Every time I scored in a game, no one cheered louder than Abe.
My dad didn’t come to most of my games. He said it was because of work, but Abe was a cop on shift work, and he managed to work his schedule so he could coach my team.
Abe taught us how to lose with grace, and to treat all players with respect. Two or three times a year we’d volunteer as a team at a soup kitchen. Other times we’d come out and run drills with young kids from low-income areas. All this was a mandatory requirement for being on his team. More mandatory than playing in the actual games.
I was eleven the first time I kissed a girl. Her name was Jamie, and Abe was the only person I told. He patted me on the back with a knowing smile.
Then he took me for a drive through one of the rougher parts of Austin, slowing past a community center ripe with teenaged girls pushing around baby strollers. Even though schoolyard gossip had already taught me the basics, I got “the talk” from Abe. The one where he stared me down with those penetrating chocolate-brown eyes and told me if I got a girl pregnant and the thought of walking away from my responsibility even crossed my mind for a second, he’d beat my ass because I’m better than that.
Abe was like a father and a big brother and the man I wanted to be when I grew up, all rolled into one.
Yeah, Abe’s death left a lasting impression on me.
The void was gaping.
And the betrayal I felt from this father-figure, this moral god . . . it was crippling. At first, I didn’t believe what the news was saying; I couldn’t. How could someone so focused on doing the right thing do something so wrong?
But my mother didn’t defend him, didn’t discredit what the newspapers were saying. Didn’t deny it. She just drank and let her marriage and our family fall apart.
Before long, it became easier to believe everyone. To believe that Abe was guilty, as much as I didn’t want to.
There’s not a lot that’s worse than finding your mother dead in your kitchen with a gun in her hand. But having that happen on the same night she alludes to having something to do with the death of your childhood idol . . .
Now the one person who would have seen all the evidence against Abe is offering to give me answers.
George leans over. “Boy, you’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. What gives?”
After forty years on the police force, it’s not a wonder he can see right through me. “I still have a hard time believing he did it,” I finally admit.
George presses his lips together. “What do you remember?”
“Just what was in the news.” Over the past few days, I’ve spent hours reading old articles online to refresh my memory, unable to shake my mother’s words.
Abe died in a sketchy motel, along with another guy. Two bags—one of drugs, one of cash—sat on the bed between them. In the beginning, the only statement the police would release was the one confirming that a police officer and a man known to police were found dead, and that they were investigating. The media got hold of Abe’s name quickly, though, along with the details about the crime scene and the fact that Abe was alone and not on duty at the time. They also learned that the “man known to police” was Luis Hernandez, a drug dealer released six months prior. One thing led to another, and soon the public was screaming that the APD was trying to cover up a crooked cop.
George stares hard at his drink for a moment, his lips twisted in thought, before taking a sip. “Did you know that Austin is now the eleventh-largest city in the nation, and one of the fastest growing?”
“I read that somewhere.” Or maybe Silas told me, right after he said not to sell the house.
“It was less than half of what it is today back then, but we all saw it coming. This population explosion. And yet so many people still have a hard time seeing how it’s changing. They expect us—the mayor, the police department, your uncle, all of us—to keep it the same.
“Everyone wants to continue living in their happy little bubble. They want to drink their fancy lattes and go to their music festivals and restaurants and ‘keep Austin weird.’ Sure, we look like a fairy-tale city next to Houston or Dallas or San Antonio. But make no mistake, there’s crime here and it is damn ugly. I mean, for God’s sake, we’re some two hundred and thirty miles from the Mexican border, where they’re funneling through a million pounds of marijuana and who the hell knows how many tons of cocaine every single damn year!” George’s face is turning red with anger. He takes a few breaths to calm himself.
“We started noticing a big problem with the drugs coming into Austin. Our patrol divisions were stumbling on it all over the place; they couldn’t keep up. I knew I had to take the bull by the horns before Austin turned into another Laredo.”
That’s being a little bit dramatic, given that Laredo borders Mexico, but I can appreciate his point. Like he said, we are only a couple hundred miles away—and some days, the distance feels even shorter.
“So I assigned four officers to a narcotics field unit. Their job was simple—to hit the streets and bust as many dealers as possible. Big, small, didn’t matter. Uncover the stash houses and labs, seize everything. Shut ’em down. Don’t let them get comfortable in my city.
“And son, let me tell you, these guys were good. They were dogged, churning through tips, securing informants. They were sniffin’ out dealers like bloodhounds.” Canning chuckles. “That’s what I called them—my hounds. Dumbest thing Poole coulda done when he took over for me after my heart attack was shut them down. Budget cuts, my ass.
“Anyway . . . they caught wind of a patrol officer who was emptying the pockets of dealers he’d come across on routine calls and reselling at a discount. They didn’t have a name. All they knew was this guy was of African descent.” He stares into his drink. “Not long after, Abraham Wilkes turns up dead in a motel room with Hernandez. Wasn’t too hard to connect the dots.”
“What do you think happened the night Abe died?”
“Who knows? Maybe Hernandez wanted more drugs for less money. Maybe he didn’t know Wilkes was a cop and panicked when he found out. Maybe Wilkes threatened him with somethin’. These guys . . . they’re lowlife criminals; some of them are dumb as dirt. There ain’t no rationalizing with them.” He takes another long puff of his cigar. “But it was all cut and dry what was goin’ on in there—a gym bag full of a bit of this, a bit of that . . . a brown paper bag with piles of twenties. No sensible explanation for why Wilkes would be in that seedy motel that night. Still, I hoped for another reason, for my own sake as much as the department’s.
“But the evidence against Abe quickly piled on. We traced a call from Hernandez to him earlier that night. We found cash and drugs stashed away in his house, taped to the back of furniture, in the vents, under the mattress. We were able to link the drugs to batches checked in to the evidence room, from busts he’d been at over the last month.” He shakes his head. “It’s a damn shame that he lost his way like that.”
The steady tick of the old grandfather clock is the only sound in Silas’s study for a long moment, as I take in all that Canning has told me. It makes no sense when it’s laid out next to what my mother said. But, then again, she was drunk and in a poor state of mind. Still, I’m confused. “So, how was my mom involved in all this?”
George frowns. “Jackie? She wasn’t involved. I put together an investigative team with my very best people, but she didn’t have nothin’ to do with that. I never would have allowed that, what with her being close friends with him—partners, too—for years. She didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was impossible to ignore. That was a hard pill for her to swallow.”