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Okay. Cedric is a friend. Moving on.
This crowd is not nearly as big as the crowd that showed up at the gang fight, but it’s big enough. Even though robberies, breaking and entering, and assault are pretty regular events in Southeast, this group—maybe it’s thirty people—seems angrier than the last.
I study this new crowd. Maybe I’ll see some familiar faces from the demonstration outside our own house. No. No one I know, not even Sienna. Not even—talk about a major relief—Alex Cross. But I can’t totally relax. I’ve got to be on constant lookout for the big man. I know from experience that it would be highly likely for my dad to get a call and get on over to a crime scene, even though when I left my house he and Bree were safely in dreamland.
I watch everything and everyone closely. I watch the young woman, who I’m guessing is the young wife, the person who was tied up. She starts hugging and kissing the old lady. Yeah, they are clearly mother and daughter. The scene is pretty touching to witness. Even for a wannabe tough guy like me.
Four police officers, three plainclothes detectives, emergency rescue people. They’re walking around the small front yard. The police move in and out of the house. Two of them keep the small crowd at a distance. I snap some pics of the situation.
Now I’m itching to mingle, talk to the crowd. I can’t help myself. I have automatically switched into full detective mode. Yeah. I’ll talk to the crowd. Take their temperature. Ask a few questions.
“You live around here, ma’am?” I say to one lady who’s wearing a track suit and holding a plastic water bottle.
“Yes, I do,” she says. “So what? Why d’you want to know?” She sounds mighty impatient with my simple question. I shift into my sweetest tone.
“I live around here, too,” I say. “I was just wondering if you saw anything.”
“I didn’t see anything.” She shakes her head in angry disbelief. “I’m mad and I’m tired of this stuff happening. I’ve lived here for five years. Things were getting better. Now it’s worse than ever.”
“Domestic break-ins are only up fractionally,” I say, and immediately realize that I sound like a robot.
My interviewee seems to think so, too.
“Fractionally? Fractionally, my butt. This neighborhood is going down and down and down. I got mugged for my cell phone last week coming out of the Metro. I reported it. Cops didn’t care.…”
She keeps talking, but at the magic phrase, “cops didn’t care,” I brace myself for the chain reaction.
Sure enough. This inspires another woman, same age, to say, “Cops never care. Burglars come into your house when you’re at work. They take your electronics and the jewelry that you didn’t hide. Hell, they’d take your refrigerator and couch if they had the time.”
This lady is not happy. But I’ll tell you who is happy: Gabe and Cedric. They’re enjoying the fact that I’m getting lectured to.
I turn to yet a third woman, same talkative type I’m guessing.
“Ma’am, what do you think about all this?”
She is calm, thoughtful-sounding in the way she talks.
“I think that the cops do try. I think that most of them care a lot. But there are simply not enough of them.”
Uh-oh. Some fierce disagreement here.
“They try? They try?” says the first woman, loudly. “They try when they feel like you’re a danger, without getting the full picture. They try when…”
The calmer woman continues. She is calm. You might even call her stern.
“Yes, lady. You heard me right. The police do try. They’re not perfect, but the ones I know and see are good men and women. Try living in Southeast without ’em.”
I glance at Gabe and Cedric. Both my friends are listening kinda seriously.
I’m listening seriously, too. This is the same, identical debate that’s churning up my life at school. Only at school, it’s just a debate. Right here? This is real life.
IT WAS BOUNDto happen.
I just didn’t think it was going to happen so soon.
I’ve been on two cases since Gabe set up my maybe-illegal police-radio app. Never woke up the family. Made it to and from the crime scenes safe and sound. Got home just fine. And now, all of a sudden… BUSTED! No. No. I don’t get busted by the police or anything. But maybe I would’ve been better off if theyhadbusted me instead of the person who does. Let me explain.
I unlock the door to the kitchen quick and quiet. Not a click or a tumble or a squeak. I carefully relatch and relock and then…
