JuJu shifted in his chair and considered Adkins’s words. His body language changed into a less aggressive posture. He dropped his head and squeezed his eyes with his fingers. “How many times I gotta tell y’all,” he said. “I don’t know this man you talkin’ about, and I didn’t shoot nobody. That’s not the shit I do.”
“You own a gun?” Adkins asked.
“Who doesn’t?” JuJu said. “It’s the fuckin’ South Side of Chicago. But that don’t mean shit. I have a permit. All my paperwork is together.”
“I’m trying to cut you some slack, bro-man,” Adkins said. “Right now, they’re testing your gun for ballistics. If they find it matches the gun that did Chopper, it’s outta my hands, and I can’t do anything to help you. But you tell me now how it all went down, and I could talk to the DA, see if there’s something we can work out.”
“Aw shit, man,” JuJu said, raising his hands. “Y’all really tryin’ to pin this shit on me?” He looked over at Novack, who had stood up and was leaning against the wall, his arms folded against his massive chest. “You muthafuckah!” JuJu said, staring at Novack. “You need somebody to go down for this, and you just pick me up randomly and tryin’ to put my name on it. This is bullshit!”
Novack walked back to the table. “Was it random that you were over on South Wallace five days ago?” he said.
“South Wallace?” JuJu said, shrugging. “I don’t even know where that is.”
“You know where Sixty-Ninth Street is?” Novack said.
“Course I do. I live on the South Side. Who don’t know Sixty-Ninth?”
“But you don’t live in Englewood.”
“So, what that ’posed to mean? I can only drive where I live? What kinda shit is this? Drivin’ to different parts of the city automatically make you guilty of somethin’?”
“So, you admit you were in Englewood five days ago?”
“I ain’t admittin’ nuthin’, man,” JuJu said. “I be all over the place. I don’t know if I was over that way or not. I can’t remember everything I did five days ago. I bet you can’t either.”
Adkins opened the envelope on the table and took out three enlarged black-and-white photographs that clearly showed JuJu’s license plate number, his turning at the intersection of South Wallace and Sixty-Ninth Street, and his car stopped at a red light in front of Paul Robeson High School. Novack and Adkins stayed silent. Silence sometimes could be its own interrogator.
“Okay, so I was there,” JuJu said, shrugging. “Big fuckin’ deal. Don’t prove I shot nobody.”
“Chopper’s body was found over on South Wallace, just south of where you pulled out,” Adkins said. “Someone dumped it in the street. Why were you cutting through South Wallace at eleven twenty-five on a Thursday night?”
JuJu looked at Adkins and shook his head slowly. “All right, you wanna know my personal shit?” he said. “I got a girl over there. We did what we had to do, and I was on my way home. I tried to go down Union, but they was towing a car, and I couldn’t get through the street. So, I backed up on Seventieth, drove toward the train tracks, and cut down the alley to get to Sixty-Ninth.”
Adkins and Novack looked at each other, then at JuJu. “Three girls in three different parts of the city,” Novack said. “You get around.”
“What the fuck?” JuJu said. “Being with a few girls ain’t no damn crime. Now you gonna be my priest?”
Adkins sat back from the table and spoke even softer. “Okay, have it your way,” he said. “You might need a priest sooner than you think. We’re just tryin’ to save you. That’s all.”
“Yeah, right?” JuJu said, leaning his head back with a tough guy smirk. “Save me from what?”
“Ice Culpepper,” Adkins said. “Chopper McNair was his nephew.”
“WHO ARE YOU?” Stanton asked. He was seated in a chair in the center of a steel-encased chamber five feet beneath a concrete basement floor. It had once been a nuclear fallout shelter in the early sixties during the Cold War. I’d had it refitted with cameras and a door thick enough it would take a Mack truck going full speed to bust through it. His arms and legs were strapped to the metal chair.
“I’m the other side of justice,” I said.
“What side is that?”
“The right side. The voice of the victims. Your victims. The voices the courts ignored.”
“What are you talking about? I was never tried for anything. I’m an innocent man, wrongfully accused. Release me and I will forgive your sins.”
“But I will not forgive yours,” I said, stepping out of the shadows.
“Why are you wearing a mask?” he said.
“I could ask you the same question. You are a sick, depraved, evil predator hiding behind a mask of spiritual purity. You are the worst of the worst. A pedophile. A rapist. A molester. Innocent children trusted and admired you. They sought your counsel and guidance. You betrayed them and their families. You destroyed them.”
“That is not true,” Stanton said. “I taught them. I showed them the way of God. Sometimes there’s a misunderstanding. I’m not perfect. No man is perfect. I never did anything against their will.”
“You seduced them. You reeled them in slowly. You got them to trust you. You made them feel comfortable and vulnerable. Then you attacked. You’re an animal.”
“You have no right to treat me like this.”
“This is kindness compared to what you did to them. Luke Bunting, José Suarez, James Lipton, Calvin Henderson, Marc Bennigan. Five innocent little boys who are now drug addicts, ex-cons, dysfunctional, and tortured. All because
