The Policeman's Daughter

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  He turned to her. “Go on, show her your badge so you’ll get the discount.”

  “I can’t,” Salt said.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve worked a detail without a badge.”

  “It’s pinned inside my shirt.” She’d been flipping her low-neck blouse, the material now stretched and misshapen, down all night, displaying the badge to surprised perps.

  The hostess said, “Well, if I don’t see a badge I can’t give you the discount,” and turned and walked away.

  “It’s okay,” Salt said to the woman’s back. “I’m not that hungry.” Her stomach growled.

  “Agent Jim Thomas, ATF, meet Officer Sarah Alt, aka Salt, and tonight,” Wills said, “obviously aka Hot Body.” He gave her a comedic leer.

  She reached across the table and shook Thomas’s hand, remembering too late her sticky palm, still raw and seeping slightly. He drew back his hand quicker than she winced.

  “I fell. And this—this getup was for a john detail tonight.”

  “You must have been very successful,” said Thomas, brushing his hands and lowering them under the table.

  Wills tapped the back of Salt’s bad hand with a finger, then lightly turned it over, putting an ice cube in a napkin and closing her fist around it.

  She crossed her legs, one foot outside the booth. Her feet were cramped from walking in the red shoes all night and she was trying to relax the muscles by arching them up and down. Thomas’s eyes moved to her shoes again. “Great shoes,” he said.

  The waitress brought beers for Wills and Thomas. “Are you ready to order?”

  She wanted a beer but there was already too much that was fuzzy, her eyes, her head. She asked for a root beer instead. Thomas and Wills ordered steaks. Salt asked for the catch of the day.

  After the waitress left Wills said, “Salt is here with information, like I told you.”

  “I was just getting ready to leave the office, working on a big case, when my bud here called. He bribed me with a steak and a beer.” Thomas reared back and adjusted his belt. He glanced from the red heels to a man and woman at a table nearby. The woman was watching the man watching Salt as she pulled Red’s statement from her blouse, the blue paper curved and moist from prolonged exposure to her cleavage. “One of the other whores wrote this out for me tonight.”

  “Interesting filing system,” Thomas said.

  She unfolded the paper. “Have you heard of James and John Simmons? They’re called Man-Man and Johnny C. They run the dope gang in The Homes.”

  Wills reached for the statement and while smoothing the folds started to read.

  “Yeah. We know about them. We suspect they have ties to gun dealers up north but so far we haven’t been able to pin anything concrete on them,” Thomas said.

  “Read this.” She tapped the form in Wills’s hand.

  Thomas took it between his thumb and index finger and started reading. “What? What is this word?” He squinted at the blue paper.

  Salt leaned over the table to look at what word he was struggling with. She pointed to bot. “That’s ‘bought.’” Then pointing to chanel, she translated: “‘Shannell.’ She was murdered in May. That’s . . .” Salt took the statement back. “I’ll read it for you,” and she began translating, first in Red’s words then in cop-speak, pressing her finger under the hair cap, giving in to an itch near the front of the wig. She felt like bringing up a foot, like Wonder, and using the red heel to rake her head. “She and Shannell bought guns, twenty-five dollars and two hits of crack for each gun. Before Shannell was killed she kept the guns at her apartment and Stone and others ‘grilled’—that is, drilled—them. I’m sure she means that they filed off the serial numbers.” Salt finished, then looked at Thomas and then at Wills, waiting.

  “How reliable is this Red?” asked Thomas. “This is only evidence against Stone, not Man or Johnny C.” The agent leaned back, dismissively looking down, adjusting his belt again.

  Salt touched Red’s signature. Under the restaurant’s bright lights Red’s statement looked less credible, second-grade spelling, her large childish letters filling the form, leaving no margins.

  The waitress brought their orders. Salt pushed her flounder to the side and leaned across the table toward Thomas. “She’s telling the truth. It was hard for her to write this.”

  “Her reliability has to be established. Has she given you information in the past that proved true? You know how this works. I can’t get a warrant on her word alone.” Thomas shook out his napkin, picked up the knife and fork, and cut into his steak.

  “But what about the information? Does it fit with what you already know about Man and Johnny?” Wills asked.

  “Yeah, it makes sense. Your hookers, Red and Shannell?”

  Salt nodded.

  “They’re straw purchasers,” Thomas continued, covering his fries with ketchup. “They go to different pawnshops, gun shows, and stores, and buy guns, a couple at a time and with enough time between buys to not draw attention.” He was gesturing with his fork. A drop of grease fell on the blue form.

  Salt picked up Red’s statement. “I’m familiar with some aspects of illegal gun transactions.” She pushed the wig back slightly, to cool the tip of the scar on her forehead.

  “They’d obviously be buying for someone else who sells the guns to a dealer, usually in the Northern states where gun laws are tighter, or they trade them for quantities of drugs.” Thomas continued chewing and moving the food around on his plate.

  “Mitchell, the guy you shot on the expressway, was a lowlife. He never bought guns himself because of his felony record, but he was a known mule. We traced the guns in his car to straw purchasers in a number of Southern states, including the ones bought by Shannell. But that doesn’t tie her with Man or Stone.”

  Salt looked down at the shaky words on the blue form, thinking what Red had given up to write them. The grease stain was spreading.

  Wills sipped his beer, his food untouched. “Do you know who his contacts were here?” he asked Thomas. “You’re not eating.” He pointed with his beer glass at Salt’s plate.

  “But what about the connection with Mitchell? Why isn’t that enough to establish Red?” She focused on the agent, trying to will away what she knew was coming.

  “We’re not sure, but we think he’d been hooked up with Man-Man by some cocaine heavy in New York,” Thomas answered Wills.

  She sat back in her chair, silent.

  Wills poked at his food. “What is the connection between the guns and Shannell McCloud’s murder? It doesn’t give me motive.”

  Salt held Red’s statement in her raw hand.

  “It doesn’t do us any good unless we can establish Red’s reliability.” Thomas tossed a half-eaten fry onto his plate.

  She realized that she’d known all along it would come to this but said anyway, “I told her she wouldn’t have to do anything more, that this would be enough.” She leaned toward Thomas. The table wobbled, causing the knife to slip off his plate, clattering on the Formica.

  “You’re not officially on this case. But if you want me to get this done you have to give me Red,” Thomas said flatly.

  “Why can’t we just ride in and arrest the bad guys? This job has no happy endings, all our hats are black. There’s always a sacrificial lamb,” said Salt, looking down at her hand.

  Thomas pointed his fork at her face. “You choose.”

  She thought about Shannell, about Red’s real name, about Lil D, about the boards on the door to Shannell’s, and remembered her dream about building with rough boards. Wills was staring straight ahead, his eyes not on Thomas or Salt, as if he were listening but not wanting to hear her decision. She dropped both her good hand and bad hand to her lap and said, “I’ll bring Red to you.”

  25.

  WILLS BRINGS DINNER

  Salt woke up early,
already damp and sweaty from the summer heat and troubled by a dream of a forest of dangerous flowers, spiky and poisonous, hanging, both huge and tiny, growing from the woven flowers on the rug in the upstairs bedroom. Some of the flowers resembled the crushed and scattered blooms in Shannell’s crummy apartment. Another, a rose that sprang from Red’s hair. Lil D stuck his neck out and his birthmark morphed into weeping thistle. Other dream flowers, tiger lilies like the ones Wills had brought, in time-lapse photography, wilted and faded. Anxiety and an odor greeted her as she woke. The smell of rot that had been faint a few days ago was now stomach-churning and intense enough for her to follow it to the living room, her bare feet leaving moist prints on the hardwood floor. Already hot daylight filled the air. The canning jar that held the bouquet sat in a stream of light, their stems mushy, leaves yellowed, curled petals littering the table. Most of the water in the jar had evaporated, leaving a chalky residue on the glass.

  She picked up the jar and the odor of spoilage intensified. Breathing high and shallow, she brought the jar through the kitchen and out the back door. Near the sheep pen she pitched the whole thing, canning jar and flowers, to the top of a chicken-wire-encircled compost heap. An uncomfortable vision flashed of the seeds producing a profusion of volunteer flowers, a terrible bouquet, from the fertile pile.

  * * *

  • • •

  By evening the painted table was set on the screened back porch. The ceiling fan kept the breeze flirting with the edges of a worn, freshly laundered tablecloth, embroidered with tiny faded-to-pink poinsettias. This time Salt had prepared, had tried. Wonder escorted Wills to the door, yelping with excitement. She let him knock on the porch door before she came out, wearing her best jeans, saved for special occasions because they were at the fragile stage, soft, right before the tears at the knees begin, a shade of blue just off white.

  After Agent Thomas left them at the Roadhouse, Wills had stood with her at her car. “Can I come to your house Monday night?”

  Before she could think about it she’d said, “Yes,” then amended with, “but I can’t cook. Remember?”

  He’d smiled and kidded, “Oh, I’m sure you cook, maybe not with pots and pans.” He lifted his eyebrows, Groucho-like.

  When she had turned to put her key in the car door, he put his hand on her arm. “Here, let me do that,” he said, taking the keys, unlocking and opening the door for her. She was surprised that she felt such pleasure from his chivalry.

  “If you can chop up lettuce, I can grill. I think I saw a barrel grill in your yard. Right?”

  And so that was the deal, easy for Wills, easy Wills.

  At the door now he looked up from a CD clasped in both of his large hands. “Ray Charles and Betty Carter,” he said with a wink and handed it to her. “I’ll get the kebab.” He left her looking at the recording while Wonder escorted him back to his truck. The cover showed Ray Charles on one side, wearing his dark glasses, hands lifted over a double keyboard, and Betty Carter on the other side, hands open, held waist high, a slender dress strap slipping off her shoulder.

  She was still looking at the recording when he returned, carrying a rectangular foil-covered pan. She held the door for him. He said, “Betty and Ray, duets.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Tofu kebabs—I don’t think you found that recipe in the ‘Homicide Detective’s Guide to Grilling.’” She pointed her spoon at Wills.

  He laughed. “No but you might be surprised at how many Homicide guys are vegetarian, or at least don’t eat red meat.”

  They were still sitting at the table, finishing peaches and ice cream that she’d served in two mismatched bowls. Outside the lit porch, evening had glided to night. Betty Carter’s voice carried from the living room: “This evening has been . . . So very nice.”

  “You know, you’d make a great detective. You’ve had me talking all evening about myself, my cooking, my dogs.” Wills put his spoon in his bowl, pushed back from the table, silent, waiting for her response.

  Salt pulled her index fingers across the underside of each eye, looked out to lights that could only be fireflies but that seemed now doubled up, blurry. After a silence she said, “I don’t want to deceive you, Wills.”

  “Who are you protecting, Salt? You or me?”

  “It’s easier for me to talk about work. I wasn’t going to, didn’t want to bring Shannell into this, didn’t want to confuse this—things.” She quickly corrected herself.

  “I don’t want to talk about the job tonight. But when you talk about work you tell me more about yourself than maybe you realize.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Wills reached into his back pocket and pulled out his worn leather badge holder. “You do have the right to remain silent.” He smiled, opening the leather and showing the gold shield. “Inferences and deductions, tools of the detective. What you told me about Lil D. Not that many uniforms are as involved, know their beats as well as you do.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about work.” Salt reached for Wills’s badge.

  “I’m not, I’m talking about you. You could trade on your looks, brains, anything. But you mark yourself with the streets. You risk the hurt to get close to someone like Lil D.”

  Her chest began to feel tight, like there wasn’t room for her heart, which began to race. She tried to shrug her shoulders but they felt stiff. “It’s how I work. How I am.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Salt.”

  “Look at this house, how I live.” She stood up and went to the sink, looking out. “It’s a legacy.”

  Wills stood and came to her at the window. “Let’s walk.” He took her hand and led the way out and down toward the pecan trees. The evening air felt like it was waiting for rain, thunder, lightning, hail, something to break the muggy heat. Even this far out in the country the city lights sometimes dimmed whatever stars might show through the shifting clouds. She felt like she needed to find her legs and catch some air. She began to walk around the trunk of the big oak, glancing to the dark upstairs windows of the house.

  “You’re just scared.” Wills sat down on the bottom of the steps with Wonder hiding beneath him.

  “That’s nuts. I’m not scared in the street but in my own backyard.” She swept her arm toward him, the house, and the orchard.

  “It’s what’s in our backyards that scares us all.”

  She squatted and began to pull at blades of grass. Almost whispering, she said, “I think my heart or my head is cracked. That something is broken.”

  “I prefer cracked hearts and heads. Look, I’m not trying to fix you. I know special when I see it.”

  He stood up, walked over, and reached out his hand to pull her up. Then he let her hands go and touched the center of his chest. “With the things I’ve seen, my life, I have a heart that looks like a mosaic, all in pieces, held together with a little bit of hope.” He worked his mouth into a smile.

  Salt’s hand moved to the hollow between her breasts and with a soft fist she pressed and a sound escaped, like a single tiny sob.

  Wills gently pulled her against him. “Let’s go in the house,” he said quietly next to her ear. “You can open every door and closet and tell me about you. Then on some other day I’ll lead you through the back door of my heart and show you the pieces.”

  Salt walked with him to the porch and paused, noticing that some of the porch floorboards had weakened and felt soft and springy, fragile under her feet. Before they reached the kitchen door she turned and said, “My name is Sarah Diana. I was named for both of my grandmothers. Well, for one of my grandmothers and for my other grandmother’s breasts.” Grinning slightly, she looked at him.

  “With a beginning like that, Sarah Diana, the rest of the story can’t be all bad.”

  Betty and Ray were ending, harmonizing: “Baby it’s cold outside.”

&n
bsp; The porch light attracted moths. Wonder, following Salt and Wills, jumped and skidded, snapping at the ones that flew too low.

  26.

  ROADBLOCK

  Salt, Pepper, Sarge, Blessing, Big Fuzzy, and the rookie were holding a roadblock at the bottom of the hill on Meldon Avenue at its intersection with Middleton Street. Vehicle traffic in The Homes was always light, not many of the residents owned cars. And people who knew anything about the area avoided driving through if there was another route. Most of the rest of the city wanted to forget The Homes existed. Where they were set up, cars cresting the hill from both directions couldn’t see the police barricade until they were too close to avoid the waiting officers. It was that time in the evening when the sun is close to setting, sending the last light in bright vertical lines. This area of The Homes was called “The Shadows,” a valley between two hills, its lowest elevation. Not only could drivers not see the cops and their cars until they were already headed toward the stop, but the cops’ sight lines were also limited. They couldn’t see what was coming until the cars were almost there. Here the evening shadows fell first. They could even claim headlight violations before the rest of The Homes, and the rest of the city, darkened.

  Usually they made the best of roadblocks, turned them into a kind of goof. Command had ever-changing goals and strategies regarding where and how many would be conducted. This week it was one per shift, rotating through the beats. Even though it strained manpower, they were mandatory details. “May I see your license and proof of insurance,” over and over. “Aw, Officer, I was just going to the store.” “This is not my car.” “These are not my pants.” “I don’t know whose shit it is.” “May I see your license and proof of insurance.” “My date of birth is wrong on that.” “Some dude gave me this car, man.” Like they’d never stopped people who were wanted, driving without a license, in possession of a stolen car, transporting narcotics, denied ownership of clothing wherein contraband was found. “These are not my pants.”