by Mary Calmes
“I think—oh,” I said, laughing, having been startled by Monalisa and Conchita grabbing me at the same time.
“I can quit the second job,” Monalisa sighed happily. “Thank you, Marshal.”
“Let’s do some direct deposit paperwork now,” I said, taking my third empanada and handing Redeker his second.
By the time we left half an hour later, Monalisa had the first payment for Ernesto’s care in her bank account and temporary health insurance cards on her phone. As she hugged me, I told her the real ones would be mailed. It was a good start for the morning.
Unfortunately Redeker and Macin and I were in for a frightening status check in the next home out in Skokie. Kendra Paulson’s foster parents hadn’t seen her for a week, and they hadn’t reported it because they were certain she just ran away as, Mrs. Paulson said, “girls like her do.”
“What kind of girls are those?” Macin asked her pointedly.
“Like you,” Mrs. Paulson spat. “Black.”
Macin pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m calling the police, Jones,” she explained, visibly annoyed at my question.
“You don’t need to do that.”
She opened her mouth to protest but stopped as Redeker pulled out his cuffs.
“We’re full-service ride-along,” I informed her.
Her face brightened as Redeker cuffed Mr. and Mrs. Paulson before he called the office and got ahold of Sharpe.
“Is this legal?” Mrs. Paulson asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Redeker told her snidely. “You get arrested for neglect of a minor in the great state of Illinois. Now where is Kendra’s room?”
She appeared utterly flummoxed, and her husband was too drunk to have any idea what was going on.
Kendra’s room had a broken window, mouse and roach traps on the ground, and no radiator. I could only imagine how cold it got in there in the dead of winter. While Redeker and Macin remained with the Paulsons, I searched the room. I checked the ceiling, behind the pipes, but found nothing. And then it hit me, and I walked back out the living room.
“Did the school call you?”
“What?” Mrs. Paulson snarled.
“Did the school call you?” I asked again, enunciating each word.
“No, why the fuck would they do that?”
I looked at Macin. “Let’s go. Redeker will stay here and wait for Skokie PD, and then he can join us at… lemme look,” I said, opening the binder I’d carried in with me.
“Denning,” Macin offered. “The school is Denning.”
“Is it close?”
“Fifteen minutes away,” she informed me.
We were out the door in seconds.
THE SCHOOL had no idea there was an issue because Kendra had not missed a day. When we pulled her out of class to talk to her, I saw a bruise on her jaw.
“Is that from Mr. Paulson, or Mrs.?”
Stunned, she stared at me like I was speaking Greek.
“Kendra?”
“Mr. Paulson,” she answered quickly.
I saw Macin make a note of that.
Kendra was tall for her age, with big brown eyes, expressive dark eyebrows, and a silver nose ring. Her afro had natural highlights in it, and I liked the sprinkle of freckles across her nose.
Quick clearing of her throat before she checked my face, as though making sure I was for real. “So what, you took over for Mrs. Cullen?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re the new her.”
“Well, I’m me, but yes.”
She coughed. “And you’ll believe me when I tell you that the Paulsons are terrible, awful people?” She was testing my resolve, sounding bored, but the way she was chewing on her bottom lip gave her away.
“I will,” I replied implacably.
She was startled and uncrossed her arms before sitting up in her chair. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
“And you?” she grilled Macin.
“I believe you too,” she assured her.
Kendra looked back and forth between us. “Where’ve you all been?”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “We were late. It won’t happen again.”
She nodded. “This is a mindfuck, man.”
“I suspect it is.”
She grunted. “Okay, so I’ve been living with my girlfriend Robyn and her family, and they said I could stay for as long as I like.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah. They really like me. I’m a good influence on her.”
Macin had questions, but I cut her off. “What if you guys break up?”
“Nah, man. This is the real deal. Some people still find their soul mates in high school, no matter what you see on TV. Don’t be so jaded.”
“Really?”
A second grunt from her.
“Listen, I’m not arguing with you, what do I know?” I said, getting up. “Let’s go talk to your soul mate’s mother.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Surely not.”
And her smile, from nothing to brilliant, was a joy to see.
“Okay, Miro Jones, let’s go.”
MACIN DIDN’T like it. I explained to her I didn’t care. Kendra liked it, and after losing her folks and being let down by the marshals’ office, I was ready to go on faith.
Redeker caught up with Macin and me an hour later at the home of Melinda Shelby, who had a very big house and who was very, very excited to have Kendra come live permanently with she and her husband, their daughter Robyn, and her other two sons. She was crying as she held on to my arm.
“You don’t understand. Last year before Robyn came out to us, she was so scared, and there were drugs, and she almost flunked out of school, and we were fighting all the time, and we—we thought we were going to lose her. I thought, this is how my family ends, you know? But then over the summer, it’s suddenly all about Kendra and how she’s a lesbian too, and can we still love her, and—I mean, of course we love her, why in the world would her sexual orientation matter?”
“Good job, Mom,” I said, patting her on the shoulder.
“And this is crazy,” she continued, smiling, “but Kendra and my husband—two peas in a pod. They both like to fish and play Call of Duty and make crepes and garden…. I mean, those horrible people she was living with, they have no idea what a sweet girl they have there.”
I nodded.
“So yes, please, whatever I need to do to sign up to be her foster mother, let’s make that happen as soon as possible.”
Macin was pleased after that.
The next three were close: one in Des Plaines, one in Parkridge, and then one in Harwood Heights. Two of the kids were doing well and, while happy to meet me, were in good homes, while the third, Jason Knowles, was not where he was supposed to be.
After Kendra, our routine was to go directly to the school and pull the kids out of class. It was better than waiting to see them at home, and we got honest answers. When Jason was not in school, we went to his house.
When I knocked, a woman came to the door but only opened it a crack. I didn’t get the delicious aroma of wafting food like at Ernesto’s home; instead I got vomit and sweat. Her right eye looked fearful, and she was clearly trembling. I shifted the folder to my left hand and lifted my badge for her to see. The credentials wouldn’t get the door open, but the star would.
“Ma’am, I’m Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones, and this is my partner, Deputy US Marshal Josiah Redeker. May we come in, please?”
She took a heaving breath and then lifted her finger to her lips, asking for silence.
I nodded quickly.
So carefully, so quietly, she closed the door just enough to remove the chain and then slowly opened it back up.
The living room was right there, and it was strewn with clothes, smashed dishes, food, empty beer bottles, and vomit. It wasn’t the room that made my stomach turn, though, but the woman herself. Standing there in only a tan
k top and panties, she was battered and bruised, her lip and nose bleeding, her left eye swollen on the way to closing. Finger-shaped bruises dotted her throat and, as I looked down her body, her thighs. Redeker turned to the coats hanging next to the door, grabbed a long sweater, and passed it to me. I held it up, and she turned around and let me help her put it on. It was difficult—I could tell her left arm was broken.
“Where is he?” I whispered.
“In the bedroom,” she whispered back.
“Is he armed?”
She nodded.
“Is Jason home?”
A tremor ran through her, and she took a shuddering breath. “No. I made him take my little girl to school on the bus this morning because I needed to get them out of the house.”
I nodded, watching as she winced just standing there. “Did he rape you?”
Quick nod.
Turning to Macin, I tipped my head toward the door.
Quickly she took the woman’s good arm and led her away.
“He’s big,” she told me before allowing Macin to move her.
“Oh, I hope he’s stupid enough to fight,” Redeker growled as the two of us drew our guns and headed toward the bedroom.
What the man was, was drunk. Very drunk. Sawing-logs-on-the-bed drunk. Blood streaked the sheets. Redeker went to the bathroom, grabbed toilet paper, took the gun out of the man’s hand, and stood with it by the door as I got on my phone and called it in.
He was probably only about six feet tall, but since the woman he’d beaten up was all of five feet, he seemed “big” to her. Redeker was bigger, and both of us had quite a bit of muscle on him, but he was beefy compared to his tiny, delicate wife.
We stood there, watching him sleep naked in the middle of the bed. I noted the blood on his upper thigh, knowing it wasn’t his.
“I bet you if I punched him in the gut, he’d barf, and then we could watch him choke on it,” Redeker suggested darkly.
“True,” I agreed, hearing the sirens wail in the distance. “That would be fitting since this seems so anticlimactic.”
“I bet you the wife knows he’s coming home drunk, been out all night doing God knows what, so she gets the kids out of the house, makes him breakfast to try and placate the fucker, and then he comes in, maybe even eats for a bit, then beats the shit outta her, makes her hurl up her food, and then rapes her.”
I turned to him, wincing, sad to hear him so easily make assumptions about what went on. There was only one way people knew those kinds of things: experience. “You sound like you know this scenario.”
He shrugged. “My old man, he was like this, except my mom left me and my sister alone to fend for ourselves.”
I cleared my throat. “You protected your sister, huh?”
“Oh hell yeah.”
“Were you in foster care?”
“No. My dad had a sister, and one weekend she drove up in her red Firebird, packed up me and my sister, put us in the car, and drove clear to her ranch in Wyoming.”
“How old were you?”
“I was five. Lisa was four.”
“I like this aunt.”
“So did we. She was our angel.”
“She still alive?”
“No. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded.
Moments later I heard movement in the living room, and then CPD came through the door—six uniformed officers, all looking grim, obviously having seen the woman in the hall.
Redeker and I walked out as we heard an outraged yell.
“I really wanted to shoot him,” Redeker grumbled.
“Me too.”
MACIN HAD no idea in the world how Eric Durant and his wife, Carmen, had qualified to be foster parents. Carmen wasn’t a problem, but Eric had a record of battery, more than a few drunk-and-disorderly citations, and my favorite: mob fighting. I hadn’t come across that one in a while.
We sent Carmen to the hospital, and right about the time she left in the ambulance, Jason came running down the street, clearly in a rush to get up to the apartment.
“Jason,” I called.
He pivoted to face me, and I saw the panic on his face.
“She’s on her way to the hospital,” I informed him. “We’re going there too. Do you want to ride with us?”
He bolted over to me and reached for my hand when I offered it.
“I’m Miro Jones, and I’m from the marshals’ office, and we need to talk so we can figure out what you want to do.”
He took a breath. “I want Carmen and her daughter, Anaj, to be safe.”
“They will be.”
“Are you sure?” He sounded scared. “Can you promise that?”
Could I? I had no power over Carmen and her daughter’s situation, only Jason’s. “I can promise that Mr. Durant is going to jail.”
“Because of the gun, right?”
“Yes.”
He cleared his throat. “My dad was a lawyer, and he said that using a gun to coerce someone else is a serious charge.”
“Coerce, huh?”
He smiled just slightly. “I remember all the words he used.”
“You wanna be a lawyer like your dad?”
“I do, yeah.”
“Good. That’s real good.”
He exhaled long and loud.
“Jason?”
“Yes, Marshal?”
“Do you want to live with Mrs. Durant and her daughter?”
No answer.
“It’s okay, yanno,” I assured him. “No one’s gonna be mad at you, especially Mrs. Durant. I can tell you’ve been a big help to them.”
“She always makes sure the two of us are safe, but it’s like—I mean, he’s like a bomb, and I just… I’m not—”
The kid never knew when an eruption was coming. He was forever living on borrowed time. It had to be terrifying for him.
He shook his head, biting his lip like he was embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” I soothed him. “I promise you Mrs. Durant and her daughter are not your responsibility.”
Tears welled up in his eyes, and I slid an arm around his shoulders. It took a moment, and then I had a sixteen-year-old boy sobbing all over me.
“My mom always said that it was our responsibility to take care of people who didn’t have all the blessings we had.”
His parents were killed in what was made to look like a home invasion but was really his father’s close friend and business partner, Charlton Stewart. Apparently he’d been skimming from their employees’ retirement fund and from their clients, and Jason’s father was a day away from finding out the truth. It would have been the perfect crime, but Jason came home early, saw his godfather, and fled. The people Stewart was giving the money to were not happy, and thus, WITSEC for Jason.
When Jason turned twenty-one, he had a hefty trust fund coming his way, but nothing, even the death of his parents, could change that he had to wait. It ended up lucky for him, though, with all the people who came after Stewart, and in turn Jason’s parents’ estate, to recoup their stolen money. The estate was picked clean but for the trust fund. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Jason to go from private schools and country clubs to the inner city. Cullen, of course, saw a black boy and nothing else. She never considered for a moment how new and different the transition had to have been for him.
“Marshal?”
“Yes?” I said softly, rubbing circles on his back as his face stayed down on my shoulder, his arms wrapped around my waist.
“Can I go live somewhere else?”
“Yes, you most certainly can,” I sighed. “Let’s go upstairs and collect your things, all right?”
He cleared his throat as he leaned back to peer up at my face. “You’re sure it’s okay? Mrs. Durant won’t think I abandoned her?”
“No, buddy, I promise she won’t.”
He shuddered, and I could see he was relieved. “Maybe, uhm…. I’ve been staying at my friend Mark’s house a lot, a
nd his mom said I could visit any time.”
“Where do they live?”
“In La Grange,” he told me. “I met him when he came to my school for a science fair.”
I nodded, and he smiled sheepishly.
“We’re both big nerds.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I assured him. “Let’s go upstairs and get your stuff.”
He was more than ready to do that.
MRS. APRIL Takashima, Mark’s mom, was very excited about the idea of keeping Jason. Her husband, a high school science teacher at a Montessori school in the area, was also thrilled by the prospect. And their oldest had just left for Yale, so they even had a bedroom open. The money for taking him in would be welcome, but more importantly, Jason was an excellent influence on Mark, who was, April told me, a bit of flibbertigibbet.
I nodded because she was very serious when she said it. Like not being able to focus was the worst thing she could think of.
As Redeker, Macin, and I walked down the long row of stairs that led from the Takashimas’ front door to the sidewalk, Macin explained it didn’t work like this.
“Whatzat?” I asked, rounding on her at the bottom.
“This doesn’t just happen,” she blurted, and I wasn’t sure if she was excited or irritated. It sounded like a bit of both. “You don’t just snap your fingers and abracadabra, new life.”
I was confused. “But that’s exactly what WITSEC does.”
She shook her head.
“You lost me.”
“You don’t move kids in one day! You don’t trust people you haven’t vetted to enroll kids in school, to just take them in and—who are you?”
“This is Custodial WITSEC,” I explained. “I have the authority to make any decisions I deem appropriate for the continued safety of my witnesses.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“This is all within the scope of the marshals service,” Redeker reminded her.
“I know that, but—”
“I don’t understand, then,” I said.
She gestured at me. “You don’t just poof foster parents into being.”
“What?”
“The Takashimas,” she explained. “It should take months to decide if they are a suitable fit for Jason. We have to run background checks and financials and—”