Eyes of the Innocent: A Mystery (8 page)

But I had a hunch that wasn’t going to happen. You really only got yourself in trouble in the projects if you were so strong as to be a threat or so weak as to be a target. As long as you existed somewhere in the murky middle, you were okay.

Besides, Braids and Hoodie were basically kids. And it’s not hard to keep kids a little off balance, especially if you’re telling them something they’ve never heard before. People don’t turn off that natural curiosity until they’re further into adulthood.

I glared at them a little bit, just to let my last statement sink in, and finally Hoodie broke the standoff. By laughing.

“Damn,” he said. “You one crazy nigga, you know that?”

I chuckled.

“That has to be the first time anyone has called me
that,
” I said.

They both laughed.

“What’s your story about anyway?” Braids asked. “You said someone is messing with people in the projects?”

“Yeah, a Puerto Rican guy who sells people crooked mortgages.”

Braids and Hoodie just looked at each other blankly, then at me.

“He’s sort of short and squat,” I continued. “Shaved head. Wears a goatee. Probably drives a nice car—an Audi, maybe a Mercedes.”

“I ain’t never seen nobody like that,” Hoodie said.

“Only people who drive cars like that around here are…” Braids paused, not wanting to say too much.

Hoodie filled in the blank: “They’re people you already know. You know?”

In other words, they were pushing something with a little more kick than subprime mortgages.

“You ever see people around here selling mortgages?” I asked.

“Depends. What’s a mortgage?” Hoodie asked.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked by the question. Why would a black kid raised in public housing—a kid reared in a family that had probably been in America for ten generations without owning a stick of property—know what a mortgage was?

“It’s…” I didn’t know where to begin. “Never mind. Okay, forget the Puerto Rican guy. You know someone named Akilah Harris?”

Braids and Hoodie exchanged glances again. But this time they were a lot more knowing.

“Maybe,” Hoodie said. And suddenly I realized they were both smirking.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Braids said.

They stood there, grins widening. Obviously, Akilah was known in these parts. That was hardly surprising. Akilah was only a little older than these two. They had probably grown up with her.

“C’mon,” I said. “Spill.”

“I ain’t saying nothing,” Braids said, holding his hands in the air.

“Why you want to know?” Hoodie asked, obviously curious. “You making a story about her?”

“Her house burned down,” I said. “There were two kids inside.”

“Damn!” Braids said.

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Hoodie said. “Someone was saying it was on the news.”

Despite the tragedy of the situation, they were still smiling. Something about Akilah Harris was humorous to these guys, though I couldn’t imagine what. I tried to think like a teenaged boy. What made them laugh? Toilet humor. Fart jokes. But how would that be connected with Akilah? It just wasn’t coming to me.

“What’s so funny?” I said.

More smirking.

Finally, Hoodie couldn’t help himself. “You sure there were only two kids?” he said. “I figured she would have had, like, six by now.”

Braids busted up laughing. “With, like, eighteen different daddies,” he added, which made them both laugh harder.

Of course. The only thing teenaged boys found funnier than fart jokes was sex. And apparently Akilah Harris was known to be generous in that department.

“So she’s a ho,” I said.

“She’s like the biggest ho out here,” Braids confirmed.

“Is she sleeping with someone in particular?” I asked.

“Akilah? Shoot, who
hasn’t
she slept with?” Hoodie said. The boys yukked it up again and I laughed along with them, even though—if I started thinking like a mature adult for a moment—none of this was really all that amusing. I let them giggle themselves out, then tried to push the conversation away from the topic of Akilah’s promiscuity.

“From what I’m told, she moved out of here about three years ago,” I said.

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Braids said. “You still see her sometimes. She visits her mom or something.”

I could feel my brow creasing. “I thought she was an orphan,” I said.

“Akilah? Hell, no. She got a mom,” Braids said. “Her mom and my mom are like cousins. I mean, they ain’t blood. But they best friends.”

“Are you sure that’s not her aunt? I thought her aunt raised her?”

“Naw, that’s her mom,” Braids said. “Whoever told you she don’t have a mom don’t know what they talking about.”

Lying was more like it. Those alarm bells in my head were starting to ring from one ear to the other. It’s possible the rest of Akilah’s story was true, that she only made up the orphan part just to engender a little more sympathy. But reporters quickly learn lies are like cockroaches: where there’s one, there’s bound to be others.

I was already starting to feel embarrassed I had been so taken in by her saga. Akilah had Sweet Thang and me figured out from the moment she saw us—a couple spoiled white kids who would bite on the hard-life-in-the-black-city cliché, chew it up, and swallow every last morsel.

“And you say her mom lives around here?” I asked.

“Yeah, she right over there,” Braids said, pointing two buildings down. “Third floor. Right side. You can ask her.”

“I will,” I said. “Believe me, I will.”

I considered trying to take down names and phone numbers for Braids and Hoodie in case I had any more questions. But they weren’t exactly quotable sources on the subject of Akilah Harris. And the chances I would get a real answer out of either of them was so remote, I decided not to bother. So I thanked them for their time and started walking toward Akilah’s mother’s apartment.

On the way, I had a quick phone call to make.

“Szanto,” grunted a voice on the other end.

“Hey, it’s Carter,” I said. “Can the Akilah Harris story for tomorrow.”

“Why?” he said, half gargling with a mouthful of coffee.

I told him what I learned, along with my guess that there were probably other aspects of the story that couldn’t be verified.

“Yep, smells like garbage day at the fish factory all right,” Szanto said. “Let’s kill it.”

*   *   *

As I walked through the gaping front entrance of Akilah’s mother’s building—whatever door was there had been ripped off long ago by neighborhood pharmaceutical salesmen—it occurred to me I could probably just drop the whole thing. Akilah Harris was no longer a gripping human interest story or a victim of tragic exploitation. She was a liar whose negligence killed two children. From a news standpoint, that made her a lot more run-of-the-mill: your basic two-faced criminal, not someone worthy of reader sympathy.

But there was something telling me to keep digging on this one. Was I outraged Akilah would dare attempt to mislead a gifted investigative journalist such as myself? Hardly. Was I just curious what else she made up? A little.

No, it was the missing mortgage record. Things like that didn’t just happen by accident. Someone wanted something covered up. I didn’t have the slightest idea who or what. But reporters love cover-ups only slightly less than they love their own mothers—more if their mothers don’t cook well. Whisper the word “cover-up” in a noisy room full of reporters, and I guarantee we’ll all stop and turn our heads to listen. There’s just something about cover-ups we can’t resist. And it seemed worthwhile to waste a little more time trying to figure out this one.

Besides, it beat researching manufacturer’s specifications on space heaters.

I reached the third floor, turned left, and found a door with “Harris” typed on a small, plastic piece of tape. From somewhere inside,
Entertainment Tonight
had been cranked to a volume that ensured that local corpses were now fully aware of the latest starlet to check into rehab due to “exhaustion.”

I knocked, wondering if it was even possible the sound could be heard above all the smugness coming out of the television. I waited.

Apparently not.

I knocked again, harder. This time I heard someone stirring inside. Feet shuffled up to the door. Then nothing. I had the feeling I was being examined through the peephole, which always made me slightly uncomfortable. I mean, do you smile? Look serious? Stick your eye real close and try to look back? What is proper peephole etiquette anyway?

An angry black woman inquired, “Who is it?”

“I’m a reporter with the
Eagle-Examiner,
ma’am,” I yelled, trying to be heard above the television. “I was just hoping to ask you a few questions.”

“It’s after dark,” the voice said.

“I’m aware of that, ma’am, but…” I began.

“I don’t open my door after dark.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to slip my business card under your door right now so you can see I’m Carter Ross from the
Eagle-Examiner
.”

“I don’t care if you’re Ed McMahon and I may have won a million dollars, I don’t open my door after dark.”

I rolled my eyes—could she see that through the peephole?—and groped around in my head for another approach. It was hard to work my charm through a steel door, even harder when I had to compete with Mary Hart’s breathless report about the weight loss secrets of Hollywood Hunks. I couldn’t concentrate.

“Do you think you could turn down the TV so we could talk through the door?” I asked.

No response. I had the distinct feeling she had gone back to her couch.

“Ma’am?” I pleaded. This was getting pathetic. I knocked again.

“I told you, I ain’t opening the door,” she shouted from somewhere inside the apartment.

“Could I call you?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

Of course not.

“If I came back in the morning, do you think you could talk with me?”

“You can try.”

The emphasis was on the “try,” which was not particularly encouraging. And, sure, I could try. But it would probably just delay the inevitable. I decided if this woman was meant to talk to me, it was going to happen now. I just had to push a little harder.

“Ma’am, I’m working on a story about Akilah Harris,” I hollered. “I understand you’re—”

Before I could finish my sentence, I heared movement inside—it sounded like a chair slamming into linoleum—followed by a strangled cry.

“Go away!” she wailed. “I don’t want to hear that name! Don’t you say that name to me! Go away!”

She kept yelling, but her voice had gone something beyond hysterical, so it was impossible to make out what she was saying. Between the shredded vocal cords and the uncontrolled crying, it was pretty clear the name Akilah Harris had been enough to put Mrs. Harris into distress.

And I wasn’t the only one aware of it. From downstairs, I could hear footsteps coming my way. A matronly black woman in slippers and a faded floral print housedress huffed up the stairs, froze me with a look of pure disgust, and brushed past.

“I just wanted to talk to her,” I said defensively. “I didn’t mean to—”

But she was not there to hear my excuses. She entered Mrs. Harris’s apartment without bothering to knock. The door had been unlocked all along.

An open door. In the projects. Who knew?

From within the apartment, I heard the new woman comforting Mrs. Harris, whom she called “Bertie.” For a while, Bertie kept crying and moaning unintelligibly. After enough shushing, she calmed down. There was dialogue between the women, though it was too muffled to hear.

And, for whatever reason, I just kept standing in that hallway of that hellhole housing project, hoping a big reset button would descend from the ceiling so I could press it and get a do-over on this whole encounter. Why had I pushed her so hard? Clearly the woman was agitated. No one in that state is going to suddenly settle down and cooperate with a reporter. In the morning, when she was calm, she might have talked to me.

As I cursed my lack of patience, the woman in the housedress reappeared.

“What are
you
still doing here?” she said, spitting out the word “you” like it burned her mouth.

“I just—”

“She don’t want to talk none,” the woman assured me.

“I know, but I—”

“She don’t want to talk.”

“I just wanted to apol—”

“And I’m telling you, she don’t want to talk.”

The woman crossed her arms and glowered at me, daring me to lob up another feeble rejoinder so she could smash it back in my face. It was Olympic verbal volleyball. But while she was Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, I was the lightly regarded team from Liechtenstein.

“So what you’re saying is, she don’t want to … doesn’t want to talk?” I said.

“That’s right,” the woman said. “You best be moving on now.”

“Okay, I get it,” I said, then reached into my pocket for a business card. “Could you please just tell her I’m sorry I upset her so much? It was never my intention.”

The woman accepted my business card without comment, and I took that as my opportunity to leave with at least some shred of dignity intact.

*   *   *

I arrived back in the newsroom in time for a treat: a copy editor catfight.

Newspapers are full of strange animals, but the copy editors just might be the oddest of all the birds. A lot of them work a 6
P.M.
to 2
A.M.
shift, so they’re nocturnal. They are sometimes awkward socially, which is why they didn’t become reporters. And nearly all of them claim to be expert grammarians—and are not afraid to get into the occasional scrap over language or usage.

This one appeared to feature Marjorie, a tall, storkish woman with a voice like a foghorn against Gary, a small, nervous man with a somewhat legendary standing among his fellow copy editors. Gary was reputed to have memorized every word of the paper’s style manual, our Bible governing everything from capitalization to punctuation to spelling. Most of the copy jocks didn’t test him—except, apparently, Marjorie.

“… not the point,” Marjorie was booming as I entered. “I’m sure that’s what the style manual says. I’m saying, in this case, we shouldn’t apply the style manual.”