“That was kinda late for you to be out, wasn’t it, Monk?” Darnell asked, passing the blunt back to him.
Monk took a long drag of the marijuana, watching the smoke swirl from the tip and float toward the ceiling.
“Ain’t matter to me,” he said, smiling contentedly as his eyes closed to slits. “Wasn’t like I had nothin’ for nobody to take. So I went on down the hall and pressed the button for the elevator. Course it took all long—longer than usual—so I turned around to go ’head back in my apartment.”
He passed the blunt back to Darnell, who greedily sucked in the smoke.
“I heard the doors open, though, and when I turned around I seen Kenya.”
“What was she doin’?” Darnell asked, taking another toke and passing the blunt back to Monk.
“She was standing there lookin’ cute,” the old man said, smiling again as the marijuana brought on a slight dizziness. “Almost looked like a little woman. Like a real pretty little woman.”
“So what you sayin’, Monk?” Darnell asked, growing tense.
“I’m just sayin’ I seen her, and she was pretty.”
“What you doin’ lookin’ at a little girl like that?” he said.
“Come on, Darnell,” Monk said nervously. “You know I ain’t mean it like that. I just seen her on the elevator, and I thought she was pretty, that’s all. I ain’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“Well, where she go when you seen her?” Darnell asked, standing up. “Was she with somebody? Did you see who she was with?”
“Course I seen who she was with,” Monk said as Darnell towered over him.
Darnell reached down and lifted the confused-looking Monk from Judy’s chair.
“I want you to show me who she was with.”
Chapter Fifteen
Wilson and Daneen walked into the cigarette smoke that shrouded Central Detectives and emerged from it like ghosts, standing in the middle of the room and looking for Lynch.
A few detectives looked up from their battered steel desks as the clatter of ancient typewriters and the hum of inane conversation filled the room.
Wilson walked up to a detective who was busy typing up a report. “Where’s Kevin?”
He stopped and looked up at her like she was stupid to ask such a question. But then he saw the earnestness in her face.
“You didn’t hear about it?” he said.
“I heard he got suspended over the Baylor thing, but I didn’t know whether it was true because I haven’t talked to him.”
“You heard right,” he said offhandedly. “Thirty days with intent to dismiss.”
Wilson stood there for a minute, unsure of what to do.
“So who’s the lead detective now?” she asked.
“You might want to talk to the captain about that.”
Wilson looked around for someone she knew. When she didn’t see anyone, she turned back to the detective in front of her.
“This is the missing girl’s mother—Daneen Brown. Is it okay if she sits with you for a few minutes until I come back?”
“Sure,” the detective said, pointing behind him. “Captain’s office is that way.”
“Thanks,” Wilson said, walking over to the office and tapping on the door.
The captain opened it. “Come in and have a seat, Detective Wilson. I’ve been expecting you.”
She did as she was told, watching him with a cynicism that came through in her silence.
“I just got off the phone with your captain over at Juvenile Aid,” he said, sitting down and leaning back in his chair. “We’ve decided that since you’ve already been sort of working the case unofficially, we’re going to give JAD the lead on this. You’ll be assigned to it, which should give us a head start.”
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking—”
“That’s just the point, Detective. I do mind. The only thing you need to know is that Kevin Lynch has been suspended for his role in that chase yesterday, and we don’t want anybody else’s career to suffer because of that unfortunate incident. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” she said sarcastically.
“I’d check that attitude if I were you,” the captain said as he picked up a file from his desk.
Wilson pursed her lips as he put on a pair of reading glasses and began flipping through the file.
“Central will provide whatever support you need—manpower, equipment, whatever,” he said. “And of course we’ve still got people assigned to the search for Sonny Williams and Judy Brown. South and East Divisions do, too.
“But you won’t be involved in that. You’ll focus on the girl,” he said, handing her the file.
She opened it as he spoke.
“We’re still treating this as a missing person, as you know, and we believe that there’s still a good chance of finding her. It’s only been two days. Of course, the longer it goes, the more likely it is that we’ll have to start treating it differently.”
Wilson didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. They both knew what that meant.
“That file’s got everything we have so far,” the captain said. “It’s based on the few interviews we’ve been able to conduct with neighbors and the missing person report that was filed by the child’s mother. You’ll also find a copy of the DHS file there. You might want to take a look at that.”
“I already have a copy of the DHS file,” Wilson said.
“How’d you get that?”
“I called in a favor,” she said. “But what I saw there was a little troubling. That’s why I brought the mother down here to question her. She’s sitting outside with one of your detectives.”
“Good,” the captain said. “I just perused the file myself, and from what I see, we might need to take a closer look at her. I’m sure you can handle that.”
“I’m sure I can, sir,” she said, looking more confused with each page she turned. “But these interviews—I mean, is this all we’ve got?”
“We really haven’t been able to get much from the people up at East Bridge,” the captain said. “Maybe that’s my fault for sending a bunch of white cops to the projects with notepads and pencils and expecting them to come back with answers.”
“Can I be frank, sir?”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“I think Kevin Lynch probably needs to be involved in this investigation. He grew up there, he knows the people, and he knows the rules. But with him being suspended …”
“I see where you’re going,” the captain said. “Now I’m going to be frank. The decision to give Lynch the suspension didn’t come from me. It came from the top. The media had the story, and we couldn’t just sweep it under the rug. Baylor was a hero to just about everyone in this city. He was getting ready to run for D.A., and if he’d lived, he would’ve won. If we sat back and did nothing, people would’ve been on that black talk-radio station tomorrow saying it was some kind of setup. That woman on that morning show would’ve dragged the commissioner in there and grilled him on the air. Then the mainstream papers would’ve gotten a hold of it, and before long, it would’ve looked a lot worse than it is.”
Wilson didn’t argue. She knew the truth when she heard it.
“But I know Kevin Lynch,” the captain continued. “I’ve worked with him for three years, and I’ve never seen a guy as committed to finding the truth. The suspension’s gonna be overturned—hopefully sooner than later. I mean, none of us are stupid here. I’ve literally seen cops kill people, get fired, and reinstated within a year by an arbitrator.
“But the suspension’s not the issue here. Because suspended or not, nobody’s going to stop Kevin Lynch from going up there and finding out what happened to that little girl. He said as much when he left here this morning, and I believe him.”
“But can I work with him on this?” Wilson said.
The captain looked down at the floor as he spoke.
“Officially, I don’t know if Lynch is still working on this case or n
ot. Unofficially, I’m getting word back that he’s already got a lot more than we do.”
The captain paused before he continued.
“What I’m saying to you is, if the two of you share information on an informal basis, I don’t see any harm in that. My concern—whether you believe it or not—is finding the girl. Not the politics of it, not making the department look good, not covering my ass. I want that little girl found, and I don’t care how that happens. I just want to make sure that it does.”
Wilson closed the file and sat in her seat, reflecting on what the captain had just said.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, her mind already back to the case. “Is that it?”
“No,” he said. “There’s one more thing. When you go back up to the Bridge, I want you to deliver a message for me.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Tell Kevin Lynch I said hello.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, standing up.
But as Wilson left the captain’s office and grabbed Daneen for the return trip to the projects, she wasn’t the only one carrying a message.
Judy looked across the dark hallway at the dead man. He was leaning back against the wall, his bloodless face frozen in surprise.
His throat was slit in a straight line, and blood dried in ragged clumps against his shirt. But even in death, his upturned hand was extended, as if he was waiting for payment from one of the many addicts who patronized his house.
The hallway, which would have normally been filled with people shooting heroin, was silent. With two dead men upstairs and another just a few feet away, that silence frightened Judy. And as she tried to free her hands from the bonds Sonny had fashioned from her shirt, the sounds of the street scared her even more.
She heard breaking glass and imagined more robbers coming for her. She heard laughter and imagined the dead men coming back to life. She heard running water and imagined blood, pouring down the steps. She heard gunshots and imagined that she would soon be dead, too.
She worked feverishly to untie the bonds that held her hands behind her back, twisting and rubbing and pulling at them until the skin broke and the warm blood ran against her wrists.
Several times during her struggle, people knocked at the door. They were stuffers—heroin addicts—looking to come in and get high. She considered calling out to them, but never did. She was, after all, bound and helpless. And if someone were to find her that way, there was a chance she might never make it out alive.
After a half hour of pulling at the strips of fabric, she realized that her struggle had tightened the bonds. She was starting to lose feeling in her hands, and as the desperation set in, the fear increased. She started to cry. Not because of the fear, but because of the pain Sonny had inflicted on her.
She looked around, trying to find something she could use to cut the ties. She didn’t see anything sharp enough, so she leaned back against the wall and tried to push herself up with her feet. She fell the first few times. But after fifteen minutes of trying, she managed to stand up.
She hopped down the hall, then up the stairs and into the back bedroom. Though the two men had been dead for less than an hour, the smell of congealing blood, torn flesh, and gunpowder combined to form an almost unbearable stench.
Judy tried not to look at them as she scanned the room for the hunting knife she’d used earlier. She spotted it on the floor, near their feet, and bent down to get it. She fell, bumping into one of them, and let out a startled yelp as the dead man’s hand brushed against her back.
Trembling, Judy scooted along the floor until her hands were next to the knife. Then she reached down and grabbed it, feeling the man’s dried blood on the handle as she worked the knife against the cloth.
After a full minute, she felt the fabric give way, and when her hands were completely free, she reached down and untied her feet. When she was finished, she stood up, zombielike, and walked down the hall to the bathroom. She ignored the black mildew that seemed to grow in every corner, and turned on the faucet, rinsing the blood from her hands.
She didn’t bother to dry them. She didn’t see the need. She simply walked down the stairs, past the dead homeowner, and out the door.
With her tattered, bloodstained shirt hanging from her shoulder in strips, she walked down Cambria Street, nearly naked from the waist up.
Dealers and addicts alike watched her as she passed them, her glassy eyes and slow gait convincing them that she was high.
“She musta smoked some wet,” someone said, garnering nods of agreement.
But Judy hadn’t smoked the embalming-fluid mixture that made its users think they could fly or walk naked in the street. She’d succumbed to a high of a different sort.
Hers was the kind of high that made her believe there was love in the drug game. The kind that convinced her that she could change a hustler into something more. The kind that told her she could dream of a new life.
Her high was lies. And she’d believed every one she’d ever told herself.
So as she made her way to Germantown Avenue, walking past the cemetery she’d passed on her way into the Badlands, Judy no longer believed anything. The only thing she knew to be real was death, because she’d seen it up close and lived to tell about it.
She walked up the hill and into the busy street, ignoring the sounds of blaring horns as cars swerved to avoid her. Her eyes were focused on everything and nothing as she moved toward her new reality—the one in which Sonny no longer existed.
She knew what she was looking for. It was only a matter of finding it. And as a police van rolled toward her with flashing lights, she stopped in the middle of an intersection and waited for it to come to her.
When the officers got out of the van and turned her around to cuff her for what they believed was public drunkenness and nudity, she smiled and spoke in a clear voice that froze them in their tracks.
“I’m Judy Brown,” she said. “Y’all been lookin’ for me since early yesterday. I wanna talk to Detective Kevin Lynch. I got somethin’ to say about Sonny Williams and my niece, Kenya.”
The officers looked at each other, unsure of what to make of it. Then one of them pulled off his hat and looked inside at the pictures of Sonny and Judy that had been distributed at roll call.
“That’s her,” he said to his partner, who got on the radio and called for a supervisor.
Within minutes, they were transporting Judy to the Twenty-fifth District, where she was placed in a locked cell before being transferred to police headquarters in Center City.
She was put under guard and taken into an interrogation room. And then they lit into her, one after the other, wielding their questions like bludgeons.
But after hours of questioning by a team of four detectives, Judy sat at the table with a half smile, feeding them the same response she’d given from the beginning.
“I ain’t talkin’ to nobody but Kevin Lynch,” she said, staring straight ahead with eyes that had forever been changed by Sonny’s betrayal.
“Y’all can either get him in here, or I’ll take it to my grave. I done already died anyway, so it don’t make no difference to me.”
As he returned to the Bridge from the hospital, Kevin Lynch felt like he was walking out of his new life and back into his old one.
Since Friday, transitioning between the two had become increasingly difficult, especially with thoughts of his wife and career piled atop childhood memories of beatings and unrequited love, dead children and friends killed for drugs.
He forced himself to ignore those things, however. Because he was determined to face his ghosts.
As he got out of his car and walked toward the building, he marveled at the darkness that enshrouded the Bridge. He knew that it came from the grief over Kenya’s disappearance. But he also knew that in spite of the pall that hung over the building, it still held light.
There were childhood games and innocence, mother love and healing, selflessness and dreams. All these things exi
sted within the walls of the Bridge. Lynch knew that, because those things had allowed him to escape.
He only hoped those things could emerge once more. He hoped that they could save Kenya.
And so, Lynch walked into the building and did what he’d intended to do before he’d received the call about his wife. He stood in the middle of the foyer and tried to imagine that he was Kenya, preparing to go up to the tenth floor and ask for permission to stay the night at Tyreeka’s.
He immediately noticed that the guard booth was occupied for the first time since he’d come there on Friday.
“How you doin’, man?” he said, walking over to the gray-haired, bespectacled man sitting behind the inch-thick glass.
The security guard nodded warily. Lynch figured he had seen more than his share of everything while working there, and found silence to be the best response to most of it.
“My name is Kevin Lynch,” he said, smiling. “I’m working on the Kenya Brown disappearance, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
“Cops already been through here,” the man said as he smoothed down his light-blue uniform shirt. “But I’ll tell you like I told the other ones. The guy that was supposed to be here Friday night probably wasn’t on his post when all that happened.”
“Well, if he wasn’t here, where was he?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this. He miss a lotta nights. I ain’t tell them other cops this, but I think he on that stuff. Course it ain’t my job to supervise him, so …”
The old man let the sentence trail off.
“Was he supposed to be here last night, too?” Lynch asked. “Because I was here yesterday, and I didn’t see a guard in the booth.”
“Listen, man. The company don’t really pay us nothin’, so it’s a lotta nights when guys don’t show up.”
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