LaToya: Episode VII - Lieutenant Lupton's Clue

 

Were Shakespeare living today, he might find a source of inspiration in Devon Weaver’s sudden death. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Darryl Lupton of the Baltimore City Police’s Homicide Squad, a big, handsome black man, stuck a cigarette on his lower lip and set fire to it. He looked across at me as I leaned against the wall. I didn’t want to be in the way of the fingerprint men as they worked in the small room. All that now remained of Devon Weaver was a splash of blood on the dirty bed cover.

 

“Donald Pomperleau will want to take care of this,” Lieutenant Darryl said. “If what you just told me is right, it starts from his end.”

“Who is he?” I said.

“He’s the acting Chief of Police for Baltimore City. Last year he asked us to check the Virgo Nightclub in Alexandra, Virginia, where this girl LaToya  was supposed to have worked. Unfortunately, we did not turn up anything.” Lieutenant Darryl gave me a hard smile. “You have really managed to paint me black this time.”

I had worked with him in the past on a murder case in East Baltimore, and I have immense respect for his intelligence and capabilities.

“Paint you black?” I said. “I don’t get it.”

Lieutenant Darryl laughed.

“Never mind,” he said, and then turned to Sergeant Gana, his second in charge.

“You take care of this, Gana. This smart boy here and I will go and talk to Donald Pomperleau. When you are done, drive over so you can take me back.”

Sergeant Gana nodded.

“No problem, Lieutenant.”

“Come on, Mr. Emeka,” Lieutenant Darryl said, taking my arm. “You can run me to our office in West Baltimore. Donald will be interested to hear your story. He hit the top when LaToya disappeared, but he had to drop the case when we couldn’t find a body.”

“I will like to have a copy of the photograph of Devon Weaver’s remains,” I said to Sergeant Gana. “I’m staying at the  Empire Hotel in Baltimore Street.”

Sergeant Gana looked at Lieutenant Darryl for confirmation.

“Let him have it,” Lieutenant Darryl said. “I am in the picture too, so it will be a good publicity for our department.”

“I won’t depend on it if I were you,” I said. “Mr. Sessoms may block you out. It’s nothing personal. It’s just for a business reason.”

“How’s that?” Lieutenant Darryl asked.

“We just have to be careful about how much horror we print,” I replied.

“Whatever,” he said. “Now come on.”

We went down the stairs together.

On our way to the Baltimore City police office in West Baltimore, I went over my story again  so Lieutenant Darryl could be sure he hadn’t missed a point.

“The good news is that your story showed a few new leads to work on now,” he said when I finished. “I always thought there was something strange the way Lamar Hooke died. So, where does this Breonna girl fit in?”

“Search me,” I said. “I have no idea at the moment.” I swerved past a white Ford F-150 truck, then went on, “What’s Donald Pomperleau like? Is he someone I can work with?”

Lieutenant Darryl shrugged.

“I guess so,” he said. “Almost every cop in Baltimore City want his picture in your newspaper. Donald Pomperleau is a good man, but he doesn’t like being kept out of things. Here’s one mistake you’ve made: you should have seen him before you went after Devon Weaver.”

“For Christ’s sake!” I exclaimed. “We just began this investigation yesterday. And I was going to see him as soon as I had talked to Devon Weaver.”

“Just be careful with him,” he advised. “By the way, you still working with that former English-teacher-turned-journalist?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why?”

“He’s a bright guy,” he said. “One would have thought he could have done something better than hack for Baltimore Star newspaper.”

I laughed.

“Everyone thinks that,” I said. “Well, I will give it to him: he is smart when he wants to be.”

It was around eight in the evening when I pulled up outside the Baltimore City police office in West Baltimore.

“I expect Donald Pomperleau will have gone home by now,” Lieutenant Darryl said, getting out of the car. “We’ll see.”

The desk sergeant told us that the captain was still in his office. He put through a call to his office and then told us to go on up.

Police Captain Donald Pomperleau was a tall, powerfully-built white man who was originally from Canada but later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. A man in his late fifties, Pomperleau has a strong, hard face, piercing blue eyes and a shock of greying hair.

He shook hands with Lieutenant Darryl, and when Lieutenant Darryl introduced me, he smiled, seemingly pleased to meet me.

“I like your newspaper,” he said. “Your Baltimore Star report from our angle, and that’s what I like about it.

 I smiled.

“How else can we eat if we don’t keep in with the cops?” I said. “Besides, our job is a good cause: to inform the masses.”

“Don’t mind him,”  Lieutenant Darryl said. “He’s always cracking jokes. Anyway, Captain, Mr. Emeka has been doing our work for us. He just discovered some new things on the LaToya Young case.”

Captain Donald sat down, motioned us to chairs and looked hard at me.

“Mr. Thomas Sessoms, my editor, thought it might be  a good idea if we did an article on the  LaToya Young’s case,”  I explained. “I came down here to pick up background information on the case and was lucky enough to stumble on something information you haven’t got in your police report. You’ve probably been told about it by now.”

“Tell me, anyway,” Captain Donald said, lighting up a cigarette.

Being careful not to omit anything, I went over the story again.

Neither Captain Donald nor Lieutenant Darryl interrupted, and when I had finished there was a long pause. I could see Captain Donald didn’t like receiving this kind of information second-hand.

“Why didn’t you inform me about this right away?” he said. “I would have grabbed Devon Weaver before he left town.”

“Devon Weaver wasn’t my target at the time,” I said. I took the tiny triangle-shaped object out of my pocket and pushed it across the desk toward Captain Donald. “And he was dead by the time I found this.”

Captain Donald looked at Lieutenant Darryl.

“When did he die?”

“Last night, I believe,” I said. “He arrived at Daquan Paradise’s joint at one o’clock in the morning. So, in my view, he was knocked off between three and four o’clock.”

“Any lead on the killer yet?”

Lieutenant Darryl shook his head.

“Whoever did it is a professional,” he said. “There was no fingerprints and no noise. Also, no one saw anything. At four o’clock in the morning even the punks in Daquan Paradise’s place sleep.”

Captain Donald picked up the tiny trangle-shaped object and studied it. Then he put it down and puffed smoke up in the air while he continued to think.

“You’ve indeed started something, Mr. Emeka,” he said, looking over at me. “Let’s go through LaToya’s dossier again.” He picked up the telephone and asked for LaToya Young’s dossier.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that Lamar was lying,” he went on as he hung the phone. “It is hard to figure out how Ms. LaToya could have disappeared unless she had gone out past Lamar’s door. Just consider this: Ms. LaToya had only 8 minutes in which to do her disappearing act, and the stage door exit was the nearest to her room. That’s why we focused on Lamar during our investigation of the case. Unfortunately, we couldn’t move him from his story. I think he and Devon were working together.”

A tap came on the door and a white policewoman brought in a blue folder which she gave to Captain Donald.

“Lamar and Devon could have kidnapped the girl and have taken her to Devon’s room. This tiny triangle-shaped object under his bed points to it,” Captain Donald said as he opened the blue folder. After turning some pages he read for a moment, then said, “Ms. LaToya was wearing a gold bracelet with this tiny triangle-shaped object on it when she disappeared.”

“I doubt that they took her to Devon’s room,” I said. “To do that, they had to pass through the shop.  That’s the only way up to the room. So, they couldn’t have taken Ms. LaToya there unless the owner of the shop was in it too. And I don’t think he was. He gave me Devon’s address. It’s my guess Lamar and Devon were hired to kidnap Ms. LaToya. Lamar got her into his office by telling her she was wanted on the telephone. Ms. LaToya was expecting a call anyway. Lamar probably hit her on the head and bundled her into a waiting car. There must have been someone beside Lamar and Devon in this to handle the car. Both Lamar and Devon would have to stay in their jobs to alibi each other. Maybe the gold bracelet fell off Ms. LaToya’s wrist when Lamar knocked her out. He might have given it to Devon or he might have gone to Devon’s room later with it.”

Lieutenant Darryl nodded.

“Very smart, Mr. Emeka,” he said. “Very smart. It could have happened that way.”

“In that case we will start a hunt for LaToya’s bracelet,”  Captain Donald said. “I know that the approach does look hopeless after fourteen months have passed. But it does worth a try.”

“Who’s this guy in the blue jeans jacket?” Lieutenant Darryl asked. “We have a fairly good description of him, so are we gonna be able to turn him up?”

“Medgar’s looking for him right now,” I said. “He has  probably got on to him by now, I believe.”

Lieutenant Darryl grinned.

“You two are really a two-man detectives, aren’t you?” he said, and looked over at Captain Donald. “I think this guy in the blue jeans jacket is important. We need to find out who he is.”

Captain Donald nodded.

“Then there’s this Breonna girl,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out where she fits in.”

“Do you have anything about her death?” I asked.

Captain Donald reached for the telephone and called for the Breonna’s dossier.

“I had to double-check what the coroner’s verdict was,” he said. “We didn’t know she was connected with Ms. LaToya otherwise I would have been a lot more interested in her case.”

I picked up the tiny triangle-shaped object.

“Who’s E. P.?” I asked. “Maybe he could tell us something about Ms. LaToya. We basically know nothing about her, correct? Something tells me she must have been hiding from someone.”

“You know what? I thought so too,” Captain Donald said, leaning forward to take a file the policewoman had brought in. He opened the file, went through it briskly, and then put it on his desk. “The coroner was satisfied Ms. Breonna’s death was an accident. She apparently tripped on her dress while going downstairs, fell and broke her neck.”

“Did the dossier say who she was?”

Captain Donald went through the file again.

“According to what I just read here,” he said. “She was in show business. She just returned from Hollywood, California. She and the other seven girls had gone there on a movie casting engagement, but the whole thing flopped. She came back to Baltimore broke, and was looking for work.”

“Ms. LaToya couldn’t have been one of the other seven girls, could she?” I asked. “You may wanna check that.”

Captain Donald nodded.

“We’ll do that.”

“I think Ms. Breonna was murdered,” I said. “And I think Mr. Lamar was murdered too.”

Captain Donald smiled grimly.

“Now listen,” he said. “You can’t just jump to that conclusion – there’s not a shred of evidence that either of them was murdered.”

“When did Ms. Breonna die?”

“Her dossier showed that she died in August 20.”

“Now, let’s look at the facts,” I began. “Ms. Breonna called at the Empire Hotel in Baltimore Street on the 20^th asking for Ms. LaToya. Then she went home and falls downstairs. Come to that, wasn’t August the 20^th  the night Mr. Lamar died?”

Captain Donald looked sharply at me, consulted LaToya’s dossier and then nodded.

“It is,” he said, frowning. “Mr. Lamar died in the night of August 20.”

“It is an interesting coincidence, don’t you think?” I said.

“You are correct,” Lieutenant Darryl broke in. “It is too obvious to be a coincidence. I think Mr. Emeka got something, captain.”

“I agree,” Captain Donald said, lifting his shoulders. “However, there’s still no evidence; but there’s no harm in digging for more evidence.”

“You have a picture of Ms. LaToya?” I asked.

“Yes,” Captain Donald said. “They are in the dossier. Why?”

“Did you cover the national press or just the local press when she disappeared?”

“We covered the local press only,” Captain Donald said. “What’s the point you are trying to make here?”

“I think it’ll be good to get the national press involved in this case,” I said. “So, I suggest that you print a picture of Ms. LaToya in every paper in the country and ask if anyone knows her. Medgar and I will go to town on it too. That way, we might get more things about her. According to Jonah Duncan, she’s been in show business for some time. It is very possible she has been working under another name. Let’s just try this strategy and see where it can get us.”

Captain Donald nodded. 

“Who’s Medgar again?” he asked.

“He’s my partner in this case,” I replied.

“Okay, Mr. Emeka,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m really impressed by your work – you are pretty smart for an intern journalist.”

“Thanks, but save the compliment for the future.”

I got to my feet.

“I would like to work with you guys on this,” I said. “I won’t get in your way, and I’ll pass to you anything I find out. Ms. LaToya’s case has the markings of a sensational story. So, naturally, I want to be on it from the beginning. What do you say?”

“Excellent,” Captain Donald said. “You carry on. My door will be open any time you want to see me.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “If Medgar and I turns up anything, I’ll give you a call.”

I shook hands with him, nodded at Lieutenant Darryl and then went down to the car.

 

 

END OF EPISODE 7

P.S. Stay tuned for Episode 8, which  will be published here next Sunday.