Sister stepped closer. “You ever go to church?”
“I was raised in the church,” Salt said.
“‘Salt,’ now that makes me think of Lot’s wife who got herself turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at evil.”
“It’s my job to look.”
Sister turned with a swish of red and started up the steps. “Come with me.”
The porch light flickered with moths; one hit Salt in the mouth as she followed up the steps and into the dark house. The old woman switched on a dim lamp beside her worn armchair, sat down, smoothed the robe over her knees, and motioned for Salt to sit on the flowered divan across from her.
“You say it’s your job to look at evil. What do you really know.” It didn’t come out like a question. “You been around The Homes for ten years. That’s a blink of an eye for me. My eyes saw evil before your daddy was born.”
“I don’t see how this relates to Shannell,” said Salt, realizing the conversation was getting away from her again. The place where she sat on the divan was sprung. She was sunk in a low spot, her knees higher than her lap.
“Tell me what you see that’s evil,” demanded Sister.
“Stone hurts people because it makes him feel good.”
“Oh, I know that, and how did that get in him?” The old woman was asking questions in the rhythm of a catechism. Then, sitting forward, her face above the lamplight, her red robe shining, she said, “I’ll tell you answers you don’t have questions for. I knew his great-granddad from down in Hahira, before they all come up here to find work. He whipped his grandchildren like he whipped his mule. And he whipped his mule hard leaving Hahira.” She picked up an old scrapbook and began to turn the black pages of yellowed newspaper clippings stuck in between the seams. She stopped at one clipping, handed the album to Salt, and pointed: NEGROES BURN SHARECROPPER STORE. It was from an old county weekly dated 1959.
Salt studied a photo of burning shanties. “Why are you showing me this? What does it have to do with now?”
“You say you think you’ve seen evil, but Stone carries a curse. Curse different from evil.”
“I can’t undo what’s past and it doesn’t explain what happened to Shannell or what will happen to the next person who gets in Stone’s way.” Salt handed the scrapbook back.
Sister Connelly leaned over the book, into the light, and said, “You got a curse, too, maybe just like your daddy, I’m sorry to say. You think you cursed same as your daddy? You have to get close to people, maybe too close?”
Salt shifted to the front edge of the couch, readying herself to stand—talking about her father in a conversation about Shannell’s murder was making her uneasy.
“Hold on now.” Sister motioned her down. “We all got some kind of curse. Don’t take it personal. Curse can be a blessing depending. Why you think Stone killed Shannell?”
“Because he likes to hurt people. Because he hurt his own sister. Because Man and the gang aren’t talking, even though I’ve arranged for some of them to be in jail. I’ve always suspected that Man doesn’t understand how damaged Stone is, how he’s a double-edged sword.”
Sister held up her hand to stop Salt. “Why? Why would he kill her? Why would anybody kill her?” Posing the questions like teaching, not asking.
Salt sat there silently staring at the hem of the choir robe, then said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a killing for pleasure. She wasn’t tortured, didn’t have anything to steal. Maybe she was shot because she did something to somebody, or as a warning.”
“Maybe as a lesson, like a Sunday school lesson,” Sister Connelly said.
Salt was getting tired of the cryptic nature of the conversation. “What do you know? Also, the way you talk makes it seem like you knew my dad pretty well.”
Moving her face back into the shadow Sister said, “All’s I know is what I know. Your father and I talked about our old families, how they were and all—hard. Wasn’t his daddy, your granddaddy, a preacher?”
“I didn’t know him but heard stories how he was hard on my dad, some kind of hellfire-and-damnation type. Was Shannell dealing?” Salt tried to mask her irritation, laying her words out smooth, not biting them off like she felt.
“I didn’t say nothin’ ’bout no dealing. I’ll tell you what she cared about—that daughter. So much so she gave her up.”
“Did Mary Marie come often?”
“Every other week or so. I always knew when the girl was coming ’cause, crazy Shannell”—Sister chuckled to herself, shaking her head—“she’d walk over and put on like she was admiring my flowers. I’d see her out my window. But she was no good at sneaking around, all exaggerated, sweeping her arms through the weeds, like on some TV commercial, making faces into the blooms. I’d notice later some kind of pitiful something would be missing, not the biggest flowers, but things that grow on their own, dandelions or honeysuckle. Then later I would see Mary Marie leave with the little weeds. It wasn’t much she could give her. I don’t know why she didn’t just ask me. I’d’ve let her pick the good flowers.”
“Did you—do you know if anybody saw or heard anything the day Shannell was killed?” Salt rubbed her head in frustration. Johnny C and Half-Dead were in lockup. Q-Ball’s funeral was Sunday a week ago. Bootie Green would stay in federal custody. Still nobody was coming forward with information. And now here she was sunk into an old divan begging this mysterious woman for some straight answers.
“Oh, don’t you go thinkin’ anybody gone testify to any of what somebody might have seen, or might have heard.”
“I’m not asking you to testify. I just need something to go on.”
Sister Connelly looked past Salt’s shoulder at the window facing the street and the apartment where Shannell had lived. “A car with New York tags would sometimes be over there. A white man and sometimes a black man would go in Shannell’s and come out. They carried suitcases, sacks, or boxes.”
“Guns, drugs, dirty money?”
“Don’t know ’bout any of that either.” And without pause she asked, “Why you called Salt?”
Her encounter with Johnny Mitchell on the expressway had been at the entrance closest to Marcy Street. Mitchell, guns, and a New York tag. Salt answered distractedly, “Sarah Alt. Our nameplates here”—Salt touched the metal above the pocket opposite her badge—“it’s just my initial S, and ‘Alt’. We got the nameplates in the academy. Officer Pepper saw it first. He made a joke about it then and it stuck.”
Sister picked up an old church fan from the side table and began to fan herself. The fan had a picture of Jesus standing in the middle of a flock of sheep with his hands raised upward, his eyes focused on something otherworldly. Sister fanned faster, then stood up and unzipped the top part of her robe. “Whew, rain didn’t cool things off much. ’Scuse me, I don’t wear a dress under this robe when it’s too hot.” Salt caught a glimpse of Sister’s chest. Right above the lace edge of a white slip, her skin was crisscrossed with long scars, like yellow rubber. Sister walked to the window and peered out. “It’s still foggy. Old folks used to say another thing about salt. ‘Salt of the earth’ meant a good person.”
Salt pushed up from the divan, old springs popping, and walked to the door. The fog outside seemed to have doubled. But every week her eyesight had been worsening, she’d been seeing what wasn’t there, obscuring what was with floaters and mist. She put a finger to the corner of one eye to try to clear a speck that probably lived in her brain. “New York tags,” she repeated.
Sister Connelly asked, “What makes Shannell important to you? What makes Lil D different than Stone?”
Salt looked over across the street, at the red windows. In death Shannell appeared to have been praying. “Shannell’s place. No flowers, not even weeds. Dirt’s hard-packed, walked on, walked over. Even the dirt’s dirty. The only door to that apartment has been broken since bef
ore I can remember. But she painted those windows red, to fix it. Lil D tries to hide that mark on his neck with a towel. Those close-up little things make them different to me. Stone was raised in chaos. Maybe he had a curse on him like you say, but he also got lost and twisted. I never knew anybody in The Homes that cared for him, except maybe Man, and he just uses him and his twistedness. I’m afraid that Stone is beyond saving. I know the Bible says different, but he’s beyond my power to help. Lil D, Big D, and Shannell have kept being put in my path, in my streets.”
Sister opened the door and they walked down the steps together. Sister looked out and began to recite: “‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ Matthew 18:14.”
The radio mic on Salt’s shoulder barked, “3306, radio check.”
“Matthew 8:12.” Sister began another Bible quote. “‘But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.’”
Salt answered, “3306 loud and clear.”
The night had been so slow, radio was checking on the units. “3307,” called radio. Pepper’s number.
No answer.
“3307, radio check.”
No answer.
Then, “3307,” he answered.
Salt was lowering herself into the driver’s seat and for a moment experienced doubt about the reality of the conversation she’d just had with the woman on the porch, moths swirling around her head. Did she make up that quote about children being cast out into darkness?
“3307,” Pepper mumbled again. He sounded groggy, like he’d been asleep. Not good. He’d been working off-duty jobs to send the boys to summer camp. She needed to get coffee for the two of them. After he’d had a hot sip or two she thought about asking him to listen out for word in the street of guns and The Homes.
20.
VICTIMS
From the road the house, under a clouded moon, looked reassuringly the same: yellow lamplight on in the front window, brighter back porch light outlining the corner of the house. She parked, cut the engine, and sat there listening to the small clicks and pops of the motor cooling. The oak and pecan trees were old, the lowest branches high, their limbs swept up toward the night, trunks solid. The sheep, their distant baas echoing, were far out beyond the light from the house, in the quiet, dark orchard. She tucked the 9mm into her waistband, then popped the trunk of the Honda and got all her gear: belt, vest, and uniform shirt.
At first there seemed to be moonlight spilled into the kitchen, but then she saw one glass panel from the back door shattered on the floor, reflecting the porch light. The door was ajar.
“Wonder?”
She dropped the load in her arms, grabbed the flashlight, and pulled the 9mm. Just because it’s your own house, don’t panic, she told herself. Always call for backup to search a house.
“Wonder?”
Salt tamped down a tide of fury, stepping carefully over the broken glass, bent down and touched a finger to one of the drops of viscous blood that smattered the shards and pieces. Wonder’s, or the perp’s? Had Wonder managed to get a bit of flesh? She blinked. Her dog would have presented himself here, lips raised, showing his teeth, barking. Horribly she imagined his body jerking, saliva flying. She imagined him but heard only silence and the ticking of the mantel clock in the living room.
The kitchen almost looked unfamiliar. She swept the flashlight with her left hand. She held the nine in her right hand down close to her leg. I live here. In the flare of the flashlight, details in the ceiling medallion stood out in black and white. Not many places of concealment in the kitchen. She left the room dark behind her as she moved through to the rest of the house. A board groaned under her foot as she stepped into the hall, straining to listen. Something, someone inside, or were voices coming from a distance, an idling engine?
“Wonder?” There was no blood, no drag marks, beyond what she had seen in the kitchen. He’d never allow himself to be picked up if he was conscious. “Wonder?”
Her back against the plaster wall outside the bedroom, flashlight held high, she squatted low to quick-peek around the door opening. Simultaneous with a scramble into the room she brought the nine to waist level and scanned the room with the light. The closed closet door was as she had left it. The drawers of the dresser appeared undisturbed. Then the mirror burst in reflection of the light beam as she stood. She grabbed the closet doorknob with a jerk. Empty.
Out to the hall, dining room, library, living room, upstairs. Tactically clearing each space. “Wonder.” Everything was as she had left it. “Wonder?” She breathed his name. The weeks, the day, the night, the hours, the minutes, now seconds, began to register with shaking exhaustion.
There was no blood anywhere else in the house except for the kitchen. She retraced her steps and found drops that she’d missed coming up, on the steps to the porch. She looked out to the orchard. And listened. The sheep sounded like their usual selves—their usual selves as they made their way from the back property—herded. By Wonder. His animal eyes caught a bit of light, glowing red and gold out of the darkness. She flew the beam of the light all around and over the back lot as she ran toward her dog. “Wonder.” He lifted his head, panting, and pulled his lips back over his teeth at her approach. She swallowed a cry that was building in her chest. “That’ll do, Wonder.” He was torn from his ear to his lip, across the right side of his face. Blood, caked and oozed, black, red, and pink flesh. The lid of his right eye was split, his black muzzle spackled with dripping and drying blood. Still he stood facing the sheep that were now huddled against the outside of their pen. She flashed the light toward the side of the house, but impatient to touch her dog she lowered the light and knelt. “Hey, baby, hey baby.” He collapsed to the ground. “Good boy, good boy.” She touched him lightly, carefully inspecting the damage. Her fingers touched grit and stickiness. She picked up the flashlight and again slung the beam toward the road and across the orchard. She’d yet to check around the sides of the house. Staying low to the ground, she dashed to the back of the house and around to check the south, east, north faces of the house, and all the shrubs and bushes. The sound of a car starting came from the distance but she couldn’t see headlights or taillights.
She opened the pen and the sheep, somehow sensing a different threat, scurried to their shelter. She went back to her dog. “Good boy.” There was blood oozing through scraped places all over his body. He whimpered and began panting, hard. An ache to wail rose up in her throat, already raw from breathing hard. Wonder’s eyes showed white at the edges. She knelt and turned the flashlight over the dog. He began to thrash, trying to gain purchase in the dirt, each sound from him like salt to her own wounds.
A rush of fury filled her head. She was losing the order of things that kept bad situations under control, pushing herself to where she could make mistakes. She soothed her dog with her left hand and with her right drew her gun, pointed it out into the night, focusing through the tiny luminous sights at nothing. Stunned, frustrated, and helpless to ease the dog’s pain, she blinked and pleaded, “That’ll do, Wonder, that’ll do,” repeating the command. He obeyed her and lay still. “That’ll do.”
“I’ve gone too far,” Salt choked. “It’s my fault. I should have known when they followed me in the truck.” Angry for Wonder and for what might be waiting. Nothing moved, no one in sight, everything silent. “You’ve stepped into my space.”
She slid her hands over Wonder’s head, snout, legs; she shone the flashlight in his eyes. They rolled back and his tongue drooped from the corner of his mouth. His head hung limp over her arm as she picked him up and carried him to the back porch, where she laid him on an old quilt.
Inside, trying not to think about how he’d received the injuries, she grabbed cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide from the medicine cabinet. When she returned to the porch Wonder lifted his nose and tried to stand but his wobbly
legs failed. He stumbled and yelped. The dog looked up at her with fuzzy confusion, sniffing the air, smelling the sheep. Wanting to go back to his little flock, he tried to get up again. “No,” she said softly, and he stayed, like a good dog, his damaged side up. The wounds were no longer bleeding but were raw and dirty. She sat between his front and back legs and began to sing while carefully lifting his matted fur.
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And can’t tell where to find them
Night insects smashed into the porch screen. She sang to calm him. He moaned in the silence between verses. She sang until her vision blurred. Home wasn’t safe. Wonder’s normally sweet earthy dog odor was diluted with something like the stink of sour clothes.
Leave them alone,
And they’ll come home . . .
Stone? Over clenched teeth she hissed the S out loud. Cursed, Sister Connelly had said.
Maybe it was time for her to leave The Homes? Lil D? Shannell? Every crack path, mapped in her mind, the victims, the perps, the gang? It just got worse, more violent, more drugs. Was The Homes her curse? She tightened her fist. No, not until she got at least one, one little salvation.
And dreamt she heard them bleating
Even her teeth hurt. Her voice was going hoarse. She sang softer, then went to a low hum.
But when she awoke . . .
For they were still all fleeting
She squeezed peroxide into his side. Wonder raised his head at the sting. “Stay,” she said. Her eyes began to lose focus.
Determined for to find them
The thought of Stone hurting her dog made her throat tighten.
She found them indeed,
But it made her heart bleed . . .
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