“Like him?”
“Yeah, he was my neighbor, got to know him over the past couple of years.”
“Ever notice anything suspicious about him?”
“Not really. I go to work and come home.”
“Where do you work, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I manage a warehouse in Northeast Philly…overnight shif—.”
“Oh yeah, I’m from the Northeast. What type of business?”
Mike moved his eyes left at Marisa as if to ask why her partner was small-talking him when he would like to get back to sleep.
“I thought you wanted to talk about Tom?” Mike said, confused.
“I am…was Tom into drugs?”
“Not sure.”
“Did he have visitors often?”
“I just saw him and Venice around. And her mom. That’s it.”
Steel scanned the apartment. “Nice place.” He looked to the right of Mike. “Nice hat there.”
Mike swiveled his head. “That one?”
“Yeah, unique.”
“Got it as a present from my sister a few years ago. Custom made, designed like an American flag.” He lowered his head then raised it.
Steel admired the cap for another moment. “I’ve just never seen a Phillies hat with red, white, and blue stripes running down the whole thing. Anyway, do you live here alone?”
Mike gazed off in thought.
Steel noticed Mike’s discomfort at the question and remembered what Sam Kelly had told him about his family. He rephrased his words. “I’m looking at a family portrait behind the sofa…just wondering if anyone else may have known Tom?”
Mike angled his head back at the portrait. “Yeah, that’s my family,” he whispered. He straightened his shoulders and spoke at a higher pitch. “I’m the only one left out of that picture.”
Steel and Marisa glanced at one another, knowing a story was coming. Some people liked to tell their family stories to someone, anyone who’d listen. Sometimes people just needed to talk to another person—anybody. They let him talk.
“That’s my father,” he said as he smiled at the portrait as if remembering something. “He died when I was sixteen—prostate cancer, probably could’ve detected it nowadays, might still be alive. And that’s my mom and sister. They both passed last year. My sister was a suicide.” He shook his head hard. “Mom didn’t last much longer.” He sighed and choked up. “I think she died of a broken heart.”
Steel interrupted him and shot a glance at Marisa, and she was near tears. “Sorry for your losses. But let’s get back to Tom. Do you know Venice?”
Mike cleared his throat, understanding. “Yeah, it’s a shame for her. This world is fucked up…Tommy was so young.” He held up a hand. “Excuse the language…it’s just frustrating.”
“No worries,” Steel said. He knew he wasn’t a saint when it came to cursing. “Do you have any idea who could have killed Tom?”
“Not a clue.” He winced and pivoted his body back toward the portrait, more focused on his family than Steel.
Steel decided he didn’t have time for more tears. He’d seen enough for the day. “All right…I think we’re just about done here.”
They both got to their feet and moved toward the door.
“We’ll be checking in with you and Mr. Kelly from the first floor from time-to-time until we figure out who is responsible for this.”
“Anything you need…just stop by or call.”
Steel and Marisa stepped outside and back into the scorching sun, and each knew they’d soon be stepping into hot water if this case went cold.
14
Steel cruised down an unattractive street in North Philadelphia with Marisa in the passenger seat. Knee lived in a run-down, dangerous neighborhood. The plan was to hit him with questioning until they could connect him or anyone to the murder of Thomas Hitchy—but caution was needed. They weren’t in Old City anymore, in Tom Hitchy’s neighborhood. North Philadelphia, along with the rest of Philadelphia, had some rough sections to it, and Knee’s house was in one of those areas. Residents rarely called the police. Most of the time, they policed themselves. If an officer or detective went into that neighborhood armed, they’d have to assume the person they were pursuing was also armed.
Steel pointed to an abandoned house as he drove. “Look at this.”
Marisa’s eyes followed his finger. “Yeah, I know, but what are you gonna do?”
“They should fix this area up.”
He eased off the gas pedal, rode the brake, and crept down the street. Wood covered windows of three abandoned homes, graffiti scribbled on the wood’s surface. One home, well at least a rectangular space that used to be a home was filled with wild, shabby, dingy grass, trash bags, liquor bottles, beer bottles, and old newspapers. Steel hooked a right past a pawn shop, liquor store, and gas station that only did business behind a bulletproof window. A few prostitutes tested out their most luring stances—arching their backs to reveal their short skirts, licking their lips and smiling, blinking and narrowing their eyelids into a seductive stare—as the wheel cut back with his full turn.
“You don’t wanna pick me up, honey…might spend a day where you don’t wanna be,” Steel said under his breath.
Marisa smiled. “If only they knew you were a cop.”
Locals sat on street corners or the front steps of their houses and stared with suspicion as Steel’s car crept down the block. They looked ready to act at any moment, an edge and tenseness about them. Steel knew they had every reason to be suspicious. They lived day-to-day trying to survive in a drug-infested neighborhood full of shattered dreams with a high crime rate and the city’s highest unemployment rate. They didn’t like or trust authority, especially the police. Steel knew that most officers knew that and were on edge. Frankly, some colleagues Steel had known over the years didn’t like working neighborhoods like Knee’s and were often wary when called into them. Steel knew officers made modest wages and wanted to go home alive after their shifts, so many were just as tense and on edge as the locals. But police brutality wasn’t tolerated in Steel’s unit. He hated police brutality, and also didn’t like the few bad officers who gave good, honest officers a bad reputation. But he also understood that criminals in those neighborhoods were no joke. The worst offenders who officers were locking up, keeping an eye on, or questioning often didn’t care if they lived or died, had no hope, had been arrested too many times to give a shit, were cutthroat, and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Officers were routinely shot at, spit at, kicked, threatened, provoked. And it created a situation in which some of the residents and some police officers developed a suspicious “us vs. them” mentality. Both sides were wary, and that led to hostility. At least that was the way Steel interpreted it.
Whenever he had worked that beat, he’d tried his best to kick advice and wisdom to young people who had fallen victim to the streets but had also been firm and tough on people who had broken the law and deserved to get locked up.
He rode down the very street that had impacted his life. A particular memory flooded his mind—he couldn’t help it. The recollection was roughly six to eight years old. His brain crafted together a blurry audio and visual recording of the crime scene—the image like a water-damaged painting that had been sitting in an attic for years. A mother, siblings, and neighborhood teenagers screaming and crying and a sixteen-year-old boy’s lifeless body lying soaked in blood, dead, gone, his eyes never to open again. And it was over a senseless fight.
Steel had been the first officer to arrive that night. He’d known the kid well and had brought him into the police station numerous times for petty things—possession of marijuana and knives—but nothing too serious. But he’d seen something in that teenager—brains and leadership qualities. The kid had been a leader in his small circle of thugs and had never been cocky or arrogant when Steel had locked him up, had even talked with him about life and politics on the way to the station. He’d known
more about some issues than Steel. He had been directionless from birth, however: both parents addicted to crack-cocaine. His grandmother hadn’t been able to control him.
On a couple different occasions, Steel had tried to set up a GED program for young people like that one—for those living in crime-ridden, drug-infested neighborhoods. He’d noticed that in some low-income areas the city’s public schools had poor educational systems, and it was an unfortunate reality. And he knew how much harder minorities in low-income areas had it in America than most people thought. The GED programs were a way to give back, for real, and not as some in the media had, or some in upper-class America had, or some politicians had—that was, use the poor, or inner-city residents, or minorities as a “cause” for their own egos or purposes and then forget about them once they had filled the void of unauthentic empathy in their own souls. He wanted to actually help and make a difference, if only a small one.
The people in the neighborhood he was driving through were mostly minorities, and they had it tough, no question about that. He’d seen it first hand, had conversations with locals who couldn’t get jobs, regardless of how hard they’d tried or how qualified they’d been.
Steel had grown up lower-middle class. It hadn’t always been easy for him, but he understood that this neighborhood was far from lower-middle class—it was poor. A damn shame, he thought. Some good people, born into a bad situation, easily sucked in. He always gave credit to people, of all races, especially minorities, who made it out of rough inner-city neighborhoods—and especially his boss, Lieutenant Detective Daniel Williams. The high school dropout rates were extremely high for young minorities in that section of the city. People couldn’t get jobs, and that led to a breakdown in family structure, limited choices for higher education. Some didn’t have a shot from the beginning and headed into the street life. Tough reality to swallow, he thought. Oftentimes the rich get richer, the connected stay connected, and the poor stay poor. Fuckin’ sucks.
He shook his head.
Steel had eventually gotten a small program set up at a local school, and that kid had been scheduled to attend the week after he’d discovered his lifeless body. It had been a hard punch in the gut to Steel, a tough reminder of how precious time and life could be. He wished he could realize life’s vulnerability more in his own life at times, to see the light through the darkness, but often failed. And he knew how some people if they’d been born under different circumstances, could have gone far in life. That kid could’ve—maybe CEO, or senator, or president. It sucked, but he knew life wasn’t a fairytale; reality could be brutal.
After that experience, he’d thought about whether or not to quit the force and try his hand at social work to help people who didn’t have direction or a chance in life. Instead, he’d decided to stay on the force and work his hardest to prevent senseless acts of violence or find the culprits who’d committed them.
“Steel…you all right?”
He stared for a few seconds before answering. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
“Because you’re riding the brake in this neighborhood.” Marisa snapped her fingers. “Snap out of it.”
“Oh…I was just thinking about something. You have Knee’s address, right?”
She scrolled through her Blackberry. “Ahhhh, let me check,” she said as she pushed her cheeks to the size of balloons. “Yep, you sent me the e-mail…let me find it.”
He hunched over the steering wheel and looked around. “I know it’s around here.”
“Here it is…third house down. Make a right on this block.”
He clicked the turn signal up and glided to an empty parking spot.
“I remember this area, brings back memories. Most of Knee’s crew is around here…at that hangout. I wanna talk to some of them, too.”
He turned the key and the car winded down and just a few kinks lingered under the hood for a couple of seconds afterward.
They stepped out and scanned the area for a moment before moving.
Marisa stuck out her tongue, breathed, and adjusted her collar. “Damn you, heat wave. It’s hot out here.”
He shrugged and could tell his mood was changing. He was getting more annoyed by the minute, as sweat seeped through his pores, dripped down his thighs and arms, and soaked his undershirt like he had just swum in a pool with it on for an hour.
“You think he has air conditioning?” she said, and the sun glinted off her pupils, and her eyes twinkled, revealing her natural beauty. He almost forgot they were co-workers and not lovers. This woman makes me feel good, he thought. Haven’t felt this way in years.
“I hope so, Rissa.”
She tipped her head and squinted. “Did you just call me Rissa?”
He tipped his head the way she had tipped hers. “I sure did.”
“Don’t flirt on the job, Benny.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Tulli.” He shook his head. “This really isn’t the time or place to be playing around. We gotta cut the shit.”
Laughter rang out from both of them. He’d called her Rissa intentionally, to loosen her up—to calm her nerves. It looked like it’d worked.
They leaped over a few trash bags and trotted up to Knee’s house. The property was fairly large with a porch and a couple of lawn chairs. The paint on the front door was chipped. The lawn below their feet wasn’t landscaped, and jungly shrubs sprung up and reached in all directions. Steel admired how the houses still held some of the late Victorian and Gothic Revival designs from architects nearly two centuries prior—pointed, arched windows that provided an abundance of light, ribbed vault ceilings, huge front porches, and lawns. He tapped into some of the research he’d done in his spare time as a history enthusiast and thought about the area.
North Philadelphia had changed over the years. It’d started as an agricultural town in the 18th century and had been called home by many of the city’s affluent. Mansions had popped up throughout the area during that time. But about midway through the 19th century, a state law had separated Philadelphia into sections, which had turned the tip of North Philly into what were now modern-day suburbs. The rest of North Philly had been occupied by waves of newly arriving European immigrants who’d taken over that section of the city, living in row homes that had rapidly been built.
During the mid-19th and up until the early 20th century, North Philadelphia had become a staple of the industrial world. To this day, abandoned factory buildings with broken windows, hand-painted, faded white letters across the façade that had once been used as business names, and loading docks with rusted chains still stood in those neighborhoods. During that time, those factories had provided an abundance of manufacturing work. That job boom had even developed a need for the Broad Street subway station, which Steel still used, which rode to Philadelphia City Hall.
But North Philly had lost some steam following the Great Depression and also from outsourcing. Many people had moved to find work, which had led to abandoned houses, lower property values, and little prospects for jobs close to home. North Philadelphia’s history was so vast that Steel would’ve had to hit the history books to fully trace its roots. He knew only a brief background of North Philly.
He thought how he’d hear people brand North Philly as a slum of Philadelphia but figured that it was too big and had too many different sections to be made into a sweeping generalization like that. He knew there were some bad sections, as there were in many large cities across the country, but many of the people living there were good, decent citizens. He’d experienced it first-hand as an officer in North Philly years prior. But he also knew that some of those areas were filled with ruthless criminals and drug dealers who made it tough for law enforcement and uncomfortable for citizens who obeyed the law. Knee and his crew were some of those bad guys.
“All right, let’s do this,” he said and focused his attention away from his own mind.
Can’t you stop fuckin’ thinking for one minute? he thought. He walk
ed faster. Marisa tried to keep up.
His black dress shoes tapped the four concrete steps to the front door. Steel knocked twice. They waited. Nothing happened; no one answered. What’s going on today? he thought. Steel walked a few feet to his left, cupped his hands onto the front windows, and looked through the vertical blinds. Marisa stayed put, hand lying on the gun underneath the material of her blazer, searching the area, watching the door.
“Looks like nobody’s in there,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said and spun her head and did a double-take across the whole property.
“Let’s go to the hangout.”
They hopped back into the car and drove two more blocks. Steel knew this little spot well. It was a street pharmacy. Anything someone wanted, they supplied. The building used to be an old candy and tobacco store but was now a hangout for the neighborhood drug dealers, street toughs, and up-and-comers. Over the years, there had been numerous arrests, raids, and violence in or around this place. The department had done surveillance on these guys and undercover activity and knew the ranks within. Somehow the club always resurfaced. Steel always noted that, and he reminded young cops and detectives that criminals will find a way. He reassured them to never underestimate anyone, especially those guys. Just because they didn’t have formal education and lived in an impoverished neighborhood didn’t mean that they lacked intelligence. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. If so, he had always thought, why have we been unsuccessful in shutting them down all these years? He knew that given a chance or if born into better circumstances or if placed in a different environment, some of those thugs could’ve been or could be successful in any career they pursued. He also knew those guys were in survival mode; they had little to lose. That made the situation dangerous.
Steel parked across the street from the hangout. Smoke clouded the thick air and hit each of their noses. Steel guessed the scent must’ve been coming from a fire nearby. He heard sirens and saw charcoal clouds floating in the distance. He listened in the direction of the fire trucks as they sped through the streets but stopped and continued on his way.
The Highway (A Benny Steel and Marisa Tulli Novel - Book 1) Page 10