The Man From Lagos Read online

  She squeezed his arm and said she would be in touch soon. He promised Sarah to stay out of trouble and thanked her for fighting for him. By the time she looked over to the prosecutor table, he was gone. Good riddance. He was surely upset to be upstaged like that, and she would give him a couple of days to cool off before she called him. If he really wanted to pursue this, she would hear from him sooner rather than later.

  *

  Sarah made her way out of the courtroom and headed down and out to her car. She would call Peters when she was on the road. She was not happy that he’d missed another appointment at the fertility clinic. He said he wanted kids, but lately, he wasn’t acting like it. Sarah couldn’t get him to admit whether he was disappointed that they couldn’t have kids on their own; couldn’t tell if he was uncomfortable with fertility treatments, or just disillusioned with the idea of parenthood altogether. She would have another serious talk with him tonight when he got home. She had to know once and for all if she was in this alone. If he truly wanted kids, IVF was the only choice.

  She pulled out of the parking lot and headed for home. She thanked God that home was close by in Brooklyn Park. When an opening in Anoka for a public defender had come available, she hadn’t been able to believe her good luck. It would allow her to be close to home if they had kids—no wasting time in traffic. She could even come home for lunch if needed, be close if there was a soccer game or a volleyball game…. Her dreams ran ahead of her. She had no way of knowing whether they would play a sport or not. Sarah just wanted to be a mom.

  Chapter 4

  It’s My Fault

  Peters looked down at his phone and saw that he had three messages. He knew who they were from and felt a sense of sadness and disappointment in himself. He had missed another clinic visit, and this time, didn’t even have a good reason for breaking his word. Another fraught conversation was in the offing, he could feel it.

  And what could he say? He was on board with IVF. He wanted kids just as she did. His heartbreak was the same as hers after losing the second pregnancy—and Sarah had been inconsolable, crying every day for weeks. Something would trigger her sadness and it would release the floodgates of tears and self-blame, and he’d feel the same bottomless, queasy grief. Meanwhile, her sisters had one baby after another. Her friends didn’t have a single miscarriage between them. Why me? What is wrong with me? she kept asking. It took months for her to even think about the IVF method, no matter how much he reassured her that she wasn’t broken. And then he’d made the mistake one night while they were out at dinner of uttering the A-word. Adoption. The look she gave him was crushing.

  The whole thing made him sad. Sarah should be a mother. She deserved to be a mother, and she wanted to give birth. She had so much love to give, and it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t have what would make her happiest right now. So, he knew, no matter what time he got home tonight, she would be waiting up. The come-to-Jesus meeting surely would come tonight.

  Peters pulled into the police headquarters’ underground parking garage, mentally planning his weekly debrief with the chief. But as he took the elevator up to the chief’s floor, he kept thinking about Sarah. She would be home by now, if she was peppering his phone with texts. And she wasn’t happy.

  The elevator opened. He stepped out to a sea of people, most intent on cell phone conversations and checking email on their phones. No one wanted to look lazy while the rising crime rate kept the department on notice. Everyone had work to do: investigations, warrants, informants, and all the minutiae without which all the rest would collapse. The chief was on television every day, showing the public that she would not rest until residents felt safe again.

  Peters knocked on the glass door leading into her office. She was on the phone, and her voice was raised. She looked up sharply but waved him to the chair in front of her desk. He took a seat as she continued putting foot-to-ass to whoever was on the other end of the line. He was used to the office’s sparseness by now—every blank wall and utilitarian shelf speaking to how little time she was willing to spend on the trappings of high office.

  What there was: some pictures of her family in basic frames on a side table by one of the windows. An inspirational calendar hung on a wall. A box of awards occupied part of her work table, half-obscured by a pillar of law enforcement publications. We are only as good as our records on crime prevention and closed cases, she’d said in one of his earliest visits, when he’d remarked on it.

  The chief finished her call and threw her phone on the desk. She stood up and walked over to the window and stared out of it. She finally let out a long sigh.

  “What do you have, Peters?” she said, still frustrated.

  He launched into his report without even asking about her call. He knew better.

  “Marcus Smalls was twenty-six years old and was a mid-level drug dealer from the north side. He was shot in the leg, shoulder, and then a final kill-shot to the head by unknown assailants. He was part of the Chow-Chow Boys crew—mostly known for selling drugs, low-level prostitution, black market arms, and the occasional beatdowns.”

  The chief listened intently and didn’t ask any questions. She already knew this, then, and was looking for something else.

  “Rumors on the street are that the Mason Boys crew are responsible for killing Smalls. They didn’t take it kindly that he would be encroaching on their turf and wanted to send a message on the South Side that some people should stay away, or this is what they would get if they had the guts to try and steal business from them.”

  But Peters added that he didn’t think it was that cut-and-dried. He had looked into both groups and for all their offenses, they were careful to stay off each other’s turf. In this case, someone or some people had moved the body. The medical examiner was still piecing it together, but the preliminary report showed that he was shot somewhere else. No weapons or drugs were found on his body. One of the officers noted that the victim smelled like cologne; his hands were clean and well cared for.

  Peters told the chief that maybe Marcus was set up and shot not because he was doing any deals, but because of a girl who lived in the neighborhood. He’d found out that Marcus was leaving a young woman’s house when he was chased and shot dead. He was in the area to see someone, and it had cost him his life.

  The chief finally spoke. “So, this was all about some girl, some woman?”

  “Yes, Chief,” Peters responded, “I think so.”

  “So, this isn’t some drug war or turf war or something that’s going to blow up into more deaths?”

  “This looks like a case of someone not liking him as a suitor. So, the risk is low, as long as the word on the street is clear on that. Our main danger is that some hothead will act on the rumor of a turf war, fire some shots, and make it real.” Peters added, “There were reports of a Black Mustang leaving the scene before the cops arrived. I checked around, Chief, and there is a car fitting that description that belongs to the neighborhood gangster, Damion Love. I’m still looking into it and will know more with more digging and surveillance.”

  “Have we found the girl yet?”

  “Yes, Chief. Her name is Angie Hookes and she has a child with Marcus, but not a lot of people know that. I did some research and found that he was born at Regions Hospital in Edina, and Marcus is on the birth certificate as the father.”

  After his first surveillance operation, he had thought about it all afternoon: he’d been standing next to two women who were pushing a stroller with a young child. He couldn’t understand why one of the women would be crying so hard for a stranger lying on the sidewalk. When he’d followed them back to a house just a few blocks away, he got the address. He later found out that it was indeed Angie, and the baby was Marcus’s. The lady who’d been consoling her was Angie’s mother. The house belonged to the mother, JoAnne Hookes, who’d been living there for the past thirty years. Angie was one of three kids she’d raised there with Kelvin Hookes, KIA in Vietnam.

  “So, what�
�s next?” the chief asked.

  Peters said, “As long as there’s a rumor of a turf war, there will likely be retaliation by Marcus’s brothers. We need to get to them as soon as possible and deescalate the situation. They need to decide to stand down. Otherwise, they will blame the Mason Boys for this and I don’t think they had anything to do with this.”

  The chief seemed satisfied. “Okay, I’ll take it from here. Good work, as always. It would have taken us weeks or maybe months to get this information. We’ll talk after I’ve followed up on it.” She stood up to signal that their chat was over.

  Peters headed for the door when the chief asked one final question.

  “How is Sarah?” she said with a smile.

  Even after a hard news day and with all that Chief Brown was dealing with, she still had time to ask about his wife. Peters had shared the news with her about him and his wife’s loss six months ago, but the chief asked about her often.

  “Thanks. She is holding up, Chief. I’m going home to her now.”

  “You make sure you take care of her, Peters. Tell her I asked about her.”

  Peters shut the door behind himself and stood outside it, feeling bewildered. The place was still buzzing with activity, and phones rang off the hook. All leave requests had been canceled for the foreseeable future; people looked tired and worn out. No wonder morale was down. Peters felt for all of them. He hoped that his work would help them close enough cases to take the heat off.

  As Peters threaded his way through the hive of activity, he couldn’t help but notice an old sign on the wall: To Protect and Serve. No one had bothered to take it down, even though the new motto was To Protect with Courage, To Serve with Compassion! Peters liked the old motto better. It was clear and direct. Good for them for keeping it up. No one should be told to have compassion—that should be in every public servant’s mind, and if they don’t already have it, they shouldn’t serve at all.

  Just as Peters was about to push through the glass doors to the elevator, he happened to overhear a conversation between two officers he knew from the gang unit. They confirmed his suspicion that Damion Love could be fingered for this killing, as he was responsible for most of the murders in the neighborhood and the ballistics report showed his fingerprints all over this shooting. The slug recovered from the body was similar to other evidence pulled from some victims that were shot by Damion. They were just never able to convict him in court due to some overeager detective’s sloppiness with the evidence on a case the department had thought was a slam dunk.

  Peters would have to look into this further and make sure that the next time Damion was in a courtroom, he would be leaving through the side door to booking. There would be no sloppiness from Peters. He didn’t work that way.

  Chapter 5

  From Bad to Worse

  Peters pulled into the driveway of his and Sarah’s modified two-story home off of Regent and 101st Streets. To afford it, Sarah had sold her downtown condo in Minneapolis and he gave notice on his apartment in Champlin. They had wanted to build a house rather than buy an existing one, agreeing that they didn’t want to live inside someone else’s dreams. What he didn’t say was that his dream was already fulfilled in having a life free of the Gray Project.

  While the meetings with the builder gave him headaches, Sarah had endless patience for the process. Peters trusted her with the color of the brick and the shingles and what shape the sidewalk leading up to the door should look like—all he’d asked for was a first-floor office of his own. Sarah made sure it was a beautiful one. The three-car garage sat to the left of the house with the main door to the right. There was a large transom window like something in a church, and the office was to the left of the front door with wood blinds that were always shut.

  Today, they were open.

  His stomach sank. Sarah must be waiting for him in the office. Sarah only came into the office when she had something important to talk about.

  Peters just sat there in the car, getting his nerve together before opening the garage door and pulling inside. After sitting there for about five minutes, the garage doors started going up anyway—Sarah must have heard his car. He needed to get his ass in the house.

  Peters pulled in, expecting to see Sarah standing there, but she must have pushed the button from the inside and retreated into the house. That meant she was upset. He grabbed his bag and some of his papers from the passenger seat, and then reluctantly headed inside, straight to his office.

  Sarah was sitting on one of the large comfy chairs facing the desk, face red and puffy. She had a box of Kleenex sitting on the coffee table and had a handful in her hand.

  “Where were you today?” she said.

  Her words came out so soft, but they still had the power to crush him. Peters searched for something to say. Sarah knew how to talk to someone when she wanted a constructive conversation. All the judges knew her and respected her. She never raised her voice unless she needed to, and the juveniles she defended almost always softened around her. It meant that at home, Peters felt mute.

  He made his way past where Sarah was sitting and plopped his bag on the table, put the papers he carried on top of his bag, followed by his mobile phone. Words skittered out of his head every time he tried to grasp them. Sarah was still staring at him with those puffy, sad eyes.

  “Do you want kids?” she said.

  “Yes! Yes, you know I do. I’m sorry, honey,” he said as he slowly approached the chair.

  Sarah held up her hand for him to stay back. When she wanted to talk, she did not like to be touched. She treated this like a case. Peters was being interrogated like a witness on the stand giving evidence. He knew he was out of his element, and Sarah was going to win this no matter what. She had the evidence, witness testimony, police statements, pictures, and clear-eyed intent to convict him. How Peters answered would have a lasting effect on their marriage.

  Peters said, “I’m sorry for missing the meeting. I could offer up a ton of excuses, but I won’t. I do want children like you. I do want them with you no matter what.” Peters sat on the floor, facing her, trying to show he was telling the truth. “Yes, my actions don’t support what I just said, and I’m sorry that I picked work over being there with you today.”

  Sarah didn’t respond. She just let his words hang in the air.

  Finally: “I just want to know if I’m going to be going through this myself.”

  Peters edged toward Sarah, not caring if she didn’t want him to. He knelt next to her and grabbed her hand. “All I can say is that I’m very sorry and it won’t happen again.” He buried his head in her lap and wept like a kid who was sorry for breaking something in the house. She cradled his head and started crying herself.

  “I need you, Idowu. I can’t go through this alone. Let me know if you don’t want kids and I will understand. I truly would,” she said innocently. “I just can’t stand having to guess.”

  Peters was crushed to hear that. He had promised to be there with her and for her after they lost their second child. She had even named the child Cathryn. She loved that name, and she loved the whole future she’d imagined for their girl. And when the pregnancy ended, giving the child a name had helped her heal. It wasn’t an anonymous fetus that had died; it was Cathryn. She could mourn someone specific, and he felt that she was thinking about Cathryn now.

  “So… How did it go today?” Peters said, trying to bring her back to the present.

  All the appointments, the injections, the scrupulous trust in letting the clinic handle every step of the process—Sarah had not left anything to chance. Every three-week cycle, it was a lot of visits. Peters had already missed three of the injections, knowing that even if he had gone, he would have just had to sit outside in the waiting room anyway. All Sarah wanted was to see his face once she finished. That was important to her.

  “It was okay I guess,” trying to sound sure of herself.

  Sarah had two more sessions to go, and they prayed that at
the end of the process, they would be able to share the good news with everyone when it was confirmed that they were indeed pregnant…or when Sarah was pregnant. Peters stood up and grabbed his phone. He opened the calendar and confirmed the next appointments with Sarah to make sure that they were correct. He promised her that he would not miss any more appointments, no matter how brief.

  “If we can’t drive together, I will meet you there,” Peters said.

  He opened his arms, and after a moment, she stood and slipped into his embrace. They hugged each other for a long time. Peters kissed her on her forehead.

  “We will do this together,” he promised her.

  Sarah wiped away her tears and left the office. She went upstairs, and a couple of minutes later, the sound of water rushing into the master-bath tub rumbled through the rest of the house. He tried to think of all that he had put her through. She didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve her. Peters knew he had to change and be there for her. He was going to show her that he could do this for them. The chief would understand—he’d just have to let her know that he might not be able to respond to calls if it interfered with one of Sarah’s appointments. Lawana was a mother, too.

  Peters’s cell phone vibrated on top of his bag. After three rings he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He immediately recognized the +234-country code. It was a call from Nigeria, with no caller ID. He answered anyway.

  It was his sister.

  “Hey, Idowu, it’s Sade,” she said with a somewhat somber tone that he was not used to hearing whenever they touched base.

  “Hey, sis, what’s up? You okay?”

  Peters knew something was wrong, but he asked the question anyway. He and his sister had been talking ever since he had gotten in touch with her after years of living in the States. He had found her number through his work at the agency. Sade was pleasantly shocked the first time he called—more exited to hear his voice than to question how he had tracked her down after all those years apart.