Tough Lessons

by Chris Freeman

  “Look, we have to do everything we can to ensure that this killer is brought to justice—” McCavity began.

  “Excuse me,” interrupted the first black woman who had spoken. “Would you stop acting like a goddamned politician and just answer her question?”

  Huge uproar now, massed support, McCavity was losing the argument big style. The detective was being assailed on all sides by outraged parents, who were climbing to their feet to compete with one another, so they could contribute to the debate. Joseph was willing to bet McCavity had already realized she had no chance of getting her fingerprinting idea through now.

  The shouting was so loud it was impossible to make out individual arguments until someone stood up right at the back of the room and a deep male voice boomed, “What you want to fingerprint everybody for anyhow? You got the damn killer. Everybody knows it!” More uproar and some strong agreement from a lot of angry people.

  McCavity shouted back, “Yes, we have a suspect in custody at the moment and we hope to be able to bring charges against that person, who I cannot name at this juncture, but that does not necessarily mean…”

  She was drowned out again and looked as if she was about to give up any attempt at addressing the room. Then a strange thing happened. The audience suddenly fell silent, swiftly and without complaint. It was like one of those old black-and-white westerns they used to show on TV on Saturday mornings in Lagos, where the whole saloon falls silent because the gunslinger with the black hat just walked in and stared everybody down.

  When Joseph looked round at what had caused this sudden compliance, he saw an emaciated, grim-faced black lady standing at the back of the room with a young teenager, who looked like she could be her daughter, at her side. This middle-aged woman had tired, sunken eyes and everything about her gaunt appearance made it look as if she had been beaten down by life but there was a look of steely resolve about her today. That look said “Don’t mess with me” and she was staring straight up at McCavity, her face like thunder.

  A young voice near Joseph whispered, “That’s Jermaine Letts’s mom.”

  The assistant chief was confused by the silence that accompanied Mrs. Letts’s entrance. It seemed everyone was keen to hear what she had to say about her murdering son. “Would you like to say something?” she asked, looking a little flustered.

  “I’m here tonight to say one thing to you all and one thing only, so listen up.” Her voice was frail and husky, a smoker’s growl, and her eyes moved from face to face in the audience. She was staring them all down, the whole room one person at a time. “My son Jermaine ain’t no altar boy. I’m not denying it. But he ain’t no killer, neither. Damn fool police are saying he done stabbed his teacher, the very idea.” She snorted her derision and even McCavity seemed taken aback. “Jermaine liked that teacher, Mr. Lopez, and he is telling the truth. He admits the knife that killed the teacher was the one he had taken off him but he didn’t stab the poor man. He’s innocent, you hear?”

  At that moment, Principal Decker must have decided he’d heard enough. His meeting had been hijacked by a succession of aggrieved parents and now they were all being talked down to by the mother of a murder suspect. He cleared his throat and said, “Mrs. Letts, we have all heard the story that your son had a knife taken off him in class by Mr. Lopez but if that was the case your boy would have been instantly expelled. We have a very clear policy of zero tolerance on knife crime. If Mr. Lopez had found a knife on Jermaine, he would have walked him straight down to my office, the police would have been called, and your son would have been suspended pending full, permanent exclusion. That’s the policy.”

  Mrs. Letts was unimpressed. “So you got a policy, huh, principal? I’m happy for you. Bet you got a whole lot of policies about a whole heap of things. Don’t mean anyone listens to you for a damn minute. You ever thought that teacher might not be so dumb as to expel someone for carrying a knife in a neighborhood where it’s harder to find someone who don’t carry a knife? Ever think of that? Now, if the police here get off their fat asses and ask around, they’ll find a whole room full of people who saw my son get a knife taken off him by that teacher. And you didn’t hear a damn thing about it at the time. Was that in your goddamned policy? No, it weren’t. So it seems to me you really ain’t in control of this place at all, Mr. Principal.”

  She could not have chosen a better way to silence Decker. His mouth gaped as if he was about to try and rebuff the claims of this tiny woman, but he did not seem able to accept the concept of a lack of total control over Antoinette Irving and the notion stopped him in his tracks. Before he could say anything, she carried on. “Jermaine goin’ be proved innocent. You’ll see it and when all this is over…” She pointed a bony finger at Decker. “I hope the principal over here goin’ throw another big public meeting so you can all apologize to him in person. That’s all I got to say,” and she turned with some dignity for such a rough-looking woman and walked out of the building.

  Her daughter lingered for a moment, surveyed the room scornfully, and said, “We done with you,” before walking unhurriedly after her mother, hips swaying from side to side in a swaggering fuck-you roll.

  9

  Joseph knocked on the office door and a moment later a formal voice filled with self-importance answered, “Enter.”

  Principal Decker looked as if he had yet to sufficiently recover from the ordeal of the evening. Joseph could understand why. His carefully thought out tribute to Mr. Lopez and his heartfelt appeal for assistance for the fine officers of the New York City Police Department had all fallen on deaf ears. The way he would view it, his public meeting had become little more than a slanging match between an ill-disciplined rabble of parents and a senior police officer and, to cap it all, a murder suspect’s mom had upstaged everybody, poured scorn on his proceedings, then flounced out of the room like a diva, leaving little more than chaos and uproar behind her as she went. In any event, the meeting had broken up in an unstructured manner soon after the departure of Mrs. Letts.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Soyinka?” asked Principal Decker in a tone that made it clear he would rather do anything but. He then added, “I really am incredibly busy right now.”

  “I would appreciate a moment of your time. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “The murder of Mr. Lopez.”

  “I see,” he said primly. “Do you have some information you wish me to relay to the police?”

  “No,” and I wouldn’t come to you with it if I did, thought Joseph.

  “Then I’m not sure how I can help.” He still had not admitted Joseph to his room.

  “I have a question about the locked classroom. I was wondering how many people had access to the keys for Mr. Lopez’s door?”

  “I’m sorry?” Principal Decker had a look on his face that showed he was dumbfounded by the question. “Do you have some form of familial link to Mr. Lopez that I am perhaps unaware of?”

  “No.”

  “Or perhaps you are related to Jermaine Letts in some way?”

  “No.”

  “Then since you have already admitted you can provide no new information to the police I cannot possibly see what business it is of yours to be asking such questions.”

  “I find it interesting you say it’s none of my business when a while ago, during your eulogy, you said, ‘All of us owe it to the memory of Hernando Lopez to give our total commitment and support in finding his killer, nothing more, nothing less.’ Did I get that right? That was what you said, wasn’t it? Or did you just not really mean it?”

  The principal sighed wearily, which meant he was pretending to be ground down by Joseph’s tenacity and was perhaps prepared to indulge him this one time. It was either that or he would have to admit the obvious contradiction in his words. Decker opened the door of his office wide to allow Joseph to come in. “You may as well sit down,” he said begrudgingly. “Now, what is your point, Mr. Soyi
nka?”

  “My point is that here was a bright and intelligent man who was stabbed in the corridor of the school and was left severely injured, supposedly by a young boy. Instead of heading for the nearest phone and dialling nine-one-one, he holes up in his classroom, locks himself in, and bleeds to death.”

  Decker was baffled. “Well, he was locking himself inside the room to escape his assailant, surely.”

  “That’s the bit I don’t buy—that a fourteen-year-old boy would calmly wait outside the classroom door and watch while his teacher slowly bled to death in front of him, without worrying that someone else might walk by and catch him red-handed. Remember, the knife was found in the classroom near Lopez’s body, so he couldn’t have been scared he’d be stabbed with it again.”

  “Excuse me, but is this some form of bizarre hobby of yours, interfering in police investigations like some latter-day Sherlock Holmes? I mean, it’s not the first time you have done this, is it? I was there when Detective McCavity renewed your acquaintance. Don’t you think the professional detectives of the NYPD might have a slightly better understanding of the facts of this case than you? What is it that validates your opinion exactly?”

  Joseph didn’t like to admit to his past, but he realized the principal had left him with little option. “Twenty years as a senior detective, investigating robberies and homicides, plus the letter of commendation I received from Assistant Chief McCavity the last time I ‘interfered’ in her investigation. I think that validates my opinion, don’t you?” He could tell by Decker’s face that this was a shock to him. “What I’m beginning to wonder is why you seem so reluctant to answer my question when all I’m trying to do is help.”

  “I’m not reluctant to answer your question,” declared a flustered Decker and, when Joseph stayed silent, he realized he’d painted himself into a corner. “There are only three sets of keys for that classroom or any other classroom, come to mention it. One is mine and one set is the janitor’s. The third is a master set but it stays in the school safe at all times in case of an emergency. No one has access to that set except me. The janitor’s keys supposedly stay with your friend Ardo at all times. He has sworn as much to the police and myself, for what that’s worth.”

  “Only three sets, no spares left lying around that could be picked up?”

  “Just the three sets, Mr. Soyinka, like I said.” Decker was trying to recover his composure. “And since you are the detective, I should add that I have a cast-iron alibi for the night of the murder. I was having dinner with my wife in a busy restaurant. I am sure the waiter at Fiorentino’s will remember me.” I’m sure he will, thought Joseph. “Incidentally, which police force did you say you were with?”

  “I didn’t. It was the NPF in Lagos. The Nigerian Police Force.”

  “Oh,” said Decker, as if Joseph had told him he was in the army and then suddenly admitted it was actually the Salvation Army.

  “I realize you find this hard to believe Principal Decker, but we were professional police officers. We had our fair share of gangsters, murderers, and low-lifes to contend with, and we did bring many of them to justice.”

  “I’m sure you did, Mr. Soyinka, really I am, but I still cannot see what you’re getting at with this business of the keys.”

  “It’s very simple really,” explained Joseph. “I’m saying I don’t believe Hernando Lopez locked himself in the classroom. I’m saying the murderer locked him in there and left him to bleed to death.”

  It was as well Principal Decker was already sitting down, because this disclosure clearly rocked him. “Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “You’re saying a child from this school is capable of such cold-hearted—”

  “I didn’t say anything about a child,” said Joseph quietly. “The police have yet to prove it was a child. I’m simply stating that in my view whoever did this locked Lopez in his room and quite possibly watched him die.”

  Confronted with the enormity of this notion, Decker seemed to lose all his fight and hostility. Letting down his guard for a moment he said, “When the meeting broke up tonight, Assistant Chief McCavity admitted to me privately that the police are going to have to let Jermaine Letts go.”

  It clearly caused Decker discomfort to concede this. “His prints are on the knife but they would be. It was in his possession when Mr. Lopez took it off him earlier in the day. I’m afraid, much as it pains me to admit it, that Mrs. Letts was correct. A number of witnesses can back that up.”

  “So Lopez took a knife off the boy but didn’t report him?”

  “It seems Mr. Lopez decided to ignore our rigid policy on knife carrying,” he admitted. “It may even have cost him his life. After all, the knife would not have still been on his person if he had come to me with it. I would have locked it in the safe out of harm’s way.”

  “However, there is nothing except the fingerprints to link Jermaine Letts to this terrible crime and he apparently has no discernible motive. They also tell me his prints are not clean edged, which means they were under the blood on the knife.”

  Joseph had got far more out of his interview with Principal Decker than he could have hoped for. “Thank you, Principal,” he said and he left Decker to ponder the wreckage of his evening.

  As Joseph pulled the cab out of the gates of Antoinette Irving, armed with this significant new information on the Lopez case, he felt a little easier. Then he spotted Yomi and several of his friends some way up the street. They were walking together in that slow and aimless teenage manner, like they were going no place and in no particular hurry to get to it. Joseph had assumed Yomi would welcome a lift home, as it was another bitterly cold night, so he sounded the horn of the Crown Victoria but there was no reaction from his son. When he drew closer, he waved, but the boy kept his head down and then seemed to deliberately look away. As he drove past, Joseph heard one of the other boys call, “Hey, Yomi, it’s your old man!” It was said with an accompanying laugh, in a mocking manner, like his father was a circus clown or polished shoes for a living. Joseph had all the proof he needed. His son was clearly ashamed of him.

  Fine, thought Joseph, let him walk home with his friends, let’s see how he enjoys it in this weather. He’ll be freezing by the time he gets back to the project. Joseph told himself that this was the least of his worries, even though it hurt him to be snubbed by his son like that. He had begun that evening thinking Yomi was going to be dragged into a police investigation. For now, he was just glad McCavity’s grand fingerprinting scheme had been shot down in flames by the good citizens of the South Bronx and his boy was no longer in the frame for a murder.

  Usually, when Joseph dropped Yomi at school in the morning, he turned the cab right around and went looking for some early money outside the few hotels in the area that were smart enough to accommodate businessmen. These days there was always a property deal or a development meeting involving suited government officials and venture capitalists with more money than brains. Some of them would be looking to get to the airport right after their power breakfast and every now and then he could pick up a juicy fare to La Guardia. Today was going to be different, however. Joseph dropped his son and waited till Yomi had disappeared into the building, and then he drove across the school car park into a far corner that was shielded from view by a row of birch trees and he parked up. Then he went looking for Ardo.

  Technically he could have been accused of trespassing by a principal who was likely to be in a less than forgiving mood following their last exchange. However, he hadn’t actually entered the school as such. Instead, he skirted round the side of the building looking for the janitor. Principal Decker was aware of their friendship so, if challenged, Joseph could say he was just dropping by to invite Ardo for a game of chess after school.

  Joseph headed for the block that housed the school’s ancient, creaking boiler, its garbage compactor and paper-shredding machines. Here was the small enclave that Ardo Piloyan cal
led his own. Joseph found the door to the block unlocked and he peered inside, eyes blinking to adjust to the gloom, his senses disoriented by the loud insistent whir from the boiler and the grating noise of the compactor that was being used to destroy something.

  “Ardo?” he called. “That you?”

  When he received no answer, he called again, louder this time but the response was the same. Strange. Joseph decided to venture inside. The room was large and dark and littered with hazards for a tall man like Joseph, who had stepped into it from a bright, hazy but bitterly cold morning. He almost stumbled down a couple of small steps and bumped his head on an overhanging pipe that had thankfully been lagged with insulation padding. The air was dry and riddled with dust flecks that had been kicked up by the vibration of heavy machinery. Joseph walked along a small corridor that opened out into a large L-shaped room.

  “Ardo,” he called once more, concern in his voice this time. There was still no reply and Joseph realized the noise of the room was louder than normal. The compactor seemed to be stuck on its loudest setting, like it had been ground to a halt by whatever was wedged inside it. There was no sign of his friend.

  Joseph began to experience a bad feeling, an instinct that things were not as they were meant to be, which was exacerbated by the grating off-kilter sound coming from the compactor. There was something big in there, something that had clogged up the machinery, something that shouldn’t have been put into an industrial-sized compactor. Joseph swallowed hard and then walked slowly and tentatively right up to the creaking contraption. He reached the edge and was forced to stand on tiptoe to peer over it. Then he glanced down into the guts of the machine. He barely dared to look inside.

  “Holy Christ!” someone shouted from behind him. Joseph spun round to see Ardo standing there, a look of bemusement on his face. “What have you done?” cried the janitor.

  “I haven’t done anything,” blurted Joseph. “I came looking for you. It was making that damned racket when I arrived. I thought you’d fallen in.” Thought you’d been pushed in, more like, by a bloodthirsty street gang. It sounded ridiculous now, with Ardo standing there in front of him, entirely unharmed. What outlandish theory had Joseph concocted in his overwrought mind? Ardo had been shoved into the compactor by the junior high school’s Marine Corps–trained football coach during a bout of post-traumatic stress, perhaps? Maybe a disgruntled Principal Decker had snapped, following his publicly humiliating parents’ meeting, and taken it out on the little Armenian or, better still, Brigitte De Moyne had gone postal, killing all of her colleagues with the gun Joseph had taught her to use, then feeding them to the compactor one by one. Joseph didn’t know what moment of madness had compelled him to peer inside the machine. He was just relieved to see Ardo standing there looking alarmed and not a little pissed off at his uninvited presence in the boiler room.