Drug Dealers --Part 3--Lilly, The Living Zombie

It was a rainy, cold and dark Seattle day when I walked towards that outside door.

I was headed to one of those small anonymous apartments in a concrete sea of bigger anonymous apartments, called Section 8 in these parts. Section 8 is housing any one of us could be living in were our financial needs high enough... and our income low enough, to qualify.

Section 8 often keeps good well-intentioned people off the streets.
Still there are abusers, cheaters, thieves working the system.
Rules aren't merely being stretched, they're being torn to shreds or ignored by some landlords and some tenants.

The building I was about to enter was not like the horizontally based Section 8 apartment complexes I was used to.
Instead, there was one main front entry door, one main back door and one tall building up, I counted five stories.

I approached the back door which was near where I parked. The back door was open.
On the way, to it, I stepped over one big pile of pee and chose not to contemplate whose it was.

The back door was designed to be locked and entered with a key code box.
And at the door I approached, it became clear some one tore the alarm box off. Nothing left but the wires. Anyone could just walk right in the apartment building like I did.

It was early morning. That's when I make my appointments to places like this one the attorney sent me to when I have a choice.
Junkies sleep in the morning. So I figured 9:00 am Sunday, I'd be okay.
I opened the back door.
I almost expected to hear ,"white girl on the floor...." like I have heard "woman on the floor" shouted through the halls of homeless shelters where I have met many male victims or witnesses.
Instead, the only sound I heard was the metal door as it creaked open, then a swoosh as it scraped a dirty carpeted floor spotted with stains.

It took a moment to adjust to the lack of light inside.
I saw no people, just things ahead: doorways and stairs...exit signs ... papers posted to the walls... an occasional eviction notice tacked to a door.
I walked quietly down the hall and then took the stairs up to my destination, Floor 3.

This is always a point of concern for me.
Stairwells, like elevators, tend to lock you in. When you're locked in with a psycho or bad dude, that can be problematic.

The building I was in had no elevators. I had no other choice other than to enter the stair well, which, I discovered, to my relief, was not enclosed. Escape could be had with a leap.

Up I went two flights and down another hallway.
I start tracking the numbers.
"304...Bingo," I thought as I knocked on the door and wondered, as I always do, whatit would open to.

There was no answer.

I knocked again, harder. No response.

I didn't want to wake the neighbors so I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the phone number the attorney gave me for his potential client. I wrote the phone number in ink on the inside of my left hand, a habit developed for occasions such as this one.

I leaned towards the door. I heard the phone ringing through the apartment door.
"Yallow?" a sleepy female voice answered on the fourth ring.
"Good Morning Lilly," I said, " It's me, Susan, the Investigator." I gave her the name of the attorney who sent me. Then I said I was knocking at her front door and no one answered.
"OK . Be right wit' ya" " the voice shouted from behind Door 304.
I guessed the accent was Jamaican.

As I stood waiting at the door, I heard things being moved about... whispers of voices... a house being cleaned up for an investigator on a Sunday morning after who knows what kind of Saturday night.

It took maybe five minutes before she opened the door.

I was right. She was Jamaican. She had the head scarf on, the accent.... and the large Jamaica tourism poster on the wall to my left was a dead giveaway.

There was something wrong with her left eye, it was completely clouded over, a milky white. I looked into her right eye, it was still brown and covered slightly with grey.

"I be 90% blind" she told me as she extended her left hand towards mine.
Her right right arm was broken and she had a sling on.
" I"m Lilly" ( pseudonym) she said. I reached out with my right and shook her left hand.
"Pleased to meet you Lilly, "I said, "Though I wish it were under better circumstances."
"You got dat' right sistah' " she said.

Some investigators don't shake hands.
This one does.
I think when you touch someone, you really say to them, I am willing to commit to this dialogue, to connect with you.
I am not afraid of you.
Sometimes... it means, quite literally, my life is in your hands.

I think the old school of investigation: stepping back from the subject; hands kept in pockets; playing Joe or Josephine Friday; is not the best approach.
A hand shake tends to soften situations which otherwise would be harder to crack.
I was however, aware I had shaken a hand covered with who knows what substances and germs, so I consciously kept that hand away from my eyes, nose and mouth until I could return to my car and my hand sanitizer.

So after said handshake, Lilly led me into her living room. There was a bedroom to the side. Then two other doors. I heard a tv on in one room.

"Anyone else here?" I asked.
"My man" Lilly said, "He be watching his man show in dah' bedroom".

I smiled and accept the seat Lilly offered me, near her on the sofa. Though I hoped there was not not a hypodermic needle where I sat, I was polite enough not to ask.

I get as close as I can to subjects of my interview.
I like them to see me write my notes, to suggest corrections or catch mistakes if I write something down wrong.
I want them to draw me pictures of the crime scene or accident scene.
I deliberately invade their personal space in order to expose it. This is not an easy thing for a white girl to do in a world that doesn't necessary think fondly of, or trust us, white folks.

Lilly, however, was congenial enough though. I showed her my state investigation license. I remembered her blindness and read it to her.

"Do you think I have a case?" she asked.
I told her I wouldn't be there if the attorneys didn't think so. Because they pay me whether or not they take on her case. If they think there is a party at fault, I tell her... and they think there is insurance money they can get.... then they may take her case on.

What I had been told about her case was just a one liner on my Blackberry:
Pedestrian in street hit by car at 1:00 am. Find out everything.

What we did not know was whether Lilly was at a crosswalk.

Or whether the driver that hit her was both identified and insured.

We did not know who was at fault.

Lilly said she had the police report with her but couldn't read it.
I asked her to show it to me.
It was only page 1 of 3.
The police do this on accident scenes.
In cases like Lilly's, an officer usually gives the victim the first page of the report so the victim has the police report number or case number, the names of the people involved and their insurance companies. Then the police write up the rest of the report later when they are stationary, have time to do a scene sketch, get it submitted into their system so an injured party, or someone like an attorney, with power of attorney, can order and get it.

The police report didn't say much. The driver was in a Ford Taurus, female, 32 years old with a two and a four year old in baby seats in the back. She had auto insurance, that was good. There was no citation indicated however and that surprised me.

"Tell me what happened Lilly." I said.

She leaned closer to me, spoke softer, as if she was telling me an old Jamaican tale.

"Well I be poor as you can see. And my man, he be hungry.
So at night, he say to me,
'Lilly, I be hungry. You go out and get me some money so we can get me some food.'
"And I say okay. Only it be midnight... I be sleepy and almost blind.... so it takes me a while.
He tellin' me to hurry up, I tellin' him to shut up while I be gettin' pretty.
Then out the door I go and then I look up and I see the lights of the cars.

The street she was referring to was Highway 99- International Blvd, right by Seattle Tacoma airport. Its where the Green River Killer trolled for victims.

"So I be heading toward the lights of those cars..." she continued, " and I see one car go very slow and I figure he be wanting Miss Lilly and I walk to him cross middle of road and next thing I know I be hit. First in hip, then I go up on windshield, then down on ground. I catch myself with 'dis arm and it snap in two."

I asked Lilly if she was in the crosswalk when this happened.
"No, I can see no crosswalk, I blind remember? I just go to lights."

It was time to ask what I had already deduced.
" Lilly,what is it you do to get your man's money?"

She said, "I be de' lady of de' night. In de' night they do not see my eyes because I wear fancy glasses.

While Lilly spoke, I filled out the form the attorney gave me for the case. Under "occupation" I wrote "blind hooker." I was not feeling optimistic at this point.
I asked Lilly her date of birth. She was 50. She appeared to be in her late 60's.

I looked at Lilly's arms and ankles, all speckled with needle marks -- some new.
"Lilly," I said non -judgmentally, "I can see you use. It's okay to tell me about it, I'm on your side. I work for the attorneys, not the police. What's your drug of choice?"

"Given my druthers," she said, "I be doing Meth right here,right now. You got any?"

"No," I say, "That's evil stuff."

"Devil's brew" she replied.

So I had almost all the information I came for. I played through the case in my head.

At about 1:00 am, a Blind Meth Adddicted Prostitute approached a car in the middle of the night, in the middle of the busiest road by the Sea-Tac Airport. She was hit by a different car with a mother and two kids in it, a car that didn't see her.
Just one more question.

"What were you wearing that night Lilly?"

She said, "I be wearing my black lace nighties sweetie, my red lipstick, my black pearls, them hot black fishnets and my hooker heels."

I thought of the mother of two who hit Lilly. Did she see Lilly coming? Was there a spotlight or camera in the area?
Did her kids she it coming?
The female driver, the hitter, was no doubt horrified. Could she have avoided hitting Lilly?
It seemed to me, she just did not see Lilly. Lilly was dressed in black. In the middle of a dark busy road.
Whose was liable? What would a jury think?
Is it the blind, Meth-adddicted prostitute?
Or the mom and two sweet kids in the Ford Taurus who didn't see see her coming."

I looked long and hard at the Lilly and the case. I decided she would not make a good client for the high-powered attorney who hired me -- an attorney I considered a cut above the ones who would take anyone on as a client.

I made my decision. I would advise the attorney against taking the case on. Now, it was just a was just a matter of making my exit.... without letting her know that her case would be a reject. It's never good to anger a Meth Head.
.
"Well Lilly, " I said, "Sound like I got everything I need for the attorneys. Can I call you this afternoon if I have more questions?

"Afternoon be best," she replied. "So you think they can make me lots of money?"

"Lilly" I said, "They don't tell me anything after I hand in the case notes. It's their call.
But I am curious... if you ever came into a huge chunk of money, like you won a lottery or something, what would you do with it?"

"Why I buy me and my man a mountain of Meth." she answered without hesitating a beat.

"You don't want anything more than that for yourself Lilly?" I asked. "You got no dreams for the future, no hope? Nothing?"

Lilly focused what vision was left in her goodeye on my two healthy blue ones and said,

"Anything you give me to get out of myself... I be all for it.
What can I say? I be just a junkie."

I don't know about you, but I found that sentence quite profound.

"I be just a junkie."

The words still reverberate in my head.
Some girls just don't grow up to be teachers, secretaries or secretaries of state, doctors, soldiers, private investigators,shrinks, artists, steelworkers, truckers...
Some girls grow up to be blind hooker junkies with no way out.
And that would be Lilly.

I called the attorney who sent me out and told him of my interview with his prospective client Lilly. He agreed with my conclusions and asked me to drop the case file by his office and he'd give it all one more "look see." He said based on what we discussed, it was likely, he would have someone from his office call Lilly and tell her they would not handle her case.

Lilly is a Living Zombie.
I met her in her lair. Her man was there behind a closed door. No doubt, he was another of the same species. To this day, I marvel at the fact that I lived to report another encounter with Living Zombies.

I charged the attorney a little extra for that investigation. He reviewed the file again and didn't take the case. Nor did he complain about my fee.

As for Lilly, she went back in back in her shadowlands. Or she is in jail. Or she is dead. One of the three. I see no other ways this one could play out.

What will tomorrow's door open to? This investigator never knows.
Could be another Lilly.