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Sinking into the chair like a deflating balloon, Tina’s elbows jutted over the armrests as she crossed her arms. Her blue-jeaned legs waggled, signaling boredom. I could see the outline of rail-thin arms and bony shoulders under the loose-fitting pink sweatshirt that swallowed her frame. She must have taken after her father. Her chubby-cheeked face and cafe au lait complexion were nothing like her mother’s. Her hair was tied in a ponytail with a pink sequined scrunchie.
“Tina, it says here you knocked an elderly woman down while trying to snatch her purse. Is that right?”
She shrugged. “Yeah.” Her look said, “What about it?”
“Based on what I have, this looks like your first offense. What brought this on?”
She shrugged again. “I just tried to jack her purse,” she said, revealing a crooked overbite. “She wouldn’t let go.”
“Why did you do it?”
She rolled her eyes. At least her repertoire included more than shrugging. “Why you think?” she said, in a tone that suggested I might be missing a few brain cells.
“I could assume lots of things, but I’m asking you.”
Again, she shrugged. “Money, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Money,” she said, in a flat voice.
“How much money did you expect to find in an old lady’s purse?”
Shrug. I suppressed the urge to hold her shoulders down. “I dunno,” she mumbled.
I scanned the report again. “This happened three blocks from where you live. Do you know this woman?”
She shook her head.
“You have a problem with her?”
Silence.
“You just figured you had nothing better to do, so why not pick up some spare change from a little old lady who can’t defend herself?”
Tina shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Was breaking her arm part of the plan?”
Some emotion—regret?—flashed in her eyes, but her game face returned quickly. “I wasn’t tryin’ to knock her down. If she’d let go the damn purse, she’d o’ been all right.”
“But she didn’t let go. And you got caught.” A pair of undercover cops sitting surveillance had intervened when they heard the woman scream.
“Yeah. Jump out boys got me,” she said. “Motherfuckers.”
“Jump out boys?”
“You know. Unmarked.”
I nodded. You learn something new every day. “What are your grades like?” I asked, switching gears.
“Okay, I guess.”
I went through the tedious process of digging for more information. Bottom line: she was an average student who read at a higher-than-average grade level. And she had better verbal abilities than her terse responses would suggest.
“So what’re you reading now?” I asked.
She held up the book. A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown.
