"Back in 2004, somebody called the health department about a foul odor," he said, still looking down at the file. "Two bodies were found in some long grass. Over there." He pointed out the windshield, toward East Broad Street. The grass was thigh-high and the color of dry wheat. "One of the recovered bodies was male, one female. Both teenagers. The male never was identified although homicide ran dental records, fingerprints, whole nine yards. And he didn't fit any missing persons reports. So, John Doe kept his name."
"And the girl?"
"Prostitute. Her people were told. End of investigation." He closed the file.
"Wait—that's it?"
"No witnesses. No leads."
"So their murders get tossed in the cold case file."
He looked over at me, nodding. "I don't like it any more than you do. That’s why Mike and I started doing this.”
But my mind wouldn’t let go of those file cabinets, filled with the unquiet dead. Including my own father. "And you’re telling me this -- because?"
"Because it was Mike's ghost."
"His ghost."
"The case that haunts you. If you don’t have one, you will. The case you want to solve, but it won't break open." He stared out the windshield. "These two kids got dumped out there like garbage. I don't know if I should tell you, but Mike and his wife, they had trouble making a family. I think it added to his obsession. He kept saying, 'Somebody misses those kids.' He found the girl's people. But not the boy's. He was still looking."
He opened the file again, reading aloud some details. The girl was shot at the base of the skull, execution style. The bullets were .38 caliber. But no weapon was recovered. No trace was matched.
"Base of the skull,” he said, “so at least she died instantly.”
"Do you think it's ever instant?"
He glanced over. Weighing his response. Maybe he was even thinking of my dad, like I was.
"No,” he finally said. “But she got better than the boy."
The report from the medical examiner detailed the male victim's punctured lung and fractured skull. Police picked his teeth out of the grass.
"Basically, somebody beat him to death."
I stared out the windshield. I was struggling to reconcile this crime with this particular place. Two teens left for dead in the same city park dedicated to honoring the fallen in an unforgettable Civil War. Somewhere far away I could hear LuLu Mendant saying the wound was old, the wound was still open. Only some details had changed. But Richmond remained a killing field.
Around the park's perimeter, the windows in the fading Georgians and once-grand Victorians glowed with that cool blue light that comes from television sets. Tonight the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free were home staring at reality TV.
"The bodies were dumped here?" I asked.
"Somebody should've heard the gunshots, is that what you’re thinking? Well they didn’t. The boy’s teeth were in the dirt. He was beaten here."
"And yet nobody saw a thing.”
He nodded. "We don't get a lot of cooperation, like you’re finding out.”
“The mayor explained it to me.”
“He lives right over there.”
“Who?”
“The mayor. Over on East Franklin. Nice house, too."
The detective was flipping through the few pages inside the file. And I was learning to wait through his pauses. Glancing at the sun visor above his head, I saw a prayer card wedged beneath a rubber band. It was a picture of Jesus—Jesus in the clouds, Jesus raising two fingers in blessing. Or maybe beckoning. A prayer card for his dead partner.
"When T was ready to talk,” he said, “Mike went down to death row because, like you figured, these guys sometimes decide to unload. Listen to whatever's left of their conscience. You might not agree with an inmate’s case moving to the front of the line, but that was why Mike went. For the information."
"He thought the twins killed these two kids?"
"Yeah. Except T swore to him they didn't."
"Maybe he was lying."
"Maybe. But sitting on death row, hours from being executed, why lie about it? He swore they didn’t kill them."
"Did he know who did?"
The detective looked out the windshield. Although his pauses were becoming familiar, he stared for so long that I finally turned to look, expecting to see something captivating, like somebody lighting Liberty's torch.
But there was nothing out there.
Nothing except the empty park and the wide, dark street. The city that had seen brighter days.
When he handed me the cold case file, he still didn't look at me. But he said, "I'm gonna need this back, eventually."
Chapter 17
Saturday morning I woke up with a jangly heartbeat. Overtired, and the heart on overdrive.
I knew two ways to get rid of it. Prayer and running.
Pulling on shorts and a T-shirt, I laced up my jogging shoes and tiptoed across the courtyard. It was so early that no traffic moved down Monument Avenue. The only sound was the birds paging Bob-White, Bob-White and I was almost across the courtyard when I saw the black nose pressed against the kitchen’s French doors. Madame. She spotted me.
I held a finger to my lips and grabbed the leash that hung on a hook by the pantry. We never used it because Madame was not an animal who performed on a tether. But if I got caught breaking dog laws, I wanted backup.
We jogged south down The Boulevard where an armada of purple crepe myrtles offered August's floral fireworks. At Byrd Park we jogged around the lake where the cicadas sounded like woodwinds preparing for the symphony. Madame raced from oak tree to poplar to ginkgo, culling the canine clues from the trunks before leaving her own scent. But she never ran too far ahead, never fell far behind. And every ten seconds or so, she turned her flap-eared head, locating me to make sure all was well. One of those great dogs, she was the gift of a lifetime.
At the four-mile mark, with the day’s heat coming on strong, I cut over the RMA overpass and headed into the Fan district. It was a neighborhood of tidy row houses and Main Street awnings that advertised boutiques and restaurants. And at Grove Avenue, I slowed to a walk, searching for the scaffolding.
DeMott Fielding stood on a plank parallel with the second story. He was scraping white paint from a windowpane and the radio beside him on the board played that Allman Brothers song, the one about blue skies and sunny days. Watching him work, I wondered whether to say anything. Or just leave. But the wait got to Madame.
She barked.
DeMott looked down. "About time," he said.
With a loose athleticism, he dropped down the scaffolding, swinging off the final steel bar and landing on the sidewalk, brushing paint chips from his T-shirt.
"That guy doesn’t like me," he said.
"What guy?"
"At your mom’s house. The one who took my note."
"Wally. His name’s Wally."
"At first I thought maybe he was your boyfriend. But that didn't make sense."
"Because he's black."
"No, Raleigh. Because you wouldn't live with a guy before you got married. And he’s not your type."
“You know my type?"
He opened his arms wide, grinning. "Someday you're going to figure out it's me."
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you read my note?"
His note was buried in my purse, covered by a stratigraphic record of any event following Nadine's breakdown on Wednesday. DeMott was waiting for me to say something. Was the note an apology, some mea culpa for that bad night long ago? Or maybe an invitation to Mac's wedding. Either one would keep me from reading it.
And when I didn't answer his question, he ran his hands through his hair. "I'm going over to Buddy's for breakfast. Want to come?"
I glanced down the block. Buddy's restaurant had great greasy food. Dark coffee. "You don’t have work to do?"
"This house has been here ninety years. An hour won’t kill it.”<
br />
I nodded but started to walk away. "Maybe another time."
Madame fell in beside me. We started jogging again.
“Raleigh!” DeMott called to my back. "Hang on, Raleigh!"
I pretended not to hear him.
===============
In the kitchen of the big house, Wally was sitting at the old pine farm table reading the morning edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I sat across from him and brushed my hand along the underside of the table. My initials were carved into the wood, right near Helen's. My father's initials were beside his sister Charlotte’s, my aunt who now lived in Seattle. And their father's name was also there -- Jedediah Harmon -- along with his two siblings. I couldn't speak for Helen, but when I was holding that butter knife in my six-year-old hands, scraping through that soft yellow pine to add RH to the initials already there, the moment felt like an official declaration. Solemn as a birth certificate.
This morning my mother stood at the stove cooking something that looked like bacon and smelled like bacon, but I was sure wasn’t bacon. Madame lapped water from her bowl and I wiped my face on a napkin. Later, I would shower; right now I was too hungry, almost wishing I’d gone to Buddy’s with DeMott.
And almost losing my appetite when I asked her what was for breakfast.
"Some delicious tempeh bacon!" she said.
I stared at Wally. Sitting across from me, he wore a doleful expression.
"Fake-on," he said. "Makes a heart attack taste good."
My mother wagged the spatula at him. "Wally Marsh, I shudder thinking of your health. If you ever ate something decent, your liver would collapse from shock."
But her voice carried a happy lilt. And she wore two-inch red slides with paisley pedal pushers and no matter how bad tempeh bacon tasted, I would eat it. If it kept her mood elevated, I'd choke down seconds and thirds.
She filled my mug from the coffee carafe.
"Shade-grown organic decaf," she said, in a tone that implied it should mean something to me.
As she walked away, Wally slid the newspaper’s front section toward me, without making eye contact. I knew something was coming.
The good news: "Fatal Rooftop Plunge” now ran below the fold. Bad news: the story was still on the front page. And reporter named Carrie Bates was informing the city in that staccato writing style that made everything sound simultaneously urgent and dull. An FBI agent had "rock-climbed" the factory wall -- I rappelled, but never mind -- and there was a quote from Victoria Phaup.
Phaup said the FBI was investigating "every angle" and working "to the best of its ability." She also claimed "the Bureau will not rest until this matter is completely resolved."
Now I knew I was in trouble. Not only did I not clear the rappelling with her, she heard about it through a reporter.
A reporter who gave the mayor free reign.
"The FBI showed up unannounced,” said Mayor Louis “Lulu” Mendant. “They threw garbage on people. That’s right. They threw trash. Southside was victimized all over again.” He further claimed the Richmond police "physically abused innocent bystanders," and claimed the reason the FBI wasn't making progress was because "murdering a black man doesn't take priority with those people. If Hamal Holmes was white, they'd have ten agents out here, every day, until it was solved."
Every endorphin from my run curled up and died.
I pushed the paper away.
But Wally kept reading. Every day he combed the paper’s gossip column like it was an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages.
I sipped my coffee and hoped for levity. "What's the gossip?"
"I can't figure this one out."
"Let's hear it."
“Some society lady, she won't give her name but she'll blab her head off. She says another fine marriage has fallen apart." He glanced over his shoulder, speaking to my mother at the stove. "Nadine, you know the Aikens?"
"Rosewell Aiken?"
"That's the one."
"Rosewell and Sannie Aiken?"
"Used to be."
With the spatula she scooped the tempeh bacon from the pan and placed it on a plate, carrying it to the table.
"Raleigh, the Aikens knew your father. Rosewell works for that big law firm downtown."
I stared at the plate. Whole wheat toast the color of mud. And I’d bet a thousand dollars that wasn't butter on the bread, refusing to melt.
She walked back to the stove and prepared another plate. But she set it on the floor for Madame. Apparently Wally was a nutritional lost cause. The dog sniffed the food carefully.
"What kind of name is Sannie?" Wally wanted to know.
"Sanford." Nadine rinsed the frying pan in the sink. "Sanford is her mother's maiden name."
He rolled his eyes. "Richmond.”
I picked up the fake bacon. The brown strip snapped like a twig. "What can't you figure out?"
"This story says Rosewell left Sannie for another woman and that —"
"Oh, dear," my mother interrupted. "He'll never be happy now."
"I don't know," Wally said. "The new woman is some gorgeous young thing. Her name’s Meade Ann Meeker. And you don’t need to tell me. Meade is another maiden name gone amok."
But my mother wasn’t listening. She was gazing out the window above the sink, the one that faced General Lee and Traveller. She said, "A foolish man devours all he has."
Wally glanced at me.
"Proverbs," I said.
"She would haul the Bible into this."
"I heard that, Wally Marsh,” she said. “And let me explain something to you. The Bible is the source of all wisdom. Once you realize that, your life is going to take on real meaning."
"Did you just call my life meaningless?"
"I said, real meaning. There's a difference."
"According to who?"
"Whom. And if you would simply listen--"
I chewed my health food and let them work out another evangelical version of "Who's on First?" The tempeh bacon didn't taste that bad, provided your teeth were strong. I washed it down with coffee and kept score on their arguments. Back when Wally applied to rent the one bedroom and bath, I interviewed a dozen people. He seemed like the nicest. Raised by hardworking parents who sacrificed to send their four children to private schools, Wally described himself as a "recovering Catholic." No ill will toward any faith, he said, but nuns wielding wooden rulers had beat the love of Jesus Christ right out of him. For that reason, I wondered if he could get along with my mother. But every other renter seemed worse. The Wiccan with her candles. The inarticulate computer geek. The college girl who wanted to know if her two boyfriends could move in too. Wally's references checked out. I also ran a deep criminal background search and bribed Helen to ask around the VCU photography department, where Wally had graduated several years before. The guy was universally liked. We signed a one-month lease, in case either side changed its mind. During those thirty days I slept in a bedroom down the hall, wide awake every night. But Wally found a way to playfully tease my mother about everything from the way she dressed to her faith in God. And though she pretended to be upset, secretly she adored the attention. And with my dad gone, my mother desperately needed something to do with her life. Converting Wally to Christianity kept her very, very busy.
Most importantly, Wally treated her mental illness with authentic compassion.
I was washing down the tempeh bacon with the organic decaf, starting on the life raft of whole wheat toast, when I attempted to steer the conversation back on track. "Wally, what was the part of that gossip you didn't understand?"
He turned to me, then glared at my mother and snapped the paper in his hands. "I almost forgot, what with Joan of Arc yelling in my ear."
"You are truly hopeless," she murmured.
But he was already reading again. "The anonymous woman said, 'Meade Ann has become Rosewell's power mower.'" He lowered the paper, looking at me over the top. "All this time I thought the brothers came up with the best li
ngo. But here's some rich West End lady tossing out 'power mower.' I like it. Power mower! I dig it."
“No.” My mother shook her head. “That story was written by a Yankee."
"Now you’re gonna bring the war into this?" he said.
"No, I'm saying that the Yankees are ruining the South. Again. No respectable southern lady would ever say the mistress was Rosewell's 'power mower.' For heaven's sake, that's ridiculous. But Yankees have tin ears. We should have won the war on language alone." She looked at us.
But I still didn’t get it. “Mom?”
"You can’t hear it? She was calling that floozy a 'paramour.' But that Yankee heard ‘power mower.’"
Wally glanced at me. I raised my eyebrows. She was right. That was the term proper southern ladies used.
But she continued to say the words, softly under her breath. “Power mower. Paramour. Power mower.”
Wally looked at me again. We were thinking the same thing. These words might hunker down in her mind, compelling her to scrawl them forward and backward and sideways, scribbling away until she broke a code that didn't exist.
"I like power mower better," Wally said, finally.
"Mom,” I tried to sound casual. “Are you going to the camp today?"
She nodded, suddenly smiling. "Wally's coming with me!"
I almost choked on the toast.
"Just to take pictures," he said defensively. "It’s got nothing to do with God."
“Everything has to do with God,” my mother said.
"Nice pictures?” I asked him. "You're going to take nice pictures out there, right?"
He snapped the paper again. "Please. I don't take any other kind."
Chapter 18
After a shower and change of clothes, I drove to McDonald's in Carytown and ordered high-octane coffee and two Egg McMuffins. I ate them inside the K-Car listening to static on my AM radio.
Then I headed north to Ashland.
The Falcons’ home was part of a new subdivision called King's Charter. Once upon a time the land probably did belong to a charter granted by the king of England, but today the landscape resembled so much of late twentieth-century America. Vinyl-sided homes built in days, lined up like dominoes on streets with names such as Tree Pond Drive but with no trees, no ponds and too much drive.
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