The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

  “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know, I’m not from marketing.” Dave shrugged.

  “How many shops still stock them? And look only in Detroit.”

  Dave swiped and typed and did his magic on his iPad, before he said, “Thirteen. Hope you aren’t superstitious.” He slid his glasses up his nose. “Let me guess. You need their details.”

  Gabriel nodded. “If you’d be so kind, thank you.”

  Dave touched the iPad and something chimed in the lobby, but not from the device in his hands.

  When he turned to the receptionist, she said, “Yup. Got the email. Want me to print it?”

  “Yes, please.” Dave turned back to Gabriel. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. The thirteen shops buying Zesty, that’s this year, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Can you tell me how many shops regularly bought it back in 1981?”

  Instead of responding, Dave gaped at Gabriel.

  “What?”

  “No. It’s… it’s so long ago. Our servers don’t have that data. The earliest records I got for you are from the mid-2000s.” Dave worked on his iPad. “In 2006, just over 400 shops in Detroit bought Zesty.”

  “How do I get older records, before that?”

  “From physical logbooks, I guess?”

  To the good ol’ backbreaking police work then, Gabriel thought. “Okay. Point us to your archives.”

  “No, sir. They’re at our HQ in Wyoming.” Dave gave an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid this is the limit of my capacity to help you.”

  Well, that wasn’t enough.

  Inhaling a large volume of air, Gabriel closed his eyes and collected his thoughts.

  No worries, he assuaged himself. It was still a win. Because an idea had just popped up in his mind.

  Chapter 31

  May 10, 2019. 02:37 P.M.

  Back in the car, Gabriel called Conor.

  Though his new FBI friend had promised Gabriel that he would do everything in his power to help him catch Lolly, Gabriel didn’t believe that it was an altruistic gesture. As a new SAC, Conor was given the responsibility of BISKIT. Catching the most wanted bank robber in the US would bolster his position. True, it was not the BISKIT’s job to investigate crimes that weren’t international or serial killer related, but Gabriel refused to work on any case until he caught Lolly. So Conor went several extra miles in supporting Gabriel.

  “Yes, Gabe?” he said.

  “Zesty. It’s the candy Lolly uses.”

  “Hold on,” Conor said.

  Gabriel heard papers rustling in the background, then Conor came online. “Come again.”

  “Zesty.” Gabriel repeated and spelled it out for him.

  “Okay, got it. What now?”

  “I have a list of thirteen shops that sell Zesty in Detroit. Could you check their histories?”

  “Let me boot my computer,” Conor said, and the line went blank.

  While Gabriel was pressing the warm phone against his face, Conor took almost three minutes to come back. “Sorry. Had to pee.”

  “Could have done without that trivia.”

  “I concur,” Conor said. “I’m ready. The first shop’s name and address, please?”

  “Or I can give you their license numbers? To save us all the time.”

  “Much better. May I have the first number then?”

  Bill passed the paper to Gabriel and he read it from there.

  “Okay. The shop was opened in 1987 and registered—”

  “Nope. Not it.”

  “I barely began,” Conor said. “How can you know?”

  “Lolly’s first crime was in 1981. This shop didn’t exist back then,” Gabriel said and read the next license number.

  This was not it either. Seemed like most candy shops that operated in 1981 hadn’t survived until 2019. Paradoxical. Shouldn’t businesses that sold sweets have thrived, given that diabetes and obesity had skyrocketed in the last few decades?

  As the list decreased in number, Gabriel became hopeful. The fewer the shops, the sooner they could take the next step.

  Whatever that was.

  A steadfast hater of multitasking, Gabriel rarely worried about many problems simultaneously. He believed in solving one at a time, giving it his undivided attention and doing it cleanly, before moving onto the next.

  At last, they ended up with only two shops which were open both in 1981 and 2019.

  “Great. Thanks. I’m heading there now.”

  “Heading where?”

  “Haven’t decided that yet. Whichever is closer to me, I guess.”

  “Well…” Conor dragged on.

  “What?”

  “One of the shops, when it opened in 1963, was an electronic shop.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I-I don’t know. In 1968, they switched their products to pastry and candies. As their location remained unchanged, they have the same license number.” Then Conor proceeded to fill in other tidbits about the shop and its address.

  “Thanks.” Gabriel turned on the ignition. “Bye now.”

  As he eased the car back onto the main road, Bill grabbed the paper. “Where are we headed?”

  “Goodwill.”

  “Strange name for a candy shop.”

  Gabriel nodded and programmed Rosa Parks Blvd into the GPS, the street where Goodwill was located.

  Bill studied the display and then looked at the paper. “You’ve entered the wrong address.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “It’s correct. Conor told me that the shop was registered on ‘63 and its street name has since been changed.”

  “Oh? Did he say why?”

  “Apparently, that place was the epicenter of the 1967 Detroit Riot. So they renamed it to hide history associated with it,” Gabriel said. “Rosa Parks Blvd was previously known as 12th Street.”

  Chapter 32

  May 10, 2019. 03:12 P.M.

  Ten minutes later, Gabriel pulled over in front of Goodwill. The one-story building, sandwiched between a poultry and an automobile parts shop, was painted in the color of rainbows. No child in a hundred-yard radius would miss the vivid purveyor of sweets.

  A bell jingled overhead when Gabriel held the door open for Bill before following him in.

  Although he had just eaten, the smell of freshly baked cookies and cinnamon buns made him salivate. There’s always room for desserts. He looked around at the shelves. Candy corn, tootsie rolls, cupcakes, jellybeans, gummy bears, chocolate truffles, and several hundred other goodies, small to big, all colorful, teleported Gabriel to his childhood.

  And it was an uncomfortable place to be.

  Joshua always let him stuff his pockets as much as he wanted whenever he took him to a candy shop. No limits. This world didn’t have a sweeter dad—

  Gabriel grabbed the bridle of his thoughts and halted them before they took pace and ran amok in his mind, ruining his mood. Crying in a candy store, he was not young enough for that shit.

  An old lady behind the billing counter stood up. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” Gabriel said, and Bill nodded at her.

  “I said hello,” she repeated in a stern voice.

  “Hi, ma’am.” Bill lifted his hand. “Sorry about that.”

  Trying not to be obvious, Gabriel studied her. She was old only on the outside—her hair was as white as milk, her skin wrinkled—but her bone structure and muscles looked strong. Neither did she stoop nor hold her hips when she stood to greet them. Though shorter than Gabriel, she somehow appeared taller, because of her ramrod posture.

  He recognized her as one of those people that life just couldn’t beat down, and in the end surrendered at their feet, whimpering like a dissatisfied dog.

  The way she addressed them, something was off, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

  “Nice shop you got here,” Bill said.

  “Thank you, dear. One of the oldest in the city,” she said. “Are you just going to stand th
ere or come inside and browse?”

  “We’re not here to shop, ma’am.”

  “Well, you can’t rob me. All transactions here are done electronically.” She laughed. “I’m just kidding.”

  “We’re cops,” Bill said, offering a little smile. “Do you get robbed a lot?”

  “Not once,” the old lady said. “I couldn’t be in a safer place. Everyone knows me around here.”

  “Even the kids?” Gabriel asked. It was often the desperate kids that turned to the life of crime.

  “Especially the kids; they love me.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb.

  Gabriel leaned towards his right and craned his head to see the back wall.

  A plaque on the top of the wall read: “He who opens a school door, closes a prison - Victor Hugo.”

  Below the plaque, the entire lower part was dedicated to framed photographs.

  And every single one of them had the old lady in it. She was either presenting a medal or a certificate to some kid.

  Though kids changed from frame to frame, she remained as a constant in them.

  Squinting, Gabriel examined the photographs. Something was definitely off about her. She smiled but it was as if she really wasn’t looking at the camera.

  Bill asked. “Were you a teacher or something?”

  “I wish!” the old lady said. “They’re the kids I’ve sponsored through school.”

  Gabriel quickly counted the photos. “All 34?”

  “Yes.” She took a breath and her chest inflated. “Most of them are doctors, bankers, and architects now. One kid even went to space and worked at the ISS.” With her knuckle, she dabbed at the corner of her eye. “Before that, Mr. Astronaut was a purse snatcher.”

  Gabriel’s eyes widened. She was rescuing kids from crime. It was the first time he’d felt something positive in days.

  Bill asked, “Were they orphans?”

  “Worse. They were from—and I’m talking verbatim here—the hoods. Older thugs use little kids to sell drugs, carjack, burgle, even rob and murder. These innocent boys were trained in exactly the kind of things that their privileged counterparts all over the world were warned to stay away from.”

  Gabriel asked, “Isn’t it dangerous to approach them on the streets? How do you get hold of them?”

  “Through word of mouth mostly. Once I locate a kid, I talk to his parents. Have an intervention-like meeting and then send him to a boarding school far from here.”

  “That’s just… wow,” Bill said, voicing Gabriel’s thought.

  “You know about crime a lot better than I do. But one thing I can be certain of is that,” she lifted a finger, as if preaching, “only education cures crime.” She paused to think. “Except maybe the white-collar variety.”

  “Couldn’t agree more, ma’am,” Gabriel said. He had digressed, but it was alright. Not every day one came across a paladin. “May I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “You saved all those kids with the income from a candy store?”

  “Heavens no! It’s my son’s money.”

  “But… private schools cost tens and thousands of dollars, if not more. Your son’s okay with it?”

  “He loves his mommy too much to say no.” She smiled. “Anyway, we have enough. A spacious house, tasty food, a reliable car, and neat clothes. And what good is money if it’s just sitting in a vault somewhere? We all live on this planet together. Best if we act like it.”

  Gabriel’s lips stretched. It was the first time he smiled in days.

  The old lady was either incredibly naïve, or had reached a level of wisdom that he couldn’t fathom.

  Gabriel said, “I-I would like to meet your son sometime. He seems like a great man.”

  “He is! Next month he’ll be on leave; come then.” She smiled proudly.

  Gabriel couldn’t imagine a strong and philanthropic mom like her raising anyone less than perfect.

  The old lady clapped her hands in front of her. “Now my other children have started earning. Due to their generous contributions, my charity’s expanding and saving more at-risk kids. You do one good, it splits and does two goods and so on.”

  Gabriel nodded. He had a similar idea of exponential growth about evil.

  “Enough bragging,” she said. “Now are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

  “I thought I would borrow your video recordings. But I see you don’t have CCTV.”

  “Can’t use it.” The old lady shrugged. “Is there any other way I could help?”

  While Gabriel processed what she had said, Bill asked, “Can you tell us about Zesty?”

  “That’s one of the few products we’ve been selling right from day one.”

  “1968?”

  “That’s correct.” For such an advanced age, she doubled over seamlessly and pulled a Zesty box from under the counter. Her hand reached into it and pulled out a lollipop.

  Gabriel got it from her outstretched arm. Seeing that candy, not just the wrapper, gave Gabriel another bout of déjà vu. Feeling that solid thing in his hand, its stick, kindled some deep-seated memory. He had definitely seen Zesty before. And eaten it, too. Because he could almost taste it in his palate and at the back of his throat. He reached towards the distant memory and grasped parts of it.

  There was a… black man, talking about a superhero…

  “Are you okay?” Bill asked.

  Gabriel snapped into reality. “What?”

  “For a second there, you looked like you’d lost your breath.”

  Gabriel shook off the feeling and placed the lollipop on the table. “May I see the box, ma’am?”

  “Sure.” She pushed the box to his side.

  He picked it up and turned it around. And there it was, the ingredients list. Frowning, he read through them—black peppers, long peppers, ginger, honey, lemon, cumin seeds, sugar, black salt, rock salt, and sal ammoniac.

  “Can you clarify something for me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Gabriel iterated the ingredients that weren’t sweet. “You don’t see these in candies, do you?”

  She said, “Zesty is not a candy, per se. It is a ginger-flavored digestive assistant that helps acid reflux and other indigestion problems.”

  “Then why aren’t they widely available anymore?”

  The old lady sighed. “In the late 2000s, a new chew tablet was introduced. It’s not tangy and it tasted a lot better than the salty-spicy Zesty. So most people simply switched to it. However, a very few still prefer ginger candies.”

  “But why?”

  “Could be placebo and the chew-tablets don’t work? Or they could have been used to Zesty from a young age?”

  “A man of habit,” Bill said.

  “Yes,” she said. “As long as the symptoms of their condition are alleviated, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

  What she said clicked something in Gabriel’s brain.

  “Thanks a lot, ma’am. You’ve been most helpful,” Gabriel said.

  “My pleasure.”

  Gabriel turned around and opened the door for Bill, the bell tinkling again. Then he said, “We will be off now.”

  “Alright. You have a safe day now,” she said, not looking at Gabriel who was still inside the shop, but at Bill who was exiting.

  And then he understood what seemed off about her: the old lady was blind.

  Chapter 33

  May 10, 2019. 03:29 P.M.

  As soon as Gabriel got into the car, he unlocked his phone and opened the browser. When the old lady had mentioned symptoms and conditions, it made him think about incurable diseases. At Lolly’s first robbery, they left a security guard alive. In his eyewitness statement to the DPD, the guard had reported that one of the kids had patches of baldness.

  Why would a kid have bald spots?

  And the ever-mighty Google confirmed what Gabriel had suspected. A condition called Alopecia Areata caused hair to fall in patches. Continuous treatment from a de
rmatologist was advised.

  That’s it! He figured out how to possibly identify one of Lolly’s partners. He explained his plan to Bill before calling Conor and putting it on speaker.

  “It’s Goodwill that’s been selling Zesty for a long time,” he said into the phone. “As per our findings, it’s also the only shop that survived from 1981 till now. My gut tells me Lolly gets his Zestys from here.”

  “Then ask the person who runs the shop if they remember one of their regulars, a black guy with blue eyes. That’s something unique, and they would remember, right?”

  “She’s blind.”

  “Shit,” Conor said. “What about CCTVs?”

  Gabriel sighed. “She. Is. Blind.”

  “D’oh!” Conor quickly added. “So why do you need me now?”

  As Gabriel took a deep breath, he heard Conor say, “Oh my god.”

  “What?” Gabriel asked.

  “I know that gesture. Generally you ask me stuff that’s hard to do. Like excavating dozens of dead bodies or performing thousands of DNA tests or the browsing history of a huge city, you know, typical Gabriel stuff…”

  From the corner of his eyes, he saw Bill smiling. Probably nostalgic.

  “… but when you take in a lot of air and prepare yourself to ask something, then it’s damn near impossible for me to do. However, it would be technically possible. And I would have to work my ass off for a really long time to make it happen.”

  “Don’t be dramatic.” Gabriel drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “I just need access to the medical record archives of the Children’s Hospital of Michigan.”

  Conor shouted, “See?! I told you. You’re sliding it in as if it ain’t no thang. But newsflash, mister! This is America. Medical records are more sacred to us than, I don’t know, pfft, Jesus himself!”

  “Are they now?”

  “Hospitals are crazy about their HIPAA, you know that.”

  “But the records I’m requesting are from 1981 and earlier.”

  “And that is different how?”

  Gabriel bit the tip of his lower lip. “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was implemented in 1996. So technically, those records aren’t protected, right?”