2 in the Hat (9 page)

“I do not believe I need to answer that question, but I will. My name is Luther.”

“Luther what?”

“Just Luther.”

“You only have one name, like Madonna or Usher?”

“I only have one name, like Luther.”

“Well, Luther Last-Name-Unknown” Ahearn said, “what exactly is a grown man doing hanging on a corner with a bunch of teenagers? Teenagers with beer. You wouldn’t happen to be the one who bought the beer, would you? Because it is illegal to contribute to the delinquency of a minor, and you would be subject to arrest and a search incident to arrest. You still think I can’t search you?”

Luther slowly put his hands out toward Ahearn, palms up. “I did not do anything illegal. I am an outreach worker, a mentor with the Crispus Attucks Youth Center.”

Ahearn smirked. “You got to be kidding me. Is that why you’re out here? Trying to save America’s youth?”

“I also work for the mayor,” Luther said. “We come out a couple of nights a week to talk with the kids.”

Now Connie remembered who he was. And the white guy, too. They were two of Mayor Dolan’s Street Saviors. It was their job to make relationships with kids in gangs and help them out of the so-called “life.” Connie had seen them at gang intelligence meetings sponsored by the BRIC at police headquarters every other week. Ahearn hadn’t made the connection.

“I don’t care who you are,” Ahearn said. “Working for the mayor doesn’t give you a free pass to buy beer for kids so they’ll think you’re cool.”

“I did not buy them any beer. It is my job to counsel these young men. They are grieving because they lost a friend. They wanted to share libation with him.” Connie had seen this before. Kids passing around a forty-ounce beer and pouring some of it over the spot where a friend had been killed. “I do not fully agree with what they are doing, but I have not come here to judge. I want to help them find ways to deal with their anger without seeking revenge and retribution.”

Ahearn shook his head. “So you figured you’d buy them some beer to help drown their sorrows. Is that what the mayor’s paying you to do?”

“We did not buy the beer.” Luther pointed to the white man. Connie turned to look at him more carefully. The man was short and stocky, thick with muscle, prison muscle. The kind of guy you wouldn’t want to get into a scrape with. His dark hair was neatly combed, slicked back, the wet look. He wouldn’t have been bad looking but for his right eye. The eyelid was half closed and the eye itself drooped. “My partner and I came out here tonight, without weapons, knowing that violence could erupt. But we have faith in these young men. We can help them choose a better path.”

“Why don’t you pass a joint around with them while you’re at it?” Ahearn asked.

“I am not encouraging any of this behavior, officer. Nor am I condemning it. I am a man who has broken no laws, and I will not be searched by you or anyone else. You should not be searching any of these young men either.”

“They are minors in possession of alcohol,” Ahearn said. “Another one of those little laws that you don’t seem to think matters.”

“No one was in possession of that bottle. It was on the ground, part of a shrine.”

Connie could see Ahearn’s face tensing with anger. He watched as Greene stepped between the two men. He must have realized that they couldn’t win this battle.

The mayor would take Luther’s side if this thing blew up. The Street Savior Program was his baby, giving him credibility in minority communities. It was a crime prevention effort to point to whenever he and the commissioner were criticized for overaggressive policing. Nothing would look worse in the press than two cops and an assistant DA acting like cowboys rousting the mayor’s Street Saviors. It would be powerful ammunition for the mayor’s critics. The DA wouldn’t be too happy about Connie being in the middle of it either.

“Jackie, come here for a second,” Greene said. He led the big man back toward their cruiser. Connie could hear Greene’s Irish whisper as he told his partner to calm down. It would take some work, but Greene would handle Ahearn.

“Can I speak with you?” Connie said to Luther and his partner. He walked toward the corner, away from the group of kids, the two men following.

Connie extended his hand. “Luther, I’m Connie Darget. I’m with the DA’s office.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong, Mr. Darget.” His voice was calm, as it had been throughout the exchange with Ahearn. When Connie shook the man’s hand, he could feel a ripple of anxiety.

“I know,” Connie said. He turned to the white man and extended his hand. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Rich Zardino.”

“Haven’t I seen you guys at the gang intel meetings?”

The two men nodded. Not overly talkative. Upset by the exchange with Ahearn.

“I want to apologize for what just happened,” Connie said. “Maybe you can help me. I’m investigating a shooting and these detectives offered to help me find a couple of witnesses. They weren’t trying to give you a hard time. We just want to find these kids. We’re concerned they may have guns.”

“We understand, Mr. Darget,” Luther said.

“Connie.”

“We don’t want trouble with the police, either. But we’d lose our street credibility if we allowed the search. I didn’t want to show up the officer in front of the young men, but I had to stand my ground.”

“Understood. These witnesses I’m looking for are not in any trouble. Do you know Michael Rogers or Ellis Thomas?”

“Sorry, I do not,” Luther said, maintaining a tone of formality.

Zardino shrugged his shoulders.

“Thanks for your help. Here’s my card. I’ll let the detectives know I’m all set. You can get back to doing your job.”

Connie shook their hands. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any complaints filed with the Police Commissioner or with the DA.

R
ich Zardino’s hands were clenched as they walked back to the car
. He didn’t trust cops. He didn’t trust anybody. Serving eight years of a life sentence had taught him that he had no friends. After his release and some bad press for the city, the mayor had offered him this job, a “sorry we took eight years of your life” peace offering. Both he and Luther had done their time, innocent or not, and now they were committed to working for peace.

Zardino didn’t want to throw it all away because of a confrontation with a couple of yahoo dt’s. The dt’s would badmouth him and Luther to other cops. Say they were teaching kids their constitutional rights, helping them become better criminals. He knew the cops didn’t trust them. To them, he and Luther would always be thugs, one bad decision away from a life sentence.

“You okay?” Rich Zardino asked Luther. Luther seemed startled by the question, like he was a million miles away. It had taken Luther awhile to warm up to him, an Italian guy from East Boston who had done state prison time for a murder he didn’t commit. What would a guy like that have in common with the kids they were servicing, black and brown kids from Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan? But they both knew it made for great press. A former gangbanger, a convicted felon who had found
Christ teamed up with a wrongly-convicted white guy. The kind of stuff they made movies about.

Turned out he was pretty good at communicating with the kids. He was real, and that was all he needed for the kids to trust him, no matter the color of his skin.

“I’m upset those cops put us in that situation,” Luther said. “The big guy could have shown us a little respect and it wouldn’t have gone down like that.”

“Don’t sweat it. It’s over,” Zardino said. “The police have a lot to lose if they file a report.”

“Maybe I should have handled it differently, let them search me, let them see that I’m clean.”

“Bull.” Zardino spat in the street. It was a dirty habit that drove his partner crazy. “You did the right thing. How else are they going to learn to stand up for their rights?”

Luther was always stumping about setting an example. But tonight, no one had learned anything from the beef with the cops. Once the police left, the kids started imitating the pissed-off cop, trying to high-five Luther for how he had handled them. That drove Luther nuts.

“Maybe I
am
making them better criminals,” Luther said. “But so are the police, by treating
everyone
like a criminal. They’re teaching them to distrust the police, to disrespect authority and to turn to the streets for support. At least what happened tonight was witnessed by a prosecutor.”

“I don’t trust that guy,” Zardino said.

“You don’t trust any lawyers. I can’t say I blame you after what you’ve been through.”

“I was watching him,” Zardino shifted and got comfortable against the car. “He wasn’t going to say nothing while the cops did their thing. When he found out who we were he realized it wouldn’t look good. I saw the light go on in his head. That’s the only reason he stepped in.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely. I know guys like that. He had no problem with what the cops were doing until he thought it could come back and bite him. Then he’s a peacemaker. Screw him. He’s a lawyer. No, he’s a prosecutor, an officer of the court, sworn to uphold the Constitution. He shouldn’t be letting dt’s do things like that. He’s as bad as they are.”

“He extended the olive branch to us. We might as well use him as an ally.”

“We need to watch our backs.”

“You really are one suspicious dude.”

“That’s what happens when your friends set you up and send you to jail for a crime you had nothing to do with. I don’t trust anyone except my mother.”

“Truth told, my boys forgot about me when I was upstate. No visits. No money in the canteen fund for chips, sodas and snacks. In the end, Richard, it’s always just you and your mom. And the Lord.”

A
lves saw her standing at the bus stop. She was always at the bus stop
.

She wasn’t too far away. Maybe a hundred yards. If he hurried, he could get to her in time. But his feet were heavy. He tried moving faster, his legs weren’t responding. He had to close the gap between them
.

Then the bus came around the corner, smoke billowing behind it. It was loud, without a muffler. He called her name, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the bus
.

He had to get to her
.

He was running now, but the bus was moving so fast. He called her name again. This time he couldn’t even hear his own voice
.

He watched as the bus stopped to let her on. He could see the driver and the passengers
.

He shouted her name one last time
.

Alves stopped running. The driver watched Robyn Stokes, Alves’s childhood friend, dressed in her hospital whites, as she climbed the steps. When she turned to find a seat, the driver looked over at him. It was a familiar face, the face of a former colleague, a man he didn’t know too well, but had respected. The man who had murdered Robyn Stokes. The driver, Mitch Beaulieu, former assistant district attorney and murderer, pulled the bus away from the curb with Robyn and the rest of his doomed passengers. Alves felt his hip, his back pocket, for a phone, a radio, his gun. Nothing. There was no way to stop the bus. Then he heard a loud bang
.

Alves jerked forward in his chair. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight streaming through the conference room windows.
The noise Alves heard must have been a door out in the hall slamming.

It was getting harder to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he thought about his old friend Robyn. Killed three years before by a killer the press called the Blood Bath Killer. Left tubs full of water and blood. No bodies. He and Mooney had caught Robyn’s killer, Mitch Beaulieu, but they never found her body. He owed Robyn and her mother one last thing. A Christian burial. A final resting place, a grave to cover with flowers.

Propped in front of him against a pile of folders was a note written on a sheet torn from a detective’s notebook.
Quick shower then off to ballistics. You check in with Eunice Curran. WM

M
ooney stepped out of the Homicide Unit and turned down the
corridor toward the gym. The city had spared no expense when they built One Schroeder Plaza. Their new headquarters had everything from a state-of-the-art crime lab to a gym as good as any private health club in the city.

Mooney stepped into the gym and took his first left into the locker room. He wasn’t looking for a workout. No time. He needed a quick shave and shower.

Within a half hour he was banging on the glass doors of the Ballistics Unit with his knee, a cup of coffee in each hand. He knew Sergeant Reginald Stone would be in early; like Mooney, he was a Marine. He gave it a minute before kicking the baseplates of the heavy doors.

A few seconds later Stone emerged from an office door at the far end of the Ballistics Unit. He didn’t look happy that someone was trying to kick in the door.

“Open up, Reggie,” Mooney shouted through the heavy glass doors.

Stone looked down at Mooney’s hands. “Cream, no sugar?”

“What am I, an idiot?”

Stone smiled and came over to let him in. Mooney went to put the coffees down on a table so he could shake his friend’s hand, but he was
greeted with a firm hug instead. It was awkward, since Stone was so much shorter. He had quite a bear hug for a little guy.

“Ease up there, pal. You’re going to be wearing two cups of coffee if you’re not careful,” Mooney said.

He released Mooney from his grip. “Great to see you, Wayne.”

“I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on the promotion, Reggie. The first black officer to head up the Ballistics Unit.”

“I don’t look at it like that. I’m just another sergeant given the honor.”

“Bullshit,” Mooney said. “This is big. You’re a groundbreaker. It’s important to the other officers coming up in the department.”

“There are some people out there saying I only got the job
because
I’m black.”

“Give me the names of the bozos talking smack, and I’ll crack them over the head. You got the position because you’re the best man. This ballistics unit has been messed up for years. How many guns have been secured here as evidence and turned up missing?”