Crooked Numbers

by Tim O'Mara

  “She’s not my— Thanks anyway, Uncle Ray. I’d rather take the train.”

  “You’d rather,” he said, “not have me know where you’re going.”

  Someday I’ll put one past my uncle. Today was not that day.

  “I’ll be fine, Uncle Ray. Let’s talk in the next few days.”

  He grabbed me by the elbow and held me this time. With his eyes fixed on mine, he said, “You stay out of this case, Ray. You’ve been lucky so far. Luck runs out, kiddo.”

  “I’m out, Uncle Ray. I just got some errands to run.” I gently removed his hand from my elbow. I was surprised he let me. “Listen, I got ten days off coming up in a few weeks. Why don’t you and Reeny come over for dinner? You can even bring Smitty.”

  “That’s cute,” he said. “I’ll talk it over with Reeny. She’s always bugging me to take her into the city anyway.”

  “Good. Let’s talk this week and set it up. We’ll do an early dinner, and then you guys can hit Manhattan.”

  “You gonna bring your girlfriend?”

  “If we’re still seeing each other, I’ll invite her. I’m sure she’ll be completely charmed.”

  “Keep spreading it, Raymond. Pretty soon you’ll be up to your knees in it.”

  “I hear you, Uncle Ray.”

  “I hope you do, Nephew. I truly hope you do.”

  *

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” Mrs. Lee said as she opened the door.

  We stepped inside and, when we got to the living room, I said, “What is it, Mrs. Lee? Did something happen?”

  “No,” she said. “Well, I guess something did happen, but I don’t…”

  I pointed to the couch. “Would you rather sit and tell me?”

  “No,” she said, a touch of determination in her voice now. “I need to show you something, and the sooner I get it over with, the better.” She took a deep breath. “It’s in Douglas’s room.”

  She started off in that direction, so I followed. The door to Dougie’s room was shut. Mrs. Lee turned to me and took another breath. She put her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and stepped inside. Again, I was right behind her.

  She flicked on the light switch. The room had been straightened up since the last time I was in there. Everything had been picked up off the floor, and the bed had been completely stripped.

  “I’ve been cleaning up,” Mrs. Lee said.

  “I can see that.”

  “I’m donating everything to Goodwill. Not the pillows, of course, or the stuff on the walls, but everything else.” She paused. “I was told it would help.”

  “That sounds like good advice,” I said.

  “It was,” she agreed, then she stepped over to the closet and slid open the door. “Until I started in on the closet and Douglas’s clothes.”

  I looked into the closet but still had no idea what she was talking about.

  “What’s wrong with the closet?”

  She reached into the pocket of one of Dougie’s jackets, then handed me a photograph of Dougie and Alexis Quinn, embracing, nose-to-nose. It certainly looked like they were more than just acquaintances.

  “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that,” Mrs. Lee said. “It’s just, Douglas never mentioned any girls to me, and I have no idea who that is.”

  “Jack Quinn’s twin sister,” I said. “I met her outside the hospital the other day.”

  “Were they serious?”

  “Not according to what she told me.”

  Now that I thought about it, Alexis probably didn’t want her relationship with Dougie to become common knowledge. An Upper West Side white girl with a black boy from Williamsburg might play well with their friends, but from what Mr. Rivera had told me, I doubted Mr. Quinn would approve.

  “Is this why you called me over, Mrs. Lee?”

  She shook her head and reached into another jacket pocket. Again, she handed me what she had pulled out.

  “That,” she said. “That’s what is wrong, Mr. Donne.”

  It was an amber prescription pill bottle. The label had Paulie Sherman’s name on it and said the container originally had ninety doses of a drug I was quite familiar with as a special ed guy. I opened the bottle. There were five white pills left.

  “I don’t know what Douglas was doing with that,” Mrs. Lee said. “He was not taking any medications. Why would Paulie give him that? I don’t even know that doctor or that pharmacy. They’re in Manhattan.” She pointed at the pill bottle. “Do you know what drug that is?”

  I nodded. “If the label’s correct,” I said, “it’s one of the most widely prescribed medications in the nation, used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.”

  Mrs. Lee gave me a blank look.

  “ADHD,” I said.

  “Oh, my Lord. Douglas was not taking any medications, Mr. Donne. He was never diagnosed with anything like that. After he left you, Upper West Academy did a full evaluation. They never said anything about attention problems.”

  But, I remembered, Mr. Rivera had told me both Paulie and Jack were on medication for ADHD. I looked at the label again. “Did you call anybody about this?

  “No,” she said. “I found that and called you.”

  My curiosity started to rise and, before it got me in trouble again, I said, “I think you need to call Detective Murcer, Mrs. Lee. This is something he needs to know about.”

  Instead of agreeing with me, she got a look on her face. I waited.

  “There’s more,” she finally said.

  “Okay…”

  She pointed inside the closet. “In there,” she said. “All the way to the right on the floor. In the shoebox.”

  “I have your permission to go in there?” Cop instinct, I thought. Getting the owner’s okay before conducting a search, preventing some smart-ass lawyer from declaring the evidence obtained from said search inadmissible. The proverbial fruit from the poisonous tree. Good thing I wasn’t a cop anymore.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Lee said. “Please.”

  I stepped into the closet and slid all of Dougie’s hanging clothes to the left. I moved to the right, bent over, and picked up the shoebox. It was heavier than I thought it would be. I took two backward steps out of the closet.

  “It was under a bunch of his sports jerseys,” Mrs. Lee explained.

  I opened the box and immediately realized why Mrs. Lee was so upset. Inside was a gallon-sized baggie filled with blue-and-white capsules. I guessed somewhere between two and three hundred of them.

  “Wow,” I said, because I didn’t want to say “holy shit” in front of Mrs. Lee.

  “Yes,” she said. “You can see why I called you, Mr. Donne.”

  I nodded. “I can see why you called me, Mrs. Lee. But I gotta tell you, this is even more reason why you should call Detective Murcer.”

  She shook her head. “So he can have more reason to believe that Douglas was involved in drugs?”

  Good point. But the shoebox I held was proof Dougie was involved with drugs. How, I didn’t know. But in some way.

  “I’m not sure what you want me to do, Mrs. Lee. This is pretty serious stuff.”

  I opened the baggie, took one capsule out, and rolled it between my fingers. There was a four-digit number, followed by two letters, printed on it.

  “Why would Douglas have those, Mr. Donne?”

  “That’s a real good question, Mrs. Lee. You obviously…” Of course she didn’t. “Did Dougie ever…” Of course he didn’t.… Okay, time for a cop question. “Was there anything—now that you are aware of what Dougie had in his closet—that would make you believe he was involved with drugs or drug use in any way?”

  She shook her head. “Like what, Mr. Donne?”

  “Was he getting a lot of phone calls at night he didn’t want you hearing? Did he have more money than he should have?”

  As Mrs. Lee listened to my questions, her eyes filled with tears. “Now you sound like that detective when he first came over here.”

&
nbsp; “Because,” I said, “these are the kinds of questions Murcer would ask if he knew about Dougie’s stash.” Nice choice of words, Ray. “If he knew this stuff was here.”

  Her eyes overflowed, and the tears ran down both cheeks. It looked like she was real glad she had called me now. I reached out and put my hand on her elbow.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lee,” I said. “But the truth is, Douglas was into something, and he was doing a pretty good job hiding it from you.”

  “I know,” she said through the tears. “I know.” She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “Like I told you that day, he’d been having trouble sleeping and he was snapping at me a bit. I just thought it was Douglas being a teenager.”

  “These,” I said, rattling the pill bottle, “are stimulants. That’s why they work so well reducing the symptoms of ADHD. If Dougie were taking them, that’s most likely why he was having trouble sleeping. They’ve also been known to have other adverse effects on kids’ behavior. Loss of appetite. Mood swings.” I looked at the single blue-and-white capsule I held. “These other ones, I don’t have a clue.”

  She nodded. “What I don’t know is … what do I do now?”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t call anyone else about this? A friend? Someone from the church? Dougie’s uncle?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “Okay. Good.” No, Ray. Not good. “I mean, for right now, no one else knows about this except you and me. It buys us some time to think.”

  “Think about what?”

  “What to do with this,” I said, shaking the baggie filled with capsules. “I honestly don’t see how we can keep this from Murcer.” She was about to say something, but I kept going. “For now,” I said, “we say nothing to anybody.”

  “Okay.” She sounded relieved.

  I took a few more capsules out of the baggie and put them, loose, in my pocket. Then I zippered up the baggie and put it back in the shoebox before returning it to its original hiding place in the corner of the closet floor. Then I put the amber pill bottle into my other pocket.

  “Let me think on this, Mrs. Lee. The first thing that comes to mind is contacting the doctor who prescribed these pills and the pharmacist who filled the order. I can do that tomorrow, after school.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding her approval. “Then what?”

  “Honestly?” I said. “I have no idea. But I have to tell you, if I find out Dougie was involved in any ille—questionable—activity, I am going to have to let Detective Murcer know.” Before she could protest I added, “It’ll help him find whoever killed Dougie, Mrs. Lee. There’s no way this is not connected.”

  I watched as she struggled with that concept. I had basically just told her Dougie had probably been killed over drugs. Just what the cops told her the morning she’d lost her son. Again I found myself wondering if she was sorry she had called me.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “If that’s what it takes to find out who killed my boy, so be it.” She looked me dead in the eyes. “But I will tell you, Mr. Donne. My hand to God.” She raised her right hand above her head. “My Douglas was not dealing drugs. Whatever reason he had these pills, and the marijuana they found on his body, he was not dealing.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Mrs. Lee,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “I just hope I’m not the only one singing.”

  Chapter 29

  NOW, WAKING UP NEXT TO A woman on a Monday morning—I was pretty sure that had never happened to me before. Allison got up first and went right to the bathroom. As she showered and put herself together for the day, I made a pot of coffee and took out some of yesterday’s bagels. I chose some clothes for the day and jumped in the shower as soon as she got out. By seven thirty, we were finally doing something together: drinking coffee. I was on my own when it came to the bagels.

  “I’m not an early-morning eater,” she explained. “For me, it’s coffee until about eleven o’clock.”

  “That’s not a real healthy way to start your day.”

  “Yeah, well, whattaya gonna do, right?” She finished her coffee and placed the cup in the sink. “You still planning on heading uptown after school?”

  “Yeah.”

  When I got home last night, I showed Allison what Mrs. Lee had discovered in her son’s closet, then told her what I was planning on doing about it.

  “I figure I’ll hit the pharmacist first,” I said. “Then the doctor’s.”

  “And you still don’t think you should call Detective Murcer about this?”

  “I will call him. Just not yet.”

  “Because you want to know something before he does?”

  “Because I promised I wouldn’t until we know what those capsules are.”

  “Same thing, Raymond.” She went into the living room. “You want to get into some sort of pissing contest with him? Or maybe you just need to prove to yourself you can still do the cop thing.”

  I followed after her. “Where the hell is this coming from? Haven’t we both been bending the rules just a little bit, Allison?”

  “Yes, Ray. We have.” Her eyes filled up with tears. “And then Saturday night happened. Or have you forgotten about that?” She took a deep breath. “We could have been killed.”

  I stepped forward and put my arms around her. There were a lot of things I wanted to say right then, but I uncharacteristically kept my mouth shut and just held her. We stayed that way for a few minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I’m just scared, and I don’t like being scared.”

  “No one does,” I said. “Look, I’m just going to head uptown, talk to a pharmacist and a doctor, and see what I can find out. If I find out anything worth going to Murcer about, I will. That’s a promise.”

  “Okay,” she said. “We just need to be real careful, Ray.”

  “And we are.” I let go of her. “What about you? What does your day look like?”

  “I’m gonna try and stay in the office all day.” She reached down and picked up her bag. “I have to start putting my notes together into something resembling a narrative. I’ll try calling the Quinns, see if I can get a comment or some info on Jack. I’m not buying that food poisoning story. And then”—she paused—“I’m going to try and set up an interview with Dougie’s mom.”

  I wasn’t too keen on that idea. “Why do you have to bother her?”

  “I’m not bothering her, Ray. I need to interview her for the story.” She held her hand up, predicting my interruption. “A lot of what I know comes from you. I appreciate your help, but I’m not going to print hearsay just because I think the source is kinda cute and he lets me wear his T-shirts to bed.”

  “It’s as good a reason as any other.”

  “Better than most, actually, but I’ve got rules I have to follow.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Just go easy on her.”

  “Aw, gee, Ray.” She smacked my arm. “And I was gonna bring my garden hose and stun gun.”

  “That’s not funny,” I said, fighting back a smile.

  “Yes, it is. You just like being the only wiseass in the room.”

  “I told you, baby.” I pulled her into a hug. “I’m a raven.”

  *

  Even ravens sometimes have to go to work.

  “Yo, Mr. D, I’m telling you, I didn’t go nowheres near her desk. I was sitting, doing my work. Why I wanna take her cell phone, anyway?” He reached into his pocket. “I got my own phone, don’t need hers.”

  “That,” I said, pointing at Alberto’s phone, “should be in your book bag or locker and turned off. If Amanda followed that rule, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” He shut the phone off and put it in his bag. “I don’t need her bootleg phone. I got my own.”

  I’ve learned over the years that kids who steal from other kids usually have a reason why they didn’t steal from other kids. And it’s almost alway
s the same reason: “I don’t need to steal her fill-in-the-blank.” Kids who are unjustly accused don’t usually tell you why they didn’t do it. They just say they didn’t do it. That’s really the only answer an innocent kid should come up with.

  “So,” I said to Alberto, “if I were to go through your book bag right now, I wouldn’t find Amanda’s cell phone?”

  “Nope.” He reached down, picked up his bag, and zipped it open for me to see inside. “You can look, Mr. D. Ain’t no phone in here ’cept mine’s.”

  I got up and walked around my desk to where Alberto was sitting. I made a show of looking into his bag, even though we both knew what I’d find. Or rather, what I wouldn’t.

  “Okay,” I said. “What if we were to check your locker?”

  “You can do that?”

  Bingo. “Yeah,” I said. “I can do that.”

  “Don’t you need, like, a … search warrant or something?”

  Just like the punks at the bus stop, I thought. They all know their rights. I liked Alberto. He struck me as the kind of kid who saw an opportunity, took it, and now wishes he could go back and undo what he’d done. He was no punk, and part of my job, the way I saw it, was to prevent him from becoming one. But I needed his help.

  “No, Alberto. I do not need a search warrant. I can search your locker anytime I want for any reason I want. Search warrants are for cops and”—I paused for dramatic effect—“I don’t think we need to get them involved. For now.”

  Alberto zipped up his bag and placed it back at his feet. He kept his eyes away from mine.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do,” I said. “I’m real busy for the next few periods.” I looked at my watch. “I’ll pick you up from your seventh-period class, and we’ll go to your locker together and make sure the phone didn’t somehow end up there. But,” I said as I went behind him and put my hands on his shoulders, “if Amanda’s phone is found and returned to her before seventh period, I’ll obviously have no need to search your locker. How does that sound, Alberto?”

  He nodded. “That sounds cool, Mr. D. That’s fair.”

  “Good. Now, what do you have this period?”