The Stones Cry Out

by Sibella Giorello

  "Raleigh, this is a nice surprise. We haven't seen you in years."

  Mac jumped from her horse, flung the reins at the man named Talley, and hugged me without really touching. "DeMott said you work for the FBI, an agent -- is that true?"

  I nodded.

  "That’s so exciting!"

  "Yes," I said. "And I wish this was a social visit."

  She glanced at her father, her face suddenly slack.

  Mr. Fielding looked unfazed. He had a rich baritone, honeyed with the tones of Old Virginia. "Why don't we take this into the house?" he said, pronouncing the last word “whoos.” "Otherwise, I might confuse our conversation with the smell of my horses."

  ===============

  Weyanoke's walls were three feet thick and solid brick. During the war, a Confederate cannonball managed to penetrate one of those walls, and the hammered iron sphere remained there, a hostile souvenir from the Rebels who claimed the MacKennas and later Fieldings were traitors to the South. I glanced once at the cannonball, now resting beside a window in the sun-drenched parlor that overlooked the river. It was an odd reminder of this family’s history.

  The housekeeper carried in a silver tray. Iced tea and crystal glasses.

  "Thank you, Connie," Mr. Fielding said. "Leave it on the sideboard."

  MacKenna, still wearing her riding boots, walked across the room and dropped into a floral chintz wingback. She fanned herself with a paper napkin from the tray. "Every year, I think I'll get used to this heat and every year it gets worse. How is that possible, Raleigh -- doesn't that just defy science?"

  Her father handed me a glass of tea, ignored her question. "Tell me what brings you to Weyanoke."

  But when I began explaining the mayor's civil rights complaint, Mac suddenly gasped.

  "I can't believe those men died!"

  "Sugar,” her father replied, “it's six stories to solid concrete. Nobody can survive that fall."

  "But it's just so awful!"

  He turned back to me. "Raleigh, I already talked to the police. I don't accept any responsibility for this accident. Yes, that factory does belong to me, but this was some kind of freak accident. Of course, I'm sorry it happened, but I can't stop thieves and squatters from finding new ways into these places. Property ownership in that neighborhood is an elaborate game of cat and mouse.”

  "Through thin air." Mac shivered. "It must have been so frightening."

  For a moment, Mr. Fielding stared at his daughter. His tan face bore an indulgent expression, a man amused and slightly annoyed by somebody he loves very much. When he looked back at me, the amusement was gone and the annoyance was no longer slight.

  "Raleigh, what is it you need from me?"

  "The mayor, and the mother of Hamal Holmes, both claim he didn't break into the building. I'm sure you're aware the mayor is accusing you of fostering crime by not taking care of the place."

  "Once again, his honor-- " he smirked -- "has boiled another complicated situation down to black and white. Literally, black and white. You can't possibly take him seriously, Raleigh."

  "The FBI has opened the civil rights investigation. So, yes, we are taking him seriously. The fact remains, those men fell from your building. Somehow Mr. Holmes got inside --"

  "Are you implying this is my fault?"

  Mac slipped deeper into the chair's wings, so far back I could only see her long legs in the riding boots. When I didn't answer his question, Harrison Fielding refilled his glass of tea, sipped, then launched into a lecture about ethical tax evasion.

  "I own dozens of buildings on Southside,” he began. “At one time, these were highly productive enterprises. I would like more than for that kind of productivity to return. A blessing for everyone. But that future is not mine alone to create. It was the city that ran my businesses into the ground. All their petty regulations and limitless taxes and invented violations. Now my buildings are empty. And they are under constant siege from looters and crooks of every kind—including looters and crooks who somehow get voted into office."

  "Unpaid taxes aren’t helping the situation."

  "Yet the city continues to raise tax rates. Why is no one asking about where that money goes? They should. Because I can tell them. It goes straight into the pockets of politicians, into feel-good social programs that keep people from getting real jobs. You know what Southside has become? A welfare state."

  I was about to remind him how the federal government views tax evasion, but he wasn't done arguing his case.

  "Please tell the mayor that when the city starts protecting business owners, when it starts supporting free enterprise, I’ll pay my taxes. But until then I can’t find a compelling reason to comply with their extortion. Consider this my version of civil disobedience—surely the mayor will understand that terminology. And, yes, in case you're wondering, I do pay my state and federal taxes, so do not bother with notifying your colleagues in the IRS." He smiled, coldly. "I'm withholding Richmond's money. Because Richmond is the problem."

  "Oh, Daddy!" Mac jumped up from the chair. Her boots left a trail of dry soil on the polished pine. "For goodness sake, you're talking to Raleigh. A family friend."

  She took her father’s free arm with both hands, squeezing him affectionately before tossing back her long dark braid. Sunlight poured through the mullioned windows and was caught by the broad facets of the diamond ring on her left hand.

  "Daddy's like all the Fielding men,” she said. “Always making a point. Isn't it tiresome, Raleigh? I could die from the boredom."

  I didn't know what to say. And didn’t think Mr. Fielding was answering, so I finished my tea and left my card on the silver tray. Harrison Fielding nodded as though acknowledging receipt, and Mac escorted me to the door. An ebony braid plaited down her back like an arrow.

  "Congratulations on your engagement," I said.

  She stopped, offering me her hand for inspection. The geologist in me guessed it was a canary diamond, three carats. Maybe four. And the geologist perversely wondered which impurity turned the diamond yellow—iron, titanium—and whether the rock came from South Africa or Sierra Leone. But Mac wouldn’t want to hear about impurities. Or blood diamonds.

  "Who's the lucky groom?" I asked.

  "Stuart Morgan. Do you remember him? He was in DeMott's class at St. Christopher’s."

  "Sorry, I don't recall."

  "Well, he's just wonderful. Perfect. The wedding’s early September. Here, of course. Down by the river."

  "Sounds lovely."

  "DeMott's best man." She leaned in, her voice a whisper. "I'm so glad that drug nonsense is over. You should see him, Raleigh. He's really come around."

  "I'm glad things are going well for you, Mac."

  "Good seeing you too."

  In the silence that followed I figured we were both considering the last time we saw each other. Four years ago. At my father's funeral. He was murdered.

  "Please say hello to your mother," she said. "We do think of her often."

  And with that, she opened the massive front door. Outside the sun blazed across the cut grass, turning the lawn white.

  "Oh my goodness," she exclaimed. "I'm not going anywhere. It's atrocious out there!"

  Chapter 5

  That evening, as a sunset cast soft amethyst hues over Richmond, I parked the hideous K-Car near the statue of the great General Robert E. Lee. The Confederate hero was riding his faithful steed Traveller into bronzed eternity, pointed south. Both man and horse were the epitome of gentility.

  When my great-great-grandparents built their three-story brick house on Monument Avenue, Lee's statue stood alone in a grassy field. That was in 1900, when this section of town was Richmond's far outer edge, and when the urge to commemorate the war was just beginning. But other Civil War memorials soon appeared on the road -- J. E. B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis -- and before long the cobblestone street was renamed Monument Avenue. In the antebellum aftermath, it became the city’s most exclusive address.<
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  These days it was my mother who lived in the big house along with our boarder, a photographer named Wally Marsh. I lived in the carriage house across the slate courtyard but spent as much time as possible in the main house. But this evening the house was empty. In the fridge, I found a pitcher of cold lemonade and carried it out to the courtyard. Sitting at the wrought iron table, I could just barely see Lee's profile through the magnolia leaves. The trees hadn't been cut back in four years. Not since my father died.

  Sipping my drink, I closed my eyes and listened to the evening traffic. It thrummed softly over the cobblestones, a meditative rhythm like a hummed chant, and my mind began to drift over the day, returning to that conversation with the mayor.

  Was it possible for six hundred people to miss two men falling off a roof?

  Possible, I decided.

  But not probable.

  Most likely, LuLu Mendant had it right. An antique wound plagued this city, an inherited devastation, and it visited generations who never saw combat, who never lived as slaves, yet claimed those injuries as their own. The wound was old, the mayor said. And the pain was still fresh.

  When I opened my eyes, my mother was standing on the steps outside the kitchen’s French doors.

  "Raleigh Ann," she said, "be sure to drink up that lemonade."

  Nadine Shaw Harmon's brunette hair spiraled from her pretty head. Walking toward the patio table, she made music. Silver bangles singing and three-inch stilettos clicking across the slate. Her dog walked behind her, a faithful canine whose full name was Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. The name was plucked from thin air. My mother did that with words. Often.

  Madame trotted to my chair, panting, then crawled under the table. The slate was slightly cool from the shade of the house.

  "What's in the lemonade?" I asked.

  My mother only smiled.

  "Didn’t Wally make the lemonade?" I asked. That was the only reason I decided to drink it. "Then please tell me what's in it. In case some weird side effect hits me."

  "I added a little valerian. That's all."

  "Valerian. What does that do?"

  "It's an herb."

  "An herb. What does it do?"

  "It helps you sleep."

  "You mean it's going to knock me out."

  "Raleigh, your bedroom light was on all night. You are ruining your circadian rhythms. You need to sleep."

  I took a deep breath. The air smelled of warm stone and dusk and summer green. I let the sigh out slowly, and smiled. "Have you been at the camp?"

  She clapped her hands. The bracelets chimed. "There was a woman with the worst skin disease you ever did see. Like Job's affliction! But the Lord is going to heal her soon. By His stripes, we are healed."

  After my father died, my mother attached herself to a Pentecostal church twenty miles north of town. An odd and rustic place with summer tent revivals, the camp was full of sincere women in calico dresses who took God at His word. They were good and generous people. They also believed make-up was a grave sin, and yet they had not tossed out my mother, who comparatively speaking looked like she was dragged over the Dillard's make-up counter.

  She picked up my glass, sipping to taste it. "Oh, I used too much honey."

  "Honey. That’s what I tasted. Lemonade needs sugar."

  "Sugar will kill you, Raleigh." She said it matter-of-factly. "You should have heard this preacher today. He came all the way from South Africa, a colored man. He was just marvelous. You could feel God flowing through him. And he told us about that apart tide problem they had."

  "‘Apartheid’?"

  "And he read from the book of Micah. Do you remember how much your father loved that book? He had every verse memorized.”

  I reached down to pet Madame. Her black fur felt warm, luxurious and comforting.

  More than twenty years ago, David Harmon married my mother Nadine Shaw and adopted her two young daughters: me and my older sister Helen. He treated us like his own, and we loved him, but he worshiped our mother. Which was the only explanation we had for why he shrugged into his blue wool coat on a cold November night when sleet was falling from the sky and walked three blocks to the neighborhood market: My mother was craving shortbread cookies.

  But between our house and the Strawberry Street Market, somebody stole his last breath. They emptied a .45 into his body and left him in the alley behind the market.

  No suspects have ever been found.

  At the time I was working in Washington, DC, a forensic geologist in the FBI's materials analysis lab. After his funeral, I took some time off then tried to go back to work. But I couldn't sit behind the microscope anymore. Six months later, I entered Quantico. I never told my mother. Ten months after his death, I made it to graduation day but my sister refused to come to the ceremony because I was joining “the Gestapo.” As the sky over the Academy gathered for a summer storm, I walked down to the training ground and read aloud the book of Micah. When I came to the crucial lines -- the ones my father quoted so often they were tattooed on my brain -- I could only whisper.

  "‘And what does the Lord require of you?’" I now said aloud, to see my mother’s face light up. "‘To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’"

  I waited for her to say something, but she only shifted her eyes, staring into the distance.

  "Speaking of South Africa," I said, trying again, "the Fieldings wanted me to say hello."

  “The Fieldings?” She looked at me, blinking. "The Fieldings. Oh. Peery and Harrison went to South Africa?"

  "No, I’m sorry. Mac, she was wearing--she was wearing a diamond that probably came from South Africa." I tried again. "Geology. That was the connection to South Africa. And to that preacher. Sorry." I tried hard not to confuse my mother, ever.

  "What wonderful news for MacKenna. Do you know the groom?"

  "No."

  "I hope you’ll get married someday, Raleigh. Your father wanted that for you."

  The fading sun was painting the brick wall a deeper purple. And the traffic winding around Robert E. Lee had slowed, coming now in sporadic bursts. I waited a few more minutes.

  "I should head in," I said.

  "These hot summer days," she said, looking up at the sky, "they feel like weeks. One day feels like an entire week. And a week becomes a month. And the month turns into a year. And suddenly I am waking up and it's November 29 all over again." She turned to me and frowned. "Does this happen to you?"

  "Yes."

  It happened to me. November 29 was the day he died. And because she was watching, because it would make her feel better, I finished the entire glass of lemonade. Then I asked if she needed anything. She shook her head.

  I carried the empty glass and the pitcher into the kitchen, putting them on the counter. She liked to wash the dishes. It filled her time.

  On my way back across the courtyard, heading the carriage house, I leaned down and kissed her cheek. Her skin felt soft as talc. I said good night and she nodded vaguely.

  She was gazing at the sky, waiting for stars.

  Chapter 6

  Sure enough, the valerian-laced lemonade knocked me out cold. For the first time in weeks -- okay, months -- I slept.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't good sleep. More like fitful slumber, the counterfeit version of sleep, like what you get on airplanes. And when I finally woke up I was grouchy and angry. Grouchy with myself for drinking the lemonade. And a little mad at my mom for making these strange herbal concoctions.

  About the only good thing that came from my adventure in knock-out drops was that I was first into the office.

  My cattle stall—otherwise known as a cubicle—was on the second floor in an unmarked glass block building just off Parham Road. Agent cubicles were identical, except that mine resembled a paper mill hit by a hurricane. I refused to claim full responsibility for the mess. The FBI was a tree-killing agency, and my desk held evidence notes, interviews, task force information, general Bureau notices regarding ne
w regulations and employee changes, and plenty of FD-302s. The latter was a document written after interviews. It described only what was said and only what was known to be true at the time. It was literally, “Just the facts, ma'am.” Reading them out loud, the words sounded like a jackhammer.

  This morning's 302s were fairly simple. Regarding the rooftop death interviews, almost nothing was said. And nothing new was known. But for the federal government even nothing required triplicate. One copy was my working file. I prepared another copy in case anything went to trial: one for our assistant U.S. attorney’s office and one for the enemy camp, aka the defense.

  The personal benefit from spreading this much paper around my desk was that it discouraged other agents from doing impertinent things -- like using my telephone or, worse, eating my food. I was a girl who liked to eat, and I kept plenty of food in my desk. My bottom drawer alone contained a three-week supply of munchies and a range of beverages guaranteed to etch the porcelain right off your teeth.

  The big clock over my desk read 5:15 a.m. as I dove into a large box of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, washing down the sugar with a can of Coca Cola (never, ever Pepsi). My computer search on Hamal Holmes was not turning up much. He owned a boxing gym on Second Street, and his tax record looked questionable, since he never turned a profit but somehow drove a brand new Lexus that was paid for. His mother's house was mortgaged in his name, and he did indeed pay all her utility bills. Over the years the city had recognized his work with “troubled youth” and presented him with several civic commendations. I found an old story from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Mayor Louis "LuLu" Mendant called Holmes “a hero.”

  As I was opening a bag of Doritos, my phone rang. And my heart plummeted hearing the voice on the other end. Licking orange chemicals off my fingertips, I walked to the elevator and rode to the fifth floor. The top floor. The floor with the office of Supervisory Special Agent Victoria Phaup. She was often the first into the office and the last to leave, and she trusted no one.