The Finishing School (8 page)

“Yeah? What’s your friend’s name whose dope it is?”

“I ain’t know his name. I just met him yesterday.”

“What does he look like?”

“I don’t really remember. He real average-lookin’.”

“Funny, I’ve heard of this guy before. That nameless, faceless guy who the drugs
really
belong to. You know about him, right, Ray-Ray?”

“Seems like he’s in on every bust I make,” Ray-Ray said, chuckling.

“So you’re really telling us with a straight face you don’t sell drugs?” Melanie asked Juan Carlos.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They let you in MS-13 just because you’re a nice guy?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“They’re relaxing their standards,” Ray-Ray said, laughing.

“Word. That’s the truth.” Juan Carlos nodded vigorously.

“Are you enjoying that burger?” Melanie asked him.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Because the food in the MDC sucks. Even with only twelve glassines, you’ll do time. After jail it’s immigration lockup, where the food makes the MDC look like Le Cirque.”

Juan Carlos put the burger down in the foil container. “Aww, shit! Come on, dawg, help me out here,” he said to Ray-Ray.

“Much as it pains me, Juan Carlos, I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself,” Ray-Ray said.

“What if I aks for a lawyer?”

“Then we’ll stop talking and get you one,” Melanie said. “You’re entitled to due process before getting locked up and deported.”

“Deported. Fuck! I step up and do my time, fine, but this my country. I live here since I’m five. God, apple pie, and the flag and shit.”

“Not much we can do about it if you don’t have papers, Juan Carlos. I hope you’ve kept in touch with your people in El Salvador so at least they give you a big hug when you get back,” Melanie said.

“Okay, okay!” he said. “I cop to the drugs. They
was
mine. But it’s the first time I ever sell. I ain’t even know it was heroin. Thought it was
co
caine. That’s less time, right?”

Melanie sighed. She’d been through the same song and dance a thousand times. This kid had probably been pitching dope since he was eight years old, but he’d never fess up. No defendant ever admitted anything unless you had it on video, and even then they’d do their damnedest to convince you they were somewhere else at the time and the guy on the tape was their evil twin.

“Look,” she said, “we’re very busy. If you don’t want to talk, fine. I’ll get Legal Aid on the phone, we’ll arraign you and go about our day.”

“But then I get deported!”

“You get deported anyway, unless we get you an S-visa,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s for witnesses who are needed for important cases. Since you’re not talking, you don’t qualify.”

“I’ll talk. I’ll talk about anything you want.”

“It’s not a simple quid pro quo.”

“Not a what?”

“It’s not a given. It takes a lot to earn it.”

“I’ll earn it. You’ll see. Go on, aks me something.”

“Okay, tell us about Carmen Reyes.”

“Carmen? What about her? She’s my reading coach. My church got a program for kids who ain’t read. Carmen be teaching me letters and shit.”

“You can’t read?”

He shrugged. “What of it?”

“Ray-Ray, did you read him those waivers out loud?”

“No, ma’am. He never said anything. He sat there and acted like he was reading them.”

“Very funny, Juan Carlos,” Melanie said, shaking her head. This kid knew what he was doing. The whole interview would’ve been thrown out in court. Melanie reached across the table and picked up the waiver of speedy arraignment and waiver of Miranda-rights forms and read them to Juan Carlos in both English and Spanish. “Still want to talk?” she asked when she’d finished.

“Whatever,” the kid said.

“I need a yes or no, please.”

“Yeah, all right.”

“Make your mark, please.”

She passed him the forms, and he signed them again. Next to his signature, she noted the time and the fact that they’d been read aloud.

“Okay, so Carmen is your literacy coach. And what else?” Melanie asked.

Juan Carlos looked back and forth from Ray-Ray to Melanie, his forehead wrinkled, like he was struggling to understand.

“Well, seems to me Carmen ain’t popped her cherry yet, and I’m thinking about gettin’ in her pants. I like virtuous girls. More of a challenge, you feel me? But we ain’t never do nothin’ much about it. I try to kiss her once, and she get scared and run away. But she sixteen, so why you care? That ain’t statutory rape, is it?”

“I don’t do those cases, but I think the age of consent is seventeen in New York,” Melanie said.

“I don’t think so,” Juan Carlos said, shaking his head. “My shorty Bathead got locked up for statutory-raping some bitch who fourteen. I remember he say two more years and he wouldna had no trouble.”

“Bathead, you said?” Ray-Ray asked, looking up from his note taking.

“Yeah. Call him that because his head got, like, a dent from where somebody smash him with a bat. He talk real slow from it, too.”

“Can we focus, please?” Melanie said. “We don’t have all day. Tell us about giving the drugs to Carmen.”

“What drugs?”

“The heroin.”

“Carmen told you I give her heroin? Why she say that?” He looked very confused.

Melanie turned to Ray-Ray. “What was the stamp again on the decks we found in his sock?”

“WMD,” Ray-Ray said.

“We’re not interested in WMD. Tell us about Golpe,” she said to Juan Carlos.

“I don’t know Golpe,” he replied. “
¿Es una marca de drogas
? ”

“I can’t feed you the answers, Juan Carlos.
You
tell
me
what Golpe is.”

“You talking about a stamp? Ain’t nobody use Spanish stamps in New York. Jersey neither. Only place I heard of Spanish stamps is Puerto Rico, the DR, some shit like that.”

“Tell us about the two girls who OD’d. Whitney and Brianna. Did you ever meet them?” Melanie asked.

“The girls who OD’d last night, you mean?”

She and Ray-Ray exchanged glances. Now they were getting somewhere. “Yes,” she said.

“Yeah, I heard about it on TV.” As Juan Carlos looked at Melanie, his eyes suddenly went wide. Sweat began to collect on the dark fuzz of his upper lip. “The shit that OD’d ’em, it was WMD?”

“What?” Melanie asked.

“You sayin’ those girls OD’d on WMD? You know, weapon a’ mass destruction, the stamp I be moving?”

“Did you sell drugs to them, Juan Carlos?” she asked, avoiding his question.

His breathing got heavier, and he looked ready to cry. “I don’t know what Carmen tell you, but that ain’t me. They put WMD in every spot from here to Jersey City, okay? Hundreds of mu’fuckers movin’ that shit. Coulda been anyone who sold it to them girls. It ain’t me. I swear.”

“Did Carmen ever introduce you to Whitney Seward or Brianna Meyers?” she asked, slowly and clearly.

“Why she tell you that? Why she say something that ain’t true?” he asked, an edge of hysteria in his voice.

“I’m not asking you about what Carmen said. I’m asking you about what happened. Did you ever meet Whitney Seward or Brianna Meyers?”

Tears stood out in Juan Carlos’s eyes. “No more questions. I want a lawyer,” he said.

MISS HOLBROOKE’S SCHOOL occupied several adjoining town houses on the south side of an expensive block in the East Seventies. Ray-Ray Wong double-parked in front of the main doors and slapped a police placard into the window of the G-car. Melanie climbed out, picking her way carefully through the slush to the curb. Their government sedan looked incongruous among the glamorous vehicles jockeying for position there. Navy and black Mercedeses and enormous, sparkling SUVs, driven by dark-skinned chauffeurs, all wearing blazers and cell-phone earpieces. Even if Melanie could’ve afforded to buy a brand-new Range Rover and garage it in the city—which, needless to say, she couldn’t—it would never have occurred to her to hire a driver and ride around town in the back.

It was the last day of classes before holiday recess, and a few girls trickled in late. They varied in age from kindergartners to high-schoolers, but all sported an identical look. Long hair, long limbs, beautiful faces with bored, careless expressions. Melanie and Ray-Ray followed the gazellelike creatures up the ice-slicked steps and into the lobby.

The space was dominated by a tall Christmas tree decorated with ornaments of scarlet and gold, which, judging from various banners hung around the room, were also the school colors. A plump, middle-aged woman in a dark dress sat behind the reception desk.

“Good morning,” the receptionist said in a British accent, looking them up and down. “Are you here for an admissions tour?”

“No, we have an appointment with Patricia Andover, the headmistress, regarding a legal matter,” Melanie said.

“Ah, very good.” The woman appeared relieved, and judging by the crew of skinny blond moms parading through the reception area with furs tossed casually over their gym clothes, Melanie understood why. She and Ray-Ray hardly fit the profile for membership in the Holbrooke parent body.

“So Mrs. Andover is expecting you?” the receptionist asked.

“Yes. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Vargas and DEA Special Agent Raymond Wong.” Melanie flashed her creds and nodded at Ray-Ray, who did the same.

“Very well, then. Have a seat, why don’t you, and I’ll let her know you’ve arrived. She should be back from chapel by now.”

“Chapel?”

“Every morning she leads the girls in prayer and announcements in the old chapel. It’s a Holbrooke tradition, but perhaps a bit more solemn than usual this morning.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Melanie and Ray-Ray took seats on a chintz-upholstered bench across from the reception desk. Portraits of former Holbrooke headmistresses lined the walls, the ladies’ attire varying by decade. As a rule they were severe-looking but attractive, with steely expressions, of middle age. Above the portraits, beneath a heavy crown molding, the school motto repeated around the room in gold script intertwined with green vines: PULCHRITUDO VERITAS EST.

“Huh,” Melanie said.

“What?” Ray-Ray asked.

“Holbrooke’s motto. ‘Beauty is truth.’ I think it’s from Keats.”

“Oh.” He nodded, obviously uninterested.

“You know what we should do?”

“What?”

“Get a list of the faculty and staff and run criminal-history checks. Just to cover our bases. Who knows? Maybe somebody has a narcotics record.”

“Sure thing. No problem.”

The receptionist put down her phone and looked at Melanie. “Mrs. Andover will see you now.”

THE HEADMISTRESS OF HOLBROOKE was a petite, handsome woman in her forties, meticulously groomed, with a helmet of highlighted honey blond hair. Clad in a trim skirt that showcased her excellent legs, a cashmere twinset, Hermès scarf, and pearls, she radiated a cold, almost Stepford-like perfection. She also received them with the school’s lawyer standing beside her, which struck Melanie as more than a little defensive. Was Holbrooke worried about something?

“This is a delicate situation, so I wanted my adviser present,” Patricia Andover explained. She took a seat behind a dainty inlaid-wood desk and indicated that Melanie and Ray-Ray should sit opposite her. A tiny Yorkshire terrier that had been resting on a plaid dog bed leaped up and settled into her lap.

The headmistress put her nose right up to the dog’s and spoke to it as if it were a baby. “We have guests, Vuitton. Mommy needs impeccable behavior, yes, yes I do,” she said. Then she turned to Melanie with a studied smile, her glance seeming to note every imperfection, every hair out of place, and calculate the value of Melanie’s clothing and jewelry in the process.

“Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee, tea, Pellegrino?” she asked.

“Thank you, but no. This shouldn’t take long. We need some basic information and assistance in conducting searches, and then we’ll be out of your way,” Melanie replied.

“This is a shocking tragedy for our community. And right before Christmas, too. So terribly sad. Whatever you need, just ask. What can I tell you?”

“Anything you know about Whitney Seward or Brianna Meyers that might help us track down the drug dealer who sold them the heroin,” Melanie said. “We’re also interested in Carmen Reyes, who was at the scene last night and hasn’t returned home. I assume she didn’t come to school this morning?”

“No. She’s absent today,” the headmistress replied.

“Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“No, I don’t. She wasn’t one of our more…uh, visible girls, and I’m afraid I don’t really know her well on a personal level. Was she doing drugs also?”

“There may be some link between the overdoses and Carmen’s disappearance. We’re not sure yet, but locating her is a top priority. We need to search all three girls’ lockers and review their records. We also need to talk to other students who knew them,” Melanie said.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Andover. “I don’t see any problem with any of that. Do you, Ted?”

Ted Siebert was Holbrooke’s general counsel. A heavyset man in a rumpled suit, he shifted uncomfortably on the small chair beside Patricia’s desk.

“Well, just a minute, Patricia,” Siebert said. “I do. Holbrooke needs to think about its liability, with school districts getting sued left and right these days for letting the police search lockers. This is private property. The government should follow procedures before asking us to get involved in searches.”

“Exactly what procedures are you referring to?” Melanie asked Siebert.

“We want to make sure everything is done by the book. Don’t you need a warrant to do this?”

“Not for the victims’ lockers. The girls are dead, so they don’t have Fourth Amendment rights. There’s plenty of case law supporting our right to search.”

“I don’t practice criminal law, but as general counsel I can’t advise Mrs. Andover to risk this kind of liability without a warrant,” Siebert said.

“I’m telling you, no warrant is required,” Melanie insisted.

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Andover. “We don’t want to be difficult, Ted. I am a firm believer in cooperating with the authorities.”