He walked beside her. “What?”
“It was daytime when my father shot himself.”
Salt was at the back door and turned to face the old man. “She did the best she could.”
“No, Sarah.” He looked at her straight on. “She should have asked for help. Not left a child, you, with him. That was no time to let pride get in the way. She left you with something a child couldn’t handle. What’s that saying? ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ And now here you are. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Salt reached up and touched her scalp. “It was my birthday. She went to get a cake and balloons for me. I haven’t really forgotten anything.”
They both looked down, then out toward where the dog was looking. The cows were far away. Finally he laughed. “Nobody but you would have rescued this crazy dog or put up with him, even buying him sheep to herd.” He coiled the short rope and slapped it against his leg. “I’d best be getting to the cows. I hope I didn’t overstep.” He kept whipping the rope against his jeans as he headed for the field between the two houses.
“Mr. Gooden,” she said as goodbye.
“Keep safe, Sarah.” He climbed the fence, crossed to the other side with the agility of an eight-year-old only with locked knees.
She had thought about telling him that her mother said he would look out for her.
There was a brief ruffle of a breeze. Wonder lifted his snoot. Salt took a breath, inhaling a trace of old roses.
* * *
• • •
The Sunday-noon sun made the wind blow hot and dry, but Wonder didn’t notice. He was standing perfectly still, ten yards away from her, his dark eyes focused on the sheep, his black fur blowing almost horizontal with his body.
She loved the place: the old trees, the connection with her father’s family, the orchard. This was her father’s. She sent the dog around to the far right of the sheep and as he ran she felt her own muscles as if she were running with him, a black-haired girl again, pretending to catch a bad guy and protecting the innocent.
“There,” she called. He stopped, facing the sheep. Salt asked him to do only what he wanted, what he could do, gather the sheep. The little flock moved toward her as the pressure of the dog at their backs increased. She turned to lead them toward the paddock near the house.
The big white house loomed sweet and aging. She loved the way it looked from here, all worn but well put together, white on white, trim and dormers, porches over porches. The downstairs drew in breezes and the central long hall kept a stream of cool air circulating.
Her gaze was drawn upward to the second floor. It felt good for Mr. Gooden to have told her, “Keep safe.” She remembered her father’s voice: “Your eyes are dark blue, like a newborn baby’s. Where did you get those eyes?”
“From you, Papa.” Then he would sleep in the afternoon. Her mother would tell her, “Watch your father.” She had done what her mother had asked most of the time. It made her feel powerful but unhappy.
Now she turned back toward the sheep. Her breath evened out. Her skin collected the sun while the wind tousled her hair over the healing scar. The black-haired girl had run, climbed, and jumped and in exhaustion found peace. Now, when she was on duty, after a street fight got settled, a successful arrest made, she felt release. A car or foot chase sometimes let loose a memory of some story her father had told.
Mr. Gooden may be right, she thought. I haven’t handled it.
15.
OF THE FEMALE PERSUASION
As soon as she came down the drive to the precinct, arriving for her evening shift, Salt saw Sister Connelly with Major Townsend, their area commander. They were standing on the south side of the precinct, the major looking up at Sister, who not only had the advantage of being taller but was also above him on the incline. They were accompanied by several of the supervisory staff, two lieutenants and three sergeants, all sweating, mopping their brows, and looking at the base of the bushes beside the precinct wall. Salt headed up the banked yard as soon as she got out of her car, just in time to see Sister push the major into a stoop while she pointed at the base of one of the hydrangeas. Salt had never seen anyone touch the major. He wasn’t that kind of person. She hurried up the hill to the group just as Major Townsend asked, “Where do I get the manure?” He sounded uncharacteristically frustrated and maybe a little shrill.
“I can bring some sheep manure from home,” Salt said, arriving just as Sister handed the major a handful of dirt.
The brass all turned at once to look at Salt.
“Sheep manure, it’s just as good, maybe better than any other, than cow or horse,” Salt explained.
“Sheep manure,” repeated the major.
“Yes, sir.”
Sister acknowledged Salt. “There you go. Right under your nose, one of your officers has what you need to start getting this yard to where it should be, setting an example. After all, this is city property. You could also grow vegetables with all this yard, give some to the homeless shelters. At least take care of these shrubs and bushes, make them shine.” She showed no sign of letting the major off the hook.
“Shine,” repeated the major. He seemed incapable of getting ahead in the conversation.
“And plant some perennials and annuals both, raised beds. All these young folks, strong men, and you got a sick yard like this. Is this the way you take care of your zone? Your employees? No wonder those uniforms look so shabby. Crime off the chart.” Sister was wearing a simple blue cotton dress without a wrinkle, and she was carrying a pocketbook on one arm, like the queen. White gloves were folded over the handle. The major was in trouble.
“Sister,” Salt interrupted, “are you here to see me?”
The major stumbled down the hill toward Salt. “Yes, Sister Connelly, Officer Salt can help you with whatever you need.” He held up his hand as Sister started to speak. “With what—what we need for the precinct yard.” He was on his way up the back steps before he finished the sentence. He turned to his administrative lieutenant. “Make sure we get this situation resolved, Lieutenant.”
While the sergeants and lieutenants dispersed, Salt walked with Sister around the back and to the other side of the residential-style precinct house. “Sister, you didn’t come by just to give us a gardening lesson.” Salt grinned. “Not that we couldn’t use it.” She picked some yellowed leaves off another plant.
“This yard is a mess. But I came by because I remembered how I recognize you.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen me on the beat. I’ve been your evening watch officer for about ten years now. And of those ten years I’ve probably spent, total time, months or so just answering calls on Marcy Street. You and I have talked several times.”
“Of course, but it wasn’t till you came asking ’bout Shannell that I really got close enough to you to know that it was your daddy I was remembering.”
“My daddy.” Salt heard herself say the words before they sank in. Sister Connelly talking about her dad?
“I remember him for a couple of reasons. You all right? I’m sorry if I upset you, but I thought that since your daddy died so long ago—what, twenty years?—that you’d be okay if I brought it up. Is your head healing proper? I heard about the expressway.”
“I’m fine. It’s just that not many people remember my dad and even if they do they don’t talk about him to me. I just was caught off guard. I’d like to know more about him, especially about his work.”
“You’re like him, you know. Even though I met him after he became a police officer, I also knew of him before because some of my family come from around Cloud, where his family had that big farm.”
Salt smiled. “It’s not so big now, just the house and a few acres. I’m the only one left living there. That’s where I have the sheep.”
“I see.” Sister took a couple of steps away and
then turned sideways to Salt, looking off in the direction of Cloud. “Too many folks in this town forget that we, lots of us who grew up in Atlanta, come from or have family that came from the country. And in this town the country is not far, half an hour, or a year or so or half a century or a century past the railroad tracks. And in some directions the country is right up against this big city, little places like Cloud. Not that I’d want to go back. No sir.” Sister slapped her hand and arm against her thigh, the sound like wet cloth hitting a river rock, and stood there looking away.
Salt said, “I’ve got about thirty pecan trees in the orchard. I feed the sheep but they also graze.”
“Oh, I know ’bout those big ol’ pecan trees around Cloud. My sister had one of the big ones where she lived, right next to her and our auntie’s house.” Sister Connelly went back to looking off. A screechy cicada signaled an early evening, beginning his ratchety crescendos and diminuendos. Sister turned her head back to Salt as they walked to her preacher’s big sedan parked at the curb. He didn’t look up as they approached, just kept reading the Bible propped on the steering wheel, its soft leather binding bending to fit between the spokes.
“You said you knew my dad through his work, right?”
“That’s how we figured out about our Cloud connection. But yes, yes, I met him because of his policing. You’re like him about that. He’d talk to people, get to know them. Atlanta is not so big a city. Some want to call it a city, it’s just a railroad town.”
“I’d like to know what he talked about. Was he asking you about cases he was working? How often did you see him?”
“Our roads didn’t cross all that often. It was usually over some crime problem he was working on nearby. Marcy Street used to be real nice, especially before they built those apartments. He’d drop in whether or not he thought I’d know anything or about anybody involved. That’s why I realized who you were—didn’t recognize your name since everybody calls you Officer Salt. I know you better now that I know who your daddy was.” She made a sound, “hummft,” something between a laugh, a cough, and a grumble, and settling into the seat, she said, “You come by. We’ll talk.” She pulled the door closed and nodded to Reverend Stevenson, who put down the Good Book and put the car in gear.
* * *
• • •
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white
Red. She needed to find Red. All night the old Sunday school song had kept running through her mind. It was a hot night and Salt was now surrounded by whores. Calvin’s Motel was one of her regular stops. It was called “Calvin’s” even though Calvin hadn’t been in evidence since Pepper found him seven years ago and served him on a warrant for pimping a nine-year-old. It was a one-story building of twenty single-door rooms, L-shaped, and set up on a hill overlooking the Avenue, a south-side street notorious for its sex trade. A driveway made a U from the street up the hill around the front. Johns would drive through and take their pick from the girls, hoping the dress of the whore indicated their willingness to cater to a particular fetish: leather and spike heels for the S&M crowd, frills for the shy, bright lips for blow jobs, plaid skirts for the spankers.
They laughed and played like kids do when they’re desperate to get in just a little more fun before they’re called for bedtime. Like little girls in dress up—high-heel shoes, bright blouses and skirts—they twisted and pranced for potential customers. They wore wigs that were unnaturally straight or blond or red.
Salt’s mother had always dressed her up for church in dresses that felt like Halloween costumes. Sometimes she liked them.
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
These ladies were probably not the “children of the world” the Sunday school teachers had in mind. Glenda wore a Day-Glo-green tube dress that conveniently rode up her broad backside, which rumbaed when she walked. Rocksand was in pink pleather. Black Sally with her thigh-high boots. JoJo in feathers. There was a new girl. Salt rubbed her eyes and got out of the patrol car.
Salt had worked Vice details, dressed up, done the stroll in front of this place, escorted johns into the shabby rooms where they were arrested by her partners. She could feel how her feet hurt in whore-heel shoes, feel the anxiety of how it would go down once the man or men were trapped in the room, the takedown team, flipping out shields. Johns almost always fought, unsure if it was an arrest or a robbery.
On a detail last year a man had presented her with a cat-o-nine-tails, beautifully wrapped in florist’s paper. “Beat me?” He also wanted pins stuck in his dick.
“You costing us dates, Salt,” the girls protested weakly, pointing at the black-and-white parked in the drive. But none of them turned down the bottled water she brought. The hot air was dry and gritty.
“Where’s Pepper tonight?” Rocksand, the only white whore at Calvin’s, asked.
That started them all on a roll.
“That man so fine I’d do him for free,” said Glenda, the street-smartest, oldest on the Avenue.
“Ooowee, he shine like new money.”
“His mama and daddy was makin’ love when he got made ’cause don’t nobody that good lookin’ come from just fuckin’.”
Salt was laughing, drinking her water, sitting on the trunk of the cruiser, her boots propped on the bumper while the cars passed by. It was like having friends as a kid might have felt, someone to play dress up with. All these prostitutes she knew except for the new young one who had on such heavy makeup it was hard to tell her age, her arms and legs smooth and unbruised. She was wearing a tight black miniskirt and a see-through black lace top. A blond wig fell to her shoulders and she kept swatting the hair back from her eyes, like she’d never worn hair that wasn’t her own.
Salt caught her attention and asked, “What name do you go by?”
The others answered, laughing. “We call her Peaches ’cause she just got fuzz down there.”
“How old are you?”
Peaches didn’t seem to know whether to stay or go back to her room. The mood with the girls was still light but she kept looking from Salt to the girls, all laughing together.
Peaches answered, “It’s my birthday. I’m seventeen today.”
The laughing stopped. They looked to Glenda, who opened the snap of a tiny purse she had taken from where it was hidden in her tight top. “Come here,” she said to the girl, and gave her a five-dollar bill. “You take this and go buy a cake. You ain’t workin’ tonight.”
All the girls retrieved money from their various caches and each gave something to Peaches. Salt slid off the trunk and took a five from her uniform pocket. “Happy Birthday, Peaches. You got your ID?”
Peaches went into a room and came back with an out-of-state ID card that listed her age as seventeen today. She probably had other IDs, and any number of birth dates. Salt moved her own birthday around when anyone came close to making her celebrate. But here in Wonderland, Alice or Peaches or most anyone could be as big or small or old or young as she wanted to be. Many of them had followed the white rabbit of cocaine down the hole.
Several more cars came through the motel drive and then sped up at the sight of the patrol car.
Rocksand was the first to say it, serious: “You messin’ with business now.”
“I’m outta here, ladies.” Salt ambivalently turned toward her car, the festive mood broken. They were getting antsy for her to move on. Pimps had to be paid. Drugs had to be scored. Babies needed milk.
Glenda moved the girl with the five-dollar bills in her hand off to the side while the others went back to their doors. Salt had cut Glenda breaks over the years. Famous for blow jobs, missing two top front teeth, she smiled often but with her lips closed until she was ready to work.
“Question, Glenda,” Salt said, and
waited for her to come close. “You seen Dirty Red lately?”
A blue sedan with two older men drove through. Glenda stopped smiling. “We ain’t seen her in a while.”
“Where would she hang when she wasn’t here?”
Glenda shifted from one hip to the other. “She sometimes turn tricks over on Jonesboro.”
“She have a house or apartment to use?”
“Her sister stays around there somewhere.” She bit at a cuticle while she watched the entrance.
“Did you ever know her real name?”
“Matter of fact I do. I know ’cause she had to tell it when we got arrested together one time. Her real name is something Stone. I don’t remember the first name since everybody calls her Dirty.”
Salt stood very still. “How do you know she gave her real name?”
“The Vice guys know her already so she can’t give no false name.”
“You know if she has other family nearby?”
“Yeah, ’cause she told me one time her brother put her in the hospital, he beat her so bad. It was her little brother but I guess he musta not been too little.”
They stood together, both stiff, arms folded across their chests, and watched while a cab pulled in. The birthday girl, now with money, got in to go get her cake.
“You want my card or anything? Can you call me at the precinct and leave a message if you hear from Dirty Red?” She moved to the cruiser.
Glenda held out her hand, waggling her fingers. “You done helped me before. Give me your card.”
A part of her wished she could just sit the rest of the night joking with the girls. But they and Salt knew it was time for Salt to go; she was keeping the johns away. And they had dues to pay on debts they’d never owed.
Glenda took the card and walked down the drive toward the entrance. Radio was calling on a dispatch for possible child molestation in The Homes.
16.
SAM’S AND THE CAPPUCCINO CAFÉ
The Policeman's Daughter Page 11