Detective Flannery waved for Officer Parker to join them. "Parker, make sure this reporter stays on her side of the yellow crime scene tape."
"Yes, Detective," Officer Parker responded as Flannery turned on his heels and walked away from the two women.
Debbie sighed. "What happened here?"
"Flannery will chew my ass out if I talk to you."
"Well, I don't bite," Debbie retorted. "And I won't use your name. I'm new on this beat, I could use a friend on the force. Parker, right? Are you new to the force?"
Officer Parker looked around to see if anyone was standing nearby. "I've been a cop a couple of years."
Parker rubbed the back of her left hand with the thumb of her right hand. "Look, what I know so far is that it is probably a turf war. Drugs. The victim has a long history of drug arrests and a couple of convictions. You won't be able to find the arrests because they're not public record, but you should be able to find out about the convictions, except anything from when he was a juvenile."
"What's his name?"
"Travis Hunt. I'm sure the public information folks will have more details later."
"Any suspects?"
"All we know right now is that there was a white car. You know how it is down here. Everyone knows who did it, but no one wants to be a snitch." Officer Parker looked around and caught Detective Flannery studying them. "The detective is getting suspicious. I should move away."
"One more thing," Debbie asked. "Would you mind texting me when something happens? I won't tell on you. If you're interested, call me at the office, and I'll give you my cell phone number. I'm not going to give it to you right now--or write down your number--because Flannery keeps looking this way."
Parker straightened her back and squared her shoulders. "We'll see."
At least she hadn't said no, Debbie thought as she walked away from the officer and slipped into the midst of the growing crowd. If what Officer Parker said was true--that everyone knew the shooter but didn't want to snitch--maybe they'd be more comfortable confiding in the press. It was a long shot, but long shots were all Debbie had.
CHAPTER FOUR
Optimists and Trolls
It was one minute before eleven when Debbie arrived for her appointment with the executive director of Teen Alliance.
The previous twenty-four hours had been hectic. Not that Debbie minded. A packed schedule kept her busy. That was a good thing. It stopped her from fixating on her broken engagement and her mom's upcoming surgery.
After leaving the scene of Travis Hunt's murder, Debbie returned to the office, where she drafted a short post for her new column. The piece was only five paragraphs, but that was plenty long for the readers glancing at her story from their phones. She also uploaded a few photos of the crime scene. Next time, she'd be sure to shoot some video with her phone.
She closed her article with a question: To get witnesses to come forward, what needs to change?
Debbie wanted to provoke comments and conversation. After all, the more people talked and argued in the thread below her story, the longer they'd stay on the website. The longer they were on the site, the easier it was for River City to woo advertisers seeking eyeballs. And, of course, the more her column was a must-read feature, the greater job security Debbie enjoyed. This was no small concern when working in a shrinking industry.
She also knew that the debate could summon the trolls. They'd already feasted on her piece about the Audi crash. While some comments were measured and thoughtful, addressing the fact that children don't have fully formed brains capable of accurately weighing the consequences of their actions, others, like one user identified as Rule of Law, were more strident.
"Now we're going to hear that the kid is a good boy," Rule of Law began. "This punk needs to be slammed by the iron fist of the law. Try him as an adult. Send the POS to big-boy prison. He'll be an example for the rest of the thugs on the street."
Sam had deleted some posts, using his forum moderator privilege to yank comments that contained words like shitbum and bastard. "We don't want to alienate our core upper crust audience," he explained to Debbie. "They prefer coded language that is meant to insult. The cloak of plausible deniability."
But there was one comment that struck Debbie as odd. It simply asserted, "This was no accident."
Debbie pondered those four words when she got home. It was the first thing she thought about when she woke in the morning. Perhaps there was someone who knew more about the Audi than she or the police did. And so, after her first cup of coffee, she opened her laptop and returned to her article, looking for clues about the commenter. But the post was gone. And she doubted that Sam would have removed it.
Someone had second thoughts about making a public comment, even a vague one.
For the remainder of the morning, Debbie couldn't shake the feeling that she'd missed an opportunity. Even the police report from that accident that she had requested that arrived in her email wasn't enough to help Debbie forget.
But now, as Debbie was being led back to the executive director's office at Teen Alliance, she found her focus returning.
"Miss Bradley, I'm Darlinda Owens," the executive director said as she rose from her desk and stretched out her hand to greet Debbie with a firm handshake.
Darlinda was wearing a smart, robin's egg blue, sleeveless sheath dress--the sort of dress favored by newscasters and fit female politicians. A brightly colored scarf encircled her neck. Her hair was cropped short. As the two women sat down, Darlinda removed a pair of black glasses, revealing her high cheekbones.
"Seems like as soon as I turned forty-five, my eyesight got worse. I simply can't read without them," she said, flashing a warm smile.
Debbie smiled and raised a hand to straighten her own glasses. "Glasses aren't so bad. I just can't get the hang of contacts," Debbie said, then added, "I'm sorry I had to reschedule our interview."
Darlinda shook her head and sighed. "Please, I understand. I know some of the teenagers who were hurt. And I knew Rainaa. I thought I'd go to her graduation, not her funeral that's scheduled for tomorrow."
"Did you know the driver?"
Darlinda paused and gently traced her eyebrow with her index finger. "Are we on the record?"
"Not if you don't want to be," Debbie answered. "I haven't started taking notes. And I haven't pushed play on my tape recorder."
Darlinda studied Debbie, trying to decide whether the reporter could be trusted. Unsure, the executive director decided opted for a gentle test. "Off the record, yes, I know him. He had just started coming here in the afternoons. He's thirteen."
Debbie frowned. "Geez. Can you share his name?"
"We're trying to make a difference in the lives of young people who, quite frankly, don't believe they have much of a life left. They think that their fate has been preordained. They'll die from a bullet or an overdose--or rot in jail--before they turn twenty-five. My job is to convince them that life is just beginning--not ending. We offer hope and provide a path and the guidance they need to find a way out of poverty. This is our mission. And we couldn't do it if our community didn't trust us. That's my long-winded way of saying that no, I can't give you his name."
Debbie nodded. "I understand. And I hope you understand that I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask."
Darlinda nodded. "Now, shall we go on the record?"
Debbie pushed play and picked up her pen and notebook.
The executive director explained that Teen Alliance had spent the last eight years working to help neighborhood children. They focused on teenagers, which they defined as eleven and above.
"If we wait until they're thirteen, we're afraid of losing them to the streets," Darlinda said.
Teen Alliance had converted the first floor of an old public school into a safe space. The Saint Louis Public Schools allowed Teen Alliance to use the space rent-free--but the nonprofit had to pay for utilities and maintenance on the first floor. Kids could play basketball or ping-pong,
use the computers, talk to a counselor, and socialize in a supervised environment where drugs, guns, and violence were forbidden if you wanted to walk through the organization's doors.
"Come with me," Darlinda said as she rose again from her desk. "I'd like to give you a tour, so you can see what we do. And even better, I'd like you to meet some of our teens."
As the two women began their walk through the facility, Darlinda explained, "The gift from the city is wonderful--but there are financial burdens that come from the agreement. This school was built in the 1920s. Like anything that's a century old, it has maintenance issues--even if we don't have to cover the really big-ticket items like the roof and the boiler."
The pair walked into a classroom. An air conditioning window unit blasted cold into the warm, cavernous space. Yellow paint and murals of St. Louis scenes such as the Mississippi River and landmark churches in North St. Louis covered the walls. Inserted into the art were teens reading books and wearing graduation caps. In one corner of the room, bean bags were arranged around a large rug. Three teenagers lounged in the area, passing a phone among themselves, laughing as a video played.
In another corner was a row of desktop computers. In front of a screen sat a young man, his fingers flying across a keyboard.
"We've made some strong connections with many area businesses," Darlinda said. "Sometimes, we receive donations like these computers which are a real help. Sometimes, and this is off-the-record, we receive gifts that miss the mark just a bit such as GPS bike trackers."
The boy who'd been sitting at the computer jumped in without looking up from the screen. "Yeah, no one 'round here would go out and ride a bike. That's how you get mugged. Or worse."
"Jarrett," Darlinda said to the boy, "I'd like you to meet Debbie Bradley, she's a magazine writer."
The keyboard went silent and the teen finally looked up. "Hi," he said politely.
Darlinda explained. "Jarrett Compton started coming to Teen Alliance after we first opened. Now, he's seventeen and about ready to start his senior year of high school. Perhaps you can tell that Jarrett likes computers."
The young man's eyes widened at the word computers.
Debbie smiled at the boy. "What do you like about them?" she asked.
"Everything! I got hooked on video games when I was young. But now that I'm older, I know that I don't want to just play video games, I want to code them."
Darlinda added, "We've taken Jarrett on tours of the two tech startup hubs in St. Louis, including one of the hubs that is being underwritten by River City's publisher."
"What'd you think?" Debbie asked, knowing open-ended questions usually yielded better quotes.
"Wow!" was all Jarrett said.
Darlinda picked up where Jarrett stopped. "We're working to find him a mentor. Plus, we're in regular contact with Jarrett's school counselor. He needs a college with a strong software engineering program, one that will help him with the tuition. We're also going to introduce Jarrett at our charity event this weekend."
Darlinda paused for a moment. "Debbie, you should come. We have an influential board of directors, including the mayor. They make our work possible. And maybe it would be a chance for you to make some connections."
Man, you're good, Debbie thought to herself, admiring Darlinda's shrewd use of influence.
"Sure, that would be great," Debbie said. "Would you mind if we took some pictures of Jarrett that night and shared his story as one of your successes?"
Darlinda looked at Jarrett. "It's up to you. And your parents."
Jarrett smiled broadly. "I don't think it is going to be a problem. And my granny will be all excited to tell her friends at church."
Upscale suburban neighborhoods all looked the same to Debbie. The same mailboxes, the same garages, the same four architectural styles: white columns, light-colored brick ranch homes, faux Bavarian lodges, or red-brick two-stories. They were plopped down on maze-like streets with names like Deer Road, Deer Court, Deer Avenue, Deer Springs, Deer Ranch, and Deer Acres.
Debbie was biased against the suburbs. She knew it.
She had grown up in the city. Her parents had chosen to live in a house built in the late 1800s, one splashed with bright Victorian colors of light blue and window trim painted a purple-blue. Yet her classmates, the ones who attended an elite, private all-girls' high school with Debbie, lived in the suburbs with zip codes favored by the well-to-do. Those parents feared the city, unless it was to drive downtown for a baseball game. They wouldn't let their daughters spend the night at Debbie's house. As a result, Debbie became a reverse snob despite Beth and Cary's best efforts to encourage their daughter to think of herself as an ambassador for the city.
Instead, Debbie was annoyed by the ignorance, stereotypes, classicism, and racism. She didn't feel patience, nor did she feel compassion. Even now, after a long absence, she had slipped back into her biases.
She was in the area hoping to interview the owner of the red Audi, Hank Frederich. She'd uncovered the nugget of information about the car's owner in the police report she'd received that morning in her email, the one she had requested while waiting for her mother's doctor's appointment.
Debbie glanced at her phone. It was just after 6 p.m. as she walked up the driveway and rang the doorbell. Hopefully, the owner was home from work.
The door opened. "Yes?" asked the middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a protruding stomach that suggested he was a white-collar office worker. Of course, the now-crashed Audi also hinted at some sort of decent-paying office job, or a good-enough trust fund.
Debbie introduced herself, her voice lilting higher at the second syllable of her last name. The inflection didn't come naturally to her because her parents trained her to speak like a competent lawyer, not like a girly-girl. But she'd noticed that uptalk encouraged people, particularly men, to drop their guard. Turning statements into slight questions using a higher pitch in her voice made her more feminine, less threatening.
"I'd like to ask you some questions about your car. The one that was stolen?" Debbie said, once again making the last statement sound more like a question.
The man pursed his lips. "What? Are you with an insurance company? Or with that lawyer's office, what was his name, Chase Laclede?"
Debbie, widening her eyes innocently, said with a smile. "No, I'm a reporter."
"Look, I don't have anything to say to a reporter," Hank said as he started to close the door.
Debbie knew she had to act fast if she was going to get any information. She'd perfected the art of just one more question, a stalling tactic that could keep an unwilling interviewee talking just a little bit longer, and now it was time to use it.
"Please, I just wanted to know where your car was stolen from," Debbie asked innocently. The please was also calculated. People tended to respond better when you started with please.
"Downtown. I was downtown for a baseball game. I went to my car after the game was over, it was no longer there."
"Have you been able to get your car back?" Debbie followed up, breaking her one-more-question promise that she really never intended to keep.
"Naw, but I did get a chance to talk to the cops. They didn't find anything of mine in the car. Not that I'm surprised, I didn't have anything in my car. I know better than to leave things in it. That's just an invitation for a break-in when you go the city."
"Did they tell you who they think stole it?"
"I guess it was that thug who wrecked it," Hank said.
Debbie flinched at the epithet, but the word seemed to loosen tongue of the Audi owner, especially when she didn't object to its use. "His lawyer came by here yesterday asking questions."
"His lawyer?"
"Yeah, I told you when I opened the door. Chase Laclede. Now look, I got nothing to say to you."
The door slammed. Debbie smiled. At least she'd managed to gather just a bit more string that might help her weave a story.
"What do you know about Chase Laclede?"
Debbie asked her mom.
The two women were sitting in the kitchen eating the sandwiches that Debbie had picked up after interviewing the Audi owner. It had been a long day for both mother and daughter, and neither was particularly interested in cooking anything.
"A smart young lawyer. Idealistic. And, objectively speaking, he is quite handsome. He has the most beautiful green eyes," Beth said.
"You notice these things?" Debbie asked.
"Of course," Beth scoffed. "You're not the only one who has a job that requires attention to detail. I'm not interested in dating him. He's just a boy. But his father..." she said, shaking her head slowly.
"What about his father?" Debbie asked with a smile.
"I've had some dealings with David Laclede," her mother said. "He's general counsel for one of the big manufacturing companies here. We've been on opposite sides of lawsuits."
Beth took a sip of chamomile tea. "He's difficult. Smart. Extremely difficult. He'll make you fight every little motion, no matter how trivial. He frustrates me to no end. But he has an interesting back story. He grew up here in St. Louis. He lived on the North Side. The son of a single mom who worked as a nursing home aide. He went to public schools then got his degree locally, at University of Missouri-St. Louis. But he was smart, real smart. After working for an insurance company for a few years, he made it into Northwestern Law School and married a law school classmate, Dee, who was from Chicago. It was harder back then to be a biracial couple--he's black, she's white. Even though Dee could've gotten a job with one of the big law firms here in town, she chose to become a public defender. She left the P.D.'s office after Chase was born. From what I understand, even though Dee isn't practicing, she is involved in nonprofit efforts and works tirelessly to raise funds for causes that she believes in. From what I can tell, Chase seems to have found a way to combine the aggressive attributes of his father with his mother's sense of social justice. At least for now."
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