Stumbling on the Sand

by Jenna Rae

  “Brian left his gun when he went to jail. He kept it on the fridge, it was still there. Mom knew she could trust me not to touch it.”

  There was a shred of pride in this, in being the one man his mother could count on. Del nodded, squeezing her mouth tight.

  “But I—”

  “Go on, Mikey.”

  “Mr. White told me to go to my room. Like he’s my dad or something. I asked, real polite, can I please get my school supplies off the fridge—Brian put the gun in a cardboard box. Is he gonna get in trouble? He’s not supposed to have guns ’cause he had trouble before in Visalia.”

  Del shook her head.

  “Mr. White said I could get my homework stuff. ’Cause I knew how to act. He said most Filipinos are too uppity.” The boy reddened. “I said he was right, I called him sir.” His eyes pleaded for her understanding.

  “You had to go along with him, just for a minute.”

  “I had to. I think I had to. Anyways, I took the box to my room. I took out the gun. It was real heavy, I didn’t know it would be so heavy. I thought maybe if I waited a while, he would leave and I wouldn’t have to.” The boy looked at the flickering fluorescent light in the ceiling, and Del held her breath. Now he would lie or tell the truth. He was deciding, and she didn’t want to interrupt. After nearly a minute, the kid shifted his feet and shook his head.

  “But he wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t let him hurt my mom again.”

  “I get that.”

  And she did. The kid was just old enough to feel like he had to protect his momma. And the other side of it was there, too, in Mikey’s clouded eyes. A mean man hurt the one person he loved, and he wanted that mean man to pay. That wasn’t hard to understand either. The question was, how much of the shooting would legally qualify as self-defense, and how much would be considered revenge?

  “He told me to come in the kitchen, but I didn’t want to.” Mikey held out his hands. “I had the gun, and I didn’t want to, but I could hear my mom crying and I didn’t want him to get mad and hurt her again. I didn’t want to.”

  “You felt like you didn’t have a choice.”

  “I shot him,” Mikey announced. “It was heavy. I couldn’t make it work at first.” He reddened. “Mr. White was laughing at me. I was crying, and he said I was an uppity little bitch and then I figured it out, I slid the thing, and then I shot him and he was surprised, and he got up and he slapped me and I shot him again. Then he fell down and there was a lot, a lot of blood. A lot, all over.”

  “You were scared he would hurt your mom again.”

  The boy nodded.

  “Were you scared he would hit you again?”

  Mikey nodded again.

  “After he fell down, did you call for help?”

  “They told us at school, call nine-one-one. I didn’t want to kill nobody, I just didn’t want him to hurt me and my mom.”

  “Okay. Did your mom come out to the kitchen after you shot Mr. White?”

  “Yeah. She started screaming. She ran over and fell, ’cause the floor was all wet. She fell down all in his blood, and I was on the phone with the nine-one-one, the lady couldn’t hear me and I dropped the phone. My mom was freaking out and she just sat there screaming so loud and crying and she wouldn’t look at me, there was blood on her.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. She left. She don’t have a car and they put me in the police car by myself.”

  “Okay, Mikey. Thanks for telling me.”

  “What’s gonna happen to me?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. You’ll probably have to answer the same questions I just asked you a bunch of times. Other than that I’m not sure.”

  She looked at the social worker, who continued to stare at the wall and ignore them. The woman looked ten paces past tired, had probably been up for a couple of days. Was she high? Del examined the social worker’s eyes, skin, posture. Not high, maybe. Just checked out. It happened a lot with cops, social workers, teachers. The very people kids in crisis needed the most. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Too many fucked-up families, too many kids in one emergency after another and too few resources to help them with. It was a soul eater, trying to empty the ocean with a slotted spoon.

  “Where’s my mom? Can I see my mom?”

  “Yeah.” Del shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll see if she’s here, okay?”

  “She hates me now, I know it.”

  There was a scrabbling sort of knock, and a tiny, baby-faced woman pushed in. Both eyes were blackened, her mouth torn up. Her tropical-print sundress was darkened with smears of dried blood.

  “Mommy!” Mikey rushed into his mother’s arms, nearly knocking her over.

  “Baby, my baby, oh God, my baby!”

  Del eased out of the room and exchanged grimaces with seasoned Homicide Detective Inspector Dave Leister. It was he who’d approached her, asked her to talk to the kid.

  “Good job softening up the kid for me, sweetheart.”

  Del nodded her thanks. Leister was a member of an older generation that still seemed to see women as secretaries, assistants, babysitters, nurses—helpers, not equals. He wasn’t trying to be condescending, she reminded herself. He was in his sixties and ready to retire and doing his best to adapt to a new detective who was not only a woman but also taller than he, younger and fitter than he, and not only college educated but also clearly a dyke. It was a lot to take in for a member of the old guard who remembered the good old days of white male cops standing on their own private side of the thin blue line.

  “Why’s this in Homicide, if the vic isn’t dead yet?”

  “Doc doesn’t think White’ll survive surgery, brass says it’s more cost-effective to just give it to us.”

  “Well, that’s just dandy.”

  “Kid’s not a killer,” Leister commented. “Thanks for opening him up, but I kinda wish you hadn’t.”

  “I feel you. Get the mom in for a rape kit, take as many pics of her injuries as you can. See if you can get an interview with the ex, Brian. Climb up the ass of the landlord. If he really did go after the mom, he may have priors. Get Mom’s statement now—it’ll make things better for the kid if we can say they didn’t have time to confer.”

  “Any other advice, oh brilliant one? Thank Christ you’re here to tell me what to do. This bein’ my first rodeo and all.”

  Del colored. As the newest and most junior member of the team, she shouldn’t be telling anybody what to do, and she knew it. Hadn’t she just been trying to see things from Leister’s point of view? She felt like an ass.

  “Sorry,” she offered as Leister turned away.

  Retreating to the ladies’ room, Del washed her face and hands with cool water. Kids were the worst. Whether they were the victims, suspects or witnesses, they always got to her. Like they got to everybody probably. Del had considered, more than once, using her response to kids as a kind of litmus test. Once they didn’t get to her anymore, it would be time to get out. She’d been on the force for fifteen years and knew she’d grown harder because of the job. But the kid got to her, so she figured she was still good.

  Examining her reflection in the mirror above the sink, Del thought she’d better get a haircut before her wild blond curls completely obscured her blue eyes. She noted that every one of her forty years was etched into the fine lines that highlighted her clearly defined features. She noticed her only blue pullover was starting to fray along the shoulder seam. She stuck her tongue out at herself. She’d been out of uniform for over a decade but still didn’t have enough clothes or enough time and patience to go shopping for more.

  Back in the hall, Leister waved Del toward the interview room, filling her in on the update: the landlord had survived the surgery, but barely. Nonetheless, Homicide was still working the case, and the captain had assigned the two of them, as expected.

  “I should have seen this coming.” Mikey’s mom wailed into the bunch of tissues she clutched. Mikey was crushe
d to her, nearly strangled by her short arm. “I never shoulda moved here!”

  Leister eyed Del with alarm. She gave him a nod and watched him rock back on his heels in relief. Mariposa Ocampo was Del’s to deal with now.

  “Ms. Ocampo? Mariposa, right?” Del offered her a cup of water. “My name’s Del, and I’ve been getting to know Mikey. Can you and I talk? Please?”

  “What’s gonna happen to my baby?”

  “Depends. I want things to go as well for Mikey as possible. I need your help to do that.”

  “Oh, no, I know how this works!” The woman pointed up at Del. “You cops wanna lock up my boy and throw away the key! You’re not going to pin this on my Mikey, no way!”

  “It’s hard to trust us, I get that. But I promise you, I want to help Mikey, not hurt him. He’s a nice kid, we don’t want to see him—”

  “You stay away from my boy and stay away from me, I want a lawyer!”

  “Okay, whatever you say, but we can help Mikey more if you just talk to us, I promise.”

  “I look stupid to you? Huh? I wanna lawyer for my Mikey!”

  “Okay, Ms. Ocampo. Here’s my card. When you and the lawyer are ready to talk to us, you can call anyone in the department, but I hope you’ll call me. Mikey seems like a really decent kid, and I’d like the chance to help him and you.”

  Del forced herself to walk away. There wasn’t much she could do now. She sat at her new desk and eyed the senior detective who’d dragged her into his mess. The kid would go to some juvenile detention center, CYA camp, some version of kid jail. Then what? Either he went to prison because his sentence was longer than seven years, or he was released at some point and sent out into the world as a product of the juvenile justice system. Or he got in one too many fights defending himself from the bigger kids and got a longer sentence. Or he got tried as an adult, and he turned hard and angry, picked up a whole new set of skills helpful only in prison and criminal circles. The kid was screwed.

  Del grabbed a blank report and started filling it out, trying to decide how she could have handled things better. The captain’s administrator, the only other female employee on the premises that day, sashayed up to Del’s desk with a pained look on her face.

  “You okay, honey?”

  Del nodded and kept writing. She got the distinct impression Patty was a relentless gossip and troublemaker, and Del wanted no part of her or her games.

  “Kid’s cute, isn’t he?”

  “Yup.”

  “What do you think of the mom? You think she’s cute?”

  “I didn’t notice.” Del had been working in the Mission station all of five minutes before Patty had started trying to draw her out about her sexuality. It was getting tiring after only a half day, but Del had to give the woman her due—she was persistent. Maybe, Del thought with a smirk, Patty should have been a detective.

  “Landlord gonna make it? What’s his name? White? Ernie White? His mom owns the properties and he just drives around in his black Lexus—did you see that thing? The techs were going on about it—and collects the rent. Sounds like he collects more than checks, huh?”

  “You sure seem to know a lot about this case, Patty.” Del stopped and fixed a stare at the admin’s wide blue eyes.

  “Oh,” Patty purred with a little wiggle, “I know everything that goes on around here.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You, you’re a closed book. Maybe you and I should go for a little welcome-to-the-station drink, huh? It can make a big difference around here, having a friend.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. Just remember, honey, I have the ear of the most important men in this city.”

  “I’ve heard you have a lot more than their ears, Patty,” put in Leister.

  “You don’t need to run interference, Inspector Leister.” Patty was pouting now. “I bet Mason here knows just how to handle the ladies.” She flounced away in a huff, soaking up the chuckles that sounded from around the squad room.

  Del kept her head down and continued writing her report. She’d been fielding unwanted flirtation, jealousy and resentment from her first day at the academy and still had to remind herself to rise above it all. She knew she needed to grow a thicker skin so she wouldn’t feel betrayed when the only other woman around tried to throw her under the bus at every turn.

  “Thanks for your help,” Leister offered. “I couldn’t get the kid to talk to me. Needed a woman’s touch.”

  “Sometimes they’re scared of men.” Del rubbed her forehead, pushing away annoyance over her colleagues consistently dismissing her skillset as a product of her gender. “Not your fault.”

  “Well, maybe we can work this one together.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Del was wary. After several failed partnerships, she knew better than to take any olive branches without checking for signs of poison sumac.

  “Landlord’s rich and kid’s poor, Mason. I assume you know how this thing ends.”

  “Does it have to? Justice isn’t exactly blind to the color green, I know, but Mikey’s no murderer.”

  “Agreed. But face it. Kid’s screwed. Especially if White dies.”

  “Cheery.” Del put down her pen and looked at her would-be partner. “The thing is, it never shoulda happened. The boyfriend’s gun should have been confiscated when he was popped. The mom should have been safe, the kid should have been safe. The landlord should have been locked up before the kid ever met him. I bet Mariposa Ocampo wasn’t his first victim.”

  “If the kid’s telling the truth. She did look pretty banged up, but that coulda been a new boyfriend. You know how these women are, they can’t go five minutes without a man.”

  Del ignored this and watched Leister to see if he would follow up.

  “Maybe we could find other victims,” Leister mused, jotting down a neat to-do list in a small notebook. “Since White—actually, it’s his mom. Mrs. White owns a dozen properties in low-rent neighborhoods. Her son doesn’t have a real job. He supposedly manages the properties, and she has a lot of tenants. We should run those tenants down.”

  “If we establish the landlord as a repeat offender, we might be able to help the kid.”

  “Put the victim on trial.” Leister nodded. “You learned that in sex crimes I guess.”

  “Pervs and their lawyers do it to rape victims all the time.” Del stared at him, fighting her rising hopefulness.

  “We’ll see.” Leister raised an eyebrow. “Listen, young lady. We’ll try, that’s all we can do. It’s easy to get all worked up, especially for a woman and especially when it comes to a cute little kid.”

  “I’ll try not to lactate all over the station.”

  Leister’s wry smile was an almost-apology. “This is gonna get ugly,” he warned.

  “Yeah,” Del responded. “Don’t they all?”

  She and Leister ran down every tenant in every property White’s family had ever owned. They high-fived when they got word that Ernie White had opened his eyes and was out of his coma. Del questioned the smug little twerp every time the doctor and his sharp-featured mom reluctantly let her in the room. After every interview Del felt like she should take a ten-hour shower.

  “Mariposa says I forced myself on her?” White raised his light eyebrows over his eerily light blue eyes and shuddered as if with distaste. “That girl ain’t pretty enough to flirt with, much less sleep with.”

  Del had to swallow her anger. White was exactly like many other sexual predators she’d interviewed, and she’d questioned hundreds of them. He was glib, arrogant and careful to protect the only person who mattered to him—himself. She sat back, ignoring the way the visitor’s chair dug into her shoulders. White was blond, with lax muscles, weak features and a suspiciously orange tan.

  “Oh, come on,” Del teased, smirking, “I know you’re a spoiled rich guy, but pussy’s pussy, isn’t it?”

  “Vulgarity?” White smiled, relaxed and easy in his smug self-assuranc
e. “Amateurish. I’d hoped for something a little more interesting.”

  “What do you find interesting, Mr. White?”

  “The same things most evolved people do,” White drawled, smiling easily. “Beauty, intelligence, humor, spontaneity. A challenge.”

  “Ms. Ocampo was a challenge?”

  White rang for the nurse.

  “If you really enjoy a challenge, why do you only rape women who don’t have the option of going to the police for help?”

  “I’m losing my patience, lady cop. Mason, was it? I’m starting to not like you.”

  “Because I’m not some scared little pauper who shakes in her boots when you look at her?” Del smiled, despite knowing her needling was irritating the subject instead of getting him closer to opening up. She switched tactics. “Come on, Mr. White, what if you just said the shooting was an accident? You don’t have to admit any wrongdoing at all. You don’t get anything out of the kid’s life getting ruined. Please? He’s just a little boy. A nice little boy.”

  “And then what? You spend the rest of your pathetic career trying to bust me for a crime I didn’t commit?”

  Del’s hesitation made White laugh. He waved her away as a nurse came bustling in.

  “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Lady, you’re nuts. Now get out of my room unless you’re planning to make yourself useful and blow me.”

  Del tried to rein in her disgust, as much with herself as with the so-called victim. White was exactly the sort of asshole she couldn’t stand, and her years working sex crimes had done little to help her gain the equanimity needed to work a guy like him. If anything, investigating sex crimes had convinced her that the world was filled with people like Ernie White, who got away with their crimes, usually against women and children, far more often than most folks realized.

  “You should have talked to White,” she told Leister when reviewing the failed interview with him. “I let him see what I think of him. Not to mention, he has no respect for a lowly woman.”

  Leister, seated and looking up at Del, smiled.

  “You don’t look that lowly to me.”

  Del took the olive branch with good grace, offering to buy him an end-of-the-workday beer and drawing him out in the nearest shithole cop bar. Once he’d decided Del was okay, Leister let down his guard and only occasionally acted like she was his secretary. She figured that was about as good an outcome as she could hope for.