Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.  But then again, I have all the detectives in the big city of Tracy reporting to me.  Even so, I HELP them when they need help, but I WORK homicide.

Editor’s Note: The “humor” tag will not be checked for this story.  While there may be some playful banter among friends, there will not be much, and the subject is too serious to make too many flippant remarks.

We had the murder of one of Pink Lady’s security guards in an alley in the downtown area.  She had been stabbed multiple times, and her throat was cut.  It was nasty.  It was my sister-in-law’s employee, and I felt that I needed to solve it, but no one at Lily the Pink would talk to me in a way that produced a lead.  It was as if I was still talking to prostitutes who evaded all questions.  These women were free but were their minds totally free?

But I finally got one tiny morsel of evidence.  It was not useful to the case.  I knew that, but if I used it in the right way, could it unlock the minds and hearts of those who knew Angela?  Angela deserved justice.  She was a sweet girl.

I said, “Poached and Georges, you are with me.  Jim, as the detective sergeant first class, second in command of detectives, you are in control.  Remember, Captain Hart can help.  The three of us are going to Lily the Pink.”

Jim moaned, “Again?  You’re getting nowhere, Lieutenant.”

I shrugged, “I am going to try something daring.”

Before we got into the car, I insisted on driving.  Poached was next to me, and Georges in the backseat.

I suggested, “When we get there, I want only Pink and Zuzka in the room, no husbands, no other employees.  We may need Julia nearby.  I would not mind is she was there when we start this gambit.”

Poached asked, “What information did you get from the old nurse last night, and what are we going to do?”

I shrugged, “Angela’s arm was broken by your brother (Zuzka and Otto, March, 2022).  We are going to tell Pink, flat out, that we are going to take Otto to the precinct for questioning.”

Poached sighed.  Georges asked, “But that makes no sense, sir.  If Otto, back when he was Rotten Yeggs, broke Angela’s arm, she had motive to return the favor.  Otto is reformed.  Otto is a model citizen, whether you call him an ex-con or not.  He has no motive to harm her, and this was an act of passion.  Someone really did not like Angela.”

Poached said, “And they must have caught her by surprise.  There were no defense wounds at all.  Angela and I have been on the mat a few times, just showing the younger ladies some moves, and I rarely won against her.  For new guards to be added to the Lily the Pink security team, you have to hold your own against Missy, which is virtually impossible, Julia, which is hard to do, or Angela.  No defensive wounds means surprise and a lightning fast attack.”

Something in the pit of my stomach started tying my guts into knots.  I told them that I wanted Poached to be near his mother (stepmother, but Pink hated adding the step part).  I wanted Georges near Zuzka.  Georges was bigger than Poached, and Poached would be able to restrain Pink if she attacked.  Zuzka, the wildcard, was a recent mother who is highly athletic and taller than Georges by six inches.  Once I said that we were taking Otto in for questioning, they would become highly agitated.  I was hoping their defenses would be down and then someone would say something.  We needed to know with whom Angela was in contact, away from Lily the Pink.  We had to know why she was in that alley in the first place.  We had gotten nothing from no one.  It was as if they were doing something illegal.  I know my sister-in-law.  I knew Angela.  I doubt either was doing anything naughty, much less illegal.  But what are you left to think when the answer to every question is “I don’t know, but I hope you get the guy.  Angela was a dear friend.”

Julia escorted us to Pink’s office.  We suggested that the conversation would be of a sensitive nature, and we only wanted Pink and Zuzka in the room.  PawPaw and Grannie Fannie bundled up the children and took them to the nursery, including Zuzka’s two-week old, Olu Kulteni (Scrambled Eggs in Latvian).  Julia asked if she was needed.  Security was down one person.  I shrugged.  Pink joked that she did not like being left outnumbered.  Julia went to the wall next to the door that leads to the front of the house.  She leaned against the wall, in the same pose that I have seen Missy take – disinterested, casual, almost bored, but as deadly as a cobra if she sensed danger.  If this became a brawl, I would have to wrestle with her.

Pink levelled her eyes on me and leaned on her desk.  She was using the position behind her desk to say that I was the intruder, and she was in charge.  “Dev, I am quite busy today.  We have been answering your questions for days.  Tell me that you have a lead.”

I shrugged, “I have a lead, but it is nothing that I got from our interviews here.  You do realize, Pink, that this is no longer a brothel.  When that was the case, I would expect people to evade most of the questions, but you run a legitimate business.  No one is doing anything illegal, that I know of.  But if I get one more ‘I know nothing.  Ask someone else.’ I am going to explode.  No, I take it back.  Julia, back behind me, says that she and Angela would go out after the night shift and stock up on frozen dinners.  Since the crew in the security office should not leave the room for their shift, they have their own microwave.  She says that Angela joked with people that she meets in the store.  Maybe some were old high school friends.  They seemed to be about the same age.  We’ve visited the grocery stores at that hour, and we have come up with nothing.  No one knew where Angela was going that night and she left alone, no sidekick.  But then again, the sidekick was now her temporary boss.  Maybe that distinction figures in.”

Julia said, “As far as Angela and me.  She was okay with me getting the added duties of being the boss in Missy’s absence.  It is a lot of extra work and extra paperwork.  Angela hated the paperwork.  She joked about being the ‘czar of the television screens.’  She was great at marking the video of every camera in real time in case something strange happened.  Most of the time, it was an innocent rendezvous with a friend.  The roving patrols, the truck entrance, and the paperwork were not her thing.  And as for the extra pay, I am not getting any, but if I were to get the permanent promotion, in Angela’s mind, it was not worth the headaches, and she was content with her pay.”

Pink waved her hands, “I cannot make the ladies talk.  I have told them that you are only here to find Angela’s killer.  So, what is your bit of evidence?”

I shrugged, “Angela’s autopsy came back.  Her arm had been broken some time ago, long since she was a child.”  Zuzka winced.  “So, I checked with an old nurse who had worked with the Rotten Apples to patch up their people off the record.  Angela’s arm was broken by Otto Yeggs.  I need to bring him in for ques…”

Zuzka lunged, “Not my Otto.  He reformed.  He nice.  We have baby boy.  You not take.”  Georges was barely able to hold her back.

Pink sighed, “Dev, you cannot be serious.  Why would you arrest Otto?  I know his work schedule.  He has the other bakers to corroborate where he was that night or Zuzka and Kully.  He only leaves the campus to go to church.  He sits behind your daughter, Sophie, and pokes her on the shoulder to make sure she doesn’t fall asleep during the sermon.”

I gritted my teeth.  “A wife for an alibi is never solid and Kully is not talking, as if a two-week old baby boy can answer a lot of questions.  Then again, he might make more sense than what you and the ladies here have said.”

Pink slammed her hands onto the desktop, and she stood up.  Poached came to her side.  “Mom, we need someone to give us straight answers.  Tell us what groups Angela was with here.  We suspect no one from here of doing this.  Please!  Someone has to have heard her talk about some guy she is dating or someone she does not trust.  Start by her reasons for ever leaving the compound.”

Pink sat back down.  “If this keeps Otto from being arrested…”  I would have corrected her that I was interrupted before I said ‘questioning,’ nothing about arresting.  She sighed, “You will need a warrant for Joseph to betray a trust.  I will not tell you whether she is in a group therapy session with him, if I knew, but I do not.  Even for the simple argument of gathering information, I will not violate a counselling trust.  All that I have ever heard is that she goes to the Standish Pharmacy on rare occasions, usually to pick up supplies to restock the first aid kits all over campus, and it is news to me that she goes out to do midnight grocery shopping.  Julia saying that is the first I have heard of it.”

Julia said, “She teaches a late-night Bible study class.  It’s the security guards on her shift and a few operators.  I go to it half the time, mostly when we come back from the grocery store with munchies.”

I groaned, “You know, Julia, that might have been helpful, a week ago.  Since you are there half of the time, does she talk about anyone in particular outside this campus?”

Julia shrugged, “The only thing I remember her ever saying is that she has been talking to an old friend about Jesus.  How could that lead to someone being a murder suspect?”

I gritted my teeth again.  “I hope this never happens again, but you leave that up to us to decide.  Do you have any idea who that person is?”

Julia shrugged, “It is possibly one of her old friends that she meets at the grocery store, but I have never heard her talk to anyone about Jesus, just the basic old friend chit-chat.  You know, ‘How are things?  Haven’t seen you in a while.  Hope that pain in your foot is not as bad as last time.’  Stuff like that.  All innocent, nothing about … ‘Hey, I would like to talk to you about my Savior.’  Nothing even close.  But I am not always up at that hour.  She goes to the store sometimes without me being along.  Did you ever find her metal treasure box?”

Poached said, “You never gave us any information on that.”

Julia said, “I thought I did.  She said that she had photos of old friends in a metal box.  There was a loose baseboard in her apartment.  She pulled it away from the wall and placed her box inside the wall.  And then she put the baseboard back.  But that would do us no good.  She said that was in her old apartment before she moved down the street.”

Note: Pink Lady purchased an old apartment complex down the street, renovating all the apartments and moving the former prostitutes there while the original apartment building became family dwellings for mission families, and eventually the nursery, an exercise room with various weightlifting and aerobic machines, and Aunt Tensie’s lab.

Zuzka pulled out her phone, “I call Rota.  She has drawings.”

Rota came in and we found that the walls of Angela’s old apartment coincided with Stormie’s bedroom, my six-month old granddaughter.  Georges stayed behind to ask more questions while Poached and I visited family.  Pink called Darrell Driver to come up with tools.  Any loose baseboards would have been nailed tightly during the renovation.  Stormie was in bed but awake.  I played with her while Poached took a hammer and tapped the baseboards.  He finally got a resounding clank, when everything should have been wood or air.  It was close to a seem between boards, and Darrell had the board off in no time.  Poached extracted a tiny metal box, too small to be a cash box but large enough for photo prints.

By this point, I had changed Stormie’s diaper and handed her to Jemima.  Easter was out on a storm chase.  Darrell replaced the baseboard and promised Jemima that he would be back with a little paint to make sure no one could tell that they had disturbed anything.

We did not open the box until we got back to Pink’s office.  I had called the First Lady of Tracy, Cassie Yeggs, to see if she was free to visit her old home.  If someone might recognize an old photograph, she might.  She was the security chief before Missy took over.

While we were gone, Georges had helped Julia remember one time that Angela mentioned Jesus.  Angela’s friend laughed at the attempt to proselytize.  Her friend said, “Good luck with that kind of talk working.”  Julia said, “I thought at the time that her friend meant that she was Jewish.  Her name was Mara.”

Rota and Zuzka shrugged.  They knew of no one named Mara.  Pink confirmed there were no former employees by that name, but a lot of the ladies had a work name and that was all she used while working there.

Then Julia had a funny look on her face.  “But how could she be a Jew?  She had bacon and shrimp in her shopping cart.”

Georges suggested a non-orthodox Jew that was going off the wagon for a while.

But when we opened the box, most of the photos were of the X-rated variety.  Rota groaned and recoiled.  She wanted no memories of doing things like that.  She was now a newlywed.  That chapter of her life was closed.  But Zuzka identified one photo as being an old friend, Esmeralda.  She had beautiful green eyes.

Julia said, “Wait!  Let me see that up close.”  She took the photo and stared intently.  She said, “With what is going on here, it is hard to picture her with clothes on, but those eyes…  This is Mara!”

We had already discovered that the photographs had names written on the back.  This one had “Mara Glum.”

Pink said, “In the book of Ruth, Mara was the name Naomi wanted to be called when she returned to Judah.  Mara means ‘bitter.’  As for Glum, it refers to ‘bloom or flower’ in German or Yiddish.  Thus, Mara Glum would probably be a Jewess.  But who would name her child Mara?”

I shrugged, “Obviously her parents did, but changing it to Esmeralda makes sense.  There is almost a Mara in the middle, and Esmeralda means emerald.  She certainly has eyes that look like emeralds.  We don’t have to look at the old Victor Hugo novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  This seems a connection directly to eye color.  But where is she now?”

Pink said, “Esmeralda went with the other ladies who wished to remain as prostitutes out on county line road.  When one of the two madams killed the other one, many of those ladies returned here, but I lost track of Esmeralda at that point.”

Cassie walked into the room.  “That’s because she came back into town and is part of the experienced few left in the Rotten Apple brothel.  With the ones who were killed at the athletic center, Esmeralda is second to Belle de Boskoop.  She basically runs the brothel, but they will always have an Apple that is the figurehead.”  She looked at the photo and nodded.

Poached suggested an unannounced and unplanned raid of the Rotten Apple Brothel, with the madam: Belle de Boskoop Apple.  We got a warrant quickly and quietly.  We had surveillance to prove Esmeralda was at home.  We caught several of the ladies in indelicate situations, including Esmeralda.  There were no notable customers, a couple of teenagers doing some “rite to manhood” thing.  Depending on age, that might get those ladies in deep trouble.  But the others were business owners or the fathers of the boys.  Since we had Esmeralda with her hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, we took her to the precinct and Georges volunteered his office as the interview room.  Poached went to his new office (another old interrogation room) to question each of the other prostitutes.  They were then being placed in our small holding cell.  Pink Lady insisted on being in the observation room to watch the Esmeralda interrogation.  Julia had already identified Esmeralda in a lineup as being the woman she had been introduced to as Mara.

Jim took Belle de Boskoop, but she quickly lawyered up and we had to release her on lack of evidence that she was the madam.

Georges took Esmeralda, but I joined him in the room.  Everyone else was on the other side of the mirror, with Gisele typing everything that we said, although the interview was recorded.  Esmeralda was experienced.  She knew how to avoid questions.  It sounded just like the answers we had gotten from everyone at Lily the Pink.  But then Georges asked her where she shopped for groceries.  He asked whether she was kosher.  Both questions got her rattled.  The police should not know she was a Jew, and they definitely should not care where she shopped or when she shopped.  Then he called her Mara.  She was suddenly off her game.  Georges introduced seeing old friends at the grocery store, then seeing the distinctive black uniforms with pink epaulets from Lily the Pink.  She had worked there.  She could not deny not recognizing them.

Then Georges asked, “Any of them talk to you about Jesus?”

Esmeralda flew into a rage.  “Angela was no better than me!  That b**** had to die!”

Georges asked, “Is that why you lured her into the alley and slit her throat?”

Esmeralda said, “No.”  There was a pause.  Had Georges misread her?  Was she going to stop short of a confession?  Then she said, “I stabbed her.  Then she looked out, like there was someone behind me, but I had already checked.  She said, ‘Forgive her, ‘cause she don’t know what she just did.’  That’s when I got mad and slashed her throat.  Even with her bleeding out, she looked up and smiled, like she saw me as a different person.”

The interview room door burst open and Pink Lady was there.  Pink said, “Angela said, ‘Forgive her, for she knows not what she is doing.’”

Esmeralda said, “Yeah.  That was it.  That’s the way she said it, but you weren’t there.”

Pink Lady said, “That’s what Jesus said from the cross.  That’s what Stephen said as they stoned him to death.  And maybe Angela was looking at you and seeing you after you have accepted Jesus.  Jesus was telling her that the seed had been planted.  When you go to prison, Kayla will talk to you about Jesus.”

Esmeralda smirked, “Is Kayla the jailor?”

Pink said, “No, she is an inmate.  She said that she wanted to take the message of Jesus to all those who had killed others.”

Esmeralda sneered, “How do you know?  Did you read that in a book?”

Pink said, “No, I was in a cell in the same cell block.  I heard her say those words just after I prayed with her to lay her sins at the feet of Jesus and accept Him as her Savior.”

Esmeralda said, “I didn’t think you got your hands dirty.  You just had other people to do that, but you need to improve your security training.  Here Angela was trained to react, to stop all threats using whatever means necessary.  But she did not do a thing.  I lashed out in anger.  I stabbed her and she made no effort to stop me.  And when she asked God to forgive me, she made no effort to stop the slash of the knife that ended her life.  And what I will remember until the day that I die were the brightness in her eyes and the smile on her face as she bled out.  She did nothing to stop it.  Nothing.”

Pink knew then what I already knew, but now we both knew the reason.  She was showing the love of Christ to this old friend.  It was her life’s calling to love those that no one else would love, and if that led to her death, then she would be with Jesus.

I watched Pink as this reality soaked in.  She started to sway back and forth.  She was sobbing, but no sounds came out.  She turned to me, unable to speak.  She looked into my eyes, wanting me to make the pain go away.  She stretched out her arms so that I would give her a bear hug.

But I knew that one of those hugs right now would suppress the pain and grief.  Pink needed to let some of it out.  She had lost one of her employees.  Since they all called her Mommie Pinkie, Angela was one of her children.  And that child gave up her life to show the love of God to someone who simply did not understand.

Her soundless sobbing continued.  Her arms stretched more, but I made no move toward her, not yet.

Then, it happened.  Some said that the scream must have started in her toes, it was so horrific.  But I think it started in the depth of her soul.  It sounded like ten discordant banshees wailing at the same time.  The windows in the interrogation room rattled.  Polly and Ruthie stopped to see Pink’s total collapse. They had been disconnecting and reconnecting the shackles so that they could transport Esmeralda downtown, purposely separated from the other prostitutes.  I ran close to Pink to catch her and give her that needed bear hug.  She would breathe in raggedly and then scream again, but with less force each time.  I only saw Gisele’s purple hair flying, but she ran in with an office chair.  She pushed the chair up behind me.  Pink had no energy to hold herself up and now Gisele had brought me a chair to hold me up while I hugged Pink.  Then Guy Weiss, the desk sergeant from downstairs, arrived with four uniformed patrolmen.  He said it was the first time he had ever heard a human voice from the second floor while he was at the front desk.  After about five or six of these screams.  Pink curled up in my lap on the chair and softly wept.  Each time I loosened my bear hug grip she grunted a negative and held my arms even tighter.

I don’t know how long it was.  Polly and Ruthie were long gone with Esmeralda, or Mara Glum if you prefer.  Gisele had brought Pink a box of tissues.  She would have brought more, but all the manly men who were battle-hardened detectives for all of Tracy had used the rest themselves.

And then I noticed that my brother was in the room.  He asked me what I was doing snuggling with his wife.  He reached to take Pink’s hand, but Pink shook her head, “No!  Bear hug!”  Scrambled nodded and held her hand.  She finally let him take her home, but that was well past the time when the sun went down.

Credits

I thought of Esmeralda before thinking of Mara and Glum.  It sounds exotic.  Esmeralda is a name of Spanish and Portuguese origin, meaning emerald, but she was the love interest of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, a cathedral in Paris, France in the Victor Hugo novel.

When you are doing illegal things, you do your best to avoid questions, but when that is your habit, would it not be difficult to change old habits?  But Julia was not a former prostitute.  She had the double stress of filling in for her boss and having this happen on her watch.  She blacked out certain memories due to the stress.  She slowly remembered little bits and pieces as she reexamined the questions.  This is one reason why the police ask the same questions over and over again.  Do you remember something?  Will your guard be down and slip up?  Or will your story be exactly the same every time, which is odd behavior unless the witness’ report is rehearsed beforehand.

Pork is forbidden as an unclean animal in Leviticus 11:7-8, and immediately afterward shellfish (shrimp) are also forbidden in Leviticus 11:9-12.  So, Esmeralda was not kosher or buying food for someone else.

The legend of the scream of the banshee is when anyone dies.  I felt the scream of the victim’s “mother” would equal ten banshees, especially knowing that the murder was a senseless act.  Even then, Pink thought of the new leader of the in-prison ministry that she had started.  She reacted to the murder confession, a murder of one of her employee family, reacting with an invitation to a prison ministry.

Jesus told us to turn the other cheek.  He said nothing about not defending ourselves, but love for an old friend could have slowed Angela’s reaction time.  There are many out there who react violently these days.  We need to be on our guard.