The Scarecrow (5 page)

Braselton came back on and gave me the full address but said he had no phone number. I then asked if he had a name for the grandmother and he gave me the name I already had, Wanda Sessums.

Bingo. My caller. She had either lied about being the young suspect’s mother or the police had their information wrong. Either way, I now had an address and would hopefully soon put a face with the voice that had berated me the Friday before.

After ending the call with Braselton I got up from my cubicle and wandered back into the photo department. I saw a photo editor named Bobby Azmitia at the assignment desk and asked if he had any floaters currently out and about. He looked down at his personnel log and named two photographers who were out in their cars looking for wild art—photographs unconnected to news events that could be used to splash color on a section front. I knew both of the floaters and one of them was black. I asked Azmitia if Sonny Lester could break free to take a ride with me down the 110 Freeway and he agreed to offer the photographer up. We made arrangements for me to be picked up outside the globe lobby in fifteen minutes.

Back in the newsroom I checked with Angela on the Open-Unsolved Unit story and then went over to the raft to talk to my ace. Prendergast was busy typing up the day’s first story budget. Before I could say anything he said, “I already got a slug from Angela.”

A slug and budget line were a one-word title for a story and a line of description that was put on the overall story budget so when editors gathered around the table in the daily news meeting they would know what was being produced for the web and print editions and could discuss what was an important story, what wasn’t, and how it should all be played.

“Yeah, she’s got a handle on that,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know I’m going to take a ride down south with a photographer.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing yet. But I may have something to tell you later on.”

“Okay.”

Prendo was always cool about giving me rope. Now it didn’t matter anymore. But even before I got the Reduction in Force form, he had always exercised a hands-off approach to reporter management. We got along pretty well. He wasn’t a pushover. I would have to account for my time and what I was pursuing. But he always gave me the chance to put it together before I had to bring him into the loop.

I headed away from the raft and over to the elevator alcove.

“Got dimes?” Prendergast called after me.

I waved a hand over my head without looking back. Prendergast always called that out to me when I left the city room to chase a story. It was a line from
Chinatown
. I didn’t use pay phones anymore—no reporter did—but the sentiment was clear. Stay in touch.

The globe lobby was the formal entrance to the newspaper building at the corner of First and Spring. A brass globe the size of a Volkswagen rotated on a steel axis at the center of the room. The many international bureaus and outposts of the
Times
were permanently notched on the raised continents, despite the fact that many had been shuttered to save money. The marble walls were adorned with photos and plaques denoting the many milestones in the history of the paper, the Pulitzer Prizes won and the staffs that won them, and the correspondents killed in the line of duty. It was a proud museum, just as the whole paper would be before too long. The word was that the building was up for sale.

But I only cared about the next twelve days. I had one last deadline and one last murder story to write. I just needed that globe to keep turning until then.

Sonny Lester was waiting in a company car when I pushed through the heavy front door. I got in and told him where we were going. He made a bold U-turn to get over to Broadway and then took it to the freeway entrance just past the courthouse. Pretty soon we were on the 110 heading into South L.A.

“I take it that it’s no coincidence that I’m on this assignment,” he said after we cleared downtown.

I looked over at him and shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ask Azmitia. I told him I needed somebody and he told me it was you.”

Lester nodded like he didn’t believe it and I didn’t really care. Newspapers had a strong and proud tradition of standing up against segregation and racial profiling and things like that. But there was also a practical tradition of using newsroom diversity to its full advantage. If an earthquake shatters Tokyo, send a Japanese reporter. If a black actress wins the Oscar, send a black reporter to interview her. If the Border Patrol finds twenty-four dead illegals in the back of a truck in Calexico, send your best Spanish-speaking reporter. That’s how you got the story. Lester was black and his presence might provide me safety as I entered the projects. That’s all I cared about. I had a story to report and I wasn’t worried about being politically correct about it.

Lester asked me questions about what we were doing and I told him as much as I could. But so far I didn’t have a lot to go on. I told him that the woman we were going to see had complained about my story calling her grandson a murderer. I was hoping to find her and tell her that I would look into disproving the charges against him if she and her grandson agreed to cooperate with me. I didn’t tell him the real plan. I figured he was smart enough to eventually put it together himself.

Lester nodded when I finished and we rode the rest of the way in silence. We rolled into Rodia Gardens about one o’clock and it was quiet in the projects. School wasn’t out yet and the drug trade didn’t really get going until dusk. The dealers, dopers and gangbangers were all still sleeping.

The complex was a maze of two-story buildings painted in two tones. Brown and beige on most of the buildings. Lime and beige on the rest. The structures were unadorned by any bushes or trees, for these could be used to hide drugs and weapons. Overall, the place had the look of a newly built community where the extras had not yet been put in place. Only on closer inspection, it was clear that it wasn’t fresh paint on the walls and these weren’t new buildings.

We found the address Braselton gave me without difficulty. It was a corner apartment on the second floor with the stairway on the right side of the building. Lester took a large, heavy camera bag out of the car and locked it.

“You won’t need all of that if we get inside,” I said. “If she lets you shoot her, you’re gonna have to do it quick.”

“I don’t care if I don’t shoot a frame. I’m not leaving my stuff in the car.”

“Got it.”

When we reached the second floor, I noticed that the front door to the apartment was open behind a screen door with bars on it. I approached it and looked around before knocking. I saw no one in any of the parking lots or yards of the complex. It was as though the place were completely empty.

I knocked.

“Mrs. Sessums?”

I waited and soon heard a voice come through the screen. I recognized it from the call on Friday.

“Who that?”

“It’s Jack McEvoy. We talked on Friday. From the
Times
?”

The screen was dirty with years of grime and dust caked on it. I could not see into the apartment.

“What you doin’ here, boy?”

“I came to talk to you, ma’am. Over the weekend I did a lot of thinking about what you said on the phone.”

“How in hell you fine me?”

I could tell by the closeness of her voice that she was on the other side of the screen now. I could only see her shape through the grit.

“Because I knew this is where Alonzo was arrested.”

“Who dat wit’ you?”

“This is Sonny Lester, who works at the newspaper with me. Mrs. Sessums, I’m here because I thought about what you said and I want to look into Alonzo’s case. If he’s innocent I want to help him get out.”

Accent on
if
.

“A course, he’s innocent. He didn’t do nothin’.”

“Can we come in and talk about it?” I said quickly. “I want to see what I can do.”

“You can come in but don’ be taking no pitchers. Uh-uh, no pitchers.”

The screen door popped open a few inches and I grabbed the handle and pulled it wide. I immediately assessed the woman in the doorway as Alonzo Winslow’s grandmother. She looked to be about sixty years old, with dyed black cornrows showing gray at the roots. She was as skinny as a broom and wore a sweater over blue jeans even though it wasn’t sweater weather. Her calling herself his mother on the phone on Friday was a curiosity but not a big deal. I had a feeling I was about to find out that she had been both mother and grandmother to the boy.

She pointed to a little sitting area where there was a couch and a coffee table. There were stacks of folded clothes on almost all surfaces and many had torn pieces of paper on the top with names written on them. I could hear a washer or dryer somewhere in the apartment and knew that she had a little business running out of her government-provided home. Maybe that was why she wanted no photographs.

“Move some a that laun’ry and have a seat and tell me what you goin’ to do for my Zo,” she said.

I moved a folded stack of clothes off the couch onto a side table and sat down. I noticed there wasn’t a single piece of clothing in any of the stacks that was red. The Rodia projects were controlled by a Crips street gang, and wearing red—the color of the rival Bloods—could draw harm to a person.

Lester sat next to me. He put the camera bag on the floor between his feet. I noticed he had a camera in his hand. He unzipped the bag and put it away. Wanda Sessums stayed standing in front of us. She lifted a laundry basket onto the coffee table and started taking out and folding clothes.

“Well, I want to look into Zo’s case,” I said. “If he’s innocent like you said, then I’ll be able to get him out.”

I kept that
if
working. Kept selling the car. I made sure I didn’t promise anything I wasn’t going to deliver.

“Jus’ like that you get him out, huh? When Mr. Meyer can’t even get him his day in court?”

“Is Mr. Meyer his lawyer?”

“That’s right. Public defender. He a Jew lawyer.”

She said it without a trace of enmity or bias. It was said as almost a point of pride that her grandson had graduated to the level of having a Jewish lawyer.

“Well, I’ll be talking to Mr. Meyer about all of this. Sometimes, Mrs. Sessums, the newspaper can do what nobody else can do. If I tell the world that Alonzo Winslow is innocent, then the world pays attention. With lawyers that’s not always the case, because they’re always saying their clients are innocent—whether they really think it or not. Like the boy who cried wolf. They say it so much that when they actually do have a client who’s innocent, nobody believes them.”

She looked at me quizzically and I thought she either was confused or thought she was being conned. I tried to keep things moving so her mind wouldn’t settle on any given thing I had said.

“Mrs. Sessums, if I’m going to investigate this I am going to need you to call Mr. Meyer and ask him to cooperate with me. I’ll need to look at the court file and all the discovery.”

“He ain’t discovered nothin’ so far. He just go roun’ tellin’ everybody to sit tight, is all.”

“By ‘discovery’ I mean the legal term. The state—that’s the prosecutor—has to turn all their paperwork and evidence over to the defense for viewing. I’ll need to see it all if I’m going to work on getting Alonzo out.”

Now she appeared not to be paying attention to what I had said. From the clothes basket she slowly raised her hand. She was holding a tiny pair of bright red panties. She held them away from her body like she was holding the tail of a dead rat.

“Look at this stupid girl. She don’ know who she playin’ with. Hidin’ her red underneath. She a fool an’ a half she think she get away wi’ that.”

She walked over to the corner of the room, used her foot to press a pedal that opened a trash can and dropped the dead rat inside. I nodded as though I approved and tried to get back on track.

“Mrs. Sessums, did you understand what I said about the discovery? I’m going to—”

“But how you going to say my Zo’s innocent when all yo facts come from the po-po and they lie like the serpent in the tree?”

It took me a moment to respond as I considered her use of language and the juxtaposition of common street slang and religious reference.

“I’m going to gather all the facts for myself and make my own judgment,” I said. “When I wrote that story last week, I was saying what the police said. Now I am going to find out for myself. If your Zo’s innocent I will know it. And I’ll write it. When I write it, the story will get him out.”

“Okay, then. Good. The Lord will help you bring my boy home.”

“But I’m going to need your help, too, Wanda.”

I dropped into first-name mode now. It was time to let her think she was going to be part of this.

“When it comes to my Zo, I’m always ready to help,” she said. “Good,” I said.

“Let me tell you what I want you to do.”

THREE: The Farm

C
arver was in his office with the door closed. He was humming to himself and intently watching the cameras, his screens set in multiplex mode—thirty-six views on each. He was able to scan all of the cameras, even the angles nobody knew about. With a flick of his finger on the heat pad, he drew one camera angle into full screen on the middle plasma.

Geneva was behind the counter, reading a paperback novel. He tightened the focus, attempting to see what she was reading. He couldn’t see the title but he could make out the author’s name at the top of the page. Janet Evanovich. He knew she had read several books by this writer. He often saw her smiling to herself as she read.

This was good information to know. He would go to a bookstore and pick up a copy of an Evanovich book. He would make sure Geneva saw it in his bag when he walked through reception. It could be an ice-breaker that could lead to conversation and maybe more.

He remotely moved the lens and saw that Geneva’s purse was open on the floor next to her chair. He pulled in tight and saw cigarettes and gum and two tampons along with keys and matches and wallet. It was that time of the month. Maybe that was why Geneva had been so curt with him when he had come in. She had barely said hello.