Loose Change: The Case Files of a Homeless Investigator

by Sean Huxter

  “Jesus. You hurt bad?”

  “Well it wasn't exactly a kiss on the cheek. Hell yeah, it hurt. Was in the hospital last two days. They were worried about concussion. It was bad.”

  “Haitian accent,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You said 'African accent'. You meant Haitian. Creole.”

  “Nope. African. Even spoke some African language.”

  “Not Creole?”

  “Shit, no. I know some Creole. It's just a thick French.” “African?” I said.

  “No doubt.”

  Shit.

  I had to get to the Public Library.

  Chapter 9 I booked some time on one of the computers and went on Google and did some searching. I Googled Rosine Uwera, the Rwandan genocide, all manner of related searches.

  Photos of Rosine teaching, lecturing. Not much detailed info. Just some names. Some very blurry photos of the aftermath of the genocide. Bunch of mass graves. Pic of the Don Bosco school.

  I found out some disturbing facts including how the UN screwed the pooch at first. And what was really gut-wrenching is that in the months of the genocide nearly 500,000 machetes were imported into the country. Now it didn't say who sold them, but all I could think was

  – someone knew what those machetes were going to be used for and sold them anyway. How do people live with themselves? I mean what's the likelihood that there was just so much brush to clear in Rwanda that they suddenly needed 500,000 machetes?

  There is a famous mis-quote, often wrongly attributed to Joseph Stalin: “When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope.”

  Yay capitalism.

  It took hours, but I did find one bad photo of a group of Hutu men with machetes They wore camo coats, mostly, and were smiling. Some holding up beer cans. Laughing. And that one, third from the left. His eyes. His dead eyes.

  Under the photo was a list of names. The third from the left read Joseph Charamba. Most notably

  not Robert Batiste.

  Chapter 10 I asked Officer Turley if he'd seen a new guy with a camo jacket around. He didn't know what I was talking about. I walked up the Freedom Trail along the wrought-iron fence. Nothing. I asked anyone I saw if they knew where I could find the new guy, and I didn't get any positive answers. Mostly I got curses about him. “Fucker took my water bottle,” or “Guy stole my stash,” et cetera.

  I hoped he hadn't gotten wise and booked town. If he left Boston now, he'd probably melt into some other city and no one would ever be the wiser.

  I crossed the Common, went down every path I could. I even went down into the parking complex under the Common. Nothing. Then I crossed Charles Street into the Public Garden where I did the same. I covered every corner.

  The light was fading. I crossed Arlington and into 437. Fretting about my tarp, I pulled out the new one I bought and began to unfold it.

  Fernie had called for rain.

  It was too dark for those fireworks that I saw just around the time

  my head exploded.

  Chapter 11 When I woke up all I could hear was a loud hissing in my ears. There were two of every street light. Two dumpsters, two tarps. And two gun barrels.

  I jumped. Mistake! Holy crap! My head was on fire – the source of the fireworks. Slowly the hissing cleared and I opened my eyes again.

  Staring at me from the back end of an ancient, rusted Lebel revolver, were those eyes. Those dead eyes.

  “My friend, why are you hunting me?” he said in a very thick African accent. Hard to distinguish some of his vowels. The consonants were all there, but the vowels were so very different.

  “Who says I'm hunting you?”

  “You've been asking questions about me, my friend. All over the place.”

  “I was hoping you'd give me back my tarp if I asked nicely.”

  He laughed. “Your tarp. I think not.”

  I tried getting up. The Lebel waggled a bit, telling me to stay put. I listened to its advice.

  “You've been snooping, my friend. Into things that you have no business in.”

  “Like?”

  “The girl. That sweet girl. You know I killed her. You and that police officer friend of yours have been looking for me for days. I've seen you talking.

  “The police, they came around my building asking questions. At first I was sure I had convinced them I was just a simple Haitian handyman. But days later they came back with more questions. I knew they were onto me. I disappeared into the streets.”

  “They're not that smart. They weren't there for you. Or at least they didn't

  know they were there for you. They had no leads. They think there's a random rapist on the loose. They were just doing routine canvassing of the area.”

  “Well, I couldn't trust that. I didn't get to stay alive this long being stupid. And that includes leaving people alive who might make things difficult for me.”

  He raised the gun. I knew I was dead, unless I kept him talking.

  “So what now, Joseph?”

  That stopped him.

  “Now that was unexpected. How did you know my real name?”

  “I did some research. You're Joseph Charamba. You're no more Haitian than I am. You're from Rwanda, and you're wanted internationally for crimes against humanity. You're a rapist and member of a death squad.”

  I had to keep him off-guard.

  “You are remarkably well-informed, my friend.”

  “I am. I know what happened and I know why. Rosine went to Professor Philips's house on Revere Street twice a week but usually she was dropped off by her parents. This day, however, she was walking up from Beacon when she passed Myrtle Street and the condo you worked for.”

  He didn't respond, but he didn't pull the trigger either.

  “I know some facts, and I have some guesses. I'd say you were outside. Changing a light bulb, cleaning the drain gutters. Something. And then Rosine walked by and you recognized her.”

  “Just as sweet as I remembered all those years ago,” he said, with a sick smile on his face. “You know, I gave the treatment to many, many Tutsi girls, but you never forget your first one, do you my friend?”

  I thought I was going to be sick.

  “So you arranged a little – reunion.”

  “Of course. She recognized me immediately. She was stunned for a moment. How could it be? Then she started screaming and tried to run. But I grabbed her into one of my work rooms where – we relived old memories. And of course I couldn't let her tell anyone I was here.

  “I carried her body as far as I could. I placed her next to a stairwell and dropped her plastic hands next to her. We had no use for them, so I removed them earlier in the evening.

  “You know, it was easier than you would expect to enter the United States as a good Haitian citizen. We speak fluent French in Rwanda, and while the accent is very different, US immigration officials at the airports aren't exactly versed in the nuances. It was perfect.

  “I ran ten thousand miles to get away from Rwanda and the people out to hunt us down after our war, and what happens? One of those filthy Tutsi girls walks up and recognizes me. What are the odds, my friend?”

  “Not good, is my guess.” Imagine. Ten thousand miles, and two people end up within feet of each other for years, never meeting until one fateful day.

  “And now, my good friend. It is time to move on again. No more chats. I must be going, and so must you.”

  He raised his gun once more, and I knew it would be the last time. I had run out of delaying conversation. I had little more to say.

  What I heard wasn't a gunshot, however. It was more like the metallic twang of iron on wood. Charamba fell forward on his face revealing Fernie standing over him with a metal pipe and a very satisfied look on his face.

  “Fernie, I love you,” I said. Fernie helped me up and I hugged that man like I haven't hugged anyone in many years.

  Chapter 12 The next morning, half-way down Public Alley 437, just feet from my dumpster, Of
ficer Turley leaned over the prone form of Joseph Charamba trying to figure out how to untie the ridiculously complex series of knots binding the man's arms and legs so he could snap cuffs on. Charamba's eyes didn't look dead at the moment. Just about now his eyes had the look of a trapped rabbit.

  Old Fernie and I were standing nearby. Turley did a cursory search of the body and found a crumpled piece of paper inside some of the ropes, and stood up to read it. It was written hastily in pencil on a scrap of paper probably found blowing around in the alley.

  My name is Joseph Charamba. I am from Rwanda, living in the US illegally, posing as a Haitian citizen named Robert Batiste. I am not Haitian. In 1994 I raped, mutilated and murdered countless Tutsi girls in Rwanda, one of whom was Rosine Uwera. I raped her again three weeks ago. I murdered her and dumped her body on Branch Street. Please arrest me and convict me. Please put me away for life. My only regret is that Massachusetts is not a death penalty state. Perhaps I can be returned to Rwanda for more serious punishment for my crimes. Yours in all sincerity, Joseph Charamba, war criminal.

  Well, it was uncharacteristically sporting of Mr. Charamba to confess in such detail and then tie himself up in ropes so the police could have an easier time arresting him.

  “What the...” Turley looked at us. We just shrugged and stared down at the captive Mr. Charamba, shaking our heads and tut-tutting as if we had never seen anyone so screwed.

  I said, “Looks like a solid collar, Officer Turley. You just apprehended an international war criminal wanted for crimes against humanity. This won't hurt your career much.”

  “No, not likely,” he said. A few minutes later backup arrived in the form of another patrol car. Two officers got out and proceeded to cut the ropes from Charamba's body and replaced them with cuffs. They hauled his ass down the alley and into the cruiser.

  “Look fellas,” Turley started. “I had nothing to do with this. You guys should take the credit. This case was going nowhere. We had nothing.”

  “Well, Officer, I guess we could claim the credit,” I said. “But it wouldn't do much to advance our careers in law enforcement.”

  “I guess.”

  “And as for having nothing... that's not what you have now...”

  Turley looked towards the receding cruiser carrying his war criminal.

  He turned and shook Fernie's hand, and then mine. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Thank you.”

  Turley walked towards the Arlington end of the alley where his own cruiser was parked.

  “Oh, Officer.” I ran to catch him up. “Here's a card for Rosine's parents. Could you please give them a call and tell them how you caught the bastard that did this to their daughter?”

  He looked at me for a long time.

  “I will,” he said.

  I thanked him and went back to my dumpster and invited Fernie to come with me while I picked up more copies of last week's

  Loose Change .

  21 days sober

  Chapter 1 It was like someone had flipped the fall switch in Boston. The day before was 82 and sunny. That morning it was 42 and the air was no longer the air of summer. It was crisp and cold. Invigorating.

  It was early October, 2001. Many years ago now.

  I hadn't seen Old Fernie around, not since he punched the crap out of me and told me to straighten out my life and get on with living. I remember hating him for that. For a while. Then later loving him for it. Today I was 21 days sober and I was still hurting for a drink, a syringe, or something to take this gnawing off my bones. I tried thinking back to the previous year and I swear I couldn't. That's when I hit the street, and that time had been a stoned, drunken blur. I think I came very near death more than once, and I would have welcomed it. I wish I had had the luxury of religion – the luxury to believe that if I were dead I'd be with my family again and we'd spend eternity in one long group hug. But as comforting as a delusion is, it's still a delusion. And I, who had every reason to

  crave delusion, was tragically rational.

  These last 20 days I had begun to see again. I began noticing the people around me, the other bums, the other winos, the other homeless burdens on society. And I had begun noticing myself. For the first time in years, and I hadn't liked what I was seeing.

  So today I was looking for Old Fernie because I wanted to tell him he was right. I wanted to tell him I had found an AA meeting and had been attending. But I didn't find Fernie. What I found instead was a couple arguing near the Boston Common Gazebo. They were a bit older than me, and at this time I was in my late thirties.

  He looked to be following her, and she was backing away, shouting at him. “Get away from me!” He tried putting something in her hand but she looked at it as if it was diseased and backed even further away. He wore an orange coat suitable for the upcoming fall weather.

  “Please, take it,” he said, pleading with the woman.

  “No! You go away! I don't know you!” she insisted. Her slightly slurred speech was a sign of something, but I didn't know what. Drunk? High? Sick?

  “I don't take things from strangers!” she shouted. “Go away or I'll call the police!”

  He put the small bag on the ground near her and stalked away, defeated.

  I didn't know if I should intervene, or go ask the woman if she needed help. By the time I decided to go see if she was ok, she had picked up and moved on around the gazebo and I felt that if I had started following her I wouldn't get a much better reception.

  I tried to see where Orange Coat had gone, but he was lost over the hill near the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Gone.

  Chapter 2 The next day I looked for Fernie again, to no avail. A police cruiser was parked on Tremont just outside the common, a young patrolman sitting inside watching his beat. Being a Sunday, there was a large contingent of homeless people gathered around as the St. Paul's Cathedral parishioners held a service. I wasn't much interested in what they had to say but I was interested in what they had to give. This was a well-meaning group of people, giving up their Sunday to hand out provisions to the homeless. I hadn't seen a single one who was there out of any reason other than real compassion. And I was not above accepting their help.

  I stood around waiting for some of that help. It came in the form of a very tasty ham and cheese sandwich on a sourdough bread that was delicious and spot-hitting. It also came in the smiles of the people handing them out. There wasn't a cynic in the bunch.

  I stood around chatting with some of the people I'd come to recognize over the last year, some I'd almost come to know. But since I dropped the drugs and booze some of their luster had been lost, and I'd already begun looking at them as those friends in college you don't like to admit you ever knew.

  I looked for the woman I had seen earlier and sure enough she was there, standing next to a somewhat younger man. There was a strange look on her face, almost as if she were a teenager on a first date. You see some weird things out here...

  He moved closer and she pushed him, yelling, “If my Thomas knew what you were doing!” She ran back into the Common. Thomas? Could Thomas have been the man in the orange coat I saw earlier?

  The congregation slowly broke up and we all kind of dissolved back into the alleys and infrastructure of old historic Boston.

  Chapter 3 It must have been around two o'clock that same sunny, cool afternoon when I decided to find out what was wrong with that woman, and why she was being stalked by two different men. I know, it was none of my damned business, but I had an instinct. Something wasn't right.

  She was sitting on the edge of the Gazebo where I had seen her earlier that morning. She was chewing down on one of the sandwiches handed out by the Cathedral. She was singing to herself.

  One of the main reasons people are homeless is mental illness. Family gets fed up, funding runs out, these people get tossed to the street to fend for themselves. Welcome to the world.

  I'd been thinking thoughts like that a lot in the past month. On that day, just shy of a month
ago, I looked up at a sky that had not one single jet plane contrail tracing across its vast blueness. There was not a single roar of a jet engine. By noon every plane in the sky over the United States and Canada had been forced to land at their nearest airports, some of which could barely shoulder the burden, but they did anyway. And that vast sky had been empty for the first time in my lifetime.

  After taking such a blow it seemed to me people were looking inward and wondering just what we were doing to ourselves and each other in this society. And I have wondered ever since.

  How can a society leave a woman like this, with obvious mental problems, to fend for herself? I had to wonder how long she'd done exactly that. She was older than I was and still alive, obviously. She was thin, had what looked to be prematurely gray hair, and had probably been quite attractive not that many years ago. But the last few years had wiped most of that beauty from her face. She was not in a great mental state, and while I had no idea of her physical condition, it didn't look good.

  I was trying to get up the courage to approach her and talk to her when the man in the orange coat from this morning came around the Gazebo and stood near her.

  “Aggie,” he said. “Aggie, I have some food for you.” The man was trying to hand her one of the sandwiches he had gotten from the congregation earlier.

  “You go away! I told you! I don't know you!” She stood up defensively.

  “But Aggie!”

  “How do you know my name? I don't know you! You just wait

  until my Thomas comes home! He'll give you such a punch in the face!”

  She ran off, as fast as she could with a limp, and the man stood there, slowly lowering the arm that had been holding the sandwich out. He soon turned and walked back over the hill by the monument again.

  So this wasn't Thomas either, then? Who was Thomas?

  Chapter 4 I followed Aggie into the Public Garden, now filled with good citizens wandering around on this gorgeous day. I found her near the Make Way for Duckling statues trying to feed the baby ducks.