The Lost Brother by Rick Bennet Page B

destroyed, was a hair. A kinky black hair. Which Joan decided belonged to a black man. And on the floor, poking out from under the bed, was an empty forty-ounce beer bottle. About which she reached the same conclusion.
    Joan Price has grown up here in Prince George’s County. She sees the hair, the forty, knows how black is crime in this county, doesn’t call 911. Gets an unregistered handgun she’s had for years. Gets in her car. Drives. Deep into the city. Slowly down a block. The right block. The wrong one. First and Kennedy Northwest.
    A black man sees her. Waves her down. Assumes she’s after what white women driving around here at this time of night are usually after.
    Hey baby, what you looking for? I got what you need.
    Joan looks around. Sees no one else. Asks the man for what she knows he’s got.
    He says, Yeah, you know I got that.
    She says, Good, boy, that’s good.
    His eyes widen at the “boy,” but it ain’t no thing, just business.
    She reaches in her handbag.
    He thinks it’s for money.
    Quick is that gun in his face.
    She stares at him. Devil in her. Hate.
    One, two, three, four seconds go by. She stares at him, not breathing, not shaking, not scared.
    He starts to say something. Doesn’t get to.
    When his body is found the next day, it seems to be just another clueless drug kill.
    She goes home and calls 911 to report finding her family murdered. And as she waits, in the bloody house, with that unregistered gun in her hand, for the police to arrive, she holds that gun to her own head. What if she’s wrong about who killed her family? She’s panicking, thinking of that. What if she’s wrong? She knows it isn’t only blacks who might have kinky black hair, it isn’t only blacks who buy forty-ounce beers, and it isn’t only blacks who commit murder. She decides to kill herself if she’s wrong.
    Her family’s killer was quickly identified. A black man. He’d been visiting cousins down the street, and when those cousins, nervous about him anyway because they knew his history, heard about the murders, they called the police, intuiting that their visitor might have had something to do with it. He was easily found, instantly confessed. He’d done it before, been caught before, confessed before, been sentenced before. He said he needed money. Targeted the Price house. Climbed in through a second-floor window after seeing that Mr. Price and his daughter went down to the basement. He said he hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, but when the girl had come back upstairs and caught him, he’d had to silence her. He’d beaten her instead of shooting her to keep the noise down, but when he’d then heard her father calling up for her, he’d forced him at gunpoint back down the stairs and shot him.
    At the killer’s sentencing hearing, Joan was allowed to address the court. She ignored the court.
    She spoke to the killer. Screamed at him. Held nothing back.
    Her testimony, taped, was played first on local television, then nationally. It was captivating. The black man sitting passively, stone-faced; the white mother and wife, devastated, ferocious.
    Joan received letters afterward, even donations. Sympathy.
    She had a personal meeting with the director of the FBI. He asked what he could do for her. She told him she wanted a special assignment.
    “Name it,” he said.
    “LTC,” she said.
    “The white organization?”
    “Right.”
    “That’s interesting. We’ve already been working on a plan to investigate it. We’re in every other white supremacist group. LTC hasn’t actually been proven to be racist, but we’re under pressure to show that it is.”
    “Let me do it.”
    “Why you?”
    “I’ve heard from them. Been invited to speak to them.”
    The Director smiled. Said, “Great. That’s perfect. You’ll have to publicly resign from the FBI first, because you’ve been identified as an agent by the media. A false resignation, of course, and just for the duration of the