Atkins Robert B. Parker's Kickback

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-84344-739-9
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 44, 224 Seiten

Reihe: A Spenser Novel

The iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser returns in an outstanding new addition to the New York Times-bestselling series from author Ace Atkins. What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that's exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the movement is hard-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough on today's wild youth. But Dillon's mother, who knows other Blackburn kids who are doing hard time for minor infractions, isn't buying Scali's line. She hires Spenser to find the truth behind the Draconian sentencing. From the Harbor Islands to a gated Florida community, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk follow a trail through the Boston underworld with links to a shadowy corporation that runs New England's private prisons. They eventually uncover a culture of corruption and cover-ups in the old mill town, where hundreds of kids are sent off to for-profit juvie jails.

Ace Atkins is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-seven books, including ten books in his Quinn Colson series. Handpicked by the Robert B. Parker Estate nearly a decade ago to continue the Spenser series, he's written nine novels about the iconic private eye. He lives and works in Oxford, Mississippi.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Atkins, Ace

Leseproben

2

Blackburn, Massachusetts, didn’t appear on many tourist maps of New England. The old mill town, about thirty miles north of Boston on 1-93, had lost any of its Norman Rockwell charm long ago. The huge brick mills stood like forgotten fortresses along the slow-moving black water of the Merrimack. The skies were gray. A light snow was falling. As I crossed over a rusting metal bridge, I saw ice chunks in the river. I made a mental note: only sixty-nine days until opening day.

I drove around a bit, cruising the downtown and Central Avenue toward the Victorian-era city hall. Most of the storefronts sat empty. I passed the police station, an all-night diner called The Owl, a Vietnamese grocery, and several corner bars. There was the high end of town with an upstart coffee shop and a ladies’ boutique. There was a low end of town with Farman’s Salvage and a scratch-and-dent furniture warehouse. I soon ended up in front of Blackburn High School and parked in a space reserved for the school resource officer.

Might as well start making friends now.

Blackburn High looked to have been built in the twenties, constructed of blondish brick and dull glass blocks. According to a sign, it was home to the Fighting Eagles. I checked in at the office, as thuggish middle-aged men were often frowned upon for wandering school corridors. And these days, schools were locked down after the first bell.

A dour-looking woman in an oversized T-shirt reading ACHIEVE! issued me a badge, unlocked the entrance, and gave me directions to where I was headed.

The school had that familiar scent of old books and disinfectants. Being in school always tightened my stomach. My best day in high school had been graduation.

I found Officer Lorenzo sitting at his desk, hunched over a computer and not looking up even after I knocked on his open door. He was a fat guy with a couple chins in need of a shave. He wore a baseball hat, too small for his big head, with an embroidered law enforcement star reading Blackburn Police Department. I waited in the doorway until he could summon the energy to look up at me. To call his appearance sloth-like was a true insult to the animal kingdom.

‘Fill out the form,’ he said. ‘You can drop it at the front desk.’

He had yet to look up.

I didn’t speak. Finally he lifted his eyes, refocusing.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m not here for the form.’

‘Aren’t you a sub?’

‘Do I look like a sub?’

‘You look like me,’ he said. ‘A guy who loads trucks.’

‘Well, I’m not here to award you officer of the year.’

‘Ha, ha,’ he said. ‘Then what the hell do you want?’

I took a seat without being asked. His minuscule office was very sloppy, filled with stacks of newspapers, old copies of , and a shelf full of playbook binders. He’d fitted cardboard in the windows to keep out any light. He assessed me through smudged metal-frame glasses and shifted on his sizable rump.

I handed him a card across the desk. He took a very long time to read my name, occupation, and phone number. Cops in schools were still strange to me. But these days, it was the norm.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘I work for Sheila Yates,’ I said. ‘Earlier this year, you arrested her son Dillon for setting up a Twitter profile for Vice Principal Waters. You charged him with stalking, making physical threats, and terrorism.’

‘Goddamn right I did,’ he said, crossing his meaty arms across his chest. ‘That’s all done with.’

‘Not for Dillon,’ I said. ‘He’s cooling his heels out on Fortune Island, which I gather isn’t Boys Town.’

‘Not my business,’ he said. ‘The kid was nuts. He’s got mental problems.’

‘How so?’

Officer Lorenzo leaned forward, took a sip from a plastic Coke bottle, and leaned back into his seat. His chair was under considerable duress and creaked loudly during the process. ‘You clear this? Because you can’t just walk in here and start asking me a lot of questions.’

‘I checked in at the office,’ I said. ‘They told me all law enforcement matters were your turf.’

He smiled, eyeing me with new enthusiasm. The man in charge. The top dog. Still, I wanted to reach over and clean his glasses.

‘You ever been a cop, Spenser?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then you know what kind of crap these kids are capable of,’ he said. ‘I back down an inch, show I’m weak, and they’ll take advantage of it. I see them looking at me like I’m just some fat doofus. They think protecting this school is a joke. I start laughing with them and the next thing I know some kid like Dillon Yates is running down the halls with an AR-15.’

‘Quite a step up from cracking jokes.’

‘You can’t give an inch,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Not a fucking inch.’

‘No one wants to see a fat doofus in charge.’

‘Damn right.’

I couldn’t tell if he was doing Eastwood or Wayne. He seemed more along the lines of Roscoe Arbuckle. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So tell me what concerned you about what he did.’

‘Have you met Luke Waters?’ he said.

I shook my head.

‘He’s a class guy,’ he said. ‘You know? Grew up in Blackburn and loves this town. He coaches the ninth-grade football team. Lives his life for these kids. This guy went from being respected to kids snickering behind his back because of that Yates kid. Last time he held an assembly he couldn’t even get kids to sit still and listen. It broke his heart.’

‘Wow.’

‘What did Dillon’s mom tell you? That these were just some smart-aleck remarks?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘The kid wrote some highly disturbing things on that tweeter thing,’ he said. ‘You know what I’m talking about? All the kids mess with that crap.’

‘My fans run my account.’

‘Well, I saw what he wrote. He kept on running down Vice President Waters. He wrote about crazy sexual shit and mutilations. We took it as a genuine threat.’

Lorenzo widened his eyes as if the vagueness was enough. I nodded a few times in mock understanding. ‘For instance?’

‘I don’t have to discuss all this with you,’ he said. ‘Go talk with the chief. I’m a Blackburn police officer, and I did my duty to charge the kid. It was up to the judge to decide what to do.’

‘Nine months is a bit excessive,’ I said. ‘For something written online.’

‘Kid’s sentencing isn’t my department,’ he said. ‘You think I’m tough? You haven’t met Judge Scali. He’s the true ballbuster in this town.’

‘I can’t wait.’

‘He doesn’t care what you think, or the parents think, or any of the bleeding hearts,’ he said. ‘The judge was elected on Zero Tolerance and he means it. Since he’s taken the bench, he’s cut juvenile crime in half. He doesn’t let shit slide like you people in Boston. He knows if he doesn’t reach kids now, they’re gonna be sticking a gun in someone’s face tomorrow. It’s tough love, but it works. I seen it happen.’

‘Even if there’s no crime committed?’

Lorenzo shook his head. ‘You got sold a bill of goods, Boston,’ he said. ‘You got a couple parents around here who won’t get with the program and they say life is unfair. I don’t feel sorry for them in the least.’

‘Can I see the report?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a release from his mother.’

‘Good luck, then,’ he said. ‘Why’d you want to see me?’

‘I wanted to meet the man who started all this.’

The fat man stood, showing he was much shorter than expected, which was perhaps the source of his irritability. He put his hands on his hips as if to show our conversation was over. He adjusted his BPD cap and tried in vain to suck in his gut. ‘Don’t expect a lot of cooperation in Blackburn,’ he said. ‘All your liberal crap doesn’t fly here. It’s a tough town to grow up in, and tough love is the only way we keep things safe. Understand now?’

I saluted him. He scowled back.

‘How about you tell me this? Just what exactly did Dillon Yates write that got the vice principal so upset?’

‘No way.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I can look it up. I just thought you’d stand behind your charge.’

‘Goddamn right I do,’ Lorenzo said, and reached up with his hand to rub both chins. ‘What the hell. I’ll tell you.’

I waited.

Lorenzo ran a finger under his nose and sniffed. He took a couple breaths. I tried to ease my quickening heart.

‘He said Luke Waters got his dick stuck in a VCR.’

I stifled a laugh. Lorenzo didn’t like it.

‘You think that’s fucking funny?’ he said.

‘I do,’ I said. ‘Man versus technology is always comedy gold.’

He glowered. It made me want to laugh...