All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  “What’s up?” Black said.

  “I told Tommy to stay put, this ain’t on us,” Joe said.

  “He’s hammerin’ on the door, said he needs to come in,” Milk said.

  “Let him in then,” Joe said.

  “Where’s Samson?” Black said.

  Milk nodded toward the back. “Safe.”

  “He ain’t come for Samson. You reckon if we wanted Samson I would’ve walked in like this?”

  Tommy banged the door again, getting pissed off now.

  Black walked over quick and unlocked the door. Milk drew his gun and trained it in front.

  Black half expected to get rushed, but then Tommy stepped aside and Raine was standing there, looking small beneath the station lights.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Joe said.

  Raine spoke. “There’s somethin’ I gotta tell you.”

  *

  Raine sat opposite Black, with Joe standing by the far wall.

  Milk was outside, at the top of the steps that led down to Samson.

  “Summer had a boyfriend.”

  Black smiled and tried not to see Joe flinch.

  “Well, I ain’t exactly sure if he was her boyfriend but there was somebody she liked.”

  “That’s okay, it’s important we know this, Raine.”

  “She made me promise . . . I ain’t sellin’ her out. It’s been long is all, so I’m gettin’ worried. I thought maybe I could find her myself, but that ain’t workin’ out –”

  “Don’t matter that you didn’t say. You were being loyal to your sister, ain’t nobody that’d blame you for that,” Black said.

  Black poured her a glass of water. “Got anything stronger?” she said, and Joe shot her a look.

  “She was nervous about askin’ me,” Raine said.

  “What’d she ask you?”

  “How to do shit.”

  Joe stared on, his gaze hard to read, his shoulders low and his hands jammed into his pockets. Raine twisted the ring she wore, the ring with the blue stone. Summer wore a matching one.

  “How to do what?” Black said, willing her not to look at Joe, to stay with him and with Summer.

  “Like how to get a boy to notice you.”

  “All right. And you know more about that sort of thing.”

  “I ain’t a slut,” she said, nose turning up as she glared at Black.

  Black shook his head. “That’s not what I meant, Raine. I just meant that Summer thought she could turn to you for that kinda thing.”

  “I guess. She ain’t got experience of datin’. ’Cept this ain’t what it was.”

  “What was it then?”

  “She said the guy was older. Much older.”

  Black felt the tension.

  “This boy –”

  “Man,” Raine said. “It weren’t a boy.”

  “She didn’t tell you his name?”

  “She wouldn’t. Said he’d get into shit.”

  “You must’ve wanted to find out.”

  “I thought she was lyin’ at first. I thought maybe she’d made the whole thing up, read it in a book and wanted to live it or somethin’.”

  Black thought of Samson, with his funny ways and ten-dollar boots, that pallor of sickness, halo not horns. He thought of Summer Ryan, gifted and gold. No way it fit, however he tried to see it.

  “What did you tell her?”

  Raine glanced at her daddy.

  “You want to step out for a while, Joe?” Black said.

  Joe shook his head, managed to smile at Raine, which was an ask, but Black was grateful.

  “I told her to smell nice, boys like perfume.”

  “That perfume we found in her bedroom –”

  “It weren’t mine. I know what Momma reckoned . . . she don’t never believe me.”

  “You know where Summer got it?”

  Raine shrugged. “I figured maybe this guy bought it for her. It looked fancy, expensive.”

  “What else did you tell her?”

  “To wear some lipstick, ’cause that makes them think of your lips, which makes ’em think of kissin’ your lips.”

  Black smiled. “That makes sense. That all?”

  Raine looked down. “She . . .” Raine’s voice shook a little. “She asked me what kinda underwear they like.”

  Joe moved fast, so fast he was out the door before Black could get to his feet.

  Black heard Milk yell something but by the time he made it to the door Milk was on his ass, his nose a mess of blood.

  Black followed the steps down quick and heard heavy thumps, fast and solid.

  He found Joe outside Samson’s door, hammering it with red fists, streaks of blood against the hard white.

  27

  Summer

  It was worse with Olive Braymer, Briar girl number five. Olive lived with her momma in the unincorporated community of Wagarmont. She went regular to Northwood Church of Christ.

  The Bird knocked her down with his van. I saw the photographs, the shards of glass and the pool of milk and the brown paper grocery bag. Before, I could reason it, I could sit in St. Luke’s and pray that he was takin’ them for some other reason, that maybe he was a collector of virtue. I saw them as Briar butterflies flutterin’ together, while he sat there and marveled ’cause appreciation was enough for him.

  But Olive Braymer, her momma reckoned she was a fighter. They found a spot of her blood, maybe she scraped her knee or bumped her head. Jesus, thinking of her hurt, limp beneath his wings as he drove her to a tomb.

  “Y’all any closer to catching him?” I said.

  Officer Milk turned like he’d just realized he weren’t alone. I liked Milk ’cause he was so big but so calm with it.

  “I’d like to say we are.”

  “But you’d be lyin’.”

  He smiled. He sat on the bench by his momma’s grave; the date on the stone gave it two years since she passed. The bench had been stained a week back, on a gray day where I watched Samson and his brush but didn’t say nothin’ to him ’cause he was concentratin’ so hard. I see Raine in Samson, that fight to get what comes easy to others. Raine can read and write but it takes her longer. I reckoned maybe twins had to divvy up traits; if one is strong the other shies, if one is smart the other struggles.

  I stood beside and stared at the stone and thought of his momma under all that dirt, maybe listenin’ to us talk. What’s a soul without a body.

  I liked watchin’ the grievers come and leave. I’d always go visit the grave they’d stopped by, I’d see who they were mourning and feel what they felt. The children were the worst: the Du Peret baby, his parents wore it so bad I could’ve cried for them; the Gambrell boy, his momma came alone and she died a little more every time; Mandy Deamer, the big guy that dropped to one knee and touched the stone.

  So much hurt I couldn’t feel my own blood no more.

  “I pray for them,” I said, ’cause it was true and it fit so right. I stood with my hands clasped together behind my back.

  “Yeah,” Milk said. “That’s good. You should be careful, you and the other girls.”

  “I know.”

  He looked sad, maybe ’cause he was thinkin’ about his momma. I imagined the day my parents ain’t around and I wondered what would be missin’ from my life.

  “You reckon he’ll quit soon, when he’s got enough?” I said.

  It was getting cold. That time where winter starts to move in and the trees are empty and you forget all the glimmers.

  “Maybe. I hope . . . Don’t stay out late, don’t go near the woods. Tell your friends.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Della Palmer, Bonnie Hinds, Lissa Pinson, Coralee Simmons, and Olive Braymer. If they were dead I wondered what it’d say on their stones.

  Taken too soon.

  ’Cause in the end we all get taken.

  “Daddy told me not to come to church. And Chief Black said it too.”

  He looked up at me. He wore sungla
sses but there weren’t sun. “But you’re still here.”

  I nodded.

  He smiled.

  At times the trouble was suffocating. You couldn’t switch on the television or pick up a newspaper without hearin’ of the fall, guilty disobedience in all its forms, like our world was spinnin’ the wrong way. I read about the children in Fairfield County, saw them on Channel 17, their shadowed faces and their mechanical voices, speaking of rote horrors while their eager mommas prompted and cried. We were all desperate for an end, least for a little while.

  I left Milk and walked into St. Luke’s and watched him through the stained glass. I closed one eye and saw him red, all scarlet sins ’cause he was a man like the others. He dropped to one knee and laid a flower, a lone flower so white and heavenly that when he was gone I went and picked it up in my hand and flipped the petals off one after the other.

  28

  These People That Are Broke

  They walked the half mile slow. They cut from dark streets into dark woods despite the early hour.

  “You bring the knife?” Noah said.

  “ ’Course,” Purv said, patting the backpack slung over his shoulder.

  They padded across dry leaves and broken branches. Purv stumbled once, Noah grabbed hold of him. The breeze was too light to make it through the trees so nothing shook above them; all they could make out was the steady rush of the Red, going on like it always did, no matter the weather.

  “My foot is cold,” Purv said. He stopped for a moment, leaned on a wide trunk, and lifted his foot. His sneaker was old.

  “There’s a hole.”

  Noah stopped. “Maybe tape it, or pad the inside with newspaper. It’ll hold awhile.”

  While he was leaning Purv lit a cigarette, then passed it to Noah and lit another for himself.

  Purv had come by that morning early, found Noah in the kitchen eating a bag of Cheetos for breakfast. They’d shared them while they watched the news report and saw a pearly reporter standing in the center of the square, Mae scowling from the window behind.

  “Has your grandmother seen the Buick yet?” Purv said.

  “If she has she ain’t said nothin’. I reckon I could convince her it ain’t supposed to have four doors.”

  They walked on, twisting lines of smoke rising from each, only the glow of their cigarettes sharp enough to shape them.

  They’d seen men by the end of Raine’s street earlier, big men with reputations, exchanging looks and glancing up and around. Noah was glad they were searching too, that Joe had friends like that.

  Purv kept his eyes on the ground, kneeled sudden, and sifted the leaves. “Thought I saw one,” he said, then stood again.

  They’d been searching for Alabama Pinks since they were small. They hadn’t ever found one.

  “There’s a guy in Windale that’ll pay fifty bucks for a single flower,” Purv said.

  Noah frowned ’cause Purv had been saying that for years.

  “I’m serious. Ricky Brannon reckons his brother found a whole load in Hell’s Gate. Made thousands.”

  “Ricky Brannon’s full of shit,” Noah said.

  They walked on.

  “I was thinkin’, how come you ain’t told Raine about dialysis?”

  Noah shrugged. “ ’Cause that’s all she’ll see.”

  *

  They found her by the Red, sitting on the bank with her legs falling over.

  Her eyes were red. She told them to go.

  Noah settled beside her. She looked sad so he tried to take her hand in his but she batted it away and she told him she’d cut it off if he tried it again.

  “I heard Black say they’re searchin’ the Lumen house today,” Noah said.

  “You reckon Samson Lumen is the Bird?” Purv said.

  “No. Samson goes to church. The way folk tell it, the Bird is the devil,” Noah said.

  “You believe in the devil?” Raine said, looking over at him.

  “If you believe in God it ain’t much of a reach.”

  “I never said I believe in God,” she said.

  “What then?” Noah said.

  “Maybe nothin’. If he wants me to look up he’s gotta come down . . . prove himself.”

  “You have to believe,” Noah said, staring. “You have to, Raine.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause this can’t be all there is. It ain’t long enough . . . it ain’t even close.”

  Purv picked up a small rock and tossed it in the water.

  “What about the lady from the clinic? What are we gonna do?” Purv said.

  “Watch her,” Raine said.

  “What if there ain’t a link? Just a sad story.”

  “We’ll watch her just in case. We’ll keep searchin’. We’ll follow up on all we got.”

  Raine stared at the water, at the turn and the rush.

  The three sat together, wondering what had gone and what would come.

  *

  Black stood out front of the Lumen house, drinking coffee from a flask, a grim look on his face. They couldn’t search the house. Deely had pulled Milt Kroll back from vacation. He’d been fishing the Caney Fork River and weren’t happy but he was doing his job. Samson said they could go in but Samson’s name weren’t on the deed. It was a blow Black saw coming a mile off, which was why he requested a warrant, but Judge Delane weren’t having none of it. The grounds were soft and everyone knew it.

  They’d called in men from the Briar County Sheriff’s Office. They were at the station now, watching the trucks out front and waiting.

  Joe would likely make a move if Black didn’t do something soon.

  They could’ve charged Joe for knocking Milk down. They could’ve locked him up and with his record he’d serve decent time again, but Milk wouldn’t allow that, not with the man’s daughter still out there.

  There were fields across from the house, long straight fields that used to be colored and worked.

  Before long he was joined by Ernie Redell. Ernie had been sheriff for ten years, though Black had known him twenty. With a sharp mind and an easy charm, there’d been talk of Ernie running for senator as long as Black could remember. Ernie always maintained he was doing what he loved, serving the people and all that, but Black had heard he was tiring of late. The Briar girls wrecked him. Now his smile took a breath longer to form, his voice had lost some of the oil.

  They shook hands. Ernie turned and watched the house. The lights were on ’cause of the cloud, they’d set up a couple of floods too but the team were packing their shit. Deely had left it late to saunter over and halt the search, with Milt frowning from his Mercedes.

  “Nice weather you’re having,” Ernie said.

  Black didn’t have the energy to smile.

  “You all right, Black?”

  “This one kinda crept up on me, now it ain’t goin’ the way I thought.”

  “I heard you got a situation brewing with the locals. Can’t say I’m surprised, once I heard the girl was Joe Ryan’s daughter. I don’t envy you.”

  “Ain’t many that do.”

  “You got much so far?”

  “No.”

  “You want us to take him?”

  “I can’t see a way of movin’ him without trouble.”

  “It’ll calm soon enough.”

  Ernie reached over and patted Black on the shoulder.

  “I got Burns and Urliss out knocking doors by our side of Hell’s Gate. And I got men I can get over quick if you need more help in the square. Can’t get a helicopter up in this weather, but soon as it breaks –”

  “Yeah,” Black said. “Soon as it breaks.”

  “You thinkin’ about the Briar girls now?” Ernie said.

  “I ain’t stopped thinkin’ about ’em.”

  “Bird huntin’. Five times and he played it near perfect. Makes you wonder.”

  “What?”

  Ernie shrugged. “If his luck is running out. Where he went. Why he stopped for a while. Why chur
ch girls . . . Those same questions we been turnin’.”

  “You don’t buy into that satanic shit,” Black said. They’d had this same conversation over beers and whiskey a while back, though neither could recall the details.

  “You can’t deny the religious angle.”

  “You can. They’re all young and pretty. That’s what links them much as anything. It’s harder to find girls that ain’t believers in Briar.”

  Ernie ran a hand over his badge. “I saw Mae this morning, on Channel 14.”

  “I heard. We got a news van parked up now, saw it on the way over. Ain’t sure what they want. Last thing I need is a bunch of idiots trailin’ through the square.”

  “You never were much of a people person, Black.”

  “Give me a desert island and I’d be happy.”

  Ernie laughed.

  Black watched him leave. Ernie flashed his lights as he passed, on the way outta Grace. Black loosened his collar, the panic creeping up outta nowhere.

  He’d rolled the idea around in his head, that Samson and the Bird were one and the same. It fit nice, the religious angle, loner. He allowed himself to think maybe it was over, they had the Bird and it was over.

  The Lumen land ran to Hell’s Gate, and there was a lot of it. Black walked around back. There was the jagged remains of a fence that ran maybe a hundred yards into the dark. Black turned his flashlight on and cast it over the area, over Merle’s farmhouse next door and the barn.

  He walked through deep grass, the roots damp. There were fruit trees planted.

  He thought about the Briar girls, about Peach Palmer and the men she fucked. It hurt him, being needed that much, made him feel a hellish kinda unworthy, that there was someone lower on the chain than him, someone that craned their neck just to see the failure in his eyes.

  He walked back and he sat heavy in the cruiser and closed his eyes ’cause he weren’t making no progress.

  He reached into the glove compartment and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. He drank it all down, too much and too fast. Then he reached for the bag he’d taken from Peach’s drawer. He was sloppy and spilled as much on the seat as he got up his nose. Then he climbed outta the car and got up on the hood and heard it creak. He could just about make out the sunlight a long way in the distance. He reached for his gun, held it high, aimed it at the cloud and pulled the trigger.