All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  Tommy glanced at his brother, then back out the window. “Ran home to take a shower is all.”

  Joe nodded, then he looked out, saw a bottle of William Lawson’s in the weeds and wondered if Samson was the type that liked to drink. Like Black. He’d known Black a lifetime. Before he’d gone inside Black had been slick with purpose, a drinker, always, but tough and smart. Him and Mitch Wild made a tight pairing. Joe had seen it on the night news, on the small black-and-white in his cell. They didn’t say but he knew Black had fucked up ’cause Mitch was a pro to the bone, no way he would’ve walked up to that house without cover.

  “You heard anything more from Black?” Tommy said.

  “He ain’t got nothin’ yet, reckons Samson was sick yesterday. If this drags, if she don’t show . . . we’ll have to pull him out.”

  “The Angel? How?” Tommy looked over at him.

  “Just go in and take him.”

  “All right.”

  “I was thinkin’ we wait for the storm. Do it when the cops are busy, when people ain’t lookin’ down.”

  Tommy nodded. “Move on the storm, I like that.”

  Tommy opened the glove compartment, saw a SIG and a Smith & Wesson inside. He carried a knife, always had since they were boys and got caught out by a couple guys from Windale who did a number on Joe ’cause he was the bigger of the two. It’d been Tommy they were after; he’d fucked one of their girls. Joe said it was him.

  “You know much about this guy?”

  “No. The Angel was like a ghost till recent. He worked at the school but outside of that, nothin’. I got it the old man was shamed of him, never saw Samson at church or nothin’, like he was locked down with his momma.”

  “I saw him recent, at St. Luke’s, when we dropped the girls there,” Tommy said.

  Joe nodded. “That’s what Ava reckons. He started goin’ to church again, every day she said.”

  “How come?”

  “Could be when his momma died. Could be when the old man got sick he wanted to go pray for him.”

  “Could be ’cause Summer was there,” Tommy said quiet.

  Joe put his foot on the gas, wondering what was to come, hoping it’d be over soon and Summer would come home safe, and that he wouldn’t have to hurt nobody for that to happen.

  19

  Summer

  The bell tower at St. Luke’s is somethin’ special. It chimes on the hour. Don’t matter if I’m reading or watchin’ Raine swing out over the Red, I always hear it and I always notice ’cause it’s kinda like the heartbeat of Grace.

  Daddy said when he was a little boy he got a job workin’ the cotton fields by Carolina Road. It was tough work and he couldn’t slack ’cause Ezra Kinley had a line of boys by his place each mornin’ and only the need for half of them. Ezra would let them break at midday when the sun was gettin’ fierce, and he’d get Cass to bring out a pitcher of lemonade. Ezra kept a ball and a mitt and a couple bats by the house and they’d play an hour before they worked on. Daddy said the boys would count the chimes off, waitin’ till it was time, then pray the bell would break so they could get longer out.

  *

  It was tight, the stairway windin’ dark and dusty circles. Bobby asked if I wanted to help him, he had to check the workings every month. I felt Bobby close behind me. I walked slow, countin’ each step. I dressed for him. I took clothes from Raine’s closet then left the house early. The skirt was short and I wore underwear that went right up my butt. I almost slipped once. I ain’t even sure if I did it on purpose but Bobby reached out and placed a hand on my hip.

  “All right?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  We passed the room where the ringers used to sit. I’ve been in there before, there’s a line of photos on the wall and they show the church after Hurricane Camille swept through. There was a hole in the roof but it could’ve been worse ’cause there weren’t much that still stood along the Mississippi coast.

  I was already deep outta breath. Bobby helped me as we crossed the beam. I focused on my feet. It was hot and sunlight crisscrossed the tower through gaps in the stone. I had a fine sweat on by the time we reached the ladder. I was hopin’ I didn’t have patches under my arms ’cause I hadn’t never seen Savannah a shade off perfect.

  I glanced up and saw the wooden wheel and the cogs and the dull steel bell. Dust rose like glitter and I reached out and tried to grasp it.

  “We can go back. It’s hot in here,” Bobby said, wiping his forehead.

  His arms are a kinda gold color ’cause he spends a lot of his time outside, walking to visit people and helpin’ Samson with the grounds.

  “I want to see the top,” I said.

  “It’s high, if you get dizzy on the ladder just stop climbing, don’t look down and hold on tight. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Catch me if I fall,” I said.

  “You’ll take me down with you.”

  I laughed.

  I climbed slow, keepin’ my head up. I felt the ladder move as Bobby climbed beneath me. At one point I glanced down and saw him lookin’ straight up, his cheeks colored with shame.

  I stopped near the top.

  “All right, Summer?”

  “Just need a minute,” I said.

  I glanced down again, his face by my ankles, his eyes strippin’ me bare. I wanted him to touch me, to reach up and do ungodly things to me in the church tower.

  I thought of my momma, if she could see me, her shinin’ star flashin’ her ass to a pastor.

  When we got out the air hit me hard and I gulped it down ’cause I didn’t realize I hadn’t been breathin’ for the longest time. That was the thing with Bobby, around him I forgot I was mortal, I went to a place where his gaze pumped my blood and his smile filled my lungs.

  I walked to the edge and saw Grace below, and I saw across Briar County to the rise and the fall of the country beyond. It was so long and so wide and so deep and so endless. Maybe I liked that feelin’, like I was a dot on a canvas so vast you could lift me out and nobody would notice. That insignificance that people fear, I sought it ’cause it made it all right, those acts that were so small.

  “Where’s my house?”

  He leaned close to me, his cheek almost brushin’ mine. He put an arm round my waist and pointed. I stared off, tryin’ not to breathe when his hand moved lower.

  We stayed that way a long time. There ain’t a sound up there but the lightest whistle of the breeze. I could see trucks hurtlin’ down Highway 125 and I thought of the men in them like my daddy, with their family living lives so lonely. That was me and my momma and my sister.

  I leaned forward, my elbows comin’ to rest on the stone. My skirt pulled high, his hand drifted lower till it rested on my ass. My mouth ran dry.

  I shifted slightly, moved my feet farther apart. I saw a cluster of birds shoot high from Hell’s Gate, then scatter and come together in some kinda dance.

  Bobby took his hand away and I wondered what I’d done wrong. It was a game I didn’t know how to play or what it meant to win.

  My hair fell. I counted to fifty.

  I almost jumped when I felt Bobby’s hand on my thigh, at the top, under my skirt. His touch was hot, sweat on his palms.

  I breathed ragged.

  His hand rose higher, resting on my bare ass.

  “Sometimes I want to go home,” he said.

  I was damp through.

  “But there was never home.”

  I kicked my foot out a little more, arched my back, and brought my chin down to rest on my fingers like I was watchin’ the flames below.

  I flexed my toes.

  He moved his hand across my ass, my underwear against his palm.

  “I can see the whole of Briar County,” I said.

  I counted to fifty again, this time fast, then I dared to push back.

  I felt the pressure soft at first.

  He pressed harder, I pushed back just as hard. He slowly worked his hand lower, tracin’ hi
s finger down.

  I closed my eyes.

  The bell sounded and I jumped and he took his hand away.

  And maybe that one time I wished it was broke too.

  20

  Working Rich Boys

  The first reporters gathered early at the border on Hallow Road. Sun had risen in the rest of Briar County so the line was stark like usual and they fired off shots. They were local, most had friends who lived in Grace, and they were still chalking it to a storm, but there’d been rumblings of the missing girl and the Bird and a churchman. They couldn’t link to the Briar girls ’cause the Grace girl had run, and Black and Ernie Redell had played it low, but when you added everything there was a flavor getting stronger.

  Tib Tyler, from the Briar County News, had dressed smart, yellow corduroy suit, bolo tie, and black Panama, and he’d tried to get a meeting with Black but kept getting stonewalled. Tib had a friend who worked as a cameraman over at WXFB and he was en route with a van and a pretty face and they were planning on running something light, just about the dark town.

  “I ain’t liking it,” Tib said. “I ain’t liking it not one bit.”

  The man beside was Brent Mann and he worked for the Maidenville Herald. “There isn’t much to like. It’ll be a bad one.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about the storm. The girls. You heard about the Ryan girl?”

  Brent nodded. “Heard she ran, maybe with a boyfriend. Nothin’ in that.”

  Tib chewed the end of his pen and stared high at the sky. “The Bird’s back, and he’s brought the devil with him.”

  Brent shook his head. “You run with that and Ernie will lynch you.”

  *

  Savannah kneeled on the grass and fussed with the flowers. The stone seemed too big to mark a child’s grave, hard when it should’ve been soft. St. Margaret’s was a simple church, white boards and pretty steeple, acres of rolling Maidenville green framed it.

  She’d bought him a gift. It was a toy car and she’d wrapped it careful in teddy bear paper. He would have been seven and she worried the paper was too babyish because she didn’t know what seven-year-old boys were like.

  Bobby hadn’t fitted the car seat correctly. The strap should have been looped through at the shoulder, that way when the truck hit, Michael might have escaped with nothing more than bruises. She tried to imagine carrying what Bobby had to, she tried to imagine hurt beyond her own but it was too much.

  “What did you get him?”

  She turned and saw Bobby and smiled. “I didn’t know if you’d come. You were out all night again.”

  “Summer.”

  “Anything?”

  He shook his head and kneeled beside her.

  “I bought him a car, the kind you pull back and let go. Is the paper too babyish?”

  “No.” He took it from her and placed it by the grave. There were carved doves, an angel and a scroll and a photo where Michael smiled so wide.

  She wished the birds would stop singing a while.

  “I thought it might get easier, because that’s what they say,” she said.

  He wore dark glasses that hid his thoughts.

  When he reached forward and laid a hand on the stone she cried, and when she cried her eyes swelled and her nose ran.

  “I miss him,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She reached out and he took her hand. There was so much to say but nothing that would change much of anything.

  *

  “You’re quiet,” Peach said.

  Black held a cigarette in his hand but didn’t light it.

  She’d fixed him something to eat, though he said he didn’t want nothing. She’d cleaned her place, always did if she knew he was stopping by. He smelled some kinda lemon cleaner, bleach like it’d strip the sin back.

  She fluffed cushions on the sofa then sat down and smiled at him. It was the kinda nervous smile that almost kept him from showing up.

  She kept clippings in a box beneath her bed. It’d crossed his mind she knew the Bird. That he was one of her men, those silent men that showed and came and left. The dark side of nature but nature all the same.

  “Drink?” she said.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Anything on Summer Ryan?” she said. No one called her no more; not Ernie Redell, not the state cops. There weren’t no one keeping in touch and he knew it killed her.

  “Nothin’ at all.”

  “You’re holdin’ that guy from the church though.”

  “It’ll go off, I can feel it. People are angry, lookin’ for somethin’ to fight about. Could be it’s me holdin’ on to a pastor’s son.”

  She came over and perched so close he could smell her perfume. There was a new photo of Della by the window. She was a quiet kid. Peach would entertain and do what she did and Della would stay locked in her bedroom. The men didn’t know she was there; it was safer that way. She’d called once, they found it, when she was eleven and heard her momma taking a beating. She’d called 911 like Peach had taught her.

  “You reckon he’s back and he’s taken Summer Ryan?”

  He said nothing, just stared at the television set.

  She leaned in and kissed him. That’s how it started between them. She couldn’t bear it, all the waiting around, the tension. There was much unsaid, about how the state cops were with her, what they said about Della and Peach in the newspapers. They wrote Della off quick: knocked up and ran. Opinion turned as time rolled by, Peach drew something from that. She gave an interview to a hack from a national, showed him Della’s report cards and he was fair when he ran it, painted her as the rose that grew in weeds, mother a whore but daughter canonized. That was the first time Black saw Peach, her real smile, and it was beautiful.

  “That guy ain’t stopped by?” he said.

  “Told you I’d call you, didn’t I.”

  He nodded, making certain. There were times he wanted her to call, just so he could do something more than nothing for her.

  “Those photos you gave me,” he said. He’d sat with them and studied them while Milk looked on.

  He took the photo out of the envelope he brought and held it to the light.

  It was a clear shot, the face behind Della looking straight at the camera. There weren’t no doubt it was Tommy Ryan.

  “You know this guy?” Black said.

  Peach stared at the photo, glanced at Black then back at the photo.

  “How long?” Black said.

  “Once, maybe. Long time back.”

  Black rubbed his eyes.

  Peach reached a hand out and looked so sad he couldn’t help but take it in his.

  “He weren’t with us that day. I ain’t seen him in a long time.”

  “Was Della home that time he stopped by?”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “I know Tommy Ryan,” he said. “He’s got a reputation.”

  “He got a temper on him?”

  “Yeah, but more a reputation with the ladies. He’s popular.”

  “Ain’t just the losers that pay for it, Black.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean nothin’ by that.”

  “I know.”

  He wondered if she did.

  “I better get goin’,” he said.

  He saw the look again. “Thanks for supper.”

  “You didn’t eat much.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her, keeping it brisk, but she held him after and wouldn’t let go. He felt her spine, her ribs, like they were outside her skin. She was getting clean. Some kinda program they ran over at the Pinegrove Center, handing out prayers and methadone like they had equal worth.

  She held him close. “You’ll keep lookin’ for Della won’t you, Black?”

  He nodded, eyes closed in case she saw it, that he was all she had and he pitied her for it.

  *

  Black took the Coyette way back, passing Gin Creek and the big houses along Route 29, by the
state line. He opened the window and let night in. He passed the Green Acres Baptist Church on 84, heard they had some trouble a few months back, kids with spray cans. He pulled over.

  His mind ran to the Ryan girls. He’d see them in the square when they were small, pretty dresses and holding their momma’s hands, gussied up like they were headed to a party ’stead of the grueling run to Holman to visit their daddy. They’d be smiling, chatty, full of all things innocent and right. They’d arrive back at dusk, dresses wrinkled like their eyes.

  He sighed and looked out the windshield and thought of all that Raine had said to him, all that hurt and anger in her eyes.

  The church was white, lit up bright but quiet. He could see the faint outline of the Bird, sprayed on the wall, by the picket. Briar girl number four had gone to that church. He could see her face clear; brown hair that touched red and that shy kinda smile they all shared.

  He got out and stood on the sidewalk awhile, then walked the curved path to the church.

  The front was grand and pillared and stucco smooth. He walked along the side, past the arched windows ten feet high and stained yellow and red and green.

  “Can I help you, Officer?”

  Black turned. The girl was young but carried a godly confidence, like she’d smile at a perfect stranger and not worry about the return.

  “I’m Chief Black, from over in Grace.”

  She reached out and spoke while he shook her hand gently. “Eliza McKissack, my daddy is the pastor here. We were just finishing up inside if you want to speak with him.”

  Black shook his head.

  She looked down. “I thought maybe you were here about Coralee.”

  “I guess I was. I am. Not to speak with nobody, just to see the church. Did you know Coralee?”

  They walked slow, she fell into step beside him. The church grounds were large and lit and tended.

  “Yes, sir. She was in my class, and she came to church every week. I spoke to Sheriff Redell back then. You still haven’t heard nothin’?”

  Black shook his head. They stopped by a cedar, mighty and beautiful, its branches swaying gentle.

  “We pray for her every week.”

  Black nodded.