The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (9 page)

              Lindsey and I never knew why the incident was always where our arguments always ended up but we had a pretty good idea.  Sorrow.  Grief.  Blame.  Even back in high school, when Lindsey and I started dating, she always suppressed, rather than let loose, her feelings.  In those days, our biggest fights were over her being jealous when Amanda Blanch, the cheerleading captain, would hang around my locker.  Or the fact that I chose to hang out with my buddies rather than watch a chick flick.  Or how I didn’t return her phone call or spend two hours on the phone with her so she could blab on about teenage gossip.  Now that I think about it, the trend of being blamed started way back then. 

              Here we are now, fifteen years later, and Jake is now the root of blame in the Barnes household.  I have always felt, despite how much I loved Lindsey, she always held me responsible for the many burdens in her life.  And I consistently find that I am convincing myself that the burdens are nobody’s fault- certainly not mine.

              I was, and still am, one of those people who wanted to get the feelings out in the open and move beyond the situation that caused a hiccup in our relationship.  I don’t have patience for unnecessary bullshit.  With Lindsey it was different.  She’d rather give me the silent treatment for hours on end and stew in her own emotions, leaving me to feel as if everything is just hunky dory. 

“What’s up?” she asked.  She was sitting across from me at the kitchen table.  Lindsey had a look of concern on her face but it didn’t look like it was for my benefit.

              I finally looked at her then said, “It’s just, you know, this thing I’m working on.  Esteban.”  She saw how fragile I suddenly became and knew, from prior experiences, where this was headed.  And like always, she played right into it.  Forced me to talk about it.  We had been up for almost an hour, the clock was pushing past three in the morning and I knew Lindsey had to be up for work in about three hours.

              “What about it?” she said.

              “I’m not sure.  You know, just being back in the police business, in some form or another, has really got me worried.”  Lindsey cut me off before I could finish my thought.  She knew I was then talking about Jake and not Esteban.

              “Worried about what?” she asked.

              “You were there for the panic attack,” I said.

              She twirled her teacup between her fingers.  So I continued.

              “That the more I jump into this thing the less I’m going to allow myself to discover.  I mean, I know Esteban and Jake are two different types of situations from two very different lifestyles but just the fact that I’m probably going to end up needing to talk to some people I’d rather not talk to and head into some neighborhoods that I’d rather not visit.”  Lindsey could see where I was going with this.  And I couldn’t tell if she caught the fact that I referred to Jake in the present tense.

              She got up out of her seat and came to sit on my lap.  She put her left arm around the back of my shoulders and her right hand across my chest, clasping her fingers at the opposite end.  “Maybe this is what you, what we need.  Maybe this is part of our healing process.  Seeing that you can do something good for another family, despite how screwed up it may be.  Do you think you should mention this to Dr. Sharper to see what she thinks?”

              She knew I didn’t like Dr. Sharper.  Sharper was somehow recommended as the best shrink that specialized in police officers.  And since my official dismissal from the department, I was told that my free therapy sessions had ended.  Lindsey periodically attempted to coax me into continuing my sessions.  I told her the cost of her sessions was a primary concern but Lindsey instantly called my bluff saying that her insurance would cover it. 

“Sharper’s an idiot.  She doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground.”  That got Lindsey to chuckle. 

              She turned towards me, looked me in the eye, and said, “I believe in you.”

TWENTY TWO

In hindsight, I think that’s why I left Paterson yesterday.  I had gotten close to reaching a goal, albeit a very small one, in seeing Esteban’s neighborhood.  Where he lived.  What his home life was like.  How he survived outside of the safety net of school.  But I didn’t get the answers to any of those questions.  At least not yet. 

              After Lindsey left for work, I set off again.  From where we live in Wayne, Paterson is only a ten to fifteen minute trek, depending on where in Paterson you wanted to go.  I headed down Alps Road towards Route 23, which eventually fed into Route 80 or Route 46.   I chose the former.  The weather was quite brisk but I had the windows down and the sunroof tilted on my beige Santa Fe.  I always had my iPod with me, plugged into the car stereo through an auxiliary cable.  My iPod, music in general, was my vice.  The only moments I felt truly unrestricted and free from worry.  It was one of the few connections that Jake and I had.  That and sports.  I connected Jake to the rock and roll of yesteryear while he kept me in the loop on the latest flash in the rap game. 

My iTunes Library has over six thousand songs of quite a variety.  My musical preference is all over the map.  Jay- Z to Janis Joplin.  Lynyrd Skynyrd to Lady Gaga.  Eminem to The Eagles.  Barry White to The Beatles.  Two Chainz to Twisted Sister.  I love having my library on shuffle, not having a clue as to what will come up next.  A similar trend my life was beginning to take.  A mysterious journey that someone knew what was about to come up next but kept hidden away from my eyes to see.  When I started up my car, I hit play and was finishing a Hootie and the Blowfish classic.

              The Thursday morning air was chilly but it had a feel that it wasn’t going to last very long.  A long- sleeved T- shirt was enough for me but as I drove I saw people bundled in wool caps and heavy sweatshirts.

I parked the Santa Fe in front of a three- family house on a dilapidated area in the heart of downtown Paterson.  The siding of the house, or what was left of it, seemed to be, at one time, some shade of beige or tan or cream or whatever the hell people call it nowadays.  To me, it resembled the color of monkey piss.  The smell of the front yard was a close resemblance to the current shade of the siding. 

              I wasn’t working with much up to this point.  All I had to go on was Esteban’s address, a class picture that Lindsey had given me, and, of course, my awesomely valuable instincts.  I killed the engine and walked the length of the block, just to get a sense of what I was getting myself into and see what I was working with, which wasn’t much more than an entire block of houses in similar shape.  I stopped my casual stroll, which didn’t do much to help me blend in to the neighborhood.  I stood out like a Raisinet in a bucket of flour. 

              I didn’t want to knock on the door too hard, thinking it might fall over and I’d get shot by a neighborhood watchman for breaking and entering.  Gently rapping on the filthy pane of glass, I could hear grown voices and a baby- or three- crying somewhere in the deeper confines of the house.  I didn’t want to knock too hard thinking, one, that I might shatter the glass and, two, that my knuckles might become infected with whatever was growing on the window pane.  The door was yanked open by a Hispanic woman, much more well-kept than anticipated.  Certainly more well-kept than what I’d seen of the exterior house.

              “Ms. Machado?” I asked.  She looked me up and down but I couldn’t quite figure out the expression. 

              “You the cops?” she asked a little too loudly.  Probably used to shouting over screaming babies.

              “Sort of.  My name is Chase Barnes.  I’m a private investigator trying to find your son.  Esteban is in my wife’s class at school and, by wild chance, I’ve been given his case by the Paterson police department.”  I just then realized I didn’t have any proof that I was a private investigator and reminded myself that I needed to have fancy business cards made up.  She was satisfied with my driver’s license. 

              “It’s about damn time.  I called like a week ago and my name isn’t Machado.  It’s Maria Velasquez- Cruz and Esteban is my second oldest son.”  I wondered if Ms. Cruz had a poor sense of real time since Fitzgerald only contacted me yesterday.  Maybe she really did call a week ago and it was not concerning to the police but I doubt it.  Ms. Cruz invited me in and I didn’t know where to step.  There were toys, newspapers, empty cardboard boxes, and magazines strewn about the floor.  It looked as if someone had blown up a Wal-Mart stock room.  Ms. Cruz asked me to sit in the living room.  It was a very generous offering except that I couldn’t find the couch.  What I thought was the couch was covered in more magazines, newspapers, and fast food containers.  She scrambled to clear a space, which only exposed a heavily stained seat cushion.  Luckily, I was wearing long pants for fear of contracting whatever diseases might be festering in the upholstery.  I wasn’t in the mood to contract hepatitis my first week on the job.  Ms. Cruz was dressed in beige khakis and the standard- issue blue CVS polo with CVS embroidered in red stitching.  She must’ve just gotten off her shift or was heading out because she still had her name tag on.  Either that or she just kept it on in case she forgot who she was.  She had jet black hair pulled tightly into a shoulder- length ponytail, deeply set dark eyes above thinly defined cheekbones.  Her lips appeared to be pouty but I couldn’t tell if it was her natural look or the excessive red lipstick that conveniently matched the red in her CVS polo.

              “I’m sorry about the delay but I want to assure you that I began looking into this case even before you contacted the police department to report Esteban missing.  My wife said she was generally worried about his welfare and safety from some of the behaviors he’s been exhibiting at school,” I said.  The first part certainly wasn’t true but she didn’t need to know that.

              “Well, thanks,” was all Ms. Cruz replied.

Before I began asking questions about Esteban, I heard a loud crash from another part of the house.

TWENTY THREE

Ms. Cruz shot up and bolted to the back of the house.  I followed a few steps behind.  For whatever reason I wanted to see what the rest of the house looked like.  Not much better.  The living room we were in was off to the right; down the center corridor from the front door was the entrance into the kitchen.  I think my cousin’s dollhouse had a bigger kitchen.  Sitting at a small oval- shaped table were two kids, not older than four.  Both were only wearing underwear.  One was coloring in an Elmo coloring book while the other was coloring Batman.  There were more crayons on the floor than the table.  I assumed the table must’ve been white Formica at some point but currently resembled the same color as the exterior siding.  Also on the floor, near the back door, was a potted plant, which was shattered to pieces. 

              “God damn it, Marco!” Ms. Cruz shouted.  Without even questioning the other child, she backhanded the young child hard enough that Esteban might have felt it.  Where ever he was. 

              I felt brave in asking,  “Would you like me to come back some other time?”

              “No, I’m sorry.  These damn kids are always breaking shit around here,” she replied through a deep breath.  Then stop having babies, I thought.  The child named Marco kept screaming but Ms. Cruz paid no attention.  I could hear sounds of a television turned up abnormally loud booming from another part of the house. 

              She pulled aside an empty chair and offered me another.  We finally sat, ready to talk. 

              “What is Esteban like at home?” I asked taking a pen and notepad out of my pocket.

              Ms. Cruz lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke in an unconscious effort to block it from her children.  “Well, shit, he’s an all right boy.  All he wants to do is play those damn video games and hang out on the streets with his friends.  Those boys.  I got no control over that one.  I punish and take shit away from him but he ends up finding other things.  He’s always fighting with his younger brothers and sisters.”  She stamped out the cigarette in a tray on the table.  I wrote things down in my pad but I didn’t know what to write down or what, if anything, she was saying would help me in any way.  I glanced at the young kids.  They didn’t seem to pay any attention to their mother’s profanity.  Almost, as if it were a natural occurrence for them. 

              Brothers and sisters- plural. 
How many of them are there?  I wondered.  I had to know.  “How many brothers and sisters does Esteban have?” I asked the question in a way that made it seem like it somehow pertained to Esteban, not his loose mother.  It was sad, but not surprising to see, that she had to pause and think for a second.  You would’ve thought I asked her to do my taxes.