"A high school principal?" she sneered the question as she gave me the once over. "You look like you're young enough to get out of such a financially unrewarding field. I suggest you do so before it's too late. Otherwise, you’re going to end up like your friend here – nearing retirement age, wearing a cheap, ugly suit, and scraping pennies together at the end of every month, and swirling around the dregs of the swamp with the rest of the lower middle class. "
Wow. When Ben told me these people were worse than Mr. Stevens, I kind of thought he might be exaggerating a bit. Seems this was something I had to see to believe.
"Well, Mrs. Brownell, that's kind of beside the point," I said, doing my best to be calm and civil in the way I spoke. I could see Ben quietly seething with anger, so I decided it was best that I do the talking.
"So, what is the point, Mr. James? Why are you wasting my time? Evidently, you don't know the adage, 'time is money', do you?"
"We're 'wasting your time' because your son was involved in a shooting this morning."
"My Leon? Involved in a shooting? Is he hurt?" she exhibited the first sign of compassion I'd seen.
"He was involved, Mrs. Brownell; he wasn't the victim."
"You must be mistaken. My boy isn't some inner-city thug. He may have had his growing pains, but he would never stoop to that level. I'm quite sure that you have the wrong person."
"No, I'm quite sure we have the right person," Ben said through gritted teeth. "Your precious boy was positively identified by the victim of the shooting."
"Leon didn't shoot anyone," I added quickly, before Ben got too worked up. "He was, however, buying drugs from the shooter."
"I would prefer it if you referred to the substances my son uses as 'performance enhancers.' He takes his bodybuilding very seriously, and these substances are not illegal in many other—"
"We're not talking about steroids," Ben interrupted angrily. "Leon was buying Rocket. It's a street drug, simple as that. Kids use it to get high – not to grow their damn muscles unnaturally large."
"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 genui
nely 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.