CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Is it Jaden?” Grace called out after they all stood up.
“That’s the name he’s giving me, yeah,” said the deputy chief.
“Let him in,” Tommy said. “He’s one of my son’s best friends. Let him in.”
The deputy chief looked at the chief, who gave the okay. The deputy chief stepped aside and allowed a young black teen to enter the command center. When Jaden Jefferson saw the Gabrinis, his anxiousness relaxed a little more.
Tommy and Grace, along with Reno and Trina, hurried over to him. The chief went over to him too.
“Hey Miss Grace. Hey Mr. Tommy.”
“What do you know, Jaden?” Tommy asked him.
“They’re saying TJ killed those students. That TJ was the one who shot up the cafeteria. But that’s not true.”
“How do you know that?” asked the Chief.
“Because I was there. I saw the whole thing. It was three white guys. They all had assault rifles and they all did the shooting. They thought everybody was dead, but I was hiding in the broom closet and was able to peep out and see them as they were running out of the cafeteria. That’s when I saw one of them give a rifle to TJ.
He didn’t have any weapon before they gave him that rifle because he and I were eating lunch together.
I had to go get a broom to clean up a spill I made, which is the school rules that you clean up your own mess. And that’s when they came in shooting.”
“So Thomas Gabrini left with these people you claim did the shooting?” asked Chief Browne.
“Yes sir.”
“But why would he leave with them?” asked Grace. “Are you saying they kidnapped him?”
Jaden looked sad. He shook his head. “No ma’am. It looked like he willingly went.”
Tommy and Grace looked at each other. “How could that be?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know,” Jaden said, “but he was acting weird all day in school way before the shooting.”
“What do you mean weird?” asked Reno.
“He wasn’t himself. Like he was really worried about something. And then those . . .”
“Those what, Jaden?” asked Grace. “Tell us.”
“He had on a long sleeve shirt, but one time it was pulled up a little and I saw those stitches on his arm, like he’d had surgery.
I asked what happened and he got real defensive and like the blood drained from his face and stuff.
Then he said he fell and hurt his arm. When I wanted details he got angry with me and said it was nothing and to mind my own business.
So I left it alone. But that wasn’t like TJ.
He never talked to me like that before.”
“And you’re certain you saw stitches?” asked Tommy.
“Yes sir.”
Tommy looked at Grace. “Did Tommy get injured while I was out of town?”
“No, not at all,” said Grace. “And certainly not where he would have needed stitches.”
As Grace was speaking, Sal and Gemma hurried into the command center.
Chief Browne, who knew Sal too, inwardly shook his head.
In that double-breasted suit pretending to be a businessman, he looked like the straight-up mob boss he was, even like a John Gotti clone if you asked the chief, while his wife in her blue skirt suit looked like the no-nonsense lawyer she was.
The odd couple, he called them. The law-and-order wife, and the criminal husband.
He was stunned when he found out that the racist Sal Gabrini he knew married a black woman.
And a dark-skinned one at that. With his crooked, racist ass.
But Sal and Gemma weren’t thinking about those cops. They hurried to Tommy and Grace. “Oh Grace,” Gemma said as they hurried over, “have you spoken to him again?”
“They won’t let me,” said Grace. “They said he hasn’t been harmed and that’s all they’ll tell us.”
Sal, ever suspicious of new faces, looked at young Jaden. “Who are you supposed to be?”
“That’s one of TJ’s best friends,” said Trina. “He said he knows for a fact that TJ didn’t shoot up that cafeteria. He also the shooters.”
Sal was relieved to hear it. “You did?”
“Yes sir.”
“He said he saw an injury on TJ’s arm that required stitches.”
But Gemma the attorney went to work. “You actually witnessed the shooting?” she asked Jaden.
“Yes ma’am. I was there. I saw the whole thing.”
But then Grace thought of something. “Chief?”
“Yes?”
“Could you check and see if our son was put in juvenile detention in Tatem two days ago? On Saturday?”
Everybody in the family had heard about that arrest. “What does that matter, Grace?” asked Sal. “What that got to do with this?”
“Because it was after that arrest when I noticed TJ was acting strange too, like Jaden was just telling us. I assumed it was because that detention center traumatized him, but now I wonder if something else was going on.”
Tommy looked at her. “That’s a good point, Grace.”
The chief looked at his deputy. “I’m on it,” the deputy chief said, and moved away from the group to make the call.
“Did Gabrini say anything to you about any problems he was having at school, or even at home?” Chief Browne asked Jaden.
Jaden shook his head. “Nothing. I mean, he was upset that he missed our soccer game on Saturday, but he knew it wasn’t his fault. He was falsely arrested.”
“Right,” said Sal.
“Then what could have been the problem if he wasn’t himself like you claim?” asked the chief.
“He also claimed that TJ wasn’t the shooter in that cafeteria, which is where all the shooting victims were found,” said Sal. “Don’t gloss over that.”
“We aren’t glossing over anything, Sal,” said Chief Browne. “We’ll investigate it. Unlike what you used to do. This is all news to us.”
“But how can it be news to you?” asked Sal. “This is one of the most elite private schools in the country. Don’t they have video all over this bitch?”
Chief Browne exhaled. “Not one camera was working. The mainframe central command of the entire school was disabled.”
Everybody was stunned. “Are you telling us,” asked Reno, “that they disabled the entire camera system in that school and you still think TJ is the one doing all this shit?”
“Can’t be,” said Sal.
“This is a set up,” said Reno. “They’re railroading our boy. They’re blaming him for shit he didn’t do. I’ll be gotdamn. Get Hammer Reese on the phone!”
Tommy, agreeing a hundred percent with Reno, pulled out his phone to do just that.
“This Math ain’t Mathing!” Reno continued to yell out. “Mick was right. Something’s rotten going on up in this motherfucker. Somebody’s trying to blame our kid for what somebody else’s kids did.”
But the chief was stunned. “Hammer Reese? You’re calling THE Hammer Reese? The Director of the CIA?”
“That’s right,” said Reno, although they all knew Hammer was the former director.
“What you expect us to do? You’re talking like he disabled an entire command system for an entire school.
I love TJ, don’t get me wrong, and he’s a very good kid.
But ain’t no way in hell that kid would know how to disable a command system when his ass don’t even know what a command system is! ”
“You’re talking about yourself,” said Sal, defending his nephew. “Unlike you, TJ got brains.”
“Ah fuck you, Sal!”
“I’m putting him on Speaker,” Tommy said as his phone was ringing.
“I’m still in flight, Tom,” Hammer said as soon as he came on the line.
Reno took the phone from Tommy. “Hammer, get this. They’re trying to claim TJ disabled an entire command system up in this motherfucker.”
“TJ?”
Tommy took his phone from Reno. “It’s Tommy again, Hammer,” said Tommy, taking over. “TJ’s best friend said he was in the cafeteria when the shootings occurred and there were three men who did the shooting. He says it was after the fact that they handed a rifle to TJ and told him to follow them.”
“And he followed them?”
Tommy exhaled. “Yes.”
“What did the video show?”
“There’s no video.”
“Get the fuck out of here!” said Hammer. “How can there not be any video in a school cafeteria?”
“The chief claim they have no video. None,” said Reno.
“Why not?”
“They say the entire mainframe of the schools’ command system was disabled,” said Tommy.
“And their dumb asses think TJ did all that? Not possible,” Hammer said.
“Thank you!” said Reno.
“When was the system disabled?” asked Hammer.
They all looked at the chief. “Just seconds before the shooting began,” the chief said.
“Which means it was a remote disable,” said Hammer. “Whoever did it wasn’t on campus.”
“Now you see how crazy this is for them to even think TJ did this shit?” asked Reno.
Then the deputy chief returned. “What did they say?” Grace anxiously asked him.
“What did who say?” asked Hammer.
“You remember when Grace and TJ were arrested on Saturday?” Tommy asked Hammer.
“I remember. Millie told me about it.”
“Grace wanted them to check on TJ’s arrest,” said Tommy. Then he looked at the deputy chief. “What did they say?”
“They said they have absolutely no record whatsoever of a Thomas Gabrini, Junior or a TJ Gabrini or anybody that remotely resembles him at their facility on Saturday, let alone being booked into it. They only had one arrest that day, and he was a Hispanic kid with a Hispanic name. It wasn’t your son. ”
“What is going on here?” asked a confused Sal.
“But it doesn’t prove anything,” said the deputy chief.
Now Tommy, who was always Mister Cool, was getting hot. “It proves that when my son was in police custody on Saturday, something happened to him. Somebody got to him and put terror in his soul. That’s why Jaden saw those stitches. They did something to him. That’s what it proves!”
“I know that’s right,” agreed Reno.
“What stitches?” Hammer asked.
“Tell him, Jaden.”
Now Jaden’s voice was shaky with nerves.
He knew how powerful TJ’s father and uncles were.
But Hammer Reese was a legend in America.
He read about that man in his History books.
“I saw stitches on TJ’s lower arm earlier today, sir, and when I asked him about it he turned white, like he was scared or something.
Then he hid it from my sight and said he fell and hurt his arm. ”
“Did he?” Hammer asked.
“No,” said Grace. “He wasn’t injured at all. At least nothing that we knew about.”
There was silence on the other end.
“What is it, Hammer?” Tommy asked.
“Am I on Speaker?”
“Yes.”
“Take me off!” he ordered.
Everybody looked at each other. They knew then that Hammer Reese knew something they hadn’t even thought about.
Tommy took Hammer off of Speaker and then moved away from the crowd to listen to what he had to say.
And what he said to Tommy gave him his first ounce of hope since that phone call from Trina, and turned that entire nightmare upside down.