"But Leon simply wouldn't do that," she insisted.
It was clear this was a waste of time. Short of showing this woman the video footage of her son actually buying the drugs, I didn't think there was any way we could convince her of her son's guilt. I decided to cut straight to the chase.
"Listen, Mrs. Brownell, whether you care to accept it or not, Leon was involved in the shooting that happened earlier today. We need to know if he's here, and if he's not, we need to know if you know of his current whereabouts."
"He isn't here. He left this morning with some of his friends, and we haven't heard from him since."
"Is there a cell phone number that we could use to get hold of him on? We just want to make sure he's okay and see if he can help up find the shooter." I decided to try appealing to her motherly instincts since, no matter how snobby she was, she was genuinely concerned for her son.
"Well, I can give you his personal number, I suppose you could try that."
She gave me her son's number, which I saved on my phone.
"Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Brownell," I said. "We appreciate that. Now, if Leon does show up later, please give me or Ben a call right away, alright?"
I gave her my number and Ben's.
"Fine," she said coldly, glaring at us.
"Have a good day, Mrs. Brownell," I said.
"Bye," she muttered as she closed the door in our faces.
"Wow," I remarked. "I don't know who would be worse to be stuck in a room with – that plastic piece of work or biker Stevens. Jeez, with parents like that, no wonder the kids turned out like they did."
"Yep. But none of this helps – we still haven't been able to talk to either of them."
"Let's try to call Leon with this number," I suggested.
I dialed the number, and it rang for a long time, but nobody picked up.
"He's probably spooked," Ben commented. "Doesn't want to answer calls from numbers he doesn't know because he'll think it's the cops or something.
"You're right. So, we need to call him from a number he does know."
"Well, bitchzilla there – excuse my French – sure as hell isn't going to help us, so we can't call from her number or the house number."
"Does this kid have a girlfriend?"
"There's a good chance he has more than one. I've seen him in the hallways at school getting up close and personal with one girl who happens to be a nice enough girl. Maybe we should pay her a visit."
"Let's go," I agreed.
Ben logged into the school's information database from his phone and looked up the girl's address.
"Megan Price. Found her," Ben said as he read me her address.
We got there after a short drive and went up and knocked on the door. Megan herself answered. She was a pretty girl who looked a little too innocent to be associated with the crap we were dealing with. As soon as she saw us, she blushed deeply, and a look of worry immediately crossed her face.
"Mr. Henderson, Mr. James... you guys are here about Leon, aren't you?" she said, her voice shaky. It looked as if she was on the point of bursting into tears.
"Your boyfriend has done some bad things, Megan. Very bad things," I stated.
"I'm... he's not my boyfriend," she managed to stammer, only just holding back tears. "He just... we just hang out sometimes. I don't...I don't know about the bad stuff he does. I'm...I'm not part of it."
"Relax, Megan," I said, keeping my tone gentle and reassuring. "We never said that you were. But today, he was involved in something much more serious than his usual stunts. Today, Leon and his friend William were involved in a shooting."
Her face went pale, and her jaw dropped with shock.