Relief never came.
I had a small contract with the Saint Louis Public Defender’s Office. I handled a few general arraignment calendars every week when other lawyers were on vacation or otherwise unavailable, and I tracked the cases through that didn’t resolve at that first appearance. It wasn’t much, but the steady check helped keep the lights on. I figured that there might be enough money left over this month to get a new air conditioner; at least that was my hope.
Theoretically I could ask my mother or her father—who we called the Judge—for some extra money, but I wasn’t going to do that. It was bad enough that my daughter and I lived with them rent-free because I couldn’t afford a place of my own.
I loosened my tie, picked up the phone, and looked at the information that Tanisha Walker had written on my yellow notepad. I called a contact at the Saint Louis Police Department and got lucky. He was at his desk and answered his phone.
“Schmitty.” I tapped my pen on the desktop. “This is Justin Glass.”
He told me to hang on, and I listened to Sergeant Schmidt get up and close his office door. Then he got back on the line and asked me what I wanted. He wasn’t happy about the call, because cops never like talking to criminal defense attorneys, but he couldn’t hang up on me, either. One of the perks of having my last name.
“Wondering if you could find out what’s going on with a kid named Devon Walker. About sixteen; missing for a month. His little sister filed a report.”
“Thug?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “Why?”
“If he was a thug, I’d check with the gang unit. See if they got background on him.”
“You should check, but I really don’t know.” I thought for a second and then decided to level with Schmitty. “Isn’t really a criminal case. Neighborhood girl asked me to check into it. So it’s more of a favor.”
“And our rewards will be in heaven?”
“That’s what I’m banking on.”
I told Schmitty that I’d call back or stop by his office the next day after court. Then I spent the next hour attempting to finish a motion to suppress a stolen gun, arguing that the cops didn’t have a legal basis to search my client’s apartment. I was asking for the court to keep the prosecutor from using the seized gun as evidence at trial. Lawyers called such evidence “fruit of a poisonous tree.”
Nothing came easy.
I pecked away at the memo. The heat in the office made it difficult to concentrate. The thick air discouraged any sudden movement or elaborate thought.
Realizing I’d forgotten to eat my sandwich, I worked my way through it, sweating the whole time. Then I pecked a little more at the memo before eventually giving up.
I turned off the computer and decided that I would leave early. Since the law practice was far from flourishing, I didn’t have any large files to bring home or papers to review. I gathered up my personal things, putting them in my battered briefcase, and then picked up the yellow notepad.
Tanisha Walker’s careful handwriting filled the page. Little curls and loops decorated the ends of certain letters. She had written down her name, her phone number, the names of her family members, and her address. I checked my watch, looked at the information on the notepad again, and decided that I had time to make a stop on my way to pick up my daughter from school.
Tanisha Walker and her family lived in one of a dozen brick houses clustered tightly together on the corner of Montgomery and Parnell. There wasn’t much more than three feet separating one house from another, and the close spacing looked even more odd considering that they were surrounded by acres and acres of vacant land.
Once there was a city neighborhood. Now there were only survivors, hanging on for a few more years before a wrecking ball took them down, too. The absentee owners probably bought each house for a few hundred dollars at a foreclosure auction, and it was only a matter of time before they got tired of waiting for the big payout. Properties hadn’t increased in value for years, and easy city development money was never going to come, partly because Saint Louis was broke and partly because the Northside was viewed by most as a lost cause. Why rebuild housing that nobody wants when you can subsidize an Ikea or a professional sports stadium?
I sat in my car and studied Tanisha Walker’s house. It was the biggest one of the group, two stories instead of one. The lawn was mostly dirt with a few clumps of shrub.
A little boy played alone out front in nothing but a diaper. He was maybe three. A faded toy car sat nearby—the kind that was large enough to sit inside, with pedals and a steering wheel. The boy ignored it, content to play in the dirt.
I looked down at the information on the notepad. There were six kids living in the house—not counting Devon, the missing brother. Tanisha’s otherwise tidy handwriting had broken down a little near the end of the list. My guess was that the little boy’s name was either Deon or Dice. For the sake of him finding gainful employment in the future, I hoped that his name was Deon.
I debated whether or not to get out of the car and talk to the adults who were hopefully inside, but I decided to wait. I wanted to get the file from Schmitty first, and I also just wanted to get away.
CHAPTER THREE
My daughter’s given name is Samantha Charlotte Glass, but she never acted much like a Samantha. She acted more like a Sammy, so that’s what I called her. Sammy was tall for her age, funny, and whip-smart. She was also the fastest kid in the fifth grade.
I continued to watch for Sammy as the crowds thinned. The steady stream of kids leaving the school diminished to a trickle and then to nothing. I waited a little longer, but nobody came. The buses pulled away, and the schoolyard emptied.
Missed her.
I turned the key, and my car rattled to life. Then I pulled away from the curb and headed home.
My mother and her father, retired federal district court judge Michael M. Calhoun, lived in a Compton Heights mansion that had been in the Calhoun family for over a hundred years. Sammy and I lived in the carriage house behind the main structure. It was small but big enough for the two of us.
My great-great-grandfather had purchased the lot and then moved the family into the house when it was completed. At the time, Compton Heights was a showcase for the 1904 World’s Fair. It offered large lots, beautiful winding streets, and strict deed restrictions. Promises were made to the purchasers that the neighborhood would be forever protected from the influx of blacks migrating north and from boardinghouses filled with poor Germans. The deed restrictions—although later found illegal—largely worked, and the neighborhood has remained one of the most affluent in Saint Louis.
Although the Judge had now become a typical great-grandfather toward Sammy—something that I was still not used to seeing—he had always treated me with indifference and my father with disdain.