Kick (8 page)

We entered the eighteen-yard box. The defender backed down and then came toward Shawn, leaving me in the clear. Shawn lifted the ball with his foot up into the air toward me. I was ready for it and jumped so high in the air, it surprised me. Then I struck the ball with my head with such force, it whizzed right by the goalie, leaving him blinking. It was a slam dunk of soccer.

A roar came from the sidelines. Between high fives and pats on the back, I looked over at Coach Hill. He gave me a thumbs-up. I glanced at Sergeant Brown, who seemed to be enjoying himself.

I felt good. The field seemed clearer to me. After my goal I could feel my confidence grow. Once you score, you can afford to make mistakes. Playing without the fear of messing up lets you relax and really take your game to another level.

“We're playing well.” Coach Hill was pumped at halftime. “But we have to keep fighting. They can get a quick goal and tie the whole game up! Don't get discouraged if they score. Just keep your composure and don't panic.”

Less than five minutes into the second half, I scored my second goal. It was a long ball over the defenders' heads that I easily ran onto. I kicked the ball low toward the corners of the net and watched as their goalie turned his head too late. I thought, What is the point in having a goalie if he just stands there?

For the rest of the game, I was on cruise control.

Five minutes before the game ended, Coach Hill took me out. I didn't mind—I needed the break.

“Kevin, good job,” he said, pulling me aside from the rest of the kids on the bench while he watched the game. “You have to display more discipline, but you're making smarter decisions and you handled the pressure pretty well—”

Coach was cut short by cheers from the other team's parents. Santiago had scored. I shook my head and returned to the bench.

I couldn't believe Coach had said that to me. Maybe Coach was right—maybe I just needed to be more responsible. I needed to be more aware, not just on the field but off the field, too. Sometimes adults didn't talk the same language as I did. Maybe Coach Hill didn't really want me on the bench, and I had figured out that Sergeant Brown wasn't going to send me back to juvie, either.

There were three more minutes left, and if our team could hang on, we would be one of the four teams in the semifinals. Whenever there was a one-goal difference, the final minutes were agonizing to watch and even more intense to play.

With thirty seconds to go, Santiago received a pass from downfield. He was past our defenders!

Come on, Nick, I thought, you got this. Santiago pulled a fancy move and passed the ball lightly into the goal.

My heart sank. The game was going into overtime.

The sideline ref went over to talk to the main referee. The main referee nodded and put up his hand, signaling the offside. Santiago was ahead of the last defender when the ball was played to him. The goal didn't count!

Santiago and his teammates ran over to the referee yelling, with their hands up in the air. The ref blew his whistle to signal the end of the game.

We had won. We were going to the semis.

Chapter 11

“Ain't nobody likes a traffic cop, man!” The dude sitting on the bench, his wrist handcuffed to the railing, was wearing one of those old-fashioned undershirts with no sleeves. It was dirty and ripped down one side.

“So that's why you punched an officer of the law?” I asked him.

“I tried to explain to him why I was parked in the bus stop, but he wouldn't listen,” the guy said. “Then he mouthed off at me. That's why I punched him.”

“So what you can do now is to go over your explanation of why you were parking in the bus stop with whoever you're going to be sharing a cell with,” I said. “Maybe he'll be more sympathetic.”

I finished checking the paperwork, okayed it, and released the prisoner to the Detention Division. They sent over a young female officer to take the prisoner to the holding cells. I listened as he started in on her about how he couldn't afford a ticket on his salary and how the traffic officer hadn't even listened to him. He rambled on until he saw that the officer taking him down the hallway wasn't listening, either.

I got back to my desk and started straightening out the mass of papers that had unpiled themselves and were now covering most of the desk's surface.

“You got a call while you were gone,” Paul said. “Pellingrino's office.”

“The assistant district attorney? What did she want?”

“Said that they were looking to set a date for your boy's hearing,” Paul said. “Her number's on your pad.”

Rebecca Pellingrino was one of four Highland ADAs. She was always straight with her dealings and didn't make any bones about the fact that she came down harder on violent crimes than she did on lesser offenses. I was surprised that she would be handling a juvenile case, though. I checked her number and dialed it.

“So—Judge Kelly says you have an interest in this case?” she spoke crisply, to the point.

“The boy's father fell in the line of duty,” I said. “I hope we all have an interest.”

“You speak to the victim?” she asked. “He's up and down on this. Some days it looks like he doesn't want to press charges and the next he's ranting and raving about juvenile crime. This week he asked me if the boy will get probation.”

“He against that?”

“I don't think so,” Pellingrino said. “I can't read him, really. But if he wants to push the case, we have to prosecute. We need to have a hearing to see if we're going to charge him with grand larceny or criminal mischief, a third- or fourth-degree felony. What does your calendar look like? Kelly has kicked it to Judge Lawler, and he's free all next month.”

“How much time can you buy me?” I asked. “I'd like to see if there's anything more I can do.”

“What's in it for me?”

“A double cappuccino and a bagful of Krispy Kremes.”

“The sixteenth, ten
A.M.
.”

“Two double cappuccinos and two bags of Krispy Kremes?”

“The sixteenth, ten-fifteen.”

“Got it.”

“Has he lawyered up?”

“His family has hired a lawyer, but they aren't that well off,” I said. “Just some very scared people who want to keep their kid out of jail.”

“That's the way the ball bounces, Brownie,” she said.

“That's the way,” I answered.

McNamara was still playing it close to the vest. His asking about probation for Kevin sounded as if he might not want to get the kid into too much trouble, but just enough for his insurance claim to go through. For McNamara, the idea of giving probation was just a slap on the wrist. For someone as young as Kevin, it could be a life-changing sentence. It would mean that he had pled guilty to a crime and might wreck his options with a college. The chances of the case getting to adult court were slim, but there was always the possibility. I needed to get busy.

The precinct caseload was pretty light— mostly burglaries around the new housing development and a break-in at one of the warehouses owned by the mayor, hence Captain Bramwell's interest. Paul and I were supposed to interview the warehouse manager that afternoon.

“You want to do it by phone?” Paul asked.

“Bramwell wants us to go down and make a showing, so it gets back to the mayor,” I said.

“So let's do it,” Paul answered.

“I want to get this kid's thing settled,” I said. “You mind doing the interview alone?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm thinking of going over to that agency that Kevin mentioned—what was it?—Danville or something?”

“Greenville Services,” Paul said. “I'll go with you. Let's pick up the kid in case they don't speak English.”

“Good idea.”

“Hey, Jerry, Kevin's growing on ya, isn't he?”

“No.”

“Yeah, he is,” Paul said, pushing his glasses up, “You never took me along just to translate Spanish for you.”

“You don't speak Spanish,” I said.

“Good point.”

I knew that taking Kevin along could be a mistake. The kid was too eager to be useful, and we sure didn't need to involve him in a police investigation. On the other hand, I wanted to talk to the people at the agency informally, and Kevin did speak Spanish. I had Kevin's cell on speed dial and called him. It was just about the time when school was letting out, and I hoped he had his phone on.

“Hello?”

“Can you meet me in front of the school in fifteen minutes?” I asked.

“I have practice today,” he said.

“You got trouble, too,” I said. “They're setting a hearing date for your case. You tell me what's most important—your practice or keeping you out of jail?”

“I'll be in front of the school,” he said.

The department has a bunch of kids working in their garage who love to soup up the undercover vehicles, and Paul and I took one of the cars that practically jump from a standing start to sixty miles an hour but look like they need to be pushed to get them out of a supermarket parking lot. We picked Kevin up in front of the school, and he was immediately impressed with all the gadgets under the dashboard.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To the agency you told me about,” I said. “You're going along unofficially as our interpreter if we need one.”

“Why are we going there?”

“Connecting the dots,” I said. “Whenever I get a case with a lot of loose ends—and this case has as many loose ends as I've ever seen—I like to start connecting dots. What I'm hoping for is to get some kind of picture that makes sense. You understand what I mean?”

“My dad used to say that if you ask a thousand questions, you always get the truth,” Kevin said. “You just have to figure out where it is.”

“I like that,” I said.

“And the next time we hear it, he's going to make believe he said it first,” Paul said.

We found the address. It was in a down-and-out neighborhood that had once been a housing project. The actual number was a church on a side street. On the entrance to the basement, there was a fancy sign that read
GREENVILLE SERVICES
.

“Can I help you?” A middle-aged Hispanic man looked up from his newspaper.

Paul flashed his badge and said that he would like to ask a few questions.

“By all means,” the man answered.

“What's the deal on this agency?” Paul asked, coming directly to the point.

“Have a seat,” came the answer. “My name is Hernandes, and my aunt and I basically run the agency. There are a lot of people in this community from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. You have to know this, of course. There was a police investigation a few years ago, if I remember correctly. Do you want coffee?”

I said no the same time that Paul said yes. Then he said no the same time that I said yes.

Mr. Hernandes pointed to a coffeepot and started making coffee as he spoke. His English was better than mine.

“We had the same concerns as the police,” he said. “Were the people being exploited? Were they being abused? So we started this agency.”

“And named it Greenville,” Paul said.

“Not really. There was a pawn shop down the street that closed and left the sign behind. It looked good, so . . . ”

“We're really interested in one particular worker who came through this agency,” I said. “A woman named Dolores . . . Dolores . . .”

I realized I didn't have her last name and looked toward Kevin. The kid shrugged and I was feeling stupid.

“Where does she work?”

“For the McNamaras,” Kevin said.

“Oh, Dolores Ponce.” Mr. Hernandes shook his head affirmatively. “She's been working with the agency for over four years. Maybe longer than that. You want to see her pay record?”

“Yes,” I said.

A dark, middle-aged woman came in, and Mr. Hernandes said something to her in Spanish. She went to the coffeepot, looking over her shoulder at me and Paul as Hernandes went to a bookcase and took out a set of black-and-white composition books.

Sitting at the desk, he looked through the books until he found an index tab that he wanted and then pushed the book across to me.

“This is her pay record,” he announced. “She makes three hundred sixty per week, and we make sure that she gets it.”

“And what do you get paid for her services?” Paul asked.

“The agency gets four hundred dollars a week from Mr. McNamara,” Hernandes answered. “So you see we get just ten percent. This is a community service, not a rip-off.”

“And if I speak to Dolores, she'll verify this?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Can I take this book with me?” Paul asked.

“It's our only copy,” Mr. Hernandes said. “And if another policeman comes, we need to have a record. But you can take it next door to the drugstore. For ten cents a page, they'll make copies.”

Officially, we weren't investigating Greenville and we didn't have a search warrant. Hernandes seemed on the up and-up, but I wasn't sure. The record keeping wasn't first-rate, but it didn't jump out at me as being criminal, either. Some entries were in pen and some in pencil. Not very professional.

“Are you giving us your word that these records are accurate?” I asked Hernandes as Paul pored over the entries in the book.

He ducked his head slightly and shrugged. “I think they are,” he said. “We're not here to make money, just to help the community. As far as I know, they're accurate.”

“How come here, she seemed to make more money?” Paul asked.

Hernandes looked at the entries that Paul was pointing at and shrugged again. “I don't know,” he said. “But I see that she was getting paid by Mr. McNamara and someone else. It was Christmastime. Maybe she wasn't working for him but he gave her a gift. I really don't know.”

“Christmas?” Kevin perked up.

“You know something?” I asked.

“That's when Christy's mom was in the hospital,” Kevin said.

I decided that Paul and I had already moved beyond our authorization by questioning Hernandes, so it didn't particularly bother me to have him go next door and copy the pages at the drugstore. I reimbursed him for the four dollars and ten cents he was charged and took the copies with me.

“Coffee is good for the soul, officer,” Hernandes said when the woman brought it over.

I didn't like the coffee, but I thanked Mr. Hernandes anyway.

“That wasn't coffee,” Paul said when we had got back into our vehicle. “That was coffee-flavored mud.”

“It's called espresso,” I said. “I love the flavor, but my stomach can't take it.”

“So what are we going to do now?” Kevin asked.

Paul looked at his watch. “I'm off in thirty minutes,” he said. “I promised the old lady I'd take her out to dinner tonight.”

“Where you taking her?” I asked.

“The Italian restaurant on Fairmount.”

“You messed up that bad?” I asked. “That place costs a fortune.”

“What can I tell you?” Paul said.

We drove to Paul's house and let him out. Then I started toward Kevin's place. On the way I told him what Pellingrino had told me. I tried to explain it as casually as I could because I didn't want him to panic. It must have been too casual, because he didn't seem bothered at all.

“Kevin, do you remember why Mrs. McNamara was in the hospital?”

“No, sir.”

“Christy never told you?”

“No, sir.”

“If you called Christy now, would she tell you?”

“I don't think so.”