Tough Lessons

by Chris Freeman

  “Are you all right, son?” Joseph asked Yomi. His boy looked shocked and his eyes kept returning to the marks on the wall. Now that he knew Brigitte was safe, Joseph regretted bringing his son onto the crime scene but there was nothing that could be done about that now. “Son?”

  Yomi finally heard him, but he was too stunned to speak. He simply nodded quickly. Joseph turned back to Brigitte.

  “Who would want to do something like this?”

  “Police seem to think it was one of the kids.” She shook her head in wonder at the world. “I heard he had a row with one of the older ones recently. He took a knife from a boy in class. I don’t know who, but you wouldn’t think that would be reason enough to…” Again it was difficult to find the words. “I don’t know if it was the same knife that…”

  “You tell this to the cops?” Joseph interrupted, so she didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  “Of course.”

  Just then, the slight figure of Ardo Piloyan wandered almost apologetically into view. The janitor looked a little lost, glancing about him bemusedly, as if he did not know what to do with all these people in his way. Ardo’s gray overalls were always too big for him and his cheap shoes squeaked on the floor he himself had waxed until it shone like a mirror. The little Armenian knew Joseph well; he had a room a couple of floors above him in the same building, too. His lined face broke into a grim, tight smile of recognition and he walked over to the first friendly face he saw. “Terrible, terrible thing,” he said in heavily accented English. “Damn gangs respect nothing in this city.”

  “They know for sure it was one of the kids?” asked Joseph.

  “That’s what the cops are talking about,” confirmed Ardo. “A man like Mr. Lopez, who else gonna be his enemy? I tell them it is the gangs—they are everywhere—and they tell me it’s a problem all over the city. They say it’s how they settle things when two members of the same gang got a dispute, with knives. That tall cop, he tells me it looks like one of them had a dispute with his poor teacher.” Ardo shook his head. “They leave their sign all over the place. Know how many times I got to wash tags off or paint over them?” he asked rhetorically. So Eddie’s door was not the only place where gang tags were appearing.

  “What do they look like, these gang tags?”

  “They scratch letters into my woodwork with knives or spray them on with canned paint. It’s just letters and numbers, mostly.”

  “What letters?”

  “DDP, LK, CK.” He counted them off on his fingers until he tired of it. “Who knows what they’re saying. They don’t mean shit to me.” Then he remembered Brigitte was standing there and demurred apologetically. “Excuse me.”

  Joseph had been listening to Ardo, but all the while he had been carefully scanning the room. It was as Ardo was concluding his explanation of the gang graffiti that Joseph saw it. There, high above the blood-smeared door frame, sprayed onto the concrete wall in red paint, was a miniature version of the tag on Eddie’s door. The red letters CK up so high that Joseph wondered how they could have reached there without being caught in the act. He hadn’t spotted it at first, despite its jarring presence on the white wall, because his eye had naturally gone to the blood on the floor and the door instead. The same gang that sprayed their tag on Eddie’s door was active in the school and Antoinette Irving had just had its first murder. Coincidence? Joseph hoped so, for Eddie’s sake.

  But it looked like the cops were already following the line that Lopez was stabbed by a kid in a gang, mainly because he took a knife off some boy and had no obvious enemies. They needed to be more cautious than that, thought Joseph. He had seen this before, people jumping to instant conclusions right at the beginning of an investigation and sticking with them even when the evidence started to point in another direction. Sometimes it clouded their judgment so bad they could no longer see straight. He was willing to bet that one of the police officers had picked up on Brigitte’s statement about the confiscated knife and the row with a pupil and then added it to the circumstantial evidence provided by Ardo, of gangs roaming unchecked along the corridors of Antoinette Irving. They had come up with a half-baked theory already, even before Hernando Lopez’s blood was dry on the school’s walls. The uniformed guys had got it into their head that Lopez was murdered by a gang member. Well, maybe he was, thought Joseph, and maybe he wasn’t, but it was surely too early to rule anything out. Telling their theories to anyone who would listen wasn’t going to help them complete their investigation.

  The principal called Ardo’s name and the janitor shuffled over to be given a task Joseph couldn’t make out. Up until now, Yomi had been completely silent while he digested the news of the murder but now he suddenly said, “I need to go the bathroom.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Yomi nodded glumly. “Yeah.”

  Poor kid must have been in shock, hearing such terrible news about his teacher, thought Joseph. Thanks to his father’s misguided concern for Brigitte, Yomi had even seen the blood.

  “Okay,” said Joseph, and Yomi wandered away, leaving his father alone with Brigitte. Joseph made sure his son was out of earshot and then he lowered his voice. “You want to cancel tonight? I’d understand if you did.”

  “Cancel? No,” she said emphatically. “Absolutely not.” Then she seemed to think for a moment. “Postpone maybe. I mean I still want to do it.” She paused before asking him unsurely, “Do you?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do,” and she nodded.

  “Couple of days?” she asked.

  “Couple of days,” he agreed.

  Neither of them seemed to be able to add anything to that. Instead, they simply stood to one side while they watched the NYPD go about its work of protecting and serving the public. Eventually a tall man, clutching a large leather bag approached one of the uniformed officers. He looked like a doctor and Joseph guessed this must be the pathologist. The cops checked his credentials and eventually he was admitted to the crime scene, ducking under the yellow tape that crisscrossed the door.

  Joseph realized Yomi had still not returned from the bathroom and instinctively felt something was not quite right. “Excuse me,” he said to Brigitte, and then he followed the path taken by his son.

  “Don’t leave the building,” ordered the gaunt cop gruffly and again Joseph did not bother to acknowledge him.

  As he reached the boy’s toilet, Yomi was just emerging. The boy started when he saw his father. “What?” he asked a little too guiltily, and Joseph could see the worry in his eyes.

  “I got to go, too,” said Joseph. “Wait over there with Brigitte.” His son did as he was told.

  Joseph walked into the bathroom and went straight passed the row of urinals and washbasins without stopping until he reached the two cubicles at the far end of the room. Yomi had been gone too long and he looked too furtive for Joseph’s liking. On a hunch, Joseph chose the farthest cubicle from the door and walked in. It was an old-fashioned toilet with a box cistern and everything looked normal enough. He was about to leave and check the second cubicle when he noticed the faint imprint on the toilet seat that was just catching the light. There was the dim outline of a child-sized shoe and a spec of fresh mud. Someone had climbed up onto it recently. He glanced up at the old cistern with its flush chain dangling down. The chain was still moving slightly, which meant someone had brushed against it just a moment ago.

  Joseph stood up straight and carefully lifted the lid of the cistern. Yomi would be just about tall enough to manage the same maneuver but, unlike his father, he would not be able to see inside. Joseph peered down, saw something metallic in the water, and instantly got a sick feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. Under the surface was a knife and Joseph had a good idea whom it belonged to.

  3

  The nausea stayed with Joseph as he walked back to the scene outside the classroom, for there could surely only be one explanation. Unless he was very much mistaken, his twelve-year-o
ld son, pride of his life, had taken to carrying a knife around with him. He knew he should march over to Yomi right now, take him away from the crime scene, and tear into the boy for being such a damned idiot but, just for the moment, he was too shocked to conjure the right words. Detective Joseph Soyinka had seen some grim sites with the Nigerian Police Force on the streets of Lagos. There’d been bloated corpses fished out of rivers after they had been missing for days, mutilated victims of gangland attacks who were too scared to name those responsible for their terrible injuries, murder victims with gunshot wounds in their heads the size of eight balls. All of it he had been able to dispassionately describe to his superior officers in the Nigerian Police Force, but this? How do you find the words to accuse a twelve-year-old, your own flesh and blood, of carrying a lethal blade and then ditching it at a murder scene to avoid the police finding it? He couldn’t do that just yet. Not here, not in front of everybody.

  He glanced over at Yomi, who was still standing next to Brigitte but looking straight back at his father, searching for a clue to whether Joseph might know what he had been up to. He could see it in the child’s eyes but he managed to mask his own emotions, putting on a dispassionate face, even as his mind was reeling. Yomi still looked like a child to his father. Even the diminutive female history teacher still towered over him. Yet already Yomi was caught up in the worst parts of the culture of the South Bronx. If you were a man here, you carried a knife. How many years before Yomi decided that, if you were a real man, then you had to carry a gun as well? Just then Joseph wanted to take his son by the hand, climb into the cab, and drive as far away from New York as possible. And where would that get them? How long would they survive if he had no job, no money, no home? The tiny apartment in the Highbridge Project wasn’t much but it was a couple of rooms with a roof and four walls and the heating worked just well enough to keep out the biting cold of winter. Joseph knew he couldn’t give up even that small comfort lightly.

  Whatever further thoughts he may have had about the knife and his son’s stupidity, they were suddenly interrupted by a small commotion at the main door. Two male detectives, rugged-looking types in leather jackets, burst through the big glass doors with unnecessary haste. Why were they in such a hurry? wondered Joseph. Who were they trying to impress with their self-important bustle? The uniformed officers all straightened, as if god or at the least the President of the United States was about to enter the room after them, but it was a far more familiar figure who eventually breezed in, the tail of her coat trailing behind her. Assistant Chief McCavity had a look of steely determination on her face, as if she had come to single-handedly save the day and you had better not get in her way while she went about it. She was in her midforties and her demeanor was that of a woman at the peak of her powers. She squinted at them all, as if the cold wind that had thrown her auburn hair into such an unruly mess was still blowing into her pale, hard face. The wind was probably the only thing in New York that dared defy her these days, thought Joseph. He’d dealt with this woman before.

  “I am Assistant Chief McCavity of the 41st Precinct,” she told the room. “And, as of right now, I am in charge of this investigation.” She turned to the nearest uniform. “What have we got here?”

  “A teacher… er… ma’am.” Nervousness made him confer with his notebook, to ensure he made no error that could be held against him at a later date. “One Hernando Lopez, fatally stabbed with a knife last night after the school day was over. We think he was marking books and a person or persons unknown attacked him out here in the corridor. Maybe he went to the john or something.” He realized from her unsympathetic glare that she was unimpressed by his hypothesizing. “Who knows.” he said weakly, quick to surrender the actual detective work to her. “There’s blood on the floor and the walls and we found a knife that appears to be the murder weapon. Looks to us like he managed to get into his classroom after he was stabbed and lock the door behind him, but he bled to death in there. His key was still in the lock when the janitor found him this morning.”

  When the gaunt officer had finished, everybody glanced over at McCavity like she was a regular Nancy Drew and was about to crack the case in an instant.

  “What did he teach?” she asked.

  “Math,” said the officer.

  “Mmmm,” she pondered, as if it might somehow be of importance, and then she noticed Joseph for the first time and narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Solinka.” Joseph still didn’t know if she always got his name wrong deliberately or if it was a genuine error. “What are you doing here? Not up to any of your amateur sleuthing, I hope. This isn’t Murder She Wrote.” The two detectives chuckled dutifully at her weak joke, but nobody else did.

  “My son is a pupil here,” said Joseph. “I was bringing him to school.”

  “Small world,” she said.

  “Excuse me, I’m the principal.” Decker stepped forward, hand outstretched, looking perturbed at the connection between them and the fact that McCavity had ignored him ever since her arrival. “Do you know each other?”

  “Mr. Solinka gave us his assistance with a case once.” McCavity said it like Joseph had jotted down the registration of a getaway car or supplied the description of a burglar. Whereas they both knew he had successfully completed the investigation of a girl’s murder and saved McCavity from sending the wrong man to jail for life. Then he had retreated from the scene, allowing her to boast on TV about the apprehension of a major drug dealer, whose last drop had been handed to her by Joseph on a plate. He’d known at the time he would not get much credit. In fact, he didn’t want any. Who could survive on the Highbridge Project if they were a known friend of the NYPD? Look what had happened to Eddie.

  “Really?” asked the principal dubiously, as if this somehow made Joseph a criminal himself.

  McCavity didn’t bother to answer him. Instead, she went into command mode. “You,” she told the nearest uniform. “Take me to the body and make sure nobody gets near it without my say-so. And you”—she jabbed her finger at another policeman, who looked up nervously—“make sure there are desks and chairs set up in the refectory. We’re gonna need to talk to people and take statements. You two.” The remaining uniformed officers were swept up by her gaze. “Make sure no one outside leaves and bring them all inside before anyone dies from hyperthermia. We don’t want any more bodies on our hands.” McCavity was completely oblivious to the feelings of the grieving colleagues of Lopez, who were still standing around her in shock. “Get everybody into the refectory and take a statement from every teacher and parent. I want details from everybody.”

  “Everybody?” asked the officer rashly. “But that’ll take—”

  “As long as it will take,” said McCavity coldly. “Start now, do it,” and he obviously thought it wise not to contradict her further.

  The uniformed officers scuttled away and McCavity walked into the murdered teacher’s classroom flanked by her two detectives. They looked like bodyguards protecting a queen.

  Joseph sighed. He had clearly heard McCavity’s order and could hardly claim to have misunderstood it, but right now he couldn’t afford to hang around. Besides, he could offer no insight into the murder of Hernando Lopez. The uniformed cop was right. It would take an age to extract statements from everybody and the process was unlikely to uncover much in the way of hard evidence. It had to be done, however. Joseph understood this more than anybody. He reasoned that since he had no information on the murder, he would actually be hindering the police if he stuck around, wasting their valuable time. That was how he justified his actions when he went over to Yomi and led him quietly from the building, “Obviously there’s not going to be any school this morning,” he informed his son. “Freddie’s mother is over there. I’m going to ask her if she will take you for a few hours.”

  “Why?” asked the boy. “Where are you going?”

  “There’s some place I’ve got to be,” he said firmly.

  “Right then, Mr. Soyinka.
Take this bottle, take your time, and return it to me when you have filled it at least half way,” said the young girl in the white coat matter-of-factly. She smiled sweetly as she handed over the little plastic vial. Joseph was a grown man and yet he still found this kind of thing acutely embarrassing. Maybe it was because he was being asked to piss into a tiny plastic bottle by a cute female doctor, who was surely no older than twenty-five that made the situation more uncomfortable. Joseph had reached the age where, like police officers, doctors were starting to look younger, especially the female ones.

  “Certainly, miss,” he said, his nervousness making him formal, as it often did.

  Joseph went into the men’s bathroom, resisted the temptation to whistle as he waited for nature to take its course, then returned the specimen bottle and was told to report to another room.

  “They are waiting for you,” the girl said ominously.

  Joseph stood in the corridor outside for a moment, straightened his tie, and pulled the knot a little tighter. His best white shirt had been ironed into creases you could cut your finger on and he tried hard to ignore its fraying cuffs. Right now, buying a new shirt for an interview was a lower priority than keeping the heating turned on and putting food in their refrigerator.

  “Come in, Mr. Soyinka, sit down,” instructed the gray-suited young man. He had a hundred-watt smile that he could somehow turn on and off again in an instant. “I’m Karl from human resources,” he announced brightly. Whatever that meant, thought Joseph. Like many men of his generation, he wondered why they just couldn’t go on calling it personnel. He resented being referred to as a resource. “And this is Detective Moreno,” he said, introducing a bored-looking older colleague sitting next to him. “A very experienced serving officer in the NYPD. We like to come at these interviews from both angles. I’m sure you understand.”