Keep Her Safe(19)

I hesitate. “My mom never talked about Abe after he died. She wouldn’t answer my questions.” I don’t want to sound too eager, but I’m desperate to know what George Canning knows. Did my mom tell him what she admitted to me?

“I remember her sayin’ something about you havin’ a rough go of it afterward. She didn’t know what to tell you.” George studies me for a long moment. “What was he, again? Your baseball coach? Or was it football?”

“Basketball.”

“Right.” George pauses. “You still have questions about him? Because if you do . . .” The chair creaks as he leans back. “I’m all ears.”

I should say no. I should pretend that what Abraham Wilkes was or wasn’t doesn’t matter to me after all these years. My mother’s cloudy confession might be safer that way. But the truth is it has mattered to me, since long before the night my mother died.

Abe wasn’t just the guy who taught me how to dribble a ball like a pro. And he may have been my basketball coach for five years, but he was never just my coach.

Every time I scored in a game, no one cheered louder than Abe.

My dad didn’t come to most of my games. He said it was because of work, but Abe was a cop on shift work, and he managed to work his schedule so he could coach my team.

Abe taught us how to lose with grace, and to treat all players with respect. Two or three times a year we’d volunteer as a team at a soup kitchen. Other times we’d come out and run drills with young kids from low-income areas. All this was a mandatory requirement for being on his team. More mandatory than playing in the actual games.

I was eleven the first time I kissed a girl. Her name was Jamie, and Abe was the only person I told. He patted me on the back with a knowing smile.

Then he took me for a drive through one of the rougher parts of Austin, slowing past a community center ripe with teenaged girls pushing around baby strollers. Even though schoolyard gossip had already taught me the basics, I got “the talk” from Abe. The one where he stared me down with those penetrating chocolate-brown eyes and told me if I got a girl pregnant and the thought of walking away from my responsibility even crossed my mind for a second, he’d beat my ass because I’m better than that.

Abe was like a father and a big brother and the man I wanted to be when I grew up, all rolled into one.

Yeah, Abe’s death left a lasting impression on me.

The void was gaping.

And the betrayal I felt from this father-figure, this moral god . . . it was crippling. At first, I didn’t believe what the news was saying; I couldn’t. How could someone so focused on doing the right thing do something so wrong?

But my mother didn’t defend him, didn’t discredit what the newspapers were saying. Didn’t deny it. She just drank and let her marriage and our family fall apart.

Before long, it became easier to believe everyone. To believe that Abe was guilty, as much as I didn’t want to.

There’s not a lot that’s worse than finding your mother dead in your kitchen with a gun in her hand. But having that happen on the same night she alludes to having something to do with the death of your childhood idol . . .

Now the one person who would have seen all the evidence against Abe is offering to give me answers.

George leans over. “Boy, you’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. What gives?”

After forty years on the police force, it’s not a wonder he can see right through me. “I still have a hard time believing he did it,” I finally admit.

George presses his lips together. “What do you remember?”

“Just what was in the news.” Over the past few days, I’ve spent hours reading old articles online to refresh my memory, unable to shake my mother’s words.

Abe died in a sketchy motel, along with another guy. Two bags—one of drugs, one of cash—sat on the bed between them. In the beginning, the only statement the police would release was the one confirming that a police officer and a man known to police were found dead, and that they were investigating. The media got hold of Abe’s name quickly, though, along with the details about the crime scene and the fact that Abe was alone and not on duty at the time. They also learned that the “man known to police” was Luis Hernandez, a drug dealer released six months prior. One thing led to another, and soon the public was screaming that the APD was trying to cover up a crooked cop.

George stares hard at his drink for a moment, his lips twisted in thought, before taking a sip. “Did you know that Austin is now the eleventh-largest city in the nation, and one of the fastest growing?”

“I read that somewhere.” Or maybe Silas told me, right after he said not to sell the house.

“It was less than half of what it is today back then, but we all saw it coming. This population explosion. And yet so many people still have a hard time seeing how it’s changing. They expect us—the mayor, the police department, your uncle, all of us—to keep it the same.

“Everyone wants to continue living in their happy little bubble. They want to drink their fancy lattes and go to their music festivals and restaurants and ‘keep Austin weird.’ Sure, we look like a fairy-tale city next to Houston or Dallas or San Antonio. But make no mistake, there’s crime here and it is damn ugly. I mean, for God’s sake, we’re some two hundred and thirty miles from the Mexican border, where they’re funneling through a million pounds of marijuana and who the hell knows how many tons of cocaine every single damn year!” George’s face is turning red with anger. He takes a few breaths to calm himself.