Between Love and Duty. Janice Johnson Kay

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СКАЧАТЬ “Face the wall,” he ordered. “Put your hands flat on the wall.”

       He turned on the light and was momentarily blinded. He didn’t like that, but his intruder cringed from the brightness, too. Duncan waited until he could adequately see what he’d caught, then growled a profanity of his own.

       “How old are you?”

       Cheek ground against the wall, the Hispanic boy glared at him and stayed mute.

       Duncan gave him a little shake. “Tell me.”

       The boy muttered something. Duncan shook him again.

       “Twelve.”

      Well, damn. He hadn’t caught even a small fish tonight. This was a minnow.

       Book the kid? Call the parents? What if there weren’t any?

       He barely stifled a groan. Decision time.

      THE BUILDING, DIVIDED INTO perhaps eight or ten apartments, was predictably ramshackle. Clapboard siding needed paint. Parking for tenants was on the street or in a very small dirt lot to one side, which was also home to a rusting hulk on cinder blocks. Another car, apparently ailing, had its hood up. Three men were bent over the engine. One had pants hanging so low, Jane Brooks could see way more than she wanted to. When she parked at the curb, another of the men glanced over his shoulder, but with a conspicuous lack of real interest.

       She checked the folder on the passenger seat to verify the address. Yep, this was it. Number 203 was presumably upstairs. There was only one entrance, although fire escapes clung precariously to each end of the apartment house which, to her eye, didn’t stand quite square.

       She’d been in worse places.

       Jane locked her car and made her brisk way in, nodding and greeting a very young, very pregnant woman who was trying to maneuver into one of the downstairs apartments a playpen that didn’t quite want to fold the way it was supposed to. Jane held the door, smiled and chatted briefly in Spanish. She was lucky she’d taken it in high school. Currently, one-third of the kids in the local school district were Hispanic, up to half in two of the elementary schools, where instruction was in Spanish in the mornings, in English in the afternoons. She didn’t quite consider herself fluent, but she was getting there, what with her volunteer work at the alternative high school and then with the Guardian ad Litem gig.

       She was acting today as a court-appointed Guardian ad Litem. Her task was to interview the adults involved, or potentially to be involved, in the life of a boy named Tito Ortez. Tito’s father was soon to be released from the Monroe Correctional Complex, and the judge would have to determine whether Tito could be returned to his custody. At the moment, the boy lived with his older sister, one Lupe Salgado, whose address this was. Eventually Jane would talk to Tito’s father, of course, Tito himself and perhaps even teachers. His report card suggested he wasn’t doing well in school.

       The stairwell and hall were shabby but surprisingly clean. Upstairs she rapped firmly on the door displaying an upright metal 2, a listing 0 and a 3 that hung upside down.

      “Venga,” a voice called, and after only a momentary hesitation Jane opened the door to find herself in a cramped living room.

       Two young, black-haired children sat in front of the television, on which a small green dragon seemed to be trying to puff dandelion seeds but was, to his frustration, setting them on fire. Both children turned to stare at Jane. The girl stuck her thumb in her mouth. An ironing board was set up in the narrow space between a stained sofa and the wall. A Formica table with four chairs and a high chair was wedged into the remaining space. The spicy smell of cooking issued from the kitchen.

       Jane raised her voice enough to be heard in the kitchen. “Hola. Me llamo Jane Brooks.”

       A woman appeared, wiping her hands on a dish towel and looking flustered. “Sí, sí. I forgot you were coming. Perdone.” In a flurry of Spanish too fast for Jane, she spoke to the children, then gestured Jane into the kitchen. She was cooking, she explained, and couldn’t leave dinner unattended.

       She did speak English, but not well; Jane made a mental note that living in a non-English-speaking household probably wasn’t helping Tito’s school performance. Jane and the boy’s sister continued to speak in Spanish.

       Jane was urged to sit at a very small table with two chairs while her hostess continued to bustle around the kitchen.

       “You’re Lupe?” she asked, for confirmation, and the young woman nodded.

       Like the pregnant teenager downstairs, she had warm brown skin, long black hair and eyes the color of chocolate. She was pretty, but beginning to look worn. Plump around the middle, and moving as though her feet hurt.

       Jane knew from the paperwork that Lupe was twenty-three. There had been other children born between Lupe, the oldest, and Tito, the youngest, but they were either on their own and unable to help with Tito or were in Mexico with their mother. Tito, Lupe explained, had stayed with his father because Mama thought as a boy he needed a man.

       She shrugged expressively. “Then, one year after Mama returns to Mexico, Papa is arrested. So stupid! I called Mama, but she is living with an uncle and it is very crowded. So she begged me to keep Tito. Which I’ve done.”

       As if this household wasn’t crowded. “You have children of your own,” Jane said, with what she thought was some restraint.

       “Sí, three. The little one is napping.” She stirred the black bean concoction on the stove. “My husband, he left me.” She sounded defeated.“I work at La Fiesta and a neighbor watches the children. I can’t depend on Tito. Maybe if he was a girl.” She shrugged again.

       “Do you visit your father at the prison?” The Monroe correctional institute was nearly an hour’s drive away.

       “Sometimes.” Lupe sent her a shamed glance. “The money for gas… You know how it is. And my children have to come, too. I take Tito when I can, but it upsets him, so maybe it is good that we don’t go often.”

       Jane nodded. Having a parent in prison was difficult for a child of any age, but for a middle schooler it must be especially traumatic. He wouldn’t be the only kid in the school with an incarcerated parent, but he probably felt like he was.

       “Is Tito any trouble to you?” she asked, and got a guarded response.

       No, no, he was such a good boy, Lupe assured her, but then admitted that she didn’t see much of him. She worked most evenings; tonight was a rare night when she was home with her children, and she didn’t know where Tito was. With a friend, she felt sure. Would he be home for dinner? She didn’t know, but doubted it.

       They talked for half an hour, until Lupe was ready to put dinner on the table and Jane realized she was in the way. She declined a polite invitation to join them and told Lupe she’d be in touch.

       She was almost out the door when Lupe said, “Oh! I forgot to tell you about the nice policeman who has been spending time with Tito. Do you think you’d like to talk to him?”

       Oh, yeah. She was definitely interested in hearing from him. Unless he was the father of a boy Tito’s age, Jane had to wonder how he’d gotten acquainted with Tito at all.

       “His name is Don…Can Mack…Lack…Land.” Lupe tried to СКАЧАТЬ