Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  “He took her in when her mother was in rehab. And he is her father. Unless he’s willing to give up his parental rights, to become Tina’s guardian, you’ll have to show that he’s unfit.”

  He grumbled. “He’s unfit, all right. I tole’ that court not to let him have her. And what happened? She grew up wild, that’s what. He never gave her no ground rules, no guidance. How fit a parent can a man like that be?”

  It seemed to me Shanae had fallen short in that regard, too. Now was not the time to bring it up. William Jackson had already made up his mind.

  “Have you spoken to Tina’s father about this?”

  “Yes, I’ve spoken to him.” His voice grew stronger. “And the son of a bitch told me to go to hell.”

  “Bad news, Mr. Jackson. The burden is on you to prove he’s an unfit parent.”

  “Well, how hard could that be? With Tina running wild every night and him not lifting a finger to stop her.”

  “You might be able to prove it. Trying to do it now might hurt Tina’s defense in the purse-snatching incident. I intend to emphasize the good things about Tina. I need to steer clear of the issue of her ‘bad friends,’ if at all possible.”

  He was silent a moment. “What does that mean?”

  “It means the cases present a conflict of interest. One I’m not sure I can work around.”

  “I see.” Except for his breathing, he fell silent. “Then I suppose that ends our business.”

  “It would help me a lot if we could keep in touch. I’m concerned about Tina’s welfare. If what you’re saying is true—”

  “Thank you, anyway, Ms. McRae.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help to you. I appreciate . . . Hello?”

  Uncle Bill had already hung up.

  <><><>

  I left a message for Tina to call me. After I hung up, I thought about Ellen Martinez’s comment about Tina going “off the rails.” Maybe she was. Maybe being raised by an angry, overworked mother had spurred her to deviant behavior. With her mother dead, Tina was left with a poor excuse for a father who allegedly forgot her birthdays.

  I strained to remember what it was like to be 13. When I entered my teen years, my parents had been four years dead. Although my life with them in Bed-Stuy had been far from idyllic, loneliness overcame me, as I recalled the void left by their deaths. I shivered and redirected my thoughts elsewhere.

  The memory of my cousin took its place. Addie stepping in like a deus ex machina and whisking me off to live with her in Takoma Park, Maryland, saving me from the tender mercies of life in a New York City foster home. Not that Addie was perfect. Her idea of cooking was adding hot water to Ramen noodles or heating a frozen pizza. And her financial situation was precarious at best. Yet for reasons known only to her, she’d taken charge of me when other relatives hadn’t bothered.

  One of the biggest mysteries of my life concerned my grandparents. Why had they cut and run after my parents died? How come they hadn’t stepped up and taken me in?

  I recall asking Addie. She simply laughed and said, “Your grandparents are assholes. You want to live with assholes?”

  I hadn’t wanted to live with them. I’d never met them, but would have appreciated their occasional attention. I never came to terms with their behavior, why they never bothered to get know me.

  Again, I wrested my attention from the memory. It didn’t matter now. None of it mattered. I had learned how to fend for myself thanks to their negligence. Tina, on the other hand . . . .

  Would juvenile detention help Tina? Would community service or talking to a counselor make a difference? Maybe. One thing I did know: I would fight to get Tina the best deal possible. If I could only figure out what that was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  By the next day, Duvall had run the background checks and found nothing suspicious. Since the records could be out of date, he said he’d recheck them periodically. He found addresses for Darrell Cooper in Philadelphia and Vince Marzetti in Frederick, a historic Maryland town 50 miles north of Washington, D.C. He found no record of ITN Consultants. What a surprise.

  Again, I tried to reach Tina Jackson and was sent to her voice mail. I left a third message and, uncharacteristically, my cell number. Leave a client my cell number? They must be wearing parkas in Hell.

  My next call was to Tina’s guidance counselor at Silver Hill Intermediate School. “Good morning, Frank Powell speaking.” He had the velvet voice of a deejay.

  “Mr. Powell, this is Sam McRae. I’m an attorney representing Tina Jackson, one of your students. I understand you’re her guidance counselor.”

  “I am. What can I do for you, Ms. McRae?”

  “Well, for starters, you can call me Sam. Tina’s run into a bit of legal trouble. I’m hoping to get some background information about her academics, her home life, and her disciplinary record, among other things. I want to confirm a few things she told me.” And, maybe, find out what she didn’t.

  “All right, Sam. I’ll need to run by admin to pick up the disciplinary records, but that’s not a problem. Call me Frank, by the way. I assume you have a signed release from one of her parents?”

  “Yes, I do.” Shanae had signed the release the last time she was in my office. The only time. Before she was bludgeoned to death. “Would it be convenient for us to meet sometime today, Frank?”

  “I have some meetings this morning, but my afternoon’s open, if you want to drop by.” His deejay voice made the invitation sound like an ad for a tire sale.

  “I’ll be there around 1:30 or so.”

  <><><>

  I stopped home for a quick sandwich before heading to the school in Suitland, an inside-the-Beltway D.C. suburb that had seen better days—long before my time. Near the District line, P.G. County is mostly black, mostly poor, and mostly avoided by those who don’t fit that mold. The housing ran to old brick structures squeezed onto tiny lots with scrubby lawns and mid-rise apartment buildings—brick boxes whose windows provided joyless views of cracked macadam lots filled with hoopties of every description, from beat-up compacts to classic pimpmobiles.

  I parked in the school lot. My purple ’67 Mustang, out of place with my peers’ gleaming Beemers and Porsches, blended well with the staff’s economy cars. Feeling a rush of solidarity with hard-working civil servants, I sauntered into the building.

  A security guard escorted me to the main office, where I signed in and got a visitor’s pass. We wove through throngs of uniformed students. Loud voices and laughter echoed off the metal lockers.

  At once, I felt conspicuous—a strange white woman in a suit, the lone white face in the crowd. I flashed back to my childhood in Bed-Stuy. At six years old on my first day at school, I was the only white kid in my class. It provided an excellent training ground for years of not fitting in.

  I shook off the déjà vu, keeping my head high and moving with purpose and confidence, like I belonged there. The way I’d learned in Brooklyn.

  The guidance department was a short walk down the hall. I entered a small waiting area, where two kids sat: one engrossed in a comic book, the other, staring into space, possibly slipping into a coma.

  The door bearing Powell’s name was ajar. I rapped twice.

  “Come in,” the smooth jazz voice said. I did as instructed. A chair squealed and a slim man with milk chocolate skin, warm brown eyes and a toothy smile rose to greet me. He looked to be in his mid-thirties.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Sam McRae?”

  “Good guess.”

  “It wasn’t hard. What can I do for you, Sam?”

  He motioned for me to sit. I showed him my client’s release form—my former client, that is. The dead one. A quick wall survey revealed diplomas, a social worker’s certificate, and personal photos, including a few of the school’s sports teams.

  “Let’s start with Tina Jackson’s disciplinary problems,” I said.

  Powell sighed, leaned back, his hands behind his head. “Tina was always a bit wit
hdrawn. Kept to herself when she first came here. Like a lot of kids with issues at home.”

  I nodded and made a mental note to pursue that point further.

  “Last year, the problems started. Lateness, talking back to teachers. Her grades slipped a little. What kind of legal trouble is she in?”

  “Delinquency proceeding over a purse snatching. She accidentally knocked down the victim and injured her.”

  Powell shook his head. “I’m more than a little concerned about Tina. She’s started hanging with a rough crowd.” He picked up a file and flipped through it. “She was involved in a fight on school grounds. She’s never been in that kind of trouble before.”

  “She hasn’t been in any other fights?”

  “According to the file, no. Not in the two years she’s been coming here.”

  I nodded. This squared with what Tina had told me. So far, so good. “What happened? How did this fight start?”

  Powell consulted the file. “It started between two girls, Lakeesha Robinson and Rochelle Watson. There had been friction between them. It finally erupted, I guess. You could say they’re competitors.”

  “Over what? A boy?”

  He hesitated. “This is going a bit beyond what’s on the record.”

  “It could make a great deal of difference in helping Tina if I knew.”

  Powell appeared to think about it. “Well, don’t quote me, but the word is, Lakeesha’s head of a girl gang called the Most Wanted Hotties. Rochelle formed her own gang called the Pussy Posse. Lakeesha probably sees Rochelle as a threat.”

  “The Pussy Posse?”

  He raised his hands. “I’m not making this up.”

  I shook my head. What it lacked in subtlety, it made up for in alliteration. “How do you know this? About the gangs.”

  “Mainly from the kids, though the security chief keeps an ear to the ground, too. Hell, some of the girls brag about what they’ve done. They’re smart enough to keep it outside school, for the most part. But you’d have to be an ostrich not to know a few of them are doing heavy shit outside these walls.” He gestured around with one hand.

  A loud knock interrupted and a man poked his head in. I got a glimpse of a uniform under the light brown face.

  “I’m busy, Greg,” Powell said.

  “Sorry, man. Catch you later.” The door closed.

  Powell smiled. “Even the janitor can be a source of information.”

  “So this was a gang fight?”

  “If I were a betting man, I’d lay money that’s why it started. Lakeesha felt threatened and decided to assert her dominance. Apparently, when Tina came to Rochelle’s defense, the girls began beating Lakeesha up in earnest. Tina was part of the melee, unfortunately.”

  “And Tina’s in this gang? Rochelle’s gang, that is.”

  “If she’s not in it, she may be trying to get in, based on what you told me.”

  “So the purse snatching may have been a kind of initiation?”

  Powell nodded. “It’s the kind of thing they might require for membership. A test to prove Tina’s toughness to the gang.”

  I took a moment to absorb it. I understood why Tina hadn’t seen fit to share details of the initiation rite. But the prosecutor would learn about it, if she didn’t already know. The information wasn’t helpful to Tina’s case, but the gang connection explained Tina’s behavior. I wasn’t wild about the explanation, but there it was.

  “You’d mentioned earlier that Tina’s had problems at home.”

  “I know her mother’s been through drug rehab and anger management. Tina lived with dad, while mom got her act together. Not an ideal arrangement, from what I hear, but one of convenience. Dad gave her a roof over her head and no discipline to speak of. Now, she’s bounced back into mom’s care and, from what Tina tells me about the hours Shanae Jackson works, ‘care’ is a bit of a misnomer. Tina’s practically raising herself.”

  Powell clucked his tongue and shook his head. “It’s sad, seeing Tina get into trouble like this. She’s a bright kid who deserves better. You know that girl has an IQ of 135? When she started here, her grades weren’t great, but they were good. They’ve been slipping ever since. It doesn’t help that she gets no support at home.”

  “It gets worse,” I said. “Tina’s mother was recently murdered.”

  “No.” His eyes registered shock. “My God. I hadn’t heard that.”

  “I heard only yesterday,” I said. Even news like that took a while to travel, it seemed. I handed him a card. “Thanks for your time.”

  “No problem.” He gave me his in return. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything else, Sam.”

  “Thanks, Frank.” I shook my head. “Pussy Posse. Provocative name.”

  “They’re at a provocative age,” he said. “So many of our kids are sexually active by the time they hit twelve—even younger. A lot of them are having sex parties by that age, believe it or not. Many of them think nothing of slipping into a restroom or a closet to have oral sex.”

  “When I was in middle school, kids were either smoking or selling pot in the restrooms. Times have changed.”

  “Indeed they have,” he said.

  I got up. “Oh, one more thing.” I felt like Columbo. “Do you know if Tina’s here today?”

  “I don’t, but you could check with her home room teacher, Alice Fortune. Room 180.”

  “Thanks again.”

  He nodded and smiled. I made a mental note to keep Frank Powell in mind as a future source of other information Tina might conveniently forget.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I caught Alice Fortune, a short, stout woman with caramel skin and close-cropped black hair, in the middle of a class. I peered through the small window in the door. She read, while the kids bent over their desks in classic test-taking posture. When I tapped on the glass, she strode toward the door, her colorful dashiki-style dress swaying over ample hips. “Keep your eyes on your papers,” she ordered before stepping into the hall.

  “I’m in the middle of a class,” she said, glancing at my pass. “If you have a problem to discuss—”

  “I’m very sorry to interrupt. I have one quick question for you.” I introduced myself and explained what I was doing there. “Is Tina Jackson in school today?”

  As I explained my purpose for being there, her expression changed from irritation to deep concern. She paused and took a breath. “Tina hasn’t been in school all week. I’m worried about that child,” she said. “She’s too smart to be involved in this kind of nonsense.

  “I’m worried about her, too. Her mother was recently murdered.”

  Her hand flew to her chest. She gulped air, her eyes wide. “Lord, no.” She shook her head and murmured, “That’s horrible. Truly horrible. Mind you, I know the woman could rub a person the wrong way. But that’s just tragic. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t been in school. I’m surprised no one told me.”

  “Thing is, her mother’s body was discovered only yesterday, but you say Tina’s been out all week? So she was skipping school before her mother died. And I take it you’ve met Shanae Jackson?”

  “She came to one parent-teacher meeting. Never saw her at another. Tina said she had to work nights.”

  “What did she do to rub you the wrong way?”

  “I’m not saying she did. I’m just saying she could. She was the kind to get attention because she complained a lot, you know? Not to speak ill of the dead, but it’s true.” She glanced back into the room to make sure the class was following orders. “I know she got up a full head of steam when she met with Mr. Powell and Mr. Thompson, after Tina got into that fight.”

  “Who’s Mr. Thompson?”

  “Reggie Thompson is the vice principal. I don’t know if Ms. Jackson was madder at Tina or the school for making her come in. She acted all put out that they wanted her there. I mean, her daughter had been in a fight.” The teacher spoke with a derisive edge that told me exactly how little she thought of Shanae. “Now, I know s
he probably slept late if she worked nights. Still, you’d think she’d want to be involved in something like that. Then, earlier this week, I heard she came back to see Mr. Thompson about something else. I don’t know what that was about.” She shook her head. “All I know is, Tina’s another example of a good kid going bad. I see it all the time.”

  “You seem particularly concerned about her.”

  “She’s brilliant, that’s why.” She gave me a hard stare. “She was in my English class last year. The girl could be an honors student, if she just tried.” She emphasized each of the last four words with a force borne of frustration, sadness, and bitterness. “So many of these kids could be more than what they are. All I can do is try to make it interesting for them. They’re the ones who have to do the work. Some of them do, others . . . .” She sighed. “The whole system makes it impossible to really teach them, anyway. This stupid quiz, for instance.” She waved a hand toward the room full of kids. “All I do is teach them how to take tests. Do they learn anything from it? Sure—how to take tests. Some days, I feel like a damned glorified babysitter, you know?”

  I shook my head, not knowing what to say. “How do you do it?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How do you do this?” I gestured toward the classroom. “Day in and day out.”

  She smiled but without mirth. “Well, it’s not for the money and it’s not for respect. So I guess it must be love.”

  “That’s something, anyway. To love your work.”

  “Fools fall in love, Ms. McRae.”

  <><><>

  For the umpteenth time, I tried reaching Tina on her cell phone. I left yet another message. Before leaving the school, I stopped by the office to ask about Rochelle Watson. Trying to get someone to look up her schedule proved futile. Frustrated, I returned to my office. The insurance company had called with a lousy counter-offer on Dancer Daria’s slip-and-fall. The answers to my interrogatories in the messy divorce still hadn’t arrived.

  I wrote a polite, but firm letter to Slippery Steve, Esquire. Then I called him, only to be shunted to voice mail, where I left a message that he needed to get those answers to me or he could expect a motion to compel discovery—and soon. “Have a nice weekend!” I snapped before slamming the receiver down. “And you better spend it getting those damned answers together,” I grumbled to myself.