“You had a whole station loaded with confirmed members of the UJ, and you were questioning who?”
Right.
He would do his best to keep the Weiss’s at the station, and maybe go to work on Gordy later on if all else failed. In the meantime, perhaps he could throw the kid off balance a bit.
“Look, Mrs. Weiss. I am up to my neck right now with Sergeant Reilly’s assault. I have a holding cell filled with witnesses…”
Gordy didn’t react. Lynch couldn’t even be positive the kid heard him.
“…I promise I will help get to the bottom of whatever it is. Please just take a seat for now.”
“No offense, detective, but nothing doing. I’m sick of getting jockeyed around.”
“Ma’am…please.”
Half taken aback and half realizing she didn’t have much choice, Mrs. Weiss theatrically returned to her seat with an obstinate plop.
Good. Take a time-out.
The desk sergeant ended his call and waved Lynch to approach.
“What we got, Boris?”
“Ian Reilly is in room four. We’ve got members of that gang in the other three.”
“Any progress?”
A nearby FBI Agent interjected.
“None. What do you locals do to these kids? They’d rather have their dicks stuck in a pencil sharpener than talk to the cops.”
Mrs. Weiss gave a disapproving “tsk.” Lynch heard nothing after the word “none.” Four rooms. Four morons. One of them knew what put a cop in a coma. The other three knew the location of the UJ cloister.
The gang needed to be turned upon itself; Ian Reilly needed to formalize his confession with convictable detail.
Textbook.
Warner sidled up and spoke.
“You take the UJ Fuckheads. You know them better than I do. I’ll take care of Reilly.”
“Perfect.”
Lynch removed his coat.
Not getting me again, coat. No way.
He would be walking in and out of three interview rooms. His brain would be going a hundred miles a minute in a hundred different directions. Under no circumstances could any of those UJ pricks know what was going on in the next room. The wonky latch wasn’t going to get the best of him a third time.
“Boris, put this behind the desk for me, would you?”
“Yeah yeah. Oh, Sergeant Warner, there’s a…”
And then…
“You missed me, bitch!”
Lynch went rigid with his coat in mid-handoff. His eyes flitted about like he was a cat messing with a laser pointer. Was he hearing things?
“You missed me, bitch!”
He spoke to Boris.
“Exactly what the hell was that?”
“A ringtone. One of those gang guys put his cell phone in the bin with his personal effects.”
“You missed me, bitch!”
Now that it wasn’t associated with the story of a nun’s kidnapping, Lynch instantly recognized the line and the voice. It was a sound bite from an Eddie Murphy stand-up routine. The joke involved Eddie’s mother hurling a shoe at his dad: a classic. And damned if one of those UJ fools wasn’t using it as a ringtone, the same UJ fool that would owe Sister Edwina a great deal in the near future.
“You want to know what room he’s in, Jim?”
Outwardly cool as a cucumber, but inwardly doing cartwheels and handstands, the detective rolled up his sleeves and straightened his tie.
“Why yes, Boris…I believe I would.”
Detective Warner, who had been observing the curious exchange with zero understanding, lent her voice.
“Everything cool? You need me?”
Lynch breathed a satisfied reply as Boris took his coat.
“Thank you, Sergeant. I do not. I believe this will go much quicker than anticipated.”
“Then I’ll pretend I get what’s going on and…Boris, were you trying to say something to me before?”
The Desk Sergeant had to choke down a partially ingested donut before he could answer.
“Yeah yeah. This fella over here says he knows what went down in the junkyard.”
He pointed at the third person in the waiting area. Carrie looked. He was a young, handsome man with a minor head wound. He stood cordially.
“What did he say, exactly?”
“He says he was there when it happened.”
And Detective Warner introduced herself to Tony Evans, resident of Franklin Village, and devout member of the Potterford First Baptist Church.
13. The Waiting Area
It had been months since Gordy questioned the point of his own existence.
A school counselor once asked him if he ever thought about killing himself. His response was “No, but I’ve thought about thinking about killing myself.” He was handed a pamphlet and a hot-line phone number both of which he threw away on his way back to class.
The only thing of late that gave him a reason to get up in the morning was the prospect of joining the UJ. Now he was a full member. He ran with a pack. Fifteen (ish) badass brothers and sisters were at his beck and call. For the first time ever, someone had his back. That’s what he thought anyway. His present circumstances proved otherwise.
Beck and call? He was given the number of one cell phone that may as well have belonged to a dead person for all the good it did him.
Gordy was left alone to deal with the humiliation of walking into school with tear-stained cheeks, a bloody nose, and a limp. He barely made it in the door before one of the teachers saw him and pawned him off on the school nurse. After ten minutes and some rudimentary patching, he was scooted to Vice-Principal Bono’s office.
Not once was he asked how he felt. All anyone cared about was whether or not the fight happened on school grounds and who else was involved. He said nothing. Forking over Braden would reveal the reason for the beating. That would lead back to the UJ, and everyone would learn the truth about Gordy’s involvement in Detective Reilly’s injury.
Or would they? The UJ had his back, right? Right?
Dr. Bono (Dr. Boner to his students) called Gordy’s parents. His father was in Virginia that day, but his mother was at his side in a matter of minutes.
The call was clearly placed out of mere obligation. Dr. Boner treated the whole thing with his regular schmucky apathy. He’d have the faculty ask around, but “these things happen” blah blah blah. He
