Apprehensions & Convictions

by Mark Johnson

  “Tell it, brother!”

  “This disease almost killed . . . a member of my own family . . . just a few days ago,” David says. “He’s sitting right here beside me.”

  I’m thinking, that’s a bit of a stretch, Dave. But I keep listening.

  “We were talking on the way over here, and he said a name, and it sounded familiar to me. Just a few minutes ago I checked my phone list, and there it is. He’s in my fucking phone!” David’s choking now, but soldiers on. “He’s a guy you all know, used to come to this meeting. He’s in my phone ’cause he would call me for rides to this meeting. He’s one of us. And he cut a guy’s throat and tried to shoot my father-in-law! This disease is a motherfucker!”

  Several months have passed now, and I’ve talked to the guys at the Dollar store who made the arrest, to each detective who talked to him, to the people at Metro who witnessed the slashing and the escape, and to the tactical guys who went under the house to finish him off. I’ve even grilled David about how good a program the kid seemed to be working: How much clean time did he have? What was his drug of choice? Did he have a sponsor? Was he hitting a lot of meetings? What step was he on? I’ve read and reread all the police reports, including the tox report from Forensics that says that traces of marijuana and opiate derivatives were in his blood. Probably a Lortab or a Z bar, I’m guessing. Not enough for a sudden psychotic break.

  Something’s still eating at me, something I can’t even name.

  I decide the only remaining place to get a clue is from his family. On a rainy late spring afternoon, I find the auto repair shop owned by the father of Lawrence Wallace, way out in west Mobile. At the bottom of the business sign is the proclamation “Jesus Loves You.” The shop is just a stone’s throw from the Dollar store.

  It’s a stand-alone shop, one of those all-metal prefab buildings, with a small office at one end and a couple of overhead doors to drive-in bays with hydraulic lifts inside at the other end. I notice a car parked in front of the office and check my watch. It’s almost five, closing time. I decide to wait, to be sure any customers are gone.

  A man and a woman come out of the office and dash through the rain to their car, as another man waves good-bye from the office door. They drive by me going out as I pull up to the office just before the man inside locks it up. I step inside and wipe the rain from my forehead.

  “Hello, are you the proprietor here? The father of Lawrence Wallace?”

  He nods, and I offer my hand. He shakes it with a firm grip. “We closed, but I can see by your car that you’re not a customer.”

  “No, sir, I’m Detective Johnson. Mark Johnson,” I say. “But I’m not really here on police business, at least not primarily.”

  “Oh, no? You’re not here about my son, then?”

  “Well, yes and no. I mean, I am here about him, but it’s not official, really. I mean, I’m not working the case, or anything. I’m just here for personal reasons. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your son.”

  I pause, trying to read his face, to gauge if it’s too soon, too painful, to see if he feels threatened, or suspicious. All I can see is puzzlement.

  “I’m the one who found him, down the parkway. The one he shot.”

  His eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, and he takes a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry about that, Detective,” he says. “Are you all right now?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking. But I still don’t understand it all, I just—”

  “Lord, you and me both,” he says. “Guess I never will.”

  “I checked his record, and there’s really nothing there, compared to what I’m used to seeing.”

  “No, you’re right. He had his little scrapes like kids do nowadays, y’know, but Lawrence never was in much trouble. He was a good boy.”

  “Did he have a drug habit? I did see some misdemeanor drug cases.”

  “Well, I ain’t gonna lie, he’d been arrested for drugs, but like you say, they wasn’t nothing serious, and it had been a while back. He wasn’t no dope-crazy addict, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so. In fact I heard he was goin’ to those 12-step meetings.”

  “You’ve sure done your homework, Detective.”

  “What kinda student was he? Did he ever get in fights at school? Get suspended or expelled? Did he get decent grades?”

  “He wasn’t what you’d call a scholar, but he graduated high school and went to Bishop State after that. Got a diploma in jewelry makin’. He’d make the prettiest little rings, and bracelets and such. For his mama, and his sisters. And of course his girlfriends. But mainly he worked right here with me, at the shop. Matter fact, the day before all this mess happened, we took a trip together up to Montgomery, to get a car. Rode up and back together in the rollback truck, talked all the way, like normal.”

  “Was he just breaking up with a girlfriend, maybe? Something he may not have wanted to talk about with his dad?”

  “He had his girlfriends, but no one special girl, ’least not one I knew about. He was more likely to talk to his mama ’bout that department.”

  “Would you mind, then, if I talk to your wife? Do you think she’d mind?”

  “Well, I don’t know. You’re just gonna hafta ask her. See, his mama’s not my wife anymore, hasn’t been for some years now. We divorced when Lawrence was, lessee, twelve or thirteen. She’s remarried, and he would stay mostly with them, when he wasn’t at some girl’s place.”

  “I see. That explains the different name.” I’ve already run Wallace in the Relationships database and found a woman old enough to be his mother who has the same address.

  “Yes sir. They stay right down the road from here, in that Deerwoods subdivision.”

  “I’ll try to visit with her, then, too. But I’m wondering, Mr. Wallace, what about his other friends—not girls—but the guys he ran with. What kind of guys—”

  “He really didn’t hang with no boys. For Lawrence, it was the girls he was interested in. Not that he was some kinda ladies’ man, neither. But with other boys, well, he wa’nt no loner, exactly, but I never knew him to, like, hang with any of ’em, never heard him talk about other boys.”

  “So it’s not like he ran with a rough crowd or anything. Well, then, can you think of anything Mr. Wallace, anything about Lawrence—if it’s not drugs, or girls, or the wrong crowd—anything different in Lawrence’s behavior, or attitude, any little thing at all that might explain all this?”

  Mr. Wallace cocks his head and thinks hard for a long moment. “I wish I did, Detective,” he says. Then, in a softer voice that’s almost wistful, he adds, “Y’know that day we took the trip to Montgomery, the day before he died. He had spent the night over at my place, with me and his sisters, ’cause we had to get up early to get on the road. And like we do every day at my house, we sit around the breakfast table, and hold hands, and say grace together. He was right there with us, holdin’ hands and sayin’ grace, like he always had, growin’ up. I just don’t know what happened, Detective. If you can figure it out, please let me know.”

  I go next to his mother’s address. She’s at work, but her husband, Lawrence Jr.’s stepfather, answers the door and invites me in. A tall, stout man with a proud bearing and a rich, deep voice, he introduces himself as retired Air Force, adding that he was formerly in the chain of command that controlled America’s nuclear arsenal. “Had my finger on the button of forty missile silos,” he says. And he has answers, an abundance of answers. He has all the answers.

  “The boy had no structure, no discipline in his life. His mama spoiled him. He’d dabble at this, dabble at that. God only knows why he wasted two years of tuition—that I paid for—makin’ jewelry! Of all things. He was never gonna make a living at that! But that didn’t seem to matter to him. And why should it? He could always stay here rent free, or over at his daddy’s, or with one of his little girlfriends. His daddy gave him a car to drive, his mothe
r and I fed and housed him. Why should he grow up?

  “I tried to encourage him to join the military. I did well by it. Made a career of it and didn’t do too bad, either, as you can tell by this house and the cars in my driveway. But he’d hear none of that.

  “I put him out several times, thinking maybe it would toughen him up, help him see the big picture, but after a while he’d just go to whining at his mama, and worm his way back in here.”

  Finally, I visit Wallace’s mama. If Mama don’t know, ain’t nobody does. I call her at work and ask if I can meet with her briefly, privately. Her office is just around the corner from the First Precinct.

  She rises from her desk and smiles sweetly as she shakes my hand. Her voice is high pitched, almost a falsetto, and she keeps smiling as we sit and I explain my purpose. She smiles and smiles and doesn’t initiate anything, just responds to my questions with the briefest of sentences, barely uttered in the softest of whispers.

  “His father told me he didn’t know much about Lawrence’s girlfriends, like if he had one in particular. I was thinking maybe he’d had a fight with a girlfriend. Maybe caught her cheating, or she caught him, or something like that that might’ve upset him? Mr. Wallace said he thought Lawrence confided in you about his love life.”

  “He did? He said that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiles anew, and her eyes are unfocused, looking away from me, as if in a reverie. Maybe thinking of a fond memory. Who knows? Whatever she’s thinking about, it’s not my question.

  “So, did he have a special girlfriend?”

  “Oh, Lawrence had lotsa girlfriends. Not all at once. But it was usually more than one at a time. The girls, they loved Lawrence.”

  “Was he, like, in love with any one of them? Did he ever say to you, ‘Mom, I think she’s the one,’ or anything like that?”

  “Yes. Several times”

  “So, he did have a special girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they getting along all right?”

  “Who?”

  “Lawrence and his special girl.”

  “He had lots of special girls.”

  “But I mean, the one special girl who he said, ‘Mom, she may be the one’ about.”

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. His daddy said you’d probably know, ’cause he would talk to you about his love life.”

  “He would tell me about his girls, he would. Sometimes he’d ask me about them, too.”

  “You mean, ask your advice?”

  “He’d say like Keisha, she’s the prettiest, don’t you think, Mama? But Syrentha, now, she’s got a good job, her mama has a good house, but she already got a baby, and so what do you think, Mama? You know, that kind of thing.”

  “Well, had he asked you about one girl in particular lately? That he was serious about, but maybe having problems with?”

  “Not just one, no . . .”

  “So, it’s not like he just broke up with a girl, or she broke up with him, or—”

  “Which girl? No, I don’t think so.”

  She smiles dreamily, not looking at me. I sit in silence for a moment, hoping maybe she’s pondering my question, but knowing that isn’t likely. She’s gazing off somewhere over my left shoulder, still smiling.

  “So, I guess it’s your feeling that Lawrence wasn’t having any girlfriend troubles. No broken heart, no breakup or fighting with a girlfriend . . .”

  “I just don’t know.”

  I pause again, consider rephrasing this line of questioning, but can’t think of any way to break it down differently.

  “Well, see, ma’am, I’m just trying to understand. This isn’t an official investigation, I’m not trying to establish a motive for a case. It’s not my case. There is no case, or, I mean, the case is closed. Was he not getting along with his stepfather? Had they argued lately? His stepfather said he thought—”

  I stop. No point in stirring up a resentment between them. I’m trying to quickly think how to complete this sentence without revealing the stepfather’s theories about Lawrence. But I can’t think my way out.

  To my relief (and simultaneous frustration) I realize it doesn’t matter. I can’t even be certain she’s listening to me. Her eyes have dropped to her desk, and the smile is still there, but she offers nothing, and asks nothing.

  “So, anyway, I . . . um . . . you saw none of this coming, is what I’m hearing. There was no change in his circumstances, or his behavior, or even in his moods, that seemed out of the ordinary? Nothing at all?”

  “No, Detective,” she says, with that frozen, forlorn smile.

  I’m at a loss to extend the conversation or to even figure out what else to ask. I wonder, could she just simply be, simple? She couldn’t be, and work here, in her own office. There’s gotta be something going on upstairs, but I’m getting nowhere. Her lights are on, but nobody’s home.

  “Was Lawrence close to his brothers and sisters?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Was he closest to one in particular?”

  “Yes, his brother, they’re only a year apart.”

  “So Lawrence and his brother, they would talk, be together a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think his brother would mind talking to me?”

  “I don’t know. He works out of town a lot. Would you like me to ask him for you?”

  “Yes, if you get a chance, yes, that would be—”

  She’s dialing the phone. I try to stop her. “You don’t have to . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Honey? How are you, it’s Mama. I’m talking with a Detective, uh, Detective Johnson? And he asked me to ask if you would talk with him about Lawrence? Uh-huh. Oh. Uh-huh. When? All right. All right. I have it, yes. All right, then. Bye-bye.” She hangs up, still smiling, and reports that big brother is out of town, but he’ll call her when he’s back in town, sometime next week, to get my number. I doubt that’s going to happen, but it doesn’t matter.

  “Thank you. I didn’t mean for you to call him right now, but thank you. I know this is hard on all of you. And it’s very kind of you all to talk to me.”

  “He loved his baby brother. You know, he tried to go there to help y’all talk to Lawrence, but they . . . it was too late.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  The smile is still on her face, though not as broad. Her eyes seem fixed on her desk.

  There’s a long pause that grows awkward, at least for me. I rise, and thank her for her time, and apologize for the intrusion, for bringing up a painful subject. She’s gracious, and still smiling, and finally I get a clue—to her but not to her son—when she apologizes to me as I reach for the door.

  “I know I haven’t been much help to you, Detective. I’m sorry, but I just haven’t been myself since Lawrence . . . ,” she drops her eyes, but the smile remains, “since, my son passed. I hope you understand.” Then she bravely lifts her eyes again, still with the frozen smile, though it has diminished now almost entirely.

  “I do, and I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you for visiting, Detective,” she whispers.

  I walk out feeling like shit. I feel like a voyeur, like a rubbernecker slowing for an accident on the interstate hoping for a glimpse of gore. A distant, sad memory has just popped into my head. The frozen smile, vacant gaze, and whispered words of Lawrence Wallace’s mama have reminded me of the mother of a childhood friend of mine. My pal’s mother was a close friend of my own mother’s. She had the same fixed smile and disconnected demeanor as Lawrence’s mother. Even at a young age I had picked up on it and asked my mom why Mrs. Barker was “so weird.” Mom had explained to me that Robbie’s mama “has a nervous condition, and her medicine makes her act like that.” Mrs. Barker spent weeks at a time in one of the upper floors of Deaconess Hospital in St. Louis. When I was about eleven, she threw herself out of the hospital window. “I guess her medicine stopped working,”
Mom had explained.

  I try to talk about it with my recovery sponsor, Red, and at the meetings. But my talking is as muddled as my thinking. I search for answers in my recovery literature and even in the Bible. But I don’t know where to look. Even if it were indexed for topics and questions, I have no idea what to look up. I haven’t a clue what’s wrong with me, and there isn’t much that seems right.

  I thought about—and decided against—a visit to Green’s widow and kids. His own squad and academy classmates are best suited to bring comfort. My only association with him, after all, was in the aftermath of something his family would prefer not to relive. And though this may be presumptuous, and may be giving Green short shrift, one thing I feel pretty sure in saying is, Officer Steven Green was not a mystery to me. He was me, more than not. Whereas, Lawrence Wallace was and remains a complete mystery to me.

  The nightmares have long since ceased, and I’m sleeping okay. As months pass, the memory of Officer Green’s brutal death and my small part in the capture and death of his murderer fades from the public—and even the police—consciousness, so there are fewer outward reminders of the event.

  Then there’s a more dramatic shoot-out between cops and four guys trying to rob a midtown Winn-Dixie that completely supplants the Metro murder and parkway siege. I’m forced to admit to myself, and to a few select others, that in a sick, twisted way I’m almost jealous of the cop who is gravely wounded in the grocery gunfight. He’s getting way more public attention and sympathy than I did. And rightly so: for a while they weren’t even sure he’d make it.

  And then I learn that because he returned fire, the hero of the grocery gunfight will be awarded the Combat Cross in addition to the Purple Heart and Meritorious Service medals that I’ll be receiving. I don’t qualify for the Combat award, I’m told, because I didn’t really engage in combat. I didn’t return fire.

  Shoulda shot that bastard with my last damn bullet, I think ruefully, simultaneously stricken with self-loathing and guilt at the recognition of my raging pettiness, my infantile self-absorption. Nevertheless, I think, Lusty’s right: I shoulda shot him, I coulda got him, mighta killed him, and then I woulda got the Combat Cross, and the other two medals, and woulda earned the right to get a goddamn killer teardrop on my cheek from Tattoo Town.