There were a dozen boys that were gone and a dozen families that deserved answers. I hadn’t sought the job, but it was mine. If the police weren’t going to follow all the leads, then I’d have to do it for them. I’d need to learn their files and their backgrounds for myself, not just rely on Emma and her spreadsheets. Their mothers needed to trust me, and I needed to trust myself with them.
I took a big bite of my sandwich, wiped my fingers clean, and pulled a notepad and pen from my briefcase. I took another drink of sweet tea, allowed the sugar to jolt up my brain, and made a list.
The first thing that I needed to do was personally interview all the family members of every identified Lost Boy, thoroughly. What we had wasn’t going to be enough. Second, I needed a copy of each boy’s file. I knew that we had some, but Schmitty needed to get me a copy of everything ever connected to the boys. Third, I needed to follow up with Judge Bryce. If I should be looking even closer at Jimmy Poles, he’d be the one to tell me where to look.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I had wanted Emma to shut down my law practice so that I could focus solely on the missing boys, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t just a street lawyer anymore, and my obligations went far beyond finding a paying client to fix a broken air conditioner.
Lawyers needed to bill. Emma needed to get paid, and I needed to take care of my daughter’s education. So I made a compromise with myself.
Each morning would be spent on the care and feeding of existing clients as well as nurturing more. When there weren’t any court appearances, the afternoons would be spent sifting through the boxes of documents, police reports, and court histories that Schmitty had sent over related to each victim. Then there was the second round of family interviews. In the evening, after Sammy went to bed, I’d have to evaluate whether to work on paying clients or the Lost Boys, but having a beer and watching television wasn’t going to be an option.
I knew the system was unsustainable in the long run. It’d eventually kill me if it went on too long, but in the meantime, it worked.
Over the next few weeks our spreadsheet of data grew. I got to know them all personally, but in truth, I was still no closer to finding the actual proof that Jimmy Poles was responsible or a link to anyone else. I felt myself losing some steam, so I decided to get out from behind my desk.
I grabbed my briefcase and walked into the main reception area. “I’m getting out of here.”
Emma said good-bye to whoever she was talking to and hung up the phone. “Where you going?”
“I need to talk to the Turner family.” Emma had scheduled them to come back for an interview with me four times. Two interviews were cancelled at the last minute by the mother, due to sick kids or transportation. The other two times they didn’t show up. “They’re the only ones who have something concrete, and I haven’t even heard the information myself. All secondhand. Should’ve talked to them right away, a month ago. You got the address for me?”
Emma pressed a few keys on her keyboard, pulled up a document, and wrote down the address on a Post-it Note. “Here you go.” She handed the little yellow square piece of paper to me. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I read the address and nodded. “If they’re not going to come to me, I’ll go to them.”
“Fair.” She turned her attention back to her computer screen. “Just don’t forget you’ve got court tomorrow morning and a meeting with Judge Bryce tomorrow afternoon.”
“I won’t forget.”
“Good,” she said. “Because you still have to pay my salary.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The boy kept looking at his mother. There were stutters and stops as he kept his head and eyes down. “Go on,” she encouraged him as I waited.
It took some time, but eventually Isaac Turner started to talk. It was circular, in the way that kids talk, but once it started it came in a flow that seemed beyond Isaac’s age.
“Was hanging out. Bored ’n’ all that. Gone down to Popeyes, see what’s going on—who there—and then TeeTee wanted to talk to these girls at the bus stop and these other kids were throwing, talking about staining somebody for some ganja.”
“TeeTee is your brother, Thomas Turner?”
“Yeah, and then these other kids were throwing and TeeTee wants to talk to the girls, you know, and I was getting tired and I wanted to go into Popeyes to get something to eat, you know? But we didn’t have no money, and so TeeTee just went ahead and talked to thems girls, and the other nig—”
“Don’t say that word,” I said. “We don’t say that word.”
“What?” He looked at me, and then he looked at his mother.
She told Isaac to continue, and Isaac’s eyes went back down to the floor as his flow of words started again. “So we gots to be hassled by them guys and one of them flashes his nine, you know?” Isaac made a quick movement with his hand, imitating someone pulling a gun. “So he flashes his gat, and I tell him we gotta go, because it’s getting real, and we walks away, and then TeeTee says he needs to chill and needs to hit some chronic for his glow, man, and so . . .” He looked over at his mother, and she nodded at Isaac to keep going, despite his repeated references to guns and marijuana. “So we decide to head back home to see if we can find somebody who’s gotta stash, ’cuz we ain’t got no money, and so we get on our street and we walking, and I say I gotta take a piss, and that’s when I duck by this building and TeeTee keeps walkin’ a bit. He’s not waitin’ ’cuz he’s wantin’ the chax, you know? So I come out and that’s when I sees it.”
I leaned closer, and Isaac said, “Po-Po van, clear as day.”
“A police van?”
Isaac shook his head. “Naw, like the probation. They drives them blue vans. I see TeeTee talking to somebody through the window, and then he gets in the van and they drive off.”
“There are lots of blue vans.”
Isaac looked up, staring at me. “I know what I seen, man, and that’s what I seen. Blue van. Probation. They got him, man, and they the ones who killed him.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yeah.”
Then I looked at Isaac’s mother. “And you’re sure about the date?”
“Positive.” She looked at her son. “He be coming home and telling me TeeTee got arrested. That’s when I start calling the detention center, find out his court dates and all that, but they say he ain’t there.” The mother opened her purse, took out her cell phone, pressed a button, and handed the cell phone to me.
I looked down at it.
The mother, Naomi Turner, had pulled up the cell phone’s call history. “Thems numbers there.” She pointed.
When I checked the number, there were twelve calls to the Saint Louis Juvenile Justice Center. I wrote down the dates and times of the phone calls in my notebook, and then I looked at both of them.
“Ever hear of a probation officer named Jimmy Poles?”
Isaac Turner and his mother shook their heads. “Never heard of him.”