Details at Ten

by Ardella Garland

  Doug and I both looked up at him.

  “The good news is that the coffee is good. The bad news is this!” And Ray opened the Chicago Defender newspaper and tossed it on the table before walking back out the door.

  You could have knocked me out with a paper wad.

  The headline: GANG KIDNAPS GIRL.

  Below the headline was a big picture of Butter, one of those I had seen in the Stewart family scrapbook.

  “Dammit!” Doug cursed.

  I started reading the copy to Doug:

  “‘In a neighborhood plagued by gang violence, yet another offensive act has occurred that clearly points to chaos in the inner-city community. A six-year-old girl named Kelly Johnson is missing. Affectionately known to friends and family as Butter, the little girl is believed to have been kidnapped by the Rockies, a neighborhood street gang. . . .’”

  “I specifically told them to keep a lid on this thing.” Doug moaned.

  “Obviously they ain’t scared of you!” I cracked.

  Doug picked up the copy where I left off: “‘Butter’s family says she witnessed a drive-by shooting in the neighborhood two days ago. Five people were shot and one victim remains hospitalized in critical condition. Butter was interviewed by television reporter Georgia Barnett of Channel 8 News. . . .’”

  “Oh, that’s low-down!”

  Doug cracked a smile. “Obviously they ain’t scared of you either!”

  This bad pub would linger on me like funk after a two-hour workout.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Doug shrugged.

  “Don’t worry about it? They just busted me out! Black folks read the Defender like crazy! And all the television stations in town get it and scan it for stories, too. I’m getting dogged-out in front of my people and my peers.”

  “Your temper’s showing,” Doug said with a slight smile.

  I know it is, dap-gum-it! I took the paper back and started reading again. “‘. . . In Barnett’s live broadcast, Butter gave a sketchy description of one of the suspects, but vivid enough, police think, to prompt gang members to kidnap her. In an exclusive interview, Reverend Kyle Walker railed against what he called an incompetent Chicago Police Department. . . .’”

  “Incompetent?!” Doug shouted. “Who is that Al Sharpton wanna-be calling incompetent?”

  “Uh-un, practice what you preach: temper, temper!”

  “Gimme here!” Doug said, grabbing the paper back, and snapping it.

  I laughed, “‘Gimme here’?”

  Doug read, “‘. . . what he called an incompetent Chicago Police Department for delaying to search for the little girl. “The police don’t care about a little black child in the ghetto, but we do,” Reverend Walker said. “We love Butter and want to tell those gangbangers to bring her back unharmed! We’re fed up and revved up.”’”

  “People kill me,” I said.

  “No, we need to kill some people. Like this newspaper reporter. Like Reverend Walker . . .”

  “Like those knuckleheads who run my shop,” I groaned, looking at my pager, which had just gone off. “The station is paging me now. I need to call in.”

  I reached for the phone, but Doug pulled it away from me. “Listen, that little adventure you had this morning? I need you to sit on that information. I’ll make sure it stays quiet on this end. This thing is already out of control.”

  “Doug, why on earth would I sit on the sole exclusive fact that I have right now? The Right Reverend has blown up the story. Keep quiet on my end? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Georgia, I’m working on more things than you know and I can’t tell you about them. But I need you to keep your ransom episode under wraps. You do right by me with this, I’ll keep you deep in the loop. Besides, you don’t want every nut and faker calling our headquarters and your station with phony leads and ransom demands, do you?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “But nothing, Georgia. Every nut with a cell phone hookup will be dialing us. We’ll get swamped and distracted from the real goal, which is to find Butter. Work with me. And I need you to finish going through these books.”

  I sat there and thought, if I called in, they’d want me to come into the station right away.

  “What’s on your mind, Georgia?”

  “Well, Doug, I’m nightside, which means I’m due in at one o’clock this afternoon and I work through the ten o’clock show. It’s eight now. The morning crew is there and the managers told the desk to page me now. So, I know they want me to work a double-come in now and work straight through until the ten. But I wanna follow you right now and see what you’re going to do next on this thing. I’ve got a change of clothes in my trunk that I keep in case I get sent out of town on a story; I can finish going through these pictures, change somewhere, and have the crew pick me up here and we’ll trail you-”

  “No!”

  “Doug! You’re tying my hands on everything. I’m working with you but you’re not working with me!!”

  “I can’t have a camera crew traipsing around with me. It’s bad enough with just you. People freak out and start acting crazy when you turn a TV camera on them. Now tell me they don’t, huh?”

  “Awwwww, Doug-Doug, this Butter kidnapping has got me tripping out. Can’t you see that?”

  “I know. That’s why I’m letting you in on so much. I know you feel it’s your fault. But you have to trust me that I know what’s best to find Butter.”

  My pager went off again. I checked the number. It was the station again.

  “It’s on you,” Doug said, picking up the phone and plopping it down in front of me. “Can you stay and finish looking at these mug shots? I’ll owe you big time.”

  T E N

  Doug did owe me big time; one, because I stayed an extra hour and a half scrutinizing mug shots with no luck. And two, because I fully intended to sit on this morning’s ransom incident as asked. But I wonder if boyfriend knew that I was going to call in that chip five minutes after I stepped out of the cop shop?

  I don’t think so.

  Doug wasn’t going to like it. But he was just going to have to lump it.

  Simply put, Doug owed me and I had a hunch.

  A good reporter has a built-in hunch factor. That hunch factor is an unknown variable, like X. What was my hunch?

  Well, it started with Doug.

  He’d tried very hard to keep Little Cap’s file close to the vest. But when he went to the door, I sneaked a peek because all is fair in love, war, and reporting. I saw and memorized Little Cap’s real name and last known address, which just happened to be with his mother, Audrey Darrington.

  As sure as I know that my birth certificate says “Negro,” I knew that Doug had already questioned Little Cap’s mother until she couldn’t think straight. But I wanted to talk to her. I needed to get a better feel for Little Cap.

  No person is born a criminal. A person is exposed to negative influences that create criminal behavior.

  What was Little Cap like growing up? Did he do well in school? Who grew up in the house with him? His mother and father? Sisters and brothers? What were his friends and neighbors like?

  I went to investigate and found myself standing on the porch of an old brick Georgian house bordered by a trashy vacant lot and a well-kept community garden. Collards, tomatoes, and hot peppers were being carefully watered by an elderly man. Children busily played their way up and down the street on bikes, skates, and by foot as I rang the bell at Alexander Darrington’s, aka Little Cap’s, house.

  I didn’t call for a crew, partly because I was hiding until my shift started and partly because I didn’t want to spook the family into not talking to me.

  A tall woman, nearly six feet, with signs of age from deep wrinkles to streaks of gray, opened the door and stared hard at me. She had neat, tight locks styled away from her face, down her back. She wore a V-neck cotton dress, teal green, with short sleeves. Dark lids shaded her listless hazel eyes. She asked, “Can I help yo
u?”

  “Audrey Darrington, please.”

  She blinked hard. “She’s not—”

  “Hi, Audrey. I’m Georgia Barnett with Channel 8—”

  Audrey tried to slam the door.

  I stuck my foot in it. Size ten. Hard-heeled from summers playing barefoot down South. My foot could brake for a Lincoln Town Car.

  “I want to talk to you about Alexander—not Little Cap,” I said. “I think you did your best to raise him to be a good boy, to be a good man. We both know he’s tied into gangs. I don’t know what the police think or said to you. But me? Me, Audrey? I just don’t think it’s your fault. It’s the outside influences that are to blame. It’s . . . it’s . . . just so bad on these streets.”

  Audrey jumped in, dabbing her fingertips at the glistening sweat beading on her chest. “And the streets have a vise hold on these boys. What can you do? The streets can just take your child, even if you’ve got your eye on him—the streets just take your child.”

  Audrey was looking away now, somewhere in a direction not on my compass but found only on hers.

  I let her go there, then I asked easily, “Audrey, may I please come in and talk?”

  She looked at me for a moment, then said, “Of course. Where are my manners today?”

  The house was cleaner than the Board of Health. No dust. No papers or old magazines lying around. My mother would praise her to high heaven while kicking me to the curb in hell for the way my place looked most of the time. The furniture in the house was old but well made and solid; that antique-style stuff that you can’t find anymore. There was a pink and baby blue porcelain lamp with angels on a merry-go-round on a table right behind the couch where we sat. The rose Jacquard curtains were open and we could see by the sunlight shining through the big picture window just a few feet away. Beneath the picture window sat an open red and white cooler chock-full of ice, with pops, ice cream bars, and juices.

  Audrey noticed me checking it out. “I keep that stuff for the kids, when it gets hot every summer. They come to the door every day like it’s Halloween and I give them treats until I don’t have any more. The orange Popsicles were a favorite of my boy’s.”

  “Alexander?”

  “No, Simon, my oldest.”

  “Is that him with Little Cap there?” I asked, pointing to a picture on the end table behind the curve of her hip.

  “Yes.” She blinked. “I hate nicknames. Alexander got his nickname because he loved playing with cap guns when he was a little bitty something.”

  “Of course,” I apologized. I pointed to the picture again. “Does Simon live here in Chicago?” My mind was racing as I awaited her answer. Was he a gang member, too? Could he be helping Little Cap and the Rockies hold Butter hostage?

  “No, he was killed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Audrey began to rock slightly. “It hurts like yesterday but it was nearly ten years ago.”

  “Can you tell me how it happened? Did Alexander take it hard?”

  “Take it hard?” Her laugh was loud and bitter. “He was the cause of it.”

  “How?”

  “Simon was a good child. He was an A student and all the teachers loved him. He wanted to go into the service and be one of those Navy Seals. My son was a swimming champion in the public high school league. He was tops in his ROTC class. Alexander idolized his brother and the fight he had in him. Simon was tough but he only fought for what was right and he fought fair. He’d get on Alexander’s case when he was wrong, which was often, even in front of the other kids.”

  “Alexander didn’t like that, I’m sure.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Audrey said, throwing her head back and then nervously dropping her head forward and lightly clasping her hands together.

  “What kind of a person is Alexander?”

  “He’s quiet. Intense. Ornery. Traits that simmered as he grew older. But after Simon’s murder, Alexander got downright mean. I wonder sometimes, truly wonder. I say to myself, God, is that really my child? Lord, did Alexander really come from me?”

  Audrey took a long pause.

  “Did Alexander and his brother get along?”

  She smiled. “Alexander loved him some Simon. And Simon loved and kept a lid on Alexander.”

  “You said Simon’s death was Alexander’s fault.”

  “One day Alexander went to the store for Simon. Alexander got into a fight with one of the boys on the other side of the park. They came to blows and Alexander got stomped when the boy’s friends jumped in the fight.”

  Audrey stopped rocking and cradled her elbows with the palms of her hands. “I wasn’t home, but they tell me Alexander grabbed Simon by the shirt on the porch, shook and begged him to go back with him to keep the others away while he got back at the boy. Why did Simon go? That wasn’t like Simon. But Alexander convinced him that it wasn’t a fair fight and that he should take up for him like he did all the other kids in the neighborhood. But that damn Alexander had gotten a gun from one of his bad-boy friends and didn’t tell Simon. And it turned out that Alexander wasn’t the only one with a gun. One of those other boys had a gun, too. Simon was shot and killed right there in that park like a dog.”

  “What about Alexander?”

  “Shot in the leg; still favors it on the right side.” Audrey chuckled to herself. “Gave him a cool walk. Don’t you know kids around here on both sides of the park try to imitate that walk? Kids are something, aren’t they?”

  “Has Alexander felt guilty about his brother’s death all this time?”

  “Yes, he has. It did something to him, that guilt. It turned into a low-down meanness after while. But I feel guilty too. Maybe I didn’t help. I should have paid a little more attention to Alexander after his brother died. I was nursing my grief and he just grew up wild. When he got damn near grown and started getting into serious trouble, I let him stay here as long as I could but . . . a Christian person has a conscience and can’t tolerate too much wrong even if it is her own child doing it. But I really do believe that Alexander has been fighting and looking for revenge ever since his brother’s death.”

  “Revenge against whom?”

  Audrey stood up and walked slowly over to the large picture window, not saying a syllable until she leaned against the wall. “Against the world, himself, me, I think, for loving Simon just a little more.”

  “I’m curious. Back up a little if you can. What was the fight in the park over? The one that got Simon killed?”

  Audrey leaned down and slowly fished out a can. “Over a can of pop.” She opened it, took a long sip, then shook her head before looking out the window again.

  “You know there’s a little girl missing and Alexander and his gang are involved. He could help the police get her back safely. Her mother is worried and the child is only six. Please, Mrs. Darrington, do you know where Alexander is?”

  Audrey shook her head no.

  “Please,” I begged. “I know it’s hard to tell—”

  “I don’t know anything. If I did, I would say just to save that little girl. I know what a mama feels like when her child is gone.”

  Suddenly a shadow slipped across the right side of Audrey’s face. She turned to the window, and her eyes got wide with fear.

  I saw it coming, glass and fire spinning end over end. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

  Audrey screamed. I jumped off the couch and reached for her. The picture window shattered. My hands shot out in front of my face as pin-needles of glass came flying my way.

  I heard a boom and a whoosh!

  When I uncovered my eyes, Audrey was on the floor, her hands over her head. Broken glass was everywhere and the curtains were blooming with flames. I yelled, “Fire! Fire!” The flames were the tortoise and I was the hare.

  I spun on the hardwood floor and kicked over the cooler with my heels. The ice and water gushed out and doused the flames eating at the baseboard.

  Audrey was screaming and backing away on the
floor. I grabbed a broom standing in the corner and knocked the curtain rod—flames and all—out onto the front porch through the shattered window. The elderly man tending the community garden turned his hose on the porch and the flames gurgled and belched like a thirsty animal.

  As the flames died down, I had a panicked thought. Where’s Audrey? I spun around and she was cowering in the corner, blood all over her face. A cruising squad car hit the brakes in the middle of the street. One of the police officers jumped out of the vehicle and was now jackknifing through the crowd that stood gaping at the raggedy opening of the picture window.