Page 45 of The Broken Places

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? Shepulled 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 piecesoff 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.

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