Ali Cross 01 - Ali Cross

by Patterson, James

  Now he pointed to a swinging dog flap built into the outside kitchen door. A heavy plastic panel, usually meant to slide up and down to close off the opening, had been punched out. Several blue plastic shards lay on the kitchen floor.

  “That’s the only indication of forced entry this time,” Olayinka told him. “Best I can tell, someone less than a hundred pounds came in that way.”

  Alex knelt by the broken dog door and pushed his arm through the poly flap that was still in place. His adult-sized head and shoulders would never fit.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen something like this,” Olayinka kept going. “Some scumbag uses a kid to get inside, and then cuts them in for a few bucks.”

  Alex’s mind spun, lining up everything he already knew with everything he was just now learning. There was the robbery at his own place around the corner. The returned items from a few hours earlier. And most of all, the conversation he’d had with Ali in the street. Was it possible his little genius of a son had been onto something?

  Possible, yes.

  Maybe even likely.

  “Hey, Isaac, do you know Wendy Sutter?” Alex asked.

  “She’s with Youth Services, right?”

  “That’s right. You might want to give her a call in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Olayinka answered slowly. “Because…?”

  “There’s a missing kid she’s looking for,” Alex explained. “His name is Gabe Qualls, and don’t quote me on this yet, but I’m starting to wonder if he might be one of the ones you’re looking for, too.”

  CEDRIC SAID HE’D meet me outside of Washington Latin at two the next day. I printed up a whole bunch of flyers with Gabe’s picture and brought them with me. I also showed up early, just so I could put in a little thinking time first.

  It was weird to stand there outside of school again. The last time I’d been in that same spot was the last time I’d talked to Gabe.

  “So I’ll see you online tonight,” I’d said.

  “Try and stop me,” he’d said.

  Those were the words that kept circling back into my head. “Try and stop me.” It wasn’t the kind of thing a person would say if they knew they were about to disappear. Maybe that meant Gabe hadn’t run away on purpose. Maybe something even worse really had happened to him.

  Or, I thought, maybe that was just Gabe, playing it off so I wouldn’t suspect anything. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing that day, down to the last word. There was still the question of what he had stuffed in that backpack of his, too. Maybe he’d filled it with provisions, so he’d be ready when it came time to disappear.

  I just couldn’t be sure about any of it. Every time I came up with a reason why it might be one thing, I’d come up with a reason why it might be the other. And it was driving me crazy.

  “Yo!”

  When Cedric came up on me from behind, I jumped. Which was embarrassing.

  “Where you at?” he asked.

  “About a million miles away,” I said. “I was thinking about Gabe.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  I played along and gave a smile. “Anyway,” I said, and handed him a stack of flyers. “Let’s hit this block first and talk to as many people as we can. Then we can work down toward 14th Street if we have time.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Cedric said. He took one side of E Street and I took the other.

  Dad always says street interviews are some of the hardest. It’s about getting people to slow down and pay attention, which nobody ever wants to do. But when I saw someone I recognized, that seemed like a good place to jump in.

  I didn’t even know her name, but she worked behind the counter at the carryout near school. “Excuse me,” I said. “Have you seen this kid anywhere?”

  The lady looked at the flyer but didn’t take it.

  “No, honey. Sorry,” she said. “Friend of yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  “Can you take this with you?” I asked, but she was already gone.

  And it kind of went on like that. A lot of people just kept walking when I tried to talk to them. But some of them stopped, and a few took my flyer. One or two even knew about Gabe already.

  So it was going okay, anyway. Not great, but at least I was getting the hang of it.

  Right up until Kahlil Weyland decided to walk by.

  Just for the record, I hate Kahlil Weyland. We’ve been in the same class all our lives, and it’s like he was born thinking he was better than me. I didn’t want to talk to him about Gabe, or anything at all, but I forced myself to do it.

  “Cross?” he asked.

  “Wassup?” I said. “You know Gabe Qualls is missing, right?”

  Kahlil looked down at my flyer like I was trying to hand him a piece of garbage.

  “I heard,” he said. “And I care about that, why?”

  That was typical, right there. Kahlil always acted like the world owed him something for nothing. And he’s built like a middle-school version of Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther, so he’s nobody you want to mess with if you don’t have to.

  “I’m just asking people if they’ve seen him around,” I said. “Or maybe if they noticed anything on the afternoon he went missing. It was right after school on the Friday before break—”

  “Listen to you, cop’s boy,” he said. Not like it was a good thing. Which was weird, because Kahlil and I were the same that way. His dad was a uniformed officer in the Sixth Ward.

  “What’s your problem, anyway?” I asked. I was getting mad, fast. I should have just let him keep walking.

  “Don’t play like you don’t know,” Kahlil said. He was stepping up to me now, too. “My pops has people coming down on him every single day, and you know why? ’Cause of dirty cops like your dad giving good ones like my dad a bad name.”

  “You don’t know anything about that,” I told him. I could feel my fingers making a fist around those flyers in my hand. What I really wanted was to knock that stupid smirk off Kahlil’s face.

  But Cedric was paying attention to us now, too. “We got a problem?” he asked.

  “Your boy here does,” Kahlil said. He may have been bigger than me, but he wasn’t as big as Cedric. Also, it was two against one now. I could feel him backing off already.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you were just leaving,” Cedric said.

  “Whatever,” Kahlil said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Cedric said. I was glad he was there, but more than that, I wished I could have gotten rid of Kahlil so easily myself.

  “You’re no detective, Cross,” Kahlil said, walking away. “And your buddy Gabe’s probably dead by now.”

  If Cedric hadn’t grabbed me back, I would have been on him for real that time. But it was just as well. I wasn’t out here to get into it with anyone. I had a job to do. And if a mouth breather like Kahlil Weyland was going to keep me from doing it, then I wasn’t much of a detective to begin with. So I let it go—for now.

  I had to get back to work.

  NEW YEAR’S EVE snuck up on me, but with Dad’s trial hanging over us and Gabe still missing, it didn’t feel like much of a new start. Still, we celebrated as best we could. Cedric came over for dinner after our canvassing, and then Ruby and Mateo showed up with their folks. The adults all had dessert and hung out upstairs while we did our thing in the basement.

  Supposedly we were having one of our movie nights down there. I put on Endgame just to make it sound like that’s what we were doing. But really, we were there to talk about the Gabe stuff. It was like a shift change at the police department, where everyone reports out on what they know about an open case.

  I started by telling the others how I’d gotten my laptop back, and how even Dad couldn’t rule out the possibility that Gabe had been the one ringing our doorbell that night.

  “You’re saying Gabe broke into your house on Christmas Eve?” Ruby asked.

  “I’m saying it’s a possibili
ty,” I told her.

  “Just so he could turn around and give you back your laptop?”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense,” Mateo said.

  “What about any of this makes sense?” I said. “Maybe we’re just not asking the right questions yet.”

  “Like what kind of questions?” Cedric asked.

  “Well, if we knew that, we’d be asking them,” I said.

  Cedric doesn’t always pay attention all the time, but I wasn’t going to be giving him a hard time about it here. He’d just spent the whole day out on the street with me, not to mention saving my bacon with Kahlil Weyland.

  “So what else have we got?” I asked, and Mateo picked it up from there.

  “I called all the hospitals on that list you sent me,” he said. “None of them have a patient named Gabriel Qualls, or Gabe, or initial G.”

  “Thanks for checking, anyway,” I told him.

  “Well, hang on. Here’s the other thing I was thinking,” Mateo said. “What if Gabe’s in the hospital but he doesn’t know who he is?”

  “Like amnesia or something?” Ruby asked.

  Mateo shrugged. “What if he got knocked upside his head somehow, and he’s walking around like one of those whaddya-callits? A Jack Doe.”

  “John Doe,” Ruby said.

  “Whatever,” Mateo said.

  “Amnesia?” Cedric was practically rolling on the floor by now. “Get serious, bro. This ain’t a TV show.”

  “I’m just saying, you never know,” Mateo answered.

  “I know you watch too many movies,” Cedric said.

  That was true, too, for all of us. We were always down for anything Marvel, or DC in a pinch, or especially anything scary. The scarier the better, like Get Out, or It, or the Cloverfield movies, even though we weren’t technically allowed to watch R-rated stuff. Nana always said those kinds of movies fed my imagination, and not in the good way. Maybe she was right, but I loved them all the same.

  Meanwhile, this conversation wasn’t supposed to be about movies. This was about Gabe, and I needed everyone to stay focused. I turned to Ruby next.

  “Where are we at with social media?” I asked, since that was her department now.

  “Nothing new on Gabe’s Instagram,” she said. “The last thing he posted was from the day before he disappeared, and that was a picture of some suspension bridge he built in Outpost.”

  “Everything he posts is from Outpost,” Cedric said.

  If you ever wanted to know how Gabe’s mind worked, all you had to do was look at his Instagram. It was full of crazy stuff he’d designed inside the game. There were vehicles, weapons, different kinds of body armor, and even temporary shelters you could fold up and take with you. Sometimes it seemed like Gabe must have spent more time in Outpost than he did in the real world.

  “The one thing he never posted was a picture of his bunker,” Ruby said.

  “Probably because he didn’t want anyone knowing about it,” I said. “That’s like his private spot.”

  “And you never figured out the combination lock on that door?” Mateo asked.

  I shook my head. “Still working on it.”

  “Anyway,” Ruby went on, “I’ve been getting some traction on my own Insta, with that MISSING flyer. And we’re up to twenty-three shares on the Facebook page I set up, too. That’s not bad, but we can kick it way up once we’re back in school.”

  “Maybe we won’t have to,” Cedric said. “I mean, maybe Gabe’ll be back by then. How long has it been, anyway?”

  I didn’t have to think about that one. I knew exactly how long it had been. “Ten days,” I said. “And four hours, if anyone’s counting.”

  Nobody said anything to that. It just kind of sunk in for a minute. They probably didn’t know what I knew—that the chances of solving a missing persons case goes way down after three days because the clues dry up. And here we were at ten.

  Ten days. I wondered where Gabe was right now. Or how cold he might be. Or how hungry. Or maybe even hurt.

  Then Mateo spoke up again. “If this was some rich white boy, you know they would have found him by now,” he said. “Or like that missing kid on Stranger Things—”

  “Will Byers,” I said. I loved that show. So did Gabe. I think he watched each season three times all the way through.

  “Yeah, Will Byers from Hawkins, Indiana,” Mateo said. “Kid goes missing and everyone acts like the world is ending.”

  “Again… not a TV show,” Cedric said, and we all cracked up at that. Maybe we weren’t supposed to be laughing, but sometimes you have to.

  “Well, whatever,” Mateo said. “The point is, Gabe’s from Southeast DC, he’s poor, and he’s black, which is enough for nobody to care. Gabe’s got no headlines on the news, no search parties, no nothing.”

  “I hear that,” Ruby said. “But you know what he does have?”

  “What?” I asked. I really wanted to know.

  “Us,” Ruby said.

  I was glad to hear them talking like this. Before Gabe disappeared, I’m not really sure they thought about him that much. But now it was like the longer they worked on this investigation, the more they really cared. And the more I felt like we had a real live team of our own, tracking him down.

  “We’re kind of like Easy Rawlins and his WRENS-L Agency,” I said.

  “Who’s Easy Rawlins?”

  “A character in a book,” I said. “A black detective.”

  “Like your dad,” Ruby said.

  “Sort of,” I said, but really I meant like me. Didn’t say so, though.

  “All right, then,” Ruby said. “If we’re going to do this, let’s really do it.”

  “We got this, you guys,” Cedric said.

  “Hundred percent,” I said. I really did have some awesome friends. And now, more than ever, I was thinking, so did Gabe.

  Ruby had her hand out and I put mine on top of hers. Then Cedric and Mateo piled on.

  “For Gabe,” I said.

  And they all said it, too.

  “For Gabe.”

  RUBY WAS RIGHT about getting back to school. In fact, that Wednesday morning everything kicked in way more than I’d even been hoping.

  When I got to Washington Latin, I went to advisory like normal. But during morning announcements, they said there was going to be an all-school assembly just before first period. And it was all about Gabe’s case.

  I seriously didn’t see that coming. It was starting to sound like a lot of people had noticed what was going on, after all.

  Once we were all packed into the auditorium, our principal, Mr. Garmon, put Gabe’s MISSING flyer up on the big screen, fifteen feet high where nobody could miss it. Then he started talking about how Gabe had last been seen outside of Wash-Latin, and about what people could do to help.

  “This is a chance for us to pull together as a school community for the greater good,” Mr. Garmon told everyone. “If you know anything about Gabe’s disappearance, or even think you might know something, I want you to talk to an adult about it.”

  I kept looking around the auditorium. There were about three hundred and fifty kids in our school. Someone had to have seen something that day, didn’t they? And even if not, I was glad people were paying attention.

  “If prayer is your thing, then by all means pray for our brother Gabe,” Mr. Garmon went on. “And if any of you need to speak with a counselor, Mrs. Noble and Mr. Villagrossa are here for you.”

  “Sounds like Gabe is the one who needs a counselor,” someone muttered a few rows behind me. And not just someone. Kahlil Weyland. I’d recognize that voice anywhere. He and his idiot friends were being a bunch of dipsticks about the whole thing. As usual.

  I kept cool, though. Ruby was raising her hand to say something now and I didn’t want to take away from whatever she was about to do.

  “Hey, everyone,” Ruby said after Mr. G gave her the mike. “Just so you know, we have a Facebook page set up for Gabe. If anyone has questions
or information, you can post them there. And we have a hashtag now, too, which is #FindGabeQualls, all as one word—”

  “More like hashtag, #wheresthebody?” Kahlil said. And this time, my mouth went off before I could stop it.

  “Shut up, Kahlil!” I said. I stood up and turned around to face him. “You know so much about this, why don’t you tell us what happened? Huh? Go ahead, ’cause I sure would like to know.”

  That pretty much brought everything to a dead stop. Kahlil just stared back at me like he was Mister Innocent, and Mrs. Rutkowsky started lecturing me about borrowing trouble at a time like this.

  I felt stupid for losing my cool, especially when I wanted everyone listening to the assembly. So I just turned around and pretended Kahlil didn’t exist. He wasn’t worth the trouble. I told myself I wasn’t going to mess with him at all anymore. No matter what.

  And I didn’t.

  For all of about ten minutes.

  I WASN’T LOOKING for trouble that morning. I really wasn’t. But sometimes trouble comes looking for you.

  After the assembly, I was standing in the hall talking to some people about Gabe and minding my own business, when I heard someone call out my name.

  “Cross! Yo, Cross! When’s your dad’s trial?”

  I looked over, and it wasn’t Kahlil this time, but close enough. It was Darius Riggs, who was basically Kahlil’s lapdog. That is, if lapdogs wore size ten Jordans and XL Wizards jerseys to school. In fact, I could see Kahlil hanging back by the trophy case, grinning my way like this was some kind of game for him.

  Meanwhile, Darius was still jabbering.

  “You think that old guy your dad pushed down the steps is gonna die?” he asked. “’Cause that’s like a murder charge then, right?”

  If this were a movie, I would have pulled out my secret X-Men powers just then and thrown Darius straight across the room with a flick of my mind. I wish. But I doubted Darius even knew what he was talking about, anyway. He was just saying what Kahlil told him to.

  “Get a life, man,” I said, and went back to talking to the kids I’d already been talking to. But then Kahlil decided to jump in on it, after all.