Read The Scarecrow for Free Online Page B

out of the car and locked it.
    “You won’t need all of that if we get inside,” I said. “If she lets you shoot her, you’re gonna have to do it quick.”
    “I don’t care if I don’t shoot a frame. I’m not leaving my stuff in the car.”
    “Got it.”
    When we reached the second floor, I noticed that the front door to the apartment was open behind a screen door with bars on
     it. I approached it and looked around before knocking. I saw no one in any of the parking lots or yards of the complex. It
     was as though the place were completely empty.
    I knocked.
    “Mrs. Sessums?”
    I waited and soon heard a voice come through the screen. I recognized it from the call on Friday.
    “Who that?”
    “It’s Jack McEvoy. We talked on Friday. From the
Times
?”
    The screen was dirty with years of grime and dust caked on it. I could not see into the apartment.
    “What you doin’ here, boy?”
    “I came to talk to you, ma’am. Over the weekend I did a lot of thinking about what you said on the phone.”
    “How in hell you fine me?”
    I could tell by the closeness of her voice that she was on the other side of the screen now. I could only see her shape through
     the grit.
    “Because I knew this is where Alonzo was arrested.”
    “Who dat wit’ you?”
    “This is Sonny Lester, who works at the newspaper with me. Mrs. Sessums, I’m here because I thought about what you said and
     I want to look into Alonzo’s case. If he’s innocent I want to help him get out.”
    Accent on
if
.
    “A course, he’s innocent. He didn’t do nothin’.”
    “Can we come in and talk about it?” I said quickly. “I want to see what I can do.”
    “You can come in but don’ be taking no pitchers. Uh-uh, no pitchers.”
    The screen door popped open a few inches and I grabbed the handle and pulled it wide. I immediately assessed the woman in
     the doorway as Alonzo Winslow’s grandmother. She looked to be about sixty years old, with dyed black cornrows showing gray
     at the roots. She was as skinny as a broom and wore a sweater over blue jeans even though it wasn’t sweater weather. Her calling
     herself his mother on the phone on Friday was a curiosity but not a big deal. I had a feeling I was about to find out that
     she had been both mother and grandmother to the boy.
    She pointed to a little sitting area where there was a couch and a coffee table. There were stacks of folded clothes on almost
     all surfaces and many had torn pieces of paper on the top with names written on them. I could hear a washer or dryer somewhere
     in the apartment and knew that she had a little business running out of her government-provided home. Maybe that was why she
     wanted no photographs.
    “Move some a that laun’ry and have a seat and tell me what you goin’ to do for my Zo,” she said.
    I moved a folded stack of clothes off the couch onto a side table and sat down. I noticed there wasn’t a single piece of clothing
     in any of the stacks that was red. The Rodia projects were controlled by a Crips street gang, and wearing red—the color of
     the rival Bloods—could draw harm to a person.
    Lester sat next to me. He put the camera bag on the floor between his feet. I noticed he had a camera in his hand. He unzipped
     the bag and put it away. Wanda Sessums stayed standing in front of us. She lifted a laundry basket onto the coffee table and
     started taking out and folding clothes.
    “Well, I want to look into Zo’s case,” I said. “If he’s innocent like you said, then I’ll be able to get him out.”
    I kept that
if
working. Kept selling the car. I made sure I didn’t promise anything I wasn’t going to deliver.
    “Jus’ like that you get him out, huh? When Mr. Meyer can’t even get him his day in court?”
    “Is Mr. Meyer his lawyer?”
    “That’s right. Public defender. He a Jew lawyer.”
    She said it without a trace of enmity or bias. It was said as almost a point of pride that her grandson had graduated to the
     level