Dirty Old Men [And Other Stories] (Zane Presents) (46 page)

I knew it,
Officer Jacobs told herself again as she wrote his Virginia-based number in her notebook.
Damn, I’m good!
she bragged.

Once the medics took over, Jill shrugged her shoulders and walked back to the woman to see what
she
had seen. She figured she’d catch up with the college student later.

“Ah, Ma’am, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

The woman immediately became hesitant. “About what? I only saw the boys run away when I saw him lying out on the pavement like that.”

“Can you describe any of their coats and colors?” Officer Jacobs asked her.

“Well, you know, it’s dark, and my eyes aren’t that good from a distance. They never were. And I need to buy me some glasses.”

Jill took a deep breath and knew that the case would be difficult.
Who would bother to talk about a basic beat down of a college boy, who may or may not be a homosexual?
Jill figured the case could also be upgraded into a
hate
crime.

“Well, can you tell me which way they ran?” she asked the woman.

“Oh, I just saw them run down the street. I didn’t see which way they turned. I was too busy being concerned about
him.
”

Jill looked down the block and to the corner, presuming that the boys had turned
left.
She doubted they would turn right and run across to the other side of the street. She also doubted that they would run two straight blocks.

“Thank you.”

She walked over to the two male officers out in the street, who were still directing traffic for the ambulance to leave.

“Hey, I bet you if we rattle the cage around the corner, a few birds’ll fly out,” she suggested to her fellow officers.

“Don’t we know it,” one responded. They both grinned; they liked rattling cages.

“Well, as soon as we clear this all out, let’s go get to it,” she told them.

It didn’t take long for the three officers to round up seven teenagers to scare into confessions. They were still out running the streets after ten o’clock at night. Baltimore stayed up all night that way.

“So, how many of you beat him down and stomped him? And if you don’t tell, you’re going to jail by yourself,” Officer Jacobs threatened. She was the ringleader of the interrogation.

“Yo, I don’t know what y’all talking about, man. What boy? I didn’t beat up nobody,” an older, rugged young man snapped. He looked out of high school and ready for the work force, the service, jail, or the graveyard. But he definitely wasn’t in grade school anymore.

As the loudest protester, the guy was telling the truth. He had nothing to
do with it. He was nowhere near Pennsylvania Avenue when the beat down had occurred. But
two
of the seven
were
there. They had participated in it, including the first boy who spotted Derrick and his hot-footed walk. And it was only a matter of time before something shook loose.

“Nobody bragged about beatin’ down a
faggot
tonight? A
bitch.
A
girl.
A
sissy
in
pink panties?
”

Officer Jacobs was going hard on them. She understood how young men thought. She had to deal with them every day of her life, young
and
old. And she knew that the guilty would soon tell on themselves.

Sure enough, one of the boys began to smile helplessly. He was the one who had kicked Derrick Wilcox in the ass to initiate the beat down.

Jill singled him out immediately and snapped, “So, you think it’s
funny?
What if you
killed
that boy tonight?
Then
what? You think
homicide
is a damn
joke,
something for you to
smile
about? Well, I hope you weren’t there, because you’re gonna be a part of the line-up,” she informed him.

When the boy heard that, he panicked. “For what? I ain’t do
nothing,
” he screamed. He tried to act as hard as he could to camouflage his fear, but his heart was practically jumping out of his chest.

Jill placed her hand right on his pounding chest and said, “Uht, oh. I think we got one. So, who else was there with you? We know it was five or six of you. Or are you going down to the line-up by yourself? Let’s check and see who else’s heart is beating.”

At that point, the first teen who spotted Derrick, and who had started the whole mess, began to panic as well. He looked straight down and refused to acknowledge his friend. He didn’t want the officers to see any eye contact between them. However, the rest of the suspects didn’t have a problem with looking. They all knew that they were innocent, or at
least
of
that
particular crime.

“Go on, tell us who
else
was there with you,” Officer Jacobs continued to jeer the smiling boy.

“Man, I’on know what you talking ’bout.” He refused to look at his friend, his partner in crime, as well. But when the other officers noticed the one kid who refused to look in his friend’s direction, they connected the dots between the two.

“What’s wrong with you?
Hey,
I’m talking to you,” the Latino officer addressed him. In the boy’s panic, he was confused with what he needed to do to act normal. And when he finally raised his head to make eye contact with the officers, it was too late.

“So, you got a problem looking at him? What does that mean? You were there, too?” the black male officer asked him.

Jill jumped on the bandwagon. “Well, you look at him right now.
Look
at him!” she shouted. When the two friends finally looked at each other, they tried their best to fake indifference.

“Do you two know each other?” Officer Jacobs asked the two line-up suspects.

Both boys were confused again.
Of course,
they knew each other. They were all hanging out together when the police rounded them up that night. But how closely did they dare to associate?

Jill stretched her hand out to feel the second boy’s pounding heart, and she commented, “We got another one. That’s
two
for the line-up now.”

The second boy tried to shake it off by speaking calmly. “I wasn’t there, man. You got the wrong guy.”

“So, how come your heart is beating like that?”

“Because y’all jumped out here and started rounding people up for no reason,” he explained.

“Oh, we
got
a reason. Somebody beat down a
faggot
on Pennsylvania Avenue tonight, and we’re gonna find out who
did it.
”

“Isn’t that wrong for you to call him a ‘faggot’? You supposed to say
gay
, right?” one of the other boys spoke up. That caused the guys to chuckle.

“I’m calling him what
you
call him. Did you call him
gay
when you beat him up tonight?” Officer Jacobs asked the smart-mouthed boy. “Step on up here. You’re
next
in the line-up. Now we got
three
of ’em. Who’s left?”

Before the smart-mouthed boy could respond to her, the first older protester responded for him.

“Yo, he wasn’t out there, man. That boy just came back from the movies,” he commented.

“Oh, yeah, what did you go see?” one of the male officers asked him.

“I saw that
Underworld
movie,
The Rise of the Lycans.
You know, the one with the werewolves against the um, vampires.”

“Okay, so you probably won’t be picked out of the line-up then,” Officer Jacobs told him.

The boy grimaced and looked confused. “Yo, you already know I wasn’t there, man. I mean, you gon’ grab me up just because I said you shouldn’t call him a faggot? I don’t have no problem with them people, man.”

“
Them people,
hunh?” the Latino officer repeated.

The boy looked at him. “Yeah, man, they do what they do. That’s
their
thing. To each his own. As long as they don’t bother
me.
”

That made a few of the other boys laugh again.

“Or
what?
” the officer challenged him. “You’ll whip his
gay
ass?”

The first protester spoke up again. “Yo, man, he wasn’t there.” He was adamant on protecting the boy.

“What, is he your little brother or cousin?” the black male officer asked.

Officer Jacobs assessed it all. She asked the oldest protester, “Were
you
there? You step up then.” She read his dominant body language and knew that he could help her get to the bottom of things.

“So, will he pick
you
out of the line-up?” she asked him.

“I’m not going to no damn line-up,” he answered defiantly.

She read his body language again. He had a real chip on his shoulder for a reason.

He most likely wasn’t there, and he probably has a solid alibi,
she told herself.
But he can still help me to get the answers that I need.
“So, if you weren’t there, then what did you hear about it? Somebody come back home bragging?”

“I didn’t hear
nothing
about it. I was standing out here talking about movies.”

“Well, what about
you?
What did
you
hear about it?” she asked the second line-up suspect again. She had gotten away from him for a minute.

He shook his head. “Nothin’,” he said weakly.

“Well, we’ll see what he says at the line-up. Now we got four down and two to go. So, who else was there? Is anyone missing?” she asked the first boy who had been caught smiling.

Finally, the oldest protester had had enough. He looked at the first two partners in crime and said, “Yo, if y’all
know
something, y’all better let it be
known,
’cause if
I
go downtown for some shit that
I
didn’t do… And I
know
that
shorty
wasn’t there either. And y’all
know
that shit. So, if
y’all
ma-fuckers out here
fakin’…
”

“Watch your mouth,” Officer Jacobs warned him. He was getting a little too full of himself.

“I’m just saying, man,” he told her. “They
know
who they are. And I’m not going downtown for no faggot shit. Excuse my French,” he apologized.

“That’s not a French word,” the Latino officer told him.

Once the dominant and older young man let it be known that he wasn’t taking the rap on something he didn’t do, the first two culprits began to cower. That’s when Jill read their wilting reactions, and she knew she had picked the right two boys to work on.

“Okay, so…
you two
are
definitely
going down for a line-up. You can either tell us who else was in on it, or you can pay the price for it yourselves.”

They definitely were not planning to point any fingers out there. All that was left was silence, confusion, and fear.

The second teen, who had pointed Derrick out earlier, and who had started the commotion, took a deep breath. He realized that a line-up would be his downfall, so he began to think about who else could go down with him.

Officer Jill Jacobs read the dilemma on the young man’s face before he spoke a word. She knew it would only be a matter of time before he agreed to give up his friends. She stared him down with poise and patience, and she repeated to herself,
Damn, I’m good!

After all of her excellent police work in rounding up the five boys involved in assaulting Derrick Wilcox, when Officer Jill Jacobs got in touch with the college student to perform a line-up selection of the culprits, he became non-committal.

“You know, I just don’t…wanna get involved with that,” he told her over his cell phone.

“What? What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, I don’t wanna
see
those guys again.”

“You don’t
have
to see them. You pick them out from behind a shielded glass. You’ve seen cop movies before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t… I mean…”

Jill snapped, “Look, cut it out. Now I know you may be a little afraid, but you’re totally safe. I can pick you up from the dorm rooms at Johns Hopkins myself, and make sure no one bothers you. Now you can’t let these kids get away with this. This case can be considered as a
hate crime,
and it will protect other people against similar attacks in the future.”