Physical abuse. Two children, both boys: Devon, aged two, and Kordell, aged twelve. Kordell’s stepfather, Isaiah Banks, beat him with a belt less than two months after his release from prison for probation violation on an earlier assault charge.
Sabre didn’t like that the boys had to be separated, but Kordell was living with his paternal grandmother and she wasn’t yet certified to take in a non-relative child. The social worker was working on that, but Isaiah, Devon’s father, was fighting the placement. It appeared the only way these brothers would be together was if the mother were able to get them back. Unfortunately, the mother was so determined to have her man that she had lost sight of what it was doing to her children. This frustrated Sabre. She felt sorry for women in this position because she knew it wasn’t easy, but she felt worse for the children. They were the ones who suffered the most.
The street was quiet and almost eerie, Sabre thought, as she exited her car and walked across the sidewalk to the fence. None of the neighbors were outside their houses and only one car had passed down the street since she had arrived. The gate, although unlocked, stuck and Sabre had to lift it and push hard with her body to open it. It squeaked as she pushed it forward, and she hesitated before stepping inside in case there was a watchdog around. When none came forward she closed the gate behind her and walked the eight or ten steps toward the house. A single stair lead to the front door. She stepped up on it and rang the doorbell.
A heavyset, African-American woman opened the door. After Sabre introduced herself, the woman smiled and said, “I’m Mrs. Walker, Kordell’s grandmother. Please come in.”
Sabre followed the woman inside.
“Have a seat,” Mrs. Walker said and motioned toward the sofa in front of the window. “I’ll get Kordell.”
“I have a couple of questions for you first, if you don’t mind.” Sabre sat down next to an end table with several framed photos, her back to the window.
“Sure,” the grandmother said and took a seat in a chair opposite Sabre.
“How has Kordell been doing since he came here?”
“He’s doing just fine. He’s a good boy, a lot like his father when he was that age. He even looks like him.” She pointed to a photo on the end table. “That’s my son when he was just a couple years older than Kordell.”
Sabre picked it up and looked at it. She didn’t really see any physical resemblance, but perhaps her reference was to his behavior.
“Tell me about Kordell’s father,” Sabre said. She set the photo back down.
“You already know he’s serving time. And I’m not saying he shouldn’t be there, but Clay’s a good man, a kind-hearted man. He was a good kid, a real good kid. He never really got into trouble until after high school. He started running with the wrong crowd. Same old story. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. It’s no excuse. He made bad choices. Got into drugs—more selling than using, I think, which I suppose is worse in a way.”
Sabre listened as Mrs. Walker continued to try to reconcile her own words.
“He went to prison the first time for possession of drugs. He never had a history of violence. He wasn’t like that. He was very sensitive and hated men who beat their women or children. He loves Kordell, I can tell you that, and he doesn’t think much of Isaiah Banks.”
“Do you know Isaiah?” Sabre asked.
Mrs. Walker nodded. “Yes, I know him. Not well, but he’s from the neighborhood. He’s a few years older than Clay and he hung out with a different crowd. Isaiah is a mean man, always beating people up. He even hit his own mama.”
When Sabre and Mrs. Walker finished their conversation, Mrs. Walker rose. “I’ll fetch Kordell for you.”
Sabre looked around the room. The furniture was old but not yet worn out. No big flat screen TV appeared anywhere in this house. There was only a small television on top of a runner on a rosewood cabinet. The TV was surrounded by more framed photos, mostly of Clay growing up. The cabinet was simple but elegant. Sabre stood up and walked over to it. The grain of the wood was extraordinary and so distinct it drew Sabre to touch it. It felt smooth as glass.
“My father built that,” Mrs. Walker said, as she walked into the room with Kordell. He was following her and tapping away on his Gameboy. “It’s Brazilian Rosewood. Hard to find now. It’s about seventy-five years old. When my father was young he worked for a man who built furniture. He learned from him. That was way before I was born. We didn’t have much growing up, but we always had nice furniture. That’s the only piece left that my father made.”
“It’s beautiful.” Sabre turned to the boy. “Hi, Kordell.”
He paused his Gameboy and stuck it in his pocket. “Hello, Ms. Brown.”
“Come sit with me,” Sabre said and took her seat on the sofa. He followed.
Mrs. Walker turned to leave the room. “I’ll get us all some lemonade,” she said on her way out.
“Are you doing okay here at your grandma’s?” Sabre asked.
“I miss my mom, but Grandma’s good to me. She tells me stories about my dad when he was little and I like that. She makes me do my homework before I can play and she even helps me with some of it. My mom never helped me. Mostly I miss my little brother.” He looked at her with his soulful dark eyes and asked, “Why can’t he live with us?”
“The social worker is trying to make that happen, but your Grandma has to be certified, which means there’s a lot of paperwork before she can have Devon because she isn’t his grandma. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, because we have different dads.”
“Have you seen Devon since you came here?” Sabre asked.
Kordell shook his head from side to side.
“I’ll see what I can do to set up a visit for you.”
Mrs. Walker returned with two mismatched glasses and handed one to Sabre and one to Kordell. Just as Sabre took the glass, she heard a loud noise from down the street that sounded like a firecracker exploding. She instinctively turned her head toward the sound. A louder bang rang out, closer this time.
“Get down,” Mrs. Walker yelled, pulling Kordell from the sofa and onto the floor with a thud. His lemonade flew through the air and landed cold and wet on Sabre’s face and shoulder. The glass crashed as Sabre flung herself to the floor, her glass joining Kordell’s in the pile of broken shards.
A third shot echoed through the air, followed by breaking glass outside and then the front window shattered. Each of them turned their face to the floor as the glass fell like hail in a storm. Sabre wrapped her arm around her head. She heard the thunderous roar of a high-powered engine as a car sped away. Then silence. Sabre lowered her arm and turned her head to her right. She could see Kordell a few feet across the floor, his thin body nearly covered by his grandmother’s. He shifted his face upward and she could see the terror in his eyes. No one rose and no one spoke for what seemed like an eternity.
Sabre scooted slightly so she could see Kordell’s grandmother’s face. The woman’s eyes were closed.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Walker?” Sabre asked, almost in a whisper.
The grandmother opened her eyes. “Just asking the Lord for a little help.”
They continued to lie there for another minute or two. Sabre wondered how long one should stay down after hearing gunshots so close. When sirens broke the silence in the room, Sabre said aloud, “That’s when.”
“What?” Mrs. Walker asked.
“Nothing,” Sabre said. The sirens were on their street. One after another they zipped by the house. Sabre stood up and extended a hand to Mrs. Walker, who had pushed herself up on one knee. Kordell started to get up, but his grandmother told him to stay there. Sabre peeked out through the broken window. Police cars were lining the street. More sirens. More black and whites.
Sabre stepped toward the door.
“I wouldn’t open that if I were you,” Mrs. Walker said in a calm voice that seemed out of place to Sabre. “You might get shot.”
Sabre realized th
is wasn’t the grandmother’s first experience like this. “Does this happen all the time?”
She shook her head. “Lordy, no, but it’s not the first time either.” She looked out the window and then turned to Kordell, who was still lying on the floor. “Kordell, you can get up now.” The little boy stood up and the grandmother wrapped her arms around him. “You okay?”
He nodded his head.
She loosened her hug and pushed him slightly away from her, examining his head and body for cuts. “It’s all okay now. You go to your room. I’ll bring you some more lemonade and your attorney will talk to you in a few minutes.”
Kordell glanced out the window and then darted to his room.
“How many times has this happened here?” Sabre asked, concerned now about the safety of this placement.
“Not this exactly. We had a shooting a couple of years ago a few houses down. A drug deal gone bad. The cops are here a lot for different things. Usually it’s some tough guy beating up his woman, or kids stealing cars or just breaking up stuff. But most of the time it’s pretty quiet here. A lot of folks have been on this street for more than forty years. It’s the newcomers and the renters that are bad.” Mrs. Walker pointed to a chair. “Have a seat. I’ll get us some more lemonade.” She looked around the room at the glass. “I better leave the mess until the cops see it. I’m sure they’ll be showing up shortly.” She stepped toward the kitchen.
Sabre moved to where she could see out the window. The sirens had stopped except for a few in the distance. The house was situated far enough from the street that she could see people outside talking to the officers in blue. Three policemen walked toward the front door.
“Mrs. Walker, the police are here,” Sabre called out.
They knocked and yelled, “Police,” just as Mrs. Walker returned to the living room. She let them inside and they checked the house to see if anyone else was there. Then they questioned each of them about what they had seen. One of them examined the window and appeared to be following the path of the bullet that had broken it. Another officer remained outside the house near the window.
“So you didn’t see anything? Make or color of the car?” Officer Jensen asked.
“No,” Sabre said, “we fell to the floor as soon as we heard the shots.”
“And you, ma’am?”
Mrs. Walker shook her head. “Sorry. All I could think about was protecting my grandson.”
“It was green,” Kordell said from the doorway. “And it had some white writing on the back window like when someone dies.”
“Come here,” the African-American police officer said. His name tag read Jones. Kordell came closer. “You saw the car?”
“I was waiting for Ms. Brown and I saw her drive up. She stayed in her car for a few minutes and a green car passed by.”
“Did you see someone shooting from the car?”
“No, but the street ends down the block. They had to come back, didn’t they?”
The other cop took out his radio and reported the information to his fellow officers.
“Did you see who was in the car?” Jones asked.
“Two guys.”
“What did they look like?”
“I couldn’t see the driver, but the other guy was black. His arm hung outside the window and he looked pretty big and real strong.”
“You mean muscular?”
“Yeah, huge muscles.”
“Did you see his face?”
“Not really.”
“What else can you tell me about the car?” Jones asked.
“It wasn’t that old. I don’t know what kind it was or anything.”
“Could you read the writing on the back window?”
Kordell shook his head. “There were some letters on top.” He made a half circle with his finger forming an arch. “And it looked like a big rose to the side and some words and dates, like one of those stickers on a car about dead people.”
After a few more questions that didn’t glean any more knowledge of the events, the second officer said to Sabre, “You might want to check out your car. There’s been some damage to it.”
Sabre moved quickly toward the window and looked out. “My window is broken,” she said.
“Both of the front windows. The bullet went straight through and probably hit this window as well.” The officer turned to Mrs. Walker. “There’ll be some detectives here shortly who will take a statement from you.” Turning back to Sabre, he said, “You’ll need to speak to them before you leave.”
After the police left the house, Sabre called the social worker to report what happened. Then she sat down for a minute with Mrs. Walker.
“They won’t take Kordell from me because of this, will they?”
“I can’t be certain what the social worker will do. He’ll be here shortly to assess things. We all just want Kordell safe.”
Mrs. Walker looked frightened. Sabre surmised that her fear came not from the gunshots, but from the prospect of losing her grandson. “I just wanted Kordell to be safe from Isaiah. To keep him from getting beat up all the time.”
“Do you think Isaiah could be the one who shot up the neighborhood today?”
“I doubt it. He’s more of an ‘in-your-face’ guy. He has a terrible temper and he likes people to know how tough he is.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Sabre said. She chastised herself for saying that. She didn’t know that for sure, and she hated when people said things like that when they didn’t really know. Sabre stood up. Her hands were shaking. She hadn’t realized until that moment how the events had affected her. She wanted to leave, but she needed to talk with Kordell first. She took a deep breath and went to Kordell’s room to see him.
“Are you okay?” Sabre asked.
“Yeah. It was pretty scary at first, but not as bad as when Isaiah would get mad at me or my mom.”
“What would he do to you?”
“He’d just start whuppin’ on me. He’d grab me by my arm and flip me around and whup me. He’s so big.”
“Did he do that often?”
“Only a few times, but I never knew when it was coming.”
“Tell me about the last time.”
“I got in trouble at school. This bigger kid kept picking on me and pushing me around. Then he started taking whatever he wanted from my lunch. That time, when I tried to stop him from taking my sandwich he pushed me right off the bench. It made me so mad that I choked up, and then he called me a baby and told everyone that I cried. I didn’t. I was just mad.”
“So, what did you get in trouble for at school?”
“I stole a bunch of Jell-O from the school cafeteria and I put it in that big kid’s locker. Someone saw me, I guess, and squealed on me.”
“And then you got in trouble at home for stealing the Jell-O?” Sabre asked.
“No. Isaiah got mad because he said I was a coward and there was nothing worse than a coward. He told me I should have fought like a man and then he started whuppin’ on me.”
Chapter 17
Sabre sat at the bar waiting for Bob to arrive, sipping her blended, Midori Margarita. It had been a rough day, and she wouldn’t be driving since her car sat in the body shop around the corner awaiting new windows. She looked around the bar at the young crowd who frequented the place. It appeared to be mostly college students who were probably there for Happy Hour. The prices were good and it wasn’t far from San Diego State College. More importantly, it seemed to be one of the last places around to still serve a good spread of appetizers for free. The bar jutted out from the wall with three barstools on the end. Then it curved around and extended for another fifteen stools before it turned back into the wall.
From where Sabre sat, on the end barstool closest to the curve, she had a good view of the front door. She watched people enter. Few left. A man about sixty or so came in, still wearing his construction work clothes. He sat at the opposite end of the bar, directly across from her. He must’ve been a regular bec
ause the bartender brought him his beer before he even ordered. Three more young patrons entered through the front door. They quickly found their way to their friends.
The next guest appeared to be more interesting and a little older than the barrage of students. Probably thirty-five, Sabre thought. He was tall, handsome, and sported an expensive-looking black cowboy hat. The cowboy looked around for just a second as if to acclimate himself, then walked toward the bar and took a seat next to Sabre. He didn’t look at her. When the bartender arrived, he asked, “Got any Shiner Bock?”
“No, sorry,” the bartender answered.
“A Bud then.”
The bartender nodded and went to retrieve his beer. The man laid a twenty-dollar bill on the counter.
Sabre found herself staring at the man but thinking of JP. It must be the hat, she thought. He must have felt her looking at him because he turned slowly toward her and said in a strong Texas accent, “Good evening, ma’am.”
“Hi,” Sabre said. “Sorry…er…your hat reminded me of someone.”
“Someone you like, I hope,” he said.
Sabre smiled. “Yes, a good friend.”
“You from these parts?”
“I live in San Diego, but not around here. I brought my car to the shop near here to get a broken window or, windows fixed. I have to leave it because there’s not enough time to fix it today so I’m waiting for my ride.” Sabre didn’t usually explain so much to strangers, but she felt like she owed him for staring.
“You said windows? More than one?”
“Yes, it’s a long story.” She decided that was more than she needed to tell. “Do you live here in San Diego?”
“No, I just have some things to take care of here and won’t be in town long.” The bartender returned with his beer, took the twenty, and walked away. “Say, you don’t know a good lawyer do you?”
“I know a few. What kind of lawyer?” Sabre thought about what he might need. Her first guess was a DUI.
The Advocate's Ex Parte (The Advocate Series Book 5) Page 9
