by Beverly Long
* * *
THE BUS WAS ten minutes late and by the time it dropped him off at his corner, Raoul had to run the last two blocks to make it to band practice on time. He didn’t want to be late. With the winter concert only two days away, his teacher was acting crazy about that kind of stuff. He was practically on school grounds when Apollo stepped out of the bushes.
“Hey,” Raoul said, stopping fast. For the past twenty-four hours, ever since Robert Hanson had shown up at his school, demanding to know about Speedy’s, he’d been worried sick about what he’d done. Every time he heard a siren in the distance, he’d envisioned that it was the cops coming to get him.
All the trouble had started with this guy. “I’m late,” Raoul said.
“No worries,” Apollo said. “I remembered that I had one more thing of Hector’s that he wanted you to have.”
“What?” Raoul asked.
Apollo held up both gloved hands. “Can’t say, can’t say. But it’s a big deal. What time does your band practice start tomorrow?”
“There’s no practice tomorrow morning. Our band teacher has a meeting.”
Apollo smiled. “Good. Then meet me here this time tomorrow. That will give me plenty of time to show you and you can still get to school on time like a good boy.”
Raoul didn’t like Apollo’s attitude. “Hey, my sister was in a car accident yesterday. You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”
Apollo frowned at him. “No. Why should I?”
Because you’re a creep. “I don’t know. I just had to ask.”
“Raoul, I only want what Hector wanted for you. Now, meet me tomorrow. You’ll be glad you did.”
He would meet him but that was the last he was going to have anything to do with him. He might have been Hector’s friend at one time but there was something Raoul didn’t like about him.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
“On Wednesday,” Apollo said before he disappeared back into the snow-covered bushes.
* * *
CARMEN HAD BEEN at her desk for less than ten minutes when her office phone rang. “Carmen Jimenez,” she answered.
“Hey, just checking to make sure you made it to work okay.”
Robert. Just thinking about him made her warm. She hadn’t showered before bed. Hadn’t wanted to wash away his scent. Instead, she’d gone to bed naked, something she never did, especially not on a cold winter night. But she’d lain naked in her double bed and imagined what it would be like if Robert was next to her with his warm skin, his strong muscles, his talented fingers and mouth.
It was almost embarrassing and certainly not something she intended to share with Robert. “Yes, got here just a little while ago. I asked Raoul to text me when he got to school and he’s also safe and sound.”
“Good.” He paused. “Can I see you tonight?”
“I don’t want to leave Raoul home alone,” she said.
“Of course. I could stop by. It would probably be late anyway. He goes to sleep at some point, right?”
Was she ready to have a man in the apartment? Raoul was a heavy sleeper, but what if he somehow overheard them? What if he knocked on the door?
She needed to talk to him first. Maybe she could do that at dinner?
“I’m not sure, Robert. I want to. But I have to handle this carefully.”
“I know. I can respect that. But there’s something that I want to ask you.”
“About?”
“Let’s just wait until tonight.”
He clearly didn’t want to talk about it now. “I’ll call you later and let you know if it’s okay to come over,” she said.
* * *
WHEN ROBERT GOT back to the station, he made fast tracks to where Blaze, Wasimole and Sawyer were having a heated discussion. He could see the frustration on their faces.
“I think I’ve got something,” he said.
All three of them looked up. Blaze and Wasimole looked exhausted; Sawyer looked interested.
He filled them in on his conversation with Judy Franconi Wright and his more recent conversation with Assistant Principal Bryant. When he finished, he rubbed his cold hands together. “Somebody made contact with Henry Wright just weeks before he died. Somebody that we know now wasn’t legit. We need to go back to the families of the other three victims and see if we can find a similar thread.”
Wasimole and Blaze nodded. “We can take Johnnie Whitmore and Ben Johanson, victims one and two.”
“Okay. We’ll take Gabe Monroe. I never did get to talk to his parents, just the grandmother. Hopefully they will be back from vacation.”
Blaze was walking away when she turned. “Let’s try to circle back together early afternoon.” She didn’t need to say anything else. Time was getting the best of them. Wednesday was now less than eighteen hours away.
“Okay,” Robert said.
On the way out of the building, Sawyer eyed him. “Anything you want to tell me?” he said.
“No,” Robert answered.
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “I’m not looking for details, idiot. I know you planned on taking Carmen home from the hospital. How is she?”
Fabulous. Sexy as hell. Inexperienced in a wonderful way. “She said her ribs are a little sore but she got lucky. Real lucky.”
“Lieutenant Fischer assigned it to Vance. He’s a good cop. He’ll figure it out if there’s anything there.”
“I know. I sent him a text last night asking who he was going to assign it to. Vance is a good choice. I’d have been a better one.”
“You’d have been the worse one. Plenty of motivation but not a lot of credibility when it came time for a trial. Yes, Judge, I am sleeping with the victim. That never goes over well.”
Sawyer was right. It still didn’t make him happy.
“So, did you ask her?” Sawyer asked.
“No. Yesterday was absolutely crazy. Maybe tonight. I told her I wanted to talk to her about something.”
“You’ll know when it’s the right time. Come on, let’s go talk to Maury and Carol Monroe.”
* * *
WHEN THEY GOT to the Monroe home, there was no grandmother this time. Maury answered the door. He was wearing dress slacks and a nice shirt, and he had a cell phone in his hand.
“Detectives Montgomery and Hanson,” Robert said as they flashed identification. “I stopped by last week and spoke with your mother. She said you were out of town. I know we didn’t have an appointment but we were hoping we could spend a little time with you and your wife today.”
“My wife isn’t here. She ran to the grocery store,” he said.
“Do you have a few minutes?” Robert asked.
“Sure. We just got home a little while ago.” He led them into the living room. There was a young woman on the couch holding the ugly dog. Robert guessed her age at about sixteen.
“This is my daughter, Trina,” Maury said.
He and Sawyer took chairs. Maury sat on the couch next to his daughter.
Robert remembered that the grandmother had indicated that the sister was having a hard time. “Maybe your daughter would want to do something else for a little while,” he suggested.
Maury looked at his daughter, and she shook her head violently. He patted her leg. “She stays. She feels that she’s been left out of discussions about her brother and that makes her angry.”
Information was a funny thing. Everybody wanted it until they heard something they wished they hadn’t. But it wasn’t his decision.
“We are wondering if during the weeks prior to his death, if Gabe had mentioned meeting anyone new? Maybe someone from a school or something like that?”
Maury shook his head. “He talked about kids sometimes that I didn’t know, but I don’t t
hink anybody was really new. Just his classmates. I think you guys already looked at his computer and his Facebook page.”
Blaze and Wasimole had secured that immediately after the killing. There was nothing on there that made them believe that he had met up with someone. “Where did Gabe hang out after school?” Sawyer asked.
“He usually came home, watched some television, played video games.” Maury looked at his daughter. “Right?”
She nodded. “Sometimes he came to band practice with me. Mr. Reynolds didn’t care if he watched.”
Robert looked up from his notepad. “You play the drums, right?”
“Yeah. Gabe used to screw around with them all the time,” she said. “It used to make me so mad.”
And now, Robert could tell, she felt bad about that.
“Have you ever heard of the Gottart Studio?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. When I was at band camp last year, a couple other kids were talking about taking lessons somewhere. That might have been the place.”
“Band camp?” Robert asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s the citywide camp at Grant Park. It’s huge. Gabe went with me a couple days. He hung out in the park while I was practicing. I remember I came back from lunch one day and I caught him sitting behind my drums pretending that they were his. I told him to get lost.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I told him that a lot.”
Maury patted his daughter’s leg again.
Robert pulled out his cell phone and sent a quick text to Blaze. See if either of the victims attended the citywide band camp at Grant Park last summer.
“Do you recall anything unusual happening at band camp?” Robert asked, hating that he had to push the girl. “Did Gabe get to know any of the other attendees when he was hanging around?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just a bunch of kids and you get paired up with people that you don’t even know. The teachers are usually okay. Most of them are music teachers from either middle school or high school. There was one guy that was sort of a dork and he may have talked to Gabe. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“That’s fine,” Robert assured her. “You’ve been extraordinarily helpful. Really.”
They left the Monroes and immediately headed toward Henry Wright’s house. They knocked and when Judy answered, Robert was relieved to see a cup of coffee in her hand. He introduced Sawyer, and they sat.
“We’ll only take a minute of your time. I know you told me that your son played the cornet. Do you recall if he attended band camp last summer at Grant Park? The citywide camp?”
She nodded. “Of course. That was his third year. I told you. He was very talented.”
“Of course. Did he ever talk about anybody that he met at camp?”
She shook her head. “Not that I recall. I used to pick him up and there were kids everywhere.”
* * *
WITHIN THE HOUR, Blaze had confirmed that both Johnnie Whitmore and Ben Johanson had attended the citywide band camp. The air in the station fairly hummed with energy. It was the first solid link among all four victims.
They’d discovered that while it was generally referred to as a citywide band camp, it was really hosted by a corporation out of Dallas, Texas, that put on similar events across the country. Schools helped distribute the information to students, payment was made directly to the company, and it subsequently secured space and staff to run the program. The company employed very few staff members on a full-time basis. Most were simply contracted locally for the three weeks that the camp lasted. It was good extra money for teachers who didn’t work in the summers.
When they’d spoken to the senior administrator whose office was in Dallas, he’d assured them they would drop everything to prepare a list of attendees, teachers and all other staff.
“Come on, come on.” Robert drummed his fingers on the desk and waited for Blaze to tell them that the list had come in her email.
It was two o’clock before they had anything of substance. The first list had over four hundred kids’ names. The second list had the names of sixteen teachers. The detectives set aside the first list. The person who had contacted Henry Wright had posed as a representative of Stalwart Academy. He had to have appeared to be an adult or it wouldn’t have been believable. There were ten men and six women on the list.
They didn’t worry about the women.
These crimes had been brutal and would have required some strength to move the bodies. There were women who had that kind of strength but when time was short, you played the odds. Plus Judy Franconi Wright had said that her son referred to the recruitment representative as he.
“You and Sawyer take these five,” Blaze said, handing Robert a list. “Wasimole and I’ll take the rest.”
The list had included the home address. They probably had that for tax forms. That was helpful. However, it did not have the school where the teacher worked.
Robert drove to the first address, that of a Mr. Burt Willow, while Sawyer worked the phone, trying to get all the information he could about the people on the list.
Everyone was working as fast as they could. Robert only hoped it would be fast enough.
Chapter Sixteen
“Hey look, it’s Limpy.”
Raoul didn’t turn around. Damn. All he wanted was to get to band practice. One more hallway and he’d have been safe.
He was sick of these jerks. And he wasn’t taking it anymore. Plus, he wanted some answers about Carmen’s car.
He veered to his left, pushed hard on the crash bar of the exterior door, and was outside. He didn’t stop to put his coat on. Instead, he carried it, stuffed under his arm. He had his backpack slung over that same shoulder and he carried his trombone case in his other hand.
The sidewalks were empty. He started walking faster. Footsteps, harsh against the concrete sidewalk, chased him. He smiled. These guys were in for the surprise of their lives.
He turned, holding his trombone in front of him.
“We been looking for you,” JJ said.
“You’re not avoiding us, are you?” Beau asked.
Raoul shook his head.
“How’s your trumpet?”
“It’s a trombone,” Raoul said. “There’s a difference. But you guys are probably too stupid to know that.”
“Trombone. Ooh, la la.” JJ pushed him on the shoulder and he fell back a couple steps.
“Stop it,” he said.
JJ pushed again. And again. And Raoul let himself get propelled into the long alley that separated the block.
Beau pointed to a Dumpster about twenty feet away. “Last time he crawled down the hall like a dog. And don’t dogs get their dinner out of the Dumpster?” He grabbed Raoul’s right arm.
Raoul let his coat fall to the ground but he kept his backpack on his shoulder.
JJ opened the lid and pulled out three white garbage sacks. He ripped open the top of all three, dumping the contents on the ground.
Raoul thought he might get sick just from smelling it. Dirty diapers and food and wet newspapers. All kinds of other stuff he couldn’t even identify.
Beau put both hands on Raoul’s shoulders and pushed him down to his knees. “Get down, dog. Eat your dinner.” Again he shoved Raoul, causing him to lose his balance. His shoulder hit the ground. Icy gravel surrounded the garbage container and it hurt.
The boys laughed, pushing each other around. “You know what my dog does?” said JJ. “He likes to roll around. Start rolling, doggy.” He kicked Raoul in the stomach so hard it took Raoul’s breath away.
Another kick. “Roll.”
Raoul rolled in the garbage. He rolled back. Over and over again. Until the boys tired of the game.
Beau grabbed the back of his collar and lifted him up. “Don
’t make us come looking for you,” he said. “Now give us your money.”
“It’s in my backpack,” Raoul said.
“Then get it out. We don’t have all day.”
Raoul unzipped his backpack and pulled out the ten-dollar bill that Carmen had given to him that morning. “Here,” he said.
“That’s better,” JJ said. He put the money in his pocket and started to walk away. Beau fell into step next to him.
Raoul reached into his backpack again and pulled out his gun. He stood up. The boys paid no attention to him. After all, he was just a little kid.
He held his arms out, both hands around the gun, just as Apollo had taught him. “Hey,” he yelled.
Both boys turned, laughing. They stopped when they saw the gun.
“It’s never going to stop, is it?” Raoul said, walking toward them. Wet newspaper clung to his pants. His arms, cut by the sharp rocks, bled. He didn’t care.
“Come on, man. We were just having some fun. Put your gun away,” JJ said, edging back a step.
“You’re both just stupid jerks,” Raoul yelled, waving his gun from one to the other.
They didn’t move.
Raoul took another step toward them. His arms started to shake. They had to pay. The sons of bitches had to pay.
* * *
BURT WILLOW LOOKED about seventy. His apartment was at the end of a long, narrow hallway. He answered the door with the newspaper in his hand. He was probably five-two and a hundred and twenty pounds.
“May I help you?”
“Detectives Hanson and Montgomery,” Robert said. They showed him their badges. “We understand that you were an instructor at the citywide band camp last year.”
He smiled and his teeth were in better shape than the rest of his body. “For the past eight years. Ever since my wife died. Love those kids.”
Sawyer and Robert made eye contact. Willow wasn’t physically strong enough to be their guy. But maybe he could help.
“We’re trying to identify a couple people who were there,” Sawyer said.
The man shook his head. “There are hundreds of kids. It would be hard to remember a couple.”
