Bluebird, Bluebird

by Attica Locke

  “You talk to that guy out of Chicago? Wozniak?” Darren asked.

  Greg nodded and said, “This is bigger than that now. There’s a stringer out here for the Times. CNN sent a camera crew out of Houston. They’re going to want to talk to you, too,” he said as if he’d just remembered something, though it was clear from his excited demeanor, the way he kind of pitched forward on the balls of his feet, that in the last twenty-four hours this couldn’t have left his mind for even a second. “I pitched a sit-down with the two of us for Nightline, you know, explaining—how I called you first.” There it is again, Darren thought. It made him sad, the degree to which this kind of credit hogging mattered to Greg, that three years behind a desk had made him so desperate for the climb that a double homicide was seen as an opportunity first and a crime against nature second. But wasn’t Darren a little guilty of this, too?

  Keith Dale had likely killed his wife and had admitted to beating Michael Wright as near to death as a man could get. Randie was right: he was not innocent. Maybe justice was messier than Darren realized when he’d first pinned a badge to his chest; it was no better or worse than a sieve, a cheap net, a catch-as-catch-can system that gave the illusion of righteousness when really the need for tidy resolution trumped sloppy uncertainty any day. Keith Dale deserved to go to prison, sure he did, but Darren couldn’t shake the feeling that what they were doing to Keith was no different from what had been done to black folks for centuries. Grab one, any one, and don’t ask any more questions.

  “Remember, you’d never even heard of Lark when I sent you the early details of the case,” Greg said. “Well, it might make a good angle on the story.”

  “You know I can’t speak to the media without running it by unit.”

  “After this, they’re going to let you do whatever the hell you want.”

  They’d arrived outside the makeshift media room on the other side of the county courthouse. The plate on the door said LOUNGE, but the room had been made over for the press conference. Through the wire-glass window in the door, Darren could see at least a dozen reporters standing behind a cluster of video cameras, their lenses and microphones pointing toward a podium where Wilson, Van Horn, and one of his deputies were waiting on Greg and Darren.

  He didn’t speak through the entire thing, through the announcement of Keith Dale’s arrest for the murders of Michael Wright and Missy Dale, the explanation of the Texas Rangers’ involvement, even the questions directed at Ranger Mathews specifically, deferring with his silence to Wilson and Van Horn. This was their story to sell. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his spine as stiff as the trunk of a poplar tree, boots planted firmly on the ground.

  Greg spoke. Of course he did.

  He waxed philosophical about the role of the federal government in maintaining law and order for its citizens, adept as it was in investigating crimes of a sensitive nature—all without ever saying the words hate crime or being in any way clear about when or if anyone would be prosecuted for the death of Michael Wright, either by the state of Texas or the Justice Department. He talked of Missy only as a way to complete the narrative; he spoke of the need for the community to not jump to conclusions about the motive for the murder of a black man in Texas. Listening to all of it, Darren felt an odd sense of dislocation, like being in a dream state in which he both did and didn’t recognize the world around him or the words spoken in his mother tongue. Wasn’t this whole press conference a leap toward a conclusion, a desperate reach for a rope that could swing Van Horn and Wilson safely to the other side of this bubbling mess, bypassing the murky waters of history, the race swamp that would take you whole if you let it?

  It was over quickly, before reporters even knew which questions to ask. Many, like Darren just four days ago, had never heard of Lark. Mystery and resolution were presented together in the span of a twelve-minute press conference. And the neatness of it was satisfying, like laying the last piece in the center of a puzzle, the soft snap of a picture becoming whole, a truth sealed.

  After, Wilson patted Darren on the back and said he now had something real to take back to headquarters to get Darren’s suspension lifted. He couldn’t make a move before the grand jury made a decision about Rutherford McMillan, but he had hope for the first time that Darren could return to work.

  “Especially if nothing comes out of the search of your place in Camilla.”

  “They did that search weeks ago.”

  Wilson, who had an olive complexion and salt-and-pepper hair, leaned in to Darren so he could lower his voice and still be heard. “Look, I would have said something if I could, but that would have been my tail. The DA just wanted another look around. It wasn’t on me, Mathews. It wasn’t my call.”

  They’d done a second search of the house, he realized.

  “Jesus.”

  “They went in this morning.”

  “When they knew I was out of the county,” Darren said. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Wilson had provided the San Jacinto County DA with that information, and he didn’t bother to hide the accusation in his tone.

  “If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there,” Wilson said. “No reason to fear.”

  “There’s nothing in that house.”

  But why were they searching his place when the grand jury had heard all the supposed evidence against Mack—when they were already deliberating?

  Were new charges being considered?

  Charges against Darren?

  The thought of it shot panic through every part of his body.

  “I wouldn’t worry none on it,” Wilson said. “You’re a fine young man. And your uncle William was a man I respected like hell. Let’s see what the grand jury comes back with on the other deal, and let me see if I can’t get you back in the field, where you belong, Ranger.” Darren had, Wilson said, shown a willingness to put the facts before his feelings, and his uncle would be proud. Darren resented the mention of his uncle and might have said something about William Mathews being a man who would never have swallowed this degree of uncertainty and unease about an investigation into the murder of a black man in order to make white folks feel better about the state of things in Texas. He might have said he was sure he was failing in his duty to pursue the truth, inconvenient and complicated though it may be—a duty passed down to him by the Mathews men who had raised him. But he held his tongue and pulled out his cell phone instead. As the last reporter and her cameraman were filing out, Darren found a quiet spot in the hallway and left a message on the answering machine in his mother’s trailer, telling Bell that there was a few hundred dollars in it if she went out to the Mathews place in Camilla and cleaned up whatever mess the sheriff’s deputies may have left in their wake—more if she could keep her mouth shut about it. He especially didn’t want to worry Clayton with news that this thing with Mack might be taking a perilous turn in Darren’s direction. There’s nothing in that house. Besides, news of the sheriff’s department tearing through his family’s homestead for a second time would only deepen Clayton’s resentment of law enforcement, and Darren didn’t want to hear it right now.

  As he ended his call, Van Horn approached him in the hallway and said with little fanfare or concern, “Geneva Sweet is free to go home now.”

  She refused a ride the first time he offered, insisting she would rather wait for her granddaughter. But after Darren called Faith in Lark—and she said she could use the extra help, having kept the cafe open against her grandmother’s wishes—Geneva finally relented. Outside the courthouse, there were news vans still lined up along San Augustine Street, a few cameramen looking for a last shot of the courthouse, something to make the squat, boxlike brick building look more majestic than it was. Because the name Geneva Sweet had slid off no tongue during the short press conference, there was no interest in the nearly seventy-year-old black woman being led by Darren, who, having removed his hat, looked for all the world like her son or nephew, escorting her gently to the parking lot.


  He tried to help her into the truck, but she swatted away his hand, and with a grunt and a muttered prayer managed to lift herself into the high-rise cab. By the time Darren made it around to the driver’s side and slid in behind the steering wheel, Geneva had her seat belt on and her hands resting in her lap. He set his Stetson on the bench seat between them and kicked on the engine.

  The climb into the Chevy had winded her slightly, and Darren, looking over, caught the play of light off the sheen on her forehead, a few of her tight gray curls sticking to her skin like gnats on flypaper. She adjusted the direction of the air-conditioning vent in front of her but otherwise didn’t move or speak.

  They set out on State Highway 87.

  Darren debated whether to cut through the meat of the county and travel by scenic local roads to get back to Lark. This part of East Texas was near enough to Louisiana to put a dampness in the air, a kiss of moss blowing from Texas live oaks; it was a breathtaking country vista. But he figured Geneva wanted the quickest way home, so he turned toward Timpson, where he jumped on 59, heading south to Lark. He honored her silence for the first few miles. But in the end, he knew something had to be said. “I didn’t have anything to do with you being arrested,” he told her. He wanted to get that out of the way. But if he thought this would soften the stonelike set of her jaw, he was mistaken. He wondered how much she knew, either about Keith’s arrest or the fact that Sheriff Van Horn was willing to let her go last night—that it was Darren who had pushed for more time, even if it meant a cold night in jail for Geneva. “I didn’t mean you any harm in this thing,” he said, glancing from the highway to the passenger seat. She didn’t nod, speak, or smile, didn’t offer him the least of her attention, so that Darren actually felt a flare of anger in his chest. Elderly or not, she was behaving like a recalcitrant child, stubborn and willful.

  “You don’t like me much,” he said.

  “Don’t know you.” The words came up out of nowhere, like a burp of bad air that caught her unawares. “Got no reason to trust you, that’s all.”

  “I came out here to help.”

  “And look how that worked out for me,” she said, smoothing the front of her skirt, a pale cotton blend that had been sullied during her night in lockup.

  “You’d have been arrested for Missy whether I set foot in Lark or not. You made sure of that by not coming clean about seeing Missy the night she died, when you knew the sheriff was hunting for someone to put that on,” Darren said, gripping the steering wheel till his nails met the palms of his hands, digging in. “If it wasn’t for me shining a light on Keith, you’d likely still be in that jail cell, with the DA enjoining a grand jury to keep you there.”

  “Well, you got what you wanted, so now you can go on back to wherever you come from and leave well enough alone,” she said, crossing her arms and staring out at the road. “Rest of us got to live in these parts long after you gone.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” he said. Her words had lit up some part of his brain, warning his conscious mind to pay attention. He heard fear in her voice where he never had before, felt it vibrating between them in the truck’s narrow cab. He turned to look at her across the seat, trying to read her expression.

  “There’s no proof Keith did it.”

  “Aw, he murdered that girl, no question. That son of a bitch robbed my grandson of a mother to look out for him in this world.” She was sitting stiff and straight but was thrumming with rage, like a live wire. “And you’re a fool if you think he didn’t kill that black fellow, too. I just don’t like folks coming down here, a town we been living in since before you could pee straight, a place you don’t understand, and think you know every damn thing. You and the girl.”

  “I was born in San Jacinto County,” he said. “And the girl has a name.”

  Randie.

  “I wouldn’t know it, since she never walked in my place and paid me any kind of respect.”

  “She lost her husband, Geneva.”

  “She not the only one.”

  Joe.

  He was afraid to say the name out loud, afraid to break the spell.

  “I loved the one God gave me,” she said. “I knew what I had.”

  Geneva said nothing after that, and Darren tried to keep his mouth shut. But he felt protective of Randie and couldn’t make sense of the affront Geneva felt at the mention of the young widow. “You don’t know anything about her marriage to Michael.” He was thinking of Missy and the whispers, Randie’s stories of the other women that had populated their troubled marriage.

  Geneva gave a tiny shrug of indifference.

  “I know what he told me,” she said. “What Missy said, too.”

  “Missy?”

  She turned and looked through the glass at the countryside blurring green and honey-colored gold, the sky a constant and steady blue. “You know what she told me they talked about that night, her and Michael, what started this whole thing?” She turned, and their eyes met across the bench seat. Darren felt his heart lift and press against his breastbone. He felt a longing to understand.

  “Love lost,” she said. “My son; his wife. They’d both had something wrenched away from them, in different ways and for different reasons. Missy saw something in Michael same way I did, time he walked into my cafe.”

  23.

  HE REMINDED her of her son.

  Wasn’t nothing you could put a finger on, just the age was right, if not the look or the life itself. It was just that a black man of a certain age and carriage—a learned restraint in his swagger, a cautious grace in his countenance—would always pinch at Geneva’s heart, on sight. Even Darren, when he’d first walked into her place, had made her think of her son, she said. Last Wednesday, she was soaking red beans in the kitchen and brining a turkey for Dennis to smoke.

  Around five o’clock that afternoon, she came in through the swinging door, wiping her hands on the tail of her apron. She heard the bell on the door just as a Lightnin’ Hopkins song lit up the music box. Have you ever loved a woman, man, better than you did yourself? One of Joe’s favorites, she thought as she smiled and looked up and saw Michael Wright. He was wearing a black T-shirt and dungarees, and the glint off the fancy car he’d rode in on shot through the windows and lit the air around him with an amber warmth. It was the last day of his life, she now knew, and the moment was forever frozen in time.

  He had that guitar on him, in a battered case, the cheap leather fraying after nearly fifty years. Huxley was down by Isaac’s chair, talking to Tim, who was getting a trim before he set out again on the road. They may have even been running a card game off the armrest of the green barber’s chair. Michael took Huxley’s stool at the counter, then laid the guitar across the other two.

  “You play?” Geneva asked as she handed him a paper menu, which doubled as a place mat. Without asking, she poured him a tall glass of water.

  “No,” Michael said, looking up at her as if he were deciding something.

  “He was about your color,” she said to Darren now. But his eyes were black, and he wore round wire-rimmed glasses made of a burnished metal.

  “No, ma’am,” Michael said. “Never played.”

  “What can I get you?”

  “Catfish plate.”

  “What sides?”

  He glanced back down at the menu. “Uh…peas and tomato okra.”

  “You want anything ’sides water?”

  “I sure would take a beer if you had it.”

  Geneva turned to the refrigerated case that held glass bottles of soda and beer. She grabbed a Coors and peeled off the top with the bottle opener hanging from a string on the cooler door. She handed the bottle to Michael, then hollered to Dennis in the kitchen. “I need a fish plate with peas and okra.”

  Michael lifted the beer bottle to his lips, and Geneva saw the wedding ring.

  She couldn’t place him. The plates out front said Illinois, but there was something familiar about him to Geneva, some aura about him that m
ade him seem right at home in this one-room cafe in rural East Texas. Or, as she thought back on it, maybe it was the guitar that felt like it fit. She asked him about it again. “You ain’t play, what you lugging that in here for?”

  He set down the Coors, missing the original ring of beer sweat on the menu by a few inches. He looked up, studying her face, letting the seconds tick by, as Lightnin’ continued to sing. Have you ever tried to give ’em a good home same time she act a fool and left? He tapped his hand on top of the guitar case.

  “This belonged to Joe Sweet,” he said, watching her face for a reaction to the name. “Joe ‘Petey Pie’ Sweet.” He watched Geneva come around from behind the counter and open the case. It was a ’55 Les Paul, a beauty. She ran her fingers over the wood, especially the places where the varnish was worn, the parts that told time. Michael stared at her and bit back a smile, a whisper of relief in his voice, that he hadn’t come all this way for nothing. “You his wife?”

  “This Joe’s guitar?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was hoping to return it to him,” he said, his voice halting a little. “I mean, I meant to, but I understand he passed. So this is yours now.”

  “How you know Joe? You not fixing to tell me you his long-lost son or some shit like that, are you?” She took a good long look at his nose and mouth.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, chuckling a little. “He and my uncle used to play together. Booker Wright. My people come out of Tyler.” He nodded toward the front windows, as if Tyler was just right over the trees on the other side of the highway. “Booker was the first to leave Texas. Then my mama married my daddy, and they followed his brother north, settling in Chicago and never looking back. For better or worse, I put it in my rearview mirror, too. I’m sorry it took me so long to honor my uncle’s last request. He wanted you to have this.”

  “Booker.” She hadn’t said the name in years. She remembered him well, remembered his silhouette in the doorway to the old Geneva’s, how he lingered long enough to give Joe a chance to change his mind, to hop in the Impala with him and the rest of the band. There was a bitterness between the men that lasted decades. Joe sent a postcard or two over the years. But the only ones available in Shelby County, Texas, showed pictures of Lone Stars or live oaks, bluebonnets and scenes of prairie and cattle, and that likely did nothing to douse the hot embers of resentment Booker felt about losing the best guitar player he ever knew—a man he considered a brother and a friend—to rural Texas. “Joe loved him,” she said.