As he raised himself, his eyes fell on an incredible sight. Slowly, everywhere, the children struggled to their feet. There was some crying, but he didn’t see any blood, no one seemed to be hurt.
“Everyone okay?” Winslow called out. He made his way through the crowd. “Is anyone hurt?”
“I’m okay… I’m okay,” came back to him. He looked around in disbelief. This was a miracle.
Then he heard the sound of a single child whimpering.
He turned and spotted Maria Parker, only twelve years old. Maria was standing on the whitewashed wooden steps of the church entrance. She seemed lost. Choking sobs poured from her open mouth.
Then Aaron Winslow’s eyes came to rest on what had made the girl hysterical. He felt his heart sink. Even in war, even growing up on the streets of Oakland, he had never felt anything so horrible, so sad and senseless.
“Oh, God. Oh, no. How could you let this happen?”
Tasha Catchings, just eleven years old, lay in a heap in a flower bed near the base of the church. Her white school blouse was soaked with blood.
Finally, Reverend Aaron Winslow began to cry himself.
Part I
The Women’s Murder Club—Again
On a Tuesday night, I found myself playing a game of crazy eights with three residents of the Hope Street Teen House. I was loving it.
On the beat-up couch across from me sat Hector, a barrio kid two days out of Juvenile; Alysha, quiet and pretty, but with a family history you wouldn’t want to know; and Michelle, who, at fourteen, had already spent a year selling herself on the streets of San Francisco.
“Hearts,” I declared, flipping down an eight and changing the suit, just as Hector was about to lay out.
“Damn, badge lady,” he whined, “how come each time I’m ’bout to go down, you stick your knife in me?”
“Teach you to ever trust a cop, fool.” Michelle laughed, tossing a conspiratorial smile my way.
For the past four months, I’d been spending a night or two a week at the Hope Street House. For so long after the terrible bride and groom case earlier that summer I’d felt completely lost. I took a month off from Homicide; ran down by the Marina; gazed out at the Bay from the safety of my Potrero Hill flat.
Nothing helped. Not counseling, not the total support of my girls—Claire, Cindy, Jill. Not even going back to the job. I had watched unable to help as the life leaked out of the person I loved. I still felt responsible for my partner’s death in the line of duty. Nothing seemed to fill the void.
So I came here…to Hope Street.
And the good news was, it was working a little.
I peered up from my cards at Angela, a new arrival who sat in a metal chair across the room, cuddling her three-month-old son. The poor kid, maybe sixteen, hadn’t said much all night. I would try to talk to her before I left for the night.
The door opened and Dee Collins, one the House’s head counselors, came in. She was followed by a stifflooking black woman in a conservative gray suit. She had Department of Children and Families written all over her.
“Angela, your social worker’s here.” Dee kneeled down beside her.
“I ain’t blind,” the teenager said.
“We’re going to have to take the baby now,” the social worker interrupted, as if completing this assignment was all that was keeping her from catching the next CalTrain.
“No!” Angela pulled the infant even closer. “You can keep me in this hole, you can send me back to Claymore, but you’re not taking my baby.”
“Please, honey, only for a few days,” Dee tried to assure her.
The teenage girl drew her arms protectively around her baby, who, sensing harm, began to cry.
“Don’t you make a scene, Angela,” the social worker warned. “You know how this is done.”
As she came toward her, I watched as Angela jumped out of the chair. She was clutching the baby in one arm and a glass of juice she’d been drinking in the opposite hand.