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“If you get a call that there’s an incident on Colfax Avenue, it’s a guarantee that someone’s been capped.” Not a half second later, Fletcher raised his right hand with his thumb and index finger positioned like a gun and softly said, “Bang!” But then, instead of staring out the window again, a look of sorrow filled his face and he buried his head on his desk.
    I turned to the teacher and came up with the first clean, age-appropriate answer I could think of. “I learned that you can’t judge a book by its cover,” I offered. She seemed disappointed in the answer, so I elaborated. “In my line of work, criminals don’t always look like what you all see on television.
Sometimes the bad guys look like the good guys. Sometimes the clean-cut person is really a monster and sometimes the strange-looking ones are the kindest.” I tried not to look at Fletcher when I said that, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see him peeking out from where he’d buried his head in his arms. He was sizing me up.
    â€œSo how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys if you can’t judge a book by its cover?” the teacher asked me.
    â€œYou listen to your gut and let it guide you.”
    I could see that she had no damn clue what I was talking about. We all have the ability to use our intuition, but we’ve been conditioned to always let logic override the process. Hey, I’m all for using logic; God knows I incorporate logic all the time, especially when I’m listening to a perp’s interrogation and I hear an inconsistency in his/her statement. But you need to use a blend of logic and intuition. Too much logic and you ignore your gut; too much intuition and you lead with your heart more than your head. But it was obvious from the look on the teacher’s face that she’d been programmed to call a spade a spade even though it might actually be a shovel.
    Outside in the parking lot, I was walking to my Mustang to finally get the hell out of this pedagogic prison when I suddenly heard a voice behind me.
    â€œHey, cop lady!”
    I spun around. It was Fletcher. Usually, people can’t sneak up behind me. “Hey, kid,” I said, trying to hide my startled self.
    He leaned forward. I could see clearly how horribly his left eye was injured. The eyelid dropped over the outside of his eye while the eyeball itself was straining to the left. Three scars, varying between two and four inches in length, cut across his left cheek and temple. He gave me his goofy grin.
“I like the way you think, cop lady,” he said, tapping his finger to his head.
    I have to tell you that I felt like I was in a dream at that point. This couldn’t be happening, but it was. “You read minds?” I asked him.
    Fletcher stared into the sky and then to his right, suddenly lost in the moment. “I hear…and I see,” he said. Then he looked me straight on. “ I see . But they don’t listen. But I can hear you and I can see you.…You’re real. Your cover is your book!”
    It was his callback to my “You can’t judge a book by its cover” comment. But then he started rambling and not making any sense. Poor kid. I hope the asshole who did this to him went down hard for it. “What happened to you, Fletcher?” I asked, motioning to his face.
    He quickly covered his left eye with his left hand, as if to protect him from the memory. “Jack and Jill went up the hill and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Jack together again.”
    â€œYou fall?” I asked.
    â€œYeah. Pow! I fall down. Pow! I fall down. Pow ! I fall down and don’t get up. And then, nothing. All black,” Fletcher explained, still sheltering his face. “But I’m lucky. At least I’m not in the wall.”
    â€œIn the wall?” I said, furrowing my