Justifiable

by Dianna Love

  “Cut himself playin’.”

  Riley might be tempted to accept that if not for how Romeo’s eyes shifted away when he lied.

  “Show me.” Riley waited for Romeo to make up his mind first, then followed the boy to where a nurse pointed out a curtained-off area. Baby G – a five-foot-eleven, two-hundred and ninety pound, Asian kid who reminded Riley of a Sumo warrior with bad acne – lay on his back with his shirt off. One side of his enormous gut had a bandage the size of Riley’s hand just above the elastic on his baggy green warm up pants.

  “What’s up, Hot Shot?” Baby G’s sixteen-year-old voice had changed already to a deep radio announcer’s baritone.

  “Hanging out. What happened to you?”

  Romeo and Baby G exchanged a guarded look before Baby G answered. “Got cut screwin’ around.”

  A knife fight. Riley had a scar riding his shoulder from “screwin’ around” on the streets as a teen, which meant just trying to survive. He crossed his arms and asked in a tone of camaraderie, “What was being discussed during this screwin’ around?”

  “Told you he’d figure it out,” Romeo whispered under his breath to Baby G.

  “Usual bullshit.” Baby G lifted his hand to his face and tapped a cheek with his thumb, a motion that meant he was thinking.

  Riley let him think. These kids were used to being interrogated by everyone from parents to teachers. He let them talk to him in their own time.

  There was no better resource for anything that went down in Northern Liberties. To get a lead on the missing Enrique Stanton, he’d wait as long as it took.

  Baby G stopped thumping his cheek, angular eyes slanting at Riley. “Blades showed up at our court when they heard Romeo was forming a regulation team. Their leader suggested we were wasting our time.” In complete conflict with his generally unkempt appearance, Baby G surprised everyone who didn’t know him when he opened his mouth and spoke with such precision.

  A regulation team? Ah, hell. Riley had planted the idea in Romeo’s head to consider building a full team to compete in a city league...at some point. He figured if you gave kids a goal they spent less time hunting ways to get into trouble.

  At least that’s what Jasper had believed when he’d found Riley and brought a wild fifteen-year-old foster child into his home.

  But Riley had thought Romeo wouldn’t act on it for a while yet, not until they actually attended a city game. He’d been thinking about taking them to some games later this year.

  But Baby G wouldn’t be talking about this if the “team” hadn’t made a decision. No one acted solo in this bunch.

  All five of the boys had potential to do better in school, and a couple of them showed exceptional athletic ability, but any decision was made as a unit. No one in their group would consider moving ahead and leaving the other four behind.

  If they organized a league team, they had a chance to expand their world beyond a scrappy parking lot. Find out how to battle in a healthy way, how to interact with other males without using fists. Or knives.

  Another lesson Riley had learned from Jasper.

  But didn’t it just figure some rival gang would throw a kink into a simple plan to get these boys invested in something productive?

  “What’d you tell the Blades?” Riley asked. Baby G’s smile formed slowly, climbing his face to pinch his eyes. “I mentioned their flawed ancestry and suggested to their leader he should attempt sexual penetration upon himself.”

  “He didn’t like that shit one bit,” Romeo interjected, shaking his head.

  “So he stabbed you.” Riley wanted clarification. “Did you call the cops?” That earned him a round of snorts.

  Romeo waved his hands back and forth like he washed a window. “No. That fool was all jacked up yellin’ shit. When he flipped out his blade, Baby G didn’t see it under his gu – ” Romeo paused, catching himself. “Chest. Baby G moved in on the fool to shut him up. That’s when he got cut. But not bad.”

  “I’ll be able to play this week.” Baby G made that announcement then met Riley’s gaze and added, “But we need to acquire a sponsor in order to submit our team for the league.”

  “How about your brother-in-law, G?” Riley hadn’t met any family, but he knew Baby G lived with his sister and her husband.

  “He detests sports. The man’s an anomaly of nature.” Baby G lifted his shoulder as in “go figure.”

  Romeo shook his head. “We don’t want some suck bag draggin’ us around like a ball and chain.”

  Riley needed to shift this conversation. He couldn’t get busy with being a sponsor for this bunch, but that was the direction of Baby G’s subtle pitch. Riley had bigger problems and might not even have a job in a week. “Let’s kick around some ideas next time we meet at the court.”

  Romeo and Baby G exchanged one of those silent message looks again, but didn’t press the subject. These kids weren’t used to asking for anything or expecting to get something for nothing.

  Once he knew where he stood with WNUZ, Riley would come up with a way for them to be sponsored so that it didn’t sound like charity.

  Baby G lifted his chin at Riley. “Why are you here?”

  “Looking for information on someone from Northern Liberties.” Riley didn’t say a word about being on suspension since they hadn’t heard about it yet or he’d be getting an earful.

  What kind of role model ended up losing his job over an altercation?

  “Who you lookin’ for?” Romeo’s eyebrows lifted with interest. He liked to be the one in the know on everything.

  “Either of you know Sally Stanton or her little boy Enrique? Five years old. Lives around here.”

  “Why?” Romeo again, always cautious.

  “Sally was killed last night and Enrique is missing.”

  Romeo shrugged and Baby G’s guarded face didn’t change.

  Not that Riley expected any type of reaction from them. “So you haven’t heard a word about Sally’s death?”

  “Didn’t say that.” Romeo studied his fingernails as if he sported a manicure instead of skinned up fingers and dirt under his cuticles.

  “What can you tell me?”

  Romeo cut his eyes at Baby G who moved his head in some nod of okay then they both looked at Riley when Romeo answered, “Depends on what you’ve got to trade.”

  Riley dug in his pockets, not at all surprised to pay for information. “I’ve got cash.”

  Romeo cocked his head. “Uh, uh. Not good enough.”

  Riley squinted in thought. “What do you want?”

  Baby G smiled. “You sponsor our team. We share information.”

  The little hoodlums were blackmailing him. This was what Riley got for running a couple of pick-up games with these renegades. His temper built, a slow boil, percolating up his neck. If he let them get away with this, no telling what they’d do next time. He flexed a jaw muscle, considering.

  Romeo and Baby G didn’t say a word. Didn’t have to. They’d set their price and wouldn’t budge. Right now, Romeo’s team wasn’t just Riley’s best hope at getting anything useful on Sally’s murder and Enrique. It was all he had.

  And to be really honest? In a twisted way, he admired their underhanded ingenuity.

  “Okay, I’ll sponsor the team.” Going to be hell to do that if he lost his job and had to leave town to get another one, but he’d worry about that later. “What do you know about Sally and Enrique?”

  Romeo puffed up, the man of the hour. “They live in that Philomena House over on 3rd Street. Sally didn’t come with a full tool kit.” He spun his index finger next to his head.

  “She’s mentally challenged,” Baby G corrected.

  Romeo frowned at his teammate.

  “What do you know about Philomena House?” So far, Riley hadn’t heard anything worth getting stuck with footing a sponsorship. “Is it a crack house or what?”

  Romeo took over again. “Nuh-uh. Church runs it. St. Catherine’s.”

  “Have any id
ea why someone would want to murder Sally?”

  Baby G moved his shoulders in what could be called a shrug.

  Romeo quieted, his eyes turning thoughtful, old for his years. “Why you care about some Northern Liberties brat?”

  “He’s a little boy who’s lost his mother and could be in danger. I figure anything that helps the police find Sally’s killer will help them find Enrique.” Close enough to the truth without opening a wound that would never heal. Riley had found the killer once and still lost the child.

  Medical staff scurried around on the other side of the curtain. Someone moaned, followed by words of comfort.

  “But why do you care,” Baby G pressed.

  Riley always kept it straight with these boys since they could smell bullshit a mile away, but he didn’t have an answer for that question. Not one he wanted to explore and dissect right now. That didn’t stop the weight of their stares from crowding him into a corner.

  “The DA’s office is burying Sally’s case as domestic violence, which means hunting for her son will fall so deep into the cracks he’ll never be found. The police don’t have the money or the men to hunt for Enrique. They need all the help they can get. I’m not going to ask you to talk to the police, ever. If you’ll help me, that’s enough.”

  Romeo exchanged a glance with Baby G then nodded. “Sally didn’t have jack but that scrawny kid. Saint C’s took her off the street, put her in Philomena and kept her fed. She didn’t have no money, nothing worth stealin’, didn’t hurt nobody. She wasn’t dangerous, just – ” He looked at Baby G then continued, “Mentally challenged,” saying the words as if they barely fit inside his mouth. “Don’t know why anybody’d kill her. Just damn meanness.”

  That helped, and it didn’t. Riley scratched his head and took a step to the side, thinking. The police should have questioned everyone at Philomena by now. “Who knew Sally besides her neighbors?”

  “Folks at Saint C’s.”

  Riley lowered his hand to hook a thumb in his pocket. “St. Catherine’s?” He got another yes nod. “Who runs that place, and don’t tell me God. I need a name, someone I can talk to.”

  “Top dude’s name is Monsignor, but he may not be there now.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a Philly PD chaplain.” Romeo said the words like a curse. He glanced at Baby G then back at Riley. “We watch the cops shoot. Seen that Monsignor there on Tuesday afternoons a few times around two, three o’clock.”

  Riley checked his watch. Closing in on two-thirty. He’d made inroads with the police and had been invited to shoot at their range a few times. Not much of a lead, but somewhere to start. And he’d rather ask questions away from the church if he had a choice. But before he left, Riley wanted to make sure these two shysters got home. “Who’s coming to get you?”

  “My sister,” Baby G told him. “She’ll be here soon.”

  Riley pinned both of them with a no-nonsense stare. “I want more information than this if I’m going to sponsor the whole team.”

  Romeo crossed his arms and gave a grudging, “Okay.”

  That one word stood as a signed contract with these boys who lived by their word.

  “See you later.” Riley started to leave until Baby G said, “One more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Be careful.” Baby G slipped easily from his perfect diction to the street kid he was underneath it all when he said, “Word in Northern Liberties is, Monsignor’s called the Enforcer on the street. They say he’s one scary mother fucker.”

  Chapter 15

  Why do you care?

  Baby G’s question still haunted Riley twenty minutes later as he drove mindlessly through the Rhawnhurst section of Philly. He passed one plain gray government building after another. Overcast skies washed in the same dull gray as the buildings swallowed the sun. The bloated clouds crowded together, reminding him the weather forecast had been for sleet. He doubted a chaplain would hang around outdoors long if that happened.

  Unless the priest fit Baby G’s colorful description.

  Knowing Baby G’s sense of humor, he’d been jerking Riley’s chain about the chaplain being scary.

  The area turned more grim by the minute the closer Riley came to the jail and shooting range. Fifteen-foot, chain-link fence with curled concertina wire piled on top would razor the skin of any detainee foolish enough to climb over.

  Unlike most of the city’s police training and administrative facilities, the jail was a fairly modern building. Nice break for street vermin from terrorizing the citizens. Everyone from burglars and rapists to drug dealers, murderers and mobsters, all awaited trial or court appearances in these buildings.

  The criminals had it better than the crime fighters.

  Riley had a story to whip into shape and needed facts for that, but first he planned to do what he could to tip the scales of justice in Detective J. T. Turner’s direction. To do that, he needed background information on anyone connected with Sally Stanton.

  A block before he reached the shooting range, Riley called Biddy on his cell phone.

  “Nothing to tell you yet,” Biddy answered in his usual don’t-waste-my-time voice.

  “What do you know about a monsignor at St. Catherine’s Church in Northern Liberties?”

  “Nothing. Not my area, but I got a buddy who drinks over at Race Street Café. I’ll find out.” And Biddy was gone just that quick.

  Riley turned into the paved lot for the police shooting range, the western-most structure on Rhawnhurst and furthest from the Delaware River. He parked his truck, turned off the engine and opened his door.

  Gunshots interspersed with gaps of silence pelted his ears. He’d climbed out wearing his worn leather flight jacket that covered a shoulder holster. Unclipping a panel on the driver’s door, Riley fished out a black plastic case with his favorite firearm, a Smith and Wesson .41 Magnum. Once he’d holstered the weapon, he shoved extra ammo into his jacket pockets and reached for a pair of protective earphones and a set of shooting glasses in the back seat before locking up.

  Riley strolled through a sea of vehicles, visually searching the range. No chaplain in sight, just a training session going on.

  “Not going postal on us are you, Riley?” Sergeant Flynn chuckled from the other side of the chain-link enclosure, reaching for the gate latch.

  Riley gave him an indulgent half smile and stopped just inside at an unloading table. He dumped the shells out of his .41. No one walked to a shooting position with a loaded weapon. The officer on duty assured that didn’t happen, which was why Flynn counted each round, including the ones Riley pulled out of his pocket.

  “Guess you heard about Henry’s elephant ballet act at City Hall.” Riley joked to keep from giving the story any weight.

  “Oh, yeah. Saw the news at lunch. Henry didn’t waste no time getting a shot in at you and Bidowski. Called you a TV prima donna and Bidowski an out-of-control thug.”

  Riley shouldn’t be surprised. He knew the way some in his business twisted the facts. Didn’t stop him from curling his fingers into a fist that felt deprived with nothing to slam.

  Flynn locked the gate behind him. Riley surveyed the landscape, looking for a white priest collar. Nada.

  Instead of clay backstops, high banks of ground-up tires flanked the range. The waste material absorbed lead and suppressed ricochets from cops getting their annual qualifying rounds in. The rubber was toxic as hell, but the city didn’t have the funds to replace it.

  None of the experienced officers shot here during rookie training for fear of being wounded. Dense banks could protect only so much. A stray bullet fired by a rookie was more likely to drill a hole into his own boot than to hit the target.

  “What about the Stanton murder in Germantown?” Riley asked Flynn. “Anything on that on TV?”

  “Didn’t catch nothing on it.”

  The Stanton murder gets buried and a rumble in the courthouse leads the news. Riley shook his head.

&n
bsp; “Sounded like talk radio’s playing fair and square with you, though,” Flynn added while he logged in Riley’s name on the books with a stubby pencil. He finished, closed the log and said, “Shoot, they’re makin’ you the hero and downplaying Biddy roughing up Henry. One radio jock said Henry stumbled and cracked a glass window, called it an accident. Your station’s saying the incident is under investigation. First reports have you saving Henry’s life and some saying it was more of a misunderstanding than an altercation.”

  Good to know some newsies called it straight.

  Riley made a mental note for later to touch base with Lilly, the one person at the station who would give him the skinny on viewer reaction.

  A fresh round of gunshots ripped the air like an attack. Sulfur odor stung Riley’s nostrils, a familiar and welcoming smell.

  “Didn’t realize you were training today.” Riley sized up the range where uniformed officers worked through a fast-paced sequence of skill. Everyone started at nine feet from the target then moved back together in one long progression to fifteen feet away then twenty-one feet, finishing with their last shots at seventy-five feet away. The targets on posts were perpendicular to the field of officers, and flipped to face the shooters in two-second intervals.

  “Yeah, be a while before we start the next group.” Flynn turned his round body to the left. “Go down to the long range on the far side.”

  Riley hadn’t specifically come to shoot, but he needed information without raising anyone’s curiosity. “Heard your chaplain comes by on Tuesdays. He here?”

  “Yeah, he’s here but doubt he has time to hear all your sins.” Flynn chuckled.

  Riley smiled at the dig. “Just want to ask him about Philomena House.” As safe a reason as he could give without sharing his real purpose.

  “He’s always looking for donations. Go on down to the long range. He’s there.”

  Riley rotated his gaze, focusing way past the line of officers training nearby to the area for fixed shooting that the Secret Service used when the president was in town.

  One person stood at a firing position.