by Lis Wiehl
Even though she planned on agreeing, Mia didn’t say anything. She was still ticked at Naomi’s demands.
“And I want immunity for anything Dylan says.”
Immunity meant that Mia wouldn’t be able to use anything she learned from Dylan against him at trial.
“No.” Naomi started to interrupt, but Mia raised her hand. “However, we are prepared to offer a plea bargain if Dylan will freely admit that he and Jackson both participated in this crime, both today and at trial.”
Naomi’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of plea bargain?”
“If he completely cooperates with us, then I am prepared to agree to some type of intensive treatment. Perhaps another stay in a therapeutic foster home.”
Naomi just made a humming noise, then went outside to tell them that they were ready for Dylan to be brought in. When he came into the room, his head hung so low that he was curled over like a comma. He kept his eyes on his black shower shoes scuffing over the worn tiles. His brown hair was cut short enough that his scalp was visible between the bristles.
“Can you tell us your name, please?” Mia didn’t say honey, but it was in the tone of her voice.
“Dylan.”
“And, Dylan, how old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“What grade are you in?”
“Tenth.” His voice was so soft that Mia had to strain to hear it.
“Do you have any siblings?” Mia asked.
“She means brothers and sisters,” Charlie leaned in to explain. Maybe it wasn’t exactly good cop/bad cop, but he was still trying to find an angle.
“There’s ten of us.” Dylan looked up for half a second. His face was blotched with red. “Plus my mom.”
“Things must get kind of crowded at your house,” Charlie said. “Do you ever go out and do stuff with your friends?”
“Sometimes.” He was speaking to his shower shoes again.
“Who do you hang out with?”
“Jackson mostly. And sometimes Manny.”
“And how do you know them?” Mia asked.
“From school.”
“Are you guys good friends?” Charlie said.
Dylan glanced up at them again, and Mia had the sad thought that the two boys were his only friends. “Yeah.”
It was time to cut to the chase. “Dylan, were you with Jackson and Manny on Saturday?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you go?”
He picked at a cuticle, which was already raw. “We took a bus. To a mall.”
“And what did you do there?”
His answer was slower now. “Fooled around.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“We dropped some things over the bridge.”
“What did you drop?”
“Cans. At first.”
“Whose idea was that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“What about the shopping cart?” Mia said. “You were playing with it, right? Giving each other rides?”
He nodded.
“And then you picked it up and balanced it on the railing. Do you remember whose idea that was?”
He was perfectly still.
“Did you try to hold on, Dylan?” Mia offered him an out. “Did it just slip?”
He continued to be silent.
“Look, Dylan, if you can help us, we can help you. If you are willing to testify—”
“To say in court,” Charlie interjected.
“Say in court that this was really someone else’s idea, then things could go much better for you.”
He shook his head. “But they’re my friends.”
“This woman was very badly hurt, Dylan. She didn’t do anything wrong, and now she’s in the hospital.”
“So?” His head jerked up and his eyes were blazing. “I don’t care.”
Mia was shocked. “But what happened hurt her. Hurt her badly.”
“I don’t care,” he repeated.
“She might die,” Mia stammered.
In a warning tone, Naomi said, “Dylan! Stop talking! Now!” She grabbed his arm.
He ignored her. “So? Some rich lady in her clip-clop shoes? Someone like that doesn’t matter to me! Who cares? Who cares about her?”
But Mia heard another sentence beneath his words. Who cares about her when no one cares about me?
“That’s it,” Naomi said, standing up so fast her chair flew back and nearly tipped over. “We’re done here.”
CHAPTER 40
Mia’s mind was still whirling when Eli walked into the room. Had Dylan played more of a role than she had thought? Had he targeted Tamsin deliberately?
She thought back to how Tamsin had been dressed when she was hurt. She was pretty sure the woman had been wearing heels, or “clip-clop shoes” as Dylan had termed them. Had he spotted Tamsin and decided to punish her for being a woman who could afford nice things? For being the kind of woman who looked like she ran the world?
Eli’s greeting was professional, nothing more. Yesterday he might have asked her to brunch, but today they were colleagues on opposite sides of the table. Even if they were seriously dating, however, the law didn’t preclude them acting as prosecutor and defense on the same case. The only rule was that the potential conflict of interest had to be disclosed to the client.
“Eli, do you remember Charlie Carlson?” The two men had met at one of Gabe’s football games. “He’s a detective with the Seattle PD. And Eli Hall is with the public defender.”
Charlie stood up, and unsmiling, the two men shook hands. Mia couldn’t help but contrast them. Charlie with his black tousled hair that nearly brushed the back of his collar. Eli with blond hair cut short as fur. Charlie took his seat again, resuming his customary slouch.
Eli sat with his back ruler-straight, both feet on the floor. He narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t you in the homicide department, Detective?”
Charlie nodded. “That’s right.”
He turned to Mia. “Don’t you think it’s a little prejudicial, having a homicide detective conduct the investigation?”
She blinked, suddenly wishing it had been Eli doing the cross-examination in class Tuesday. Maybe then this side of him wouldn’t have been such a surprise. “This is a preliminary investigation, and Charlie’s working for me. He’s been identifying himself as I did just now, strictly as a member of the Seattle PD. Besides, no one knows yet whether Tamsin will live.” Mia crossed her arms and leaned back. Eli wasn’t the only one who could come out swinging. “To be honest, I’d be more worried about your client, Counselor. He’s got a lengthy juvenile record. He’s charged with a serious offense. And obviously past rehabilitation has been unsuccessful. Everything argues for him being tried as an adult.”
Eli’s mouth tightened. “First of all, there is no proof of intent. None. These were kids just fooling around. The cart slipped from their hands. Jackson had no intention of dropping it on this woman. But it weighs fifty pounds. Once it reached a tipping point, they both lost their grip on it, and then it was too late.”
Charlie sat forward. “You’re trying to tell me that after they watched five cans of Mountain Dew explode on the concrete they had no idea of what that shopping cart—and as you say, it weighs fifty pounds—would do to a woman’s skull?” A muscle in his jaw flickered.
“I’m saying that there is no proof they intended to hurt anyone. If they did, why didn’t they drop those cans on people? They were leaning over the railing, watching what was happening underneath them. They could easily have targeted someone. But they didn’t.”
Eli was painting things in a flattering light.
“They came pretty close, though, didn’t they?” Mia pointed out. “Especially Jackson.”
“That can was still at least ten feet away from anyone. And there was no more malice in what he did than in a kid who puts Mentos in a Diet Coke and tries to make a fountain. These are just kids, Mia. They were giving each other rides in the shopping car
t before they lifted it up. They weren’t planning anything. At their age and their stage of social development, they’re not really capable of planning.” He took a breath. “Look, can I be honest with you?”
Charlie looked dubious, but Mia nodded.
“With a kid like Jackson, a kid who is only fifteen and looks younger, if you put him in an adult facility, he’ll be like a guppy in the ocean. The first time he’s in gen pop, he’ll be assaulted physically or sexually. Or both. After that he’ll be placed in isolation for his own protection. That means he’ll spend twenty-three and a half hours of every day alone. If Jackson isn’t mentally ill right now, which he may very well be, he’s going to be mentally ill pretty darn soon once he spends twenty-three and a half hours every day in absolute isolation. Check out the statistics. Youth housed in adult jails are thirty-six times more likely to commit suicide than those who go to juvenile detention facilities.”
Imagining Gabe in the same situation, Mia started to weaken.
But Charlie didn’t. “These punks left a woman with her head stove in on the sidewalk.” He put his hands flat on the table and leaned forward. “She was out there minding her own business, running errands with her kid, and they left her to die. Left her facedown on the sidewalk with her skull fractured, lying in a pool of her own blood. Right in front of her kid. And she might still die. Even if she lives, she’ll never be the same again.”
“Jackson took part in this, Eli,” Mia said. “He’s already sentenced a woman to what is more than likely a broken life. And that’s if she’s lucky.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Eli said. “I’m not saying these boys are sweet or innocent. I’m saying that we as a society failed them. And now we’re going to blame them for acting on those failures.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “There’re kids who go to school every day who face the same problems, maybe even worse, and they’re not out assaulting people.”
“I’m not saying he shouldn’t be punished. I’m saying there are a whole range of options that are open to him as a juvenile that aren’t to an adult. Treatment programs, probation, detention, even incarceration. But if you put Jackson in an adult court, anything could happen. He could even be sentenced to life. Would it really be fair if he spent the next sixty-five years in prison?”
The question hung in the air.
Finally Mia said, “I appreciate your input, Eli. But before I can decide anything, I need to talk to your client.”
Jackson was a beautiful boy, with the darker skin of his mother and tip-tilted long-lashed eyes that must have belonged to his father.
Mia began as she had with Dylan, circling around the facts of his life, starting with his family and then eventually moving on to his record. Without hesitation he admitted to his long list of criminal activities. Then she brought him up to the event. “Why did you do it, Jackson?”
“I didn’t think. We were just fooling around. Then Dylan or Manny said maybe it would be fun to tip it over.” He spoke more and more slowly. “We lifted it up, but nobody really meant to do anything after that. But all of a sudden it was falling. I never thought there would be a lady underneath it.” He took a ragged breath. “I never thought at all.”
Mia’s phone buzzed, but she pressed the button to silence it.
“Bull!” Charlie slammed his hands down on the table. He might look like he was playing bad cop, but Mia was certain this was no role. “You had already been looking down from that walkway. You knew how busy it was. I’ve seen the videotape. It shows you guys waiting to drop those cans until it was clear, so that no one would stop you or complain. But that means you knew exactly how good the chance was that you would hit someone.”
“You don’t know how sorry I am.” Jackson blinked. His eyes looked wet.
That was the exact truth, Mia thought. She had no idea how sorry he was.
CHAPTER 41
Talking to those two boys didn’t make it any easier,” Mia told Charlie as they left the Youth Service Center.
He nodded in agreement as he scrolled back through his phone.
Before talking to Jackson, she had been sure that he was most at fault. Now she didn’t know what to think. Had those been crocodile tears he was crying, or was he genuinely upset? She remembered what Tracy and Eli had said. If Mia charged either of these boys as adults, then she was basically writing them off. It would be impossible to put them through the adult system, even for a few years, and have them not come out on the other side irreparably broken.
When Mia finally checked her own phone, she found a message from Willow Grove, the children’s inpatient mental hospital. It was from a Dr. Sandstrom, who said that Manny Flores was asking to talk to them.
When Mia called back, the woman said in a clipped voice, “Manny insists that he has to talk to you. I want you to understand that this goes against my medical advice. I don’t think he’s ready. Especially not after trying to harm himself. But he says it’s important and that he won’t be at peace until he talks to you.”
“I appreciate your concern for his well-being, but it is important,” Mia said. “This was no accident. At the very least, the other boys showed callous disregard for human lives. They could be charged as adults, possibly with attempted second-degree murder. The victim is in intensive care, and if she dies the charges will be even more serious. Manny is key to our understanding what happened to put her there. There’s a lot about this situation that is still unclear, and he is the only witness.” She looked at her watch. “We can be there in half an hour.”
“Visiting hours are from six to seven p.m.”
Which was when Mia and Charlie were going to be at the Jade Kitchen in Coho City. “But we’re not visitors.” Mia kept her words as clipped as the doctor’s. “We’re law enforcement. And we will need someplace private where we can talk.”
A heavy sigh. “We could arrange something at four p.m. All his group and individual therapies will be finished by then. Will that work for you?”
“Four o’clock today?” Mia echoed, looking at Charlie. When he nodded to show he was free, she said, “We’ll see you then.”
“You need to be aware that you cannot bring in food, drinks, cigarettes, writing instruments, cell phones, wallets, or purses.” From the tone of Dr. Sandstrom’s voice, the full list was even longer and she was only hitting the highlights. “Or, of course, weapons of any type. Basically, all you’re allowed into the facility with are your keys and a photo ID.”
“What about a tape recorder?”
“No. Manny is too fragile. Whether it’s logical or not, he’s feeling a lot of guilt about what occurred. Just seeing a tape recorder might put him back in the place where it will be necessary to check him every fifteen minutes to make sure he hasn’t succeeded in killing himself.”
Mia winced. She couldn’t imagine such torment. “Okay. No tape recorder.” Besides, Charlie had near-perfect recall for conversations.
At five minutes to four they walked up to the front door of Willow Grove. The grounds were perfectly manicured, the grass as even and green as artificial turf. The large windows were all covered by blinds, making the two-story building look oddly blank, as if it were sleeping.
Charlie pressed the buzzer, and the two of them looked up into the lens of the camera mounted over the door.
The security guard who answered was a heavy-set man in a blue uniform. He checked their IDs, then asked if they had brought any of the contraband items in with them. When he let them into the foyer, a clerk with a tight gray perm asked them to sign in at her desk. She wrote their names and the date on paper badges, as well as Manny’s name. Charlie slapped his on his suit jacket. Mia did the same, but lightly, mentally crossing her fingers that it wouldn’t leave a mark on the silk.
With the security guard escorting them, they went through four more locked doors. Each time the guard scanned the plastic badge he wore around his neck and then punched a number into the keypad. He then let Mia and Charlie through an
d made sure the door was closed tight before making his way to the next door.
“This is better security than they got over at the prison,” Charlie stage-whispered to Mia.
“In this case we’re not keeping the world safe from the people inside,” the guard said as he waved his badge in front of yet another door. “We’re keeping these kids safe from the outside world.”
Finally they reached the ward. All the doors to the rooms were closed. The walls were painted blue. The pictures on them had been bolted down on all four corners, and when Mia tapped one with a knuckle in passing, she found it was covered in plastic, not glass.
“I need your keys.” The dark-skinned nurse at the nurses’ station put out her hand. She put each set in a plastic bag, which she zipped closed and then dropped into a blue plastic bucket that she put by her feet. “I’ll take you to the visitors’ room now,” she said. “Dr. Sandstrom is waiting for you.”
Even getting into the visiting room required the same routine with a badge and a keypad. The room was empty except for a jumble of overstuffed couches and chairs, as well as a card table topped with a half-finished jigsaw puzzle of a kitten.
Dr. Sandstrom was a petite woman with thick blond hair twisted back into a bun and a face bare of makeup. She tucked a clipboard under her arm and then shook their hands.
“I appreciate you letting us talk to Manny,” Mia said after they had introduced themselves.
“Manny has posttraumatic stress disorder from witnessing the accident, as well as previously undiagnosed depression and anxiety. I need to warn you that those things might compromise his ability to answer your questions.”
“Any information he can provide us with would be very useful,” Mia said. “Tomorrow morning is the deadline for charging the perpetrators in this case. Manny is the only one who can tell us what really happened.”
“He was very insistent, but I’m still afraid the stress of being questioned by you may harm him.” Dr. Sandstrom drew herself up to her full height, which couldn’t have been more than five foot one. “I will stop the interview if I feel his physical or mental condition is changing for the worse.”
