All I know is that whatever he did to you, I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry.
Sidney was sorry as well. I pray you forgive him.
I forgive whoever murdered my Sidney. In many ways, he had it coming.
Many blessings,
Li McCann
*****
Tears threaten to roll out of Nina’s eyes, but she knew she couldn’t cry here. No weakness could be shown in these walls.
Mr. Bishop had been so horrible to her, used her so much, that she wasn’t sure she had the forgiveness inside her. Could she forgive Sidney McCann for selling her off? She desperately wanted to, she wanted to let go of the past, let go of all that hurt, but she wasn’t sure she had enough strength.
Every punch she landed on Sidney McCann was satisfying. Every kick she landed while he was on the ground was fulfilling. Walking away, leaving that evil man withering in pain, felt even better. She reasoned that maybe she did kill him. Maybe he died as a result of the injuries, and later, someone else came and took advantage of the dead man’s body.
She didn’t tie him up and dump him in the river, but that wasn’t what she was charged with—it was murder that put her behind bars.
Nina folded the letter and placed it in her pocket. She knew someone had already read it, she knew the letter would only complicate things further, but she wasn’t sure what she could do about it.
If there was one thing she had learned on the streets, if there was one thing she knew, it was that she was a fighter.
And that wasn’t going to stop in prison.
Chapter 17
Ray Jones was waiting patiently at a table in the food court of the Chicago French Market. Off Clinton Ave in the Loop, the building felt industrial, hitting the mark with its hipster chic vibe. The market was filled with an array of flavors from around the world. There were European, African and Asian flavors, along with an electric mix of characters serving the food. The tables and chairs were made to feel Parisian, the typography made to feel French, and the bright smattering of colors were made to feel European. Even though the seating was indoors, there were still bright yellow umbrellas over the tables, if only to emphasize this was indeed a French-style market.
Jones waved to Hunter, standing at the counter ordering a plate of food for lunch.
It took Hunter five days to begin to recover from his beating.
He sat on the couch most of the first day, ice pack after ice pack on his ribs. The bruising was deep, colored black and purple, and the x-ray showed a fracture of his lower two ribs. The doctors couldn’t do much, only prescribing him rest, ibuprofen, and deep breathing exercises once the pain began to subside.
“I see they have a new manager here.” Hunter said as he walked towards Jones’s table. “There was a sign as I walked in. It said: ‘Our new manager is Helen Burn. If you have a complaint, please go to Helen Burn.”
Ray Jones chuckled. He loved a good word pun. The hipster crowd around them pushed past, desperate to get a new styled doughnut at a nearby stall, if only to post the photos on their social media feeds.
“Have you ever thought about the word ‘Island’?” Ray smiled.
“How so?”
“It’s literally written as ‘Is land.’ I guess when you’re sailing out in the ocean, the water ‘Isn’t land.’”
“Ha,” Hunter laughed, and gripped his side, his ribs still sore. “The English language isn’t as complicated as some people think.”
“It can be really complicated though—I mean the word phonetic doesn’t even start with ‘f’.”
Hunter tried not to laugh, and placed two plates of food on the table. “Ray, I’ve seen that look before—you look concerned.”
“Not concerned, but… uneasy.” Jones looked around.
“About?”
“Those things.” He pointed to the camera above them on the roof. They were placed every twenty feet or so, covering every inch of the market. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Everything we do is recorded, Tex. There are cameras in streets, cameras in shops, cameras in parking lots. There are drones in the sky, cameras in apartments, and even cameras on laptops. Every person here has a camera in their phone. Everywhere we go has cameras to record every inch of modern life. Even the taxi I caught here had a dash-cam that recorded everything in front of it. All that data is sent into the clouds to be accessed.”
“It’s a new world, Ray. Life is being chronicled by the camera, not the pen. Perhaps one day, we’ll see writing things down as old fashioned. Perhaps, in the future, we’ll be recording everything.”
“Like the ways that taxis have dash-cam footage recording their drive, maybe in the future we’ll all have personal-cam footage. Maybe everyone will be carrying around a little camera on their shoulder, recording every minute, every conversation. If someone disputes we said this or that, we can rewind the footage, find the right time of day, and replay the conversation.”
“Been hitting the joints again?” Hunter smiled.
“It’s more than a joke, Tex.” Jones leaned forward, pressing his finger into the table. “The future is here. Can you imagine having a personal-cam on your shoulder? Every time you think you could’ve had a better interaction, every time there’s confusion about a conversation, you can go back and review the footage of the day. Imagine that? There’ll never be another argument about who said what again.”
“Sure.” Hunter leaned back in his chair. “But that’s some very heavy thinking for a Monday.”
“And yet, when we need the footage for the Steele case, coincidentally, none of the cameras are working. That’s too much of a coincidence for me. The developer, Chow, must’ve turned them off. He must’ve known what was down that street and had them turned off.”
“Chow is as dirty and as nasty as they come. I’ve had a firsthand account of that.”
“Something you need me to do?” Jones raised his eyebrows. As much as Hunter loved fighting, Jones lived off it. It was where he could flex his muscles, demonstrate his power, and outwardly display his best skills. “Or someone you need me to beat up?”
Having spent fifteen years as a private investigator on the streets of Chicago, Ray Jones had enough contacts to fill up his phone. People respected him. He was a likable giant, a man that knew a kind word could bring out as much as the threat of a punch. The fact he was six-foot-four and had a love of viciousness also helped get most people to talk.
He’d been arrested twice in his time as a PI—both times for violent assault. Both charges were dropped when it was found he acted in self-defense. When the police released him the second time, they were almost falling to the floor in laughter about the people who would be stupid enough to try and intimidate him. A group of men showed up at his apartment, banging on the door, threatening Jones with violence if he kept digging into their business. Politely, he let them into his apartment, locked the door, and then beat them all into the ground. With five bloodied bodies on the floor of his kitchen, he thought it was best to have the cops involved.
“Thanks for the offer Ray, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” Hunter shook his head. “What’ve you found?”
“Pork Buns.” Jones pushed a plate across the table. “The best in the place. You should try one.”
“Thanks. They look delicious.” Hunter smirked. “But I meant—what’ve you found in the arson case.”
“Right. I’ve got a theory and that’s about it at the moment. The shop keepers down that street are close knit, some of them are related to each other, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Chow told them the cameras needed to be turned off that night.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they deliberately switched off the surveillance footage in the street the night his car was stolen.” Jones pulled a file from his shoulder bag. “There are five potential surveillance footage cameras that focus on the apartment development where the car was parked and all five were turned off, and all five building owners are connected to Mr. Chow pe
rsonally.”
“There has to be something, you said it yourself, everything is recorded. Maybe a video from across the street?”
“Tried that. We’ve got nothing.” Jones threw his hands up in the air. “In an era of monitoring, we’ve got nothing about something that matters.”
“Drones?”
“They’re not that invasive yet.”
“Footage is about the only thing that will prove Mary-Ann didn’t steal his car, drive it to the reserve and light the fire. We need footage of that night.”
“The question we should be asking, if it was organized by Chow, why would he need to burn his own car?”
“Two reasons: one to set-up Mary-Ann Steele. She was becoming a nuisance on his site, contractors were starting to quit the work site because of Mary-Ann’s protests. People in City Hall, the right people, were also starting to listen to her. She had been saying too much, been protesting so often, that people were starting to ask questions about the report on the workplace accident. And if they looked into that, then it’s a corrupt trail that would take years to figure out.”
“The squeaky wheel gets the most oil.”
“Exactly. Chow couldn’t touch her, he knew that would be a bad look for his business, even the underworld wouldn’t respect a guy that beats on an old lady. But if he could set her up for a crime, set her up for something relatively minor, suddenly Mary-Ann Steele isn’t a problem. She’s out of the picture.” Hunter bit into the pork bun, nodding, acknowledging that this was indeed a good pork bun. “And the second reason would be to hide evidence, but then the question is what could he burn in a car fire?”
“Something heavy.” Jones removed another folder from his backpack and slid it across to Hunter. “The report by the fire department states there was evidence of something heavy being dragged from the trunk of the car. What that was, well, we’ll never know.”
“I don’t see a seventy-year-old woman breaking into a car, stealing it, driving it to a reserve and then torching it. The evidence against her is solid, but clearly it’s a set-up. Her handbag was found in the car, there are witnesses that say they saw her there, and she has no reliable alibi for the time. Witnesses are fine, we can deal with that, but the handbag is a problem.”
“What’ve the cops given you on that?”
“They’re not very helpful at the moment, given my other case.” Hunter finished his pork bun, and began eyeing the second one. “That’s why I need you tomorrow.”
“I figured that’s why you were taking me out to lunch. What do you need me for?”
“I need your size. I’m going to talk to the people at the shelter where Nina was staying.”
“My size is my greatest asset.” Jones leaned back, opening his arm span as far as it could go. “Ten o’clock work for you?”
“Meet me at my office and we’ll drive out from there.”
Jones stood, picked up the last pork bun, patted Hunter on the shoulder, and walked back into the crowded mess of people. Hunter followed a few moments later, walking out of the stalls, and back into the sunshine, to his sedan parked on the edge of the street.
He saw the note folded under his windshield wipers. A folded piece of paper. He expected a flippant piece of advertising. He expected to read about a local store’s spectacular sale.
He didn’t expect a threat:
Be careful where you walk. We don’t play nicely.
Especially with pretty girls like your assistant.
Chapter 18
The Shelter for Young Women in Bridgeport, Chicago, was an old hostel that was long past its best days. The two-story brick building sat just off the sidewalk, the short brick fence barely a few feet from the entrance. The front door was barely clinging to the hinges, some of the windows were boarded up, and the brickwork was chipped. Not that the place stood out; it didn’t, at least not on this street. As Tex Hunter stepped out of Ray Jones’s truck, the first thing to hit him was the odor. It was a wave of hormonal stench, likely to be the result of many years of men and women sweating together. No amount of cleaning products could take out that smell—it was ingrained into the area.
“Smells familiar.” Investigator Ray Jones closed the driver’s side door of his truck. “I spent some time in an at-risk shelter like this one. When my mother was homeless, back in L.A, we came to places like this, and they helped her get back on her feet. Gave us a place to stay.” Jones rested his hand against his truck and took in a deep breath. “These places are genuine lifesavers.”
“Ray, you’re a testament to what these places can do. People need help, not punishment.”
Jones nodded, walking forward to knock on the front door. “These places have a live-in care-taker, someone who keeps everyone in check, and keeps the place running.”
Jones knocked loudly on the dull red colored door at the front of the building, and a man immediately opened it. He was tall, skinny, and stood with a posture that could only be described as proud. Hunter immediately saw the veteran in the man—his neat appearance, his shoulders pulled back, the way his t-shirt was still tucked into his ripped jeans.
“You a detective? FBI?” The man was immediately suspicious of a person dressed in a nice suit. His twang sounded southern, and he had a nervous twitch in his lips.
“No, sir.” Hunter was respectful. “My name is Tex Hunter, and I’m a lawyer. This is Ray Jones, and he’s a private investigator.”
“A PI, eh?” The older man did his best 1920s crime noir accent, running his fingers over his chin.
“That’s the one.” Jones chuckled, not because he thought it was funny, but because he knew it was a way to bond with the man.
“I was an infantry soldier in a different life,” the man said proudly, holding out his hand to Hunter. “Damien Samuel Lynch. Originally from Alabama.”
They shook hands, solidly. “We’re looking for information on Nina Aisha.”
“She stays here.” The man nodded to the hallway behind him. “My wife and I run this place and we help the young girls that need it. We’re both veterans. I guess that makes a lot of the girls feel safe, having two former army veterans near the front door. That Nina sure is a sweetheart. Smartest girl we’ve ever had through here. Smarter than I’ll ever be.” He stood up straighter, his chest puffed out with pride. “Where is Nina? We haven’t seen her in over a week.”
“She’s in the slammer.” Jones stood to the left of the man. “She’s been charged with killing a retired cop.”
“Nina Aisha? Are you sure? No way.” The man frowned, ran his hand over his hair, and then cupped his hands behind his back. “They’ve got the wrong one there. She’s no killer. She’s an angel.”
“Did she have a permanent room here?”
“You sure you’re on her side?” Lynch stepped between Jones and the entrance to the building.
Jones held his hand over his heart and then nodded.
“Then follow me.”
Lynch led them into the building, through the narrow dark halls, up the creaky stairs that threatened to give way at any second, and onto the second floor where the smell of pain only became stronger. He opened a door and indicated to a bunk bed and a locker.
“This used to be a backpacker hostel, that’s why most of the rooms have private bathrooms. We sleep four or five girls in a room, and they come to the communal kitchen to eat. The hostel went out of business ten years ago, not much need for a hostel out here anymore. Then a donor bought the building and donated it to our organization. We get government funding, but it’s not enough. We struggle to make ends meet most weeks, mostly in food and electricity.”
“What makes up the difference?”
“Donations. Usually there are several private donors, but one of ours just passed away. We’re certainly doing it tight right now.” The man opened one of the doors and asked a young woman to leave for a few moments. “This here is Nina’s bed.”
There wasn’t much to look at—a sleeping bag on the bottom bunk, a box o
f cereal, and a backpack full of clothes. The emptiness spoke more than anything. This was her life, her world, and it was barely anything at all. In a city full of excess, in a city full of money, all Nina’s belongings fit inside a small backpack. When the powers that be handed out opportunities, they handed none to Nina.
“Not much to see in there but I can tell you she didn’t kill anyone.”
“Why do you say that?” Hunter questioned.
The man studied Hunter before responding, he was less trusting of a suit than Jones’s jeans and black t-shirt.
“We deal with homeless families and youths around here. Nina first came here after her foster father skipped town. Sad story. But you could see she was more than that, and she wasn’t going to let her past define her future. She was one of the girls with hope. She’s a smart, smart girl. Smarter than all of us combined. She could even go to college if she wanted to. She wanted to train to be a nurse. She wants to help people. I can tell you for sure that she’s not a killer.”
Hunter didn’t respond. Even though he had only just met the man, he had complete faith in his ability to judge a person.
“Kids here have seen more than most should ever see. They smell urine on the streets daily, they’ve seen people shooting up drugs by the time they’re five, and most have seen murders by the time they’re adults. When they’re here, we can give them support, an apple or a banana, maybe some plain rice. We give them a chance, and in return, they give me hope. Hope that some of them, at least one of them, can get out of this mess. Nina gave me the most hope.”
“How many people do you have around here?”
“In the rooms? All together we have between ten to fifteen families, and ten to fifteen young women. They bring their own stuff, we just provide the room, so sometimes, we have kids sleeping on the floor, but we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got. The first two rooms we passed, were the permanents. We’re all ex-army. It’s like we’re bodyguards for any families that come past. It’s gives us a purpose.”
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