The Mamacita Murders Read online

  Usually I can explain away why someone would lie. They don’t want to get involved in a lengthy criminal investigation, they don’t want to get dragged to court to testify, they don’t want to miss work. Sometimes they don’t want to get in trouble for something they did that has nothing to do with the crime. But I can’t think of one reason Clown would rent a room in this ghetto motel for Laura unless he was somehow involved in hurting her.

  “Do you think we need to look at anyone else for this? Could he have had help?” I ask.

  “Anything is possible, but I doubt it. He was seen leaving alone from the motel,” says Dylan.

  It’s important to keep an open mind when investigating a crime. It’s too easy to dismiss people or overlook possible suspects. You never want to leave any stones unturned, but you also don’t want to spin your wheels for a dead-end lead.

  “In this case, it’s pretty clear we got our guy. I know he’s not confessing, but in my book, lying about his relationship with Laura and about renting the room are two huge things pointing to his guilt,” Dylan says.

  Ford comes walking into the room taking deep sighs. “What’s your thought, you want me to keep at it with this fellow? I think he has a lot more to say, but I don’t want to step on any toes. He’s asked for an attorney twice now,” says Ford.

  “Yeah, I know. I think we need to stop questioning,” I say.

  “I know. Plus, he seems really irritated at Laura’s hood rat ways and I’m wondering if he may have taken her to the motel to confront her. I’m going to ask him one follow-up question, if he did this to Laura. I just want to see his reaction, then I’ll leave it at that. I really don’t want to go any further,” says Ford.

  “I’m ready to make an arrest. It’s clear this is our guy. Just the fact he’s lying about the extent of his relationship with Laura and renting the room is big. We have Laura leaving to go with him last night, he rents the motel room, he leaves his phone in the room, then he’s seen taking off in his Lincoln Continental right after the crime.

  “The DNA will take some time to get back unless you can put some pressure on the Crime Lab; but even without that, I think we have enough. I’m ready to do this. What’s your thought?” Ford asks.

  “I’m not entirely convinced yet. I’m really curious about the fingerprint on the vase. But I also don’t want Clown being released. He’s already run from us once and my office is on my case,” I say.

  “Well, booking him is the easiest way we’re going to get his prints to compare. Investigator Mack?” asks Ford.

  “This is our guy,” says Dylan.

  Ford makes it back into the interview room and Clown looks up from his hands with a shocked look on his face. “Sir, are you placing me under arrest?” says Clown.

  “Well, is there something you think you should be arrested for?” asks Ford.

  “It’s just that...never mind,” says Clown.

  “Sir, I have one last question for you. Did you do this to Laura?” says Ford.

  “I need an attorney, sir,” says Clown.

  “Sir, place your hands behind your back. You are being placed under arrest for the attempted murder of Laura Paula,” says Ford.

  7

  THE MAMACITA CLUB

  An hour after leaving the Leafwood Police Department, I pull my car into the parking lot of the Leafwood RV Park, which is in the hairy part of Tuckford County’s armpit. “Think empower, empower, empower,” I say.

  “Think Dylan, Dylan, Dylan!” says Riley.

  “Why did you have to bring him up?” I ask. “I wasn’t even thinking of him.”

  “I know you still have feelings for him,” Riley says.

  “I do. But he’s just not that into me.”

  “You’re crazy, Gaby,” Riley says. “You’re beautiful, successful, and a lawyer. If he’s not smart enough to realize that, good riddance!”

  Riley is a holistic doctor who volunteers to help me run The Mamacita Club. She helps victims and their families with medical diseases, ranging from cancer to alcoholism. She teaches women about health and wellness at the Airstream. She believes most problems, including depression and other mental illnesses, can be cured with positive thinking. If not, she turns to her Native American medicines and herbs.

  In exchange for volunteering, I let her use the Airstream to meet with patients and conduct drug and alcohol interventions and meetings.

  When Riley was twelve, the same age I was when my mom died, her sister overdosed on drugs. Because of this, I’ve always been able to open up to her about things. Riley knows almost everything about me and I trust her.

  “The Universe has a plan for you. This is happening with Dylan for a reason,” says Angela.

  Angela is an angel reader, spiritual coach, and grief counselor at The Mamacita Club. There’s nothing that can prepare someone to be the victim of a crime, especially a violent or sexual one. But Angela tries to make the aftermath less traumatic. She finds them a place to sleep, helps them with restraining orders, or relocates them to another county or state if their situation is really bad.

  In exchange for Angela’s helping out at the Airstream, she gets to use it for angel readings, therapy sessions, life coach workshops, and to house any of her abused clients that need temporary shelter. People like Riley and Angela seem to have the biggest hearts to help and for the right reasons.

  “Girl, maybe if we create a little costume to send you over to Dylan’s in late at night, like a trench coat and garters, that just might do the trick for you both,” says Kiera.

  The four of us all start laughing. This is what I love the most about Kiera. She makes me laugh and makes me feel alive. Kiera, a.k.a. Kiki, is our wardrobe stylist at The Mamacita Club. She creates all of our costumes and pin-up outfits.

  Kiki also scouts out different mobile home and RV parks around Tuckford County. Then she negotiates rent for parking my shiny chrome Vintage Airstream motorhome for eight weeks, the block of time we need to build a rapport with our clients at The Mamacita Club.

  In exchange, I let Kiki keep her costumes inside the Airstream and drive it to film sets where it duos as a dressing room and wardrobe closet. Kiki might be one of the most fun people I know. She comes from a well-to-do family, but never once has she flaunted it. She helps me let loose, reminding me how to start playing like a kid again.

  Playing dress-up with her rehearsing our chosen alter egos is a blast. She helps us come to life and dress and act like women in recovery. Once, she even helped me put together an evening of red wine, chocolate, and strawberries for a few women marking their one year anniversary in walking away from their spousal abusers.

  At the Airstream, I teach the women about abusive relationships including domestic violence and sexual abuse. Riley, Kiki, and Angela laugh when I yell out, “Ladies! Just like the world, the Airstream’s a stage, so let’s get in our costumes and I’m Bettie Page.”

  I also help the women with any legal issues and teach them how to gain independence, especially the financial kind. Speaking Spanish really gives me an advantage in helping the women.

  My RV with its pink neon The Mamacita Club sign gets us instant credibility and into some of the worst areas in the county where the women need our support. Kiki, with her bubbly personality, has recruited some of the best women from these low income mobile home parks.

  Angela, Riley, and Kiki know I’m fine with using the Airstream for anything that helps us empower women, including field trips that give our clients the opportunity to visit places they would never see. Sometimes I even use it as a place to sleep when I don’t feel like driving back to Blackbird Beach. Most importantly, the Airstream gives us a comfortable place to meet weekly with the girls recruited for The Mamacita Club. It’s all decked out fifties’ vintage style to match the pin-up girl, Hollywood starlet, criminal, country western, musical, cultural, pop icon, spiritual, musical, political, and other alter egos we adopt to mentor the women.

  The Airstream was handed down to Neil a
nd I as a wedding gift from his family who owns most of the RV Superstores in Tuckford County. It was the only thing I got in the divorce. So I turned it into the best thing I knew how to — The Mamacita Club.

  At The Mamacita Club, we help young women grapple real life issues and set goals beyond getting pregnant, addicted to drugs, or dancing on poles. And we help the older women learn how to live again. Every woman who has come through The Mamacita Club has empowered another woman, whether it’s a client or a staff member. We just all help each other. It’s my family.

  We get out of my car and rush into the Airstream to get dressed in our costumes.

  Within thirty minutes of Riley, Angela, Kiki, and I arriving at the Leafwood RV Park, seven young women sit at the table inside the motorhome, writing down their stinky thinking thoughts and sealing them up in a jar we call the Mamacita Mason Jar. I love this exercise and pull the sheet of paper sitting in front of me closer, pick up my pen, and start scribbling:

  Dylan is not that into me. I’m nervous about giving the class today. I hope I can make a difference for these girls.

  Crumpling up my paper into a small ball and tossing it into the jar gives the most invigorating feeling of letting go. I make sure to screw on the lid extra tight this time. The idea is to get all the chatter out of our minds and focus on the here and now. The girls love the exercise.

  After sealing the jar, I stare into it. I see a Christopher Columbus-looking ship sailing on water inside the jar. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and open them again. My crumpled piece of paper sits at the bottom of the jar and the ship is gone.

  “Well, hello there, lots of chatter upstairs? We have a pretty good turnout today, but we have some bad news, which will be the focus of our class tonight,” says Angela.

  Angela and I decided before class started that we were going to tell the girls what happened to Laura and see if any of them could give us information about the assault. We’re especially hoping to talk to Christina, Laura’s best friend, who’s here tonight. And we’re hoping to do it inside the Airstream, where her bottom bitch is not allowed.

  I’ve suspected for a while that Christina is being groomed to be a sex worker. Sometimes she goes missing from school and the RV Park here where she normally lives with her grandma. When she’s reported missing, she still comes to The Mamacita Club, but I’ve noticed the woman who drops her off hangs outside the Airstream while Christina is inside. The woman is about forty years old and watches her like a hawk. Despite Christina’s denials, I alerted the human trafficking division at the Leafwood Police Department.

  On the streets, someone like her is called a “bottom bitch,” because she recruits young women into her ring to start a cycle of prostitution. The young women are bought nice material things and are encouraged to pay for them by dancing, stripping, and eventually selling their bodies. It’s an endless cycle.

  “Laura won’t be coming back to the trailer park for a while. Something terrible happened to her,” Angela tells the girls inside the Airstream.

  I’m glad Angela is able to speak about this, because I couldn’t deliver the news without getting choked up. Angela is used to grief and talking about these things with her victims. She has cried countless hours and wiped tears for everyone she helps. She’s used to this. I’m not. I still can’t go a second talking about my mom without getting choked up over that one night I couldn’t save her. So I just don’t talk about it.

  I learned from Angela through angel readings that there’s a difference between dealing with losing someone close to you and just coping with the pain. I’ve done the latter through my whole life. But I’m determined to start coping. It’s hard for me to get close to anyone and trust them. I don’t want to lose anyone again.

  Some of the girls begin to cry as Angela tells them about Laura. All of a sudden, I hear what sounds like the backfire of a tailpipe. Then I hear tires spinning through what sounds like water. It startles all of us.

  A couple of the girls and I run to the side exit door of the motorhome that leads to the RV park. I grab two of the girls by the shirt and tell them to stay inside. Then I reach into my thigh holster through the side slit on my long red mob wife dress, free my Lady Smith .38 Special, and open the door to rush outside.

  Outside the Airstream, I crouch behind a car, looking up to a cat splattered against the dirt path of the RV park. Its gray fur is almost flush with the dirt as its backbone convulses in slow motion curling up, then falling flat. Another convulsion makes the cat look like a worm. Its lower back convulses up, then the middle of its spine bubbles up and its neck snaps forward. It falls flat again. I watch the convulsions, one-after-another, slow and reflexive from the energy in its body leaving its skin. On the fifth convulsion, my vision begins to blur.

  Instead of brown dirt, I see the brown and beige linoleum floor in the kitchen of the mobile home I grew up in. When I was ten, I watched my cat Penny have convulsions. My stepfather, upset over my mom pouring out his beer, ripped Penny out of her hands, then kicked Penny in the stomach.

  I ran into the kitchen and kneeled over Penny. “Please don’t die, Penny, please don’t die.” Penny started convulsing, one after another with her fur puffed out like she had just been electrocuted. To peel me from the floor and get Penny to the hospital, my mom kneeled behind me and held onto me tight. She told me told me that it was okay, all cats had nine lives, and Penny would make it. I couldn’t stop crying. My mom held me tight until Penny’s last convulsion.

  I look beyond the gray cat further up the dirt path of the RV Park to the exit leading to the city road. The driver in a black car points a gun into the air and begins shooting. “Pow, pow, pow.” I see Christina outside with Riley.

  Dust from the ground fills the air like an explosion.

  “Get down!” I yell.

  We all drop to the ground. Someone is slouched down in the driver seat. The roaring of a car engine echoes through the RV Park.

  Riley yells, “Where’s Christina?”

  Christina stands up and starts running in the same direction towards the car. One last shot from the driver side of the car rings out, deafening me. I see a black pistol and sparkles of dust.

  I scream, “Get down!”

  The car screeches off and I see Christina’s bright yellow shirt down on the ground in between two cars parked in the RV park. My heart pounds against my breastbone. Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.

  “Christina, Christina, are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay,” I yell, running as fast as I can.

  The distance to get to Christina feels like an eternity. The idea of having to tell Christina’s grandmother, bottom bitch or drug addicted mom something happened to her, frightens me. If The Mamacita Club is not a safe place, where will incorrigible girls like Christina go? She calls this place home, showing up every week, even when she runs away from the RV Park to probably prostitute. I can’t lose another girl. I’m supposed to protect her. And now I’ve failed. Again. Christina is my only link to Laura. I need to ask her if she knew anything about what happened. Please don’t be gone. Please. My heart beats fast and my legs aren’t moving fast enough to get to Christina.

  Riley pops up from behind a truck parked close to the cars Christina is in between.

  “She’s fine, she’s fine,” says Riley.

  I stare out into the distance watching the car fly down the street as the taillights get smaller and smaller. A distinct rattle and ticking of an engine fades in the distance. Riley and Christina grab onto me, crying.

  “Get back inside and get everyone to the back of the Airstream until police get here. They might come back,” I say.

  Christina and Riley run back inside the Airstream.

  Several different people stand in front of their mobile homes.

  “Did anyone get a license plate?” I yell to them. No one answers.

  “Did anyone see what kind of car that was?” I yell to them again.
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  A woman stands in the middle of the RV park.

  “They’re not gonna help you,” she says, turning to walk away. Everyone standing outside walks inside their motorhomes and mobile homes without saying anything. I stop counting after I hear five doors slam shut.

  Falling asleep has always been hard for me to do. From the moment I crawl into bed, I’ve always been that kind of sleeper that stays in one place the whole night long. To make my bed in the morning, I just have to pull the covers back into place. It’s from lying in bed, stiff-as-a-board, in sheer terror, every night growing up and listening to my stepfather and mom fight. They say that people go to sleep based on how they were put to sleep as a child. So I usually go to sleep terrified. It’s a little better if I have a TV on, someone holding me, or a locked and loaded gun within arm’s reach, especially after tonight’s shooting.

  I lie in my bed naked under a sheet at home in Blackbird Beach a few hours after the drive-by. I pull myself up and lean over to my night stand. I open the cabinet that sits next to my bed to take out my Smith and Wesson Lady Smith .38 special. The revolver’s weight and the cool temperature of its steel barrel make me feel safe.

  I place it on top of my night stand furthest from my door and position the muzzle facing away from me. I look over at the corner of my room and smile at my twelve-gauge shotgun leaning up against the wall. I let out a deep sigh. That shotgun is the only good thing I inherited from my stepfather.

  Just as I start to doze, my outside light turns on. It’s on an automatic sensor. I open my eyes and tuck the covers under my chin, trying to listen. All I hear is the waves crashing from a distance. Then I hear rustling against the bushes outside my bedroom window. I strain to listen harder. I hear my side gate creaking. I stay quiet and listen. My outside light turns off.

  I pull my body up, bracing myself to reach for my revolver. I feel the resistance as I pull the hammer of my gun back, trying to stay as quiet as possible. I swing my legs around to the edge of my bed and stand up. I walk over to my dresser and rest my revolver on top of it, before heading to my closet.