I’d had it drilled into my head as a kid that the police were the enemy. They weren’t there to help. Not ever. If you had a problem in the hood, we dealt with it ourselves. Nobody wanted the cops hanging around anymore than they already did.
“What can I help you with today, Miss Arthur?”
“My brother, Axel, was murdered two nights ago in Saint View. I asked to be informed of progress on his case, but as yet, nobody has contacted me.”
The officer raised one bushy eyebrow. “If nobody has called you, that’s because there’s nothing to call about.”
I stared at him. “A man was shot at point-blank range. Murdered on his front porch. There must be something to report.”
The officer opened the cover on an iPad and poked at it a few times with his stubby finger. “Surname the same as yours?”
“No. It’s Fuller.”
“You married?”
“No. Not yet. Engaged.” The word sort of stuck in my throat uncomfortably.
“So he’s not your real brother then?”
I frowned at the condescending tone. “Excuse me?”
“You’d have the same surname if you were real siblings.”
I didn’t owe the man an explanation, and yet I found myself defending my relationship with my brother. When we’d been kids, it hadn’t mattered one iota that Axel and I had different dads. Neither had been in the picture until I was six, and we were both lumped with our useless, drug-addicted hooker of a mother. There was enough shared trauma there to bond any two people, even if they didn’t share an ounce of DNA. “We have different fathers. Same mother.”
“Axel Fuller. Date of birth… Date of death…”
I confirmed the dates with a nod, trying not to stumble over the death date. I didn’t think I would ever be able to say it out loud. Every time I thought about Axel being gone, all I had were regrets that I’d let him push me away.
“Oh.” The officer thumbed through the screen without offering me a peep at it. “Looks like his case has been closed.”
I sucked in a shocked breath. “You arrested someone?”
“No. It was classified as gang-related violence.”
“Gang-related… Axel wasn’t in a gang.”
“Sources say otherwise.”
“What sources?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, I’m afraid.”
I shook my head. None of this made any sense. I would have known if Axel was in a gang…wouldn’t I?
Not if he’d joined in the last few years.
“Miss, it sounds like you didn’t know your brother quite as well as you think you did.”
He wasn’t wrong. Whether Axel had been in a gang or not, there’d been things he’d kept from me. Things that were apparently big enough to get him killed.
“Do you want some Goldfish crackers?”
My throat suddenly went dry, a lump forming that I couldn’t swallow down. “So, you don’t investigate gang-related deaths?”
The officer shook his head. “That’s above our paygrade, I’m afraid. Those cases get sent on to the Gang Task Force.”
“And they investigate?”
The man looked me in the eye. “I’ll be straight with you, sweetheart. You seem like a nice lady. I’m not gonna blow smoke up your skirt. Your brother was a gangbanger, and his case isn’t going to be a priority.”
My fingers clenched around the tabletop. “That’s unacceptable.”
The man shrugged, closing his laptop. “It’s just the way it is.”
Axel’s warning played over and over in my head. “What if it’s not gang-related? What if it had been me, shot in the head on my front lawn in Providence?”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Do you believe you’re in danger, miss?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him about the man in my bedroom last night, but something stopped me.
My mother had gone to the police once. She’d dragged me along with her, telling me not to say a word unless I wanted her handprint on my behind. I’d been there when she’d reported Jerry as a pimp. When she’d accused him of forcing her into prostitution, and of raping her.
I’d been there when the officers had told her they’d investigate. And I’d been there when Jerry paid them off and came home to beat my mother to within an inch of her life.
We hadn’t eaten for three days after that. She’d been too hurt to get off the floor for two of them.