Jane watched as Mrs. Leong wiped her face, leaving wet streaks on her cheek, and she thought of her own mother, also fiercely independent, also living alone. She thought too of all the other women in this city, alone in their homes at night. Women who would be alert to the sound of shattering glass and unfamiliar footsteps.
“Last night,” said Jane, “did your grandmother hear anything unusual? Any voices, any disturbance?”
Before Lena could translate, Mrs. Leong was already shaking her head. Clearly she understood the question, and she answered in another long stream of Mandarin.
“She says she didn’t hear anything, but she goes to bed at ten,” said Lena. “Sofia worked the evening shift at the hospital, and she’d normally get home around eleven-thirty, midnight. By then, my grandmother would’ve been asleep.” Lena paused as Mrs. Leong spoke again. “She’s asking is that when it happened? Right after she got home?”
“We believe so,” said Jane.
“Was it a robbery? Because there’ve been a few break-ins in the neighborhood.”
“When were these break-ins?” asked Frost.
“There was one a few months ago, the next block over. The owners were at home in bed when it happened and they slept through the whole thing. After that, my dad installed new deadbolts in Grandma’s doors. I don’t think Sofia ever got around to doing hers.” Lena looked at Jane, then at Frost. “Is that what happened? Someone tried to rob her and she walked in on them?”
“There are items missing from her house,” said Jane. “Her purse, her cell phone. And possibly a laptop computer. Does your grandmother know if Sofia owned one?”
There was another rapid exchange of Mandarin. “Yes,” said Lena. “Grandma says Sofia was using it in her kitchen last week.”
“Can she describe it? What color, what brand?”
“Oh, I doubt she’d know anything about the brand.”
“Apple,” said Mrs. Leong, and she pointed to a bowl of fruit on the countertop.
Frost and Jane looked at each other in surprise. Did the woman just answer their question?
Frost pulled out his cell phone and pointed to the logo on the back. “This kind of Apple? An Apple computer?”
The woman nodded. “Apple.”
Lena laughed. “I told you she understands more than she lets on.”
“Can she tell us more about the computer? What color? Was it old, new?”
“Jamal,” the grandmother said. “He help her buy.”
“Okay,” said Frost, jotting down the name in his notepad. “Which store does Jamal work at?”
Mrs. Leong shook her head. In frustration she turned and spoke to her granddaughter.
“Oh, that Jamal,” said Lena. “That’s the boy down the street, Jamal Bird. He helps a lot of the older ladies in the neighborhood. You know, the ones who can’t figure out how to turn on their TVs. You need to talk to him about the computer.”
“We will,” said Frost, closing his notebook.
“And she says you should use cold green tea and calendula, Detective.”
“What?”
“For your sunburn.”
Mrs. Leong pointed to Frost’s painfully red face. “Feel much better,” she said, and for the first time she managed a smile. Frost would be the one to finally coax a smile from this sad woman. Silver-haired ladies always seemed to treat him as their long-lost grandson.
“One other thing,” said Lena. “Grandma says you need to be careful when you talk to Jamal.”
“Why?” asked Jane.
“Because you’re police officers.”
“Does he have something against cops?”
“No. But his mother does.”
“Why do you want to talk to my son? You people just assuming he did something wrong?”
Beverly Bird stood guarding her front doorway, an immovable barrier against anyone who dared invade her home. Although shorter than Jane, she was as solid as a tree stump, her feet firmly planted apart in pink flip-flops.
“We’re not here to accuse your son of anything, ma’am,” Frost said quietly. When it came to cooling down arguments, Frost was the crisis whisperer, the voice Jane relied on to bring down the temperature. “We’re just hoping that Jamal might be able to help us.”
“He’s only fifteen. How’s he supposed to help with a murder case?”
“He knew Sofia, and—”
“So did everyone else in the neighborhood. But you folks are zeroing in on the only Black kid on the block?”
Of course that’s how it must seem to her, and how could it not? To a mother, the whole world seems like a dangerous place, and when you’re the mother of a Black son, those dangers are only magnified.
“Mrs. Bird,” said Jane, “I’m a mom too. I understand why you’re anxious about us talking to Jamal. But we need help identifying Mrs. Suarez’s computer, and we heard your son helped her buy it.”
“He helps lots of folks with their computers. Even gets paid for it sometimes. Look around the neighborhood. How many of these old folks you think can even figure out their own phones?”
“Then he’s the perfect person to help us find her missing laptop. Whoever broke into her house took it and we need to know the make and model.”
Mrs. Bird eyed them for a moment, a mama bear weighing whether these intruders constituted a threat to her cub. Reluctantly she stepped aside to let them into her house. “Just so you know, I’ve got a cell phone and I’m not afraid to film this conversation.”
“If it makes you feel better,” said Jane. Who didn’t have a cell phone these days? This was the world the police now had to navigate, their every move recorded and second-guessed. In this mother’s place, she would do the same.
Mrs. Bird led them up the hallway, her pink flip-flops thwacking her feet, and called through her son’s doorway: “Honey, it’s the police. They want to talk to you about Sofia.”
The boy must have overheard their conversation because he did not react to the announcement, did not even turn to look at them. He sat at his computer, shoulders slumped, as if already demoralized by their visit. Scattered around his room was typical teenage boy clutter: Clothes on the bed, blue Nike shoes on the floor, plastic action figures crowding the shelves. Thor. Captain America. Black Panther.
“Mind if I sit down?” Jane asked.
The boy shrugged, an answer she took as a yes. Or maybe just a whatever. As she scooted another chair beside him, she noticed a Ventolin inhaler lying on the seat. The boy had asthma. She set the inhaler on his desk and sat down.