A Deadly Business (A Mia Quinn Mystery)

by Lis Wiehl

  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 cart 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 name
s 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 and 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.”

  “Of course,” Mia said as Charlie nodded.

  “Because Manny is on suicide watch, I will be within arm’s reach at all times. And if I feel that things are getting out of hand, that he is being adversely affected, then I will end the visit.”

  Mia didn’t want this woman there. It was going to be hard enough to establish trust with three of them. But four?

  “Because this is an active law enforcement case,” Mia said, “what Manny says to us needs to stay confidential.”

  She frowned. “I’m a psychiatrist. Confidentiality is my stock in trade.”

  Mia had to remember they were both professionals, albeit with different goals. “Would it be possible for you to sit behind him so you’re not in his line of vision?” she asked. “I don’t want his attention to be divided.”

  Dr. Sandstrom pursed her lips, thinking, then nodded.

  Mia and Charlie pushed the furniture around until it was in the configuration they wanted—a couch for the two of them, with a chair facing it. The second chair for the doctor was set behind Manny’s. Dr. Sandstrom then left through a different door and came back with Manny.

  He was a slight boy, with dark lank hair hanging over his eyes. The white bandage on his left wrist made Mia feel sick.

  As they sat down she said, “Manny, I’m Mia, and this is Charlie.”

  “Hi.” He spoke to his hands, twisting in his lap.

  “First of all, Manny, I want you to understand that you are not in trouble. We’ve both watched the videotape, and we know you tried to stop the cart from falling over.”

  “You do?” He jerked his head up, his eyes wide.

  “Yes.”

  Charlie leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “But, buddy, the only one who can really tell us what Dylan and Jackson were thinking about, talking about, before that is you. So can you tell us how you all ended up at the mall?”

  “Me and Dylan and Jackson, we were just bored, you know? So we took the bus to that mall. It was kind of far away. And we really didn’t have much money.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “We got a six-pack of Mountain Dew at a store. And we were up on the sky bridge, just watching everyone go by.”

  “Whose idea was it to drop the cans of soda over the railing?”

  “Mine,” Manny said. “I wanted to see what would happen.”

  “What did happen?” Charlie asked, as if he had not seen it on the videotape.

  Manny’s head came up and his face was animated. “It was cool! It, like, exploded.” He put his fists together and pulled them apart, spreading his fingers to mime the explosion.

  “Did you talk about what would happen if a can hit a person?”

  “No. But nobody tried to drop ’em on anybody. And then we ran out of cans.”

  “What did you do then?” Mia asked softly.

  He dropped his head. “We started giving each other rides in a shopping cart, seeing how fast we could make it go.” As he spoke, his words came slower and slower.

  “And then what happened?” Charlie prompted.

  Manny rested his fingertips on his forehead, hiding from them even further. “If they didn’t mean for it to happen, how much trouble will they get into?”

  “Are you saying they didn’t mean for it to happen?” Charlie asked. “Did they know that lady was down there when they dropped the cart?”

  “What if they didn’t know? What if the cart just slipped out of their hands?”

  “Well, they should still have foreseen that something bad would happen,” Mia said. “So I don’t think they would get off without any consequences at all. But it would certainly be a different story than if they meant to do it.”

  Manny was silent for so long that Mia thought about prompting him. Then he said in a voice so soft Mia could barely hear it, “It’s all my fault.”

  Her heart contracted. “No, it’s not, Manny. We saw you struggling with them. You tried to stop it, Manny. It’s not your fault you couldn’t.”

  “It’s more than that,” he said and then fell silent.

  Mia opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but Charlie laid his hand on her knee and shook his head. All three of them—Mia, Charlie, and Dr. Sandstrom—waited for him to speak.

  “It is my fault, it is. Even after they lifted it up, I knew they were teasing, they really wouldn’t let go, but I still grabbed the cart. I grabbed the cart and yanked, but instead of pulling it back, I made them let go. I made them drop it.” Manny’s breathing was heavy with repressed tears. “It’s my fault,” he repeated. “It’s my fault that lady is going to die.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Mia didn’t say much to Charlie for the first part of the drive to Coho City. Finally he broke down and asked, “So whatcha think about what Manny said?”

  “You heard Dr. Sandstrom,” Mia answered. “Just because Manny believes it happened doesn’t mean that it did.”

  “But his story makes sense.” Charlie thought about the videotape. “I can see it happening the way he said.”

  “But what about Dylan and his clip-clop shoes? Or Luke saying he heard the boys laughing?”

  “I’m not sure that adds up to criminal intent,” Charlie said. “Plus, those carts weigh a lot. And once the balance was tipped over the railing, it would have been very hard for them to bring it back. Even if Manny hadn’t grabbed it, they still could have just been playing around with it and lost control.” />
  “I still have about twelve hours to decide. Meanwhile, we’re going to be at the Jade Kitchen pretty soon, right?”

  He glanced at the clock on the dash. “In about twenty minutes. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what might have happened. Scott used to work for a big firm, right?”

  “Right. And then before Brooke was born he went out on his own.”

  “So big accounting firms deal with other big companies. Companies that have compliance officers and are maybe publicly traded and have their books regularly audited. But when you’re a one-man shop, you’re gonna have smaller clients. And once the economy started to tank, businesses started going down the tube, meaning there was less demand for accountants and more newly laid-off accountants competing for the same work. If you wanted to get and keep clients, I’d imagine the best thing would be not to ask too many questions or look too closely.”

  He saw Mia shake her head.

  “I remember Scott giving a cashier back a five-dollar bill because she gave him too much change.”

  “That’s a person, Mia. A person who might get in trouble if her till didn’t balance.”

  Maybe because she was a prosecutor, Mia tended to see things in black and white. In Charlie’s world, there were a million shades of gray.

  “But when you cheat on your taxes, it’s cheating a big, faceless government that wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s way easier to cheat if you think it’s not really hurting anyone. And I’m not saying Scott actively cheated. He may simply have not asked many questions.”

  Although as far as Charlie was concerned, the note they had found to Kenny Zhong, the restaurant owner, was more than that. The note to Zhong was a warning.

  “So you’re saying there might have been some ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situations?” Mia said.