She brought her tears to a dusty back-lot wall, wreathed in red carnations. She brought a framed portrait of a kid in his graduation cap.

Mouang Poo addressed an eye-level photocopy of her son's face, taped on dirty stucco. That's where her words went.

They went to someone no longer here.

"You are my son always, Alan. I hold you in my heart always. We cry for you, Alan. Your brother is not here, but he cries for you," she said. "I love you my whole life. I will never forget you, Alan."

Behind her, candles guttered and a hundred pairs of feet shifted quietly. The monologue grew painful and hoarse, but nobody broke the spell. It was her right.

That's how the friends and family of Alan Lee remembered the 19-year-old youth activist during a candlelight vigil Thursday night in Richmond. While they cried and prayed, San Pablo police a couple miles away clapped handcuffs on the man they say shot Lee during a drug deal gone bad.

"One of the pieces of evidence we found in the victim's car was his cell phone," San Pablo Detective Sgt. Dave Lewellyn said. "It had on it records of who called him."

A woman checking her makeup in the side mirror of a parked car found Lee's body about 1:40 p.m. Monday. Police say Lee probably died about 11:10 that morning, behind the wheel of a Honda sedan parked neatly at the curb on the 2100 block of Stanton Avenue in San Pablo.

"He had a quantity of marijuana in one pocket and a

San Pablo police quickly pieced together Lee's last movements and social contacts. They say he arranged to sell marijuana to two men Monday morning and met them where he died. During the deal, one of the men — police say 20-year-old Michael Herrera Williams — pulled a handgun and shot Lee through the open driver's-side window.

The two men then left with most of Lee's drugs, Lewellyn said, and drove to the Berkeley Marina, where they threw the gun into the water. Then they ditched their car, which had been reported carjacked in Emeryville on Sept. 30, and caught a cab to San Francisco, police said.

Contra Costa sheriff's divers found a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun believed used in the crime in water off the marina Thursday afternoon. Police found the carjacked vehicle in the marina's parking lot.

About 5:40 p.m. Thursday, San Pablo detectives arrested Williams when he went to a jewelry shop on the 14400 block of San Pablo Avenue to pick up a new "grill," or gold teeth jewelry. Police later booked Williams into County Jail in Martinez on suspicion of murder and robbery.

On Thursday night, friends remembered the good Lee did in the community. About 100 people packed a tight back lot behind a community center run by the nonprofit Community Health for Asian-Americans on Macdonald Avenue in Richmond.

Most stood silent, candles flickering in a fall breeze. Lee frequented the center as a high schooler, helping to organize and develop services for Richmond-area youth as a member of the group South East Asian Young Leaders.

He took a peripheral role in planning next weekend's Youth Stopping Violence Summit at Richmond Memorial Auditorium, but most remembered his contributions to a popular musical engineering program supported by CHAA and a constellation of affiliated youth anti-violence groups in the area.

He recently helped record an album of group-member produced music, and friends described him as a lyricist and committed musician.

"I still believe he's alive, like this is a dream," said Phon Chanthanasak, a close friend since middle school. "He was quiet, you know, but his way of speaking was through his music."

Reach Karl Fischer at 510-262-2728.