“I was just comforting him—just comforting him,” Twiggs repeated over and over, crying and wiping his face on the inner sleeve of the arm that held the knife to the boy’s throat, then using his other fist to swipe the top of his upper lip. The boy in the crook of Twiggs’ arm was wide-eyed and trembling. “Be still, Thomas,” D.V. said to him. “I don’t want this knife to cut you.”
Felton, standing twenty feet in front of Twiggs and the boy, in the center aisle, picked up the cue. “We know you don’t want to hurt him. Put the knife down. Let’s work this out.”
Salt thought Twiggs might have glanced at her. He took a breath, then dropped the arm he’d had around the child. The boy ran to Felton as Twiggs put the point of the knife into his own neck. Salt stepped up as Felton led the boy out. “I know about Midas, D.V. I think you’ve been hurt.”
Blood dribbled from his neck where the knifepoint had punctured the skin near his jugular. The knife was large, with a curved point. “No one will believe that I was keeping Thomas away from Midas.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling, a supplicant expression on his face. The wavy light gave the place a submerged feel.
“Isn’t it time to let someone help . . . to let someone help you?” Salt stepped into the aisle.
“No, you don’t understand.” Twiggs closed his eyes briefly, then popped them open. “I want to be Midas’ right hand. I always wanted him, to be what he wants. Now he wants to get rid of me. I’m not stupid. Midas has chosen Thomas now.”
“Thomas? The boy with you tonight?” Salt slid the coat off her shoulders and down her arms, taking several more steps toward D.V.
“Don’t come any closer,” he said.
“What about your faith, D.V.? Isn’t the Bible all about salvation and how it’s never too late to acknowledge our sins, the past, and how we got from there to here? I just talked to Melissa Primrose tonight, you remember, Mike Anderson’s girlfriend. She remembered you and DeWare from the night before Mike died. You were just a kid, not much older than Thomas.”
D.V. sighed and shrugged, some of his energy draining.
“Put down the knife, D.V.,” she said.
He lowered his arm so that the point of the knife still punctured the skin but was no longer pulling at his vein. “I was twelve when Midas took me into his program. ‘Program.’ More like a family for us. Most of us didn’t have any kind of family. My mother was a full-time junkie.”
Salt folded the coat over her right forearm.
The sound of heavy vehicles arriving came from the parking lot. Blue lights bounced off the side door mingling with the aqua waves. Twiggs’ eyes darted to the door, where a helmeted SWAT sergeant peered around the doorframe from the outside. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Tell them to go away.” He lifted his elbow again, straightening the angle of the knife.
“D.V.,” Salt said, “you can control this, how it goes. You do have some say. Those officers cannot leave. By law and the police department rules they have to stay until we resolve this. But you, by what you decide, right here and right now, can determine what happens. You can put down the knife and let me walk you out. I’ll stay by your side.”
“I’m going to jail?”
“I think that what happened tonight will be evaluated by the court in terms of your lack of a criminal record and your history. You’ve never been charged with any crime. You’ve been victimized and, for now, yes, you’ll have to go to jail until a judge makes a preliminary determination.”
“I can’t go to jail.”
“D.V.” She stepped to an arm’s reach of him. “You can. My sergeant can call the corrections supervisor to make sure you’ll be in a safe section, the medical ward of the jail.”
There were footsteps, a lot of heavy bodies moving, some clanking of gear against the marble walls behind and to the side of where Salt and D.V. stood. From the corner of her eyes Salt saw shapes along the sides of the sanctuary. D.V.’s eyes widened. Salt stepped to him and without hurry or haste laid her coat over his arm, hand, and the knife, which she pressed downward and away from his neck. She took the knife from his fingers. “Walk with me.”
—
SERGEANT HUFF had made the call to the jail, and Devarious Twiggs was admitted to the medical unit on suicide watch. Felton stayed with Thomas until Child Protective Services arrived—he had the experience not to interview or let anyone else interview the boy, leaving that to the medical specialists and the forensic interviewers. Felton did have his suspicions, however. He said that without prompting, the boy kept saying, over and over, that Reverend Prince loves him.
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES
Iam Detective Sarah Alt of the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit. With me is Sergeant Charles Huff. We are conducting this interview at Georgia Regional Hospital’s prison unit. Please state your name for the record.”
A: Curtis Dwayne Stone
Q: Are you on any medications that would affect your memory or ability to reason?
A: I take medicine for my nerves but it don’t make no difference in how or what I remember. They just help me be calm.
Q: You previously gave a statement to the FBI regarding crimes that you knew about, including the death of Michael Anderson, who you refer to as the bluesman. Is that correct?
A: Yeah.
Q: We now have reason to believe that a young man, a juvenile at the time, delivered uncut heroin to Michael Anderson. Do you have knowledge of that transaction?
A: Tall John use kids in his business all the time back then. He use me to take heroin to people lots of times. And, yeah, that night the preacher had two kids with him, one dark-skinned and one real bright-skinned. Tall John give the bright-skinned one the hot H to take to the bluesman.
Q: The preacher? Are you referring to Midas Prince?
A: Yeah.
Q: Do you know the names of the two boys?
A: I know one—DeWare, he always ’round The Homes. I don’t know the bright kid real name. His mama was a junkie lived in The Homes—they call him ‘D.V.’”
Q: How long was it between the time John gave the kid the heroin and Michael Anderson’s death?
A: I heard he was dead the next day.
Q: How did you find out? How do you remember the day?
A: That kid D.V. was a sissy, but just as raggedy as the rest of us. So I remember it was the next day he had on some brand-new Air Jordans. He say the preacher give him them shoes for doin’ God’s work.
Q: Why didn’t you tell the FBI about those boys the first time they interviewed you?
A: Them was just kids back then.
—
HUFF HAD called in some favors—having Stone transferred from the jail in the city out to the state-run hospital located in the nearby county.
“I’ve got friends in the state prison system. Some of them good ol’ boys owe me favors,” he said. “Saved their asses couple of times finding escapees.”
He’d also made sure that Stone would be transferred, as soon as he was stabilized, directly to the state prison hospital down in the most southern part of the state.
—
“YOU’RE CLOSE, KID.” Huff stood beside her desk holding some old blue report forms, their edges dried and flaking. “Special Victims was holding these until they finished their search. I called and asked the sarge for what they had so far.” He laid one of the reports on her desk. She leaned over to look at it. “This one”—he tapped the report—“was made fifteen or more years ago, reporting that Midas Prince had fondled a kid. The report was classified as ‘unfounded’ when the victim and his mother disappeared—grandmother said they moved to another state. Detective never could find them.”
Salt slid the report into the light under the desk’s overhead.
“But this is the one.” Huff held two blue forms that were stapled together, their corners frayed to dusty bits. “Three days before the death of you
r bluesman he, Michael Anderson, was named as a witness to the initial outcry of a sexual assault on Devarious Twiggs. The kid’s mother brought him in to the SVU. The report was also classified as ‘unfounded’ when the kid later recanted.
“Because of you we got SVU to dig these out.” Huff slapped her on the back creating enough force to send her rolling chair, with her in it, into the desk edge. The partition wall shook. “Sorry.” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back. “I think you’re close to clearing this old cold case.”
—
THERE WASN’T much difference between the medical unit and the other units in the jail—same riveted-down tables, bolted-to-the-floor metal stools, lidless, seatless toilets. But the tiny cells were single-bed, the inmates under close supervision, and they all wore tie-back hospital gowns.
At the request of the commander of the detective division, the supervising physician had signed permission for Salt to interview Devarious Twiggs. The law allowed her to question him about crimes for which he was not charged.
Salt was shown to a wide-windowed room that had no door and was open to the center of the two-tiered ward. Corrections and medical personnel came and went from the central station immediately next to the room. Twiggs shuffled in, not because he was shackled, he wasn’t, but because he was wearing loose-fitting disposable slippers. “PROPERTY OF DOC” was stenciled on the sides and back of the gown, laundered to a pale beige. His eyes were already brimming, his nose running. He sat down on the metal stool opposite Salt at the table and extended his arms, lowered his face to them, and sobbed. “I can’t do this. Please get me out of here.”
“Devarious, you’re probably safer right now than you’ve ever been in your entire life.”
Twiggs raised his head, blinking. “What do you mean? Look at where I am.”
Salt reached down into the briefcase she’d been allowed to carry into the ward, handed him some tissues, and put a digital recorder on the table between them. “Has anyone assaulted or hurt you here?”
“No.” He wiped his eyes and nose.
“Have you had medical care? Have you been asked about your stress? Had regular meals? I know it’s not the best food, but . . .”
“Yes.”
“D.V., nobody wants to be in jail. And I’m not pretending it’s easy. I know it’s scary and that you’re terrified. But you’re not in general population and you’re not going to be. No one wants to see you hurt.”
“What about Thomas?” He sighed and raised his eyes upward.
“The district attorney is still evaluating the boy’s forensic interview, so I can’t say. But I believe that your lawyer will be able to provide the judge with enough testimony regarding mitigating circumstances so that you’ll never be put in a jeopardizing situation.”
He lowered his head to his chest then back up. “Is that recorder on?” he asked.
“No. I’d need your permission. I’m not here to ask you anything about the charges against you. I’m here to ask you about Michael Anderson.” Salt was wearing her coat but still felt the cellblock chill. She rubbed her arms for warmth. “You must be cold,” she said to D.V.
“I asked for a sweater or something and they said they would give me one, but I haven’t gotten it yet.”
She got up and went out to the nurses station, asked for a blanket and waited until they gave her one. D.V. settled it around his shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Like I told you the other night, Melissa Primrose remembered seeing you and DeWare at the party the night before Michael Anderson died.”
“She didn’t know me.”
“Not your name, but she saw two kids that fit the descriptions of you and DeWare.”
D.V. sniffed and tucked his chin.
“I also found the report you and Michael made three days before his death.”
“No. No. No. I told them I lied. I took it back.” He rapidly shook his head side to side.
“It’s not unusual for kids to recant. It’s usually because somebody pressured them. I don’t know who it was that made you recant. Your mother? Midas? But it’s more common than you might believe. Kids have so little power.”
Salt leaned across the table. “Midas’ control of you, your dependency on him, all are mitigating circumstances for everything that followed. And you were too young. You won’t be charged with murder. We also have Curtis Stone on record saying he saw you that night being given the heroin.”
Devarious Twiggs shrugged and, as if a switch had been flipped, picked up the recorder. Salt put her palm up, gesturing for him to hand it back, but he pulled it farther from her reach. “I know what I’m doing.” He looked closely at the front of the recorder, depressed the red-rimmed record button, and laid the recorder back down on the table between him and Salt.
“That night Midas drove us to Spangler’s, one of the houses Spangler used to cut heroin. Oh, I do know about heroin, my mama was a junkie back then. He was furious with Michael for taking me to make the report. He kept saying Mike was a junkie and that it would be God’s will if he died from an overdose—that it would set an example. I knew somehow that the stuff in the packet was hot and that Michael didn’t have the habit. But I wanted Midas’ forgiveness for talking to the police and to be the one he chose to carry out God’s will, to take the packet to Mike Anderson. He’s held me with that secret ever since, telling me I’d go to prison because I chose, I volunteered to take Michael the heroin.”
Salt established her identity on the recording, as well as the time and place and Devarious’ identity. “Do you stand by your previously recorded statement?”
“I do,” he said.
PEACE
As Salt expected they would be, the Andersons were dressed in their Sunday church clothes, Mrs. Anderson in a cream brocade suit and Mr. Anderson in an immaculate navy pinstripe with razor-sharp creases. They were arm in arm as they came up the sidewalk from behind the new sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church Dr. King had led.
Salt met them halfway. “Mr. Anderson, Mrs. Anderson, thank you for coming.” This time she didn’t presume to offer her hand. “It’s a beautiful day. Could we sit for a bit?” She indicated a nearby bench, to which Mr. Anderson led his wife. He then he continued to stand.
“Has your investigation progressed? Do you have any further knowledge of the circumstances of our son’s death?” he asked.
“I do, Mr. Anderson. The nature of that information is why I wanted to meet with you today, here,” she said.
The space where they’d stopped was a small green vale, below and alongside Auburn Avenue and directly across from the old historic Ebenezer sanctuary, its flat, unpretentious redbrick façade towering over the street.
“I wanted you to hear this from me before it hits the media,” she said.
“The media?” Both Andersons expressed their alarm with furrowed brows and stiffened backs.
“Tomorrow the Atlanta Police Department and the FBI will be serving search warrants on both Big Calling Church and the homes of Midas Prince.”
Mr. Anderson sat down beside his wife as if buckled by what Salt was saying. “What?” he exclaimed.
“Our investigation has led us to a number of individuals who have independently provided information that Midas Prince has been engaging in crimes involving underage sexual activity as well as diverting church money to support and cover up his illegal pursuits.”
Mrs. Anderson turned her head and kept it turned, looking out into the distance while Salt was talking. Mr. Anderson narrowed his eyes in a pained expression. “Is there some possibility these individuals have reason to lie? What does this have to do with our son? Oh, God.” He leaned back as far as the bench would allow.
“Please bear with me,” Salt said. “It’s complicated, but I think you may find some ultimate comfort in what we found out. We do not believe Michael committed suicide.”
Mrs. Anderson fumbled at the clasp on her handbag in her lap, her previously regal posture folding into a protective curve, her head coming to rest over her bag and soft middle. Mr. Anderson put one arm around her, then reached with his other hand to help her with opening the clasp. Though she made no sounds, her body shook and her hands trembled as she removed a packet of tissue. “Michael?” she asked.
“I believe he was murdered both because he resisted Prince and because he was trying to help some of the younger people who were Prince’s targets.”
“How? Who?” asked Mr. Anderson.
“One of Midas’ other victims, a child at the time, twelve years old and under Prince’s influence, gave Michael a dose of pure heroin that Prince and his associate knew would kill Michael. It’s likely we can’t prove a murder charge against Reverend Prince. The boy, at the time, was a victim himself and is one of the witnesses who will testify against Prince on child abuse charges. That boy, now a man, is also charged with child molestation. We probably can’t rely on him as the sole witness to Michael’s murder, even though we’re certain about the manner of Michael’s death. But we’re accumulating a lot of evidence to charge Midas Prince with multiple counts of child molestation.”
“This is horrible. This is a nightmare. How could you think—”
“Malachi. No.” Mrs. Anderson cut her husband off. “No. It is not. My nightmare was not knowing the truth and wondering if he killed himself because he didn’t think we, I, loved him.” Mike’s mother stood and walked a few yards away, her back turned toward them.
Salt waited, then walked to her. Mrs. Anderson was trying to straighten out a tissue that was shredding in pieces. “I’m so sorry, but I believed it was better for you to hear this from me, better to know than not.”
Out of the Blues Page 28