“And what was Casey’s rough beginning?” Ellie asked.
The woman’s eyes dropped, but the smile never faltered. “I think it’s for Casey to choose whom to share confidences with.”
“We know he’s transgender, if that’s what you mean.”
“The preferred terminology is transgender person, but very close, Detective. And do you not believe that’s reason enough for needing a new beginning?”
“What about Brandon Sykes and Vonda Smith? Are they also finding the new beginnings they need?”
A worried look crossed Ms. Ri’s open face.
“I don’t hear you predicting further success stories for your center, Ms. Ri.”
“Please. Come with me.”
They followed her through the shelter, passing a workout room and then a series of small rooms with bunk beds. They ended their journey in a tiny office with just enough space for a desk and two chairs.
“I apologize for the pinch. When we built this center, I thought it best to devote the maximum amount of square footage to the residents.”
“You’ve been here since the beginning?” Rogan asked.
“Yes. We’ve been open for three years. I was previously the director of Operation Nightwatch.” Ellie recognized the name of one of the transient shelters in midtown where people checked in night by night with no promise of a long-term bed. “I saw what happened to our younger clients. They were weaker. More naïve. They had the greatest likelihood of making another kind of life, but they just fell through the cracks. Did you know that half of all runaways have been physically abused at home? That a third will attempt suicide? These are kids who still have a chance in life—without the chronic mental illness and addiction you see in older populations. That’s why at Promises we only accept clients aged sixteen to twenty-four.”
Ellie shook her head. “There shouldn’t be a large enough homeless population in that age group to keep you in business.”
“Here’s another statistic for you: a third of America’s homeless are children. At any given time we have a waiting list with more than fifty names.”
Ellie thought about all the medicated kids up at Casden. They had no idea how lucky they were. “You brought us back here when we asked about Brandon Sykes and Vonda Smith.”
“I do not like to say negative things about the young people we are trying to help.”
“But?”
She placed a hand over her heart. “I have a special place here for Casey. If those two have anything to do with the reasons you are contacting him—well, I worry.”
“We got the impression they were all friends.”
“Casey tries to be a friend to everyone he meets. Not everyone is as accepting of him as he sometimes so desperately wants to believe. Now, Brandon—I do believe that Brandon has been good to Casey at times. Mostly Casey gets along with the girls here. But the boys? It’s a problem. I have to give him his own room because of the gender issues. Brandon, however, has been different. He sticks up for Casey with the males.”
“And yet?”
“This is Brandon’s third and final chance here. We’ve had to ask him to leave twice previously for evidence of drug usage.”
“What drug?”
“Heroin. We don’t call the police on our clients, but we do have zero tolerance. We found a small quantity the first time, which we flushed down the toilet. Two months ago, it was a needle. We let him back in about a month ago, but let’s just say, I have reason to worry.”
“What about Vonda?” Ellie asked.
“Vonda I can’t take back again, I’m afraid.” She shook her head. “I’m sure it’s not the girl’s fault. But her presence here was completely counterproductive to our mission.”
“How so?”
“She is—there’s no other way to put it—she is toxic. She is like a poison that taints everything around her. One of the girls—Lisa—she had completed her applications to CUNY. We had loan and grant forms filled out. She was really going to do it. She was going to start college. The first in her family ever to do it. And then Vonda comes along and—like they say—she pissed all over it.” The word sounded odd coming from this woman’s dignified voice. “She tells Lisa she’s too pretty to go to college. That she’d be wasting her most valuable years in a classroom when she could be meeting men. That’s what it’s always about with Vonda.”
“Forgive me for saying this, Ms. Ri, but Vonda didn’t look like a girl who gave much thought to whether men would find her attractive.”
“You mean she is ugly.”
Ellie shrugged.
“And that’s precisely why she would try to destroy Lisa’s ambitions. Because Lisa is a beautiful girl. And Vonda is not, but would like to be. And if someone else is healthy, she will try to get them to eat junk. And if someone else is about to start a new job, she will keep them out so late the night before that they oversleep and get fired. Rather than try to pull herself up, she tries to drag everyone else down. When I meet two detectives looking for Casey, and telling me it has something to do with Vonda—well, it makes me very worried. Is Casey in trouble?”
“We didn’t mean to alarm you,” Rogan said. “Just a few quick follow-up questions for the kid. Give us a call when he gets in?”
When Rogan and Ellie returned to the squad room, Detective John Shannon looked up from his desk with the smile of a fat kid who’d just snuck a cookie without getting caught.
“What’s up, Shannon?” Ellie asked. “Krispy Kreme having a two-for-one sale?” Her words would be harsh if said to anyone else, but with Shannon, full-on hate speech was friendly banter.
“More like two for one in the dog house. As in, the two of you.”
“What the hell?”
“Go ask the Lou. She came out about ten minutes ago, totally en fuego. Either the two of you fucked up good or she ran out of tampons.”
Robin Tucker called out from her office. “Did I hear Hatcher?”
She started talking before they’d even crossed the threshold of her office.
“Where were you two?”
Rogan pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Working Whitmire.” He checked the screen of his cell phone. “We didn’t get any calls from the house.”
“Shit. I was giving it five more minutes. I was hoping you were pulling a major break in the case out of your asses.”
Ellie wanted to make a joke about giving new meaning to “crack”-ing the case, but figured the comedic timing was off.
“Tell me you at least know who some homeless kid named Casey Heinz is and how he-she fits into this investigation?”
“He prefers he,” Ellie said. “We talked to him last night. Now we’ve got two kids pointing fingers at him. Questionable reliability, but still, we’ll track him down.”
“And do you happen to know who Earl Gundley is?”
“He’s the private dick Bill Whitmire hired.”
“Based on what Mr. Whitmire tells me,” Tucker said, “this Gundley guy worked the job for twenty-two years, solved a gazillion murder cases, and, while we’re at it, he might’ve been the one to pull the trigger on bin Laden, the way I heard it.”
“The family also offered a huge reward without talking to us first,” Rogan said. “We’re pretty sure that’s why these homeless kids are yapping some story about Casey.”
“Yapping a story, huh? Well, maybe this Earl Gundley is Mister Super Detective of the Century after all. Because supposedly he has Casey Heinz in his custody and is currently searching his room at a homeless shelter. I suggest the two of you catch up.”
Chapter Thirty-Two