Back to where the brown shirt had been when she first caught sight of him, she found herself standing directly above Pepper, the wrecker now parked in back of his cruiser, the driver and Pepper changing the tire.
The ground around her was rutted and ugly. In the dirt, littered with cigarette butts and food wrappers, were shell casings, most dull with age. But glinting brightly, there was one that caught the glare of her light. She grabbed it up quickly and held it in her closed palm. It still held the faint heat of being recently struck, fired, and ejected.
From the other side of the building, behind her, little girls’ voices echoed: “Red rover, red rover. Let Cee-Cee come over.”
“Pepper,” she said, exhaling quietly.
13.
HUNTING BIG D AGAIN
She took a personal leave day on Sunday. Other than the red digits of the clock on the dresser that glowed 5:00 a.m. the bedroom was dark, only a little gray-blue light coming from the moonlit hall. Wonder groaned at the foot of the bed. The dreams of boards had recurred, boards swinging, dangling from that one hinge on Shannell’s apartment door, merging with the dream of her own hands on rough boards trying to fit them to a chair in a foggy forest clearing. An electric, needle-like pain sizzled along the scar in her hair. Since the expressway, when she tried to get to sleep at night, psychedelic beads would cross under her closed lids, like involuntary sheep counting, and during the day fuzzy white movements blurred her peripheral vision. Salt kept thinking it would clear up. Sarge would stick her behind a desk for sure if there was any question about her fitness for duty. She’d be of no help to Shannell in the office.
Standing at the kitchen sink she drank a strong cup of Cuban coffee while looking out to the still dark backyard, the silent sheep, and black-trunked trees. She fluffed the dog’s fur and admonished him to stay before closing the door.
The sky to the east began to grow a peachy haze as she drove toward the city. It felt strange to see, odd to make the trip this time of day, on her own time, wearing her own clothes rather than the uniform. Coffee buzz zinging in her veins, she hoped it would keep her clear-eyed for a while.
At six a.m., she made a turn off Peachtree onto Pine Street. People who mistakenly turned off Atlanta’s much-celebrated main street onto Pine quickly realized their error. Dozens of men were hanging out in front of a building that spread over a city block. In the parking lot across the street dejected men sat along all the rest of the sidewalk, their legs in the gutter, possessing the curbside. She parked next to a hydrant, the only close space, looked at the faces of the two guys closest to her Honda, then closed and locked her car doors.
For men only, Haven House was the largest facility for the homeless in the city. It was downtown and out of her precinct. Her beat had several other shelters and Salt had been able to check all of them during duty hours. But she hadn’t found Big D. Like most of the shelters, Haven House emptied out in the early dawn hours. She’d gotten there forty-five minutes past her cup of coffee.
Weatherworn, ragged men sat against the wall, sandwiched by garbage bags of belongings. Wild-eyed men guarded grocery carts filled with cans and pieces of metal. Flattened men in the parking lot across the street slept on cardboard beds next to the scraggly bushes.
She crossed the narrow street. Just before the curb in front of the entrance, a man in a dark shirt and dark suit stepped in front of her. “I’m Reverend Black. Do you know where you’re going?” Salt tried to step around him. He moved back in front of her.
She said, “You’re in my way.”
“You searchin’ high and low, here and there.” Reverend Black waved his arms.
She moved to go around him again and again he jumped in front of her. “Sister, we all searchin’ but you won’t find what you need here.”
Salt pulled out her badge and as the light struck the silver, Reverend Black stiff-armed a Bible in front of his face. “And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.” She passed by him, badge to Bible.
Just inside the entrance, a guy sitting at a dented metal desk traced his finger down the rows of a ledger book. He had on a dingy T-shirt and there was a cigarette hanging from a corner of his mouth. Ashes had spilled on the front of the shirt, on the shelf of his stomach. He didn’t look at her or the badge that she had kept open in her palm. Someone yelled from the back of the hall, “Rev. Gray, he’s stinking the place up.” The deskman yelled back, “Either get him the fuck out or I’m calling the cops.” He looked up and saw Salt. Before he noticed the badge in her hand he said, “Lady, the entrance for the soup kitchen volunteers is around the corner. You got the wrong door.” Then he noticed the badge. “Wow, a cop when you need one. I’m Reverend Gray.” Stretching across the desk, he shook her hand and stood up. “Come on, let’s get this guy out of here.” He got up and rushed her down the dim corridor.
Salt stopped midway down the hall. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not on duty. I’m here because I’m looking for a guy.”
Reverend Gray said, “Lady, I need a cop now. This guy is tearing the place up and shitting on the floor. I need you to get him out of here one way or another.”
“Is there more than one exit?” Salt thought of Big D’s propensity for wandering away.
They came to the entrance of a cavernous room that looked to have once been used as a warehouse. In spite of the roaring wall fans, it smelled of dirty feet, urine, and rotted flesh. Sleeping pads lined the space, four rows on each side of the room, as far as she could see into the deep corners, a corridor half a block long down the middle. With the early morning turnout, most of the spaces were empty at this hour.
“The only other exits are alarmed, ring like a freaking banshee,” said Gray.
Squatting ten mats away was a troll-looking, blond-bearded guy. He had his pants down and was letting diarrhea onto one of the sleeping mats. “Goddamnit. That’s the fifth pad this week,” Gray said.
“Call 911 for an ambulance. He’s got DTs.”
“We already called. They take their time coming here.”
Paramedics hated these shelter calls. The patients were often drunk and belligerent, and left terrible odors in the ambulances for the rest of the shift. She pulled out her phone and identified herself to the 911 call taker. “ETA five minutes.” She pocketed the phone.
The sick man groaned and swatted at his demons.
Sunday-morning light was filling the space. An old hymn bored its way into Salt’s consciousness:
Will there be any stars, any stars in my crown,
When at evening the sun goeth down?
Outside Reverend Black shouted, “We all searchin’ . . .”
Salt turned to Reverend Gray and pulled out a mug shot of Big D. “I don’t want to arrest him,” she said, handing him the photo. “I’m looking for information on the murder of his son’s mother.”
The smoke from Gray’s cigarette rose back toward his face and he squinted with one eye, studying the photo. He looked out into the long room. “He’s there, at the back, by the window.”
Salt’s worrisome eyesight was strained by the growing light from the back of the huge room. She could just barely make out a figure illuminated in a shaft of sunshine. Whether it was the coffee wearing off or her impaired vision, she began to feel sluggish.
Reverend Gray coughed. “Blah.” He hung his head and leaned on the door frame. “Damn.” He struck his chest, clearing the phlegm. “There are a few residents that are allowed to stay during the day. He’s one of them.”
“Why?”
“Special circumstances.” Gray left her, coughing his way down the hall.
She walked toward the back, her head pulsing with each step. Fuzzy images merged and converged the closer she got; Shannell trapped in the backseat while they searched for Big D after he’d been stabbed, trying to f
ind a pulse on his heavy bleeding body. By the time she reached the back of the room the peripheral had become tangled with what was in front of her.
It was him, barely. It had been almost two months but she had found him. She had. And Big D wasn’t big anymore. He would have been hard for anyone to recognize. His clothes hung on his bones. He was gray and ashy-looking, his eyes bloodshot and watery. He sat on a metal folding chair staring out the meshed-glass window and didn’t seem surprised to see her.
“You ever have a dream where somebody appears where they usually don’t belong?” He turned his head back to the window. “How did you find me?” One arm was pressed against his chest, flat resignation in his voice.
“They pay us to find people, you know,” she said, trying on a small smile.
Salt looked out the window so that she and Big D were sharing the same view, a large Gothic stone church loomed near, the city hospital in the distance. When she turned her head to look back at D her vision blurred again. She forgot for a moment what it was she was there to ask and stammered the first thing that came to mind, “What about Lil D?”
“I done the best I could. I didn’t know no other way.”
“D, did you kill her?”
“You askin’ if I shot her, the answer is no. Life kilt her and it’s gonna kill me, too. Ain’t none of us gettin’ outta this shit alive.”
“Lil D thinks you killed her.”
“He’s a kid. Kids see so much they don’t know how to reason out.”
Salt shut her eyes for a second. “Do you know who might have wanted her dead?”
“Shannell whorin’ for crack, whorin’ to pay Man. Last time she cut me you arrested her and I stopped being with her. I’d see her though, on the corner hangin’ with that skinny red ho.” He pressed his long arm against his chest, then reached across to hold his left side. “You wouldn’t think I’d grieve for her.”
“I would,” she said. “But I have to ask. Do you or did you own a gun?”
“I don’t own nothin’, no gun. I don’t care ’bout no gun. Never have.”
“Is the woman Shannell was hanging with called Dirty Red?”
“Yeah.”
The fuzzy light flashed. “You staying here because of Lil D?”
“Yeah, Lil D. If I go back to The Homes we both get hurt, or dead. So until you lock somebody up for killing his mama, it’s best I stay here.” His arm looked tired, hanging down beside him.
“That still bothering you?” She nodded to the side where Shannell had cut him.
“No, it’s my heart. They can’t do nothin’ for me,” he said. “Doctor called it a arrested heart, something like that. That’s another reason I’m here. Lookin’ to die.” He turned back to the window. “I’d like it, to die next to that church out there and not in jail.”
For a second Big D came into clearer focus, inept car thief, dying man, father, Shannell’s love. He stared out to the filigreed church spire. Pigeons were taking off from stone petals and catching drafts between buildings. She put a card with her phone number on the sill and quietly walked back between the rows to the front of the shelter. The troll man hovered in a corner.
The two reverends were standing one on each side of the exit, Reverend Black with his Bible, Reverend Gray lighting another cigarette. Both turned as she got to the door.
“Was it him?” “You still searchin’?” they asked simultaneously.
Salt said, “Still searching.” Not directing it at either one, she walked out to the sound of a siren soaking the Sunday-morning air. The church bells competed, sounding more like a clang this close to the skyscrapers. In her car she squinched down to look up one more time at the steeple. Big D had a better view from the window above.
14.
A GIRL, A DOG, AND ESCAPE
The flowers—catkins—of the pecan trees dangled like tiny ornaments from the deepening-green branches of the orchard. Salt stood underneath watching the sunlight and breeze turn the trees into a jade-and-yellow-white kaleidoscope canopy. She’d just gotten home from locating Big D and paused for a minute after getting out of the car, sorting through the possibilities and thinking about how to find Dirty Red when Mr. Gooden came from around the side of the house with Wonder, a loose lead rope around the dog’s neck. The old man and his now-deceased wife had been her parents’ longtime neighbors. At eighty years old he was still tall and always seemed sunburned. A small belly pressed out over the top of his wide, tight belt.
“This rotten beast was staring at my cows again,” he said with a grin, nodding toward his pasture to the west and the brown impressions of the loosely scattered herd on the green far field.
“I’m sorry. Did he hurt anything?”
“No. Like usual, he just watches.” He ruffled Wonder’s fur and slipped the rope off.
She bent down and took her dog’s snout between her palms. “I’m not sure why he gets the notion, but sometimes I catch him looking longingly toward your herd. He’s too smart for his own good.” Straightening, she remembered. “Thank you again for the onions and the flowers.”
“Let me have a look at you.” He took hold of her shoulders and held her at arm’s length while he studied the crease in her hair. His survey parodied one he might make of prized stock. “From the outside that wound looks to be healing.” He turned his head, eyeing her first with one eye, then the other. Salt stood under his scrutiny, feeling childlike, awkward but good in his large red hands. “I’m just sorry there wasn’t more I could do.” He dropped his hold on her. “How’s your mother?” he asked. “I’m surprised she didn’t come down when you were injured. It must add to her worry something terrible.”
“I talked to Mom a couple of days ago, I guess.” She bent to pick burrs from Wonder’s coat, trying to untangle them rather than pull his fur. “She’s as good as can be. I didn’t see any need to tell her I got shot.” She didn’t look up at the old man, who was silent while she picked at the burrs. She mumbled to Wonder, “You get all these watching cows?” As she stood she gave the dog a firm spank on his haunch that sent him into a tail-wagging frenzy. Wonder shook himself and trotted to the fence and the sheep.
Mr. Gooden had his lips between his teeth like he was holding back words, silently watching the dog. “Lord, nobody but you and the dog. Alone. Again.” He cleared his throat. “I read in the paper that you were by yourself when you pulled the car over. Don’t you have partners?” He didn’t stop for her to answer. “I’m going to say this now even though you might see it as minding your business and I might say it wrong but you just almost got killed, part because you were alone. I’m not trying to play amateur shrink but I wonder if you’ve gotten too used to, well, taking on too much by yourself. I remembered how much your mother loved flowers and that made me remember Peggy picking some just like those from the field back there.” He pointed to some splashes of red and yellow at the back of his property. “She asked me to bring some to your mother. You would have been about ten.”
Hearing “ten,” she immediately put up her hand, palm out. “That was a bad year for my parents. Dad was sick a lot and then there was the accident. They didn’t want people to know, especially my mother. Wanted to keep their privacy.”
Mr. Gooden pointed his finger at her chest. “Privacy is one thing, Sarah, but at the expense of a child. That’s not right.”
She interrupted him. “I grew fast that year. They counted on me and I didn’t want to let them down. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
Mr. Gooden kept on. “I knew your folks well enough by then, I thought, to just drop in. But that day when I got here and knocked on the back door and didn’t get an answer I came on into the porch. I stood at the screen door to the kitchen. Your dad was sitting beside the table and you had a pan and were on the floor washing his feet. Before I even said hello your mother came to the door and stood like she was blocking out you and your dad, like yo
u weren’t there. I’ve thought about that day over and over. It wasn’t that you were taking care of your dad. It was the way your mother held herself. Even though she’s a small bit of a woman she seemed that day like a rock wall with her hands on her hips, elbows out, and her feet wide apart.” He shook his head. “I handed her the flowers. I can’t remember anything we said, just the way she stood.” He shifted, looking again way back to the end of his property—to where the blur of flowers grew. “You had too much of a burden for a child. Peggy and I talked about it. We both worried about how alone you seemed after your dad died. Before he died I used to see the two of you everywhere together.”
Salt scattered the pile of burrs with the toe of her boot. “I’m not sure I understand,” she told him. “My dad was worn out from work that year. He loved soaking his feet and getting a foot rub. That’s all.”
“Your mother didn’t want anybody to know how bad things were with your father.”
“Mr. Gooden. I don’t see how dragging all this up—”
He held up his hand, palm toward her, to let him finish. “Sometimes, whenever your father got really bad, she’d call Peggy to come over to stay with you and your brother. The night of your father’s accident she ran to our house. She left you with him again, even with you finding him and all.” He shook his head. “And in the years since she moved away and Peggy died, I’ve wanted to say something.”
“Day,” she corrected him, turned, and started walking for the house.
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