Between Love and Duty

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He might get a stress reliever after all, he thought with black humor.

  Duncan didn’t lower the recliner; it might have creaked. Instead he reached for his weapon, which he’d earlier dropped on the side table along with his badge, and eased himself out of the chair. The fact that he’d kicked off his dress shoes was good. He could move far more silently in stockinged feet.

  He used the light filtering in the front window to cross the living room without having to feel his way. The further tinkle of glass told him the intruder was brushing shards from the frame before climbing in. Or while climbing in. He knew it was the window in the utility room. Any second he’d hear…

  Thud.

  He’d left the wicker hamper of dirty clothes right in the middle of the small room. So his intruder didn’t have a flashlight, or hadn’t turned it on yet.

  Duncan slipped down the hall and stationed himself to one side of the open doorway to the utility room. What he wanted to know was whether he had one trespasser, or more.

  A dark shadow passed him. After a moment, he risked a look into the utility room. His vision was well-adjusted to the lack of light. Empty.

  One, then.

  He tracked the figure creeping down the hall then moved with a couple of long strides. Duncan slammed into the intruder and took him to the floor, where he held him down effortlessly and pressed the barrel of his gun against his neck.

  “Police,” he barked. “You’re under arrest.”

  “What the…?” A string of obscenities followed in a voice that was high enough that, for a moment, Duncan believed he’d just flattened one of the rare women who did breaking and entering. The next second, he thought in disgust, Oh, hell. It’s a kid.

  “Hands behind your back,” he snapped, and grabbed both wrists when the boy obliged. Scrawny wrists. He realized the body he was holding down wasn’t very big. “All right, push yourself to your knees. That’s right. We’re getting to our feet.” He helped—roughly. He nudged the kid a short ways until they reached the light switch. “Face the wall,” he ordered. “Put your hands flat on the wall.”

  He turned on the light and was momentarily blinded. He didn’t like that, but his intruder cringed from the brightness, too. Duncan waited until he could adequately see what he’d caught, then growled a profanity of his own.

  “How old are you?”

  Cheek ground against the wall, the Hispanic boy glared at him and stayed mute.

  Duncan gave him a little shake. “Tell me.”

  The boy muttered something. Duncan shook him again.

  “Twelve.”

  Well, damn. He hadn’t caught even a small fish tonight. This was a minnow.

  Book the kid? Call the parents? What if there weren’t any?

  He barely stifled a groan. Decision time.

  THE BUILDING, DIVIDED INTO perhaps eight or ten apartments, was predictably ramshackle. Clapboard siding needed paint. Parking for tenants was on the street or in a very small dirt lot to one side, which was also home to a rusting hulk on cinder blocks. Another car, apparently ailing, had its hood up. Three men were bent over the engine. One had pants hanging so low, Jane Brooks could see way more than she wanted to. When she parked at the curb, another of the men glanced over his shoulder, but with a conspicuous lack of real interest.

  She checked the folder on the passenger seat to verify the address. Yep, this was it. Number 203 was presumably upstairs. There was only one entrance, although fire escapes clung precariously to each end of the apartment house which, to her eye, didn’t stand quite square.

  She’d been in worse places.

  Jane locked her car and made her brisk way in, nodding and greeting a very young, very pregnant woman who was trying to maneuver into one of the downstairs apartments a playpen that didn’t quite want to fold the way it was supposed to. Jane held the door, smiled and chatted briefly in Spanish. She was lucky she’d taken it in high school. Currently, one-third of the kids in the local school district were Hispanic, up to half in two of the elementary schools, where instruction was in Spanish in the mornings, in English in the afternoons. She didn’t quite consider herself fluent, but she was getting there, what with her volunteer work at the alternative high school and then with the Guardian ad Litem gig.

  She was acting today as a court-appointed Guardian ad Litem. Her task was to interview the adults involved, or potentially to be involved, in the life of a boy named Tito Ortez. Tito’s father was soon to be released from the Monroe Correctional Complex, and the judge would have to determine whether Tito could be returned to his custody. At the moment, the boy lived with his older sister, one Lupe Salgado, whose address this was. Eventually Jane would talk to Tito’s father, of course, Tito himself and perhaps even teachers. His report card suggested he wasn’t doing well in school.

  The stairwell and hall were shabby but surprisingly clean. Upstairs she rapped firmly on the door displaying an upright metal 2, a listing 0 and a 3 that hung upside down.

  “Venga,” a voice called, and after only a momentary hesitation Jane opened the door to find herself in a cramped living room.

  Two young, black-haired children sat in front of the television, on which a small green dragon seemed to be trying to puff dandelion seeds but was, to his frustration, setting them on fire. Both children turned to stare at Jane. The girl stuck her thumb in her mouth. An ironing board was set up in the narrow space between a stained sofa and the wall. A Formica table with four chairs and a high chair was wedged into the remaining space. The spicy smell of cooking issued from the kitchen.

  Jane raised her voice enough to be heard in the kitchen. “Hola. Me llamo Jane Brooks.”

  A woman appeared, wiping her hands on a dish towel and looking flustered. “Sí, sí. I forgot you were coming. Perdone.” In a flurry of Spanish too fast for Jane, she spoke to the children, then gestured Jane into the kitchen. She was cooking, she explained, and couldn’t leave dinner unattended.

  She did speak English, but not well; Jane made a mental note that living in a non-English-speaking household probably wasn’t helping Tito’s school performance. Jane and the boy’s sister continued to speak in Spanish.

  Jane was urged to sit at a very small table with two chairs while her hostess continued to bustle around the kitchen.

  “You’re Lupe?” she asked, for confirmation, and the young woman nodded.

  Like the pregnant teenager downstairs, she had warm brown skin, long black hair and eyes the color of chocolate. She was pretty, but beginning to look worn. Plump around the middle, and moving as though her feet hurt.

  Jane knew from the paperwork that Lupe was twenty-three. There had been other children born between Lupe, the oldest, and Tito, the youngest, but they were either on their own and unable to help with Tito or were in Mexico with their mother. Tito, Lupe explained, had stayed with his father because Mama thought as a boy he needed a man.

  She shrugged expressively. “Then, one year after Mama returns to Mexico, Papa is arrested. So stupid! I called Mama, but she is living with an uncle and it is very crowded. So she begged me to keep Tito. Which I’ve done.”

  As if this household wasn’t crowded. “You have children of your own,” Jane said, with what she thought was some restraint.

  “Sí, three. The little one is napping.” She stirred the black bean concoction on the stove. “My husband, he left me.” She sounded defeated.“I work at La Fiesta and a neighbor watches the children. I can’t depend on Tito. Maybe if he was a girl.” She shrugged again.

  “Do you visit your father at the prison?” The Monroe correctional institute was nearly an hour’s drive away.

  “Sometimes.” Lupe sent her a shamed glance. “The money for gas… You know how it is. And my children have to come, too. I take Tito when I can, but it upsets him, so maybe it is good that we don’t go often.”

  Jane nodded. Having a parent in prison was difficult for a child of any age, but for a middle schooler it must be especially traumatic. He wouldn’t
be the only kid in the school with an incarcerated parent, but he probably felt like he was.

  “Is Tito any trouble to you?” she asked, and got a guarded response.

  No, no, he was such a good boy, Lupe assured her, but then admitted that she didn’t see much of him. She worked most evenings; tonight was a rare night when she was home with her children, and she didn’t know where Tito was. With a friend, she felt sure. Would he be home for dinner? She didn’t know, but doubted it.

  They talked for half an hour, until Lupe was ready to put dinner on the table and Jane realized she was in the way. She declined a polite invitation to join them and told Lupe she’d be in touch.

  She was almost out the door when Lupe said, “Oh! I forgot to tell you about the nice policeman who has been spending time with Tito. Do you think you’d like to talk to him?”

  Oh, yeah. She was definitely interested in hearing from him. Unless he was the father of a boy Tito’s age, Jane had to wonder how he’d gotten acquainted with Tito at all.

  “His name is Don…Can Mack…Lack…Land.” Lupe tried to sound it out carefully, but grimaced. “That isn’t right. I have it written down. Un momentito, por favor.”

  She returned with a scrap of paper on which a bold hand had written “Duncan MacLachlan” along with a phone number. With a small shock, Jane recognized the name. Captain MacLachlan was regularly in the news. He was the unlikeliest of all mentors for a twelve-year-old boy.

  Jane copied the phone number and thanked Lupe, then, thoughtful, made her way to her car. Aside from the intriguing and possibly worrisome involvement of Captain MacLachlan, she wasn’t surprised by the visit, but she was dismayed. Clearly Tito couldn’t stay long-term with his sister. He might have been better placed in a foster home while his father was behind bars, but there were never enough good foster homes, and he’d been lucky to have a family member willing to take him. Lupe’s husband had probably still been around, too. Jane could understand why the placement had been approved, probably with a sigh of relief and a firmly closed file.

  She drove a couple of blocks, then pulled over to make notes while her impressions were fresh. She jotted questions and directions to herself, too. What about the other siblings—perhaps one of them was now in a better position to offer a home to Tito? Find out what friends he was spending so much time with. Imperative to talk to teachers. Did he go to the Boys & Girls Club? After-school programs? Probably not at his age. Any other community organizations? She had no record that he’d been in trouble with the law, but she’d find out. Reading between the lines of what Lupe had said, Tito was ripe for exactly that. MacLachlan? she wrote in the margin. Was Tito in a juvenile court-ordered program of which the family court remained unaware?

  The father’s release date was only two weeks away, and Jane wanted to have a good sense of other possibilities for the boy before then. And, of course, she would make the trip to Monroe to speak with Hector Ortez. She had to do all of this around running her own business, however.

  Lucky, she thought wryly, she had no social life to speak of.

  Driving home, she tried to recall what she knew about Duncan MacLachlan. She’d never read or heard anything to make her think he was “nice.” Although that wasn’t fair.

  In the department, he was only one step below the police chief. He was exceptionally young to be in that position, still in his thirties, Jane had read. He looked older, she’d thought when she saw his picture in the paper or brief segments from press conferences on the local news. That might only be because he was invariably stern. If he ever smiled, the press had yet to capture the moment.

  She was a little disconcerted by how easily she recalled his face. She did remember staring at a front page photo of him in the local daily. She’d left that section of the newspaper lying out on her table for several days for reasons she hadn’t examined but had to admit, in retrospect, had involved a spark of sexual interest. Not that she would have pursued it even if she’d met the guy in person—he was so not the kind of man she would consider dating even though courthouse gossip said he was unmarried. But that face…

  The photo wasn’t from one of his staged appearances; she suspected it had been taken with a telephoto lens, as he strode away from a crime scene. He was listening to something another man beside him was saying. His head was cocked slightly and he’d been frowning, more as if he was concentrating than annoyed. His face was…harsh. It might be the seemingly permanent furrows between his dark eyebrows and on his forehead that aged him. She’d had the probably silly idea that he could have been a seventeenth-century Calvinist minister—unbending, judgmental, yet unswervingly conscious of right and wrong.

  Those Calvinist ministers probably hadn’t had shoulders like his, though, or the leashed physical power that his well-cut suits didn’t disguise.

  So, okay, she’d never heard anything to make her doubt his integrity, but that still begged the question: why in heck was he interested in Tito Ortez?

  On the notepad, she circled his name. Twice.

  She would most definitely be finding out what he had to do with a rather ordinary boy whose father was about to be released from prison.

  “SEE IF YOU CAN MATCH that shot,” Duncan taunted, bouncing the basketball to the boy. He used the ragged hem of his T-shirt to wipe sweat from his face as he watched Tito move into position inside the free throw line and concentrate fiercely on lining up his shot. It was probably too far out for him; he was small even for his age and his arms were scrawny, but he didn’t like to fail, either. Duncan had come to feel a reluctant admiration for his determination.

  He bent his knees, the way Duncan had taught him, and used his lift to help propel the ball when he released it from his fingertips. It floated in a perfect arc and dropped through the hoop, barely ruffling the net.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Tito did a dance, and Duncan laughed.

  “Very nice.” He held up his hand for a high five, and the boy slapped it. “I’m being too easy on you.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” Tito admitted. “It stays light so late. Now that I have my own ball.” Duncan had given him one. “There’s hardly ever anyone here in the evening. I have the court to myself.”

  They played soccer, too, and Tito was better at that, but for reasons mysterious to Duncan the boy was determined to become an NBA-quality basketball player. His father, he had admitted, was only five foot nine, and his mother was little—he’d held up a hand to estimate, and Duncan guessed Mama wasn’t much over five foot tall—but he was going to be bigger than his father. He was sure of it. And he could be a point guard—they didn’t have to be as tall, did they?

  No, but Duncan suspected that six feet tall or so was probably a minimum even for the high school team. Still, Tito was only twelve, and who knew? He might have a miraculous growth spurt. No matter what, he might excel in PE, and being good at anything could make a difference to him right now.

  Besides…they were enjoying their occasional evening hour or Sunday afternoon on the concrete basketball court behind the middle school, or on the soccer field. Duncan often suggested pizza afterward, or sometimes a milk shake. Tito was slowly opening up to him, although Duncan was still unclear why he lived with his sister and where his parents were. He occasionally wondered uneasily whether the family might be here illegally; perhaps the parents were around, but avoiding the cop who was inexplicably befriending their son. He couldn’t be sure and had decided from the beginning that he wouldn’t go out of his way to find out.

  Looking cocky, Tito passed the ball to him. Duncan drove in for a layup, easily evading the boy’s feint at him. Tito tried to copy the move and thumped the ball against the backboard nowhere near the iron hoop. Scowling, he retreated and tried again, and again.

  Duncan’s cell phone rang. Irritated, he jogged over to where he’d left it outside the painted line on top of his sweatshirt. It was displaying a number he didn’t recognize. He almost didn’t answer, but a glance told him Tito was occupied, yelli
ng at himself as he dribbled away from the hoop, then turned to begin a new drive.

  Duncan answered brusquely, “MacLachlan.”

  A very feminine voice said, “Captain, my name is Jane Brooks. I’m a Guardian ad Litem for the family court. I understand you know Tito Ortez.”

  His gaze went straight to the boy, leaping to rebound another missed shot. Tito looked at him in inquiry, and Duncan held up one finger. Tito nodded and dribbled the ball in for another attempted layup.

  “Yes,” Duncan said. “May I ask what your interest is?”

  “As I said, I’m…”

  “A Guardian ad Litem,” he interrupted. “I get that.” And didn’t like what his gut was telling him. Tito hadn’t said anything about being involved in a custody dispute. Unless this had to do with the sister’s children? Guardian ad Litems were always appointed to be a child’s advocate—in fact, they were deemed the one person involved in a court case whose sole concern was the best interests of the child. “Does the case involve Tito?”