The Hunt Club

by John Lescroart

  I went and searched. They were down to three slices of mildewed white bread, some rice crackers, and about a tablespoon of peanut butter.

  2 /(1996)

  I had been on the job for five years and still didn't have my own office at Child Protective Services. I didn't really want or need one. Seventy-five to eighty percent of my work was, after all, in the field. The rest of it was writing reports of what I'd done. The supervisors got the offices, and as far as I was concerned, they could have them. Supervisors worried about closing cases and about numbers and about following established procedures. I cared about saving kids' lives. There tended to be a difference in approach.

  After negotiating the gauntlet of homeless persons camped on the surrounding streets, I would arrive at the Otis Street building every morning somewhere around eight o'clock, check in for any possible true emergency calls, then most days pick up my daily allotment of "normal" cases. Every one of these was an emergency of some kind, although too often not designated as such by the bureaucracy.

  To get an emergency declaration and hence the immediate attention of a caseworker or team of them, the home situation of the child had to be defined as life-threatening in the near term. Say, a woman holding her three-year-old by the heels out of a six-story window would be an emergency. Day-to-day problems were of a lesser nature and included chronic starvation or suspected physical abuse or a parent in some drug-induced or otherwise psychically impaired state. Or an uncle in a suspected carnal relationship with his eight-year-old niece.

  The more or less routine call this morning was from Holly Park, a housing project near the southern border of the city. Due to its internal and conflicting gang affiliations, its grinding poverty and persistent air of hopelessness, and the astronomical percentage of its population that either used or dealt street drugs, it had the highest neighborhood homicide rate after Hunter's Point. And was undefeated for number one in most other crimes, violent and not.

  I don't mind fog or rain, heat or cold, but I hate the wind, and today, a Thursday in early April, it was blowing hard. In an effort to save it from the vandalism that plagued Holly Park, I parked my already beat-up Lumina three blocks east of the project, then opened my door to a gust of Alaskan Express against which my parka was about as effective as chain mail. The day was bright and sunny, but the wind was relentless and bitter, bitter, bitter cold.

  Hands tucked into the bottoms of my jacket pockets, I got to the address I'd memorized and, from across the street, stared at the tagged and scarred wasteland I was supposed to enter. I knew that fifty years ago the place had once been a showcase of sorts—the barracks-style apartment units freshly painted, with grassy areas and well-kept gardens, even trees. Residents got fined if they didn't mow their lawns, keep their individual porches and balconies clean and free of laundry or garbage. Now there wasn't one tree left, no hint of a garden, barely a blade of grass. From my vantage across the street, I picked up hundreds of glints of light in the packed tan earth surrounding the buildings—I'd been here many times before, knew that these were remains of countless discarded and broken bottles of beer, wine, liquor, anything alcoholic that came in glass. Pepsi and Coke weren't locked in combat in this arena.

  Perhaps most disturbing of all, I saw no one. Of course, with the cold and the wind, people wouldn't be out to bask and frolic, but I kind of expected to see some soul passing between the pods of buildings, some woman hanging laundry, somebody doing something. But the place appeared completely deserted.

  I wondered whether I should have waited a few more minutes at the office and hooked up with a partner for this call. One of the relatively new hires, maybe, who still had some fire in the gut. But finding someone in the office I could count on, with whom I could stand to spend much time, had become all but impossible.

  Because the office had in the past couple of years become cancerous. This coincided with the appointment and arrival of Deputy Director Wilson Mayhew. From my line supervisors splitting hairs and playing power games, to so many of my fellow emergency response workers putting their experience to work dodging calls when they bothered to report in at all, most people in the department seemed to take their cultural cues from Mayhew. We were all county employees after all, covered by the union and essentially invulnerable to discipline. Without a motivational deputy director, caseworkers who cared about the work and about the kids tended to burn out after a few years. Now most of those who remained stayed on because they couldn't be touched—between accrued vacation and sick days and cheating on your time card in a hundred clever ways. Fully a third of the caseworker staff did nothing substantive ever. A couple never even came in to work, and it didn't seem to matter to Mayhew or the lower-ranking supes, who were then spared the hassle of having to confront them.

  Bettina, still on the job, was having some substance issues herself in the wake of her divorce, and now I preferred to work alone.

  Well, there was nothing for it but to go ahead. I was here now. And Keeshiana Jefferson needed help now. I had to go in and assess how bad it was. I took a step off the curb.

  "Hey."

  I turned, stepped back, double-taking at the absolutely impossible sight of another white guy in this neighborhood. Then, the features congealed into something vaguely then very familiar. "Dev?" I said. "Devin Juhle?" Juhle had been the shortstop to my second base on my high school team. Before college separated us, he'd probably been my best friend.

  The other man broke an easy if slightly perplexed grin, then his own recognition kicked in. "Wyatt? What are you doing here?"

  "Working," I said, more or less automatically reaching for my wallet, my identification. "I'm with CPS. Child Protective Services."

  "I know what CPS is. I'm a cop."

  "You're not."

  "Am, too."

  "You're not dressed like a cop."

  "I'm an inspector. We don't wear a uniform. I'm with homicide."

  I threw a quick look across the street. "You're saying I'm too late, then?"

  "For what?"

  "Keeshiana Jefferson."

  "Never heard of her."

  A rush of relief swept over me. At least Keeshiana wasn't the victim in the homicide Dev was investigating. I might be in time after all. "Well, hey," I said, "good to see you, but I got a gig in there."

  Juhle put a hand on my arm. "You're not going in there alone?"

  "That's my plan." Seeing Juhle's concern, I added, "Not to worry, Dev. I do this every day."

  "Here?"

  "Here, there, everywhere."

  "And do what?"

  "Talk to people mostly. Sometimes take a kid out."

  Juhle cast a worried glance over to the projects, then back to me. "Are you packing?"

  "A gun?" I chortled and spread the sides of my parka wide open. "Just cookies and chips in case somebody's hungry. I really gotta go."

  "What's the exact address?" Juhle asked me. "I'm hanging here anyway with my partner, looking for witnesses. I'll stay close."

  "No need," I said, "but I appreciate the offer. But really, catch you later. I gotta go check the place out now."

  The wooden door to the barrack unit closed behind me, and the hallway went almost pitch-dark. Someone had painted out the long glass windows on either side of the door. I let my eyes adjust for a few seconds, then tried the light switch, which had come into view. It didn't work.

  There was a stink in the hall, the familiar trifecta of mold, urine, animal. I also noted a whiff of pot and tobacco smoke, although the stronger smells predominated. The wind howled outside as it tore between the buildings, and hearing it, I thought to turn back and open the door again slightly to get some light. Just outside in a pile of rubble against the building, I spied a rock that would serve my purpose. I picked it up and propped the door with it, holding it open about five inches.

  The Jeffersons lived in number 3, the back unit on the left side. I listened at the door and heard only the familiar drone of a television but couldn't really tell if it
came from this apartment or one of the others. I knocked, got no response, knocked again. "Mrs. Jefferson."

  Finally, a shuffle of feet, then a woman's voice from inside. "Who's that?"

  I knew a few tricks myself. You say Child Protective Services to some people, the door never opens. But you say Human Resources, of which CPS is a part, they often think it's about their welfare payments, and it's open sesame. Mrs. Jefferson opened the door a crack, the chain still on. "What you want?"

  "I'd like to talk to you a minute if I could."

  "You doin' that."

  "We got a call about Keeshiana. Is she all right?"

  "Who called?"

  "Your mother." Thank God, I thought. It should have been the girl's school, since she'd already missed two full weeks, but they hadn't gotten around to it by the time I called them to verify the absences. Luckily, the grandmother had come by the apartment yesterday and after leaving had called CPS. "She's worried about you both." I shifted to another foot, keeping the body language relaxed.

  "Ain't nothin' to worry 'bout. I be taking care of my baby."

  "I'm sure you are, Mrs. Jefferson, but when somebody's mom calls in and says they're worried, I'm supposed to come out and see if everything's okay." I pulled the parka closer around me. "If I could just come in and talk to you both for a minute, I could be on my way."

  To my right, the door at the opposite end of the hallway suddenly opened all the way with a bang, and a posse of three men came inside amid a blizzard of profanity and posturing. All of them were layered up with jackets, all of them down with the perp walk. My testicles withdrew into my body as Mrs. Jefferson shut the door on me.

  The back door stayed open. The leader of the gang, seeing me, stopped and looked around behind him, then down the hall behind me. "Yo, fuck."

  I nodded. "'Sup," I said, dishing back some brilliant repartee. But I turned to face them, standing my ground.

  "'Sup wi' this shit?" They'd come up close, surrounding me, all intimidation, the usual. The man's eyes looked a sickly yellow. He hadn't shaved in several days. Or, apparently, brushed his teeth ever.

  I looked him in his yellow eyes. "It's no shit," I said. I held up my ID. "CPS, guys. Just checkin' on Keeshiana in here. See she's all right."

  The front man took a beat, another look around. He swore again, cocked his head, and the posse moved past. The last man, eschewing his earlier mannerly approach, hawked and spit on the floor at my feet.

  Tempted to tell them to have a nice day, I figured there wasn't any advantage in it and instead bit my tongue, then turned and knocked again on the door. "Me again," I said.

  The door opened, no chain this time. "You some kind of fool or what?" she asked.

  I followed her in, the door closed again and bolted behind. It was the kind of apartment I'd seen on dozens of similar occasions before. Kitchen, living room, two small bedrooms. Neither neat nor clean, with dirty clothes strewn on furniture, paper bags littering the floor, KFC and McDonald's containers stacked in piles on end tables and bookshelves that hadn't seen a book in half a century.

  She'd pulled the blinds and covered most of the windows with drapes and what looked like sheets or pillow-cases, so it was almost as dark as the hallway inside, but the corner of a sheet over the upper half of the kitchen window had fallen off and let in some daylight. "This is my baby, Keeshiana," Mrs. Jefferson said. The child was at the kitchen table. A sweet-looking diminutive six-year-old in a red T-shirt, her arms rested in front of her, hands clasped.

  I didn't put out my hand, kept everything low-key, nodding only. "My name's Wyatt." I gave her my professional smile, and she nodded back warily. I turned to the mother. "Maybe we could all sit a minute?" And pulled out a chair. "So, Letitia," I began to the mother, "is that what they call you?"

  "Lettie."

  "Lettie, then."

  But she cut me off, suddenly angry. "My momma got no call putting you on us. I ain't done nothing wrong, just protectin' me and my baby from evil."

  "From evil?"

  "Satan," she said.

  "The devil?"

  "Right."

  "Is he after you in some special way?"

  "He tole me. Said if she went out, he'd take her. He wants her bad."

  "When did he tell you this?"

  "Couple of weeks now. I seen him, you know."

  "Where?"

  She tossed her head. "Just out there."

  "In the hallway?"

  A nod. "And outside, too. That's why I got the windows covered. So he can't see in, know she's here."

  I suddenly understood how the glass panes beside the hallway doors had come to be painted. I reached inside my parka, produced a bag of potato chips and a Snickers bar, and put them on the table without a word, sliding them down within Keeshiana's reach.

  "It's okay, honey," her mother said, and the girl gingerly took the potato chips, pulled open the bag, and started eating them quickly, one by one.

  I took advantage of the distraction to break the ice with her. "So, Keeshiana, you haven't been outside for a time?"

  She looked a question at her mother, got a nod, came back to me. "No."

  "You ever want to?"

  She ate another chip, this time looking down at the table in front of her. "It's 'cause I'm bad, Momma says. That's why he wants me."

  "I been prayin' every day," Lettie said. "Every night. She gettin' better."

  I wasn't sure I understood, but I didn't like the sound of any of it. "How are you bad, Keeshiana? You don't seem bad to me."

  "Momma says."

  "No," Lettie said. "I don't say. But Satan, he callin' her."

  "How does he do that? Lettie? Keeshiana?" I looked from one to the other. Finally settled on the mother. "Lettie. How long has it been since you've let her go outside?"

  Her eyes went to her baby. She shook her head. "Since he got here."

  "The devil? When was that?"

  "I don't know exactly."

  "A couple of weeks? A month?"

  Lettie blinked against the onset of tears. "She go out and you can't fight him. He take her."

  "He won't take her," I said. "I was just out there, and there was no sign of him."

  At that moment, the wind gusted with a low shriek, and the kitchen window shook above us. "There's your sign," the mother said. "He laughin' at you, waitin' his chance."

  "That was the wind, Lettie. Just the wind."

  "No! He got you fooled."

  "Momma," Keeshiana said. Now she was holding the Snickers bar. "Please."

  Lettie again nodded.

  Trying to escape the absurdity, I resorted to harsh reality. "Lettie," I said softly. "Mrs. Jefferson, listen to me. I need to know that you're going to let Keeshiana out of the apartment here so she can go back to school. Do you understand?"

  "But I can't. I really can't. You can see that."

  I didn't want to get into threats that I would take the child. If I didn't make progress, I'd have to get to that soon enough. Trying to remove the girl from her mother's custody would always be a last resort, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. "I tell you what," I said. "Why don't you and Keeshiana dress up warm and we go outside now for a minute all together? Lettie, we can each hold one of Keeshiana's hands. We see anything that makes us uncomfortable, we come right back in here. Promise."

  Lettie was frowning, shaking her head from side to side, but the young girl stopped her chewing and her eyes lit up. "You could just undo me a minute, Momma," she said.

  Struck by the phrase, hairs raising on the back of my neck with premonition, I said, "What do you mean, 'undo,' Keeshiana?"

  "You know." She wriggled in the chair. "So I can get up?"

  Frustration crowded out any other expression on Lettie's face. "You fine," she said to her child, then spoke to me, her tone dispassionate, even reasonable. "She don't need to go gettin' up. She get up, she try an' go out."

  My flat gaze went from Lettie to her daughter. "Keeshiana, I'd like to see y
ou stand up, please."

  Her eyes, panicked, flew to her mother.

  Which was my signal. With an exaggerated slowness, I pushed back, stood up, and sidestepped to Keeshiana's end of the table. Pulling out her chair, I drew in a sharp breath. A clothesline wrapped perhaps a dozen times around her waist and legs held her in her place.

  * * *

  Devin Juhle, the homicide cop from my childhood, fell in next to me as I emerged from the darkened pod into the bright and windswept cut of packed earth and glass that led out to the sidewalks. I was carrying Keeshiana in my arms, a blanket wrapped around her legs, her own arms around my neck.