The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

  Gabriel’s phone rang. Conor. He put it on speaker for Bill’s benefit.

  “The CIRG finished the recon,” Conor said.

  The Critical Incident Response Group was the muscle of the FBI. Trained in tactical combat, they were called in for situations that might escalate into gunfights.

  “What did they find?” Gabriel asked.

  “One person in the house. The mother.”

  “I hope the CIRG isn’t obvious.”

  “No. They used Range-R.”

  “Good,” Gabriel said. Range-R radars were like x-ray vision for the law to see through walls. “You set up the cameras?”

  “Will be up and running in an hour,” Conor said. “Your ETA?”

  “One minute.” Gabriel turned onto Iroquois Street, where Iris’s house was located.

  “There’s something you need to know,” Conor said. “Out of the nineteen kids with Alopecia Areata, only one has a criminal record. Leopold Williams Jr, convicted for setting a Ferrari on fire and sent to juvenile for six months. He hasn’t filed for expungement, so his records are accessible.”

  “Found anything linking him to Ryatt?” Gabriel asked.

  “Yup. Leopold visited Ryatt forty-eight times when he served a two-year sentence for attempted theft in West Virginia.”

  “Alright. Keep digging.” Gabriel stopped in front of a majestic two-story house. It was a detached property, surrounded by a three-foot hedge. Two dormers jutted from the slanting roof; the right-side wall had a balcony, and flower baskets with small pink flowers hanging from them. A chimney pot on the left side of the roof blew white smoke.

  “Let me call you back.” Gabriel hung up and exited the car, after which he helped Bill out.

  They walked over rocky tiles, each framed with a square of grass. Bill grabbed Gabriel’s forearm as they climbed the granite steps. The teak door was massive and robust; inscribed on its plaque was 213. Gabriel lifted the brass door knocker and struck the wood thrice.

  As the sound of locks being undone penetrated the silence, Gabriel scanned the place. The CIRG was indeed ultra stealthy. He couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

  When the door opened, Gabriel gaped, unable to form words. Or thoughts.

  “Aw, crap,” Bill muttered, looking at the old lady they met yesterday at Goodwill.

  She chirpily said, “It’s you two. The police boys!”

  Gabriel did not have the mind to wonder about her sense of smell and memory.

  “Iris Durant?”

  “The one and only,” she said.

  Goddamn it!

  “Sorry if we woke you up,” Bill said, seemingly less appalled by the twist of fate. She didn’t look like she had been sleeping, though. The book in her hand said as much.

  “No. One of the perks of being old.”

  “Perks?”

  “You don’t waste a lot of time sleeping. You get to enjoy many waking hours.” Iris laughed and tapped the hardcover. “This book always makes me appreciate life.” She frowned. “Why is the other boy so quiet?”

  It took a nudge from Bill to understand that she was talking to him. Gabriel cleared his throat. “Sorry, ma’am. It is just… it’s been a tiring day.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Where are my manners! Come in, please.”

  She let them inside, then closed the door behind. “This way.” She went to a couch and waited for them to sit. Taking a seat, she placed the book on a glass-top coffee table before them. The book’s title read Tuesdays with Morrie. Beside the book was a tray carrying a pot, cups, and saucers.

  As if she saw what Gabriel was looking at, she asked. “Fancy some peppermint tea?”

  “No, thanks. We just ate,” Gabriel lied.

  “Then you must have some.” She poured out two cups, not spilling a drop. “It has both peppermint and spearmint, and a splash of ginger extract and honey. It’s good for your stomach. My son loves it.”

  Gabriel took a cup, but Bill did not touch his. As he sipped the tea, he observed the walls around which displayed more of Iris’s charity work. There was a black and white photo of young Iris in a wedding gown, arms hooked to a tall black man. They looked happy. Then his eyes moved to the next photo, a colored one. Iris and another black man in front of a church. He was athletic, his eyes the hue of a clear sky.

  In spite of the warm liquid soothing his digestive track, Gabriel felt a vile bile rise up his throat. Was that murdering demon really born to this angel?

  “Is that your son, ma’am?” Bill asked, his voice shaky.

  “Me with a handsome man at a church?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yes. That’s St. Peter’s Basilica. My son took me to Europe in 1993.”

  Must be from the money Ryatt robbed in Staten Island. The robbery that pulled Joshua into this mess, ultimately ending with his head exploding inside a burlap sack.

  Iris continued. “He explained the statues to me, their geometries and colors—”

  “How do you know to imagine?” Bill asked, his voice a bit harsh.

  “What do you mean?” Iris asked, frowning.

  Gabriel shook his head but Bill asked the next question nonetheless. “I mean how do you know what is blue or white or red?”

  “I wasn’t born blind,” Iris blurted.

  Gabriel deflated while Bill continued the assault, “You were blinded forty-two years ago, when you gave your eye to Ryatt?”

  Iris’s mouth parted a little.

  Bill proceeded to tell her what they had learned during their drive from the Children’s Hospital. Conor researched the other kid who had gone blind with Ryatt, the one on the front page of the Detroit Free Press. His name was Nicholas Brown, aka Nick. Conor used his FBI magic and sent his phone number to Gabriel.

  Nick had said that his mother, Loraine, never stopped talking about Iris because she was the purest soul ever. Unlike Nick, who got his corneas from some Chinese guys, Iris had said that it was wrong and gave her own sight to Ryatt. The corneal transplantation was botched, making her permanently blind.

  And the mere thought that Lolly was her son, living with her, infuriated Gabriel. Though Iris didn’t have vision, it was Lolly that made her blind, by doing what he did behind her back.

  Iris listened to Bill with a stern face, and when he finished, she turned to Gabriel. “I don’t know what your friend is talking about.”

  Gabriel said, “W-we aren’t here to establish the law, ma’am. I actually think what you did is the noblest thing.”

  Iris’s face softened. “Yes. Ryatt has my eye. It is my eye and I gave it to my son. Law has no business telling me not to. Imagine that you go blind and your parents have an option to give their eyes to you, they would do it without a thought.”

  “I agree,” Gabriel said. Joshua really would.

  “So why are you here?” she asked, her warm and hospitable demeanor eroded, thanks to Bill.

  While Gabriel winced and got ready for the truth to break Iris, Bill said, “We’re reaching out to people who might be witness to a carjacking.”

  Gabriel exhaled. He knew this scenario was something he needed to face one day or another, but he wished it was later rather than sooner.

  “Carjacking?” Iris asked, as if she didn’t buy into the story.

  “It’s really important that we talk to him, ma’am.” Bill’s tone became authoritative. “Tell us where your son is.”

  “I don’t know. His job requires him to travel.”

  Bill let out a contemptuous chuckle. “It sure does.”

  “Don’t you take that tone with me, young man!”

  Gabriel, feeling like a kid watching his mom and older brother argue, jumped in. “Do you have Ryatt’s phone number?”

  “He is a busy man. I’d rather you didn’t disturb him.”

  Bill’s eyes fluttered to an old landline phone in a corner table. He pushed himself up and walked towards it. Leaning his entire weight on his crutch, he opened the drawer under.


  Was he searching for a phonebook? Why would a blind woman with such a remarkable memory need one?

  Iris’s face twisted in indignation, and her voice shook as she spoke. “Don’t go snooping around the house of a kind person who let you in and served you tea. You’ve outstayed your welcome.” She turned in Gabriel’s direction. “Both of you.”

  Bill returned to the table, empty-handed. “But the—”

  “I will give you Ryatt’s phone number when you hand me a warrant. Make sure it is braille.”

  Gabriel said, “I apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am.”

  As they left, Bill stopped near her. “Sorry, Mrs. Durant,” he said, his voice breaking.

  Iris acknowledged with a curt nod but said nothing.

  As the door closed behind them, Gabriel spotted a Land Rover passing through. Hadn’t he seen that car somewhere? He squinted at the plate.

  It read 80085.

  Chapter 37

  May 12, 2019. 12:31 A.M.

  Gabriel was gazing at the ceiling fan, thinking about the Land Rover. How did they sniff their way to Durant’s residence? The house where Lolly, the person the Detroit Alliance was searching for thirty-eight years, lived.

  Ever since Gabriel had met Roman and publicized his presence at Calabria, he had been keeping an eye on the rearview mirror. No one had followed him, but now Gabriel was sure that he had a tail.

  How?!

  An avid fan of shooting and espionage video games, he arrived at a possible answer in a beat. He sat up straight and whispered, “No freaking way.”

  Pocketing his gun, he got off the bed. Then he ran down to the parking lot in the basement, taking two steps at a time. When he reached the Camaro, he dropped to the floor and rolled under the car.

  Five minutes later, his hand groping above the right rear wheel, he found a plastic box the size of a Lego.

  * * *

  Bill lay on the bed, watching TV and eating Pringles, and Gabriel sat at its edge. An hour past midnight, a fifty-year-old lanky man carrying a briefcase knocked on his door. He introduced himself as Special Supervisory Agent Morgan from the Detroit field office. Gabriel wondered why the SSA would be personally involved, and Morgan said that Conor was a friend and he had requested him to help Gabriel in any way he could.

  Morgan specialized in computers, both hardware and software. The briefcase was actually a device that resembled a laptop. It had a keyboard but also a myriad of slots and loose wires.

  Gabriel passed the GPS transmitter he found under the Camaro to Morgan.

  Inspecting the device, he asked, “You guys didn’t switch it off, right? Your trackers would have known if you did.”

  “We didn’t tamper with it.”

  Morgan took out a small Swiss army knife from his pocket and pried the case of the device open. A red and green wire ran through it; he plucked them out. Then he connected their copper tips to a pair of wires in the laptop and began typing.

  When he stopped, the screen read Initializing, and a status bar appeared under it.

  Ten minutes later, the bar was at 37% and Bill got bored and became inquisitive. He asked, “Now that we transferred it from the basement to our room two levels up, won’t they smell that something’s fishy? I read that these GPS things can calculate height, too.”

  “Nah… I’m sure your car is parked only a few dozen feet below, not more than hundred feet. Altimeters in GPSs are known to give off wrong readings, sometimes by 400 feet.” Morgan regarded the plastic device. “This is cheap. Your trackers did not have altitude in their minds when they bought it.”

  “So, basically, what you’re saying is,” Bill took out a chip from the Pringles tube on his stomach and put it in his mouth, “they won’t know? We’re fine?”

  “Yes. You are fine.” Morgan sighed, evidently regretting having provided Bill with a comprehensive answer, when a few-word response would have been sufficient.

  “What’s happening in there?” Gabriel pointed at the laptop screen.

  “Doubling back.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Morgan looked uncertain; Gabriel could see the cogs inside his brain going off. He was wondering if he should share his in-depth knowledge again. Apparently, he decided he would give them another chance. “Alright. You know how GPS receivers work, right? Trilateration?”

  Gabriel said, “At any time of the day, you have at least three satellites hovering over your head. They always broadcast their locations in space in relation to Earth. The GPS receivers collect that data to compute their locations in relation to the satellites, and give us longitudes and latitudes.”

  “Correct.” Morgan’s face brightened. “Then the GPS chip sends the coordinates to some output device that’s attached to it, generally an LCD.”

  “Like in cars.”

  “Yes. But since GPS trackers don’t show the location to you on an LCD screen but to someone else, they constantly transmit information by cell phone towers, which is then saved on the cloud.”

  “Oh,” Gabriel said. He almost didn’t understand but when he pictured the process, he got it.

  “Usually, there is a third-party company that stores the data from the GPS trackers. And this baby,” Morgan touched the laptop, “can find out to which company the data is being transmitted. Once I zero in on that server, I can hack into it and trace who is constantly viewing your location.”

  Bill kept his face blank, while Morgan continued.

  “… Ironically, whoever is tracking you would have used the Internet to connect to the cloud. And I’ll phish their device’s IP address or IMEI number from that server, and then their location.”

  “So, basically, what you’re saying is,” Bill took out another chip from the Pringles tube on his stomach and put it in his mouth, “we can track them because they are tracking us?”

  “Yes.” Morgan deflated, the animation his face had been reflecting when he talked about computer stuff evaporated.

  The status bar was finally at 100%.

  “We found the device that’s accessing the data from the GPS tracker,” Morgan said. “It’s a cellphone.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  Morgan played his keyboard some more. Then he said, “Roman Marino.”

  Honestly, that didn’t surprise Gabriel.

  He walked over to the window and peeked outside. Calabria was closed.

  “You have a location?” Gabriel asked as he returned to them.

  “I do. Roman’s GPS is turned on,” Morgan said.

  “Where is it?”

  Morgan pointed at the zoomed in section of a map on his laptop. When he read the address, Gabriel skipped a heartbeat. He knew that place; he’d just been there, having mint tea.

  Roman was in Iris’s house.

  Chapter 38

  May 12, 2019. 12:31 A.M.

  Iris was woken by a peculiar noise that didn’t belong: a wet crunch, like someone breaking a tree branch. Pushing the blanket aside, she got off the bed. As soon as she left the comfort of her room, a cool breeze swept her gown and sent chills across her skin, giving her goosebumps.

  The cold wind was blowing from the direction of her front door. Wondering if she had forgotten to lock it, she made her way towards the entrance.

  When she reached the door, something poked under her foot, making her wince. She bent down and picked up the object. It felt like a tiny lump of wood.

  Not sure from where it had chipped off, she closed the door. But she couldn’t lock it. The place where the deadbolt used to be was now hollow.

  “You’re blind?” Someone laughed behind her. Then she heard a strong hum, like her son’s trimmer, only louder. As the sound neared her, she got a whiff of something she hadn’t smelled for a very long time.

  “It’s you,” she said.

  “It’s you who?”

  “Bugsy.”

  He chuckled. “I forgot how it feels to be called by my Christian name. No one dares to these days.” The hum travel
led to her right and Bugsy’s voice came from there. He would be in a motorized wheelchair, she’d guessed. “But you can call me anything you want. Our experience has created a powerful bond, hasn’t it?”

  “Violating a woman isn’t bonding. It’s cowardice.”

  “But you still remember me.”

  “I can never forget that day. My son became blind because of you.”

  “Really?” Bugsy asked.

  “That is a part of my life I’d prefer not to reminisce,” she said. “Why did you break into my house?”

  “Thirteen thousand six hundred and fifty-three,” Bugsy said. “That’s how many days I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

  “What moment?”

  “Rome?” Bugsy called. “Bring it here.”

  Iris remembered who Rome was. That guy with white-blonde hair and bushy brows who had helped Bugsy abduct her.

  “You know what Rome’s got in his hands?” Bugsy asked. “A photo of you and someone with blue eyes that I’ve been thinking about every hour of those thirteen thousand six hundred and fifty-three days.”

  Ryatt?

  An evil incarnate like Bugsy did not deserve to even see the shadow of an angel like her son.

  Bugsy rolled closer to her. “Who is he?”

  “M-my son, why?”

  Her question was met with silence, so Iris asked again, “Why?”

  “Did you say I made him blind?” Bugsy asked.

  “You did, inadvertently.”

  “But somehow you got his sight again? Transplantation?”

  Why were all these people suddenly questioning her about Ryatt’s eyes? What had he done?

  Bugsy tsk-tsked. “You should have let him stay blind.”

  “W-what?” Iris was confounded. “Why do you say horrible things like this?”

  “I don’t wanna beat around the bush. Your sonny boy is the most wanted bank robber in our country. Far surpassed me in evil and infamy, murdering dozens.”