Eyes of the Innocent Read online

  “Chief, I’m told you guys found blood at his house,” Tommy said in a low voice so the clueless TV people couldn’t hear it.

  “You didn’t get that from me,” Matos said, still walking.

  “You gotten any ransom demands or anything like that?” I asked.

  “If I did,” he growled as he climbed into his SUV, “I sure wouldn’t tell you.”

  He slammed the door, and the truck quickly pulled away.

  * * *

  I was about to find an excuse to depart—maybe something about how hanging around TV people makes me nauseous—when my phone provided me one. Beethoven’s Fifth began its signature “du du du duuuuuh” in my pocket. Tommy raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Szanto,” I said. “A man like that needs his own ringtone.”

  “A man like that needs a haircut and eyebrow tweezing,” Tommy corrected me.

  “Well, that didn’t come with the phone, so the ringtone will have to do,” I said. “Give me a shout later, okay?”

  “Got it. Buy yourself some ties that are a little less Republican in the meantime, okay?”

  I smiled and flipped him off as I walked away, then brought the phone to my ear.

  “Eagle-Examiner reporter Carter Ross here,” I said, oozing cheer. “How may I help you?”

  “One, stop being a wiseass,” Szanto retorted. “Two, I want you to find that charm bracelet.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I want you to get Sweet Thang her charm bracelet back. That’s your new assignment.”

  “Ooookay,” I said. “I’m officially confused here. I thought I was supposed to be investigating the disappearance of a public official.”

  Even over the phone, I could hear the sound of molars mashing against each other. Szanto made a noise that came from somewhere deep in his chest and began speaking deliberately.

  “Sweet Thang called Daddy. Daddy called Brodie,” he said. “You figure it out.”

  “And Windy Byers?”

  “Wherever he is, he can wait.”

  “Boss, do you really—”

  “Dammit!” Szanto exploded. “If you don’t find that charm bracelet, you’re going to be covering Girl Scout meetings in Hunterdon County for the rest of your career! Are we clear?”

  And naturally he hung up before I could answer.

  “Once again,” I said, “nice chatting with you.”

  I went back to my Malibu to think for a few minutes, trying to help my brain ease through the shift to my new assignment. Ordinarily, one of the things I like about my job is that I never know where a day is going to take me. I just wish this day could make up its mind.

  I rang Sweet Thang’s cell phone—the first one, not the second one—to see if she was making progress but got her voice mail, on which she sounded even more bubbly than in real life, if such thing was possible.

  “Hey, it’s Carter,” I said. “Call me.”

  Then, because I didn’t know what else to do—and because it was only around the corner—I scooted over to Akilah’s burned-out house, just to snoop around.

  I climbed the front steps, thinking of all the hopes Akilah once had for the place, all of which had burned up along with those two precious kids. There was no telling how much of what Akilah had told us was a lie—twenty percent? fifty? seventy?—but there had to be at least some shred of truth in her story. She had made a grab for the American Dream, and somewhere along the way it became a Newark Nightmare.

  “Hello?” I said as I entered. “Anyone here?”

  There wasn’t, of course. But I had to check, in case squatters had moved in already. As a rule, squatters are like large spiders: they frighten you a little bit, but chances are they’re a lot more scared of you than you are of them. They were, by and large, harmless.

  With the coast clear, I proceeded upstairs, where I was looking for … what exactly? I didn’t know. I was hoping I’d know when I found it.

  Assuming the floor didn’t collapse on me first. And given the structural damage the house sustained in the fire, that was always a possibility. So I walked as gingerly as possible. The first doorway I encountered appeared to lead to a guest room. It was fairly well toasted, and the furniture had been tossed—the fire department often turned things over to make sure there were no embers hiding underneath.

  The children’s bedroom was pretty bad, too. And I could feel my throat tighten when I saw the boys’ bunk bed. They should have spent a childhood in that room, whispering all their hopes to one another with the lights out—the older boy in the top bunk, the younger boy on bottom—figuring out the world one hushed conversation at a time. I walked out of the room quickly, hoping the sick feeling in my stomach would subside.

  It didn’t, mostly because my next stop was the master bedroom, Akilah’s room, which looked like it had been the scene of an inferno. The ceiling had been painted black by smoke, and the fire burned clear through to the roof in spots. The side of the room closest to the street was particularly charcoaled.

  Akilah’s bed was strewn in several pieces—again, fire department handiwork—but the dresser with the TV the kids had been watching was basically untouched. In the far corner of the room, I saw an empty bag of Cheetos. Akilah had mentioned she left the boys with snacks. So that was their last meal. A bag of Cheetos.

  As I mulled over the injustice of that, something else occurred to me: all the rooms had been burned to some degree. I had covered enough fires in my career to know that was unusual. Accidental fires start in one place—a short circuit in a wall, a cigarette butt in a couch, a toaster in a kitchen—and the damage spreads out from that central spot. In this case, the damage seemed to be all over, like it had started in multiple places at once.

  Which meant this fire wasn’t an accident.

  Arson. Of course it was arson. I thought about my first impression when I saw the house, how surprised I had been to see it wasn’t a ratty old tenement, like all the other Newark fires I wrote about. The new houses seldom burn. I should have known then it was arson.

  The only real question was who struck the match. Akilah Harris? I knew she was a liar and a thief already. Still, it was a pretty big leap from there to murdering your own kids, right? But if not her, then who?

  I was so lost in my thoughts, I almost didn’t hear the noise coming from downstairs. A door opening? Footsteps?

  I went quickly to the top of the stairs.

  “Hello?” I shouted.

  No response. But I did see a quick glimpse of someone stealing out the back door. It took me a moment to process it—perhaps a moment too long—but then it struck me:

  It was Akilah Harris.

  For years Primo concentrated on home rehabs. It was what he knew, what he was good at. He had his scam. He worked it. The money flowed.

  But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Primo always found himself yearning for more, but he was ultimately hamstrung by economics: the exponential growth in his business was only possible for so long. Without outside money, he could keep five, maybe ten, houses going at any time. Any more than that and he started having cash flow problems.

  It was all about financing. Merely reinvesting his own profits was only going to get Primo so far. Major developers needed major financing—big loans that allowed them to leverage thousands of dollars of assets into millions of dollars of liquidity. It was their lifeblood.

  The problem was, no one with serious cash was looking to throw money at someone like Primo. Home rehabbers were seen as unshaven hicks in pickup trucks, fly-by-nighters who might just chuck it all and go fishing. Their trade was considered grubby, unglamorous, and, most damningly, untrustworthy.

  No, the venture capitalists and investment bankers were looking for the new home builders. They wanted the beautiful renderings of the four-hundred-thousand-square-foot mixed-use retail/residential projects with the 240-unit condominium project next door. They wanted 3-D models complete with the little cars in the parking lots, four-color brochures printed
on glossy paper, builders who had corporate offices and a professional feel. They wanted something they could sell with a straight face to their clients.

  Yes, Primo had to get into new construction if he was to be taken seriously. Still, it was a very different business from rehabbing. And it brought with it a new layer of complexity. There were permits, licenses, a thousand different codes and guidelines governing everything from sewer hookups to the width of a stairwell tread.

  It was all new for Primo. The rehab business was almost totally unregulated: it was virtually impossible to draw up any kind of ordinance that reined in the activities of a professional house flipper yet still made it possible for Joe Fixit to do renovations on his house. Legally, you couldn’t write a law that separated the two.

  New home construction was different. Especially in a crowded state like New Jersey, every aspect was regulated and then overregulated. And it could quickly get you wrapped up in more red tape than you’d ever seen. In Newark’s City Hall they used industrial-sized spools of the stuff.

  Some folks liked to blame the City Hall workers for this, perpetuating the myth of the lazy government employee. But that was absurd, akin to blaming a single tree because you couldn’t get through a forest. The truth was, Newark had been ruled by a succession of political machines for decades. Blacks, Italians, Irish, Jews—they all took their turns. And each machine contributed its own patronage hiring, adding one civil service position at a time until it created a bureaucracy that had become baffling even to the bureaucrats.

  It frustrated Primo endlessly at first. But then he finally figured out the secret: to get through it, you needed to have a friend on the inside, someone who could pick up a phone and get the governmental mountain to move with a single word.

  The only real issue was making sure you found the right friend.

  CHAPTER 4

  I descended the staircase in three long strides and a jump, hitting the landing with both feet and bolting out the door. If I had given it a second’s thought, I probably wouldn’t have gone after her. Much like the proverbial dog chasing the car, I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught her.

  But I wasn’t thinking at that point, just reacting. I burst into the backyard, which was small and fenced in on three sides. Akilah had chosen to go over the back fence and was just getting down the other side.

  “Akilah, wait!” I shouted, which was probably stupid. If she felt like talking to me, she wouldn’t be making like this was the Urban Steeplechase World Championships. She sprinted through a narrow alleyway toward the front of the houses on the next street.

  I tore off after her, more or less throwing myself over the back fence, showing all the grace of a wounded elephant. I landed awkwardly, stumbling as my ankle buckled but, thankfully, did not give way. I was able to right myself, then follow her down the alley into the next street.

  I emerged in time to see Akilah rounding a corner and set my legs churning. In a game of chase, she had some advantages: this was her neighborhood, not mine; she was younger and thinner; and she was probably more motivated. But I still had longer legs and kept in decent enough shape from my regular—okay, semiregular—workouts that I could run a six-minute mile. So I knew I could reel her in. Eventually.

  But I soon realized this wasn’t going to be a footrace, rather hide-and-seek. As I rounded the next corner, I caught a fleeting glance of her turning into a hulking brick apartment building. I followed her through a propped-open door into a large once-impressive lobby with marble floors and a chandelier hanging overhead. Straight in front of me, up a short flight of steps, was an elevator. But the numbered lights above it told me it was already on the fifth floor. No way Akilah had managed to go up that far in the fifteen seconds she had been inside.

  Stairs. She had gone for the stairs. I found them to the left of the elevator shaft and shoved open the door. I could hear someone several flights away, running upward, panting.

  “Akilah, I just want to talk,” I yelled as I launched up after her, taking steps three at a time. I could tell I was gaining ground. From above me, I heard a fire door opening. But which one? Fourth floor? Fifth? My thighs were burning by the time I got to the fourth floor and peeked out into the hallway. No Akilah. I went back to the stairs and galloped up another flight, leaning out the door for another look. This time I spied Akilah’s small body disappearing out a window at the end of a hallway onto a fire escape.

  She took the time to shut the window, which was getting stuck on the layers of flaking paint that all but inhibited its function. I reached the windowsill, heaved the glass back open with one shove—it’s not my fault I’m bigger and stronger than her—and rolled out.

  I was surprised to find her still on the fire escape when I got there.

  I was somewhat less surprised to find she had pulled a knife.

  I righted myself. We were perhaps ten feet apart. The knife didn’t scare me too much. But being five stories up sure did. The platform was made of that metal grating you can see through—I hate that stuff—and I fought a brief wave of panic as I realized I was sixty feet in the air on a rickety fire escape that probably hadn’t passed inspection in my lifetime.

  “Don’t come closer,” she said wildly, slashing the air with the knife. “I’ll cut you.”

  “Easy, easy,” I said. “Just take it easy.”

  The knife was a threat but, truthfully, not much of one. Akilah weighed perhaps a hundred pounds and had a wingspan at least a foot shorter than mine. In order to really hurt someone with a knife, you have to either catch them off guard or overpower them physically—neither of which was going to happen here. Still, I didn’t want to get too close, putting us at something of an impasse.

  “Stay right there!” she shrieked. “Don’t come no closer.”

  “Okay. It’s okay,” I said, trying to make my voice sound calm. “No one’s going anywhere. We can just talk.”

  “You don’t know nothing,” she said. “You don’t know nothing about my problems. You don’t have a clue.”

  “Just relax, honey,” I said. But she wasn’t listening.

  “This guy, he’s coming to get me. He burned down my house and now he’s trying to kill me just like he killed my babies.”

  “Akilah, I’ve got no idea what you’re—”

  “He’s crazy. Just crazy. He killed Boo. He killed my babies. He killed them! He killed them!”

  “Akilah,” I said forcefully. “Listen to me: I’m not going to hurt you. I just want Sweet Thang’s jewelry back, okay?”

  I thought that would relax her—the docile white boy was only on a crusade for a harmless little charm bracelet. Instead, she stared back at me in something beyond horror.

  “You work for him!” she shrieked. “Oh, my God, you work for him!”

  She turned and tore off down the fire escape, jumping down the steps instead of running down, shaking the entire structure in a way that made the bottom of my stomach feel like the top. A headline immediately flashed in my head: EAGLE-EXAMINER REPORTER PLUMMETS TO DEATH WHILE CHASING CHARM BRACELET. I gripped onto the side of the building, scratching at the brick to get a handhold, sure the entire rig was going to peel off the side.

  But it held. Meanwhile, my panic cost me several seconds. By the time I recovered and willed myself to look down—did I mention I hate those see-through grates?—Akilah had reached the end of the fire escape and, not bothering with the ladder, leaped the final dozen feet down to the alley. She hit the ground and rolled, like a seasoned stuntman, then popped up quickly and rounded the corner.

  I thought about going after her. I could have probably chased her down again. But then what? She threatens me with the knife, she raves some more, we reach another impasse.

  “Akilah!” I yelled in desperation. “I just want the charm bracelet!”

  But she was already gone.

  I inched over to the window, tossed it open, and happily rolled back inside, grateful to once again have solid subfloor under my feet. I sat d
own to catch my breath, feeling the lactic acid in my legs. Meanwhile, bits of our conversation—if you could call it that—were playing back through my head.

  This guy, he’s coming to get me …

  He burned down my house and now he’s trying to kill me …

  He killed Boo. He killed my babies …

  You work for him … Oh, my God, you work for him!

  As I rubbed my thighs and tried to figure out what was going on, I was certain of only one thing: I still had a lot to learn.

  * * *

  When my heart rate finally returned to merely dangerous levels, I lifted myself off the floor and rode down in the elevator—no more stairs for me, thanks. I was back to the warmth and safety of my Malibu when the phone rang. The number that flashed up was listed in my phone as “Office Incoming.”

  “Carter Ross,” I said.

  “You are despicable,” I heard in return.

  “Hi, Tina,” I said. “How’s the weather where you are?”

  “Angry with a ninety percent chance of I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass,” she said. “I want you to imagine something. Can you do that for me?”

  “I think so.”

  “Imagine you’re in the eleven A.M. story meeting and you’re the city editor. You do know what the eleven A.M. meeting is, right?”

  “A bunch of editors gather around a conference table and decide how they’re going to ruin the next day’s paper?”

  “You got it. Now, imagine you’re the city editor, and a big story has broken in … the city. Are you with me so far?”

  “I think so,” I ventured.

  I felt like there was a great horned owl winging overhead and I was a small burrowing animal, trying to scurry through a field, scared out of my wee rodent brain, unsure where or when the attack would come, hoping against hope that I could make it to safety.