The Bridge (7 page)

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Authors: Solomon Jones

BOOK: The Bridge
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The captain shook his head and turned to Lynch.
“You know, you were going to get your lieutenant's bar next month,” he said, turning around to watch as the news van disappeared on Oxford Street on its way to the accident scene.
“Were?” Lynch said, his face etched in confusion.
The captain paused.
“You're the best detective in Central,” he said. “And I don't want to lose you. But what happens to you is out of my hands now, especially if the guy they're cutting out of that car on Oxford Street doesn't make it.”
“I don't understand, sir.”
“I guess you didn't hear with all the confusion of the chase,” the captain said, searching Lynch's eyes for comprehension.
“Hear what?”
“It's Judge Baylor in the accident. He was on his way home when your suspect hit his car and it flipped. Rescue's been on the scene for about ten minutes now. They said it looks like his skull is fractured. He might not make it.”
Lynch said nothing. But his mind raced as he digested what it would mean if Judge John Baylor were to die because of his decision to chase Sonny.
Baylor—who'd escaped his hardscrabble upbringing in the Crispus Attucks housing project with a thirst for education that had led him to law school—was a man whose influence went well beyond the bench.
In the midst of the drug wars that erupted in the late eighties, Baylor trod where even the police dared not to. When gunshots split the night air and dead bodies greeted morning, Baylor stood on corners and showed manhood to gun-toting adolescents by convincing them to lay down their arms.
When Charmaine and her cousin were shot to death by June on the eve of her testimony at his murder trial, it was Baylor who consoled her family and raised money to pay for proper burials.
Because of his rare combination of compassion and strength, entire blocks fell silent when his powder-blue Mercedes rounded the corner. When he emerged from the car, the distinctive white Afro that topped his diminutive frame conveyed wisdom even before he spoke. And when he fixed people in his gaze, the coal-black, silver-ringed eyes that peered out from mahogany skin were captivating.
John Baylor had gained with strength of character what legions of drug dealers had tried to gain with bullets. He'd gained respect. Not just in the black community, but everywhere.
For conservatives, his rise to the bench was proof that racism did not exist. For liberals, his commitment to equal justice provided hope for change from within the system. And for the poverty-stricken blacks who'd watched him escape the streets and then come back to tame them, he was simply a hero.
Baylor had been planning to run for district attorney as an independent candidate in the upcoming general election. He was just about ready to resign from the bench, announce his candidacy, and
secure endorsements. And with the fund-raising ability of some of his key supporters, he was expected to win easily.
But none of that mattered now, because Baylor wasn't going to make it through the night. The judge's blood and the dashed hopes of an entire community would be on Lynch's hands.
As he got into his car and peeled away from the corner with Daneen and Wilson in tow, Lynch knew that the only way to make the impending furor die quickly was to find the man who was really responsible for what had happened to Baylor.
Lynch had to find Sonny Williams.
 
 
 
The news van arrived at the accident scene and parked in the midst of neighbors who'd been drawn out of their homes by the loud crash and screaming sirens.
When Jim Wright stepped out of the van with his receding gray hair and weathered, leathery skin, he knew that it was bad, because no one saw him—a newsman who'd spent the last fifteen years on the air. They only saw the accident and the firefighters working feverishly to free the bleeding victim from the wreck.
Wright loosened his tie as his cameraman arranged the apparatus they would need to report live from the accident scene. Then Wright removed a notepad from his shirt pocket and reviewed what he'd written on the way.
Because he'd spent the morning monitoring his police scanner and speaking with department sources, he knew the chase that had critically injured the judge was all about a suspect who'd assaulted a police officer.
He also knew that the suspect was wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of a little girl from the East Bridge Housing Project. Beyond that, he knew nothing. But that was easily remedied.
Wright walked slowly to the edge of the crowd, scanning faces that were fixed in the slack-jawed expression of shock that people wear when viewing death.
About twenty feet from Wright, a woman of about thirty was speaking to an officer from the department's Accident Investigation Division.
As the woman explained with animated hand gestures how the accident had happened, the officer took copious notes. Wright moved close enough to hear snatches of the conversation, and as she spoke, he took a few notes of his own.
“Blue unmarked police car … chasing this green Mustang … flying through here … wrong way … hit the car … kept going.”
The officer asked the woman if the police car had stopped.
“No,” she said.
The officer thanked her and said he'd be in touch.
As the AID officer walked away, Wright pulled out a cell phone, called a police department source, and asked him to run the tag of the wrecked car.
“Are you sure?” he said into the phone when he received the owner's name. “And neither the car nor the tag has been reported stolen, right? Okay, thanks.”
Wright disconnected the call and moved through the crowd until he was standing next to the woman who'd witnessed the accident.
“Excuse me, miss,” Wright said. “Would it be okay if I interviewed you on camera about what you saw here?”
She looked at Wright, and then at the camera. She shook her head no. And then, without a word, she resumed staring at the car.
Wright followed her gaze, and for the first time, looked hard at the twisted, powder-blue Mercedes Benz and the bloodied brown face of the man staring out from its shattered windshield. Like the young woman, Wright was at once repulsed and fascinated by the crumpled wreck. He stood for a moment in stunned silence, and
decided, in a rare fit of humanity, not to press the woman for an interview.
As the firefighters worked to split open the roof of the car, Wright turned to his cameraman and nodded. The cameraman hoisted the camera onto his shoulder and Wright worked himself into a space that would allow the wreck to be seen on camera.
There was a countdown, then an intro, and then they were live.
“This is Jim Wright, reporting live from Eleventh and Oxford Streets, in the Yorktown section of North Philadelphia, where a police pursuit has ended in tragedy. A car apparently registered to highly respected Common Pleas Court Judge John Baylor—the man widely regarded as Philadelphia's next district attorney—has been involved in a serious accident. As you can see here around me, neighbors are stunned by what has happened here, and an entire city will most probably follow suit.”
Wright stood aside as the cameraman zoomed in. “Behind me, firefighters are working to free a man who appears to be the judge.”
Wright pressed against his earpiece as the anchor asked him a question.
“Well, Dick, details are sketchy, but the information we have is that the chase involved a suspect who was wanted for investigation in connection with a missing nine-year-old girl at the East Bridge Housing Project in North Philadelphia. When police approached him, he assaulted an officer and fled. There was a high-speed chase, resulting in several accidents, including this one, which has apparently seriously injured one of the most influential jurists this city has seen in a generation. The suspect is still at large, and police aren't releasing the identity of the missing child.
“We'll be following this story throughout the morning and providing updates as they become available. This is Jim Wright, Channel 10 News, reporting live from North Philadelphia.”
The cameraman stopped shooting, and Wright snatched out his
earpiece. Then, as they headed back to the news van, Wright was on his cell phone, trying to find someone who could confirm the identity of the child whose disappearance had set the day's events in motion.
As he did so, Kenya Brown was suddenly more important than she'd ever been.
 
 
 
Lily sat still as the image of the crumpled car wreaked havoc in the quiet of her mind.
She'd been sitting in front of her television since telling the policeman that she'd seen Sonny, praying all the while that they would catch him without a struggle.
She never expected him to escape. Nor did she believe he'd leave so much damage in his wake. But she'd seen it all with her own eyes—from the crushed metal to the shattered glass to the bruised and bloodied face inside the car. She'd watched it all and shivered, because she knew it meant that Sonny was still out there.
Lily turned to Janay, who lay next to her on the couch, sleeping. As she reached out to touch her, Janay's brow wrinkled, and her mouth opened suddenly, as if to scream. It was like she understood, even in her sleep, that she, too, should be afraid.
Lily turned back to the television, and as the Saturday morning cartoons replaced the images she'd just watched, Lily remembered the way Kenya would laugh at these same cartoons, then make some womanly gesture minutes later. She remembered the way Kenya would play dolls with Janay, then manipulate her to get what she wanted.
Lily remembered that Kenya was struggling to be a little girl in a place where childhood was a liability, trying mightily to straddle the line between her age and her circumstances. Most often, Kenya succeeded. But in a place where the weak existed for the convenience of the strong, a single failure was more than Kenya could afford.
Lily knew that. Because Lily was one of the weak ones, too. At least that's what everyone thought. After all, a single mother trying to work her way out of the projects with two minimum-wage jobs was weak. A woman with her looks who refused to use them to do better was weak.
But the very things that made her weak in the eyes of some, made her strong in her own eyes. That's why Lily was not to be preyed upon. And neither was anyone whom she loved.
As she got up from the couch to get dressed and search for Kenya, there was a knock at her door.
“Lily,” someone said softly. “Lemme talk to you for a minute.”
She paused when she recognized the voice, then went to the door and cracked it.
“You seen Kenya?” Darnell asked through the cracked door.
“I figured you woulda seen her by now,” she said with syrupy sarcasm. “Since you supposed to be her uncle and all.”
“Can I come in for a minute?”
“I don't think so,” Lily said, looking him up and down and taking in everything the crack had taken out of him.
“It ain't about me, Lily,” he said, looking around before leaning in to whisper. “It's about Kenya.”
She looked into his eyes and saw fatigue. There was none of the quick and flinching desperation that always accompanied his lies, none of the darting eyes and dry-mouthed gibberish that came with his addiction. There was only a sad, deflated picture of something she hadn't seen from him in years: the truth.
She closed the door and unhooked the chain lock, then opened it and let him in, leading him past the sleeping Janay and into the hallway between the bathroom and bedroom.
“How you been, Lily?” he asked quietly.
She didn't answer, but glanced at his sweat-stained clothes and the flaky residue that had dried to form scaly layers of gray skin on his face.
“Look, I know you care about Kenya,” he said, fidgeting slightly as he spoke. “That's the only reason I came down here. I needed to talk to somebody who cared about her.”
He paused and looked down at Lily. “And somebody I cared about.”
She stared into his eyes, and for a moment, the man he used to be shone through. But instead of exciting her, the way it used to, the thought of being in his arms saddened her. His arms, like everything else, no longer belonged to the man who had held her through the worst time of her life.
In the fall of 1987, just weeks after Janay began first grade, her father died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Two weeks later, Lily lost her job as a receptionist. Left with only a night job as a part-time barmaid, she was trapped once again in the mind-numbing poverty she'd been working so hard to escape.
That autumn, the loneliness of it all began to consume her. She was mourning. She was vulnerable. And so she did what she'd seen many others do. She lost herself in the pulverizing grind of the projects.

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