The Crime Writer

Chapter 19

A guy with gang tattoos across his throat flew down the handicap ramp on a wheelchair and veered toward the van parked beside my car. I'd called Preston on my way over, and he'd googled Hope House for me. It proved to be a residential placement facility social services-speak for a group home just above MacArthur Park. It was a six-bedroom house, two kids per room, with overnight staff. Last stop before juvy for problematic Angeleno youth.

I climbed out of my car. The guy was laboring to get out of his wheelchair and into the driver's seat.

"Give you a hand?" I asked.

He turned. The lettering on his baseball cap read there but foR the grace of god go you. "Yeah, I came all the way down here, and I don't know how to get in my fucking van."

So far I was a hit.

The house was a dilapidated two-story peeling paint, crooked shutters, the whole deal. I walked into a whirlwind of motion, young teens flying out of rooms, screaming at one another, tumbling over the broken-down play structure in the backyard. A Hispanic counselor paced, biting her nails, phone pressed to her ear. "His PO has not shown up, we're short a driver, and I have to bail Patrick out, so I can't take him."

She hung up, blew a sigh. "Are you my driver?"

"No, I'm looking for Junior Delgado. I need to ask him "

"Just" her hands flew out, then she caught herself and finished in a gentler tone "go wait out back. You'll have to talk to Caroline Raine she's our clinical therapist. She's upstairs dealing with a contraband issue. She'll be down in a sec, but this isn't the best day. Grab a cup of coffee." She pointed to a row of homemade mugs hanging from wooden pegs. "Might be a while. Wash it out when you're done."

Refueling on caffeine, I strolled out back and sat on the lip of a planter filled with dirt but no flowers, next to a kid who looked about as animated as James Taylor. "You know where Junior is?"

"Dunno, man." He got up and trudged away. My presence had offended him.

It struck me how much movies had colored my view of kids' homes. Here there were no long-lashed Latin boys with smooth skin, no girls flashing million-dollar smiles from beneath dirt-smudged faces, no eager minds waiting for a role model, a state-sponsored music program, a whimsical mathematics instructor. Just a lot of baggy shorts, Converse sneakers, and scowls. The play-structure slide had rusted, and two of the monkey bars were missing. I thought kids like this probably deserved something better to play on, but they seemed to be making do.

A Down syndrome kid sat in one of the cracked rubber swings, holding his head in his hands and weeping. "I waa ma mama."

A boy in a lime green sweatshirt weighed in. "You killed your mom, retard."

"I know. I know."

I thought, I will never complain about anything ever again.

A scrawny Latin kid, maybe fifteen, wore a Lee jacket, bell-bottom jeans, and PRO-Keds. He looked like someone Fat Albert had sat on. When he turned to huddle with a co-conspirator, I saw that the back of his jacket was custom-painted. Aerosol art, I believe the term is.

"Junior?"

He strolled over, sat down beside me, and straightened out my pronunciation of his name.

"Sorry. Is this your work? I'm not a cop, just an admirer."

He glanced at the folded paper and smiled. "Yeah, thass me."

"Painted it last Thursday night?"

"How you know that?"

I pointed to the pigeon feathers stuck to the concrete. "Paint was still wet. And this picture was dated. What time were you there?" It took me a moment to read his hesitation. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone you snuck out."

"Late. I'd guess from, say, eleven forty-five to ten to two."

"How sure are you?"

"More sure about the ten-to part." He showed off an impressive Sanyo. "My watch beeps on the hour. I got a beep when I was biking home, 'bout halfway."

The time stamp on the first crime-scene photo had read 2:07 a.m. Which led to my next question. "Why didn't you finish your piece?"

"Got interrupted."

"By a car?"

"Uh-huh."

"Did you see what kind of car?"

"I see everything, homes." Sensing my eagerness, he fixed his brown eyes on me. "Ms. Caroline say it okay for you to be here?"

"Didn't say it wasn't."

"Uh-hunh. You seen her yet? I mean, laid eyes?"

"No."

He grinned wolfishly.

"Why?" I asked.

"Excuse me, sir."

I turned to see a woman standing over me. Her face, at first glance, was like a shattered, beautiful mask. Scars divided it, one starting at her hairline, curving around her temple, another beginning under her eye and bridging the bumps of her lips, splitting the edge of her mouth.

I dropped my coffee mug. It was probably due more to the zealous glaze job on the ceramic than to shock, but either way the effect was the same. I felt like a prissy Jane Austen heroine, teacup trembling on saucer as gossip came back from the ball. My mortification grew with each embarrassing arc the intact part of the mug described on the concrete, and Junior's stifled laughter didn't help.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I lost my grip."

Her expression revealed nothing. The indentation in her lips didn't align, and the path of the longer mark seemed equally haphazard. The scars were faded, the color blending, the skin slightly dappled in places from what I guessed were healed-over grafts. She was graying, but not by the strand or lock. All her hair had dulled slightly to a dusty sandalwood. It was lank, taken up in a twist around a pencil. Her features, glimpsed through the damage, were stunning. Icy green eyes, delicate mouth, lovely bone structure that accented her cheeks.

I offered my hand. "I'm Drew Danner."

"I recognize you from your murder trial."

Junior looked at the boy in the lime green sweatshirt, who mouthed, Hells yeah.

"Junior, go to your room please."

"Ms. Caroline "

"Now."

He hustled. I would've hustled, too.

"What do you want, Mr. Danner?"

"I'm trying to figure out what happened to me. I just had a few questions for Junior."

"So you thought you'd come out here and interview one of my boys without getting approval from me?"

I forced a smile. "Be nice to me, I had a brain tumor?"

"Not gonna work here, buster."

"Drat."

"Clean up your mess and leave."

She left me on the planter. The remaining kids laughed at me, the Down syndrome kid included, and the boy in the sweatshirt stuck out his tongue. I wanted Junior's description of the car that had interrupted his spray-paint job, but could see no acceptable way to get to him. Now.

I collected the ceramic shards in my palm and found a trash can a few steps up a hall. From the other room, I heard Caroline's and the counselor's raised voices.

"Judge Celemin has had it. He misses another appearance, he's going straight to the hall."

"What can we do, Caroline? I have to bail out Patrick now and the driver flaked. It's okay, there's nothing "

"No, it's not okay. I didn't double-schedule staff, and now he's gonna wind up in the hall because of me."

I left them to the joys of charitable enterprise.

I was pulling out when a bang on my window startled me upright. Caroline Raine gestured for me to roll down the window. I had the sense that when Caroline Raine suggested you do something, you did it. She thrust a document onto my steering wheel. "Here. Sign this. No, here. Now you're a Big Brother. Through our facility. Take Junior to court you're already late. It's just one hour out of your day, and you'll save him from juvenile hall."

I pictured the book jacket: Tuesdays with Junior. "Are you kidding me?"

"You can question him all you want on the way. Not that it'll get you anywhere."

"How do you know I'm not some psycho?"

"Clinician's eye."

"I was up for murder."

"By reason of insanity is pretty tame compared to these kids. Junior'll eat you for lunch."

"After what I've been through," I said, "I'm probably toxic. I think I can handle a kid with some attitude."