The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1)

by John Montesano

  TWENTY THREE

  Ms. Cruz shot up and bolted to the back of the house. I followed a few steps behind. For whatever reason I wanted to see what the rest of the house looked like. Not much better. The living room we were in was off to the right; down the center corridor from the front door was the entrance into the kitchen. I think my cousin’s dollhouse had a bigger kitchen. Sitting at a small oval- shaped table were two kids, not older than four. Both were only wearing underwear. One was coloring in an Elmo coloring book while the other was coloring Batman. There were more crayons on the floor than the table. I assumed the table must’ve been white Formica at some point but currently resembled the same color as the exterior siding. Also on the floor, near the back door, was a potted plant, which was shattered to pieces.

  “God damn it, Marco!” Ms. Cruz shouted. Without even questioning the other child, she backhanded the young child hard enough that Esteban might have felt it. Where ever he was.

  I felt brave in asking, “Would you like me to come back some other time?”

  “No, I’m sorry. These damn kids are always breaking shit around here,” she replied through a deep breath. Then stop having babies, I thought. The child named Marco kept screaming but Ms. Cruz paid no attention. I could hear sounds of a television turned up abnormally loud booming from another part of the house.

  She pulled aside an empty chair and offered me another. We finally sat, ready to talk.

  “What is Esteban like at home?” I asked taking a pen and notepad out of my pocket.

  Ms. Cruz lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke in an unconscious effort to block it from her children. “Well, shit, he’s an all right boy. All he wants to do is play those damn video games and hang out on the streets with his friends. Those boys. I got no control over that one. I punish and take shit away from him but he ends up finding other things. He’s always fighting with his younger brothers and sisters.” She stamped out the cigarette in a tray on the table. I wrote things down in my pad but I didn’t know what to write down or what, if anything, she was saying would help me in any way. I glanced at the young kids. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to their mother’s profanity. Almost, as if it were a natural occurrence for them.

  Brothers and sisters- plural. How many of them are there? I wondered. I had to know. “How many brothers and sisters does Esteban have?” I asked the question in a way that made it seem like it somehow pertained to Esteban, not his loose mother. It was sad, but not surprising to see, that she had to pause and think for a second. You would’ve thought I asked her to do my taxes.

  “Well, there’s Javier. He’s nineteen but in jail for drugs.” I wrote that down. She continued, “Tatiana is sixteen and Esteban is thirteen. Then, let me see, I have Carlos, who is ten, Havana, who is eight, no seven, then these two, Marco and Jocelyn, who are four. That should be all of them.” She said it as if she were rattling off her grocery list.

  Javier and drugs raised a red flag and made a mental note to ask Fitzgerald to look into that for me. We spent the next hour discussing Esteban’s habits, hobbies, friends his mother might think he hangs out with, his relationship with her and his father, and whatever else I could suck out of her. Ms. Cruz told me that Esteban is really into his Xbox, YouTube, Facebook, skateboarding, and she has no idea what he does around the neighborhood with his friends. She mentioned that, on several occasions, Esteban had been picked up in Brooklyn and the Bronx for attempting to skateboard on private property. The NYPD cop that picked him up a few times said he had taken a Transit bus into Manhattan and a subway to Brooklyn and the Bronx. Ms. Cruz went on to tell me about the trouble he had gotten into at school, most of which I knew from his incident reports. She mentioned the handful of times he’d been cited for bullying his classmates on Facebook. Ms. Cruz also touched on a few incidents that Esteban had in his local Paterson school that forced him out to Right Step.

  I recalled seeing Facebook mentioned in a few of the bullying incident reports. When we initially went over the incident reports Lindsey mentioned that incidents, even though they occurred off school grounds still went reported because they involved others from the school.

  “Is Esteban’s father home?” I asked.

  “No, he’s at work,” she replied.

  “What kind of work does he do?” I asked the question holding my eyes to Ms. Cruz’s face, searching for any sort of inkling of a lie, facial tick, or some tell that revealed an untruth. She instantly hesitated and I could see her eyes tear away from my face when she blurted out, “Construction.”

  I made a note in my notepad: Esteban’s father- construction? I let it slide and redirected back towards Esteban’s siblings.

  The drug incident was mentioned as an afterthought and Ms. Cruz blamed her oldest son, Javier, for that. I didn’t find that to be surprising but noted it anyway.

  Throughout our entire conversation, I played as if I had no prior knowledge of Esteban’s behavioral issues and let Ms. Cruz do the talking. I saw how frustrated Esteban made her, not to mention her other five kids at home. I let her do the talking and tell me what she was willing to and how much she actually knew about Esteban’s behavior. She appeared to be fully aware but not that fluent on managing him or any of her slew of kids.

  I felt like I had a better foundation to work from when I left Esteban’s house. Before I left Ms. Cruz allowed me to peruse Esteban’s bedroom, which he shared with Carlos and Marco. I couldn’t make out what was his and what belonged to his brothers so I thanked her and told her I’d come back another time. She saw me to the door and I felt like I should reassure her that I’d do everything I could to get Esteban back safe and sound before I left. So I did.

  Second Journal Entry:

  September 12th it was.

  First terrorists on September 11th. Now me September 12th.

  What the hell is this? Am I a terrorist?

  When I close my eyes this time, I can see the broken light above the back door. It was just bright enough for me to illuminate what I needed to see.

  The multi- colored sneakers. They were running and then they weren’t. They stopped at the commands. I never knew Jake to be one to wear such ugly sneakers.

  I’ll never forget the smells emanating from the Dumpsters off to the left. Some days the scent of rotting animal flesh is stuck in my nose. Most other days it’s the scent of gunpowder.

  Shit!

  What the hell could I have done differently? Jake didn’t have to die.

  Or did he?

  TWENTY FOUR

  I remember when I turned seventeen and got my driver’s license that everyone told me that I’d hate driving in three years. I’d get bored with it. Here I am fifteen years later and I drive everyday as if I just passed the driver’s test. I never figured out if it’s the sense of empowerment and the control of being behind the wheel or the fact that I am quite the social observer and get my kicks by catching fellow drivers doing embarrassing things. Nose picking. Coffee spilling. Burger dropping. Even make- up mishaps. I get personal enjoyment out of their reaction once they get caught.

  It was only a little after eleven when I left Esteban’s house. I decided to cruise the neighborhood a bit to see what type of environment Esteban had become a product of, which was pretty self- explanatory. While I drove down Main Street, I spotted a guy in a silver Honda Civic with his finger so far up his nose I thought he was trying to untangle his eyelashes. It made me smile. Him, not so much.

  Even during the day the neighborhood appeared dark. It was one of the first observations I made when I’d become a Paterson cop almost four years ago. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that the neighborhood lacked greenery or my embedded impression of what the city was like. Years, if not decades, of a tarnished reputation. Riddled with crime and gangs. Before I physically dove into the heart of Paterson to begin my case, I conducted an online search of the current crime rates and the updated data didn’t disappoint. Something I had never thought to do when I first became a cop. I wa
s not surprised at all to see it hadn’t changed much since I went on involuntary leave. The color- coded map of the city I found online showed what would be considered to be the “safest” neighborhoods were all on the outskirts. The neighboring towns, the safer towns, made those sections of Paterson much more appealing to some. Fittingly, the heart of the city is where the majority of the crime took place. Like the epicenter of an earthquake.

  Looking at the map made me think of a time when I was about seven and I dropped a smoke bomb into the center of an abnormally large ant hill I found at the park. The chaos was in the center while all of the ants headed for the safer, less chaotic perimeter.

  The darkness, the inner sanctum of the city is where evil prevailed.

  The website, www.neighborhoodscout.com, listed a detailed outline of the crime rates, public school ratings, and appreciation ratings of each desired town in the country. According to the site, Paterson received a crime index rating of fourteen. I wasn’t sure if that was good or not until I scrolled down further and saw it was scored out of a hundred. Totowa borders the southeast corner of the city, which scored a 24 in its own crime index rating and four of Paterson’s top ten safest neighborhoods were touching the Totowa area. Paterson also borders Fair Lawn to the northeast, Elmwood Park to the southwest, and Haledon to the northwest. The other bordering towns received a sixty- six, forty- one, and a twenty- nine, respectively. Not the greatest average ratings but anything was better than Paterson’s fourteen. However, Paterson is considered a daycare center compared to some other crime- riddled cities in the country: East St. Louis, Illinois and West Memphis, Arkansas received a zero and Saginaw, Michigan and fellow New Jersey territory of Camden each received a three.

  The site also listed the statistics for violent and property crimes. The chances of being a victim of a violent crime in the state of New Jersey was one in 324 and the odds of being a victim of a property crime was one in forty- eight. To add some negative darkness to Paterson’s reputation the odds of being a victim of a violent crime in the city is one in ninety- three and one in thirty- two for property crimes. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

  Too bad Jake is nothing more than one of those statistics now.

  Sometimes I need to take notes to put the information into better perspective so I took as many notes as I could. I wrote down the statistical data the website provided regarding the number of violent and property crimes. I didn’t think it would help my case at all but it illustrated what I was getting myself into. One thing it certainly did provide me with was a glimpse into the lifestyle of someone like Esteban Machado.

  * * *

  I had to train myself to think like a cop again, which is one of the first things I told myself I’d stop doing after the incident. For a long time I had refused to have anything to do with being a cop ever again after Jake died. Lindsey and Dr. Sharper convinced me that it was important to get back to work. To be a cop again because that’s what I was good at. For a while, it was out of my hands due to my involuntary leave.

  I decided to visit Esteban’s elementary school since I just so happened to be in the area. School 5 was like most elementary schools in Paterson, known simply by number, and was located in the heart of Main Street. It was surrounded by a wide range of shops, apartment buildings, even a church. The neutrally- toned façade made the building look drab. Not very welcoming to the minds of our future. If it weren’t for the students’ art work decorating the classroom windows of the building, anyone looking from the street could mistake it for an apartment building. As if the wrought- iron fence wasn’t enough to surround the perimeter of the school, there was a wire fence running the distance of the front of the building along the curb. I saw a gym class playing kickball on the black top adjacent to the building, tucked away in the back.

  Not sure if I could park in front on the street, I found a teacher’s lot and took a numbered space. I entered through the front door and found a sign telling all visitors that they must report directly to the main office. So I did. The secretary at the front desk wasn’t your stereotypical secretary. She was young, probably early thirties, and looked as if she should be a prime time news anchor rather than an elementary school secretary. The name plate told me she was Shelly McBaine. Even her name had weather girl written all over it.

  We exchanged pleasantries and I asked if I could speak to the principal. Of course he was busy and was only to be disturbed for emergencies. I told him I was a concerned parent, made up a child’s name, and demanded to speak to the principal at once. Shelly requested that I have a seat and she’d check if Mr. Klein was available.

  “I don’t want to sit. I’d like to speak to Mr. Klein right this minute!” I wasn’t sure if I put too much emphasis into my tone but don’t all concerned parents? Was raising my voice over the top or was it the repeated index- finger jabs into the counter top near her name plate?

  “Yes, let me see if he’ll take you,” Shelly replied. She returned and said, “He’s just finishing up a call and he will see you in just a minute. So, please, have a seat. If you’d like.”

  I nodded, remained standing, and even crossed my arms tightly like a defiant child standing his ground after being sent to detention. And after five minutes of lightly pacing and flipping through pamphlets on the counter the door to the principal’s office sprung open. Out came Mr. Barry Klein. A clean shaven, close cropped, business man of a principal who politically greeted me and shook my hand.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting but what is it I can do for you, Mr...?” Klein asked as he led me back into his office. I pretended I didn’t hear him. I closed the door behind us. “Shelly said you have some sort of urgent parental concern,” he added, taking his seat behind his L- shaped desk. I sat in an upholstered arm chair facing him.

  I cut right to it. “My name is Chase Barnes, Mr. Klein. I’m an investigator looking into the whereabouts of Esteban Machado,” I said, assuming he was aware of the situation. His expression didn’t change.

  “Well, Mr. Barnes, that does sound like a very alarming concern,” Klein replied. He leaned forward with his hands folded for emphasis. “But Shelly said something about you being a concerned parent not an investigator.” The politician in him gave him the appearance of addressing a town hall meeting.

  “You could say that.”

  TWENTY FIVE

  It took me a second to shake out the voices and I tried to do it without permeating any sense of inferiority. Klein was too busy adjusting his suit to sit comfortably at his desk to take notice.

  “Anyway, what can you tell me about Esteban?” While he went into his spiel about how bad Esteban was and how he felt sorry for the home life kids like Esteban are subjected to, I took in every one of Klein’s facial expressions, gestures, and body movements while clinging to his every word. Klein continued to ramble, almost as if he strongly disliked kids.

  “Esteban is a very troubled boy,” Klein said. “He doesn’t follow directions and constantly wants to fight with other students, which we do not tolerate here. We tried to accommodate him here but it just didn’t work in our favor so we felt Esteban was better fit at a program like Right Step.”

  All of Klein’s over exaggerated hand gestures led me to believe that he should be campaigning for senator rather than attempting to molding the world’s future.

  I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character and can see when people are putting up a façade either to hide something or to impress others. I nodded along just to keep him talking.

  “I don’t know how familiar you are with the way the educational system works but there is a level of order we have to maintain within a school building while doing our due diligence of providing a fair and equal opportunity for each child to succeed. However, when a student takes advantage of the opportunities they are given, other arrangements need to be made. Esteban is one of those students that required other arrangements.” He said it as if Esteban were an insubordinate employee being laterally transferre
d to an out- of- country branch rather than a student. I could almost see a flash of anger in Klein’s eyes. “Some of these kids just never learn.” Now he was starting to sound like an after- school special.

  As a cop when asking questions to perps we take in, throwing curveballs was a key in giving me a chance to gauge what type of person I was dealing with. I hoped it worked here as well. “How long have you been a principal, Mr. Klein?”

  He didn’t seem too thrown off by the question. “Uh, let’s see. I’ve been here going on three years. Before that I taught for ten. High school English in South Jersey.” Klein was talking like he was responding to a job interview question.

  “Have you ever met Esteban’s parents? What are they like?” I asked.

  “I’ve never met Esteban’s father, but I have met Ms. Cruz on several occasions. When Esteban was in his early primary grades, first and second, Ms. Cruz was a member of the PTA and quite involved. But then something happened. When Esteban was in third and fourth grades he began to become, for lack of a better term, a troublemaker. The fighting, the cursing, the defiance began and continued to grow. He became a bigger problem to handle. In fourth grade, Esteban was evaluated by our child study team and was labeled with a behavior disorder. As previously mentioned, we attempted to keep him here but we were unable to accommodate him.”

  Something happened. What did Klein mean by that? Did he know what happened? And what about the father? Why was the mother so involved at one time but the father was virtually nonexistent throughout? I was beginning to think there wasn’t even a father at all.

  What had happened to Esteban Machado?

  TWENTY SIX

  Paterson’s Main Street is like many other Main Streets in America, offering a smorgasbord of shops, eateries, value stores, high and low- end clothing. You name it, Paterson’s Main Street has it. It was after two in the afternoon and I was getting hungry so I decided to roam the immediate vicinity to see if I could find something quick to eat while I got a feel for how Esteban lived.