Mike brought out the principal’s preliminary list of thirty seventh-and eighth-grade boys. “Last time, we left a copy of Vee’s letter with you, correct?”
Mrs. Kennedy nodded slowly.
“I imagine you’ve had to read some more homework assignments since then. Kids turning in essays, reports…”
She nodded again.
“Anything jump out at you this time? Maybe a sentence here or there that suddenly reminded you of the letter? Look at this list of names again. Think about the letter. Help us out here.”
She absently fingered the list of names, and Mike could tell she didn’t really need to see them.
“Mrs. Kennedy?” he probed quietly.
She said, “I noticed something.”
Mike sat up straighter. Koontz promptly whipped out his notepad. Mrs. Kennedy was speaking in a rush.
“It’s funny. To read the letter, I was thinking of someone hard-core. A real tough boy, probably one of my students who doesn’t even do his homework assignments. I know what a straight shooter is. I understand I have a few in my class. Sometimes I think I can pick them out just by looking. That boy there has killed someone, this boy here. It’s uncomfortable, to be looking out at a class of thirty-five students, wondering how many of them are already murderers. It’s just not right.”
“You’re scared? You think you need protection? We can take care of that.”
“But that’s just it.” Her gaze finally rose to meet Mike’s. “When I looked at this picture this morning, I didn’t see a hard-core gang member. My first thought was a different child completely. He sits in the back of my third-period English class, never says a word. Just shuffles in at the start of the period, then shuffles back out at the end. I’ve never seen him hang out with any other students. My impression is that he keeps to himself and, for whatever reason, the other students let him be.”
“Maybe ’cause his brother was somebody important,” Koontz murmured.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Detective. But I can tell you I honestly never pictured him as the violent type. He’s small, quiet, unobtrusive. More the kind of student doomed to fall through the cracks of the education system.
“I went back this morning to see if I had any samples of his writing. He’s turned in quite a few assignments, I discovered. He’s actually quite bright. I’m surprised I didn’t notice it more before. There’s a certain poetry to his writing, a need to be heard. I…” Her voice broke off awkwardly. She looked genuinely regretful. “I’m sorry. I have a feeling I was supposed to have heard. But one hundred and twenty students. So many papers to grade… I didn’t get his message, his need to be noticed, and so he took it to a larger audience.”
“The kid who wrote the papers also wrote the letters? You’re sure.”
“Pretty sure. I am really so sorry.”
Koontz and Mike leaned forward. “Give us his name.”
The kid who called himself Vee was trudging back to school. Lunch break. Students weren’t supposed to leave the school grounds, but most of them did. Cafeteria food sucked at Alexandria Junior High. Kids all went to the local minimart and loaded up on Nutter Butters and Cupa-Noodle soup instead. Best lunch you could get for a buck fifty-five.
Vee didn’t get to eat today, though. He didn’t have money, spent his last dollar two days ago and now his stomach hurt. One bowl of mac and cheese a day just didn’t sit right. He’d have to get a job, he thought. His sister definitely wasn’t gonna work and they couldn’t live on what the government paid her. Landlord took most of the welfare check for rent. Heat and electricity gobbled up the rest. God knows the last time the cupboards had food.
Vee would get a job. Not much out there for thirteen-year-olds, though. Unless he wanted to be a lookout. That’s how Big S Sammy had started. Low in the gang ranks, moving on up from there. Yeah, he’d gotten the ultimate promotion in the end, right on up to the big house in the sky.
Lord, Vee’s stomach
hurt.
He cut across the school parking lot and some big kid came out of nowhere and grabbed him around the shoulders.
“Shuddup, little bro.” The big kid quickly dragged him behind some big old car. Four other big kids were there, geared up and looking mean. Vee gazed from one pair of flat, black eyes to the next. He thought he knew what would happen next.
They’d pound him. Pound him hard. Crack ribs, swell his eyes shut. Beat him till he stopped whimpering. Then it be done. He’d belong to their hood. He’d be a gangbanger and his broken-down mama would cry.
Damn. For a moment, Vee was so hungry he didn’t care. If he be a gangbanger, he could go to some homey’s house. He could eat his food.
“You be Vee?”
The kid who called himself Vee nodded, trying to look tough. He’d thought this might happen. Picture in the paper wasn’t that good, but maybe good enough for other brothers, particularly ones who knew Mac-Two.
“You gotta split.”
“What?”
The older boy cuffed him across the mouth. “Don’t what me, little bro. Pay attention here. There be two cops in the school looking for you. Time to split.”
Vee just looked at the older boy dumbly. He couldn’t split. Who would take care of his sister?
“Man,” the older boy said, “for someone who wrote such
down
letters, you don’t got a brain in your head. Here, take this. If you run home now, you probably got a chance at beating the cops. Grab what you need, find a hotel. Things get real dicey, you can hole up with us. We got a scrapbook on your brother, you know. We take care of our own.”
Vee looked down at the roll of hundreds that had been thrust into his hand. Money. He could give some to his sister. He could buy food. Then he thought,
Black Guerrilla Family money.
You take care of your own? Tell that to Big S Sammy.
No more time for thinking. The big kid cuffed him again, harder this time. Everyone looked nervously at the school.
“Split,” the four big kids hissed. “Split.”
Vee started running, roll of money clutched in his fist. He didn’t know what else to do.
At twelve-thirty, Sandra got the call from Mike. He and Rusty finally had a name. They’d left two patrol officers at the school in case Vee showed up; now they were on the way to the boy’s house. After a long week, they thought they’d broken the case and they were feeling good.
Sandra made Mike promise to be careful. Then she headed for her press conference.
Everything went well. The reporters jumped over the news that the police had a break in the Vee case and expected to resolve the situation shortly. Of course, Alexandria’s law enforcement still needed to improve their re lationship with the community, Sandra transitioned smoothly, hence the new focus on community policing.
Amid a flurry of note scribbling, she described the general principles behind community policing—that many so-called “soft” crimes such as graffiti, vandalism and prostitution, paved the way for “hard” crimes such as drug dealing, mugging, and murder. Since the police did not have the resources to pursue all crimes, especially minor violations, community members could assist local efforts by attacking these offenses. For example, community leaders could organize whitewash parties every Saturday morning when locals would paint over graffiti tags done during the week. Studies showed that after enough time, taggers generally moved on and so did some measure of gang activity.
Community leaders could also organize local patrols of the city blocks, even videotaping suspicious activity for use by the police later. In one city, local business owners took out a restraining order against the prostitutes on their block. The women had to move their activities or were arrested for violating the restraining order the minute they showed up for work. Police discovered that once the prostitution ceased, so did many of the drug-related activities.
They had to start by focusing on small zones of security, Sandra concluded thirty minutes later, community members and law enforcement working hand in hand. These pockets could then attract investment dollars and community goodwill to help them expand over time, until someday perhaps the whole east side could be a safe zone where children could play in clean parks, walk down well-lit streets, and sit on their front porches without fearing for their lives. Surely it was worth a try.
A few reporters nodded vigorously. A few others looked bored. Sandra could live with that. They all promised to print the police department’s request for volunteer community liaisons. Hopefully, that would get the ball rolling.
Sandra also promised to keep the reporters posted about the situation with Vee. The
Post
still felt it had first dibs on the story. She let them feel that way.
Five minutes later, she had retired to her office and was hovering anxiously over the police scanner, waiting for news of Vee’s arrest. None came, but at a little after six, Mike and Koontz burst into her office.
“We got him,” Koontz announced, eyes shining bright.
“Kid’s name is Toby Watkins. Little Toby Watkins.”
“Did you arrest him? Is he here?”
Mike shook his head. He looked as jazzed as Rusty.
“No, not yet, but we know he’s Vee. When we knocked on the door, a young woman answered. Big round scar on her right cheek. It’s him, all right.”
“Check this out,” Koontz announced, flipping through his spiral notebook. “Toby Watkins, age thirteen, youngest of three children born to Yulanda Watkins. No record of criminal activity—that’s why we couldn’t find him in NCIC. According to his sister, he also doesn’t belong to any gang. His mother made him swear he’d never adopt colors after his older brother was shot during some gang war. Big S Sammy was the older brother’s name. He died three years ago. Toby now lives with his sister, Opal, and his mom, but the mom was recently taken away.”
“Taken away? Taken away where?”
“She had a breakdown,” Koontz said casually, and shrugged. “Some kind of nerve thing. She’s at the county hospital doped up on Valium and Prozac. I doubt she knows her own name.”
Sandra turned to Mike for guidance. He was definitely more compassionate in his approach. “She was taken away three months ago and Vee was left in his sister’s care. Opal Watkins is twenty-two and capable of serving as a legal guardian. Unfortunately, from what we could tell, she’s not working at all—”
“Dedicated herself to soaps,” Koontz snickered.
“The situation isn’t ideal,” Mike said. “No food in the kitchen and a pile of garbage on the floor. From the letters, it sounded as if Vee was close to his mother. Once she was taken away…” He made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Vee probably started to unravel a little, too.”
Sandra nodded. “We need to find him,” she said seriously. “This situation is still precarious.”
“Oh, we got him,” Koontz assured her. “According to attendance records, he’s pretty good about going to school and according to his sister, he doesn’t have any friends or other relatives. Now we got unmarked patrol cars at each location. I’d say any minute now, that radio is going to be beeping with good news.”
“I think we should still approach with caution,” Sandra said. “Even if he doesn’t have a history of violence, he’s been under a lot of pressure. Now he has his face featured in every newspaper. He must be feeling frightened and overwhelmed.”
“We’ll approach with caution,” Mike agreed. “We did find a small arsenal under his bed. Oh, and the manual typewriter.”
“Great work,” Sandra said seriously. “The mayor will be delighted, and I know we’ll all feel better once we’ve gotten this boy into custody.”
Mike grinned. After a moment, Koontz grinned, too. Sandra was mildly taken aback. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Koontz smile before. For the first time she could see the pride he took in his work.
The detective clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. “Come on, Rawlins, let’s go down to the Code Blue and wait for the news. My treat.”
Mike hesitated, his gaze slipping to Sandra so imperceptibly she hoped Koontz hadn’t noticed. But Rusty immediately stilled. Something harsh and cynical slipped over his face.
“Oh, yeah, how could I have forgotten? Excuse me.”
“Hey, man, the Code Blue sounds great.”
“Oh, no, no, no. I overstepped my bounds again. Forgot about you two lovebirds here. Can’t be having that.”
“Rusty—”
Koontz wasn’t hearing it. His eyes were already dark with anger, his motions jerky. Whatever rift had been temporarily sealed by closing the case came tearing back open as Koontz headed for the door.
“Rusty, wait.” Sandra spoke up instinctively.
“What?”
“I…it’s just…we’re professionals here Rusty. Mike, you, me. We don’t need to get into this stuff. You and Mike are great partners. You want to go have a beer at Code Blue, more power to you.”
“You mean I got your permission?” Rusty drawled sarcastically. Mike immediately opened his mouth, looking angry now. Sandra held up a silencing hand, determined to try again.
“I mean it’s none of my business.”
“Damn right.”
“Damn right.”
The fact she’d agreed with him made Rusty scowl harder. “Don’t go doing me any favors, Sandy. You want Rawlins here, he’s all yours. I’ve been meaning to ask about a new partner anyway. So how about it?”
Sandra’s eyes widened in shock. Even knowing the part ners were going through a difficult time, she had not seen this coming. “Mike?” she asked after a moment.
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He was engaged in an in-depth study of the badly scarred floor. That told Sandra enough. Mike was embarrassed. He was hurt. He was angry. He wasn’t going to say a word. Let this be Koontz’s decision, just like for him, the end of their marriage had been hers.
It made Sandra’s decision easy, after all.
“No,” she said.
Both men stared at her in surprise.
“What do you mean, no?” Koontz demanded.
“I mean no. You’re my best detective team. I won’t split you.”
“Hey, Aikens—”
“Now, Sandy—”
She cut them both off. “I don’t want to hear it. Whatever problems you have, work them out. You are the two best damn detectives on the force. You just broke the toughest case we’ve had, and I won’t split you. Good night.”