Suffer the Children

by Lisa Black

  In the silence that followed, Luis Borgia groaned.

  Jack apparently decided to cut out the chitchat. If Luis could hold on, perhaps they could get medical help in time. “What’s your end game here, Quentin? What do you want?”

  “I want to take everyone down wit’ me.”

  “If you really wanted to die today, you would have done that already.”

  “I’m gettin’ to it.” His gaze flicked to Maggie, and Trina behind her, as if deciding whom to shoot first.

  “What was your plan for getting out of this? Shoot Luis, drop the gun, melt back into the crowd of students before anyone knew it was you?”

  Maggie thought, Tell him—

  “You’re unlucky enough that this is one of the few rooms in the building with a working camera. The video has already recorded you shooting Luis. You can’t get out of this.”

  Quentin looked up at the dark bubble in the ceiling. He fired off two rounds at it, missing both times. Gangbangers didn’t get in a lot of range time. That was why they relied on sprays of overkill instead of sniper-like shots. The air clogged with that metallic-smelling smoke and Maggie developed an instant headache as she wondered if the video system even could record. With their luck, the cameras only viewed and didn’t save.

  Behind her, Trina clung to her back with both arms, a little whimper escaping her lips with each boom. Who knew what traumas the girl had already survived in her life, and here was this petty gangbanger undoing any progress that the center had been able to achieve in helping her overcome them. Maggie’s fear dissipated. “Stop it!”

  This interruption surprised Quentin.

  She said, “Let Trina get out of here. You’re terrifying her.”

  “Not my fault she’s here,” Quentin said. “She was hangin’ around linin’ up Luis.”

  “Fine. But let her go now.”

  “You might as well get them both out of here,” Jack said to Quentin, calm, man to man. “You’re in a room with one door and three cops and a security checkpoint on the way to the only exit. Unless you expect James Bond to drop from a helicopter, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “I am as long as I gots you all,” Quentin said, in a confident tone that wavered only a little. Obviously, he had no clue how to get out of the situation he’d created but couldn’t let himself admit it. He’d die rather than back down, probably figuring he would do that today anyway, so might as well do it on his own terms—or whatever nonsense teenagers told themselves when they had no real concept of mortality. She knew the whole thrust of hostage negotiation is keep them talking until they accept that they are not going to get a fast car and a million bucks and a police escort to the airport, and give up, but right now they didn’t have time for the hours or days that would take. Not when Luis Borgia lay bleeding out on the schoolroom floor.

  In the hallway outside the door Maggie saw Riley and Officer Coglan, with Dr. Palmer hovering behind them until Riley shooed him away. Riley caught her gaze. He held up one finger with a questioning look. She dipped her chin, and wondered if Coglan had a weapon, or if Riley had retrieved his.

  “Let’s do this,” Jack was saying. “Give me the gun and I’ll ride with you to the police department. I’ll make sure you’re treated with respect, as a man. Then these women can leave and the medics can see to Luis. I’ll tell the prosecutor’s office you cooperated. They’ll give you the best deal you can get.”

  Luis Borgia gave a rasping sigh, which seemed to fill every corner of the room. It made the back of Maggie’s neck tingle. She could see only parts of him, with all the desks in the way, but caught sight of his left hand twitching in spasms. The kid was dying.

  Quentin didn’t jump at it, but his tone of voice said his brain mulled it over. “I’m not plannin’ to go to no jail.”

  “Come on, Quentin, you know how the world works. You know there’s not going to be probation and community service for this. You done the crime. Now you’ve got to be a man and take the time.”

  Pretty smart, Maggie thought. He made giving up sound macho. And she thanked him for referring to herself and Trina as women and not girls.

  Then Quentin said, “Then it might as well be worth it.” And he shot Luis Borgia two more times.

  At the first retort some animal instinct took over Maggie, and she dashed for the exit, dragging Trina behind her. Halfway there she heard the second shot and saw a blur as Jack leapt onto a desk to launch himself at Quentin Sherman.

  She shoved the small girl into the waiting arms of Riley and Coglin. Then she heard the third shot.

  And she turned and ran the three feet back into the room, shouting his name.

  In a pit of overturned desks, Jack and the boy struggled. Jack was on top but Quentin was strong, and still had the gun in his left hand. To Maggie’s relief, neither appeared to be bleeding and a hole spiderwebbed through one of the windows. She took one step onto the same desk Jack had, then down the other side of it.

  Jack straddled the kid, holding both arms to the floor but with difficulty, and couldn’t keep them still.

  Maggie stomped as hard as she could on Quentin’s left wrist. With both hands she wrestled the gun out of his hand, fighting the fingers that closed around it like metal prongs. She had to wrench it sideways to get the index finger from the trigger guard and couldn’t be sure she hadn’t broken it. Not that she cared.

  With the gun free, she stepped back, stumbling over Luis’s body. She didn’t point it at Quentin, didn’t have to. Coglan and Riley now reached either side of him and together the three men hauled him to his feet. He stopped resisting as the cuffs were snapped on. He had maintained his stubborn manhood and now could take the consequences with his head held high. He said nothing, only drank in Luis’s still form as Coglan shuffled him from the room.

  Maggie dropped to the floor and pressed her fingers to Luis Borgia’s neck. The first bullet had entered his right cheekbone, below the eye, creating a neat hole but bulging the eye out in a reddened, grotesque bulb. The other two shots had entered his chest, only a few tablespoons of blood circling each to dye his white polo shirt. He had died very, very quickly after that.

  Jack stood over them, catching his breath. “Anything?”

  She shook her head. Then she stood up as well. There would be no more urgency required on Luis Borgia’s behalf.

  “You all right?” Jack asked.

  Her body started toward him, and she realized that she intended to give him a hug. She intended to throw her arms around him in massive relief that that third shot had not gone through his head or his heart or any other vital organ. The realization made her stop as if hitting a glass door she hadn’t known was there. She sucked in air. “Uh—yeah. You?”

  “Peachy,” he said.

  *

  During the short elevator ride, Rick Gardiner had formed a plan, founded upon the twin rocks of bureaucratic sprawl and the lack of curiosity on the part of the average civil servant. He calculated those two things alone gave him a 95 percent chance of success.

  The woman behind the desk hung up from arguing with either her husband or her child about what to make for dinner and greeted Rick wearily. She appeared to be having a not-so-great day, perhaps feeling more than a little beaten down by life. As long as he didn’t tick her off, he figured, she raised his odds to ninety-nine.

  “Hiya, slim,” he said, friendly but not loud, and despite the fact she needed to lose about thirty pounds.

  It worked. About half the lines in her brow smoothed out.

  He spun her a tale about how the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police were considering making Jack Renner Detective of the Year for his work on “that missing kid case” and—

  “What missing kid?” the woman asked.

  He shouldn’t have made up a case involving a kid. Chicks always wanted to know about kids—but it had to sound spectacular or it wouldn’t warrant an award. “I don’t even remember; it was way back in spring. Anyway my boss wants to have a little bio prep
ared in case he’s got to, you know, make a speech about good old Jack.”

  “Oh.” And the thick clod stood there like she couldn’t figure out the rest. But at least she’d forgotten about the fictional missing kid. Probably had enough trouble with her own real ones.

  “So I need his resume or whatever, where he was born. Vital statistics kind of crap.”

  “Oh. But I can’t give you his file.”

  Rick waved his hand as if that was the last thought on his mind. “Of course not. Just tell me the highlights and I’ll jot ’em down. Make my boss happy and I can go back to real work.”

  She considered this, but not for long. Police departments handed out nearly as many awards as Hollywood so the request must have seemed routine to her. And if not, she had too many of her own problems to bother asking questions about his. She shuffled off to get the file.

  She returned only after opening three huge file drawers and answering two phone calls. The counter hid Rick’s tapping foot. He didn’t need another cop walking in and asking what was up, especially one who might know that police chiefs association awards were given only to police chiefs, and then in spring, not fall.

  The thin manila folder plopped onto the desk behind the counter and she flipped it open to start at the back, locating the application. Renner must have filled it out online because the responses were printed, not handwritten—this made them easier to read but not as easy to pick out. Plus they were upside down.

  “Minneapolis,” the woman said aloud.

  “What?”

  “Born and raised, apparently. Worked for Minne PD for twenty, then came here. Who moves to Cleveland from Minneapolis?”

  “Someone looking for warmer weather?” Rick suggested, leaning over the counter to scan the documents. He needed Maggie for this—she could be sitting on the other side of the breakfast table and read stuff out of the paper upside down faster than he could right side up. But of course, he wouldn’t want Maggie for this particular project. He didn’t want to think about where her loyalties lay these days.

  “Was he a detective there, too?” he asked the woman.

  “Yeah—property, then vice.”

  “Okay. What about personal stuff. Kids? Wife?”

  “We can’t ask that on the application,” she said as if he went beyond stupid. “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  “I have to keep it hush-hush. It’s supposed to be a big surprise to him when he wins, if he wins. He may not. The boss just wants to have the bio prepared in case.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Her phone rang again and, glory be, she moved a few feet away to answer it but left the file open. Rick peered mightily, trying to concentrate on the words, then gave up and managed to turn the file around without attracting the clerk’s attention. He jotted down the dates of Renner’s employment with Minneapolis PD. He also noted the name of Renner’s supervisor there.

  The spaces below were blank. He had listed no other police departments prior to Minneapolis, or even a gig twirling ice cream cones at the local Dairy Queen. Not that surprising, since he’d put in the full twenty at the PD. Cops often did that, got their pension from one place and then moved to another for some supplemental income or because they realized fly fishing or golfing all day, every day, might not be the life for them. At least not yet.

  The spaces in the “Military” section were all blank.

  Under “Education” he had listed a high school—Southern, no, Southwest—but no college. Rick would have figured the smarmy Renner for a degree, but nothing. So he went right into the force, spent twenty years, moved to Cleveland for whatever bizarre reason, gave up on retirement and applied to Cleveland PD. Nothing suspicious.

  He scanned for any other useful information. The HR flunky was right—the Equal Employment Opportunity department wouldn’t let employers ask for birth date, marital status, or ages or existence of spouses or children on an application. They could, however, get the social security number. Rick carefully wrote 2-8-8-4—

  The woman behind the counter slapped the file shut, obviously noticing its position had changed but just as obviously opting not to make a fuss about it. “Anything else?”

  Rick forced a smile. “Any awards or commendations they can mention? Something to fancy it up, let the police chiefs know they awarded the right guy?”

  She picked up the file so she could flip through it out of his sight. “Nope. A certificate for marksmanship training.”

  “Nah,” Rick said. “We all got those.”

  “That’s it.”

  Big smile. “Okay. Thanks for helping me out.”

  At the door, her voice stopped him. “Hey.”

  Turn slowly, keep it casual. “What, babe?”

  “If he wins, make sure we get a copy of the award certificate. For his file.”

  Rick promised he would absolutely do that.

  Chapter 16

  It was 10 p.m. by the time they finished with the reports and the questions and walking the Bureau of Corrections as well as an official from the charter school system that provided the teachers through the events of the afternoon. Maggie and Trina sat at a table in the second-floor visitor’s area. They had the large room to themselves and their voices all but echoed over the empty tables and worn linoleum. The older woman from the kitchen had done what she could by supplying them with coffee for Maggie and hot chocolate for Trina until Maggie felt ready to jump out of her skin and the girl risked diabetes.

  Trina had been shuffled in for an emergency session with Dr. Szabo, and Ms. Washington had hovered for most of the afternoon as a stoic foundation of support. Trina said she had still been in the room finishing up her notes, but Maggie suspected that the girl had been chatting with Luis. Bad luck for both of them, to linger until Quentin could find them alone.

  Maggie herself had given her statement several times over, had assured her fellow technician Josh of her continued well-being, and had been sheltered from the media outlets gathered in the street outside to report the latest “school shooting,” which technically this wasn’t. It had taken place in a schoolroom, Maggie puzzled to herself absently, but it was more along the lines of a fellow prisoner getting shanked in the shower.

  This led her to wonder why Quentin hadn’t smuggled in a knife, which would have been silent to use and given him a much better chance of wandering off into the crowd long before anyone discovered the body. Perhaps he didn’t have the nerve or the skill to carry out hand-to-hand attacks. Or he feared getting blood on his clothes, which he couldn’t explain or hide. A gun meant his getaway had to be like lightning, but it would leave no evidence on him except microscopic traces of gunshot residue, easily washed off his hands in the men’s room.

  Whatever. She had the feeling Quentin Sherman had never been an especially deep thinker. And he was only fifteen years old.

  “Trina,” Maggie said. “You told Detective Renner that Rachael had a boyfriend. Was that Luis?”

  Exhaustion had been catching up with the girl, but now her eyes snapped open. She gazed at Maggie as if she had single-handedly rescued her from a dragon and a burning tower.

  “No. Uh-uh.”

  “So who was it?”

  Trina ran thin fingers through her shiny hair, which stuck out at odd angles. She had a bracelet tattoo of either barbed wire or twining ivy, Maggie couldn’t tell, which looked as if it had been accomplished with ballpoint pen. Her nails had been chewed to stubs and her cuticles were red and raw. Maggie had no idea how Trina came to be a resident at the Firebird Center, and didn’t want to risk their cautious rapport by prying into her trauma.

  “I don’t know—I mean I don’t know his name. She wouldn’t tell me. She said he was older than us and drove a Lexus and had a big house. He was going to kick out his wife and bring Rachael home to live. He was going to get her out of here—legally, not like helping her escape or anything, because he could afford famous lawyers, special guys from New York.”

  “Was it someone she
met here? Or from before she came here?”

  “She didn’t say, exactly.” Trina pulled her knees to her chest in one effortless motion, the fingers of each hand toying with her earlobes as she thought. “But I kinda thought she meant someone who worked here.”

  “Any kind of description? What he looked like? Hair color, eye color?”

  Trina shook her head no to each, adding, “She said he was hot.”

  That let Dr. Palmer out. On a hotness scale Maggie wouldn’t have put him remotely near the flaming end, and she doubted a fifteen-year-old would feel differently. Though women looked at attraction differently when they found someone who treated them with respect and love.

  Rachael’s therapist and dorm mother were both female. Ditto for the kitchen staff, at least the ones Maggie had met, though they must have others for a twenty-four/seven operation. And could a school cook convince a girl that he could afford fancy lawyers?

  Possibly. A smooth-talking grown man could convince a vulnerable teen of just about anything, as the sad history of pedophilia showed.

  She asked Trina, “What about teachers? Any male teachers that she could have been referring to? Pardon my grammar.”

  This made Trina smile, a quick, furtive flash of grin before giving the question serious consideration. “We only have one man teacher, Mr. Lewis. He teaches English.”

  Maggie remembered Rachael’s fascination with ellipses. “Is he hot? Would you think so?”

  Trina said no, with that quick grin again. “His nose is all smashed-like and his hair sticks out. He smells like sausages.”

  “So, not so much, then,” Maggie concluded, and this thrust Trina into a fit of giggles, fingers covering the lower half of her face, chin tucked behind her knees, her eyes dancing with delight. Maggie joined in, thinking they were probably both punchy from the adrenaline valley and lack of food. But there were few things more enduring than females giggling about males, and she didn’t try to fight it.