“I’m speechless,” I confessed. “Little old Florence in her matronly outfits, thinking such thoughts. I never suspected.”
“You never know about people,” Trisha agreed. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Are you still a detective?”
“Yes,” I said, “I am.”
Casually slipping off her glasses, she said, “And are you still on the market?”
“Uh, actually, no, I’m not,” I said. “I’m seeing someone.”
“Figures,” said Trisha. “Any chance you’ll be back on the eligibility list anytime soon?”
I laughed and said, “Not unless I do something incredibly stupid.”
She looked at me for a minute, then said, “Most of the guys I know do incredibly stupid things on a daily basis, but you . . .” She shook her head. “Uh-uh, I don’t see that happening.”
Then she smiled at me and said, “You’re welcome here in 209 anytime, Mr. Barnes.”
“Thank you, Ms. Calloway,” I said, and I left her to her work as I continued down the hall towards Augie’s office. When I got there, he was just locking his door and starting downstairs. I caught up with him at the top of the stairwell.
“JB,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Looking for Asaan Witherspoon,” I said. “Figured he might be here.”
“Yeah,” said Augie. “He’s in the conference room. We’re meeting with some of the gang kids in about ten minutes, gonna set some ground rules for dismissal today. Actually, it’s probably not necessary, with all the security, and half the students being absent. Anyway, he should be in the conference room by now, if you want to grab him for a few minutes. I have to take care of some things in the main office.”
“Thanks, Aug,” I said. “By the way, do you know if Anthony Warren’s here?”
“Yeah, I saw him coming in this morning. You wanna talk to him?”
I thought about that for a minute.
“No,” I said. “I’ve got something else in mind, but thanks, anyway.”
* * *
I found Asaan Witherspoon alone in the conference room next to the counselors’ office.
“Got a minute?” I asked, as I walked in and sat down across from him at the big, oval-shaped table.
“Sure,” he said. “Meeting doesn’t start for a few minutes.”
“I’ll keep it short,” I told him. “I just wanted to pick your brain about a couple of things. First, any thoughts about who killed T-Man?”
He shrugged and said, “I know the cops are looking at the Gates. That’s the obvious place to start.”
“What about one of the Links?” I said. “Who takes over now that T-Man’s out of the picture?”
He shook his head.
“Damned if I know. Hell, when I was in the gang back in Chicago, there was a kind of line of succession thing, you know, nothing written down or anything, but everyone knew who’d be the new boss if something happened to the guy in charge. But these kids, especially the Links, with T-Man . . . hell, it could be anyone.”
He rubbed his eyes for a minute.
“I’m still trying to get both gangs to agree to some kind of sit-down, see if we can call a truce while the cops investigate T-Man’s death. Maybe it wasn’t even gang-related. The little prick pissed off a lot of people, could’ve just been somebody who’d had enough, you know.”
I thought about my encounters with T-Man.
“Could be,” I agreed.
The door opened, and a couple of kids walked in, so I said goodbye to Asaan and left. I went back outside and asked Nate to call Denny. Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the Navigator and clipping my holstered gun back onto my belt.
“Any luck?” I asked Denny.
“Not much,” he said. “Forensics told us pretty much what we already knew. T-Man died from a single shot, .38-caliber, very close-up. No gun found anywhere on the premises. And, as we both saw, the crime scene itself sucked big time.”
“Anything on Rodney?”
“Now that he’s a possible murder suspect instead of just a missing person, the department’s taking a harder look at him. He lives with an older sister here in the city, but she says she hasn’t seen him since before T-Man was killed. I got a call in to the cops in Philly. The sister says there’s an aunt there, and Rodney’s stayed with her once or twice over the years. We’ll see.”
By now, we were back at my place in Shadyside. As I stepped down from my seat, Denny said, “Got any plans for dinner?”
“Actually,” I said, “I made some while I was waiting for you at Franklin.”
Chapter 45
I’d been thinking about talking to Anthony while I was at the school, but then I realized that, since this whole thing had started, he and his mom and I had been together exactly twice, once at the hospital after Anthony was attacked at Franklin, and once at their house, the night of the shooting at the Center. Neither occasion had allowed for much in the way of relaxed conversation, so while I was waiting for Denny, I’d called Larretta at work and asked if she and Anthony would like to have dinner with me that night. She said they would, and we arranged for me to pick them up at the Home Depot when she got off work at six o’clock.
* * *
When I pulled into the employee parking lot at the store at a little before six, Anthony was already there, waiting for his mom at the employee entrance. I blinked my lights and motioned for him to join me. He got in the back and sat on the passenger side. I turned towards him, with my arm resting on top of my seat, and, in a mock serious tone, said, “So, how was school today?”
Give the kid credit. He didn’t even blink, let alone hesitate.
“See,” he said, “now that I spent some time with you, and heard my mom go on about you, I know you be kiddin’ me with that.”
I smiled and said, “Good for you, Anthony,” but before I could follow up, his mother arrived. I suggested
