Not sure what he meant, Lyonessa kept her head down. People scattered in a torrent of screams and more bangs, but two bodies had her pinned. She dropped her doll but tried to remain as still as Grandmomma. Her fright made it hard to breathe. Why wasn't Grandmomma moving? Why wasn't she coming after her and scooping her up and holding her close like she did whenever she was scared?
A pair of rough hands grabbed her and pull her to her feet. Lyonessa lashed out in frenzied struggle, slapping at the grip the man had on her wrist. The men smelled of sweat and bad smoke, eyes half-shut as if bored. They shoved her into the van.
"You tell Lonzo," the first one stood in the open rear passenger door shouted to no one in particular. He sort of reminded her of her pastor, the way he shouted and paused as if waiting for a response.
They knew her brother, but they sounded so angry. Lonzo would calm them down and make everything all right. He had that way with people. The white one put his hand on her knee. At first she thought it was to get her to settle down. But the way he stroked his fingers up and down her leg made her more scared. The man in the front seat looked sad, disgusted, as if he had a plate of food he didn't like but was forced to eat.
The old-timey car pulled off.
Lonzo Perez insisted his crew call him "Black," not "El Negro". Hazel eyes, glassy and expressionless, a snake's eyes, stared at nothing in particular. Though sporting a Boston Celtics jersey, he had no love for the team. The green and white, however, were his crew's colors and its sleevelessness showed off his arms. Along his thick bicep and forearm was a tattoo of his humerus and ulna. A disconcerting effect against his honey-complected skin. The tattoo of his skeleton ran over his ribs and legs also, like an X-ray in a black ink. What gave him pause was the thought of doing his face, just the right half. Regardless of his decision, he knew he couldn't do his hand as it remained sheathed within its glove.
There was an art to being alone and he was the consummate artist. The name, the insisted English, separated him. It carved him out into an even more specialized niche, as if his people didn't already fear and respect him. In that order: fear then respect. Which was fine because he, too, feared them. He feared connection, found the burdens of relationship odd and heavy. Other than Lyonessa and his grandmomma – with his older brothers out of play, one dead, one in prison – he had no stability. No center. Nothing which weighed him down or left him vulnerable. Weak. Exposed. His life was a broken center and he was adrift, going whichever direction he pleased. The price of connection was often too steep.
The front room was the largest room, a mismatched couch and love seat ringing the enclosed space around the television. Grandmomma wrapped her arms around a tattered couch cushion. A picture of a needlepoint flower was stitched onto its front half. She had picked it up at a garage sale for a nickel and hugged it as if it were a talisman that was her only hope to hold back the evil spirits. The television was on, but no one watched it, though it helped drown out the noise of his men. Whiling away the hours in endless chatter about sex, money, and power, not truly knowing what to do with any of them. Sitting in the center of the room, all activity orbited Black.
Black hated this place. It reeked of poverty and shame. A dozen members of his family crammed into a tiny apartment. Barely enough room to sleep in peace. Broken old men, stoop-shouldered and thick-armed, killing themselves as day laborers, doing the scut work to fuel other's versions of the American dream. All scared and anxious. Black lived on the other side of town. Eagle Terrace, close as it was to Breton Court, and even though it was not controlled by a rival gang, often proved problematic. But there was no place he feared going into. Even his cholos gave him wide berth, standing around in their over-sized white T-shirts, gold chains, baggy shorts, and white knee socks, recognizing the electric tension of the room. His people scoured the block, the neighborhood, the city, searching for any trace of Lyonessa. Dred had gone too far. He'd been bucking for a war for a long time. He was about to reap one.
Every crew in their set had two leaders. Black was primera palabra, the first word. The segunda palabra, the second word, the leader when Black wasn't around, was La Payasa. She possessed a lithe physique and walked with a lilt; her body in constant twitch, as if she was constantly ready to burst into a dance, moving to the rhythms of life that only she heard. Blonde hair with black roots exposed to three inches. Black and gold, her colors, set against her butterscotch complexion which some might have been called "high yella" back in the day. A crease, an old scar truth be told, etched the side of her face.
La Payasa stood at the back of the room, hating the idea of being touched. She was loath to interrupt him. She knew it was bad this time. In her mind, gangs lived by a code and certain things were just off limits. Children especially. The rules of the game had changed, if indeed there were rules. She too was afraid. Not for herself, mind you. She'd programmed herself to not be afraid. It came with always having to prove that she was down for whatever. Half black, half Hispanic, she always had to prove herself. But her soul already knew the night would not end well. And her heart steeled itself for the inevitable blood that needed to answer blood.
Someone rapped at the door. Black nodded and one of his boys opened it. Two police detectives identified themselves. Their eyes told the story long before their lips did. They had found Lyonessa's body. Grandmomma's mouth opened, wordless. A tear pooled in her rheumy eyes. The screams would come later. Without a word spoken, La Payasa knew she was to rally the soldiers because the streets would soon feel Black's rage. She knew Black's instinctive thought.
"Someone burns for this."
CHAPTER TWO
The Marion County Coroner's Office was a nondescript brick building west of Methodist Hospital, just outside of downtown Indianapolis. The name Doctor Dennis T Nicholas was engraved on a plaque as if to say "the doctor is in". Ghosts in blue scrubs and blue gloves and blue masks, behind plastic face shields, the pathologist on duty was elbow deep in another body while a lab tech took photos of bodies as if for a thug fashion shoot. Posters of human anatomy hung on refrigerators like a child's drawing. Specs of the victims filled a dry-erase board.
Cantrell Williams stood over the body of a child and his heart mourned that the world was not the way it was meant to be. Right now, this portrait of an angel at rest had no name. There was no trace of the horrors she must've endured during her final hours frozen onto her face, only the face of a doll, a smooth brown framed by dark hair. Wearing a yellow gown over his suit, like an apron as if he prepared to barbecue, Cantrell hovered about the body. He hated the rustle of his mask every time he took a breath.
He almost didn't notice the cameras.
Some of the other detectives enjoyed their minor celebrity status. A three-man crew followed him down to the coroner's office as they filmed another episode of The Squad. They shadowed several of the detectives, hoping that maybe something they were working might turn into something more. Cantrell considered them a pain in the ass, more intrusive and a hindrance to real investigative work. Captain Octavia Burke thought it a shrewd public relations move, perhaps shining a bit of light on their dark corner of the universe. Maybe with more attention, the department might get a budget increase.
His partner, Detective Lee McCarrell, couldn't be bothered to be here. Action junkies hated the waiting and paperwork of the job. At best he would glance at a report or let Cantrell give him the highlights later.
Cantrell flipped through pages of the report. Diagrams of the head and body, though to his eye, the drawings were too Caucasian. The report was a litany of brutality. Details of vaginal and anal tearings. Wound tracks measured. He fumed to himself that he had to do this on his own. "She got a name yet?"
"Lyonessa Maurila Ramona Perez," the first blue ghost said. He cocked his head to the camera, affecting the pose of grief mixed with pensiveness.
"Guess that makes her official. We got ourselves a bona fide homicide." Cantrell wanted to call bullshit on the doctors, but his own words
sounded crafted for effect.
"When will we have the official report?"
"Tomorrow. End of the week at the latest. We're getting backed up."
"Things are heating up. What's the unofficial word?"
"Someone brutalized this child. Her last hours were filled with pain and terror." The pathologist attempted to pay little attention to the camera, yet carried herself as if on stage delivering lines she'd expect to hear on one of those prime-time cop shows. Cantrell waited for her to deliver a bad pun and dramatically don some sunglasses. "Scrapes along her forearms, a cross-hatched scar across her neck. Skin under her fingernails from where she fought her attackers."
Good girl, he thought.
X-rays lined one of the walls, body parts in close up. Shoulders. Arms. Feet. Ribs. Legs. Head. A pastiche of anatomy, no longer recognizable as human. The X-rays showed where the merciful bullet entered and the direction of it. Bruises and welts along her right thigh smeared into a blue-maroon blotch. A scratch mark ran across her shoulder. A red smear like poorly applied blush on her cheek.
She was twelve years old.
"Abrasions on her neck, possibly from a stranglehold. A contusion possibly followed with a temporary loss of consciousness."
"What happened here?"
"Those marks are several hours old. From tape. Adhesive in the tracks. Looks like she was restrained during the assault. She tried pretty hard to get free."
"She was a fighter," he whispered in respect and sadness, a mix of mourning and pride.
"As best she could. We have carpet burns on her legs like she was forced onto…"
"I get the picture."
"How much more do you want to know?"
"How much more do you have?"
"Significant trauma and tearing to her vagina and anus."
"I've got enough." Cantrell turned to the camera hoping the disgust on his face didn't play as unconcern.
For the last year or so, other than the occasional hiccup, the streets had been calm. King and his Youth Solidarity organization, unorthodox methods and all, had been an effective rule. But things on the streets had heated up. It started small, a match or a tussle here and there as if testing the waters. Then an attack. Then a rape. Rumor had it that the Latinos had raped a black woman. Not that any such crime had been reported, but the rumor had life and power of its own. Now bodies were dropping. With this many bodies falling, it would only be a matter of time before the Feds came in with RICO and the Patriot Act behind them. Too much talk of drug wars and gangs put a rarified scent into the air – cutting through even their terrorist mandate – and the Feebs would come in like it was mating season ready to hump anything that moved. Federal indictments had a way of driving people mad. Cantrell hoped to put the cases down before things got any further out of control.
The squad room was little more than a sanctuary of desks. Three long rows of them, overgrown and strewn with paper and stacked folders. Brown folders lined up on them under a fluorescent glare. Every now and then, slips of pink paper sprang up beneath wayward piles in response to the constant bleet of the phones. Every bit of open space was an opportunity for another file to land on a desk. Mismatched file cabinets stood like soldiers at attention. A stereo rested on top one of them; an American flag magnet clung to another.
"What do we have?" Captain Octavia Burke cut an imposing figure despite barely passing the height requirement to join the force. A full-figured woman in a gray business suit, she wore her glasses low on her nose in a tacit declaration that she was smarter than whoever she deigned to talk to, detective or chief alike. Before her promotion, she'd been Lee McCarrell's partner also, so perhaps working with him was a fast track to promotion. Like the mayor's detail, if the mayor was a mediocre redneck detective who had managed to not be fired.
"Suspicious vehicle driving real slow in the parking lot. Opened fire. Folks scattered. Scooped up the girl."
"A kidnapping?"
"Can't tell if it was intentional or she was an easy opportunity. Then the shit jumped off." Cantrell turned to the cameras. "Can I say shit? Anyway, they went up High School Road."
"Where's Lee?"
"Checking in with one of his CIs." Cantrell handed her his report and studied her desk. He hated lying to the captain, but he needed to cover his partner's back. His confidential informant was actually off the books and was too plugged into the streets to not be into some dirt herself. And his partner was sleeping with her.
"Let's start at the beginning." Octavia did that thing with the glasses again. Most days she still missed the rush of being a detective. She missed the opportunity to read people. She missed unraveling mysteries. Like the bullshit story Cantrell handed her about his partner. Lee McCarrell might have been a good cop at one point, but he often succumbed to the need for short cuts. Not necessarily lazy, but he often made poor decisions. And his partners were often the ones left holding his bag of shit.
"Lyonessa Maurila Ramona Perez. Went to Jonathan Jennings Public School 109. From the amount of bruises, she went through hell in her last hours."
"What about the family?"
"Hispanic. Grandmother worked nights as a maid at the Speedway Lodge. Mother and father both deceased. There's an older brother. Lonzo 'Black' Perez. He's in the system."
"Gang?"
"And drugs."
"This related?" Octavia paced behind the desk reading the report.
"Things have been heating up. King's been out of play…"
"Let's not confuse a community activist with someone doing police work." The mention of King James White caused her to bristle. Whenever his name came up, bodies fell and the police were left with more questions than answers. A whole lot of mystery – and things she didn't want explanations for – and open cases. She hated the paperwork and going before the bosses with a plate full of "I don't know".
"He runs a program. Gets gang members off the streets. Finds them work. Does after-school tutoring."
"Riiiiiiiiight. Well, the community is under siege and we're stretched thin running around after something has jumped off in order to get ahead of the problem." Octavia pushed the glasses high on her nose with a sigh. "What about the vehicle?"
"Robbery investigation unit informed me that they recovered a car matching the description in my report." For a brief, beautiful moment, he broke his own rule. He had hope. But he soon paid the price and was dashed against the rocks of reality. "The car was a burnt husk. Torched in order to hide any evidence. They got it over at Zore's Towing. Even the VIN was totally gone. A hot burn, probably gasoline used as an accelerant. The forensic team was called in and they found a hidden VIN. It traced back to one Garlan Pellam… who had reported it stolen a day earlier."
"I know that look, detective. What is it?"
"The owner, Mr Pellam. He's not in the system, but he is on the radar of the Gang Task Force. Known associate of many of Dred's crew."
"And the report that it was stolen…"
"… feels a little too convenient."
"Might be worth a conversation. Anything on Dred? DOB? Photo? Sheet?"
"We got nothing. A name. A nickname probably, unless you believe his momma took one look at her beautiful baby boy and decided to call his bald ass 'Dred'."
"Keep your ears open just in case. What's your next step?"
"Got some witnesses coming in to give descriptions of the shooters. Looks like two perps. Black. Working on ID-ing them."
"See if you can speed up the DNA tests from the fluids on the body. And keep your partner in line. A lot of eyes are on him."
As lead detective on the Perez homicide, Cantrell needed to make sense of the chaotic crime scene as well as the players. On one side, he had one Lonzo "Black" Perez, head of a Hispanic crew, local franchise of some national set, whose activities had been slowly amping up as their gang pushed into new territories imposing its will. And whose baby sister was raped and murdered. If something like that was to happen to Cantrell's baby sister, badge or no badg
e, there'd be hell to pay. On the other side was the mysterious Dred, who'd been a shadowy figure for years, more rumor than anything else until King came on the scene. Suddenly Dred became more active. There were several open cases tied to him – and for that matter, King – that went down with the Colvin affair. No one wanted to look too hard at that as Colvin went down and bodies quit dropping. But the mayor's office, whipped up by the media, pressured the captain on this one. A little girl was dead. An innocent caught in the middle of two junkyard dogs yanking on their junk to prove their manhood. That wasn't going to stand. Hopefully his esteemed partner had something.
"You dig up anything on our case?"
"Like what?" Lee McCarrell sauntered to his desk, a head nod to the filming crew. The crew leapt to readiness, if for no other reason than because Lee made for great commentary, most of which the brass would rather have left on the editing room floor. Still, any opportunity to jam a thumb into their eye he'd take.
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