Thomas Prescott Superpack (108 page)

I took a deep breath and said, “I’m Maddy Young. I’m your court appointed public
defender.” 

He smiled. People would pay millions of dollars to have his smile. I wondered how many women had fallen victim to that little grin. He said, “I know who you are.”

Before I had time to react to this statement, he said, “My name is Isaac.”

I don’t know if it was the way he said it. Or maybe the whole picture came into focus as he said his name. It was a wallop. A car crash. A cannonball to the gut. A sledgehammer to the side of the face.

They did exist.

Isaac was a Born.

“I’m Maddy Young. I’m the new public defender.”

The receptionist eyed me curiously. Like she was trying to tell if I were trying to pull one over on her. Trying to tell if my fingers were crossed behind my back. She was a different receptionist than the last time. She had brown hair. Fifty-ish. Not pretty. Not ugly. She had gigantic breasts—like two little Jupiters—testing the limits of a rose-colored blouse. She said, “Mr. Palace didn’t tell me anything about a new hire.”

I told her that I’d been hired the day before. She didn’t appear to be buying what I was selling. Finally, I said, “Can you just call Mr. Palace?”

She threw me a look of supreme annoyance and picked up the phone. After a moment, she said, “Mr. Palace . . . Hi . . . I have a Maddy Young here . . .
Maddy
. . .
Young
. . . That's right. Claims you hired him . . . un-huh . . . un-huh . . . un-huh . . . will do.”

She put the phone down. She shook her head and said, “Mr. Palace says that we don’t hire hardened criminals. Now please leave.”

I took a step backward. Then another. I was turning towards the door when I noticed the receptionist’s face in my peripheral. There was a crack in the dam. I turned just as the dam burst. Her face exploded into a smile and she yelped, “I’m just kidding honey! Mr. Palace put me up to it.”

She was in a fit of laughter. I could see the tops of her boobs jiggling up and down. She’d probably have a bruise on her chin come tomorrow.

A door buzzed.

She waved me through and said, “You can go right through there. He’s expecting you.”

I tried to smile. Tried to laugh. But it was hard with the hummingbird where my heart should be and my stomach in some sort of complicated sailor knot. I walked through the door, trying to shake off the embarrassment. The receptionist was standing there. She pulled me into a hug—the gravitational pull of her two planets sucking my face in like a wayward piece of space jetsam—and said, “Oh, you poor thing. I’m sorry. Really, I am. Oh, you’re shaking.”

I pried my face from her bosom and said, “I’m okay. That was a good one.”

She moved her hands to my waist and said, “I’m Rebecca.”

I stuck out my hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”

She shook my hand, then ushered me down the hall. “Go, go. He’s waiting.”

I started towards JP’s door, smoothing out my shirt as I walked. For the record, I didn’t own anything that would fall into the category of “nice.” Not a single collared shirt. No dress pants.
No dress shoes. I hadn’t even thought to go shopping last night after I’d left the jail, but then again I was a bit preoccupied with the whole Isaac being a Born thing. But, more on that later. Anyhow, I was wearing blue jeans and a neatly ironed hooded sweatshirt and freshly polished Converse. Perfect dress for a concert or a skateboard competition, but quite ridiculous when reporting for your first day as a lawyer.

I knocked on the door. By this time, my autonomous nervous system had stopped freaking out. The hummingbird was dead. The knot loose.

JP’s booming southern drawl told me to come in.

I pushed through the door.

JP was sitting behind his desk. But he wasn’t alone. Sitting in the chair opposite was a little girl.

Berlin.
 

⠔

I wasn’t a half step into the room, when Berlin bolted up from the chair and ran to me. Her hair was in pigtails and she was wearing lime green overalls. She wrapped her hands around me and buried her head into my stomach.

I rubbed her back and said, “I thought you were gonna be mad at me.”

She looked up. Shook her head. Her eyes were the same color as her overalls. I ran my hand over one of her pigtails. I told her I liked them.

She laughed and said, “Thanks.”

Our reunion was cut short when JP boomed, “What in God’s name are you wearing?”

I looked up.

JP was holding his cigar in his right hand. His eyes were wide. Soaking up every inch of my thirteen-year-old skater ensemble.

I unlatched Berlin from me and took a step towards him. “Sorry. I forgot that I don’t own any nice clothes.”

He was shaking his head from side to side. He jammed the cigar back in the crook of his mouth. He rummaged around in a desk drawer for a moment, then extended his hand. He was holding a business card. He said, “This place is a couple miles from here. Guys name is Bernard. Great guy. Doesn’t like the ladies so be careful. Get fitted for three suits. Tell him to charge it to my account.”

I took the card. Thanked him profusely.

He nodded for me to take a seat. I did. Berlin sidled up next to me. I noticed that at some point she had put on a huge purple backpack.

JP said, “Now let’s get down to business.”

He pushed a couple documents in front of me. Told me to sign a couple places. Initial here and here and here. Sign a couple more times. Then he signed some stuff.

I said, “All this stuff just to become a lawyer?”

He looked at me. Then his eyes moved over my shoulder. I glanced at Berlin. She was a statue.

JP laughed and said, “No, all this to become a
father
.”
 

⠔

I was officially the legal guardian of Berlin Evangeline Rose.

I should have been mad at Berlin for duping me. I should have been scared shitless about being responsible for another human being when I could barely take care of myself. I was neither.  Oddly enough, for the first time since I’d arrived, I was happy.

⠔

I signed paperwork for another five minutes. This round having entirely to do with becoming the newest Denver County Public Defender. When I was finished JP said, “A couple more things.” He reached into his briefcase. He handed me a set of keys and said, “Don’t fuck this up.”

They were the keys to his Jag.
 

⠔

“Thanks.”

Berlin was sitting in the passenger seat of the Jag. Which I might add, had been professionally cleaned and looked brand spanking new. On that note, I was curious if any of the other public defenders had company cars. I guessed not.

I turned to Berlin and said, “Thanks for what?”

“For like, adopting me.”

“Don’t sweat it kiddo.” I rubbed her leg.

She smiled and nodded. A block later I noticed her wipe a couple silent tears off her cheek.

⠔
 

I pulled into the Coffee and Toast parking lot—Coffee and Toast was the Two equivalent of the Waffle House—and hopped out. I had a meeting scheduled with Darrel. The police report had been sufficiently vague about the Isaac manhunt and Darrel promised he would tell me everything he could.
 I hadn’t anticipated having Berlin with me and on this note, I said to the third wheel, “You remember Darrel right?”

“Black dude.”

I laughed. “Yes. Black dude.”

We pushed through the doors. It was closing in on noon and the place was packed. Darrel was sitting in a booth halfway up the far wall.  Darrel was drinking coffee and reading the paper. He looked up as we approached. He appraised me. Then Berlin.

I said, “You remember Berlin?”

“Of course.” He put his fist out and Berlin knocked knuckles with him.

Berlin and I slid into the booth and I said, “Ask me what I did this morning.”

He flipped the paper closed and eyed me curiously.

“Come on, ask me.”

“Maddy Young, please tell me in graphic detail what you did this very fine morning?”

“If you must know . . . let’s see here . . . I went for a run, did some apartment hunting online, had a meeting with my new boss, adopted Berlin, got a company Jaguar, bought three suits—”

He put his hand up. “Did you say that you got a company Jaguar?”

Err.

He peered out the window. Saw the shiny black sedan among the other automobiles looking like Kate Beckinsale at fat camp. He shook his head, “You mean to tell me that not only are you now defending the pieces of shit that I’m trying to put behind bars, but your sorry ass gets to drive around in an eighty thousand dollar car.”

I decided to go with it and said, “That’s what I’m saying my brother.”

“What did I tell you about calling me
that.”

“Sorry homie.”

“Knock that shit off.”

“Knock what off, Lebron.”

Finally, he laughed.   

I said, “Did you hear what else I said, I adopted—”

“Yeah, yeah, you adopted Berlin. What do you want me to say? No big surprise there. Hey let’s order.”

Darrel waved our waitress over and the three of us ordered. After the server left, I said, “So tell me how you found Isaac.”

⠔

It’d been four days since Benny Villos had reported what he’d found at the abandoned warehouse. Four days since the dilapidated ruins of AAA Steel had been crawling with police cars, crime scene techs, and yellow tape. Actually, the yellow tape was still there, screaming to the squatters, dealers, and whores, in its golden voice, “If you didn’t know from just looking at the place, stay away from here.”

The newest acquisition of the Denver Police Department, Homicide Division, ducked under the tape. Darrel looked down at his watch. It was 4:23 p.m. according to the bright red diver’s watch on his right wrist. It was fast approaching daylight savings, but they were yet to fall back, and the sun was balancing on the large warehouse. Darrel moved from the afternoon sun and into the cold shadows, a ten-degree drop in temperature. He shivered.

There was a cop standing outside the roll-up garage door. As Darrel approached him, the cop began shaking his head. The cop, Samuels according to his name badge, said, “Nobody is allowed in.”

Darrel stopped. He’d never heard of such a thing. “According to who?”

“According to my boss. And his boss. And his boss.”

“The chief?”

“His boss.”

“Shit.”

Darrel turned around. He walked back around the building. His car was three blocks away. He did not head in that direction.

He walked to the back of the warehouse and found a small side door.  It didn’t open on the second kick. Or even the third. It took six kicks for the door to swing open. Darrel hoped Samuels didn’t hear the cracking, but then again, Samuels was on the opposite side of the building, nearly half a football field away.

Darrel pulled the small flashlight from his pocket and moved towards the back of the warehouse. The warehouse was built to house millions of pounds of sheet metal and there was row after row of metal bays stretching from floor to ceiling. Most bays were empty.
 

Darrel swept the arc of his flashlight across the dirt-covered floor, until it illuminated the ten-foot diameter of dried blood where the three bodies had been found. Vermin, mice, rats, and the likes had done a decent job cleaning, but the concrete was still stained crimson. When Darrel had first seen the bodies, his initial thought was that they weren’t looking for a man; they were looking for a bear. It was as if the weapon of choice had been a garden sow.
And then a bowling ball. The victim’s bodies had been turned to mush.

It had taken nearly two days to identify the three men. At least that’s what he’d been told. Darrel knew someone must have known the men’s identities well in advance of two days. Probably knew the second their hearts stopped beating. All conspiracy theory aside, Darrel had been shocked to learn the three men were all successful, wealthy, even prominent figures. One had been a research scientist, an Asian man of forty very renowned for his work on quantum mechanics. The other a black man, fifty-ish, a professor at the University of Denver who taught Anthropology. And the third, an aging white guy, one of the best brain surgeons in the country.

Very odd indeed.

There were a couple of windows in the large atrium, and the falling sun shone through, illuminating billions of dancing particles as it cascaded down to the concrete. Darrel wondered if any of those tinkerbells had belonged to the perpetrator. But it was a moot point. When dusting for fingerprints, they had found nearly 300 separate prints. 299 of them were in the database. Old AAA Steel workers, squatters, whores, druggies. All of them accounted for, except for one.

Darrel had a feeling that was exactly why no one was allowed in the crime scene. Why all the news vans had been held at bay. Why the identities of the three men had yet to be disclosed to the public. That one unaccounted fingerprint was scaring a great deal of people.

After half an hour, Darrel was ready to leave. But his instinct, the same instinct that had kept him alive as a gangbanger for nearly a decade, and the same instincts that had made him one of the best cops in St. Louis, was telling him to do one more sweep of the building.