Chapter 32
AVALON HARDWARE AND Chandlery was on Marilla. Stilwell drove over from the casino and walked through the store to the back, where the owner, Ned Browning, kept his office.
“I thought you’d be by,” Browning said when he saw Stilwell standing in the doorway of his cluttered office.
“Why’d you think that?” Stilwell asked.
“Oh, because everyone’s talking about the graffiti on the chimes tower and casino.
It’s hot news, and I figured you’d come by to see if I was selling spray paint to kids.
The answer is no. There’s a sign right in the paint department that says you must be twenty-one or accompanied by an adult to buy spray paint. ”
“Good rule.”
Browning was a wiry guy with glasses and a deeply receding hairline. He wore a carpenter’s apron over his collared shirt and blue jeans, probably trying to look like the handyman advisers in the Home Depots on the mainland.
“Yeah, but guess what,” he said. “I did an inventory of what’s on the shelf, what’s still in the back, and what’s been sold.”
“And how’d that turn out?” Stilwell asked.
“Not good. I’m missing three cans total. Two ocean blues and one black.”
“Shoplifted?”
“Most likely.”
“You have cameras on the paint aisle?”
“Nope. But I’m going to get them.”
“Do you remember any kids hanging out in the store and not buying anything?”
“Classic shoplifter profile. No, I don’t. But I’m usually back here.”
“Take a look at this.”
Stilwell pulled out his phone and opened the photo app. He showed Browning the photos he had taken of the graffiti artist. Browning squinted and looked closely but shook his head.
“Nope,” he said. “But that’s DuPont paint. I see the logo. That’s the brand of the three cans I’m missing.”
“Thanks for your time, Ned.”
School was done for the day, but Stilwell knew that Olester Bryant, the security officer, worked till five thirty.
Avalon School, home of the Lancers, was located on Falls Canyon Road, a ten-minute drive from the hardware store.
It was referred to as Avalon High, but it actually went from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Falling enrollments in recent years had forced the consolidation of all public schools on the island into one, but even now, the school had fewer than five hundred kids.
Stilwell found Bryant in his office filling out a form requesting supplies from Long Beach Unified, which was the school district that included Avalon.
Like most people at the school, and on the island, for that matter, Bryant handled a variety of jobs.
Every morning he worked in food prep for the school lunch.
“Olester, I’ve got a question,” Stilwell said.
“I’m here for you,” Bryant said.
He said that every time Stilwell had an inquiry about a case with possible ties to the school.
“Take a look at this,” Stilwell said. “Tell me if you’ve seen it before at the school.”
Stilwell opened his phone’s photo app and pulled up a shot of the FSID tag on the wall of the casino. He handed the phone to Bryant.
“Free speech is dead,” Bryant said.
“What?” Stilwell said.
“FSID stands for ‘Free speech is dead.’ It’s the name of an informal club with the seniors and maybe a couple juniors. They started it last year with all that Charlie Kirk–Jimmy Kimmel stuff. Is this the casino? I heard there was graffiti on the chimes tower.”
“Yeah. Whoever did it hit both. How many kids are in the FSID club?”
“It’s not sanctioned by the school, so hard to tell. Maybe ten, twelve. They don’t meet here—it’s not allowed. But I’ve seen signs on bulletin boards about meetups and stuff. They all said FSID and no one knew what it meant, but a teacher got the low-down from one of the kids.”
“Have there been any issues with them at the school?”
“None that came across my radar.”
“Then why isn’t it an official school club?”
“Politics, I guess, but now you’re talking about things I’m not read in on.”
“Okay, look at one more.”
Stilwell pulled up the photo of the tagger he’d taken off the screen at the casino and showed it to Bryant.
“Any chance you recognize him?” he asked.
Bryant looked for a long moment, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.
“What?” Stilwell pressed.
“You’re not going to like it,” Bryant said. “But that looks like Matthew Allen to me. The mayor’s kid.”
Stilwell took the phone back and looked again at the photo. He remembered seeing the mayor’s family at a bail hearing and other court appearances, but he didn’t recognize the tagger. Still, he believed Bryant’s likely identification.
“How sure are you?” he asked.
“It’s not a great picture, but I’m pretty sure,” Bryant said. “Plus, I know he’s got a hoodie like that.”
Stilwell knew that the Allens lived in a condo in the Descanso Beach Club. He had served a search warrant there after he arrested Mayor Douglas Allen on corruption and bribery charges.
“That trial’s coming up, right?” Bryant asked.
“Jury selection starts next week,” Stilwell said. “Unless it gets delayed again. Has the kid been acting out in any way because of what’s going on with his father?”
“Nothing that’s come to me. Nothing serious like this, as far as I know.” He pointed to Stilwell’s phone.
Stilwell nodded. This information put him in a bind.
“His father is out on bail,” Stilwell said. “If I show up at their place to talk to the son, there is going to be an issue. I’m not supposed to have any interaction with Douglas Allen before the trial.”
“You have to get to Matthew outside the home,” Bryant said.
“Right. So can you arrange to have him here in your office tomorrow morning?”
“I don’t know about that. Arresting a kid on campus… I have relationships with these kids. They see me as a friend. If I call a kid in and he gets arrested—”
“I’m not going to arrest him. I’m going to talk to him. It would look bad for me to arrest the mayor’s son after arresting the father. It would look like a vendetta. So I’m just going to talk to him, and depending on how that goes, I’ll refer it. It will be someone else’s call on the arrest.”
By saying he would refer the case, Stilwell meant he would submit it to the district attorney’s office for the possible filing of a charge.
“How is nine tomorrow?” Bryant asked. “I’ll get him between first and second period.”
Stilwell was supposed to be off on Wednesdays, but he wanted to put an end to the graffiti spree.
“That’ll work,” he said.
“If it’s at the school, I’m supposed to sit in.”
“I want you to. I’ll see you then.”
On his way back down the hill, Stilwell called Tash and told her he was done for the day and would head home after checking in at the sub.
“You sound down,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s good,” he said. “It’s just the tin-star effect.”
It was a reference to High Noon and the thankless job of the man with the badge. If you do the work right, nobody notices, nobody cares. And at the end of the day, what do you have to show for it? A tin star.
He had tried to explain it to Tash, how most days were good, but the badge carried a burden, and sometimes the weight of it made things seem dark in the middle of the day.