The trunk murder from last week. It was a six-inch short because nobody on the desk was all that interested. Juvenile drug dealer strangles one of his customers and puts her body in the trunk of her own car. It was a black-on-white crime but still the desk didn’t care, because the victim was a drug user. Both she and her killer were marginalized by the paper. You start cruising down to South L.A. to buy heroin or rock cocaine and what happens happens. You won’t get any sympathy from the gray lady on Spring Street. There isn’t much space in the paper for that. Six inches inside is all you’re worth and all you get.
I realized I didn’t know the name Alonzo because I had never been given it in the first place. The suspect was sixteen years old and the cops didn’t give out the names of arrested juveniles.
I flipped through the stack of newspapers on the right side of my desk until I found the Metro section from two Tuesdays back. I opened it to page four and looked at the story. It wasn’t long enough to carry a byline. But the desk had put my name as a tagline at the bottom. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten the call. Lucky me.
“Alonzo is your son,” I said. “And he was arrested two Sundays ago for the murder of Denise Babbit, is that correct?”
“I told you that is motherfucking bullshit.”
“Yes, but that’s the story we’re talking about. Right?”
“That’s right, and when are you goin’ to write about the truth?”
“The truth being that your son is innocent.”
“That’s right. You got it wrong and now they say he’s going to be tried as an adult and he only sixteen years old. How can they do that to a boy?”
“What is Alonzo’s last name?”
“Winslow.”
“Alonzo Winslow. And you are Mrs. Winslow?”
“No, I am not,” she said indignantly. “You goin’ put my name in the paper now with a mess a lies?”
“No, ma’am. I just want to know who I am talking to, that’s all.”
“Wanda Sessums. I don’t want my name in no paper. I want you to write the truth is all. You ruin his reputation calling him a murderer like that.”
Reputation was a hot-button word when it came to redressing wrongs committed by a newspaper, but I almost laughed as I scanned the story I had written.
“I said he was arrested for the murder, Mrs. Sessums. That is not a lie. That is accurate.”
“He arrested but he didn’ do it. The boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Police said he had an arrest record going back to twelve years old for selling drugs. Is that a lie, too?”
“He on the corners, yeah, but that don’t mean he go an’ kill nobody. They pinnin’ a rap on him and you jes’ along for the ride with your eyes closed nice and tight.”
“The police said that he confessed to killing the woman and putting her body in the trunk.”
“That’s a damn lie! He did no such thing.”
I didn’t know if she was referring to the murder or the confession but it didn’t matter. I had to get off. I looked at my screen and saw I had six e-mails waiting. They had all come in since I had walked out of Kramer’s office. The digital vultures were circling. I wanted to end this call and pass it and everything else off to Angela Cook. Let her deal with all the crazy and misinformed and ignorant callers. Let her have it all.
“Okay, Mrs. Winslow, I’ ll—”
“It’s Sessums, I told you! You see how you gettin’ things wrong all a time?”
She had me there. I paused for a moment before speaking.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sessums. I’ve taken some notes here and I will look into this and if there is something I can write about, then I will certainly call you. Meantime, best of luck to you and—”
“No, you won’t.”
“I won’t what?”
“You won’t call me.”
“I said I would call you if I—”
“You didn’t even ask me for my number! You don’ care. You just a bullshit motherfucker like the rest a them and my boy goes to prison for somethin’ he dint do.”
She hung up on me. I sat motionless for a moment, thinking about what she had said about me, then tossed the Metro section back on the stack. I looked down at the notebook in front of my keyboard. I hadn’t taken any notes and that supposedly ignorant woman had me pegged on that, too.