“You knew he was at the coffee shop the whole time?” I was angry. “We could’ve been killed.”
Schmitty held out his hands, defensive. “We didn’t know what was going on inside. We didn’t think he actually killed those kids, for God’s sake.” Schmitty looked at Nikolas for support, got none, and decided to explain. “You’re the one who told me that Judge Bryce wanted us to go public with it. Then when we found out he was the guy posting all that stuff, fanning the flames; some people thought you might be in on it. You know, telling the public about Poles.”
“Really? So you were actually monitoring me?”
“I told them that they were wrong,” Schmitty said, unconvincingly. “But it looked bad. Then there was that damn protest march, and it looked even worse when we watched Judge Bryce go into the coffee shop after hours.”
I was still angry. “So you had cops sitting there while I got tased and shot at?”
Schmitty shrugged. “Sort of.” He looked at Nikolas. “We had two cops staking it out, but we didn’t know what was going on until Nikolas sent me an e-mail. That’s when we mobilized. About to bust in when the shots rang out.”
After downloading encryption software, Nikolas used my work computer to access the part of the Internet without any pretty images and colors. It was all numbers and text.
Schmitty and I stood over his shoulder as he pulled up the video of Judge Bryce walking down from his chambers late at night. He was wearing the khaki pants and blue polo shirt usually worn by the juvenile probation officers. He also had a backpack slung over his shoulder, likely containing the plastic zip ties, his Taser, and other tools he’d need later in the evening.
We watched him walk through the parking garage, take one of the van keys off the rack, and drive the van out of the lot. He didn’t need permission to exit; the gate automatically opened.
Nikolas paused the video. “You see the card reader?” He pointed at a post outside the gate near the street. “I check and he didn’t use his own pass card to get back in.” Nikolas looked up at Schmitty. “Something to check. Maybe setting up Poles or somebody else.”
Nikolas turned his attention back to the computer screen, and we watched him work. Then Nikolas said, “When he came inside the shop, his plan was to get you to come. I’m not sure he knew what I was doing, but he saw the screens and put it together.” Nikolas kept typing, scrolling through lines of code and working through different programs. “Glad he did, because that’s what kept me alive. He was telling me to delete, so I faked that.”
Nikolas stopped and looked up at Schmitty. “See this? You cops are familiar with this.” He turned his attention back to the computer. “This is his cell phone record. You get the cell tower data and it’ll show when he went to that park to dispose of the bodies. It’s all here.”
Schmitty looked at me and nodded. “Don’t send it to me,” he said. “We have to play this carefully. I want warrants. I want it official, just like the warrants we got on Poles.”
The plan was straightforward. Everything told to the public would be true, except some facts and events would be omitted.
Schmitty would state that they had traced the leaks about Jimmy Poles to Judge Bryce and had him under surveillance. He’d establish that he’d been in contact with me throughout the investigation, and that they became concerned when Judge Bryce went to the Northside Roastery late in the evening. When officers heard a gunshot, they entered the coffee shop, but Judge Bryce was already dead.
Judge Bryce would be named the prime suspect in the Lost Boys investigation, warrants would be obtained, and Schmitty would express confidence that further evidence linking Judge Bryce to the disappearance of a dozen Northside juveniles would be unearthed.
Discussion of Nikolas would be kept to a minimum. He’d be referred to as a private contractor that the police department had hired to help me with the Lost Boys investigation as well as the leak of confidential documents. Schmitty would state that Judge Bryce had learned that Nikolas was the contractor hired for the investigation and had gone there to stop him. If any reporter pressed for more information, Schmitty would politely decline to answer because there was an ongoing internal investigation.
My job was simply to go home and not say a word. It was a job that I fully embraced.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
We are, whether by nature or nurture, episodic. We find a problem and then we fix it. We want there to be a beginning and an end. Everyone wanted the death of Judge Bryce to be the end, but life isn’t that simple.
We are in a constant relationship with one another, a series of communications sent and received through word and action. An unrelenting feedback loop that either gets louder or softer, but never goes away.
The death of Judge Bryce was not the end. It was a disruption of the cycle.
The fires may have stopped. The tension that had erupted with the protest in front of Jimmy Poles’s house may have sunk back beneath the surface, allowing the systems to lurch forward. But the tension wasn’t gone. The relationship wasn’t over. Post-racial America did not emerge. The long history of violence and control continues to be unresolved. It only waits for another moment in the future to remind us of our sins, even as we all do our best to just live our lives.
Jimmy Poles quietly resigned and moved out of state. A severance package in an undisclosed amount was approved by the Saint Louis Board of Aldermen in a closed session. It wasn’t reported in any newspaper or on television.
Sammy continued classes at the Clement City Day School, and she seemed genuinely happy. The bullies were gone, and she was no longer considered a rich kid. There were plenty of others at her new school competing for that title.
I settled back into my law practice, hustling clients and making court appearances. Emma made it all routine. She managed the office with ease, and I talked to her about the possibility of her going back to law school to get licensed in the United States.
I just had one more loose end to take care of.
Lincoln picked Sammy and me up sharply at eight o’clock. We sat in the backseat while Buster drove us downtown. It was a beautiful morning. The humidity had blown through. The temperature had dropped, and seemingly overnight the tips of trees had started to change from green to bright-yellow, orange, and red. Fall had arrived. It was late, but it had finally arrived.
We cut over to Broadway, and Buster drove us to the Fox Recreation Center. The Glass machine had done its advance work. By the time we arrived, the stage was built; the microphones and speakers had been tested; red, white, and blue balloons decorated the stage; and GLASS FOR STATE SENATE signs were everywhere.
“Lincoln,” I said, “can you give us a second?”