The Bridge (20 page)

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Authors: Solomon Jones

BOOK: The Bridge
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Darnell couldn't think of a response. There was no flip answer to the truth. There was no way to turn it around and point it at Daneen. It was what it was, and he knew it.
“Kenya more than a niece to me,” he said, gazing at the floor as he changed the subject. “I wanna help you find her. It's just hard for me to keep lookin'.”
Daneen stared at him. He looked tortured and pathetic.
“Help yourself, Darnell,” she said as she got up to leave. “That's the best way you can help me.”
“Oh, so you get a little two months clean and think you can tell me 'bout helpin' myself, huh?”
“Who said I was talkin' 'bout that? You got a whole lot more than that you need help with.”
“First thing I need is somethin' to eat,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “You know the only thing Judy got in here is some damn grease on the stove. I can't eat that. Trust me, I tried.”
Daneen dug into the pocket of her jeans, took out a crumpled bunch of bills, and handed him two dollars.
He looked at it. “What I'm supposed to do with this?”
“That'll get you three chicken wings and a rice and gravy from the Chinese store.”
“Damn, sis, that's the best you can do?”
She looked at him, stretched out on the floor with his hand extended toward her like a beggar.
“That's what I should be askin' you, Darnell. I should be askin' if that's the best you can do.”
With that, she turned and walked out the door.
 
 
The news van pulled onto the sidewalk in front of the projects and Channel IO's Jim Wright jumped out, holding a copy of the Sunday
Inquirer
, with Kevin Lynch's photo on the front page next to Judge Baylor's.
Within an hour of that morning's hearing, his department sources had told him that Kevin Lynch had been suspended for his role in the car chase that killed Judge Baylor. Wright had spent the rest of the day gathering other useful bits of information that no one else had thought to seek.
Now he was scrambling for footage so he could package the story in time for the five o'clock broadcast. Shots of the projects, perhaps even the apartment where Kenya had been staying, would do nicely for starters.
As he walked toward the building with his cameraman following close behind, he saw a group of boys sitting on the pole around the outside of the main building. They watched his cameraman to make sure he wasn't filming the project commerce they were posted there to protect.
He went inside, past the vacant guard booth. As he stood by the elevator, pushing the button and hoping that it would come quickly, residents shuttled in and out, looking at him with a curiosity that Wright misconstrued as aggressiveness.
When people started to gather and ask if they were going to be on television, Wright was anxious to move—to do something that would keep him from having to wait there for an elevator that obviously wasn't about to come.
“Let's get some shots on the first floor,” he said, when he spotted the entrance to the stairway. “We can do a standup in the hallway and maybe just take the steps to the seventh floor.”
They walked up the three steps that led to a door and the first floor, opened it, and walked into the dank hallway that ran between the apartments.
As the cameraman turned on the light and Wright began to speak, an apartment door opened and Kevin Lynch walked out. He was saying something to the woman who lived there when Wright spotted him and ran down the hallway, followed by the cameraman.
“Detective Lynch, Jim Wright, Channel 10! I saw you yesterday down at Broad and South when they were searching for Sonny Williams. I'd just like to ask you a couple questions.”
Lynch was taken aback, but recovered quickly. “I'm busy right now. I don't have time to answer any questions.”
Wright ignored that. “Regarding your suspension in connection with Judge Baylor's death, do you feel you've been unfairly made into a scapegoat?”
Lynch looked at the camera, then at the reporter, and wondered how they'd found out about his suspension so quickly.
“I don't have any comment on that,” he said, pushing past them.
“Are you here working on the case in spite of your suspension?”
Lynch walked quickly down the hallway, with Wright and the cameraman close behind.
“Are you any closer to finding Kenya Brown? Is she even still alive?”
He stopped. “Look, man. This might just be a story to you, but these people have to live with it. It's not just some drama for you to put on television so people in the suburbs can shake their heads and talk about the poor little Negroes in the projects. It's people's lives.”
“So does that mean you're still working on the case? And if so, under what authority, since you've been suspended from the force?”
“I'm just visiting,” Lynch said. “I grew up here, and I'm just back visiting. Excuse me.”
Lynch squeezed between Wright and the cameraman and was almost at the end of the hallway when Daneen came through the door.
“Kevin,” she said, and stopped when she saw the reporter.
“Ms. Brown,” Wright said when he spotted her. “You are Daneen Brown, right? Can I ask you a few questions?”
Daneen looked from the reporter to Lynch as the cameraman approached and shone the bright light in her face.
Lynch was angry. He wanted to take the camera and smash it against the cinder-block walls. But he knew that the only way to keep the focus on Kenya, rather than Judge Baylor, was for Daneen to make some sort of public plea. Because no matter what they told themselves, there was still one cruel reality. The longer the search for Kenya went on, the more likely her disappearance would become a homicide. And Lynch knew that he could never live with that.
“Go ahead and talk to them,” he said to Daneen. “It might help Kenya.”
Daneen looked at Wright suspiciously. “Okay,” she said. “Ask your questions.”
“How does it feel knowing that the people who were supposed to be caring for your daughter allowed this to happen?”
Daneen hesitated, then looked into the camera. “I don't know what I feel about them yet. It's still sinkin' in that my daughter gone. I'm still tryin' to deal with that.”
“What would you say to Judy Brown and Sonny Williams if you could talk to them?”
“I guess I would tell 'em we could deal with whatever they did later. Right now, I just want my baby back. So if they can help us find her, I would ask 'em, no, I would beg 'em to tell me where she at, so I could have her back with me where she belong.”
“But isn't it true that the Department of Human Services took her from you and placed her here, with Judy Brown?”
Daneen hadn't expected that type of question. But Wright had done his homework, and what he'd learned was intriguing.
“I had some problems in the past,” she said evenly. “But you tell me what's better for a child: a mother tryin' to get herself together
or a house full o' drugs and God knows what else? I ain't gon' blame DHS for what's goin' on now. But I will tell you this. Kenya woulda been better off with me. Least then she wouldn't be missin'.”
“Yes, but the fact is, your daughter was placed in this home and you could've—”
“Next question,” Lynch said, his eyes flashing a warning.
Wright looked up at Lynch and decided not to press the issue.
“One last question, Ms. Brown. If Kenya was listening right now, what would you say to her?”
“I would tell her I love her. I would tell her to stay strong, 'cause Mommy doin' the best she can to find her. I would tell her that if she mad about somethin', she can talk to me about it. We can start over, baby. I wanna be your mother. I really do. But I need you to come home and gimme a chance to do that.
“Please, Kenya,” she said, as the tears welled up in her eyes. “Come home.”
She leaned against Lynch, who hesitantly put an arm around her. And then she allowed the tears to flow freely as the camera captured her pain in all its heartbreaking detail.
Three divisions of the police department, in various parts of the city, were swept up in the investigation. Officers in South Division, where Sonny had last been spotted, were still scouring the area for him. Detectives from East Division searched the area around Germantown Avenue, looking for Judy. Central Division detectives, along with Housing Authority officers, questioned neighbors in and around the Bridge and Crispus Attucks.
But in spite of the vast resources being committed to the investigation, it was painfully obvious that Kenya was not their concern. Though more than thirty officers were involved in the case, the police had questioned only a few neighbors, and none of them were the people who knew Kenya best. They hadn't extensively questioned the neighborhood children. They hadn't targeted any suspects other than Sonny and Judy.
In truth, most of the officers were only out to find Sonny, but not for what he might have done to Kenya. They wanted to even the score for the officers he'd injured, and to calm the public outrage surrounding Judge Baylor's death.
Roxanne Wilson knew that. And as she rose from the few restless hours of sleep she'd managed since going home on Saturday, she grabbed the Department of Human Services file that a friend in
DHS had managed to smuggle home after working some weekend overtime at the office.
As Wilson thumbed through it, she thought about the disappearances and murders she'd seen during her years in the police department's Juvenile Aid Division.
There was the case of the teen basketball star whose mother had murdered her in a fit of rage, then made a tearful plea for her daughter's safe return. There was the case of the foster mom who'd drowned her infant foster daughter, then had sex with her boyfriend as if nothing had happened. There was the case of the old woman who admitted that she'd smothered five of her infant children while claiming that they'd died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
In all of the most heinous cases she'd seen while dealing with children, it was often the mother or caregiver who was to blame. It was that experience that told her the first finger should be pointed at Judy. But in her zeal to do what was right, she'd forgotten to look closely at Kenya's biological mother. And from what she saw in the file, she should have.
Wilson put the folder on her nightstand, got out of bed, and walked down the hall to her younger son's bedroom. Looking at its contents, which were arranged much the same as they'd been when her son was alive, she remembered why she was hesitant to blame Daneen. Because in some ways, Daneen's suffering had the same roots as hers.
Ten years before, Roxanne Wilson, just recently divorced, moved to her West Philadelphia home. She knew the neighborhood was bad. It had been that way for some time, because the cycles of change always seemed to make things worse.
The violence of the early seventies had died down, and street gangs had virtually disappeared. But as the culture of extended families and respect for elders eroded, so did the quality of life. The gang crimes that had once fulfilled a twisted sense of community were now committed for money.
Senior citizens foolish enough to believe that their struggles had
earned them the respect of the younger generation became robbery victims. Women were no longer sisters, but bitches. Children, increasingly enamored of pop culture, grew up too fast. The church, which had been at the center of every significant community gain, turned inward. The result of it all was chaos. And it seemed that no one could do anything to change it.
Roxanne Wilson saw it all happening, and considered leaving the neighborhood. But she was convinced that as a homeowner who worked in law enforcement, she was a much-needed stabilizing force there. So she decided to stay.
On the balmy summer day that she allowed her twelve-year-old son Rafiq to go out to play video games at a nearby deli, the streets were alive. Playgrounds pulsated to the thump of bass-heavy music. Charcoal smoke from grills mixed easily with the pungent scent of marijuana. Girls wearing scarves over rollers and jeans over curves displayed their hardened femininity like only West Philly girls could. And in the midst of it all was Rafiq—a bookish boy who took his parents' divorce a bit too hard and his love of Pac Man a bit too seriously.
He'd taken his usual route to the deli, down Thirty-sixth to Brown Street, then over to the corner of Thirty-fifth. He walked past the drug dealers who gathered there and into the deli with his friend Brian.
Each boy had a pocketful of quarters, and set out to play until the machine's top ten spots bore their initials. They were on their third game when the black Oldsmobile swung around the corner.
Both passenger-side windows slid open, and two shooters sprayed the sidewalk with bullets from semiautomatic weapons. The dealers on the corner scattered. Two ran toward the projects, while a third ran into the deli and dived toward the floor near the video game.
A hail of bullets crashed through the window. Patrons fled. Women screamed. Men dived for cover. When it was over, the dealer who'd been targeted got up off the floor, brushing broken glass from his hair and clothing. Brian got up next. He was stunned, but unhurt.
Rafiq lay still, looking as if he was asleep. It was only when the storekeeper turned him over, and the blood poured out of the gaping chest wound, that they knew he was dead.
Roxanne Wilson remembered the date clearly. She'd had it inscribed on a bracelet that she still wore every day: May 27, 1981.
According to the case file, Kenya was born the very next day.
Wilson looked at the file and wondered if God had taken her son from the world and replaced him with Kenya. If so, perhaps it was Wilson's job to make sure that Kenya made it through.
The thought of it gave her a portion of the peace she'd lost when her son died. But as she looked through the file and saw the events that had led to Daneen losing Kenya, the peace turned to outright horror.
Human Services had first become involved in Daneen's case when a neighbor called anonymously, in 1987, and informed them that Daneen was living in an abandoned house with six-year-old Kenya. The child showed signs of abuse and neglect. She was taken and, in accordance with procedure, given to a relative who was willing to care for her. While Judy took temporary custody of Kenya, Daneen entered rehab, and sixty days later, was reunited with her daughter in a homeless shelter.
Later that year, Kenya complained of body aches at school. A teacher sent her to the nurse, and a short examination revealed bruises on the child's neck, arms, and chest. Human Services was called in again, along with the police, and it was determined that Kenya had been beaten. Daneen was charged, convicted of child abuse, and placed on probation.
Two years later, Daneen failed one of the mandatory drug tests that were required as part of her probation. Rather than turning herself in for what she thought would be a stint in prison, she went on the run, taking Kenya with her.
It took the police warrant unit six months to find them. When they did, Daneen and Kenya were living in another abandoned house.
Daneen was working part-time as a farm laborer, and hustling the remainder of the time to feed her raging crack addiction. Kenya, who was malnourished, filthy, and bruised, was taken again. Daneen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of child abuse, was sent to a county jail for six months, and did another six months in a rehabilitation center.
Meanwhile, Judy petitioned family court for full custody. Noting a clear pattern of abuse, the court turned Kenya over to her, and from what Wilson could tell, social workers' follow-up visits to Judy's home revealed nothing suspicious.
In one review, a social worker wrote that Kenya seemed to be adjusting well. In another, she noted that the relationship between Judy and the child appeared to be close.
As Wilson continued to flip through the file, however, she saw numerous handwritten notes warning of possible drug activity at Judy's apartment. There didn't appear to be any follow-up, though.
Roxanne picked up the phone and dialed a friend who worked as a supervisor in police radio.
“Get me John Sutton, please.”
She waited as the call was transferred.
“John? Roxanne Wilson. Can you do me a favor and look up a location history for the East Bridge high-rise, Apartment 7D?”
She waited while he punched in the information. When he came back on the line, he told her of the flurry of police activity at the apartment over the past two days.
“Early Saturday morning, there was an unfounded missing person call,” he said. “There was an unfounded person with a gun call, too.”
“Do you know who made that call?”
“Came from a phone booth at Ninth and Indiana. Then there was a narcotics arrest and a crime scene detail assigned there on Saturday morning. The detail was resumed a few hours later.”
“Was there anything prior to that? Any 'Meet Complainant' calls or anything?”
She waited while he double-checked. When he came back, he told her that there was nothing.
“Thanks,” she said, and hung up.
From what Wilson saw, there was more than enough blame to go around. Between the police department, Human Services, and her own family, Kenya had been let down repeatedly. But it had all begun with Daneen.
And as Wilson dressed to go back to the projects, she did so with the intention of finding out if it ended with her, too.
 
 
 
When Jim Wright finished questioning Daneen, Lynch grabbed her by the arm and half dragged her outside to his car. After they'd both gotten in, she tried to cut off what she believed would be another argument.
“Did you find out anything new?” she said, fidgeting under his piercing gaze.
“I talked to Tyreeka,” he said. “She told me she left Kenya in front of the building on Friday night and went to a house on Thompson Street with a boy named Scott.
“I checked it out. Scott Carruthers is the boy's name. He and Tyreeka spent the night at his aunt's house on Friday. The aunt saw the two of them come in. Of course she didn't say anything, because Scott's drug money pays her bills. But that's neither here nor there. The important thing is, she didn't see Kenya with them. And my gut says she's telling the truth.
“After I left there, I went to Rochelle's apartment. She lost a fight with Kenya and Janay and apparently said that she was going to get them. But she really had no intention of doing anything, and even if she did, she didn't have the means.”
“Oh,” Daneen said, withering under his stare.
After a full minute of silence, she turned to him.
“What you keep lookin' at me for?” she said.
“I'm looking at you because you're in my way, Daneen,” Lynch said angrily. “You keep running me down like you need to talk to me so badly. Okay, I'm here. So talk.”
Daneen opened her mouth, then closed it because she didn't know if there was much left to say. Not about the past, anyway.
“I just want to help,” she said, finally. “I don't want to feel like I can't do nothin' to bring my baby back. I tried sittin' back already, and I couldn't do it, 'cause that ain't me.
“Matter fact, it's a lot o' things I'm findin' out ain't me. Like Wayne—that's the guy I was seein'. I mean, he was nice and he wanted to take care o' me and all that. But I was just usin' him.”
Her lips turned up in a half smile. “I know you think that's all I do, Kevin, but I don't. Not no more. I just can't use people like I used to. I guess I know too much about what it feel like to be used.”
Lynch laughed bitterly. “Nobody ever used you unless you wanted them to, Daneen,” he said. “And they never used you unless you were getting something in return.”
“I wish that was true, Kevin. I wish I could say I always got what I wanted out o' everybody that ever used me.”
She sat for a moment, looking as if her mind was someplace else.
“But I guess that don't matter now,” she said. “The only thing that matter is findin' Kenya. I can't sit here and wait for her to come home, Kevin. 'Cause when I sit back, my mind start tellin' me all kinda crazy shit.
“I start thinkin' I should be the one missin', 'cause Kenya ain't do nothin' to deserve this. All she was tryin' to be was a little girl—somethin' I probably ain't never give her the chance to do.”
“Kenya's best chance is for you to leave me alone,” he said harshly. “Just stay out of my way and let me work. I don't need any distractions.”
“Is that what I am to you, Kevin,” she said, looking up at him. “A distraction?”
He looked away and gazed out the driver-side window. “I don't know what you are, Daneen.”
She looked down at his hand, which was resting on his knee. Then hesitantly, almost timidly, she reached out and held it in her own.

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