“Hi Imani, I’m Detective Lee.” She sat at the desk, not opposite Imani, but kitty corner on the left-hand side. Opening up the space. Non-confrontational. Smart. “Can I get you anything else? Another soda? Food?”
“A sandwich?” Imani said, sounding like she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Sure thing. I’ll rustle up a couple of PB and Jays for you. Be right back.”
About the time Imani was getting her sandwiches, the door to the viewing room opened. I turned, thinking I might be able to put in a similar request.
“You!” Donald Beckett rumbled.
Ricco followed him inside. “You two know each other?”
“This man’s the reason my daughter’s in trouble with the police.”
“No,” Ricco said, “your daughter’s not in trouble. She’s helping us with an ongoing investigation.”
Donald stared at me. Clenched his hands. Gave no indication he heard a single word.
“Mr Beckett, I know who you are, and that your brother-in-law could have my nuts without lifting his butt out of his office chair. But, since you gave us permission to speak to your daughter, I don’t have to let you stay here to watch. You’re in here as a courtesy and I can just as easy have you escorted outta here if you’re gonna cause trouble. Got it?”
Pretty impressive, given how easily the Chief could derail Ricco’s career. Donald ignored us both, went and stood next to the window into the interview room, hands spread wide on the bottom ledge.
Ricco winked at me and pantomimed mopping his brow.
Detective Lee’s voice came through the tinny speaker. “Imani, I want to be clear. You’re not being arrested. I just want to sit with you and have a talk to see if you can help us with some things. Is that okay?”
“Uh huh.” She glanced up to the mirror, like she knew she was being watched. “Umm, do I need a lawyer?”
“You can have one if you want but because you’re not being accused of or charged with anything, no, you don’t need one. And please … call me Grace.”
Ricco pulled up a seat, lounged sideways in it, and played with his toothpick.
Detective Lee got the recorder going, stepped through the formalities—date, time, those present, made sure that Imani knew she could leave at any time—and eased them both into a conversation. Understated, calm, professional. Asked Imani about herself, found common points of interest, developed rapport, and got Imani to give several yes answers.
I would have given up long before then.
Or fallen back to pistol-whipping.
“She’s good,” I said to Ricco. “Where’s she from?”
“Sex Crimes. Ed thought it’d be better for Imani to be interviewed by a woman. Less confrontational. Grace is as good as they come.” I nodded. Waited for Donald to weigh in, but the detective was being so kind to Imani, so un cop-like that he didn’t have anything to pick on.
They walked through Imani’s background—Grace had obviously done her homework—and finally moved on to the day in question. Danced around Bradley Wright for a little while before starting to narrow in on Imani’s whereabouts on the day.
Imani stonewalled and trotted out her by now well-rehearsed story.
Grace asked her if there was any reason that she wouldn’t tell the truth to a cop.
Imani said that she would never lie to a police officer.
Grace doubted that, saying that there were plenty of times when it was easier to lie, going on to tell a story of the teenaged yet-to-be-detective lying to the cops so that she wouldn’t get in trouble for stealing a top she wanted, but said the guilt just ate her up inside to the point where she had to get the weight off her chest.
I almost believed it; she was that good. Any other teenager might have swallowed it hook, line and sinker, but Imani had seen more in her short life than most people and her skepticism had proven valuable so far, probably keeping her alive once or twice.
So it took a while longer, Grace gently probing and backing off, circling around and leaving enough space for Imani to feel comfortable. I was starting to zone out and I missed the exact point at which the logjam burst, and she spilled the truth.
“That’s it!” Donald roared. “She knew my rules. That lying bitch will never set foot in my house again.”
Grace glanced up at the mirror and I wondered if Donald’s bass tones had rattled it in its frame.
I grabbed his bicep, shunted him to the back of the room, and leaned my left arm across his throat.
“Shut the hell up.”
He glanced down at Ricco for backup. Ricco raised an eyebrow, swapped sides with his toothpick. Said, “Fuck’s sake, Rafferty. Leave Mr Beckett alone.”
I ignored Ricco, shook Donald’s arm, made him look at me.
“That girl is doing a brave thing right now. By telling the truth, she’s saving another kid’s life today. She knows it’s going to be hard and she’s hoping like hell that you’re not going to find out. Because she’s terrified of what she thinks you’ll do.”
Felt Ricco’s hand on my shoulder. “Rafferty. Don’t make me have to hurt you.”
For the first time I saw the hardness in Donald’s eyes waver. I grabbed that and ran with it.
“That’s right, this girl that you congratulate yourself on saving from her pitiful life, is petrified of what will happen if you abandon her. You’re not going to abandon her, are you, Donald?”
He looked past me, focusing his gaze through the window on his foster-daughter dripping tears onto the table in the other room, and telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Ricco must have seen something, too. I felt his hand drop off my shoulder, heard the squeak of the chair as he sat down again.
I squeezed Donald’s bicep and leaned into him.
“I said, are you, Donald?”
“No,” he muttered, almost sub-sonically. Shook his head, which showed how strong he was, given that I was putting a fair bit of weight across his throat at the time. “No, of course not.”
I let go.
He stood straighter—making no indication I had disturbed him in any way at all—grabbed the other chair, and pulled it to the front of the room to sit and watch Imani as she recounted watching Bradley run into the school during the massacre.
I leaned against the back wall and fired up a pipe.
“Umm,” Ricco said. Pointed at a No Smoking sign.
“What are you gonna do, arrest me for smoking?”
He chuckled, leaned back, and tilted his fedora over his eyes.
It took another hour, with two breaks—one soda, one bathroom—before Grace decided she had all she needed and terminated the interview.
Imani had cried most of the way through it, apologized for lying in the beginning and begged more than once for Grace not to let her foster-father know.
Donald had remained stationery in the chair, shifting his weight only to wipe away his own tears.
Grace left Imani on her own, said that she’d be back in a couple of minutes, with the promise of another soda and maybe a doughnut if she could find one.
The door to our room opened and she stepped inside, followed by Ed.
“Someone been smoking in here?” he said.
“It was Ricco,” I said. “I told him to stop but he wouldn’t listen.”
Grace ignored our attempted comedy routine and introduced herself to Donald and me.
“Most of it’s there,” she said after we were done shaking hands and while she extracted two sodas from a vending machine at the back of the room. “Of course we’ll have to run her through it all again to make sure that the story doesn’t change, and you’ll…”—she swept an arm at Ed and Ricco—“… need to confirm that it matches the evidence. Someone from the DA’s office will also need to hear this, and they’ll have to work out how to handle the fact that she lied in the beginning, which could be interesting if it still goes to court, but that’s not my problem.”
“Mine neither,” Ricco s
aid and then shut up after the look Ed gave him.
“But overall, I’m not getting any red flags. My gut says she’s telling the truth this time.”
She turned back to Donald.
“Thank you, sir. As you no doubt saw, Imani’s concerned about what happens now. It takes a brave girl to do what she did, especially given her background, and that can only happen with good family support. Please make sure she continues to get that. There’s still some hard times ahead.”
Like I said, she was good.
Donald looked like he was about to respond when the door banged open again and the Chief of Police walked through. More politician than cop, he wasted no time in shaking hands and back slapping, congratulating all on a job well-done.
I was conspicuously excluded from the mutual-appreciation society they had going on.
He sidled up to Donald, blew smoke up his ass about what a great job he was doing with Imani and how hard it must have been to convince her to come in and tell her story, and … I’m not sure what else there was.
I’d stopped listening.
The room got awful quiet, and I realized that the Chief had only just noticed me.
“And you are?” he said.
I thought about half a dozen wisecrack remarks but, truth told, I was pretty tired.
“Rafferty. P.I.”
“You’re the one.”
“That’s me.” I flashed him a winning smile.
“I ought to let Lieutenant Durkee run you out of town. The damage you’ve done to the good people of this department.” He shook his head like it was all too much.
Donald was grinning fit to burst behind the Chief’s left shoulder. I was trying to decide between letting the Chief in on a few home truths or stepping around him to pop Donald on the nose, or both, when Ed stepped in.
“Rafferty’s been … uh … somewhat helpful to this case. In … the background, mostly … but still helpful.”
“Right then,” said the Chief. “That doesn’t cut much with me, not after what you did with that stupid newspaper report, Mr Rafferty. I’ll leave it up to the lieutenant, though. You say he helped, fine. But if he’s going to continue to make trouble for the force, Lieutenant Durkee you’ll have my backing to do as you see fit.
“Now, Donald, let’s go get something to eat.”
“Wow,” I said as the Chief led Donald out of the room and Detective Lee took the soda back to Imani. “Thanks for the massive vote of confidence, Ed. Don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to repay you.”
“Keeping your nose out of stuff that it shouldn’t be in would be a good start.”
Ricco raised his eyebrows at me.
“I’ll try Ed, but you know what they say. ‘All care, no responsibility.’”
“Hmmmphh.”
“On that cheery note, I’m out of here.”
And I was.
Drove to Hilda’s, with the usual end of case thoughts and emotions wheeling around in my head.
It was always a weird time for me. Even when I’d managed to get things right, I felt a big let-down. Of course, there were the typical doubts—I’d missed something, the case would fall apart once it was in the DA’s hands, that type of thing—but I’d been doing this long enough to ignore those.
No, the let-down feeling, more of a despondency, I hadn’t yet been able to nail down the genesis of that one. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it to be honest, because I figured that it really meant only one of two things.
That I lived too much for the rough and tumble, I enjoyed the scrap and that I was already mourning the loss of that heady tang of investigation and danger until the next case came along.
Alternatively, it’s possible that I never gave myself credit for helping the people that I did, preferring to remind myself of the ones who slipped through my fingers. And there were a lot who did that on this case.
So I turned my thoughts to happier places, and the car into a liquor store parking lot. Picked up two six packs of Modelo and a bottle of Chardonnay for Hilda.
It was time to celebrate.
Chapter 32
It was a Friday morning five weeks later and we were lying in bed, drinking coffee and reading the morning papers.
Hilda had decided to blow off work for the day and planned to ease our way into a long weekend. If I had any work to blow off, I would have done the same thing, but in my case it was more a matter of everyone having to be somewhere.
Monica Gallo had followed the shooting story through to the end, her latest missive covering the DA’s announcement on the courthouse steps the previous afternoon.
DA’S OFFICE DROPS ALL CHARGES. BRADLEY WRIGHT INNOCENT.
“She sure makes it sound like it was all her idea,” Hilda said.
I looked up from a cartoon where Hobbes was busy tackling Calvin.
“Huh?”
“Listen to this. And I quote, ‘As District Attorney for Dallas, I have always striven for truth and justice, and it pleases me greatly to be able to announce today that, due to recent evidence coming to light, my office is able to dismiss all charges against Master Bradley Wright. It is clear that Kevin McKinley and Randy Wilson acted alone on the day of the Columbus High School shooting and that Bradley was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.’”
“Uh huh.”
“Shush up, there’s more. ‘I would particularly like to thank the hard-working staff of the Dallas Police Department who left no stone unturned to discover the truth behind this heinous crime and for being instrumental in bringing peace and closure to the many dozens of families affected.’”
“All right.”
“I’m not done. ‘And special mention must be made to a brave girl, Imani Laweles, who came forward with information on the case and was critical in helping us to exonerate Bradley Wright. We need more people like Imani in this world. I offer my thanks and predict a bright future for her.’”
I didn’t need to hear it again, had read the whole article while Hilda was still asleep and the coffeepot perked. I thought Hanging Hernandez had neatly sidestepped the whole issue of Imani lying to all and sundry for nearly three weeks.
And the period where she wanted her office to drop the death penalty on an innocent boy.
“Wouldn’t be surprised to hear her announcement of running for the governor’s mansion,” I said.
“There’s nothing in here about that,” Hilda said, “but it wouldn’t be a big shock. The other thing that isn’t in here is any mention of you, big guy.”
“Aw shucks, it t’warn’t nothing.”
“It was too. You’ve changed that boy’s life.”
“Pshaw. The thing that’s really going to change his life is the settlement that Paul’s going to get for making the wrongful imprisonment suit go away. That should set Charlene and Bradley up for a long time to come.”
“Monica doesn’t mention that.”
“That’s an indicator of how tight a lid Maria and Paul have on it, but he assures me that the DA’s office has admitted they will settle, it’s now just a matter of coming up with the figure. Which means …”
“I know, you’ve told me before. But go on, say it out loud again. I know how much of a kick you get fr—”
“I get the Mustang back and I can finally get rid of that stupid-ass Pacer. I just hope Peter works Saturdays.”
“I thought you were going to meet with Bradley and the family tomorrow. That’s when he’s getting out of hospital isn’t it?”
“Uh huh.”
“But you’re not going?”
“Nope.”
“Because …?”
“They don’t need me there, and I don’t need me there. Besides, I need to get down to Peter’s to—”
“You can pick your car up anytime, Rafferty. This boy will only come out of hospital once, and he’s going home instead of to jail. Because of you. You don’t think that’s important?”
“Nope.”
“How …? Why …? Th
ere are times I don’t understand you at all, Ugly.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. Ed’s head nearly came spinning off when he finally worked out that I was trying to help him. He kept thinking I had some sort of inbuilt mechanism for making his life hard.”
“I can see how he’d get to that conclusion. And stop changing the subject. Even if it’s not important to you to be there tomorrow, it will be for Bradley. He owes his life to you.”
“Big deal.”
“It is a big deal. No, don’t start reading the comics again. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s just a job, babe. It’s not like we became best friends.”
“Nice try, and that would probably work with Ed, but it’s me you’re talking to.”
I lay down the newspaper and turned to Hilda. The sun came out from behind a cloud and squirted through a gap in the curtains, the room glowed bright and I could almost identify the colors swirling in her deep, dark eyes.
But they were gone before I could name them. Maybe I would never find out.
“Aw hell, Hil. It’s hard to explain.”
“We’ve got all day. Try me.”
“It’s not just the Wright kid. Once a job is over, and I’ve done whatever I’m being paid to do, I don’t want to be around any of my clients. They might be great people, and if we met under different circumstances, who knows? But I’d rather just keep moving forward and leave them in the rearview mirror.”
She sighed. “That makes no sense.”
I broke eye contact, leaned back against the pillows.
“Never said that it did,” I said after a long pause. “It’s just that …” Hilda knew to wait me out. She also knew that it was just what I needed. “I never told you about Edie Schuster, did I? From high school.”
Hilda leaned her head down on my shoulder and spoke softly. “She was the girl killed in that accident, right?” I nodded. “The girl you said that Patty Akister reminded you of.”
“Okay then. So you know that I felt like shit when she died, ’cause I’d yelled at her in the hallway, embarrassed her in front of the school, and never got a chance to apologize.”
Wright & Wrong Page 25
