All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  “Black is a drunk, he ain’t lookin’ for my sister.” She pulled her hair back, tied it, and spit on the leaves.

  *

  There weren’t no lights on when Purv got home, which either meant his parents were sleeping or his father hadn’t paid Southern Pine again. He jumped when he heard the neighbor’s dog start up.

  He stepped onto the rear porch and reached for the kitchen door, cursing when he saw it’d been locked. He didn’t have a key, used to but lost it somewhere out by the Red.

  He turned and headed in the direction of the copse by the Dennison place, by his old house with his old bedroom and maybe his old life inside. A life that’d been easy ’cause his father had money and worked hard and mostly let him and his momma be.

  There was a new family living there now. They had a couple kids and sometimes Purv saw them climbing the big old cypress that used to be his.

  When he reached the tree he curled himself up small and pulled his coat up over his head, and then he said a silent prayer that the storm would hold off till morning.

  *

  Noah pulled the Buick to a stop. Raine didn’t move to get out.

  “We can look again tomorrow,” he said.

  “She’ll probably show by then.”

  “Won’t your parents worry you ain’t home?”

  “They reckon I’m in bed.”

  “Oh.”

  “Purv,” she said. “I heard shit about his daddy.”

  “What did you hear?”

  She rubbed her hand over the leather seat. “That he’s a cunt. Likes to beat on his wife.”

  “I told Purv he can come live with me but he won’t.”

  She brought her legs up and rested her chin on her knee. The soles of her feet were dark with dirt. Her arms were gold and scratched and the hairs were so fine and so white.

  “ ’Cause of his momma?”

  “He pretends like he don’t give a shit about her. I mean, she takes her beatin’, which is one thing, but watchin’ Purv take ’em . . . sometimes she just runs, don’t even call no one. But it’s his mom, you know.”

  She stared out the windshield and saw little but night unbroken.

  “It’s funny,” he said. “Grace. It’s a funny kinda town. People go to church every Sunday, reekin’ of booze and the sins of the weekend. They pray it away then do it again, same each and every. I saw Purv’s father there today, hidin’ in the back where the Angel sits. What business has he got there, man like that?”

  “Maybe he’s feelin’ bad about what a cunt he is.”

  “Maybe. But what’s the point? Surely someone that evil ain’t got no place in heaven. I mean, if God lets him in then what does that say about God?”

  She opened the door and climbed out.

  He watched her go, easing the Buick forward till she was lost to the dark. Then he headed in the direction of the big old cypress tree, just in case Purv was camping out again.

  *

  Raine opened her sister’s bedroom door and slipped in, careful to close it quiet behind her. She walked across the dark room to the lone bookshelf where Summer stacked her worn favorites. On the nightstand was a photo in a sparkly frame that Raine thought was pretty and maybe wanted for herself. She reached for it, carried it to the bed, and laid down.

  She held it tight, there weren’t the light to make out more than the outline, but when she closed her eyes she saw it clear: the two of them up by the Red, holding hands ’cause that was their thing they did since they were tiny. They held hands. Even now, if they were sad or mad or happy, they held hands.

  7

  Summer

  Briar girl number one was Della Palmer. Della was sixteen and lived in Standing Oak, which is an hour from Grace. Della’s momma is Peach, Peach Palmer, and she’s the kinda lady that lets men fuck her if they can scrape together fifty bucks, ’cause she’s got a drug problem to pay for and Della’s daddy walked out before she was born.

  We heard about Della on the local news. We were eatin’ supper and watching Melrose when she flashed up missin’ and Momma said Standing Oak girls are trouble so that was that. No one thought she was taken ’cause no one believed Della was decent. Even though she went regular to the West End Mission and she made good grades and didn’t get in shit at school.

  Della was walkin’ home from church on a Sunday mornin’ and she cut down Willowbrook Drive; the cops know this ’cause she walked part of the way with the Lewis family. That was the last time anyone saw Della. According to the Briar County News there weren’t no tire tracks and nobody saw nothin’. There ain’t many houses on Willowbrook and the folk that live there ain’t the type that’ll spill to cops. They chalked it that she’d run ’cause that was easiest. Maybe she had a boyfriend that drove a Chevy ’cause one of Peach’s neighbors saw it stop by late a couple times. Peach couldn’t say if it was a john ’cause she was too strung out to notice much of anything back then.

  Later, once they finally got that Della was the first and not just another runaway, I saw Peach again. This time there were shots of her at the Briar County Sheriff ’s Office, sittin’ by Sheriff Ernie Redell as he made a plea to the camera. When he said Della’s name Peach got up and stood and looked around like she didn’t know where she was. And then she dropped her head and cried into her hands.

  *

  “Do you have any friends, Summer?” Bobby said.

  “You,” I said.

  “Friends your own age.”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m odd, they’re even.”

  He smiled. “What are you reading?”

  I glanced at my book. “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

  “I liked Francie.”

  “Those immigrants,” I said. “They reckoned education was all it took to rise up and find a place, like that was the key to the kingdom, like it was that simple. Why do people want to fit so bad? Don’t matter where, they just need a place.”

  His sleeves were rolled back. He’s got the kinda eyes where you ain’t never sure what’s goin’ on behind them. He’s sad sometimes. When he thinks no one is watchin’ he looks real sad.

  “Education is important.”

  He said it flat so I laughed.

  “Raine’s in trouble again,” I said.

  “How come?”

  “ ’Cause she don’t fit. She’s not smart enough to keep her head down . . . ’cause it ain’t forever. The real world, it’s comin’ for us.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m smart enough to know better. I do what I need to do but I can see it for what it is—a means to an end. I see them. They tell lies like that’s the right thing to do.”

  “What kinda lies?”

  “They say be all you can be. They tell tales about makin’ a difference in a world where difference ain’t exactly tolerated.”

  He stretched his legs out and looked at me. It was hot and his collar was loose. Sometimes it was too quiet in St. Luke’s so I’d stamp my foot down and make an echo.

  “What should they be tellin’ you?”

  “Keep low and let life run steady through your fingers while you plan for the ever after. That’d be one kinda truth. Raine . . . they know she’s cutting but they don’t even call the house. It’s like they’ve given up or somethin’. She ain’t ready.”

  “For what?” he said.

  “Life. Momma reckons it’s comin’. I know she’s expectin’ Raine to just take off one day, leave a note or somethin’. Maybe she’ll get pregnant, take that route to nowhere.”

  “She’s just struggling to find her way.”

  I set my book down and turned to face him. “What does that even mean? Her way to where exactly? To the other side?”

  He shrugged. “That makes life nothin’ more than a test.”

  “I guess that’s why Momma worries so much, ’cause she believes.”

  “It’s hard not to in a town like Grace,” he said.

  “If ther
e ain’t nothin’ to this life then it’s a wonder more kids ain’t reaching for guns and swallowing the barrel. Actually, that might’ve been a viable shortcut, but the church has got that base covered. Purgatory—the holdin’ cell between life and eternal life. God’s own drunk tank, where sinners sober up to the horrors of a life without sin.”

  He laughed.

  “Don’t anyone go to hell no more? I think about murderers and rapists repenting at the gates, tossing a Hail Mary toward the light, eyes wide when it lands. And it always lands.”

  “It seems that way.”

  “If that’s all there is to this, an eighty-year dry run, then surely now is the time to make mistakes, to let loose and do whatever you want, to get it outta your system.”

  “That’s somethin’ to take comfort in at least.”

  “However much of a mess you’ve made, whatever you’ve done wrong or whatever wrong’s been done to you, just take a breath and dust yourself off. You’re just practicing. You’ll nail it on the next try.”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Shit. When you think about it that way it’s no wonder religion is big business. You’d have to be crazy not to believe.”

  8

  Peach Palmer, the Prostitute

  Across the town, the people of Grace readied themselves for the storm. They made such precautions a couple times a year ’cause folk still remembered the lives lost in the Super Outbreak in April ’74. They checked the news for weather reports but the rest of Briar County was clear and the front had come up outta nowhere. Trix took calls and sent Rusty out to check on the widows and make sure they were ready with shutters and shelters and flashlights. Sometimes they asked him to check their roofs, so Rusty walked a fair way back and nodded and squinted ’cause there weren’t no chance at all he’d climb a ladder.

  Ginny Adams stocked the shelves in her convenience store and prepared for a run, same as always.

  Black stood by the window and watched the main square. It was early but dark as night with the cloud above, quiet ’cept for a couple lights burning in Mae’s Diner and Benny’s Butcher Shop. Only five years back it’d been a hive, dawn till night, with folk riding the Transit to work at the Kinley Mill. That was till they shuttered it. No one blamed them. The Kinleys held it longer than they might’ve; gave work to shortwooders and mule-loggers and paid double to keep it local. Couldn’t run that loss forever though.

  With so many outta work they lost stores quick; half gone in a matter of months and homes foreclosed. There was anger, especially being as they couldn’t switch on a television without seeing the moneymen grinning gleeful as they talked of booms, steady job creation, and golden times ahead in the rest of the country.

  Milk walked into the station carrying a couple coffees.

  “Fifty bucks,” Black said, hand out.

  “Already said I ain’t paying till it’s done,” Milk said.

  “All that DNA, ain’t a jury alive that’d let him free.”

  “But it’s O. J. The Juice. Two thousand yards, fourteen games.” Milk whistled.

  Black sighed.

  “Anything on Summer Ryan yet?”

  “Nothin’.” Black said.

  “Three days. Still reckon she ran?”

  Black turned back to the window and the dark sky and didn’t say nothing.

  *

  Savannah kept his photos in a shoebox in the closet. They brought his things when they moved ’cause it wasn’t up for discussion. Bobby packed them, wrapped all his toys, books, and clothes, then unpacked them careful in what would’ve been his bedroom. Bobby liked it contained ’cause they had guests often and he didn’t like them asking about Michael. She understood why but it didn’t make it any easier.

  When she was home alone she’d take the shoebox out and she’d smile at the photographs ’cause she found that once she started crying it was tough to stop.

  She walked to the window and looked out at dark sky despite the early hour. Her mind ran to Summer. When she hadn’t shown for her cello lesson on Saturday night, Savannah had called the Ryan house and Ava answered on the first ring.

  She’s missing. She’s gone.

  Savannah had left the house and run the length of Jackson Ranch, through the cemetery and into the old church where she’d found Bobby and had told him. Bobby had stood and turned pale and they’d driven straight over to the Ryan house. It’d been busy with pickups all over and big men looking out from the porch like they were expecting trouble.

  She’d seen Joe and Tommy with maps and shotguns.

  Ava had cut through the cluster and hugged both of them and said she was gonna kill Summer when she showed. But she’d said it with a smile like it’d keep the sharp edge from what was playing.

  Bobby had driven the Grace streets till late while Savannah sat with Ava and watched the big men’s wives come with plates, and worry and tears, then leave again.

  When the house was quiet, Ava had asked Savannah if Bobby would pray for her daughter to come home safe, and Savannah said of course like that was nearly enough.

  Bobby had been out searching every night since.

  *

  Purv hid out in the alleyway behind Mae’s Diner. There was a low wall beside a Dumpster, and though the smell weren’t pretty, it offered him a place to sit when he grew tired of standing. He lit a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers as it smoked.

  He’d bolted that morning, before Noah’s grandmother could get up and see him sleeping on their couch and give Noah shit for it.

  He glanced up at the storm cloud and reckoned maybe it’d fallen lower overnight. He didn’t notice Roy and Rex till it was too late.

  They were cousins, seniors; both a little affected but by what Purv didn’t know. There were rumors that Rex had once tried to fuck a stray cat.

  “Purvis,” Roy said. Roy was the brains of the operation on account of the fact he could belch the alphabet.

  Purv eyed them nervous.

  “I heard you got a job,” Roy said. He was carrying a stick, leaning on it, and drinking a red Snapple. “Good timing, ’cause I’m comin’ up a little short this month.”

  Rex tipped his head back and laughed, cutting an ugly shadow into the strip of light that fell from Mae’s kitchen. His T-shirt was a size too small and slivers of his pale gut hung from beneath.

  “I ain’t been paid yet,” Purv said, his voice holding steady.

  “You can pay up, or you can catch a beatin’ then pay up. It’s your choice.”

  Roy laughed and made a show of clenching his fist.

  Purv glanced down and saw an empty Sam Adams bottle but didn’t have the nerve to reach for it. Any case, it’d be the kinda show they’d look straight past. And then he saw Noah at the top of the alleyway beneath the streetlight. He quickly grabbed ten bucks from his pocket and thrust it at Rex, but not in time ’cause Noah saw what was going down and quickened his step toward them.

  “Roy and Rex,” Noah said, flashing his badge.

  “That ain’t even yours,” Roy said, laughing.

  “I saw a stray just now, Rex. Maybe wrap up this time, there’s a litter been born in Brookdale that look an awful lot like you,” Noah said.

  Purv clenched his fists and tried to swallow back the nerves ’cause he knew what was coming.

  “We’re brave,” Noah said, loud and mighty like a call of the wild.

  Purv couldn’t get the words out ’cause Noah threw the first punch. Always did no matter who they were up against. It was a hard right that connected nice with Rex’s forehead and dropped him, but that was all he managed ’cause Roy was still holding the stick.

  When it was over, when Mae heard the noise and stopped it before it got bad, blood dripped steady from Noah’s nose and he blotted it with paper towels.

  Purv was breathing hard. They’d mostly left him be, just pushed him to the ground, but that was all it took ’cause his ribs were still black from the last time his father got mad.

  They wa
lked slow.

  “Almost had ’em,” Noah said.

  “Yeah,” Purv said. They hadn’t ever won a fight so Noah reckoned they were due.

  “I was thinkin’ about Summer last night. And then I was thinkin’ about those girls again. The Briar girls.”

  Noah nodded. “Yeah, but Summer ran. The Briar girls were just out, taken without warning. Black ain’t linking it.”

  “Could be he don’t want to. Maybe it’s on him a little . . . that sighting. My father said Black could’ve taken the shot. That was the talk anyhow.”

  Noah shrugged ’cause no one really knew what went down.

  “I ain’t sure what we’re doin’ with Raine,” Purv said.

  “Helpin’. I’m a cop.”

  “That make me your partner?”

  “ ’Course. You can be Tubbs.”

  “I ain’t black though.”

  “You’re more black than I am,” Noah said, tossing the paper towels in the trash.

  “How’d you figure that?”

  “Halbert.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  Halbert was Purv’s uncle who lived over in Gattman and married a black lady.

  “You think you got a shot with Raine?”

  “Not in a million years. She did give me her gum though,” Noah said, smiling.

  “That don’t sound like much.”

  Noah raised an eyebrow. “From her mouth.”

  Purv looked over. “She gave you the gum from her mouth?”

  “She did.”

  “That’s practically like makin’ out with her.”

  They rounded the end of the alley and heard yelling. They saw Raine outside the station and Trix trying to calm her while Black looked on from the doorway.

  Raine walked down the stone steps, her eyes hard. She crossed over to the bench and sat, glaring up at Black.

  Purv followed Noah over.

  Raine glanced at Noah. “What happened to your face?”