I wasn’t real confident about my mental state. I mean, I knew what I just did and I did it on purpose. I’m glad I did it, but that worried me. Something … something to do with the mess of Walanda’s lost life, the potential of her stepdaughter losing hers, and the bullshit cruelty Mikey and Eli were suffering was eating at me. Maybe it was that existential angst bullshit about the cold cruel world, or maybe that thinking was just a convenient way of categorizing it to cover up the fact that I let Walanda down. She asked for help and I didn’t give it.
Then there was Mikey and Eli, and even with all my day-in and day-out touchy-feely social work bullshit, they were in hospital beds. Hey, they may be in excruciating pain, inches from death, but they can identify their feelings.
Fuck me.
I didn’t know what to do. I stared into the mirror for I don’t know how long and lost track of time.
A knock at the door brought me out of it. A quick look at the clock told me I had been in this motel for an hour and a half. I carefully cracked the door with the chain still on. It was Smitty. I let him in.
“I don’t know about you, Duff,” he cracked a smile, “but I need a beer.”
“Where’d you find the Schlitz?” I said.
“Right across the street there’s a beer distributor,” he said, pulling two cans out of the twelver.
He opened his, handed me one, and toasted me.
“You know what Billy Conn said when they asked him why he went for the knockout when he had Louis beat through twelve rounds?” Smitty asked.
“No.”
“What’s the point of being Irish if you can’t be stupid?”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said.
Smitty took a pull off of the Schlitz and let his body fall into the chair by the window. “You know you’ll get suspended,” he said matter-of-factly.
“New York won’t find out, Smitty.” I figured fighting in Kentucky kept me off the radar.
“Son, it made the news.”
“Aw shit …” I said.
“Duffy, can I tell you something, straight up?” Smitty sat up in his chair and looked me in the eye.
“Sure, Smitty.”
“That was one hell of an impressive piece of work you did tonight,” Smitty said. Then he started to laugh so hard the Schlitz came out of his nose.
We laughed most of the night.
Smitty and I were
back up in Crawford by Sunday afternoon. The incident didn’t make the local papers but some of the boxing websites were making a big deal about it. Suggs was an up-and-comer, so for hardcore fight fans it meant something. If it had been just me fighting another professional opponent, it probably would’ve stayed off the radar. It was only a matter of time until the New York Athletic Commission caught wind of it, and once they did, I’d probably have to answer for my actions. If I had known I would’ve got in trouble, it wouldn’t have meant not doing it—I’m glad I did it. Besides, the state I was in at the time wasn’t exactly my right mind. Geez, I was starting to make the same excuses my clients did.
What I hadn’t counted on was my purse being held up. If you flagrantly foul your opponent, the promoter can get away without paying you. Now that might have entered into my thought process—maybe. Seven grand is a lot of money to me. I just should’ve broken his jaw without spitting on him was all.
Being home brought back all the things that were on my mind before I left for the fight. One of the reasons I love fighting is that it interrupts what you’re thinking about. You really can’t think of anything else while you’re fighting. The process of fighting jumbles up the usual pattern of what I obsess on so when I’m done boxing I have a fresher point of view.
I got to thinking of what Kelley had warned me about in Walanda’s case. Though I wasn’t about to apply for a PI license, “Duffy for Hire” had kind of a nice ring to it. Spenser for Hire was a retired fighter and his girlfriend had a dog, though it was one of those yuppie pointer dogs. It certainly wasn’t a kick-you-in-the-nuts, unmistakably masculine hound like Al.
I really didn’t have any plans to do the whole private eye thing, but I did want to find out what I could so maybe I could sleep better at night. The first thing I wanted to do was to check things out at the county jail.
I had a quasi-legitimate reason for going to the jail. We get quite a few referrals from the jail’s counseling programs. I’ve had a standing offer from the caseworker to come sit in on her group. Her name was Jane Wishburn and she was a tough-as-nails recovering heroin addict who had seen it all and been through most of it in her forty-something years. Jane was wiry thin and had long prematurely gray hair. Her face showed the mileage, but in a way that made you respect her. She was attractive in that way but certainly didn’t have what you’d call classic good looks.
Jane’s therapy style wasn’t complicated. She once told me that when you do a session with an addict all you really need to know is one word and the word was “bullshit.” No matter what an addict says, just say “bullshit” when they’re through and 99 percent of the time you’ll be on target. Jane didn’t get bogged down in a lot of touchy-feely stuff. Considering the population of people she worked with, avoiding the touchy-feely was probably a pretty good strategy.
I showed up at the jail half an hour before the group started. I had checked with Jane and she told me it was no problem to sit in. On the way in, I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes and let the disinterested guard wave the wand over me. They checked out my five dollar bill, my sixty-one cents, my paper clip, and my wadded-up Wal-Mart receipt and waved me in.
Jane met me just outside the entrance and we walked through a series of very large metal doors to her office. She had a desk in a small classroom-type area and there were hardback chairs aligned in a circle waiting for the inmates. Jane’s desk was made from a dark metal and it had nothing but a cardboard blotter on it. Next to the wall there was a set of shelves with what looked like old and tattered self-help books.
Another disinterested guard escorted eight women into the room. They all wore green Dickies and white, orange, or black T-shirts. Some had on the jail-issued Keds or black work boots, while others had on their own Nikes or Reeboks. Most of the women had that rode-hard-and-put-away-wet look to them. This wasn’t the crowd that fussed over exfoliating and moisturizing at night and toning in the morning.
Going to group was semi-optional, meaning they didn’t have to go, but if they did, it would help take off a third of the time they had to do. That’s what Jane had to work with, but she was good at putting the tough ones through their paces. The inmates may not turn around when they leave, but they definitely leave with a different level of insight than when they came in. I’ve heard some women describe the experience as taking the fun out of getting high.
The women in this group were almost exclusively into crack and alcohol. The weird thing about addiction is that when you say that someone’s using crack and alcohol, the alcohol gets mentioned as an afterthought. The fact is, alcohol was there before the crack, often is there after they stop the crack, and all by itself it causes a world of problems.
This is the group Walanda was in before she was murdered. There was a good chance that at least some of the women in this group were in the group with her and would know something about what happened. The group happened to be made up of women between the ages of seventeen and forty. The seventeen-year-old was Sherrie, a Latina who could have passed easily for fourteen. The thirty-two-year-old was Marcie, a white woman with summer teeth—you know, some were here, some were there—who had been in and out of county jail since she was Sherrie’s age. There was Katherine, Rebecca, and Rosie, three black women in their twenties, who were big and loud and intimidating. The remaining three women were the creepiest. They were Lori, Stephanie, and Melissa, and they were tough white women who looked to be in their late thirties. They all wore black T-shirts to go with their Dickies.
The three in black stayed to themselves and spoke to each other in the kind of way that was designed to exclude the others. They exuded evil, not that the rest of the crew would have been mistaken for charm school graduates.
“We have Duffy Dombrowski from Jewish Unified Services with us today,” Jane said. “Many of you will be referred there after you get out.” That was the extent of my introduction. The group looked underwhelmed.
“All right—who wants to get started today?” Jane said.
Sherrie had that deer-in-the-headlights look to her. Clearly, this was her first time in and she was scared to death. Jane picked up on it.
“Sherrie,” Jane said. “You look like you better talk. What’s going on?”
“I … I … oh God!” Sherrie burst into tears and dropped her face into her hands.
The three in black giggled and threw each other mocking looks. Jane’s concentration was with Sherrie.
“Start talkin’ girl. That’s what this is for.”
“I can’t take this.” Sherrie sniffled back the tears. “Michael made me steal for him. If I didn’t, he beat me—I can’t stand this—I don’t know what to do.”
“Waaa …” Lori mocked Sherrie to her two friends. “Poor baby.”
Jane’s attention left Sherrie and her eyes were like daggers at the three of them.
“Lori—you got something to say?” Jane’s stare would melt steel. “You got your life together so well you think you can mess with someone else? Let me see … the last I remembered your three kids, by three different men, if I might add, have all been taken away. This is your fourth trip inside and you’re still on crack. I guess when you’ve got your life so together you can make fun of others.”
Lori tried to flash a look that said “Whatever,” but she didn’t pull it off. The other two losers looked down into their laps.
Jane went back to Sherrie.
“What did you try to do to help yourself?” Jane said. “Was getting high helping? Did it make you more or less powerful?”
“I needed it.” Sherrie bowed her head. “I was so messed up because of him. I needed to get high.”
“Bulllllllshit,” Jane said. Having seen her work before, I knew it was coming. “You got high because you were an addict, period,” Jane said.
Sherrie’s head hung down in shame. Jane was tough, but this is what Sherrie needed. She was about to be released, and Jane’s goal was to keep it real for her. I also knew Jane well enough to know that she would make sure to address the abusive boyfriend issue before she left. It was important, right now, for her to blow away any denial about the addiction Sherrie still harbored. Despite the horrendous circumstances that some people face, getting high remains a choice. Sometimes a likely choice, but in Jane’s mind it never stopped being a choice. In her world, she was right. Jane believed that no matter what your circumstances were, you had to get the addiction under control before you could do anything else.
Jane moved on to Stephanie, another one of the in-black trio. She was a slightly younger version of Lori. She was thin and pale with long, dirty blonde hair and a disproportionately large chest, the kind that just had to be fake. She tried to look disinterested when Jane called on her.
“Stephanie, the last time you said it was no big deal to have your eleven-year-old daughter taken away.” Jane’s eyes locked on her. “You were supposed to do some thinking on that.”
“So?” Stephanie said.
“Don’t give me that ‘so’ bullshit. Did you?” Jane said.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well?”
“Well, I think it’s none of your fucking business, bitch,” Stephanie said.
“Excuse me?” Jane said, but not with surprise or concern in her voice. The “excuse me” was her way of making it clear that that kind of talk was not permitted.
“Whatever …” Stephanie said.
“Don’t give me that ‘whatever’ bullshit, girl.” Jane didn’t raise her voice. “You don’t have to be here and don’t count on scoring any jailhouse kiss-ass points for showin’ up and being like this.”
Stephanie raised her right hand slowly and very dramatically extended her middle finger. As she did, I noticed a small indigo mark, some sort of tattoo in the loose piece of skin between her thumb and forefinger.
“Fuck you, bitch,” she said.
“Fuck me?” Jane smiled. “I don’t think so—guard, get these three out of my face.”
The disinterested CO stepped in the threshold of the door, stick in hand, and silently motioned to the trio to move. They did, but not before Lori and Melissa took the time to flip off Jane. They all had the identical mark in the same spot on their hand.
Jane was not ruffled; this is what she did, day in and day out. She saw it as a mission, and she was one of the few who did human service work in the jail who lasted more than a month. It was important to her. Without missing a beat, she moved on to Katherine.
“Katherine, talk to me,” Jane said.
The group went on another half hour in a much calmer fashion. Katherine talked about making things different this time and really following through with NA. The rest of the group sort of cheered her on. Jane didn’t do any more confrontation with the rest of the group, choosing to let the group end on a positive note with some hope for the remaining members.
While they were lining up, waiting for their escort, she called Sherrie aside, put an arm around her, and told her to come see her in the morning. Jane was an expert at gaining respect. Sherrie knew she was rough, but she also knew she cared deeply for her—enough to be hard. It’s what made the difference and what allowed Jane to connect when others never had a chance. Sherrie caught up with the others and Jane and I were alone.
“Well, Duff,” she said. “Wha’dya think?”
“It’s a pleasure to watch you work, Jane,” I said.
“Yeah right, Duff. Stop the bullshit.”
“What?”
“You’re here to find out about Walanda,” Jane said, not asking but stating.
“It’s that obvious?”
“Hell yeah,” she smiled. “You’ve been taking my referrals for three years and this is the first time you come by? C’mon, man.”
“Jane—I’m trying to get a sense of what happened to her, that’s all.”
“Duff, in this place, who knows?” She put a hand on my shoulder. “We both know Walanda was a little nuts and a lot aggressive. That’s a bad combination in here.”
“You got any ideas?”
“Nah … though I don’t trust those three I threw out.”
“What’s their deal?” I said.
“They’ve been in for six weeks. All three were busted for a liquor store holdup. They hang together all the time in here, watching each other’s back,” Jane said.
“Gang stuff? They all seemed to have some tattoo on their hand.”
“Not real gang shit,” Jane took a seat behind her desk. “They’re from out in the boonies, near Forrest Point, outside of Eagle Heights—not exactly the South Bronx.”
“What’s the tattoo?”
“Got me.” She put her feet up on her desk. “It looks like some sort of crosshatching pattern, like tic-tac-toe. Over the years I’ve stopped paying attention to colors, earrings, belt buckles, and tattoos. I don’t want to treat anyone different because of some goofy accoutrement,” Jane said.
“Gotcha.”
“Hey Duff, you could do me a favor. I’m going to send you Sherrie tomorrow for follow-up. Will you take her on your caseload? I think she’d work good with you.”
“Sure. How bad is it at home?” I said.
“Bad. Douchebag boyfriend is some sort of macho shithead who gets off on the whole power thing.” Jane put her feet back on the floor and picked up Sherrie’s file. “She gets high and makes being under his control easy.”
“I’ll make sure she gets on my caseload, and I’ll see her tomorrow,” I said. “Hey, if you hear anything about Walanda, give me call, okay?”
“I will, but I doubt I’ll hear anything in here, Duff.”
I headed back to the office not sure if I learned anything. My gut told me that the three women Jane threw out of group knew something or did something, but that was only natural because they acted so evil in the group. Jail was full of evil people and not all of them necessarily had something to do with Walanda’s death.
Not necessarily, anyway.