teen didn’t answer. The silence stretched for another full minute before Liz tried again. “What’s going on here?” she asked.
“There ain’t nothing going on here,” Mary said. “Besides me getting bored out of my mind, that is.”
“Somebody’s going to get killed one of these days.” Sawyer paced in front of the two women, stopping in front of Mary. “How would you like it if Ms. Mayfield had gotten a bullet in the back of her head?”
“I got rights,” Mary yelled.
“Be quiet,” he said. “Use some of that energy and tell me about Mirandez.”
“Who?” the counselor asked.
Sawyer didn’t respond, his attention focused on Mary. He saw her hand grip the wooden arm of the chair.
“Well?” Sawyer prompted. “Are you going to pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about?”
“Stupid cops,” Mary said, shaking her head.
He’d been called worse. Twice already today. “Come on, Mary,” he said. “Before somebody dies.”
Mary leaned close to her counselor. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. Honest, I don’t. You’ve got to believe me.” A tear slid down the girl’s pale face, dripping onto her round stomach. He looked away. He didn’t want to think about her baby.
“If I can go home now,” Mary said, looking up at Liz Mayfield, “I’ll come back tomorrow. We can talk about the adoption.”
The woman stared at the teen for a long minute before turning to him. “Mary says she doesn’t know anything about the shooting. I’m not sure what else we can tell you.”
Sawyer settled back against the desk and contemplated his next words. “That’s it? That’s all either of you has to say?”
Liz Mayfield shrugged. “I’d still like a minute of your time,” she said, “but if you don’t have any other questions for Mary, can she go home?” She brushed her hair back from her face. “It has been a rather unpleasant day.”
Maybe he needed to describe in graphic detail exactly what unpleasant looked like.
“Please,” she said.
She looked tired and pale, and he remembered that she’d already about passed out once. “Fine,” he said. “She can go.”
Liz Mayfield extended her hand to Mary, helping the girl out of the chair. She wrapped her arm around Mary’s freckled shoulder, and they left the room.
He had his back toward the door, his face turned toward the open window, scanning the street, when she came back. “I’m just curious,” he said without turning around. “You saw her when I said his name. She knows something. You know it, and I know it. How come you let her walk away?”
“Who’s Mirandez?” she asked.
He turned around. He wanted to see her face. “Dantel Mirandez is scum. The worst kind of scum. He’s the guy who makes it possible for third graders to buy a joint at recess. And for their older brothers and sisters to be heroin addicts by the time they’re twelve. And for their parents to spend their grocery money on—”
“I think I get it, Detective.”
“Yeah, well, get this. Mirandez isn’t just your neighborhood dealer. He runs a big operation. Maybe as much as ten percent of all the illegal drug traffic in Chicago. Millions of dollars pass through his organization. He employs hundreds. Not bad for a twenty-six-year-old punk.”
“How do you know Mary is involved with him?”
“It’s my job to know. She’s been his main squeeze for the past six months—at least.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would he try to hurt her?”
“We don’t think he’s trying to hurt her. It’s more like he’s trying to get her attention, to make sure she remembers that he’s the boss. To make sure that she remembers that he can get to her at any time, at any place.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Three weeks ago, during one of his transactions, he killed a man. Little doubt that it wasn’t the first time. But word on the street is that this time, your little Miss Mary was with him. She saw it.”
“Oh, my God. I had no idea.”
She looked as if she might faint again. He pushed a chair in her direction. She didn’t even look at it. He watched her, relaxing when a bit of color returned to her face.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” he said. “The tip came in about a week ago that Mary saw the hit. And then the convenience store got shot up. She got questioned at the scene, but she didn’t offer anything up about Mirandez. I’ve been following her ever since. It wasn’t a coincidence that my partner and I were parked a block away. We saw a car come around the corner, slow down. Before we could do anything, they had a gun stuck out the window, blowing this place up. We called it in, and I jumped out to come inside. My partner went after them. As you may have heard,” he said, motioning to his radio, “they got away.”
“It sounded like you got a license plate.”
“Not that it will do us any good. It’s a pretty safe bet that the car was hot. Stolen,” he added.
“Do you know for sure that it was Mirandez who shot out my window? Did you actually see him?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t him pulling the trigger. He rarely does his own dirty work. It was likely someone further down the food chain.”
She swallowed hard. “You may be right, Detective. And I’m willing to try to talk to Mary, to try to convince her to cooperate with the police. You have to understand that my first priority is her. She doesn’t have anyone else.”
“She has Mirandez.”
“She’s never said a word about him.”
“I assume he’s the father of the baby,” he said. “That fact is probably the only thing that’s keeping her alive right now. Otherwise, I think she’d be expendable. Everybody is to this guy.”
Liz shook her head. “He’s not the father of her baby.”
“How do you know?”
She hesitated. “Because I’ve met the father. He’s a business major at Loyola.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why isn’t he tending to his own business? What kind of man lets his girlfriend and his unborn child get mixed up with people like Mirandez? He knows about the baby?”
“Yes. But he’s not interested.”
“He said that?”
“Mary is considering adoption. When the paternity of a baby is known, we require the father’s consent as well as the mother’s.”
