Salt sat down on the floor just inside the door and began unlacing her boots. The floors were just as spotless at this level, not a speck of dust. She shaded her eyes from the light reflected from the shining boards and experienced a fragment of memory, her father lying on the floor, his blood seeping into the flowers on the wool rug, roses turning pink to red.
Salt placed her lace-loosened boots beside the door, then pressed her hand to the immaculate floor, leaving the print of her palm fading as she pushed to stand. Remembering the last time she’d purposely left a palm print. She followed Mary, passing rooms with furniture covered in sheets so white they bordered on blue. The house seemed to echo silence.
Salt paused at the doorway to the kitchen. Mary had sat down at the table, head bent over, spooning cereal and milk from a plastic container into her mouth. A shaft of sunlight from a window fell across the back of the girl’s neck and head, highlighting the short soft hairs that had escaped her braids.
“You took me away from my cereal. It’s soggy now,” Mary said.
A lid was lying neatly beside the container. There were no dishes or other kitchen paraphernalia visible. Schoolbooks were stacked, squared with the edges of the table.
There didn’t seem to be any air circulating in the house. Salt was beginning to feel queasy. She could feel sweat beads break out on her lip and temples. “What time does your grandmother get home?”
“She works two jobs, cleaning a white lady’s house in the day and at a store till nine.”
“Summer school over yet? Regular school starts soon, doesn’t it? Not much of a break?” Salt asked, looking at the neat books. She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead to stop the sweat from slipping down her face.
“What’s the emergency? I’m not talking anymore till you tell me.” Mary’s voice was louder than Salt’s or was stronger than Salt felt at this moment.
“I’m trying to find out who killed your mother,” Salt said, and watched as Mary put the spoon carefully, slowly, back in the plastic container. The weight of the handle tipped its balance spilling some of the milk. A small puddle began to form on the white tablecloth. The girl pushed away and began to pull her fingers like she had done in Shannell’s apartment the day she found her mother dead. “I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble,” she said, watching the damp spread on the cloth.
“Milk will wash out,” Salt said, alarmed at the girl’s reaction to the soiled cloth. Mary’s confident façade vanished.
“She’ll know,” Mary said. “Look, there it is.” Staring at the tablecloth.
“Here,” said Salt, picking up the books and putting them on the counter. She grabbed the end of the tablecloth, thinking of magicians who pulled cloths from under whole table settings. “Where’s the washing machine? It’ll be done in no time.”
The radio mic on her shoulder spit static, then began calling for units to respond to a burglary in progress. “3306, are you in service?”
Salt eased the volume knob lower and turned her head toward the mic, “Radio, do you have any other units available?” Mary watched with worried eyes.
“Negative,” replied radio.
“Damn,” Salt said to herself.
Mary shivered, like she was trying to fit back in her skin.
“I have to get my shoes on. They’re calling me. I’ll come back.” Salt headed toward the door and her shoes. “Do you have any idea who might have killed your mother? Did you see anything that might help me find out who killed her?”
“I’m not allowed to use the washing machine,” said the girl, following Salt, who kept looking back over her shoulder to check on her. Mary pulled at her fingers, one at a time, as she kept up with Salt, going down the hallway. “I heard that word you said.”
“What? ‘Killed’?”
“‘Damn.’ You said ‘damn.’ If you talk like that you’ll be damned in hell, my grandmother says. Then you lied and said there was an emergency in here.” The girl’s face grew stern.
“You’re not allowed to use the washing machine?” Salt sat down on the floor in order to get into her shoes.
“My grandmother wants to see what gets dirty.” Mary looked down at the floor, then cut her eyes to Salt.
“Handwash the tablecloth now. It might dry before nine. I don’t know how long this other emergency will take but I’ll be back if I can.” Already she could feel the shoes were tied too loose. She tried to jerk the laces tight without untying and starting over. “Radio, I’m en route to the call. ETA five minutes.” She ran down the steps. Just before she ducked into the patrol car, she saw the girl close the door and open it again with the chain between the door and the jamb. Salt sped off with blue lights, no siren, to catch a burglar who she hoped might have loose shoes.
* * *
• • •
It was late in the shift when she had gotten her calls caught up and could get back to the McClouds’. She’d caught the burglar after all but had not saved the baby in a burning car. The grandmother came to the door, quickly looked at Salt through the opening, and slid the chain off.
“Good evening, Officer. What can I do for you?” Mrs. McCloud, with a slight smile, stood perfectly in the middle of the door frame. “I didn’t call the police. It’s late.” She filled the entrance, square and solid in a big black dress with a purple sheen. Salt looked for some similarities between Mrs. McCloud and Sister Connelly, who’d said they were cousins. But where Sister was tall and thin with movements either too quick to catch or so slow you didn’t notice them, Mrs. McCloud seemed a barrier, broad and thick. Sister had a deep plum shimmery color. Mary’s grandmother was light brown, blond hair pulled back in a twist, and green eyes.
“May I come in?” Salt asked.
“Oh, my heavens. I just got off work and this place is a mess,” said the grandmother, smoothing the tight sides of her hair.
“No, it’s—” Salt halted. “I just wanted to check to see how Mary is taking her mother’s death. I was concerned.”
“You don’t have to worry yourself,” said Mrs. McCloud. “Shannell wasn’t much of a mother anyhow. I mostly raised the girl, though it’s hard with all the trouble these streets bring. I keep Mary off the street though. I keep her busy. She takes extra classes during the summer.”
“Does she make good grades?”
“Oh, yes. I see that she does. Why, she’s gonna go to Bible college someday.” The woman hadn’t moved from the doorway.
Salt shifted on her feet to unobtrusively try to see around the large woman. “Mrs. McCloud, I’m also trying to find out who killed your daughter. Do you know anything that would help me? Anything that would help me understand why, or who might have wanted her dead?”
Mrs. McCloud thrust her face out directly at Salt, chin first. “The devil and drugs killed her. She killed herself.” She kept her hands open and together, like she was holding a hymnal or Bible. “I did what I could to keep her straight and on God’s path but she was just like Mary Marie, didn’t want to do right. Now the devil got her full-time. Mary Marie knows that. She seen the way her mother died.”
Salt interrupted the woman’s tirade. “Did Shannell help you? Give you money for Mary?”
“Now where would a crack whore get money?” She swiveled her head toward the inside of the house. Every hair was held by her tight bun. “Who said she gave me money?”
“When is the last time you saw Lil D?” Salt asked quickly to the back of Mrs. McCloud’s head, some instinct to draw her attention from the inside of the house.
“I don’t know Lil D.” She snapped her head back toward Salt. “You seem to know so much about my business, my family, then you should know Darrell Junior was claimed by his daddy, not me. Darrell Mobley never claimed Mary ’cause my Shannell was whorin’ by then. Mary doesn’t even know who her father might be.”
Salt took one step back with her right foot
, but leaned forward on her left, close enough to Mrs. McCloud to notice a dry sweat smell. She went quiet and checked the fierce resentment she’d begun to feel toward the old woman, then dropped the questioning that felt dangerous to Mary.
A car with loud music thumped by. Rapping the words: kill, thump, thump, kill, thump, thump, bouncing out into the night air. She faced the grandmother again but Mrs. McCloud was watching the car at the traffic light.
With only half her attention Mrs. McCloud said, “You, Salt, don’t come back to my house ’less you got some business here. ’Less you got some business, and you won’t. Don’t come back.” The big woman backed inside across the entrance and closed the door.
Salt stood there listening. But there was no sound of the chain sliding back in place. Mrs. McCloud was also waiting, close, on the other side of the door.
Salt did a reluctant slow turn to go down the steps, feeling worry for the lonely, sad girl on the other side of that silent door.
23.
FLOWERS THAT GROW IN DITCHES
The hardest part of treating the sheep for foot rot was getting the dusty, smelly animals to stand in the tub. But Wills was gamely holding the biggest of the five sheep steady in the trough of water and zinc sulfate while Salt clipped the hooves of the dam in the iron cradle. The sheep he was holding kept trying to step out of the trough, splashing the solution on the detective’s jeans.
That morning Wills had pulled up to her house at eight o’clock on the minute. The day was already bright, morning sun promising heat. She’d heard the truck as soon as he turned off the highway onto the gravel drive. By the time she met him at the side of the house he was already out and reaching back into the cab. The truck shone, looking freshly washed and waxed. His jeans looked new and had a sharp crease down the exact middle of each leg. He turned, pulling a bouquet of orange tiger lilies, trailing green ribbons, from the passenger seat.
Salt was already muddy from mixing the footbath and the dust of the backyard. Wills’s jeans and the flowers made her anxious. Her fingers curled around the grip of the hoof trimmers in her hand.
“My God, what are those for?” Wills asked, looking at the sharp, narrow-bladed clippers.
“Sheep feet,” she answered, looking at the lilies.
Wills held out the orange flowers. “These used to grow on the side of the road when I was a kid. Now they sell them in florist shops.”
Salt put the clippers in her back pocket and received the lilies in her arms. “Some still grow in a ditch in back of my property. I never thought to bring them inside. They’re really pretty.” She was drawn by the soft throats of the striped blooms. “Pistil, stamens,” she said softly as her fingers examined them.
“Sounds like the evidence list in a murder book.” He laughed. “Your house. Look at that second story, dormers and gables.” His gaze swept upward.
“Come in. Let me put these in water.” Careful of the flowers, she could only dust one side of herself as they walked toward the porch.
Wills followed, then stopped when he saw Wonder in his obsessed, stretched-snout stare, holding the sheep in a tight group in their night pen. The dog’s ears quivered but he never looked away from the sheep.
“How long until I can introduce myself?” Wills asked. “He doesn’t even seem to know I’m here.”
“He knows more than you think but he lives to work the sheep. Today he’ll get to help us single them out.”
“Us?” Wills raised his eyebrows.
“We’re clipping the sheep’s hooves and giving them footbaths today.”
“We?”
“In return for the ATF information I can trade you how to take care of sheep hooves.” She smiled and started up the steps.
Wills followed. “Dogs, sheep, who knew.”
In the doorway of the old kitchen he stood looking around, scanning the ceiling, the tile floor, the old table. He met her eyes as she stood at the sink. She was adjusting to the idea of him being in her house; she’d not imagined him here. She looked up at the blue enamel pitcher that sat on a high shelf.
“Want me to get it down? This is an amazing place. Did you do all the restoration?” he asked.
She pulled over a footstool for him to stand on in order to reach the pitcher. “No restoration. Over ten or so years I’ve upgraded the plumbing and electric. I finally tore down the old outhouse when I built the sheep pen. The place has belonged to my family since it was built after the Civil War and before that there was an original homestead.” She filled the pitcher from the deep sink and put the flowers in it. The powder of the pollen felt like new skin when she touched the soft surfaces of the lilies, and it left her fingertips stained yellow.
Wills walked to the hallway. Wiping the pollen on her jeans, Salt came up behind him, carrying the pitcher and flowers. “Would you like to see the rest of the downstairs?”
He turned to let her pass. “Very much.” For a moment they faced each other over the orange flowers. She lowered her eyes and turned down the hall.
“This your living room?” he asked at the arched doorway. Again, not having planned on Wills being in the house, she had left her nightshirt and the old afghan on the sofa, a clear indication to a smart detective where she had slept. She put the lilies on the table beside the sofa, picked up her nightshirt, then didn’t know what to do with it and threw it back on the sofa. “Yes, living room,” she said, ready to be back outside with the dog and sheep.
Wills turned to the stairs that led to the second floor. Just as he put his hand on the banister she herded him in the opposite direction. “I keep the upper floors closed off, too expensive to cool and heat.” She quickly crossed over the hall to the library doors and spread them with a slam. “And this is the library.” Wills started to go in but Salt was already heading back down the hall. “The dining room, which I don’t use, is here.” She pointed to the middle room on her left. Wills lagged. “That’s the real bedroom.” She pointed to the room on the right, not stopping until she was back in the kitchen. She was already at the door to the porch, looking out at the sheep, when Wills caught up with her.
“That was fast,” he said. “Remember, I don’t bite.”
He seemed so confident and steady. She felt edgy. “I need to get to work.” She pushed the screen open.
Wills followed. “I’m at your service, sweetheart,” he said, with a Bogey accent.
She brushed hair from her eyes and jogged down the steps.
Salt opened the gate and the sheep almost jumped over one another to get away from the stare of the dog, who hadn’t moved.
Wills hooked one boot over a bottom rail. “This is beautiful and amazing. What a puzzling policewoman. You keep sheep because?”
“To train the dog and fertilize the orchard. Equipment is minimal, the clamping cradle to hold the sheep for clipping their hooves, the tubs for the footbaths.” She shrugged and called Wonder into the pen, putting him in a “stay,” and then pulled the cradle to the gate. She signaled Wonder to maneuver one of the sheep against the cradle, made of two small iron grates. She clamped the cradle shut, then rotated the lever so that the dam was on her side.
“Poor sheep,” said Wills. “I don’t even like that ride at the fair.”
She pulled the clippers from her back pocket and started on a hoof. Wills watched closely while she clipped the rough edges. “That takes a lot of hand strength,” he said.
“Same muscles you use to pull a trigger.” The sheep tried to jerk her leg from Salt’s grip. Her hand slipped and the clippers dug into the soft part of the sheep’s hoof. It let out a bleat.
“It’s bleeding,” Wills said.
The dam struggled in the cradle, its hooves clanking against the metal clamp. “Clipping almost always draws a little blood. I hate hurting them but it comes with the job. Speaking of the job.”
“Why do their hooves have to
be trimmed? I’ve never heard of it. ’Course what I know about sheep comes from movies.”
“The ragged, overgrown parts make places for bacteria and infections. When the hooves are cut back the medication can get in there and the exposure to air helps keep bacteria from growing.” The dam had gone quiet and was panting. Salt lowered the cradle and opened the clamp to let it walk into the adjoining footbath pen. “Just steady her for a few minutes.” She showed him how to hold the sheep.
He grabbed the sheep’s wool through the iron bars. It let out a sharp bleat like a burp and immediately kicked a foot out and bucked. Zinc sulfate water splashed Wills’s jeans. He grappled with the sheep but didn’t let go.
“Were those your good pair?” Salt asked.
“Well, yeah. I was hoping to make a good impression.” He smiled. “Do all your dates get to bathe sheep?”
“I’m ready to clip the next one,” she said, going back for another sheep, ignoring the sheep’s chorus of complaints, pink mouths opening and closing on long baas.
They finished by the time the day started to really heat up. The sheep had all been allowed to escape to the pecan grove. “That’ll do, Wonder. That’ll do,” she said. The dog ran to a cutoff water barrel under an outside faucet, climbed in, and sat down for a soak. He rested his snout on the edge of the barrel and watched Salt and Wills.
Wills laughed and looked down at his jeans. “I might join him. This zinc sulfate?”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“Will the stain be permanent?”
“The stains will outlast the jeans. I’m sorry.”
Sweat beads formed, ready to join and run down her chest. Through habit she had started to unbutton the work shirt she wore over an undershirt, but stopped when she looked up and realized Wills was staring at her with his mouth slightly open.
“The dog and I. I’m not used to company,” she said, rebuttoning her shirt.
Wills didn’t move or change expression.
The Policeman's Daughter Page 16