Old Bones

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “That’s up to you and him to work out. You do what you gotta do.” Johnny C walked back from her, palming his crotch.

  “You got an itch?” She nodded at his hand.

  “You crazy.” He turned to walk out, pants below his tighty-whitie-clad butt cheeks.

  “That was the wrong thing to say to get rid of me, Johnny C.” She took off her coat in anticipation of spending the rest of her Christmas in the Toy Dolls Club.

  • • •

  Of course it got her nowhere—except for the cold satisfaction of revenge messing with Man’s business. Maybe it served as a warning. But the girls had left the club, and Salt knew that unless Man wanted them found, they likely wouldn’t be. Whoever had said that revenge was sweet hadn’t spent Christmas, the day of one’s engagement, toasting the holiday with a cup of stale coffee from a thermos in the parking lot of a strip club. She kept trying on the idea of marriage, living in her house, his? Dogs? Sheep?

  Then she tried not to kick herself over Mary but wondered about what would become of the girl’s remains.

  The blue stone in the ring on her hand reflected a glint of light from the neon overhead.

  ABYSS

  “Thanks for indulging me, coming to Mai’s again.” In a booth at Mai’s Vietnamese, Salt spooned broth from a bowl of pho with her left hand and lifted noodles with the chopsticks in her right. “I haven’t had any more fainting since the other day; it was probably some small ding from the expressway thing two years ago.” She put the spoon to her mouth. “I’ve had some minor stuff, vision problems mostly, comes and goes. No big deal. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mention it, especially to Wills. He already worries.” She glanced at Felton before taking another spoonful of the hot soup, delicious, curative; cilantro, Thai basil, and mint infusing the broth with freshness.

  Felton tore the herbs and scattered them in his soup. “Every detail of that shooting has been told over and over. But I’d never heard how bad your injury was.”

  “Mild concussion, the doctors said. Most likely from hitting my head on the pavement when I went down.” She added hoisin to the bowl. “Anything new from the task force?”

  “Zip. Nothing. The ballistics don’t match any previous submissions. They’ve enhanced the video, but there’s just so much detail they can get. The truck, a black Blazer, is about as common in Georgia as chickens.” Felton snatched his Handie-Talkie off the table in front of his bowl. “4144, go ahead,” he said, snarling into the mic.

  Salt turned the volume knob on her radio, monitoring the call.

  “4144, Zone One is calling for Homicide on a body found in Bellwood Quarry.”

  “Bellwood,” Felton confirmed to dispatch. To Salt he said, “‘Bellwood’ sounds so idyllic. Want me to drop you at the office? A few minutes won’t make any difference to the deceased.” He took two quick sips of his newly herbed pho.

  “Really, I’m fine.” Salt stood and picked up her check stub. They left tips for their barely touched meal. Outside two of Mai’s staff were taking down Christmas lights from around the big windows of the noodle shop.

  • • •

  The uniformed officer stationed at the entrance gate to the property pointed southward. “Just follow the road. Can’t miss them. Bates is standing by with the guy who found her.”

  As they drove the rough road through a field of brown weeds, tall grasses slapped at the undercarriage of the Taurus. A patrol car was parked next to a Jeep inside the fenced-off quarry. The officer stood talking with a white guy about fifty years old. Before Felton was out of the car, the man strode up to the Taurus window and held his hand out. “Wow. I’ve never met real live detectives before.” Felton shook his hand. The guy nodded at Salt. “Women—just like on TV. Times change. I’m Jim Britton.”

  Officer Bates had little to tell them, just that he’d responded when Britton called, gone down and seen that there was a body, and come back up to wait for them. The property, some three hundred acres in which the forty-acre pit was located, had been reclaimed by the city after a hundred years of granite mining. It was used occasionally as a site for movie shoots and a zombie and vampire TV series, and was soon to be developed into a water reservoir and park.

  “I can take you down,” Britton said. “You need a four-wheel drive to negotiate the road.” While Felton went to the passenger door of the mud-splattered high-fender Jeep with the BeltLine logo on the doors, Britton opened the driver’s-side door and pulled the seat forward for Salt to get in the back. Thin and agile, Britton hopped into the driver’s seat. “Buckle up,” Britton said. “Wouldn’t want to get a ticket.” He seemed nervous fumbling with the seat belt. “Whew.” He put the Jeep in gear.

  The Jeep’s headlights limited their view to the narrow gravel road cut into the sides of the granite and partway up the darker gray walls. However, looking out to the middle of the quarry, the reflection of a half-moon shimmered. The degree of the decline had been lessened by cutting the road to circle the entire mine and then cutting it again so that it snaked around the wall and down to the water. Britton adjusted the gears as the gradient steepened. Raising his voice over the noises from the engine, transmission, and suspension, he said, “The city owns the quarry itself and the BeltLine owns the hundreds of acres around it. I’m with the environmental study group. This is going to be a great asset for the city’s water system.”

  “Any record kept of people who have keys to the gates?” Felton asked.

  “Not that I know of. It’s actually a punch-code lock. Besides, someone on foot wouldn’t need to go through the gate if they were familiar with the property. There are holes everywhere in the fencing around the property and holes in the fence around the quarry itself.”

  The suspension swayed, rocking Salt on the hard backseat.

  “You okay back there?” Britton turned his head briefly.

  “What brought you out here?” she asked. “This late?”

  Britton stopped the Jeep on a leveled area where a dump truck was parked and where there was room enough for other equipment to maneuver. “I’d been out earlier today looking at drainage from the quarry basin to Proctor Creek, which is a tributary of the Chattahoochee. It took me longer than I expected, but still, after taking my measurements, I wanted to come down just to check on the progress of the reservoir.”

  Dust stirred up by the Jeep rose and settled around them as they got out. Britton pointed to a small point at the water’s edge but stayed at the Jeep door while Felton and Salt walked, their flashlights illuminating the rutted dirt and small dusty clumps of grasses.

  Eight feet from the lip of the water a body floated. Clad in a puffy, buoyant-looking quilted green jacket, one arm stretched toward shore, its dark extended hand pointing like God to Adam—or was it Adam pointing to God in Michelangelo’s painting? I’ll look that up, Salt thought.

  “Radio, start the techs and ME to this location,” Felton said into his Handie-Talkie. “I’d say that’s a body,” he said to Salt or himself.

  “What do you suppose she’s reaching for?” Salt said.

  “What?”

  “Her hand, the fingers.”

  “Her?”

  “Maybe. The coat. Looks like the hair might be longer, overdue for a touch-up.” Salt shone her light out across the water.

  • • •

  “Good of you to let us keep your vehicle.” Salt was driving Felton’s Taurus, taking Britton to his home in the Druid Hills neighborhood on the other side of the city from Bellwood Quarry. Older brick and Tudor homes and classical Georgian revivals sat up hilly landscaped lawns. “Is your family from Atlanta? There was a mayor named Britton, if I’m remembering right.”

  “My great-grandfather. Left here.” He pointed out the next street. As they passed, he looked out at his neighbors’ homes. “Next house. There,” he said. The big Tudor sat thirty yards from the street, a bank of ivy
ending at precisely cut fescue. The bases of three bare hardwoods were mulched and circled with monkey grass.

  “Nice,” Salt said.

  “You don’t have to go up the drive. It’s a bit tricky. Just let me out here.” He grabbed his leather satchel. “I would say it’s been a pleasure . . .”

  “We’ve got your contact information. Thank you again for your help, especially with the transportation.”

  Britton looked forward out at the night, as if he might say something more, then he reached for the door.

  LAST DAYS OF THE YEAR

  “You smell good, like roses and coconut or something.” Thornton, her friend from the Homeless Outreach and Proactive Enforcement Team, nudged her. He smelled faintly of the all-natural repellent Salt had given the HOPE Team last year. It was dark inside the white unmarked van, the seats of which had been removed and replaced with hard benches along the side walls so that they sat facing each other, six along each side. Again Pepper drove. Fellows sat behind him, Salt across from her.

  It probably seemed like a good idea to the organizers—honoring their martyred sister students with a New Year’s Eve concert to raise money for a women’s shelter. But once again there was concern about counterprotests and violence from the neo-Nazi group. Student leaders had seen and heard on TV the rantings of one of its leaders, so they’d sent an e-mail blast and texts encouraging their fellow students to return to school early, to come back to Atlanta in a show of force for the benefit concert. The performers were mostly local rap artists, including Flash Daddy and some of his protégés. Use of Philips Arena had been made possible through a discount on the part of the facility and donations from national and local celebrities. They’d kept the ticket prices affordable for the students, and the after-party at the annual Peach Drop at Underground Atlanta was free, as it was every year. Juveniles flocked to the annual event, especially those who had few celebratory opportunities the rest of the year. With live music and fireworks, it drew a mix of Atlanta’s population.

  The van smelled like most used police vehicles—stale French fries, cheap air freshener, and some vague dust-dirt odor. One of their crew had on too much cologne. Someone hadn’t showered. “I see that look. If you fart in this van, I swear I will beat you like a rented mule.” “No! Sarge, he’s lifting his butt.” “Aw, come on, man.”

  Behind the benches on each side were long rectangular tinted windows that while obstructing the view from outside allowed those inside an only slightly dimmed view of the passing scenery. Young people danced in the street holding aloft cans and bottles. Fires burned wherever materials had been found, in trash cans and newspaper boxes. They watched from the darkness of the van; in the foreground the whites of one another’s eyes stood out, luminescent.

  A bit of skin at Salt’s waist, between where her vest met the top of her leather gear belt, was pinching. “For now we see through a glass, darkly.” She tugged at her vest and tried to remember the rest of the verse, from one of St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Sirens sounded from every direction, the wail of ambulances, the heavy honking of the fire truck horns, the whoop whoop of police vehicles cutting through traffic. Building alarms chirped and screamed. Overhead came the whap whap of news and law-enforcement helicopters, their floodlights washing over the scenes below, streets lit by high-intensity streetlights in contrast with darkened alleys. As they drove north on Spring Street approaching Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, they passed a smoldering trash receptacle, glowing red behind the iron mesh. Inside the confines of the van, their faces had begun to glisten with sweat, bullet-resistant vests and stifling winter jackets. Their shields and helmets were stacked at the rear door. They passed a newspaper box, opened like a stove, full of bright flames. The fires became more numerous; at every corner, at bus stops, every trash barrel or paper box had been set on fire. A fire truck crew hosed a steaming pickup while a TV news crew disembarked, camerawoman shooting even as she stepped out. Salt didn’t for a second believe the fires were set by college students. Setting fires was more like the KKK and juveniles.

  Storefront retailers had been asked to clear displays of tempting items. According to Sergeant Fellows, politicians and police command hoped that, as long as the fires were small and confined to trash bins and paper boxes, the miscreants would be satisfied and not escalate to looting and destroying businesses.

  Salt’s mouth tasted stale. She unscrewed her water bottle for just a sip, not wanting to anger the bladder goddess. “Anybody got gum?” she asked.

  “Mint?” Thornton offered, opening a tin. They each took one and passed it to the next person.

  Salt reached inside her shirt, feeling for the chain with the St. Michael’s pendant. Fellows fingered the gold band on her ring finger. Thornton threw back some pills with a gulp of water. He’d had a heart attack last year. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Just a precaution. Doc gave me the fit-for-duty all clear,” he said. She was reminded of her own precarious status. It would be bad if she had another use-of-force incident.

  Once again their squad was being deployed to City Hall; this time the difference was they would be closer to the vortex of activity because of their proximity to Underground. Fire department vehicles and equipment lined both sides of the streets the closer they got to their assigned area, fire crews watching the scene from inside their cabs. The largest part of the crowd danced gleefully toward Underground, where the Big Peach had yet to drop. With midnight fast approaching, the pace of the crowd increased. From the shadows a group of males fled from a car, the interior of which exploded in flames. Inside the van was quiet. The eyes of the rookie sitting across from her were wide. Behind him the window glowed brighter and brighter.

  The sky overhead bloomed with fireworks flowers shedding themselves, replaced by blooms within blooms erupting within one another, accompanied by the tap-dancing sound of automatic-weapons fire.

  “Oh, boy. Not good,” said one of the downtown officers in their group.

  “What goes up will come down,” said Thornton.

  Fire hoses crisscrossed the street in front of the underground precinct, so they left the van parked across the street and hoofed it down alongside the flowing crowd, down to Mitchell and up to City Hall, where they found the steps already occupied by members of the media and ID-lanyard-wearing members of the mayor’s staff. Lights were being positioned, backdrops unfurled, microphones tested.

  Up the block, cars had stopped and a circle of headlights surrounded a dancing scrum of bodies that gyrated and bounced to the blast-out bass from a lowrider. Traffic was backing up behind the impromptu party. The blaring horns became deafening. Their sergeant looked up the steps of City Hall, their assigned post and where the media were now convening, safely, then up at the blocked street. A siren screamed and the driver honked, trying to get the emergency vehicle through the jam. “Fuck,” said Fellows, her choice being to either stay where they’d been assigned, at the steps, protecting the bureaucrats, or lead them into a situation in order to, well, restore order by clearing a way for emergency vehicles.

  “Sarge—”

  Fellows held up her hand for silence. “Shit doesn’t go the way you plan. Stay together.” She began walking briskly toward the corner and the dancing New Year’s celebrants. Without hesitation, from years of being part of a team and having one another’s backs, they followed.

  Laurel Fellows might be a new sergeant but she wasn’t a kid. She’d worked the streets. About the same age as Salt, she was medium almost everything: height, five five; weight, about 135; medium-brown hair; average looks; neither beautiful nor unattractive. She even had an even disposition. “Happy New Year,” she said, raising her voice above the music and her hand in greeting to the partyers in the headlights.

  “Oh, shit. Here it comes,” said a tall guy, beer in hand, leaning against the vibrating hood of the vehicle from which the music blared. A dozen men and teens stood aro
und five young women in the center of the lights from a couple of beaters, the lowrider, and an SUV.

  “I see from the front tags on your cars that some of you might be from out of state. Welcome to Atlanta,” Fellows said. “We want you to enjoy your stay and dance the night away. However, we’d appreciate it if you’d take your party to the parking lots—the Braves stadium lots are just a mile that way.” She pointed south. “We need to clear this intersection. As you can hear, emergency vehicles are trying to get through.”

  Some unseen person inside the lowrider turned up the music. The guy in front of the car pushed off the front bumper, raising his beer. One of the girls turned her back to the cops and began twerking, bobbing her butt and looking over her shoulder at Fellows.

  Fellows smiled, raising then circling her hand, signaling to the squad, which was bunched behind her, shields lowered, batons at their sides, to stand by for an order. Pepper and Thornton were on either side and just behind the sergeant. A blast from below in the direction of City Hall sounded like a shotgun or a car backfiring. Salt and the rest quickly drew their weapons, holding them barrel down at their sides, and turned their heads in the direction of the boom, which came from a car repeating the backfire. The young women and their admirers dove for either the cars or the pavement. Salt whipped her head, refocusing on a shiny refraction from her peripheral vision, the glint off a pistol barrel in a hand stuck out of one of the beaters. Two shots. Flashes from the car’s window.

  “Hands where we can see them,” Salt yelled, pointing her .9 mm from behind her shield.

  A helicopter descended and hovered overhead, lights flooding the scene, rotating blades and engine impairing their hearing. Fellows, washed in the copter’s light, her voice drowned by the chop-flap-chop of the whirling blades and the blaring horn of the fire truck that had finally broken through the snarled street, mouthed commands, accompanying them with hand and arm signals.