Hawk felt the phone vibrating in his pocket. He didn’t have to check, he knew who the caller was. He hesitated as his heartbeat accelerated, but then silenced the ringer. A month ago he would have dropped everything to answer her call, but things had changed and now it just seemed too complicated.
He returned his attention to the video of Saturday night’s concert. It had taken a day and a half for security at Brooklyn Coliseum to collect and deliver all the relevant surveillance to the precinct and now Hawk was combing through eight-and-a-half hours’ worth of footage from the second tier cameras where, according to witnesses, the fatal argument had begun. He had little hope the effort would yield results. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, trying to catch a glimpse of an orange-and-black-clad killer in a crowd of nearly two thousand people on Halloween night.
After more than sixteen years on the force, ten as a detective, Hawk knew well that most investigative work was just plowing through tedious, meaningless material, waiting for that one inspired idea to worm its way into his conscious mind. This worm was taking its own sweet time and there couldn’t be a worse occasion for it, but Hawk had learned to be patient.
He examined what he knew so far. Four boys shot: three dead, one hanging on by a thread. Six bullets, fired at close to intermediate range, as evidenced by the shell casings a single, probably male shooter had left behind. Two of the victims had died of chest wounds at the scene, just outside the arena. The third was pronounced at the hospital. The fourth was considered ‘likely’, as in ‘likely to die’; after six hours in surgery he remained in critical condition. Ironically, this one survivor appeared to have been the primary target of the attack. The others had probably been shot as an afterthought, collateral consequences of the shooter’s adrenalin surge once he’d begun.
The four boys were seniors at the same high school, all of them heavyweight performers on the famed Roosevelt High basketball team. The one on the breathing machine in the ICU was James Pelham, the 18-year old, 6’9”, Tigers’ team captain and potential NBA superstar. Nicknamed ‘King James’, he was somewhat of a local hero; apparently it was common knowledge that he was being scouted by such big schools as North Carolina and UCONN after winning a number of awards for his achievements on the court. He’d been shot first, twice, inexpertly. That was anger. Of hundreds of potential witnesses, only a few people could give Hawk a reasonably reliable description of the shooter: tall, young, black male wearing a notably oversized, bright-orange shirt with either a number or some sort of black writing on it. Orange and black on Halloween – it could be anyone. The two girls from the victims’ class Hawk had interviewed had been too hysterical to be of much use; all Hawk was able to divine was that the shooting was believed to be the culmination of a dispute begun hours earlier, its genesis one of the most ancient, primitive, motivating impulses known to man: a woman. But, Hawk was careful not to give too much credence to the girls’ dramatic account of the night’s events. It was an amateur cop who considered women more credible just because they cried and carried on – females could be as vicious, self-serving and capricious as males.
Nick poked his head in again. “Anything?”
“No.”
“You wanna go back to the hospital?”
“Not yet.”
“You want me to look through some of the other surveillance tapes?”
“No.” He definitely did not want that. Hawk had to look through every bit of it himself. He could never trust that someone else, even Nick, wouldn’t miss that crucial flash of something that could crack the whole case. When Nick wanted to be annoying, he accused Hawk of being arrogant and conceited, convinced that no one was as good a detective as he, but that wasn’t precisely true. He had to see or notice the thing itself to trigger his brain into solving the problem. No one else could do that for him. But that was elementary; he didn’t think it required explanation. Let people think whatever they wanted.
There were at least three more hours of tape from this camera alone. Hawk was convinced by now that this was not the right angle to be looking from, but he would finish what he started, just in case. He popped the top of another can of Coke. It was going to be a long night.
As images moved silently in two-frame fast-forward on the computer screen, Hawk planned out the day ahead. When he was done here, he would go back to the school, pick up the records the principal was putting aside for him and then return to the hospital to check on how the kid was doing, see if anyone interesting showed up. From the moment they’d brought the victims in, early Sunday morning – hard to believe it was only yesterday – the hospital waiting room had been crowded to capacity with friends and fans, people who knew the boys or knew of them and wanted to be part of the hype, which continued to grow to startling proportions as breaking-news announcements aired on every local channel.
The families were devastated, of course. Hawk felt especially sorry for James Pelham’s grandmother who seemed so frail when he’d talked to her at the hospital but who’d spent the past two decades on her hands and knees working as a maid to keep James and his siblings fed and clothed and off the street. She reminded Hawk of his own grandmother who had played such an important role in his life, especially after his father was killed when he was seven.
His mind wandered to that summer afternoon, five months ago. He was running errands in town on one of his rare days off when his mother called his cell phone, worried that his grandmother had not picked up when she had called to check in at their usual time. Hawk hung up and immediately dialed his grandmother’s number. The phone rang and rang, as he made a U-turn and sped directly to her house without stopping at his own, ten minutes away, to retrieve his set of keys. He pulled up to the curb, threw the truck into park and sprinted to the door. He banged loudly on the thick wood, calling her name. When he pressed his ear against the door, he heard no noise or movement inside. All he could hear was the thudding of his heart.
He took two steps back and crashed against the door, splintering the frame as it flew open. She was lying unconscious on the floor in the hallway between the bedroom and the kitchen. Hawk wondered how long she’d been like that and if she had been able to hear the phones ringing in both rooms, each equally, hopelessly out of reach. His eyes smarted with unbidden tears to imagine her helplessness. He knelt beside her and felt for a pulse. It was weak, and her skin was clammy. As he scooped her up into his arms, surprise registered somewhere deep in his subconscious, for she was so delicate, as light as one of his children. She had always seemed so solid to him, a pillar of strength.
With long strides he was out the door, catching it with his foot to pull it closed behind him. The lock was broken and it didn’t close properly, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He placed her in the narrow back seat of the pickup. Her eyelids fluttered minutely, but did not open.
As he raced to the hospital, he made two quick calls, one to his mother and one to his sister, the nurse. He did not bother with 911. Afterward, he was silent, intensely focused on weaving through traffic at breakneck speed. He glanced over his shoulder several times but she had not moved. He had the inane thought that he should have brought her purse; she never went anywhere without it and she would be worried if she woke up and didn’t have it. Memories of his childhood, his teenage years, momentous and mundane things he had learned from her and taken for granted tumbled around his mind without heed to chronology. It occurred to him that he should talk to her, reassure her, but he could think of nothing to say.
Later, and forever after when he thought about it, he deeply regretted not using those precious minutes to tell her how he felt about her and how much he would miss her if she died. He always seemed to know instinctively what to say to victims when he was on the job; defendants, too. But in his own, personal life, when it mattered so much what he said and to whom, he clammed up. He didn’t know why it was so difficult for him to speak. He knew the words to say; sometimes he even wanted to say them, but he could never get them past the double-locked gates of clenched teeth and sealed lips.
She died around midnight, without ever waking. By that time, the strong, competent women in his family, every one of them sadly too familiar with grieving to be numb, had taken over the immediate arrangements and there was nothing left for him to do but return home. He sat quietly on the couch, in the dark, in the home he had built for his new family back when their future looked bright and portended none of the bitterness and resentment that was to come. He pictured his children upstairs, sleeping, but he did not get up to check on them or see if his wife was still up. There was no comfort for him there, nor did he want any. He sat still and listened to the sounds of his house breathing.
He didn’t know how he could have fallen asleep like that, sitting up, fully dressed, head tilted all the way back, touching the sofa. As he wakened, his neck too stiff to move, he was shocked to realize it was morning. He felt the warm body of his youngest curled against him, and heard the grating, high voices and crazed noises of cartoons coming from the television. Eyes still closed, he croaked through his stretched, parched throat, “Spongebob?”
“Yes.” Little fingers patted his thigh. “Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Did Nanna die?”
“Yes.”
“When’s she gonna be back?”
“When people die they don’t come back.”
“Where do they stay, then?”
“Nobody knows the answer to that.”
“But you know, right Daddy?”
“No. Even I don’t know that.”
“But how are we going to see her? Can she come back just for my birthday? Or Christmas?”
“I wish she could.” His hand rested against her little blonde head, remarkably grown from the tiny, soft globe he cupped so easily in his palm four-and-a-half years ago, but still small and infinitely fragile, as a butterfly.
“Well, Daddy, if you look on your GPS you could find her and we could go get her in the car.”
“Yes, but it might take us a long, long time to get there. So, in the meantime, so we don’t forget her, we have to keep her in our memories, behind our eyes. Okay? We have to remind each other about Nanna, and tell each other lots of stories about her.”
She laughed the little gurgling laugh that always made him smile and sometimes broke his heart. “Oh Daddy, we could never forget Nanna! That’s silly.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
He felt the change in the room, the swish of air against the jamb. He opened his eyes just as the hem of his wife’s robe disappeared beyond the doorway.
* * * * *
Nearly four hours later, there was nothing to show for his vigilance at the computer screen but a caffeine headache, the roiling of his empty stomach and the dubious satisfaction of having eliminated an entire avenue of search for evidence. At one point, about an hour ago, he’d caught images of a scuffle involving a group of males but there was no orange shirt and it appeared to have begun and ended as a fist fight. Still, Hawk recorded the time on the video.
Now he stood up and stretched his long arms to the ceiling. His back bones popped – a pain he both sought and dreaded. He was getting old. He shook Nick awake and grabbed the car keys. Nick raised his head from the table wearily, blinking in the harsh, fluorescent lights.
“What time is it?”
“Almost five-thirty.” He jingled the keys to urge Nick to get moving.
“Where we going?”
“It’s too early to go to the school. Let’s go back to the hospital.”
“Right now?”
“Yup.”
“Coffee first? Please.”
“Fine.”
At the diner, Barbara brought Hawk a Coke and Nick a cup of coffee with half and half the moment they sat down. She took one look at Hawk, his chiseled face gaunt, his unusual gray eyes bloodshot and cloudy, and headed back to the kitchen, not bothering with the customary small talk. A few cops were scattered around, reading the paper or watching the early morning news at the counter.
Nick grumpily stirred his coffee. “So, what have we got?”
“I don’t think the girls are telling it straight. I think they know this guy, the shooter.”
“Why wouldn’t they tell the truth? The vics were their friends. You see the way everybody fawns all over the Pelham kid. He’s a local celebrity. You’d think they’d want to help us.”
“I do think they want to help us. But I also think they want us to figure it out for ourselves.”
“No one wants to snitch?”
“There’s that, but there’s something else, too. I don’t know what. Guilt, maybe. Protection. I’m not sure.”
Barbara brought two plates of scrambled eggs and hash browns to the table. She spoke before Hawk could protest.
“Detective, I know you didn’t order this, but you look terrible and I’m guessing you’re working that shooting from Saturday night, so I’m sure you haven’t eaten properly. Your wife will thank me, even if you won’t.” She turned her deep, concerned brown eyes on Nick. “You have to take better care of him. He’s too skinny.”
“He just looks skinny ‘cause he’s tall.” Nick had an arsenal of retorts at the ready to counter the merciless teasing the partners were subjected to regarding the disparity in their sizes. At 6’4”, Hawk towered over Nick, who topped off at 5’10”.
“But then that would mean that, because you’re short, you look f – - ”
Barbara laughed. “Listen, Abbott, and you too, Costello, you both look like hell. Do what I ask, please, like the good boys I know you are. Or else.”
Nick raised his eyebrows at Hawk as he shoveled a forkful of eggs into his own mouth. Shrugging as if nothing could be done to refute the Queen’s command, he said, “You better eat it.”
Hawk realized he was never leaving the diner unless Barbara was assured of his health, so he set about eating the first hot meal he’d had in three days. Very few people knew why it seemed as if Barbara’s sole purpose in the world was to ensure the welfare of a handful of New York’s finest, but Hawk and Nick had discovered about six or seven years ago that she had lost her only child, whose dream it was to become a police officer, in a fatal shooting incident when he was 19-years old. She had never spoken of it; they found out accidentally when they went to the diner one day and for the first time in memory, Barbara wasn’t there. They joked with Pete, the short order cook, that she had finally run off with her hero, Emeril the TV chef, but Pete had smiled sadly and said the only day Barbara ever took off was September 30th, the anniversary of her son’s death. They never mentioned it, of course, but ever afterward, they treated Barbara like family. On Christmas they brought her gifts and after a snowstorm one or the other of them always shoveled her car out.
At 8:30 a.m., Charlene and Tawanda met them at the hospital as Hawk had requested. He’d already visited James Pelham’s room, stopping first at the cafeteria on the fifth floor to pick up a muffin and hot tea for the boy’s grandmother who looked so sad and worn out. She had hardly left her grandson’s side these past few days despite the four, younger children at home. The doctors and nurses left her alone; they understood instinctively that they would only be able to remove her from his bedside by force, and they were far too overworked in the crowded ER of one of the worst crime-ridden cities in the country to bother sticking to protocol where one stubborn, little old black lady was concerned. Besides, it was touch and go for James right now, and because his brother and sisters were too young to be allowed into the ICU, his grandmother was his only visitor. Apparently, James’ mother was in a drug treatment facility in Oregon and no one had seen his father since James was three.
Interviewing the girls was an exercise in futility. They constantly interrupted the detectives’ focus and momentum, consulting their phones every few seconds and texting their friends. They contradicted themselves and each other and argued about every detail, such as who was where, what happened in what order, et cetera. Nick, who generally disliked teenagers for being evasive and self-absorbed, lost patience after about half an hour and wandered off to talk to the nurses and the steady stream of civilian visitors, hoping to find more reliable witnesses. He knew, too, that if these flakey girls truly had any information of value, Hawk would get it out of them. For some mysterious reason, the teenagers responded best to Hawk. No one, Hawk included, could ever figure out why, but Nick was just glad someone could deal with them so he didn’t have to.
After another fifteen minutes of the runaround, Hawk determined the only way he was ever going to get any useful information was if he talked to each girl separately or managed to get a hold of one of their phones. Nick was down the hall, but Hawk succeeded in catching his eye. Responding automatically to the subtle, secret signals he and his partner had developed after years of working together, Nick came sauntering back.
“Nick, if you’re going to the cafeteria, could you get me some coffee, please?”
Nick’s eyes widened slightly in understanding: Hawk did not drink coffee.
“Large or small,” Nick asked meaningfully, his eyes sliding momentarily over the girls.
“Whichever one.”
Nick turned to the girls. “Would either of you ladies like anything?”
Unwilling to pass up anything free, the girls looked at each other, trying to decide what to order, oblivious to Hawk’s minute nod.
“What they all got down there?”
“Maybe one of you should come with me and see.”
Bored with Hawk’s endless questions, they both volunteered to accompany Nick and then started arguing about which one should go.
Quietly, Hawk said, “You can both go.” The girls stopped bickering immediately. Nick was confused but he said nothing, confident Hawk knew what he was doing. As the girls gathered their coats and bags, Hawk added, “Oh, you’re not allowed to have phones down there.” The girls looked stumped for a minute. “You can leave all that stuff here if you want. I have to stay up here anyway, talk to some people.” Their doubtful looks made him smile. “I am a cop, you know. Nobody’s gonna steal it from me.”
They laughed and, leaving everything strewn messily over the chairs, both girls followed Nick. Hawk called after them, “I believe the cafeteria is on the eighth floor.” Nick nodded without turning around.
When they were out of sight, Hawk, still sitting, leaned forward and casually straightened the items on the chairs. Charlene’s phone fell from her jacket pocket to the floor. Hawk pretended not to notice. He sat back and then, after a moment, removed his own phone from his pants pocket, scrolled through a few messages and then tucked it into his jacket pocket. He looked around, calmly surveying the activity on the floor, while surreptitiously counting three surveillance cameras covering his portion of the hall and sitting area. He waited two minutes, silently counting out the full hundred and twenty seconds before standing up to stretch. He took off his jacket and turned to drape it over the back of his chair. As if by accident, Hawk’s shoe kicked Charlene’s phone. It clattered as it slid along the floor several feet into the middle of the hall. Hawk looked at the cell phone and then patted his pants pockets. Then Hawk picked the phone off the floor, and placed it in his pants pocket without looking at it. He stretched again. Another full sixty seconds for the surveillance cameras and then Hawk ambled down the hallway, stopping at the nurse’s desk to ask the hospital orderly to keep an eye on the stuff in the corner while he went to the bathroom.
Inside the stall, Hawk opened Charlene’s phone and began scrolling through her Facebook pictures. There were hundreds from the concert, mostly of people dressed up in Halloween costumes, some wearing masks. Shit, what if the shooter had been wearing a mask? That would be a nearly perfect way to disguise a very public murder! But none of the witnesses had mentioned a mask. Hawk quickly scanned through countless photos, some featuring James and the other three victims, smiling and laughing as they posed with Charlene, Tawanda and a half-dozen other fawning girls. Finally, Hawk’s gaze landed upon one photograph in which a young, black male, fitting the description of the shooter, was standing almost directly behind James and his friends, fully facing the camera. Over a black, long-sleeved shirt, the kid was wearing a huge, orange jersey that said Tigers, the name of the high school basketball team, and an orange baseball cap with a big black ‘T’ on it. Hawk stared hard at the boy’s immobile face: he was about 16- or 17-years old, no visible scars or marks, utterly non-descript. Looking into his eyes, Hawk could discern no anger, no malicious intent foreshadowing the disaster ahead. Could it have been an accident? If the shooting was premeditated, this kid surely hadn’t been thinking clearly while planning his wardrobe. Hawk doubted anyone in criminal history had ever dressed so flamboyantly, in bright, noticeable, identifiable orange, before heading off to shoot a celebrity in a crowd of two thousand witnesses. But the biggest irony was, of course, that no one had seen what actually happened.
By the time Nick came back with the girls, Charlene’s phone was tucked safely back in her jacket pocket and Hawk had a clear picture of his only suspect.
Thirty hours later, Trevor Saint-Jean was sitting in Interrogation Room II at the Eight-two precinct, crying and shaking uncontrollably. Hawk left him alone while he went out to get the kid some tissues and a Coke. Six pairs of eyes observed his exit, expressing an extraordinary range of emotions; everything from impatience and derision to concern and outright doubt. This case had attracted the notice of the city’s biggest brass and it was impossible not to feel unnerved by the knowledge that some of NYPD’s most powerful men were observing his every move.
Hawk had tried to ignore the mounting pressure, but now, at the close of the fourth day since the shooting, he could no longer pretend his future wasn’t riding on the outcome of this investigation.
The media attention alone had been suffocating. After that first press conference, when the public was promised no stone would be left unturned to apprehend the perpetrator of this vicious massacre, there was a general sense that the entire city was holding its breath, waiting for law enforcement to announce a break in the case and the imminent arrest of the monster who’d cut down the world’s next Michael Jordan.
The lieutenant had made it perfectly clear that all eyes were fixed on the squad’s performance. None of them had seen home in the past four days and no one would be going home until the killer was in custody. Other squads, including the pompous grade ones from the Brooklyn Homicide Detective Division, were chomping at the bit to join the highly publicized assignment. In addition to the normal, sometimes hostile, competition among local detective squads, this case had become political. The Eight-two was under strict orders to bring this arrest home; the detectives understood that their reputation depended upon it. Failure would be unforgettable, unforgiveable.
That they were even permitted to keep this case was extremely unusual. Rumor had it that Captain McKinney had persuaded his superiors, all the way up to the mayor’s office, that this squad would succeed and that additional units would only muddle and delay the investigation. Mollified by the constant updates, it seemed the top brass had respected the Captain’s request for non-interference – but time was running out.
Tonight, the hurricane was peaking. The mayor and police commissioner had been forced to make statements to the press earlier, for, despite a concerted effort to conceal their activities, the media had caught the detectives bringing Trevor into the station. A sea of television cameras and newspaper reporters in vans and trucks were camped outside the station, as well as the hospital, waiting for official word that the prime suspect – the only suspect – was in custody.
Now, on his short trip to the Coke machine, Hawk’s insides were churning. Because, in the face of all this hype and crushing expectation, he simply did not believe that Trevor was the shooter.
The adrenalin of the past four days, which had spiked off the charts during the time it had taken to identify the kid in the picture, hunt him down, get him settled at the precinct and begin the interrogation, had waned. Now, Hawk felt completely drained. He hadn’t eaten anything substantial for days. His hands were shaking from the ten Cokes he’d drunk since this morning. The combination of caffeine, hunger, lack of sleep, his wife’s reproach for missing parent-teacher conferences again, and his daughter’s plaintive message asking when he was coming home had all given him a colossal headache. Furthermore, he needed to think how he was going to tell those men in there, who could pull him off this case at any time, the last thing they wanted to hear.
Nick came up silently beside Hawk as he waited for the can to fall to the trench at the bottom of the soda machine. Glancing quickly at his partner’s angular face, Nick was startled to notice how the red stubble on his chin and the shadows under his strange, slate-colored eyes made him look menacing. He had never seen Hawk looking so disheveled. This case was obviously getting to him. Nick muttered out of the side of his mouth, so only Hawk could hear. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not him,” Hawk said, staring at the glistening, red can, making no move to stoop and pick it up.
“C’mon, it’s him. You don’t believe that shit about how he might of seen ‘some guy’ with the gun, do you? He tossed that motherfucking thing into the Gowanus and now he’s crying like a fucking baby. I can’t believe you’re buying that shit!”
“Nick, listen, he didn’t do it. Believe me, I want this solved as much as you do – as much as they do – but this isn’t our shooter. He doesn’t have the facts, he –”
Their exchange was interrupted by the sergeant. “Lieutenant’s office,” he barked.
As Nick turned to follow the sergeant, Hawk could see the real concern in his partner’s eyes. He hated that there was so much riding on this case. He was upset that Nick was worried, and frustrated that he was being second-guessed every step of the way. How could anyone ever get anything done? In cases like this, Hawk knew they had to be extra careful not to jump to conclusions, especially because everyone was pushing for a quick answer. Was he the only detective in the entire city who remembered this?
He reached for the Coke and, instead of following Nick, turned back to the interrogation room. Certain that all the big players had gone into the Lieutenant’s office and no one was observing him through the two-way mirror, Hawk entered and set the can down on the table.
He strained to keep the impatience out of his voice, not wanting to alienate the kid or let on how desperate he was for some answers. “C’mon Trevor, talk to me. It’s just me here, no one’s listening. Give me just one word, a name, and you can go home. I’m trying to help you. I know you didn’t do this. Tell me who did.”
“I told you, I don’t know. I swear it. I ain’t playing you. You got to believe me.” Trevor looked up at him, his dark brown eyes brimming with tears. He was frightened, frightened to death, but Hawk had the same sensation he’d had when he’d looked at Trevor’s picture on Facebook: there was no malice or hidden rage in his face. Over the years, Hawk had talked to many who were, but this kid was just not capable of shooting four people at close range, in cold blood.
As he exited the interrogation room, Hawk was startled to see the Chief of Detectives leaning against the door to the observation room, staring gravely at him. The guy was a legend. Even up close he didn’t look quite human.
“Detective.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Hold up a minute.”
“Yes, Sir.” Hawk stood still, quietly facing the commissioner’s senior advisor, the third in command of the entire police force. He knew he should probably jump at the opportunity to state his case, explain why he was sure this kid was not the shooter, but he said nothing. He just waited.
Finally, the Chief spoke. “Well. What’s going on here?”
“He didn’t do it. It’s not him.”
“I know he didn’t do it.” The Chief paused. Ten seconds ticked by. “So what?”
“So what?”
“Yeah, so what? Who cares?”
Hawk was shaken. What was he saying? “I do. Sir.” Wow. Maybe he had just ended his career.
“Me, too.”
A burn crept up Hawk’s neck and flushed his cheeks. “Yes, Sir,” he answered.
Still staring speculatively, the Chief said, “Captain McKinney thinks very highly of you. Why?”
“I don’t know, Sir.”
“Well, you’re out on a limb here, Detective. A lot of people like this guy for the shooter.”
“Yes, Sir, but you said yourself, it’s not him.”
“Who is it?”
The intense frustration Hawk had been fighting to suppress broke through into his next words like a flash-flood. “I don’t know! But I’m close. I can feel it.”
“How much time do you need?”
“Three days.”
“You’ve got one.”
“Two.”
“One and a half, till Friday noon, and not a second over or you’re off the case and that’s the least of our problems.” Hawk knew he didn’t mean “our.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Don’t disappoint me, Detective.” He was already walking to the Lieutenant’s office.
“No, Sir,” Hawk said softly, falling in behind him.
* * * * *
Eventually, the shouting in the lieutenant’s small office subsided. It was understandable that after four, extraordinarily stressful days, these men whose outward demeanor was always necessarily so controlled would need to blow off steam. The pressure from the scared, outraged public and insatiable media was unrelenting. Tempers were still high, but the outbursts were over, and the men turned their focus to strategizing their way through what had become a veritable mine-field: this case was now national news.
Leaning quietly, unobtrusively, against the wall, Hawk reflected that it could have gone quite differently. It still could. The only reason the Eight-two was still on the case was because the Chief of Detectives agreed with him that Saint-Jean was not the shooter. However, no one was ready to rule out the possibility that Trevor knew who the actual shooter was, and Hawk was ordered to work on that some more, since the kid had obviously taken to him. Nick and the sergeant exchanged a knowing look. It was no accident that Hawk had been conducting the interview with Trevor: for some reason, teenagers tended to open up to Hawk, whereas Nick had a better rapport with women and homosexuals.
“Get back in there and find out if he knows anything,” sighed the Captain, as he stood up to follow the Chief. At the door, he added, “Don’t let this go on too much longer, Detectives. We need to wrap this thing up, ASAP.”
Hawk didn’t have to look to know Nick was rolling his eyes. Those kinds of superfluous, condescending comments from the bosses infuriated his partner to no end. Nick had difficulty ignoring the bureaucratic power games, but frankly, Hawk was relieved. He recognized that underneath the admonition, the Captain had given them the green light.
“What’re you gonna do?” he said to Nick, cheerful despite his fatigue.
* * * * *
Day six. Hawk hadn’t seen his children, slept in a bed, shaved in front of a mirror since Saturday. The constant rumors, speculations and latest tabloid ‘disclosures’ were making it impossible to think clearly and objectively. The trail was freezing up, nothing of significance had happened to turn the media wolves’ focus away from this case, and although everyone was praying he’d just sit up and identify the killer, James had not stirred from his comatose state. The three other boys had all been buried, their funerals broadcast continuously on every local network for the past eighteen hours. Hawk had been to each one, scouring faces, eavesdropping on conversations, hoping to glean any tiny piece of information that would lead him to his shooter. Six days was not long in the realm of normal investigations, but in a case like this, it was an eternity. And today was his own personal doomsday.
Trevor had not been able to give him anything. Hawk ran their interview over and over in his head. Could he have gotten this one wrong? Scared, tear-filled eyes. No gang affiliations, no personal beef against any of the four victims. He, like everybody else at the high school, idolized Pelham and the others. They were the pride of the community. People who knew them wanted to take personal credit for their fame and talent. Who could have profited from a tragedy like this?
By now, the atmosphere at the squad was oppressive. Everyone working the case was exhausted and irritable, shooting furtive looks, trying to make subtle suggestions. Hawk had taken to sitting in his car or on his perch to avoid talking to anyone.
There was something bothering him, niggling right at the back of his tired brain, floating tantalizingly in the gray ether just beyond his consciousness. He was more frustrated than he could ever remember being; he just couldn’t catch his clue, and he became obsessive, convinced that that one missing piece of the puzzle would crack this whole case open. Was it a visual? The video surveillance after all? Charlene’s Facebook page? He went back to those things again and again. Nothing.
Hawk lifted his forehead off the steering wheel and looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost 7:00 a.m. He’d been inside the airless car for about two and a half hours. Without thinking, he turned the keys in the ignition and started driving. Ten minutes later, he was surprised to find himself pulling into the high school parking lot. He’d been here a number of times the last few days, talking to countless students and faculty. At this time of morning, only three or four cars were parked behind the gym. Just after he walked in, the double metal doors clanged loudly behind him and a group of huge teenage boys, each taller than his own six-feet four-inches, pushed past, making the kinds of noise only eighteen-year olds could make. Hawk watched as they unzipped black, hooded sweatshirts, threw them onto the wooden benches surrounding the basketball court and began warming up, shooting and dribbling the brown, frayed basketballs that were the staple of inner-city school gymnasiums. There was a solemnity in the players’ movements, a result of the recent events that had taken four of their team all at once. Hawk watched one intense boy practicing three-point side shots, his orange jersey displaying the number 2. He was very, very good. His talent far outshone the others, and they were all pretty impressive.
As Hawk stood there watching, another boy came in, threw his black hoodie to the bleachers and leaned over to tighten his shoelaces.
Hawk casually asked, “Who’s the kid over there, shooting those three-pointers?”
“What? You a scout?” The boy looked with interest at the tall, white man in the suit.
Hawk shrugged.
“That’s The Saint,” the boy said, once he realized he wasn’t going to get an answer. “Shawn Saint-Jean,”
Hawk felt as if he’d been electrocuted. He stared at the orange jersey across the court and repeated softly, “Saint-Jean.”
“Yeah.”
“Shooting guard?”
“No. Well, maybe, now that King James is gone.”
“James Pelham,” Hawk breathed. All the pieces began to slip into place.
“Yeah. You think Saint-Jean is good, you ain’t seen nothing. Pelham and Willis was better’n him, in my opinion. Cartwright and Shine prob’ly just as good. Or almost. All four of them gone, though.”
Hawk stood absolutely still, watching Saint-Jean continue to make basket after basket. Could jealousy have been a motive to shoot his teammates? The girls had claimed it was an argument over a woman, but what did they know? Maybe they were wrong. Hawk understood ambition better than envy.
A conversation with the team’s coach clarified everything. When they finished speaking, Hawk asked him not to mention that he was a detective. Then he went outside to wait.
Shawn looked hopeful as he approached Hawk’s car in the parking lot. He was gripping a white envelope, which he shoved into the pocket of his sweatshirt as he ducked into the passenger seat. He held out his enormous hand for a shake.
“Coach said you wanted to talk to me. I seen you in the gym. You a scout?”
Hawk shook Saint-Jean’s hand and answered, “Not exactly.” He could have lied. The law permitted police to lie or trick or promise a suspect anything under the sun prior to taking him into custody. But Hawk didn’t think he’d need to play it that way. “I was hoping you could tell me something about what happened to your teammates last Saturday night.” As he spoke, he looked straight into Shawn’s face. He felt a profound sadness, because, like his brother, there was a complete absence of malice in Shawn’s frightened eyes; however, unlike Trevor, the guilt was plain to see.
“You’re a cop.” It was not a question.
“Yes. A detective from the Eight-two. Do you want to come to the squad and make a statement?”
“Okay.”
Hawk was stunned. This kid was as unschooled in police obstruction and street survival as he’d ever seen. He was walking into the jaws of doom without seeming to sense the danger. The usual thrill Hawk felt when he’d caught his prey and was about to close a case was strangely absent. He felt sorry for the kid, for the terrible tragedy and senselessness of the deaths of three – possibly four – of his teammates. But, despite his empathy, Hawk’s own survival instincts kicked in: this was a huge case for him and he could not afford to do anything, ANYTHING, wrong that might cost the state its conviction.
“Before we go any further, I’m going to inform you of your rights. I want to make it very clear, now, Shawn, while you are still free to get out of this car.”
Shawn did not speak.
“When we get to the precinct I’m going to arrest you, Shawn.”
“I know.” He began to cry. As Hawk drove and softly recited Miranda warnings, Shawn wept, his face hidden in his forearm, his right hand clutching the envelope stuffed in his pocket. Every now and then, Hawk heard a tiny gasp for breath, but otherwise, Shawn Saint-Jean made no sound the entire journey to the precinct.
* * * * *
It was nearing 5:00 p.m., but after six days, it was impossible to accurately gage time anymore. In the windowless parts of the precinct where Hawk was entrenched in the hours-long process of filling out the paperwork, calling the D.A.’s office, and getting Saint-Jean ready for transport to Central Booking, it could have been 3:00 in the morning and he would not have been surprised.
What did surprise him was how he felt about this case. And, of course, the silent reactions of the men in the viewing room; men who belonged to the highest echelons of the most powerful police force in the country, all sitting in that gray, dull, cinderblock room listening to one of the saddest stories of wasted life many of them had heard in a very long time.
When they arrived at the precinct, Hawk had placed Shawn in handcuffs and again read him his rights. Then he told them everything.
For years he had been living in James Pelham’s shadow. James was team captain, James was the most popular kid in school, in the neighborhood. James was everybody’s friend; James was on his way to the top. The best basketball schools were courting him and everyone knew that college was just a stepping stone to the NBA. But James hadn’t become king by himself. Roosevelt High School’s basketball team was one of the top five in the country. Every player was good enough to get a scholarship. They had been training since middle school; under the new rules, the city was allowed to bus in kids who lived too far to qualify for automatic placement. Thus, the most promising young players were gathered into one group and trained by professional coaches-turned-gym teachers with a single-mindedness to rival the Chinese Olympic gymnastics team.
All the years, the boys on the team had been like brothers, deeply committed to helping each other out of the hood, make something of themselves. But this year, their senior year, things had changed. Suddenly, intense focus was being paid solely to James Pelham, and the rumor was that North Carolina and UCONN were ready to make him an offer. The team played hard, harder than ever, and everybody was feeling the pressure, but it seemed as if the scouts weren’t biting this year. Then, last week Shawn accidentally overheard Coach Tripper on the phone discussing Willis and Cartwright. Shawn could hear the desperation in the coach’s tone as he tried to persuade the person on the other end to come see them play. Shawn strained to hear his own name, standing stock still outside Coach’s office, but when he heard them planning to speak again on the matter next week, he took off. His heart was beating so hard it hurt. His face was flushed with shame; he was mortified that he had actually believed he was good enough to make it when all along it had been James, only James, they had wanted to see. Here the coach was begging for someone to take a second look at his number two and three players, and he, Shawn, wasn’t even mentioned. He was now eighteen years old with no goddamn future. Talk about putting all the eggs in one basket. He didn’t know how to do anything but play ball.
He had slammed out of the gym, and everything afterward had been a blur. He described getting the gun from a cousin who was so thrilled to be asked for a favor by his near-famous relative that he never bothered to ask why Shawn needed it. Shawn went to the concert without even stopping at home to change out of his practice clothes. Consumed by rage, he sought out his teammates whom he knew would be there – they had planned to go together, after all. His eyes located James almost immediately, sitting with a bunch of their classmates. He started to make his way over – he had no specific plan – but when he saw Natalie White curled up against James, his insides contracted. He had hooked up with Natalie for a few months last year, while James was dating Charlene’s cousin Crystal. Natalie had never shown an interest in James; if she had, Shawn would not have gone out with her. He avoided any outright competition with James; years of losing to Pelham had affected his self-confidence irreparably. But here she was, with James, and Shawn felt as if he were exploding.
He didn’t know what he intended when he followed James out to the concession stand. In the end, their confrontation was just a jumbled mess of misdirected accusations and flat denials, mostly about Natalie because Shawn’s bitterness about the real issue was too deep and wounding to express. When they parted, Shawn’s emotions were running dangerously high. Nothing had been resolved, but he was overtaken by a fury he had never known before, born of years of feeling inferior and a desperate need to escape the hood. He could have left, he could have run from the stadium where just a week ago he had earned twenty-two points for his team in an important playoff game. But he didn’t. He sat back down, his long torso coiled tight, and nursed his rage to such a frenzy that his resentment of James became a living part of him. Shawn realized then that he had always hated James, who had no problems, no competitors, whose path was blessed with praise and future riches; and this hatred was magnified by each remembered incident when James had bested him, taken what could have been his.
Hardly realizing that the concert was over, that everyone was exiting the arena, Shawn walked out in a daze. His sweatshirt hung open, but he couldn’t feel the cold, October night air. He never noticed it, but his orange jersey completed the Halloween motif. He felt himself being shoved, jostled, as people moved towards the exit, ready to continue the party. Shawn could feel the heavy, warm weight of the gun in his waistband, against his back. His hand moved to adjust it, but miraculously it wound up in his palm, his fingers wrapped around it, half-tucked into his sweatshirt pocket.
“Yo, it’s the Tigers! Guys, can we get a couple of photos for the Post?” Shawn turned, ready with the automatic smile he saved for pictures, but the photographer’s back was turned to him; he hadn’t been talking to Shawn, he’d been talking to James. Four of his teammates – his brothers – stood together without him, posing happily as a dozen cameras flashed and lit up their faces like Oscar night celebrities. Without thinking, Shawn pointed his pocket at his friends and pulled the trigger. Pop. Pop. Again. Again. He didn’t know how many times. His hand burned, an acrid smell seared his nose and throat like tear gas. He was shocked to see them fall, one after another, mouths open, blood leaking from holes that appeared magically in their chests. Screaming, pushing; the din of hysteria sounded all around him, but Shawn didn’t move, didn’t understand what was happening until someone grabbed him by the arm and pulled him, and then he, too, was running, running for safety.
No, he didn’t see Trevor, or else he didn’t remember seeing him. He didn’t remember losing his sweatshirt, tossing the gun; he didn’t remember anything like that. At some point he went home. Everyone was gathered outside, yelling incoherently or dumb with shock. His own stunned silence caused no suspicion. No one noticed him soaking his blistered hand in a bowl of raw egg.
Now, nearly a week later, Shawn was so tired, he hadn’t slept in so long, he just wanted it to be over. Would Hawk mind if he just put his head down here for a few minutes?
* * * * *
Hawk’s eyes were itching for lack of sleep. After two and a half hours of squinting over paperwork under the horrible fluorescent lights, he was nearly finished. He was dying for a shower. For the first time in ten years, he considered sleeping in the House tonight, though it was not his turnaround, just for a few hours before getting behind the wheel for the drive home.
He heard his name being called from upstairs and the urgency in the voice made him jump up so fast, his chair crashed to the floor. He raced up the stairs, sleep forgotten.
When he got to the third floor, a crowd of cops was blocking the doorway to the holding cell. Hawk was tall enough to see into the room and what he saw made him shove his way in. He ran over and crouched next to the body, feeling for a pulse, ignoring the grotesquely swollen eyelids and lips. He began CPR, but several of his colleagues pulled him away. Curiously, as they pushed him out of the room, all he could smell was the powerful odor of peanut butter.
The exultation everyone expected to feel when the press finally reported that the murderer of three young, future basketball stars was behind bars never came. Instead, there was a somber, empty quiet in the wake of the announcement that eighteen-year old Shawn Saint-Jean had died of anaphylactic shock after ingesting the four peanut butter sandwiches he had requested after writing out his confession. It had happened so quickly, the watch officer had been unable to revive him once he noticed the boy’s condition.
There were no grand political statements about how such a tragedy was the fault of the NYPD, or the Board of Ed; no sophomoric commentaries about how this terrible waste of life could have been prevented. Shawn Saint-Jean was no longer portrayed as a monster, just a sad, sick boy.
The press was unaware of the white envelope Hawk had removed from Shawn’s pocket during his mandatory “search” of the suspect at the time of arrest. Hawk had not disclosed the contents of the letters from Michigan State, North Carolina and UCONN offering Shawn full basketball scholarships. They had been sent to Roosevelt High, care of Coach Tripper, because Shawn and Trevor’s foster mother’s address was kept confidential by the State. The coach had told Hawk this morning about the offers for both Shawn and James, who remained in a coma and, if he lived, would likely never play basketball again.
Hawk felt empty. He’d seen it countless times: an otherwise decent, normal person overcome by jealousy or rage, momentarily lose all reason and commit, in one second, a life-altering act that could never be rectified. He wondered if Shawn had read the letters before getting into his car this morning – a lifetime ago. Hawk would never know the answer to that question. It would haunt him to the end of his days.