Street Dreams

by Faye Kellerman

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

While on routine patrol, LAPD Officer Cindy Decker rescues a newborn abandoned in an alley dumpster.

Release date: August 1, 2003

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 432

Sample

Because the murder had been kept “secret” for so long, it had taken on mythological proportions. Yet here was the proof, the tangible evidence that
it really had happened. In the dead of night, in the privacy of her own home, Rina gingerly slit open the manila envelope
postmarked from Munich and, with shaking hands, pulled out the papers within, photocopies of documents dated from the late
1920s. Mama had always said she was ten when it happened, but now it appeared that she’d been even younger. The faded writing
would be almost indecipherable even if it had been in English. It was going to take more than her knowledge of Yiddish to
make out the text.


The envelope had arrived in the late-afternoon mail. This was her first opportunity to view the pages without the kids or
Peter as distractions.


Peter.

She hadn’t told him. It had happened so spontaneously, during one of Rina’s solo strolls through the Bavarian capital, getting
some air while he had been sleeping off jet lag. She had taken the walk to shake off that niggling restlessness plaguing her
since the plane had touched down on German soil.


To think that she had chosen Munich for leisure. Then again, she’d had only one week to plan something, so her options had
been limited. Mainly, she had given in to laziness. She had been so tired after New York’s ordeal that she was more than willing
to leave it up to a third party. And it wasn’t as if she and Peter had any choice. Peter was on the verge of total shutdown.
They needed to get away.


Things were better now—or so she told herself—but were still far from normal. Rina had been privy only to the superficial
facts, to what Peter had told his superiors and the press about the murders and his being shot. But there was much more lurking
in his gray matter. Incidents that he didn’t choose to share with her, though thankfully, he had done some talking to his
cop brother, Randy.


God bless Randy. He had demanded that they go, and go alone, assuring them that he’d watch over Hannah so that Peter’s parents
wouldn’t have to shoulder the entire burden alone. It had been desperation that led them to Europe, to a week in Munich with
everything set up by Rina’s friend Ellen Nussburger.


I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing to this, Rina had told her.


You won’t be sorry, Ellie had responded. It won’t be anything like you think.

But it had been like she’d thought, her gut constricting as soon as she’d heard German as a living language. She had purposely
declined going to Dachau. What Peter didn’t need was more destruction in his life, or in her life—come to think about it.
But there remained a certain heaviness throughout the week, because it was impossible to walk the cobblestones of Kaufingerstrasse
in the Marienplatz without thinking about all the Jewish blood that had been spilled on German soil. Every time they passed
the Hofbrauhaus beer hall, it was as if ghosts were belting out the “Horst Wessel Song.”


The saving grace was Ellie’s work. Here was a woman who was trying to build up a religious Jewish community, not toss it into
the furnace. The fact that Ellie and her husband, Larry, chose Germany was a testament to their nonconformity, but that was
Ellie to a T. Rina remembered their years together in school, in kindergarten when both of them had been five years old and
it had been Purim. All the other girls had dressed up as Queen Esther or some other unnamed princess. There were also a few
ballerinas, several clowns, and a couple of butterflies. Ellie had come to school wearing a homemade costume that wasn’t much
more than a sack. It was designed in sandwich-board style with two sides. The front was imprinted with a blue sky and white
fluffy clouds with a big felt sun stuck in the center. The back fabric was black and glitter-studded with a crescent moon
in the corner.


What are you? Amy Swartzberg had demanded to know of Ellie.


Ellie had retorted in her most adult voice: I am Bereshit—the creation of the sun and the moon. It’s a conceptual costume!

Rina had no idea what conceptual meant, but by the way Ellie had stated the word, conceptual had to be pretty darn important.

From the moment they had arrived overseas, Ellie greeted them with such warmth that soon Rina’s misgiving melted and it was
old times again. Ellie’s enthusiasm was infectious.


This is Hitler’s worst nightmare, Rina, a resurgence of Jewish life where the Nazi party was born.

Not a particularly big resurgence, Rina thought, but everything had to start somewhere. Munich had several synagogues, a small kosher shop owned
by a Moroccan French Jew in the main Viktualienmarkt, a kosher bakery in Schwabing, and a kosher restaurant in the old Isarvorstadt
area. The Bavarians were a particularly unique lot. When they thought she and Peter were Americans of possible German descent
because of their surname Decker, they were outgoing and friendly, boastful and proud. But the minute she spoke to them in
Yiddish, a clear indication that she was Jewish, most probably with relatives from “that other period,” they’d remain polite
but the conversation turned stilted, their words carefully chosen.


Still, it had been a different adventure, more soul-searching if not rip-roaring fun. And there had been some breathtaking
scenery, the two of them exploring the countryside and the foothills of the Alps, holding hands and sipping tea from a thermos
while hiking through the wet foliage, with spring just around the corner. The rushing streams and the incredible vistas seemed
to be a balm to Peter’s troubled mind.


And yet the more relaxed he became, the more she tensed internally. Germany was not only the land of her national destruction,
but was also the soil of a personal catastrophe—an unexcised cancer on her mother’s soul. What mystical forces had led her
into that police station some two months ago, asking the Munich desk sergeant where could she find information about a seventy-five-year-old
crime? At the time, all Rina had wanted to do was provide her aged mother with some peace of mind. Now she wondered if she
wasn’t stepping into a hornet’s nest.


There was no reason to pursue what had become a cruel distant memory in an old woman’s mind. But as she scanned the pages
of the crime report, reading her grandmother’s name Regina—Rina’s English name—followed by the word “totschlag”—homicide—she knew with surety that she had to see this through.


I saw him frantically waving the white flag, a man admitting defeat. As I pulled the cruiser into one of the alley’s parking spaces, blocking a
silver Mercedes S500, I realized that the banner was, in fact, a napkin. He wore a solid wall of white, the hem of a long,
stained apron brushing his white jeans midshin. Though it was night, I could see a face covered with moisture. Not a surprise
because the air was a chilly mist: typical May-gloom weather in L.A. I radioed my whereabouts to the dispatcher and got out,
my right hand on my baton, the other swinging freely at my side. The alley stank of garbage, the odor emanating from the trash
bins behind the restaurant. The flies, normally shy in the dark, were having a field day.


The rear area of The Tango was illuminated by a strong yellow spotlight above the back door. The man in white was short, five-seven
at the most, with a rough, tawny complexion, a black mustache, and hands flapping randomly. He was agitated, talking bullet-speed
Spanish. I picked up a few words, but didn’t ask him to stop and translate, because I heard the noise myself—the high-pitched
wails of a baby.


“Where?” I yelled over his words. “Dónde?”

“Aquí, aquí!” He was pointing to an army-green Dumpster filled to the brim with blue plastic refuse bags.


“Call 911.” I ran to the site and pulled out several bags, tearing one open and exposing myself to a slop of wilted salad
greens, mushy vegetables, and golf balls of gray meat and congealed fat. As I sifted through the trash, my clean, pressed
uniform and I became performance art, the deep blue cloth soaking up the oils and stains of previously pricey edibles. “I
need help! Necesito ayuda! Ahorita.”


“Sí, sí!” He dashed back inside.


The crying was getting louder and that was good, but there was still no sign of the wail’s origin. My heart was slamming against
my chest as I sorted through the top layer of bags. The bin was deep. I needed to jump inside to remove all the bags, but
I didn’t want to step on anything until I had checked it out. Three men came running out of the back door.


“Escalera!”—a ladder—I barked. “Yo necisito una escalera.”

One went back inside, the other two began pulling out bags.

“Careful, careful!” I screamed. “I don’t know where it is!” I used the word “it” because it could have been a thrown-away
kitten. When agitated, felines sound like babies. But all of us knew it wasn’t a cat.


Finally, the ladder appeared and I scurried up the steps, gingerly removing enough bags until I could see the bottom, a disc
of dirty metal under the beam of my flashlight. I went over legs first and, holding the rim with my hands, lowered myself
to the bottom. I picked a bag at random, checked inside, then hoisted it over the top when I satisfied myself that it didn’t
contain the source of the noise.


Slow, Cindy, I told myself. Don’t want to mess this up.

With each bag removed, I could hear myself getting closer to the sound’s origin. Someone had taken the time to bury it. Fury
welled inside me, but I held it at bay to do a job. At the bottom layer, I hit pay dirt—a newborn girl with the cord still
attached to her navel, her face and body filthy, her eyes scrunched up, her cries strong and tearless. I yelled out for something
to wrap her in, and they handed me a fresh, starched tablecloth. I wiped down the body, cleaned out the mouth and nose as
best as I could, and bundled her up—umbilicus and all. I held her up so someone could take her from me. Then I hoisted myself
up and out.


The man who had flagged me down offered me a wet towel. I wiped down my hands and face. I asked him his name.

“Martino Delacruz.”

“Good job, Señor Delacruz!” I smiled at him. “Buen trabajo.”

The man’s eyes were wet.

Moments later, the bundle was passed back to me. I felt grubby holding her, but obviously since I was the only woman in the crowd, I was supposed to know about these kinds of things.


Actually, I did know a thing or two about infants, having a half sister eighteen years my junior. Her mother, Rina—my stepmother—had
become very ill after childbirth and guess who stepped up to the plate when my father was in a near state of collapse? (Who
could have blamed him? Rina almost died.)


The positive side was the sisterly bonding, at least on my part. Hannah Rosie Decker was my only blood sibling, and they didn’t
come any cuter or better than she. I adored her. Matter of fact, I liked my father’s family very much. Rina’s sons were great
kids and I loved them and respected them as much as anyone could love and respect step-relatives. Rina took wonderful care
of my father, a feat worth noting because Dad was not the easiest person to get along with. I knew this from firsthand experience.


“Did anyone call 911?”

“Yo hable.” Delacruz handed me another clean rag to wipe my dirty face.


“Thank you, señor.” I had put a clean napkin over my shoulder and was rocking the baby against my chest. “If you can, get some warm sugar water
and dunk a clean napkin into it. Then bring it to me.”


The man was off in a flash. The baby’s cries had quieted to soft sobs. I suddenly noticed that my own cheeks were warm and
wet, thrilled that this incident had resolved positively. Delacruz was back with the sugar water–soaked napkin. I took it
and put the tip of a corner into her mouth. Immediately, she sucked greedily. In the distance I heard a wail of sirens.


“We’ve got to get you to the hospital, little one. You’re one heck of a strong pup, aren’t you?”

I smelled as overripe as rotten fruit. I placed the infant back into Delacruz’s arms. “Por favor, give her to the ambulance people. I need to wash my hands.”


He took the bundle and began to walk with her. It was one of those Kodak moments, this macho man cooing in Spanish to this
tiny, displaced infant. The job had its heartbreak, but it also had its rewards.


After rotating my shoulders to release the tension, I went through the back door of The Tango and asked one of the dishwashers
where I could clean up. I heard a gasp and turned around. A man wearing a toque was shooing me away with dismissive hands.
“Zis is a food establishment! You cannot come in here like zat!”


“Someone dumped a baby in the trash outside.” My stare was fierce and piercing. “I just rescued her by opening up fifteen
bags of garbage. I need to wash my hands!”


Toque was confused. “Here? A bébé?”


“Yes, sir! Here! A bébé!” I spotted a cloud of suds that had filled up a sink. Wordlessly, I walked over and plunged my hands inside very warm water.
What the heck! All the china went into a dishwasher anyway, right? After ridding my hands of the grime, I ran the cold water
full blast and washed my face. One of the kitchen workers was nice enough to offer me a clean towel. I dried myself off and
looked up.


The ambulance had arrived, red strobe lights pulsing through the windows. I pointed to Mr. Toque and gave him my steely-eyed
look. “Like heartburn, I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.”


The EMTs had already cut the cord and were cleaning her up. I regarded the medics as they did their job. A sturdy black woman
was holding the baby in her arms while a thin white kid with a consumptive complexion was carefully wiping down the infant’s
face. Both were gloved.


“How’s she doing?” I asked.

They looked up. The thin kid smiled when he saw me. “Whew, you musta been hungry.”

The kid’s name tag said B. HANOVER. I gave him a hard stare and he recoiled. “Jeez. Just trying out a little levity, Officer. It breaks the tension.”


“How’s she doing?” I repeated.

The woman answered. Her name was Y. Crumack. “Fine, so far … a success story.”

“That’s always nice.”

The infant’s placenta had been bagged and was resting on the ground a couple of feet away. It would be taken to a pathology
lab, the tissue examined for disease and genetic material that might identify her. For no good reason, I picked up the bag.


Crumack said, “We’ll need that. It has to be biopsied.”

“Yeah, I know. Where are you taking her?”

“Mid-City Pediatric Hospital.”

“The one on Vermont,” I said.

“Only one I know,” Hanover said. “Any ideas about the mom?”

“Not a clue.”

“You should find her,” Hanover informed me. “It would help everyone out.”

“Wow, I hadn’t thought about that,” I snapped. “Thanks for sharing.”

“No need to get testy,” Hanover sneered.

Crumack opened the back door, strapping the baby in an infant seat. The wailing had returned. I assumed that to be a positive
sign. I gave her the bagged placenta and she placed it in the ambulance.


“She sounds hungry,” I said.

“Starved,” Crumack answered. “Her abdomen is empty.”

“Her head looks … I don’t know … elongated, maybe? What’s that all about?”

“Probably from being pushed out of the birth canal. Main thing is, it isn’t crushed. She was real lucky, considering all the
things that could have gone wrong. She could’ve swallowed something and choked; she could’ve suffocated; she could’ve been
crushed. This is an A-one outcome.” She patted my shoulder. “And you’re part of it.”


I felt my eyes water. “Hey, don’t look at me, thank Señor Delacruz,” I told her. “He’s got good ears.”

The man knew enough English to recognize a compliment. His smile was broad.

“Any idea how many hours she’s been alive?” I asked the techs.

Hanover said, “Her body temperature hasn’t dropped that much. Of course, she was insulated in all that garbage. I’d say a
fairly recent dump.”


“So what are we talking about?” I asked. “Two hours? Four hours?”

“Maybe,” Crumack said. “Six hours, max.”

I checked my watch. It was ten-thirty. “So she was dumped around four or five in the afternoon?”

“Sounds about right.” Crumack turned to his partner. “Let’s go.”

I called out, “Mid-City Pediatric!”

Hanover reconfirmed it, slid behind the wheel, and shut the door, moving on out with sirens blaring and lights blazing. My
arms felt incredibly empty. Although I rarely thought about my biological clock—I was only twenty-eight—I was suddenly pricked
by maternal pangs. It felt good to give comfort. Long ago, that was my primary reason for becoming a cop.


The clincher was my father, of course.

He had discouraged me from entering the profession. Being the ridiculously stubborn daughter I was, his caveats had the opposite
effect. There were taut moments between us, but most of that had been resolved. I truly loved being a cop and not because
I had unresolved Freudian needs. Still, if I had been sired by a “psychologist dad” instead of a “lieutenant dad,” I probably
would have become a therapist.


I unhooked my radio from my belt and called the dispatcher, requesting a detective to the scene.

When was the trash last emptied? … Before Mr. Delacruz?”


I was addressing Andre Racine, the sous-chef at The Tango. He was taller than I by about three inches, making him around five-eleven,
with broad shoulders and the beginnings of a beer belly hanging over the crossed strings of his apron. His toque was slightly
askew, looking like a vanilla soufflé. We were talking right near the back door so I could keep an eye on what was going on
outside.


“Ze trash is emptied at night. Sometimes eet is two days, not longer.”

“The back door was open at the time. You didn’t hear anyone crying or rummaging around back here?”

The man shook his head. “Eet is a racket in a keetchen with all zee equipment and appliances running. Eet is good if I can
hear myself think!”


I had spoken to several other kitchen employees and they had said the same thing. I could confirm the noise myself. There
were the usual rumbles and beeps of the appliances, plus one of the guys had turned on a boom box to a Spanish station specializing
in salsa music. To add to the cacophony, the restaurant featured a live band—a jazz combo that included electric guitar, bass,
piano, and drums. The din would have driven me crazy, but I supposed that these men felt lucky to have steady jobs in this
climate.


Though the back door was open, the screen door was closed to prevent infestations of rodents or pesky, winged critters. It
was hard to see through the mesh. Nothing seemed suspicious to my eyes, no one was giving off bad vibes. Quite the contrary:
All these good people had come out to help. They were exhausted by the incident and so was I. Looking up from my notepad,
I thanked the stunned chef, then walked outside to catch my breath and organize my notes. My watch was almost up and a gold
shield was on the way to take over the investigation. I began to write the names of my interviewees in alphabetical order.
After each name, I listed the person’s position and telephone number. I wanted to present the primary detective with something
organized … something that would impress.


A few minutes later, a cruiser pulled up and parked in the alley, perpendicular to the spaces behind The Tango, blocking all
the cars including mine. Greg Van Horn got out, his gait a bow-legged strut that buckled under the weight of his girth. He
wasn’t fat, just a solid hunk of meat. Greg was in his early sixties, passing time until retirement. He’d been married twice,
divorced twice. Rumor still had him as a pussy hound, and a bitter one at that. But he was nice enough to me. I think he had
worked with my father way back when, and there had been some mutual admiration.


Greg was of medium height, with a thick top of coarse gray hair. His face was round with fleshy features including a drinker’s
nose. His blue suit was boxy on him. Anything he wore would have been boxy. I gave him a thirty-second recap, then showed
him my notepad. I pointed out Martino Delacruz. “He lives on Western. He’s worked at The Tango for six years.”


“Green card?” Van Horn asked.

“Yes, he has one. After things calmed down, he showed it to me without my asking.” I paused. “Not that it’s relevant. It’s
not as if he’s going to trial as a witness or anything.”


“Never can tell, Decker.” He moved a sausage-size finger across the bridge of his nose. Not wiping it, more like scratching
an itch inside his flaring nostrils.


“He went outside to take out the trash and heard the baby crying,” I continued. “He was going to call for help, but then he
spotted my cruiser. You want me to bring him over to you, sir?”


Van Horn’s eyes swept over my face, then walked downward, stopping short of my chest. His eyes narrowed. “I think you need
to change your uniform.”


“I know that. I’m going off duty in twenty minutes, unless you need me to stick around.”

“I might need another pair of hands. Sooner we find the mother, the better.”

I gave a quick glance over my shoulder. “Not much here in the way of a residential area.”

“Not on Hollywood, no. But if you go south, between Hollywood and Sunset, there are lots of houses and apartments.”

“Do you want me to go door-to-door now, sir?”

A glance at his watch. “It’ll take time. Is that a problem for you, Decker?”

“No, not at all, Detective. Where would you like me to start?”

Van Horn’s nose wrinkled. “You really need to put on something clean, Decker.”

“Want me to go change and then come back?” I spoke without rancor. Being polite meant being cautious. As far as I was concerned,
the less my personality stood out, the happier I was.


“I take it you have no plans tonight, Decker?”

“Just a hot date with my shower.”

He smiled, then took another peek at his watch. “It’s late … probably too late to canvass thoroughly.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow and help you search if you want.”

“I doubt if your sergeant will want to pull you out of circulation just for that.”

“I’ll do it in the morning, on my own time.”

“You’re ambitious.”

“And knowing my stock, that surprises you?”

A grin this time. “You’re gonna do just fine, Decker.”

High praise coming from Greg.

“While I talk to the people on your list, you cordon off the area and look around for anything that might give us a clue as
to who the mother is. I suppose at this late hour, our best bet could be a request for public help on the eleven o’clock news.”


A news van pulled up just as the words left his mouth. “You’re prescient, Detective. Here’s your chance.”

“ABC, eh?” A flicker of hesitancy shot through his eyes. “Is that the one with the anchorwoman who has the white streak in
her black hair, like a skunk?”


“I don’t know. … There’s NBC. The others can’t be far behind.” I patted his shoulder. “It’s show time.”

“How’s your Q, Decker?”

“Me?” I pointed to my chest. “You’ve got the gold shield, Greg.”

“But you found the baby.”

“Yeah, but I stink and you’re in a suit.” I waved him off. “I’ll go yellow-tape the area and look around.”

“You sure?” But he was already straightening his tie and smoothing his hair. “Yeah, tape off the area. Don’t sweat it too
much, Decker. I can pretty much take it from here. And hey, I’ll take you up on your offer … to canvass the area tomorrow.”


“That’ll work for me.”

“Good. We’ll coordinate in a moment. Just let me get these clowns off my back.”

“Of course.”

“Show ’em what a real detective looks like, huh?”

“You tell ’em, Greg.”

Van Horn made tracks toward a grouping of handheld Mini-cams, lurching like a cowboy ready for the showdown.

In Hollywood, everybody’s a star.



A half block from the restaurant was a pool of something that didn’t smell like water and shone ruby red under the beam of
the flashlight. There were also intermittent drips from the puddle to the Dumpster behind The Tango. Because of the location,
I thought of a homeless woman or a runaway teen, someone scared and unstable. She would have to be on the skids, pushing out
a baby in a back alley, all alone amid a host of bugs and rats.


The blood of childbirth—if we were lucky.

If the mother was someone local, it would narrow the search. Maybe knocking on doors wouldn’t be the answer. Maybe my best
bet would be to hunt down the throwaways, to crawl through the underbelly of Hollywood, a city that offered so much but rarely
made good on its promises.


I showed the spot to Greg Van Horn after he did his dog-and-pony show for the nightly news. He regarded the blood while scratching
his abundant nose.


“Homicide?” I asked him.

“Can’t be ruled out.” His jaws were bulging as if chewing on something hard. “My instincts tell me no. The configuration doesn’t
look like a murder.”


“The concentration of blood in one spot as well as the absence of spatter.”

Van Horn nodded. “Yeah, exactly.”

“I was thinking about someone homeless. Who else would squat in a back alley?”

“I’ll buy that.” Eyes still on the pond of blood, he took out his cellular phone. “Time to call in the techs.”

“Want me to walk around the area, sir? See if I can find some street people?”

“Did you finish roping the area?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sure. Go pretend you’re a gold shield, Decker.”

Low blow, Greg. I said with a smile, “Just testing out my mettle.”


“I thought you already passed that test.”

This time the smile was genuine. “That was nice. Thank you.”

“Get out of here.”

I skipped over the yellow tape, walking about a hundred yards north through the alley and onto Hollywood Boulevard. The sidewalks
weren’t paved with gold, but they were filled with lots of black-stoned stars set into red granite. Each star represented
a different icon of the entertainment media—TV, film, radio, or the recording industry. The good news was that recent gentrification
and climbing real estate prices had preserved some of the older architecture and had cleaned up lots of the seedier aspects
of the area.


The western part of the boulevard was breaking through, probably like Times Square had done a dozen or so years ago. The city
planners were smart enough to face-lift its known quantities, like the famous movie houses—Mann’s Chinese Theatre, Egyptian,
and El Capitan—as well as the sideshow carnival attractions like Ripley’s Believe It or Not and the Hollywood Wax Museum.
In addition, the renovated sector now boasted several eye-catching shopping galleries and a spanking-new gold-and-black-granite
live theater built by Kodak. These landmarks drew lots of tourists, those hoping to be touched by magic or, at the very least,
bask in its afterglow.


It was the night that brought out the predators, individuals who thrived on marginal life. The eastern portion of Hollywood
was the domain of tattoo parlors and bail bondsmen, of cheap retail shops, several no-tell motels and fast-food joints.


The Tango sat on the border between the bright lights of old glamour and the slums of decay. As economic revival crept eastward,
some of the neon spilled over, but not nearly enough to illuminate the hidden cracks and crevices. I didn’t have to walk too
far before I found someone. She sat on the sidewalk, her back against the painted