John Lescroart: The Hunt Club

The Jeffersons lived in number 3, the back unit on the left side. I listened at the door and heard only the familiar drone of a television but couldn't really tell if it came from this apartment or one of the others. I knocked, got no response, knocked again. "Mrs. Jefferson."

Finally, a shuffle of feet, then a woman's voice from inside. "Who's that?"

I knew a few tricks myself. You say Child Protective Services to some people, the door never opens. But you say Human Resources, of which CPS is a part, they often think it's about their welfare payments, and it's open sesame. Mrs. Jefferson opened the door a crack, the chain still on. "What you want?"

"I'd like to talk to you a minute if I could."

"You doin' that."

"We got a call about Keeshiana. Is she all right?"

"Who called?"

"Your mother." Thank God, I thought. It should have been the girl's school, since she'd already missed two full weeks, but they hadn't gotten around to it by the time I called them to verify the absences. Luckily, the grandmother had come by the apartment yesterday and after leaving had called CPS. "She's worried about you both." I shifted to another foot, keeping the body language relaxed.

"Ain't nothin' to worry 'bout. I be taking care of my baby."

"I'm sure you are, Mrs. Jefferson, but when somebody's mom calls in and says they're worried, I'm supposed to come out and see if everything's okay." I pulled the parka closer around me. "If I could just come in and talk to you both for a minute, I could be on my way."

To my right, the door at the opposite end of the hallway suddenly opened all the way with a bang, and a posse of three men came inside amid a blizzard of profanity and posturing. All of them were layered up with jackets, all of them down with the perp walk. My testicles withdrew into my body as Mrs. Jefferson shut the door on me.

The back door stayed open. The leader of the gang, seeing me, stopped and looked around behind him, then down the hall behind me. "Yo, fuck."

I nodded. "'Sup," I said, dishing back some brilliant repartee. But I turned to face them, standing my ground.

"'Sup wi' this shit?" They'd come up close, surrounding me, all intimidation, the usual. The man's eyes looked a sickly yellow. He hadn't shaved in several days. Or, apparently, brushed his teeth ever.

I looked him in his yellow eyes. "It's no shit," I said. I held up my ID. "CPS, guys. Just checkin' on Keeshiana in here. See she's all right."

The front man took a beat, another look around. He swore again, cocked his head, and the posse moved past. The last man, eschewing his earlier mannerly approach, hawked and spit on the floor at my feet.

Tempted to tell them to have a nice day, I figured there wasn't any advantage in it and instead bit my tongue, then turned and knocked again on the door. "Me again," I said.

The door opened, no chain this time. "You some kind of fool or what?" she asked.

I followed her in, the door closed again and bolted behind. It was the kind of apartment I'd seen on dozens of similar occasions before. Kitchen, living room, two small bedrooms. Neither neat nor clean, with dirty clothes strewn on furniture, paper bags littering the floor, KFC and McDonald's containers stacked in piles on end tables and bookshelves that hadn't seen a book in half a century.

She'd pulled the blinds and covered most of the windows with drapes and what looked like sheets or pillow-cases, so it was almost as dark as the hallway inside, but the corner of a sheet over the upper half of the kitchen window had fallen off and let in some daylight. "This is my baby, Keeshiana," Mrs. Jefferson said. The child was at the kitchen table. A sweet-looking diminutive six-year-old in a red T-shirt, her arms rested in front of her, hands clasped.

I didn't put out my hand, kept everything low-key, nodding only. "My name's Wyatt." I gave her my professional smile, and she nodded back warily. I turned to the mother. "Maybe we could all sit a minute?" And pulled out a chair. "So, Letitia," I began to the mother, "is that what they call you?"

"Lettie."

"Lettie, then."

But she cut me off, suddenly angry. "My momma got no call putting you on us. I ain't done nothing wrong, just protectin' me and my baby from evil."

"From evil?"

"Satan," she said.

"The devil?"

"Right."

"Is he after you in some special way?"

"He tole me. Said if she went out, he'd take her. He wants her bad."

"When did he tell you this?"

"Couple of weeks now. I seen him, you know."

"Where?"

She tossed her head. "Just out there."

"In the hallway?"

A nod. "And outside, too. That's why I got the windows covered. So he can't see in, know she's here."

I suddenly understood how the glass panes beside the hallway doors had come to be painted. I reached inside my parka, produced a bag of potato chips and a Snickers bar, and put them on the table without a word, sliding them down within Keeshiana's reach.

"It's okay, honey," her mother said, and the girl gingerly took the potato chips, pulled open the bag, and started eating them quickly, one by one.

I took advantage of the distraction to break the ice with her. "So, Keeshiana, you haven't been outside for a time?"

She looked a question at her mother, got a nod, came back to me. "No."

"You ever want to?"

She ate another chip, this time looking down at the table in front of her. "It's 'cause I'm bad, Momma says. That's why he wants me."

"I been prayin' every day," Lettie said. "Every night. She gettin' better."

I wasn't sure I understood, but I didn't like the sound of any of it. "How are you bad, Keeshiana? You don't seem bad to me."

"Momma says."

"No," Lettie said. "I don't say. But Satan, he callin' her."

"How does he do that? Lettie? Keeshiana?" I looked from one to the other. Finally settled on the mother. "Lettie. How long has it been since you've let her go outside?"

Her eyes went to her baby. She shook her head. "Since he got here."

"The devil? When was that?"

"I don't know exactly."

"A couple of weeks? A month?"

Lettie blinked against the onset of tears. "She go out and you can't fight him. He take her."

"He won't take her," I said. "I was just out there, and there was no sign of him."

At that moment, the wind gusted with a low shriek, and the kitchen window shook above us. "There's your sign," the mother said. "He laughin' at you, waitin' his chance."

"That was the wind, Lettie. Just the wind."

"No! He got you fooled."

"Momma," Keeshiana said. Now she was holding the Snickers bar. "Please."

Lettie again nodded.

Trying to escape the absurdity, I resorted to harsh reality. "Lettie," I said softly. "Mrs. Jefferson, listen to me. I need to know that you're going to let Keeshiana out of the apartment here so she can go back to school. Do you understand?"

"But I can't. I really can't. You can see that."

I didn't want to get into threats that I would take the child. If I didn't make progress, I'd have to get to that soon enough. Trying to remove the girl from her mother's custody would always be a last resort, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. "I tell you what," I said. "Why don't you and Keeshiana dress up warm and we go outside now for a minute all together? Lettie, we can each hold one of Keeshiana's hands. We see anything that makes us uncomfortable, we come right back in here. Promise."

Lettie was frowning, shaking her head from side to side, but the young girl stopped her chewing and her eyes lit up. "You could just undo me a minute, Momma," she said.

Struck by the phrase, hairs raising on the back of my neck with premonition, I said, "What do you mean, 'undo,' Keeshiana?"

"You know." She wriggled in the chair. "So I can get up?"