Little Boy Lost

by Trafford, J. D.

  PRAISE FOR J.D. TRAFFORD

  “Little Boy Lost isn’t just an engrossing novel; it’s one that enlightens as well.”

  —William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author and Edgar winner

  ALSO BY J.D. TRAFFORD

  No Time To Run

  No Time To Die

  No Time To Hide

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by J.D. Trafford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503943940

  ISBN-10: 1503943941

  Cover design by David Drummond

  To my wife and my family for all your love, patience, and support

  —J.D.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  It started with a pickle jar, half-filled with pocket change and a few dollar bills. The girl came into my office. She set the jar on my desk and sat down in the chair across from me. Her feet barely touched the ground.

  Her name was Tanisha Walker.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  She sat up a little straighter. “Eight and a half.”

  “Got a daughter about that age, little older.” I leaned over and picked up the jar, examining it. On one side somebody had written in big block letters with black marker: CUSS JAR.

  “Your mama know you took this jar?”

  Tanisha shrugged. The beads in her hair clicked. “Ain’t my mama’s jar.” She thought about it for a moment, biting a nail, and then elaborated. “It’s my granny’s, an’ she won’t mind . . . least don’t think she would. Why should she? Ain’t doing nothin’ ’cept sitting there, and so she—”

  I held up my hand, cutting off the nervous ramble. “Maybe.” I put the jar back down on my desk. “Guess that depends on what you plan on doing with the money.”

  “Gonna hire you with it.” She was serious. “Like they do on TV.”

  I took a moment to consider her intentions.

  It’d been a long time since I’d lived the life of a typical lawyer. I certainly wasn’t like the ones on television. I didn’t have any staff. I answered my own phone and made my own copies. I drove a rusted-out Honda Civic, not a BMW. My suits didn’t fit quite right, and my office was located in a half-empty strip of old storefronts on the north side. The storefronts stuck out among the burned houses and vacant lots like the remaining teeth in a broken mouth.

  But I wasn’t a charity, either.

  I had bills due, and after looking at that pickle jar, I figured that this girl was only going to be able to pay me about ten dollars for my services. At the moment, I wasn’t feeling that desperate. Maybe tomorrow.

  “Why a lawyer?” I asked. “Right now you should be in school, not hiring lawyers.”

  “My brother’s gone missing.”

  “Well that’s an issue for the police.” Passing the kid off on somebody else seemed like a fair resolution.

  “I called the police, done nothing.” The girl crossed her arms in front of her chest. “They don’t care. They’re glad he’s gone.”

  “Who’d you talk to?”

  The girl shook her head. “A white dude.”

  “Did you file a report? What about your mama or your granny? What are they doing?”

  The girl looked away. She didn’t want to talk bad about her mother or grandmother, and I didn’t intend to ask her about her father. A little black girl in this part of Saint Louis living with her mama and granny—I knew she ain’t got no daddy.

  Then my lawyer brain kicked in. Assumptions made during an initial interview are where most mistakes are made. If she were white, I’d have asked about her daddy straight away. So I forced the question.

  “Where’s your father?”

  The little girl shook her head. “Don’t know.”

  And that, my friends, was a kick in the gut. Even though it was exactly the answer I had expected, I hated when the stereotype rang true.

  I leaned toward her, trying to let the girl go gently. “I’m not sure you need a lawyer. Sounds more like you need a detective.”

  That answer did not sit well with the girl. She had come to hire an attorney, and it was doubtful that she was going to leave without some sort of a commitment. Saint Louis girls are stubborn like that, especially on this side of Forty.

  The phone rang.

  I answered on the second ring, hoping it might be somebody with a real legal problem and more than a pickle jar.

  “Law office.” I turned away from Tanisha and looked out the window. “This is Justin Glass.”

  “Good,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I’m needing a money-hungry ambulance chaser, like real bad, man.”

  “I happen to be with a potential client at the moment.” I looked back at the girl in time to see her eyes widen as she inched up to the edge of her seat, cl
early pleased to hear herself referred to as a client of any kind. I turned away from Tanisha as my younger brother, Lincoln, called my bluff.

  “Client?” He laughed. “You do know that the word client is defined as an individual who actually pays your poor ass some money? And we both know—”

  “What do you want?”

  “Hoping to buy you lunch today, catch up a little.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. The Glass family business was politics. Our father was a local hero of the 1960s civil rights movement, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and the most senior United States congressman in Missouri. My brother, a state senator with ambitions, was always conspiring with our father’s chief of staff to expand our empire. When I was younger, I may have cared, but that feeling was lost. I had no interest in any of his ideas. “Don’t have time today,” I said. “Maybe next week.” I hung up the phone and then turned back to Tanisha.

  She looked at me with big brown eyes, holding her breath.

  “I really appreciate you coming in here, but”—I pushed the jar of coins slowly closer to her—“I’ve got some real important matters going on right now.”

  I rolled back my chair a little farther from my desk. I was seeking some distance, knowing that I was about to disappoint her. It wasn’t the first time I’d drawn back from somebody needing my help. “Just not sure that I can—”

  Tanisha knew what was coming. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  I, nonetheless, marched forward. “Like I said, I’m just not sure that you need a lawyer. I don’t think I can help you.”

  Tanisha nodded and wiped her eyes dry. She then took a breath and came back at me, hard. “Ain’t nobody want to help us.” She stood. “Ain’t nobody else. Just you.” She looked at me with such intensity, such honest longing. It was as if this girl knew all my secrets and all my problems, but those didn’t matter. A flawed man was better than nothing.

  The silence grew.

  Tanisha didn’t back down.

  I can’t tell you why I took the case. I had thought that any remotely noble part of me had died years earlier, along with my wife. I wish that I could say that this was the moment when I woke up from a long, dark sleep, but that’s not true.

  Regret and doubt filled me the moment I told Tanisha that I’d make some calls.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My old air conditioner had stopped working. From the time I left to get a sandwich to the time I returned with it, the temperature inside my office had risen about fifteen degrees. This was late August in Saint Louis, a final boil before the summer turned to fall.

  I picked up a ragged old copy of the Yellow Pages and used it to prop open the door. Then I tinkered with the air conditioner for about thirty minutes before giving up.

  By the time I sat down at my desk, the back of my shirt was soaked through with sweat. Breathing hard, I stared at the open front door and hoped for a cool breeze.

  Relief never came.

  I had a small contract with the Saint Louis Public Defender’s Office. I handled a few general arraignment calendars every week when other lawyers were on vacation or otherwise unavailable, and I tracked the cases through that didn’t resolve at that first appearance. It wasn’t much, but the steady check helped keep the lights on. I figured that there might be enough money left over this month to get a new air conditioner; at least that was my hope.

  Theoretically I could ask my mother or her father—who we called the Judge—for some extra money, but I wasn’t going to do that. It was bad enough that my daughter and I lived with them rent-free because I couldn’t afford a place of my own.

  I loosened my tie, picked up the phone, and looked at the information that Tanisha Walker had written on my yellow notepad. I called a contact at the Saint Louis Police Department and got lucky. He was at his desk and answered his phone.

  “Schmitty.” I tapped my pen on the desktop. “This is Justin Glass.”

  He told me to hang on, and I listened to Sergeant Schmidt get up and close his office door. Then he got back on the line and asked me what I wanted. He wasn’t happy about the call, because cops never like talking to criminal defense attorneys, but he couldn’t hang up on me, either. One of the perks of having my last name.

  “Wondering if you could find out what’s going on with a kid named Devon Walker. About sixteen; missing for a month. His little sister filed a report.”

  “Thug?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “Why?”

  “If he was a thug, I’d check with the gang unit. See if they got background on him.”

  “You should check, but I really don’t know.” I thought for a second and then decided to level with Schmitty. “Isn’t really a criminal case. Neighborhood girl asked me to check into it. So it’s more of a favor.”

  “And our rewards will be in heaven?”

  “That’s what I’m banking on.”

  I told Schmitty that I’d call back or stop by his office the next day after court. Then I spent the next hour attempting to finish a motion to suppress a stolen gun, arguing that the cops didn’t have a legal basis to search my client’s apartment. I was asking for the court to keep the prosecutor from using the seized gun as evidence at trial. Lawyers called such evidence “fruit of a poisonous tree.”

  Nothing came easy.

  I pecked away at the memo. The heat in the office made it difficult to concentrate. The thick air discouraged any sudden movement or elaborate thought.

  Realizing I’d forgotten to eat my sandwich, I worked my way through it, sweating the whole time. Then I pecked a little more at the memo before eventually giving up.

  I turned off the computer and decided that I would leave early. Since the law practice was far from flourishing, I didn’t have any large files to bring home or papers to review. I gathered up my personal things, putting them in my battered briefcase, and then picked up the yellow notepad.

  Tanisha Walker’s careful handwriting filled the page. Little curls and loops decorated the ends of certain letters. She had written down her name, her phone number, the names of her family members, and her address. I checked my watch, looked at the information on the notepad again, and decided that I had time to make a stop on my way to pick up my daughter from school.

  Tanisha Walker and her family lived in one of a dozen brick houses clustered tightly together on the corner of Montgomery and Parnell. There wasn’t much more than three feet separating one house from another, and the close spacing looked even more odd considering that they were surrounded by acres and acres of vacant land.

  Once there was a city neighborhood. Now there were only survivors, hanging on for a few more years before a wrecking ball took them down, too. The absentee owners probably bought each house for a few hundred dollars at a foreclosure auction, and it was only a matter of time before they got tired of waiting for the big payout. Properties hadn’t increased in value for years, and easy city development money was never going to come, partly because Saint Louis was broke and partly because the Northside was viewed by most as a lost cause. Why rebuild housing that nobody wants when you can subsidize an Ikea or a professional sports stadium?

  I sat in my car and studied Tanisha Walker’s house. It was the biggest one of the group, two stories instead of one. The lawn was mostly dirt with a few clumps of shrub.

  A little boy played alone out front in nothing but a diaper. He was maybe three. A faded toy car sat nearby—the kind that was large enough to sit inside, with pedals and a steering wheel. The boy ignored it, content to play in the dirt.

  I looked down at the information on the notepad. There were six kids living in the house—not counting Devon, the missing brother. Tanisha’s otherwise tidy handwriting had broken down a little near the end of the list. My guess was that the little boy’s name was either Deon or Dice. For the sake of him finding gainful employment in the future, I hoped that his name was Deon.

  I debated whether or not to get out of the car and talk to the adults w
ho were hopefully inside, but I decided to wait. I wanted to get the file from Schmitty first, and I also just wanted to get away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My daughter’s given name is Samantha Charlotte Glass, but she never acted much like a Samantha. She acted more like a Sammy, so that’s what I called her. Sammy was tall for her age, funny, and whip-smart. She was also the fastest kid in the fifth grade.

  I continued to watch for Sammy as the crowds thinned. The steady stream of kids leaving the school diminished to a trickle and then to nothing. I waited a little longer, but nobody came. The buses pulled away, and the schoolyard emptied.

  Missed her.

  I turned the key, and my car rattled to life. Then I pulled away from the curb and headed home.

  My mother and her father, retired federal district court judge Michael M. Calhoun, lived in a Compton Heights mansion that had been in the Calhoun family for over a hundred years. Sammy and I lived in the carriage house behind the main structure. It was small but big enough for the two of us.

  My great-great-grandfather had purchased the lot and then moved the family into the house when it was completed. At the time, Compton Heights was a showcase for the 1904 World’s Fair. It offered large lots, beautiful winding streets, and strict deed restrictions. Promises were made to the purchasers that the neighborhood would be forever protected from the influx of blacks migrating north and from boardinghouses filled with poor Germans. The deed restrictions—although later found illegal—largely worked, and the neighborhood has remained one of the most affluent in Saint Louis.

  Although the Judge had now become a typical great-grandfather toward Sammy—something that I was still not used to seeing—he had always treated me with indifference and my father with disdain.

  It was a feeling that had festered over the past forty years.

  A staunch supporter of President Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, the Judge was convinced that my father had brainwashed my mother during their first year at Washington University. He believed that my father, a young man he assumed was a member of the Black Panthers, had taken his perfect little white girl and transformed her into a leftist campus radical.

  The truth was exactly the opposite. It had been my mother who had lured my father to protest meetings and marches. She was the radical. My dad just wanted to go on a date.