The Bridge (32 page)

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Authors: Solomon Jones

BOOK: The Bridge
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Suddenly, the man rushed at him, bowling him over and knocking the gun from his hand.
As Lynch got to his feet, the man lost his footing and fell facefirst on the ramp. Lynch dived on his back and the man reached back with both hands, grabbed Lynch by his jacket, and threw him over his head.
Lynch landed on his back, but scrambled quickly to his feet. When he turned to face the man again, he found himself staring into the eyes of his attacker. It was Sonny.
Lynch swung wildly, missed with a left hook, then connected with an uppercut. Sonny fell backward, but managed to hit Lynch, who landed three blows of his own, knocking a weakened Sonny flat on his back.
Sonny looked to his right and saw his last chance lying next to him, shining in the darkness. Lynch caught sight of the gun at the same time.
Sonny crawled toward it, but Lynch reached it first, then wheeled around and struck Sonny with the butt of the gun.
Falling against the wall with blood oozing from his wounds, an exhausted Sonny raised his hands in surrender.
Lynch took out a pair of handcuffs and chained Sonny to a pipe that ran along the wall. Then he lifted the gun and jammed it into Sonny's mouth.
“Tell me about Kenya,” he said, panting through clenched teeth. “Tell me how she died, or I'll kill you.”
Sonny slid down the wall and sat on the cold concrete floor, mumbling something about dying and words on a page.
“It's in the diary,” he said wearily. “Judy wrote it all down in the diary.”
 
 
 
The church across the street from the projects wasn't big enough to accommodate the throng. So the funeral was held on Sixteenth and Fairmount, at a Baptist church called Calvary.
But even that church, which was considerably larger, had never seen so much activity.
Unmarked police cars with detectives slouched low in their seats, traffic units whose dome lights swirled against the bright summer sky, uniformed officers with radios hooked to their ears. And standing on a flatbed truck, a single homicide detective, videotaping the mourners in hopes of capturing some clue about the killer.
There were television crews and paparazzi, snatching bits and pieces of mourning, photographing the people of the Bridge and converting Kenya's death into a Hollywood production.
When the hearse arrived and her casket was carried into the church, its diminutive size spoke volumes. Most people who saw it cried bitter tears as they grieved over the dark realities of life and death in the projects.
There was no such display from the family.
Daneen stood outside and hugged Darnell's girlfriend, Renee, who whispered condolences in her ear. Daneen seemed taken aback by that. But she thanked her anyway, then went inside, looking as if she was determined not to cry. Darnell followed
Daneen, wearing quiet grief with a dignity that didn't exist in any other aspect of his life. Judy was last, looking more fearful than anything else.
As they passed by, the whispers followed them. Daneen, for one, pretended not to hear them. There was nothing anyone could say that she hadn't already told herself a thousand times.
When they'd finished the long walk down the center aisle, they sat quietly on the front pew. Those who loved Kenya—Lily and Janay among them—sat close behind. Kenya's classmates and friends were there, too, sprinkled in among the people who'd come to bask in the twisted air of celebrity surrounding the whole affair.
Daneen spent most of the funeral looking rather than listening.
During the final viewing, she watched as Judy looked down at the body and collapsed with screams and flailing arms, nearly knocking over the casket before a group of men came forward and carried her out.
A group of children from Kenya's school read a poem. The preacher quoted I Peter, 3:16—something about keeping your conscience clear, so that when you're abused, people who hate your good behavior in Christ can be ashamed.
Daneen felt a terrible sadness upon hearing that passage. More sadness than she'd felt at any time since Kenya disappeared. More pain than she'd felt after piecing together the truth about Kenya's murder and taking the blame rather than revealing it. More grief than she'd felt when, shortly before the funeral, she'd gone to retrieve the one thing that would make it right.
As the church rose and fell with emotion during the spirited eulogy that followed the reading of the passage, Daneen only heard the words
abuse
and
shame
. She had, after all, abused Kenya when she was alive. And now, she was ashamed.
She was mired in that shame, even as the church exploded in applause when the preacher wiped his brow and sat down.
There wasn't anything else to be said, she thought. And there was
only one thing to be done. But apparently, not everyone shared that sentiment.
As the sanctuary continued to rock with a soulful chorus of amens and hallelujahs, Darnell jumped up from his seat, stomped to the front of the church, and grabbed a microphone.
When he began to speak, the spirit of the service changed from uplifting to ominous.
“I wanna say somethin' to whoever did this!” he shouted angrily.
Feedback from the microphone rose in an earsplitting hum, and everyone in the church fell silent.
“Whoever did this to my niece might be in here right now,” he said. “But I wanna tell you somethin'. God don't let you get away with killin' babies. And the people who loved this little girl—the ones who watched her grow into the sweet child she was—we ain't gon' let you get away with it either.”
Darnell dropped the microphone, and with tears streaming down his face, he stormed down the aisle and out the back door of the church.
Everyone watched as the door slammed shut behind him. No one knew what to do. And then Daneen got up and ran out, too.
 
 
 
Lynch stood in the dim light of the ramp in back of the building, his face etched in shock as a handcuffed and beaten Sonny recited what he'd read in Judy's diary.
When Lynch thought about it, he didn't believe him, because the words in the diary—even if they were true—didn't fully explain what had happened to Kenya.
So Lynch asked Sonny about his relationship with the girl. And Sonny recalled the truth with quiet sadness.
“I was like her grandfather,” he said softly. “Kenya reminded me what it was like to be young and scared, like I was when they used to send me to them homes.”
Sonny looked at Lynch, who still held the gun at his side.
“I guess bein' good to Kenya was my way o' fixin' some o' the wrong I did over the years.”
Lynch's eyes bored through him. “Nothing could fix all the wrongs you did, Sonny.”
“Maybe you right. But I ain't do nothin' to Kenya. You gotta believe that.”
“Why should I?” Lynch said angrily. “You're a murderer. You killed those people in that drug house, and you came back here to kill Judy. And you can deny it 'til the day you die, but I know you killed Kenya, too.”
“No, I didn't,” Sonny said earnestly.
Lynch was silent for a moment. “I'm giving you one more chance to tell me the truth.”
“I am telling the truth!”
“Okay,” Lynch said, lifting the gun and tightening his grip on the trigger. “I warned you.”
When he saw the maniacal look on Lynch's face, Sonny believed he was going to die. He closed his eyes to welcome his fate. A second later, there was a gunshot.
Lynch left him there, cuffed to the pole, and ran out the front of the building. He stopped when he saw Daneen, who calmly handed her gun to Lynch, then fell to her knees and cradled her victim while he died.
Darnell looked up at Daneen with a whispered, “I'm sorry.”
Then he exhaled for the last time as Daneen pressed his head to her bosom before laying him gently on the sidewalk.
Daneen stood up slowly. Lynch watched her with a measure of disbelief before fishing out another pair of handcuffs, getting on his radio, and calling for a wagon.
“I blamed Sonny for raping me,” Daneen said stoically, “'cause it was the easy way out.”
The wagon arrived, and a slack-jawed Lynch pointed to the foyer,
where Sonny was handcuffed to the pole, next to the money-filled trash bag.
When the officers emerged with him, Daneen turned to Lynch. Somehow, she needed to make him understand.
“I ain't lie about everything, Kevin. I told you I was raped. And I told you I couldn't stand to look at Kenya father no more.”
“So the diary thing is true,” Lynch said matter-of-factly. “Judy knew Darnell raped you.”
“Yeah, she knew,” Daneen said calmly. “My brother liked to hurt women, Kevin. And it all started here in the Bridge with me. I held on to that secret for years, 'cause I ain't want Kenya to have to live with it. Secrets catch up with you, though. That's what cost my baby her life.”
“Are you saying Darnell killed Kenya?” Lynch asked quietly.
Daneen stared at him with tear-filled eyes. “When I came back to search Judy's apartment, he was just sittin' there in the dark. He knew she was dead. I guess I did, too. Maybe that's why I took Sonny gun out the kitchen drawer and hid it in that lot across the street. Deep down I knew I'd need it, 'cause when we was at Judy's, Darnell said, ‘Kenya more than a niece to me.'
“When he said that, it was like he was finally admittin' he was Kenya father. And right then, things I had been holdin' on to for years started comin' up. The rapes, the lies, the secrets.”
Daneen clenched her jaw. “Then y'all brought Bayot up to Judy's, and he said he saw a man who hung at Judy's huggin' Kenya on the elevator.”
Lynch looked confused. “But Darnell said Kenya hated him. Why would she hug him?”
“'Cause she didn't hate him, Kevin. She loved him. She just didn't trust no pipers. Not after the way I treated her when I smoked. And anyway, Bayot wasn't the only one who saw Darnell with Kenya on that elevator. Monk saw him, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“Right before the funeral, Renee gave me her condolences. And she gave me somethin' else. She told me Darnell went with Monk to find the man Monk saw with Kenya. Right after that, Monk turned up dead. That wasn't no accident, Kevin. Darnell killed Monk to keep him from tellin' what he saw. Renee knew that, and she couldn't live with it.”
Daneen looked down at her brother for the last time as Lynch tugged gently at her arm, leading her toward the waiting police wagon.
“But we ain't gotta keep secrets no more,” she said, turning to stare at mourners trickling back from her daughter's funeral.
“We can all rest now, especially Kenya. 'Cause like Darnell said at the funeral, God don't let you get away with killin' babies.”
As she spoke, neighbors and television cameras assembled in shocked silence, recording the look of peace that had set her face aglow, recounting the final justice that had set her free from secrets, repeating the haunting mantra that had given her back her life.
“No,” Daneen said as she took her final look at the Bridge. “God don't let you get away with killin' babies. And the people who loved my little Kenya—the ones who watched her grow into the sweet child she was—we don't let you get away with it either.”
Turn the page for a sneak peek at
Solomon Jones's next thrill ride
Available in hardcover August 2004
from St. Martin's Minotaur
Reverend John Anderson stood atop a car outside Frank Nichols's bar, his tired, red-rimmed eyes surveying the crowd of hundreds who'd come from congregations all over the city.
It was a protest that was thus far peaceful. But he didn't know how long it would stay that way. And he didn't know if he wanted it to.
The crowd had marched the six blocks from his church on Twentieth and York to the bar at Fifteenth and Dauphin, and now they were leaning forward, watching and waiting as Anderson raised the bullhorn to his lips.
“Last night,” he said, pausing to lock eyes with several men in the crowd, “they tried to rape my daughter.”
There was a shocked silence. Then the crowd pressed closer to the makeshift stage.
“My only child came to me with blood on her dress and tears in her eyes and said, 'Daddy, they tried to hurt me.'
“I turned to my wife, and she said, ‘John, turn to the Lord.'”
Reverend Anderson paused and looked down at his daughter, who was standing directly in front of him, trying not to allow her divided allegiance to show on her face.
“But when I looked in my baby's eyes and saw hurt,” John continued,
“I wasn't a pastor anymore, I wasn't a preacher anymore, I wasn't a teacher anymore. I was just a father. A father whose child was in pain.”
There was a smattering of amens as heads began to nod in agreement.
“I grabbed the nearest thing I could get my hands on,” the pastor said, pointing to the bar on the corner. “And I came here, and told Frank Nichols that if one hair on my baby's head was ever harmed on these streets, there would be hell to pay!”
The crowd began to clap wildly as Anderson's jaw jutted out defiantly.
He suddenly grew solemn. “And through it all, Mother Johnson was praying,” he said, his voice beginning to rise. “Praying that these drugs, and these rapists, and these thieves, and these murderers, would be wiped from our community!”
The clapping resumed in earnest, and as Lieutenant Kevin Lynch's black Mercury Marquis pulled onto the sidewalk across the street from the spot where Anderson was speaking, the pastor found his stride.
“Mother Emma Jean Johnson laid down her life so that God could answer her prayer!” he shouted to thunderous applause. “She was cut down like a dog in the street so that we could come here today and say, ‘No more!'”
As the crowd worked itself into a frenzy, Lieutenant Lynch looked up at a three-story abandoned house that stood just a few feet behind Anderson. He saw a man walk to the edge of the rooftop and lie down. There was something in his hands. But it wasn't until he pointed it that Lynch realized what it was.
He grabbed his handheld radio. “Dan 25, we've got a gun on the roof of 1512 Dauphin.”
Plainclothes officers from Civil Affairs moved rapidly toward the building where the gunman crouched on the roof. Uniformed officers
removed barricades. Command officers called for additional units.
“Frank Nichols!” Reverend Anderson screamed into the megaphone. “It's judgment day!”
At that, two of Nichols' men emerged from the bar: Raheem, who ran Colorado Street, and an older man who ran Fifteenth Street. They closed a steel door behind them to prevent the increasingly hostile crowd from storming the place.
“Murderers!” someone yelled, and the crowd took up the taunt.
As the chant grew louder, Keisha looked over at Nichols's underlings, then scanned the crowd and saw Jamal standing about twenty feet to her left. They locked eyes, and Keisha's heart fluttered as she stood between the two men she loved.
Her feet were rooted to the spot as Lynch came within a yard of her father. The police commissioner and several commanders who'd just arrived on the scene were also pushing toward him.
“Get him down!” the commissioner screamed into his radio. “Get Reverend Anderson down!”
Lynch, who was now standing directly behind Keisha, looked up at the roof and took out his weapon just as Keisha tore her gaze away from Jamal.
“Daddy, get down!” Keisha yelled as Lynch's gun went off near her ear.
A second later, Dauphin Street disintegrated into bedlam.
The crowd that had pressed itself together to hear Anderson was now trying to tear itself apart. Old women were trampled. Children were separated from their parents. Men were trapped against cars. And the police were powerless to maintain order.
Keisha saw her father one minute, and the next minute, she was knocked to her knees and swallowed up in the panicking mass of people. There was screaming, then several gunshots, and suddenly, someone hit the ground just a few feet away from her.
Keisha screamed and tried to rise to her feet. But someone ran past
and kicked her in the head. As she began to lose consciousness, she felt an arm reach down and grab her.
Then everything went black.
 
 
 
Keisha awakened on a couch in a dimly lit, dank basement, squinting to adjust to the light as a man sat perched in front of her on a barstool.
She tried to speak, but her tongue was thick in her mouth. She attempted to rise, but her head swam. She sank back into the couch, which sat against a crumbling cement wall on a dirt floor.
Fighting to correct her blurry vision, she blinked and the man's face came into focus. When it did, she saw black skin framed by long, thin dreadlocks. And perched above his chiseled nose and thick lips were dark, intense eyes, staring tenderly into hers.
She was dizzy, floating as if in a dream, and reached out to steady herself. As she did so, her fingertips grazed the fine, shiny stubble that covered his face. She traced his cheekbones, which rose at sharp angles. Then she followed the path of his jaw, and ran her fingers down to his chin, and up to his lips.
“What happened, Jamal?” she asked, trying hard to regain her equilibrium.
“You bumped your head,” he said, leaning forward to stroke her hair. “They was 'bout to run over you, so I brought you in here.”
She couldn't understand everything he was saying, but she knew that his touch caused something to go through her. Something that was exhilarating and frightening, just like the muffled sounds of screaming and pounding that she heard coming from somewhere above her head.
Her thoughts were still muddled. But when she forced herself to look away from Jamal's hypnotic gaze, one thought jumped to the fore.
“Where's my father?” she asked anxiously.
“The cops scooped him up. He all right.”
“I need to see him,” she said, leaping off the couch and trying to push past him.
He placed his arm in front of her. “Not yet,” he said quickly.
“Let me go!” she said, pushing more violently. “I have to see my father!”
“If I let you go,” he said, his tender gaze hardening, “you might not ever see him again.”
She suddenly stopped struggling as her face clouded with a mix of anger and realization.
“You knew!” she shouted, while punching and slapping at him. “That's why you told me my father might be in trouble last night. You knew they were gonna try to kill him!”
He grabbed her hands and tried to calm her down. “Listen to me, Keisha.”
“No!” she said, kicking wildly in an effort to get away from him. “You knew!”
“Keisha, stop!” He took her by her arms and forced her down onto the couch, then knelt on top of her and held her there.
“Keisha, listen to me,” Jamal said earnestly. “I don't know who tryin' to kill your father. All I know is, it ain't me. Did my father get somebody else to do it? I don't know. But I do know this. My pop kills people. He don't care no more about me than he do about you or anybody else. And if he find out what I'm 'bout to do, he'll kill me, too.
Keisha looked into his eyes, searching them for the lie she believed was there. She couldn't find it.
“And what are you about to do?” she asked.
He reached out and held her fingers between his own. “I'm leavin', Keisha,” he said gravely. “I'm walkin' away from my father's business.”
Keisha could hear in his voice that he was serious.
“Why would you do that?” she asked, hoping he would give her the answer that she wanted.
Jamal's eyes took on a faraway look, as he tried to find the right words.
“My mother hated me 'cause I was too much like my father,” he whispered. “My father couldn't love me 'cause he ain't know how. So, if I gotta choose between love and hate—between them and you—I'm takin' you, and I ain't lookin' back.”
He took her chin in his hand, and turned her face toward his own.
“I'm makin' my choice, Keisha,” he said earnestly. “I need to know if you gon' make yours, too.”

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