was Tommy’s number.

“Hello.”

“It’s a boy. Nine pounds even. All ten fingers and ten toes, and he looks like his mother, thank God.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Oh my gosh. A boy. Congratulations. How’s Sam?” A tear spilled out of her eye and tracked down her cheek, and she brushed it away, embarrassed, as though he could see her.

“She’s amazing. They both are.”

“What’s his name?”

“Beau Thomas.”

“Beau. Oh, I love it. I can’t wait to meet him.”

“We should be home tomorrow afternoon. No complications, so they’re booting us out. Come over anytime.”

“Okay. I will. How about this weekend? Tommy, hug Sam for me and kiss that baby. Hold him tight.” She pulled in a small sniffle.

“I will. Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m just happy for you. And for him. He’s got the best parents.”

“Thanks, partner. See you this weekend.”

“Bye, Tommy.”

She hung up and sat clutching her phone, a tidal wave rising inside. Her phone beeped with a text coming through, and when she looked down at it, she saw a photo of a tired but beaming Sam, a grinning Tommy, and a swaddled infant cradled in his mother’s arms. Another one came through right after, a close-up of Beau.

Brand new. Perfect in every way.

The wave of emotion crashed over her, and she dropped her phone, bringing her hands to her face as a sob broke from her mouth.

It’d been so long since she’d cried, and now this was the second time in less than two weeks. But she couldn’t control it, was helpless against the onslaught of torment that battered her now. Seeing that precious, helpless newborn baby boy after listening to the stories of desolate adults was like a fist squeezing her heart. People didn’t naturally end up the way the prostitutes and junkies and mentally ill had ended up. They’d been twisted, most of them from the time they were no bigger than the baby in the photo being cherished by his parents.

Cherish. Cherish Joy. How dare her mother give Cherish a name like that and then allow her to be victimized so hideously? And now, after Lennon had looked at little Beau, she wondered—what if Cherish’s mother had suffered the same fate as Cherish? What if she’d also been a victim and had known no other way? As the cycle started, it continued. It was the most disgusting irony. Fury mixed with the heartache, and she was glad. Because it made her feel more powerful, like the fire within her might burn something down if she knew where or what or whom to torch. If she knew where to direct the inferno.

But of course, she didn’t know, and that was the problem. What now? It was the question Jamal Whitaker had asked, and she understood why. If there was only one Cherish, or even only a hundred, the question would be easier to answer. But there were too many Cherishes to count. Maybe there was nothing to be done now.

She looked at the photo of Beau again, her gaze moving over his peaceful features. She had this instinct to hide him away from the harsh world. But of course, his parents were there for that. She had to remind herself that the precious new baby had loving parents who would be his soft place to land. His protectors. An exhale gusted from her mouth. And she couldn’t help thinking about all the other babies who might have been born tonight into very different situations.

“Stop,” she commanded herself. Because, really, what good was that? There was literally nothing she could do to help those nameless children.

But she also refused to pretend they didn’t exist.