Missing the officer completely, he punched the elderly protestor in the eye. The shocked officer faltered. Taking advantage of her weakness, with a tribal yell, Kirk barreled into the demonstration.
The crowd surged back and forced me away. I couldn’t see who Kirk pummeled next, if he pummeled at all. The roar was deafening. Above it all, I heard my father through his megaphone, “Turn the other cheek. Turn the other cheek. Passive resistance.” His voice was pitched high with excitement.
Mains rushed down the stone steps in the direction where I’d last seen Kirk. Carmen hobbled after him.
My father continued to shout encouragement. “Do not resis—” His voice broke off, and my heart skipped a beat. If Kirk hit my father . . . I didn’t complete the thought.
Mains’s voice called over the megaphone, “Show’s over folks. Clear out. Or you’ll be arrested for loitering.”
No one moved.
“Now!”
The throng broke apart. Excited gossip flew threw the air as people scurried back to their cars. The TV reporter spoke closing remarks into the camera.
Free of the crush of excited townsfolk, I was able to see my parents and their bedraggled crew of merry men and women. My mother attempted a last stand.
“We have a right to protest. Have you ever heard of the Bill of Rights? You’re the same pigheaded boy that you were in high school. I should have never allowed you to take Carmen to the prom,” she told Mains.
“You’re welcome to protest but not within five hundred feet of this building. If you don’t move, I’ll be forced to arrest you.”
She held out her wrists. “Go ahead. I have been in worse jailhouses than this. I marched on Washington in Seventy-Two.”
Lord, I thought.
I walked up to the line of the police and found myself eyeball to eyeball with Officer Knute again. “Excuse me?”
Officer Knute’s face was flushed and his hair ruffled. “No one’s allowed to pass.”
“Don’t you think that’s just a formality now?”
Officer Knute should give glaring lessons at the academy. His were especially heartfelt.
Mains glanced at us while dodging my mother’s insistent index finger. “Let her through,” he told Knute.
“Detective—”
“Do it.”
I flashed Officer Knute an angelic smile.
The officer Kirk had dodged had him on his stomach with her knee on his spine. She grabbed his arms and pulled them together behind his back.
“Don’t do that,” the punched protestor exclaimed. He sat on the Justice Center’s lawn, his hand over his already blackening eye. “I don’t want to press charges.”
The officer ignored him and handcuffed Kirk.
“But I don’t want to press any charges.”
My father wheeled over to his side. “What Christian charity. That’s very kind of you, Stan.”
Stan got up slowly and clapped my father on the shoulder. “Alden, I don’t know when I’ve had such a time. How exciting!” He beamed at my father.
Mains left my mother’s objections and joined the small crowd gathering around Stan.
“Take him in,” he told the arresting officer.
She yanked Kirk to his feet. Dirt and specks of asphalt peppered his T-shirt and khaki pants. Kirk spotted me as the officer lifted him from the ground. He didn’t speak; he didn’t have to speak. Perhaps he was the one who should be giving out glaring lessons.
Stan’s face fell. “But I don’t want to press charges.”
Mains nodded to the officer, and she frog-marched Kirk up the department’s stone steps. He didn’t resist. Stan’s declarations of goodwill became louder.
Mains cut him off. “Mr. Row’s under arrest for disturbing the peace, even if you don’t press charges.”
The tone of command silenced Stan. My father whispered to his protégé.
Mom picked up where she left off, pointing at Mains’s chest, “Furthermore—”
I stepped in front of her. “For goodness sakes, Mom, call it a day. None of this is going to help Mark.”
“India Veronica Hayes, you will not interrupt me when I’m in the middle of a private conversation.”
I flushed with embarrassment and anger. Before I could make a smart remark— and I had a few beauties in mind—my father wheeled over. “Lana, she’s right. We must regroup.”
“I want to see my son. I demand that I see my son,” Mom said.
Mains stood his ground. “You can’t visit Mark right now. He’s in the middle of being booked.”
Booked, I thought. My stomach felt queasy. Mains glanced away from my mother, who had planted herself squarely in his line of sight, and met my gaze. “If it’s any comfort, his lawyer is with him,” he said. For a second his hard look softened, but it was so quick I wondered if I’d imagined it.
My mother scowled. “It’s not.”
After a few more minutes of arguing, Mom seemed to realize that Mains wasn’t going to change his mind and agreed to go home. As their small band of players dispersed, the television correspondent shouted questions. Well trained by my parents, nobody would comment to the press. A uniformed officer walked over to the news crew. The show was over. After several minutes, they left. My parents loaded their placards into the van. Chip buckled Nicholas into the back seat of his hatchback. I watched their activities carefully, making certain every member of my family intended to leave the Justice Center.
Carmen threw a parting shot at Mains as she walked to her husband’s car. “I expected better from you, Ricky. I’ll remember this.”
Mains watched her walk away with a bemused expression. He left his officers to supervise and entered the station. My sister and her family drove away.
“India, do you need a ride?” my father asked.
“No, I’m parked on the square.”
He nodded. “Meet us at the house. Lew will be over after he’s done here.”
I nodded, but dreaded another family council of war.
Before climbing into the van, my mother looked down at my feet. “My word, India. What happened to your toe? Did one of those hooligans crush it during the tussle?”
I sighed. Seemed everyone was thinking about anything and everything . . . besides Mark. I looked up at the imposing building. Somewhere in there, my brother sat, alone and scared. I hoped Lew could get him released.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lew shook a smoke and a lighter out of a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He lit up, ignoring my parents’ complaints. The scene in my parents’ living room was eerily similar to the one that occurred Monday evening. My father sat attentive and anxious in his wheelchair, Lew sat in my father’s armchair, my mother and Carmen paced canyons into the floorboards, and I stood off to the side with my arms folded.
One glaring absence disturbed the reenactment: Mark.
“The police searched Mark’s apartment this afternoon and found evidence that links him to Olivia Blocken’s murder,” Lew said.
Carmen gasped, stopping dead in her tracks, and I wrapped my arms more tightly around myself.
“That’s impossible,” my mother said with a fierce mother lion look on her face.
“What was that?” Carmen asked.
“A scarf that matches the sundress Olivia was wearing the day she was killed.”
“That doesn’t mean he killed her, for goodness sake. Maybe he picked it up at the scene when he found her. He was in shock,” Carmen said.
