The Ones Who Got Away (5 page)

“So, the deal is, tell me about Rick Garcia.”

“Who?”

“Played you in front of your boys the day he got to Amity. He lived in the same dorm with you. Till he woke up dead the next morning.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“That has everything to do with you. Give me some useful information and I’ll tell the judge you cooperated.”

Finally, Raymond opened up. “On his first day there, that fight, it ended there. I was on good terms with him after that. You know how juvenile centers have all those vocational classes and stuff. Well, at Amity, Rick and I had carpentry class together. I knew he kept on trying to open his bedroom window, wanting to escape.”

“I remembered telling him I almost broke my arm trying to do that for a month. Rick said it wasn’t about muscle. It was about finesse. I didn’t understand what he was talking about until he showed me a screwdriver hidden in his sleeve. The carpentry teacher, Alex saw that and accused Rick of stealing it from his class. He told Rick that he would pull his arm out of his socket if he ever did something like that again. The look in Alex’s eyes. I mean, we all knew he was behind bars before for assault.”

“Does Alex get rough with the kids?”

“Man, that place was a joke to me. Except Alex, I took him seriously.”

The interrogation ended with some vital information and a new lead.

***

As I entered the deli, the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out and filled my nostrils. My stomach did a little dance. I glanced at my watch. 3.15 pm. I was late for a date and my lunch. Did I say date? I shook my head, smiling. Don’t dream, Carrie. This is a meeting, a serious one. Be professional. My eyes flitted from one face to another until I found his. He smiled and did a little wave motioning for me to come to his table set for two.

“Did you get the coffee?”

“Yup, black and sugarless. How do you even drink this is beyond me.” Sam scrunched his nose. A mock face of disgust.

“Well, your fancy latte is not doing any good for your waistline either.” I replied. Score 1 for Carrie.

Defeated, Sam started changing the subject “Anyway, I looked Alex up. Turned out he was behind bars for several charges on assault. So tell me, how does an ex-con like Alex ends up teaching at Amity?” he asked over a plate of croissants. Tearing the croissants piece by piece and adding butter to each little piece. I smiled at that.

“There is not a long line of applicants. No benefits, no background check…”I admitted the truth.

“No problem.” He cut in while stuffing a piece of the croissant now swimming in butter in his mouth.

“Exactly” as I flinched at the bitter taste of my coffee. Mmmm…just the way I like it.

“You know, I was late for the hearing that was determining Rick’s sentence. I was a detective at Narcotics and Rick was busted for drug trafficking. It wasn’t his fault. He was forced to mule drugs for his previous foster parents. After that day, I swore I’ll look out for him.”

“You can’t be everywhere at once you know. I’m sure if Rick was still alive, he would understand that.”

“Yeah, but the thing is, he isn’t here anymore to say it”

***

“You got anger management issues, Alex? Beating a guy to a bloody pulp in a public area. A parking spot, no less.” Detective Samuel asked while pacing the interrogation room.

“The guy owed me money. He wanted to pay me back with a crowbar. I was defending myself. I did my time for it too.” Alex grunted in reply. He was a man around forty, had a silvery beard and an interesting criminal record.

“Why did you take a job at a place like Amity?”
 

“I learnt carpentry. Figured it was something I could give back to these kids. Teaching street kids to use their hands to build, give them pride. It was a way for me to redeem myself.”

“What about troubled kids. Like Rick?” Sam cut to the chase.

“He just made a mistake. We were cool.”

“Don’t seem surprised that his name was brought up from a detective? Especially when they ruled his death as an accident.”

“Never believed it was an accident in the first place.”

“Could have spoken it up back in the day.”

“Me and the cops don’t get along too good,” he said grimly.

“Do you have access to the dorms at Amity?”
 

“No, I was only allowed in the classroom area.”

“Where were you the night Rick died?”

“I was at the hardware store. Stocking up supplies for my class. Look, I was looking out for the kid. I did a lousy job at that too. It beats me up every day. One day, I caught him selling weed to a kid. I wouldn‘t report him because it will only bring him downhill.” Alex said, revealing pieces of Rick’s story.

“Instead, I told him to put his mind on doing something constructive. He was on the verge of breaking down. He blamed the system for killing his family and putting him in places like Amity. He wasn’t the only one though. That day, he got blood on his shirt. I figured he was getting bullied. I tried a couple of times to get through to him but he won’t breathe a word. So, I called the only person who might have actually helped. His lawyer.”

***

Detective Samuel took a deep breath. On the other line of the receiver, all Rick’s lawyer said was that Rick had wanted Jamal to be transferred from Amity. That time, Jamal was eleven and was doing six months for shoplifting some comic books. It seems they were pretty tight. Almost inseparable like brothers.

Now it was my turn to confront Jamal. I needed him to fill the blanks.

“The night when Rick died, he swore he was gonna get me out of Amity. He was trying to save me.” Jamal said. For once, his tough exterior vanished and that was left was the eleven old kid he was five years ago.

“Save you? From what?” I asked incredulously. Had I been working at a place that was traumatizing kids when we were supposed to protect them? I couldn’t believe it.

“They took me out of my room that night, after lights out. I was so scared I thought they were going to kill me.”

“Give me the names of the kids. I’ll have Detective Samuel check them out and…”

“It wasn’t the kids I was afraid of.” Jamal said “It was the counsellor.” At the word counsellor, he did inverted commas. “Samisha made every day hell for me. She would round some boys twice my size to beat me up because she accused me for stealing some files from the principal’s office. Why would I do that man? I know I was doing time for petty theft but I was just eleven. Rick stood up for me. I still don’t know why he did. After that day, Samisha turned on him.”

“He’s protecting you because it’s something nobody ever did for him.” I said sadly. “Did Samisha hurt Rick?”

“Rick is gone isn’t he? Samisha’s still there.”

***

I gulped down the rest of my black coffee in one swig. There, all better. I still could not believe that I had worked at Amity, a pretty well-known facility that was supposedly to help troubled youths, for three months and yet I knew next to nothing about it. Did I pick the wrong profession to even begin with or was it just the wrong place? Beats me. There was no time to have deep thought about it anymore, though. I have a ’counsellor’ to counsel.

Samisha was guarding the kids as usual, her face the mask of a lioness. “Toby! Keep your hands to yourself!!” she yelled as a tall, lanky boy shoved a slightly plump one against the wall. A fight was about to break out but Samisha was quick at it dispersing it. She came between the two boys and pushed them away. It worked. I approached her quickly before another kid decided to put his fist up someone else’s nose.

“Samisha, a little birdie told me you applied to the police academy same time you applied to Amity.” I began. “Wanna carry a badge, hold a gun?”

“I was looking to serve,” her tone was firm, menacing even.

“You grew up in a tough neighborhood. Surrounded by kids like the ones from Amity. Your neighborhood was the lair of one of the most infamous gangsters on the number one list of the police force. The Backwater gang, am I right?”

“So?” Irritation started to take over her. She did not need to tell me. Her body language says it all. I had a degree in Psychiatry after all. Now this is where that comes in handy.

“That little birdie also told me they attacked you, Samisha. They dragged you into an abandoned house. Kept you there for a week. You were only twelve.” I poured out a little of her life’s history. The past she has been trying to lock away from everyone else.

“The important thing is I survived.” But her face was contorted now. In pain? No, it was more of an expression of being terrified. She did not intimidate me anymore because I know under that tough exterior is a traumatized girl.

“But that must have affected you somehow. Being trapped, surrounded by those animals. Now that is why you wanted to be a cop. But sadly you got turned down.”

“They said I was unfit.”

“For psychological reasons. That didn’t seem to be an issue at Amity. You pitted those boys against each other, didn‘t you.” I taunted her. Wanting to squeeze the truth out of this woman.

“I never had a problem with Rick.”

“No, it was Jamal who pissed you off but Rick stood up to you.”

“I told him to go back to his room. He cornered me, you understand that.” Samisha’s voice raised an octave. There was no doubt. There was fear in her voice.

“That day, you weren’t a counsellor anymore. You were that little girl trapped and cornered in the abandoned house.”

“Look,” she finally opened up, defeated and wounded in a battle of words. “That night, Rick cornered me and started threatening to hurt me if I ever lay my hands on Jamal again. He pushed me until I fell and that was when Alex came in.”

“Alex? I thought he wasn’t allowed in the dorms?”

“Yes, officially. But he does repair work off the books. Thank god he did. You should have seen him drag Rick to his room when Rick confronted me that night. It was full of anger. That was the last time I saw the kid alive.”

***

Detective Samuel slammed his fist against the metal table. “I have a temper too, Alex. It’s about time you explain to me what happened that night before I blow up and you,” he pointed at Alex “end up with a large dent on your head.”

“I was just trying to keep Rick from flushing his future away. He was way ahead of me though.” Alex said, looking sorry for himself.

“Explain that.”

“He told me the system was broken. The law and the people behind it. Nobody ever got transferred from Amity, no matter kids like Jamal or psychos or whatever. The beds were always full. I had to admit, that was true.”

“What then?”

“He told me to get a folder to a cop named Sam or something like that. Then, he wanted to use a phone so I left his room open so that he could use the public phone outside. That was the last I ever saw of him. After he was found dead, I took a leave for a week and waited all week at my place for the cops to come and get me. I mean, my prints were all over his room and I had a history of assault. But they never did.”

“Where is the folder now?”

“In a safe. At my house.”

Samuel heaved him from the chair. “Where are you taking me?” Alex demanded.

“We’re going to take a little trip to your place downtown.”

***

Samuel studied the folder, the last piece of the puzzle. He could not believe what he was reading. He was going to make an arrest on a very prominent man. The judge during Rick’s hearing.