Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy)

by T. V. LoCicero

  “Let this tragic event resolve the spirit in each of us to re-double our efforts to save our community and our children, so the cruel and vicious death of this innocent young girl shall not be in vain.”

  “Teach us, Jesus!” sobbed the woman in front of Catherine Monelli. John glanced at Susan Cole, who, like many of the others, was weeping.

  “With this fervent hope, Almighty God, we render the spirit of Thy good and faithful servant Lissa unto the bosom of Thy loving embrace for all eternity, Amen.”

  Several others echo the minister’s “Amen.”

  A few minutes later, two workmen in muddy clothes, who had been standing under a nearby tree, were at the graveside and prepared to lower the plain wooden casket. Joe Martino, hugging his two-year-old daughter in the wheelchair, moaned with bitter anguish.

  “No, Lissa!”

  The two-year-old began to wail, and Joe’s sister took the child from him to soothe and quiet her. His brother-in-law, holding a single red rose, handed it now to Joe to place on the casket. Joe struggled to get up from the chair, but, even as Frank tried to help him with a hand supporting his elbow, the grieving father finally thought better of it. He settled back into the chair and handed Frank the rose.

  As their eyes met, both men had tears on their cheeks. Frank placed the rose on the casket, then folded his hands and bowed his head as the casket sank slowly into the grave.

  With the service complete, the brother-in-law moved behind the wheelchair to roll Joe away, and the others were walking now over wet grass toward a line of cars on the cemetery road.

  John and Susan were moving also, still sharing her umbrella, but they stopped to watch and listen as Catherine Monelli walked up to Joe, as the brother-in-law stopped the chair.

  “Mr. Martino, I just want you to know,” said the blond woman, bending stiffly to place a hand on the black man’s arm and look into his reddened eyes, “there are many of us in the community who share your grief.”

  Joe stared at the woman seemingly without comprehension but finally nodded. His sister, holding both the two-year-old and an umbrella, offered a puzzled frown and said, “Thank you.”

  Taking advantage of the awkward moment that followed, Frank move up to hold Joe’s hand one more time. “Joe, I know what it’s like to lose a child. There’s nothing worse. My heart goes out to you and your family. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  Joe nodded and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he managed to say, “Thank you for coming.”

  His sister added, “Frank, you bein’ here means a lot to us. Thank you for the kindness in your heart.”

  Frank looked at her and then at the 2-year-old who was staring at him with wide eyes. He touched the child’s cheek. “Thank you. But seriously, please get in touch if I can help in any way.”

  The sister thanked Frank one more time before turning to follow her brother in the wheelchair as everybody headed for their cars. Catherine Monelli watched for a moment as the group moved away, then she walked toward a large gray BMW.

  Frank and Fay were walking next to John and Susan. The four exchanged glances and nods. Drying her eyes with a tissue, Susan asked John, “Did you know her?”

  “Lissa? Yes, I was her homeroom teacher. How about you?”

  Susan nodded. “I work with the family for Social Services. She was one of the sweetest, brightest little girls I’ve ever met.”

  “She was probably the best student I’ve had. That preacher said the right words, but it all seems so damn hopeless.”

  “I know.”

  “I have 13- and 14-year old boys and girls who sell crack and heroin on the street and who some days make more money than I do. How can I tell them to keep their noses clean so that one day they can get a job at McDonald’s?”

  From the corners of his eyes he glared at her and added, “It’s a fucking plague on this city.”

  Susan simply nodded, and Frank entered the silence that followed. “Hi, I’m Frank DeFauw with Channel 5, and this is my special projects producer Fay Banks.”

  The four of them stopped walking. “Hi, Frank, I’m Susan Cole.”

  “John Giordano.”

  Frank shook hands with each. “We’re working on a special, a documentary really, on kids and dope in this town, and we’d love to talk to you about the problem. I think your perspectives on it would be really valuable. Don’t you, Fay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So how about giving us your phone numbers, and we’ll get back in touch and set something up?”

  Susan asked, “You mean on camera?”

  Fay said, “Well, we’d talk first, and then if you’re comfortable, we’ll do it on camera.”

  “I work for the county, so I’d have to clear anything on camera, but I’ll talk to my boss.”

  Frank said, “Great. How about you, John?”

  John turned his gaze away but said, “Yeah, probably.”

  Frank took the umbrella from Fay. “Okay, good.”

  Fay pulled a pen and reporter’s notebook from her purse and took their phone numbers.

  A minute later, when John and Susan stopped in front of the Camaro, he asked, “You think he’s serious?”

  “Frank? Probably. He seemed genuine about it.”

  “I guess.” He gestured toward the car. “This is mine. Thanks for sharing the umbrella.”

  Susan smiled. “Nice ride.”

  John shook his head. “I can’t afford it. I live in a dump so I can make the payments on it. But I wanted those kids to see that somebody besides a pimp or a pusher can drive a nice car. I must be an idiot.”

  “I don’t think so.” She smiled again.

  “Well, see ya. Thanks again.” John ducked from under the umbrella, dodged quickly through the rain to his car and climbed in.

  She gazed after him as he drove away, then moved toward her Rabbit. Joe Martino’s brother-in-law was struggling to get him from the wheelchair to the backseat of an old black Buick. With one last glance back at the gravesite, she saw the workmen filling the hole where Lissa’s body had been placed.

  Chapter 10

  On the large studio camera pointed at Frank DeFauw, the words he had pounded out earlier in the evening were scrolling on the mirror that sent them across the lens and allowed the anchor to look straight at his million-souled audience and speak as if he were just now formulating these sad and angry thoughts. Next to the sign-off goodbyes, this was the last item in the teleprompter and had been teased throughout the newscast.

  “I went to a funeral today,” said Frank, “the funeral of a beautiful young girl just 13-years-old and with her whole life in front of her. And what a promising young life it was. She had these bright almond eyes and a smile that lit up the world. Smart as a whip and an excellent student, she was loving to her father and her baby sister, and warm-hearted to all her friends at the Lincoln Middle School in southwest Detroit.

  “But as Lissa Martino grew up brimming with hopes and dreams in one of this city’s many troubled neighborhoods, she had no idea her days were numbered. And a few mornings ago, as she was delivering the Free Press with her dad, she was brutally cut down in a hail of bullets and died in the street.

  “Now no parent, but especially one as caring and devoted as Joe Martino has been with his two little girls in the wake of his wife’s death from cancer last year, should have to attend such a funeral. And no city, certainly not one with the proud and remarkable history of Detroit in the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth, should have to bury a lovely young child it failed to nurture and protect.

  “So who was responsible for the cruel and pointless murder of Lissa Martino? Who do we blame, so that, at least for some of us, the intolerable becomes somehow more acceptable, or more easily forgotten?

  “Well, of course, there’s the kid who pulled the trigger, barely two years older than Lissa herself, and already sent through Juvenile Court no less than three times.

  “The boy was
on assignment, folks, just doing his job, protecting what neighbors all knew to be a busy dope pad, guarding it from members of a rival drug gang, who were reportedly coming to fire bomb the place. Don’t leave, not even for a second, he was told, or you’ll end up with your head full of holes. And so after killing little Lissa, thinking she was carrying not a Free Press but a bomb, he was still cowering in a corner when the cops arrived.

  “So maybe blame the gang who put that boy in the house? Or the gang who threatened to burn it down? Or their big-time suppliers living no doubt posh and comfortable lives in one of our safe and beautiful burbs?

  “Or how about our under-funded and over-stretched police force who can’t seem to wage an effective war even when everyone on the block knows where the enemy is?

  “Of course the cops take their cue from our city’s politicians who have for so long turned a blind eye to the corruption and corrosion of illicit narcotics. As it destroys the social and moral fabric of this town, their motto seems to be, ‘To hell with the public trust. Just let me get mine.’

  “Then we have those state leaders who seem happy to look the other way and leave this poor, debt-ridden place, once revered and respected as the Paris of America, to its own collapsed tax base and hopelessly inadequate resourses.

  “Count in all those suburbanites who wouldn’t be caught dead setting foot south of Eight Mile or those who only hop into town to cop a quick fix.

  "And, yes, certainly add our auto execs, those erstwhile captains of an industry that helped to create the most potent economic engine the world has ever seen, and who then allowed their thinking to become so hide-bound, timid and stale that they let the Europeans and the Japenese waltz right in here and eat our lunch.

  “Let’s see, who am I missing? Well, surely our desperately inadequate city schools, run by administrators who care not a whit about the future of our children, sacrificing their education to a bureaucratic order that protects the jobs of incompetents, passes over talented and devoted young teachers, and lines their own pockets while they sit around and push paper.

  “And what about this city’s church leaders who, instead of pushing for change, spend most of their time finding sweet words to mollify their suffering congregants while sidling up to their political brothers for some mutual advantage.

  “Oh, yes, and how about all those gun advocate idiots who are perfectly pleased with a system that ends up putting a .9mm killing machine in the hands of any 15-year-old who wants one.

  “Finally, you didn’t think I’d let all of us in the news media off the hook, did you? Without question, newspapers, TV, radio, you name it, we have all too often covered these tragic stories, less to shine a light than to exploit the sensational, as a way to run up our numbers.

  “Yes, folks, for the senseless, heartbreaking murder of Lissa Martino there seems to be more than enough blame to go around. And, from where I sit, none of us gets a pass.

  “We can all share the blame for the terrible loss of this beautiful little girl’s hopes and dreams. The bloody fact is, we should all be ashamed of ourselves.”

  Chapter 11

  On a warm afternoon after school he climbed the steps of a large frame house, its dirty gray paint badly flaking, its porch in serious disrepair. He carried a file folder and checked the address against a slip of paper in the folder one more time before he pushed the doorbell button. No sound came from inside the house. He pushed the button again with no response and finally knocked loudly on the broken screen door. After another wait, the inside door opened, and a small Hispanic girl appeared holding a baby about six months old sucking on a nippled bottle half-filled with water.

  “Hey, Maria, how you doing?” A smell came at him from inside. Maybe mildew?

  “Okay, fine.” Maria was clearly surprised and nervous about finding her teacher at the door.

  “We missed you at school today.” He smiled, trying to seem less threatening.

  “Yeah, I had to take care of my little brother.” She nodded toward the boy she was holding on her hip. He watched John with large brown eyes, the nipple still in his slack mouth.

  “So what’s this guy’s name?”

  “Alex.”

  “Hey, Alex, com’esta?” John winked at the baby, whose expression didn’t change. Finally, he asked, “Maria, is your mom home?”

  Maria hesitated. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Could I come in? I just need to talk to her for a couple minutes.”

  “Well...” More hesitation. “I guess.”

  “Great, it’ll only be a couple minutes.” John opened the screen door and stepped inside. The smell was now a stench—urine, he decided—that filled the large front room. The place was a mess. A dirty brown rug littered with popcorn and taco chips, torn magazines strewn about, soiled, thread-bare furniture. In one corner, though, a new 30-inch Panasonic offered cartoons. Carrying the baby, Maria moved to a closed door off the front room and knocked.

  “Mama?”

  No answer. She finally turned the knob and opened the door. What John saw through the doorway made him want to turn away. Instead, he stared at a stick-thin black man nodding on a bare mattress on the floor and, on a filthy couch, Maria’s mother about to use a syringe on a white woman in her 20s and obviously pregnant.

  “Maria, what you want?” snapped her mother, who then caught a glimpse of John standing in the front room. “Close the door! I come out.”

  Maria pulled the door shut. She and John glanced at each other but said nothing. The baby dropped his bottle on the dirty carpet, and Maria picked it up and put it back in his mouth. She stood with John in front of the TV. With no idea what to say to his student, he watched the Smurfs.

  Finally, the door opened. Maria’s mother slipped into the room, closing the door quickly behind her. A heavy-set woman in an old dress ripped at the seams, she ignored John and moved directly to Maria, taking the baby to hold him as she dealt with her daughter.

  “How many time I told you, don’t bother me when I workin’? And don’t never let nobody in this house less you know ‘em.”

  “Mama, this is my teacher, Mr. Giordano.”

  John spoke up quickly. “Hi, Mrs. Mendez. I have Maria in home room over at Lincoln.”

  “I don’t care who,” said Mrs. Mendez, still ignoring John. “You don’t let nobody in this house without my lookin’ at ‘em first.” Finally she turned to John. “Now, what you want?”

  “Well, Mrs. Mendez, I haven’t seen you at Lincoln for any of the parent-teacher conferences, so I thought I’d stop by and talk to you for just a few minutes about Maria’s progress in school. I can come back again if this isn’t a good time.”

  “Have no time for no conference. Report card say she do okay.”

  “Yes, but lately she’s missed so many days of school that I’m afraid she’s going to have to attend summer school in order to catch up. Now Maria is a very bright girl, as I’m sure you know. And I’ve brought along some of the papers she’s written for me in English class, just to show you what a fine writer she can be.”

  “If she so good, why she need more school?”

  “Well, she’s just missed so many days and so many assignments. She’s just not going to be ready to start high school next fall, if she doesn’t go to summer school. Here, let me show you some of these themes, and you’ll see she’s got real potential.”

  Mrs. Mendez hiked the baby on her hip. “I don’t have no time to read. You say they good, I believe. Then why she need summer school? And she don’t really miss that many days. I workin’ all the time. I need help with the baby some days, and she stay home.”

  “But Mrs. Mendez, I...”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I ain’t gonna talk to you about this now, cause I ain’t got time. I talk to principal. He understand.”

  He smiled. “The principal, Dr. Carter, is a woman, and she’s likely to be less understanding than I am.”

  “Whatever she be. I got business goin’ now, so you leave.”<
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  She moved toward the front door, and he followed. “All right, Mrs. Mendez, I hope we’ll see you at school for a visit real soon.”

  “You see me okay.” Mrs. Mendez pushed the screen door open for him. “Real soon.”

  “Bye, Maria.” He waved back at the girl standing alone in the front room. “See you tomorrow.”

  Walking to the Camaro, he thought of the beautifully-kept bungalow he grew up in just across the city, but worlds apart from this horrid excuse for a home. A happy childhood for him with a five-minute walk to his grade school at St. Clare’s and all his friends close by in the neighborhood.

  Until the day when his warm, indulgent mother had turned into something akin to the fierce Mrs. Mendez on the subject of where he would go to high school. Somehow she had decided that her very smart son would have nothing less than the best, a Jesuit education, and that meant a daily 40-minute bus ride to and from the male-only University of Detroit High School on the other side of the city. God, four years of those interminable bus rides, while all his buddies were riding a few minutes up Mack avenue to Austin Catholic Prep.

  He would spend much of his time on the bus watching for kids walking to and from school in the many neighborhoods along the way. Looking for the same kids everyday and fantasizing about their lives, trying to imagine the homes they lived in.

  Nothing he had thought up had ever come close to Maria Mendez’s home.

  Chapter 12

  “‘You see me okay. Real soon.’” John mimicked Mrs. Mendez as he urged the Camaro past several decayed and ravaged homes. “Fuck!”

  Leaving the residential street, he turned onto Fort, a wide old thoroughfare that offered a view of the tall gray office buildings downtown a few miles to the east. Actually, though they could see it, he knew that some of his students had never even been downtown. They had never been out of out their own neighborhood. This was their whole world—a tough, ugly, depressing strip with lots of boarded up storefronts, a number of burned out buildings and a few small stores painted in gaudy colors and struggling to stay alive.