“I don’t think I know yet, but I’ll feel a lot better if we catch the shooter.” Salt looked down at the menu. “Remember, I knew Lil D’s mom, had known her and her family for years. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel unaffected by her death. I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t something that gets to us, for better or worse, about every death investigation. You’ve got a red ball on your hands, a mother and her two children.” Salt resisted the urge to reach across the table to Wills.
“Yeah, but I’ve been doing this for a while. I just put one foot in front of the other, follow the leads, document for court, and overall do the best I can. I love the work—putting the pieces together. Can’t let the tragedy derail you.” Cars on the avenue sprayed through the rain, flinging prisms of water. “I can’t have a black dog on my shoulder while I work.” Wills leaned back as the waiter came back for their orders.
The waiter had barely left when Salt leaned forward. “What did you say—about a black dog?”
“Winston Churchill. That’s what he called his depression. You never heard that?”
“No, I hadn’t heard that one.” She shook her head. “I sometimes worry I might have inherited the black dog from my dad.” Rivulets narrowed to heavy streams and slid down the window beside them. “A box of blues—connections. I hope it’s a good thing. Felton said each of you brings something different.” She shrugged.
Wills brought out a spiral notepad that he opened and flipped to a blank page. “One thing for sure you’re bringing to the table”—he tapped the linen-covered surface—“is your connection to The Homes, Man, and the gang. It might be just what we need. What did he tell you?”
“That DeWare is at Toy Dolls and that the way in is with a drug warrant.” She and Wills leaned back to make room for the paella pans brought by the waiter.
“You think he’s reliable?” Wills asked as soon as they were alone again and he had cleared his first mouthful. “Umm, I was starving.”
“Yes, but not legal reliable. We can’t use him as an informant for the warrant—first, he wouldn’t do it by the book and we’d never be able to establish his reliability. He’d never do what the law requires. But yes, he’s got his own reasons for offering up DeWare. I think he wants Spangler out, wants to take control of the clubs, and believes DeWare could lead to Spangler’s downfall.”
“So we ask Narcotics to help us with a buyout of the club.” Wills jotted on the pad. “DeWare’s photo.” He made another note. “He won’t go down easy, I’m sure.”
“According to Man, he’s probably good for both the Solquist murders and Dan Pyne.” The window beside her warmly reflected the lights and activity in the café.
“Why does Man suspect him for Pyne?” Wills held up a finger to order coffee.
“He as much as said that DeWare was aiming for me. At this point DeWare may be a loose cannon, like Stone. Their fuses were lit a long time ago and there’s no predicting how or when they’ll go off. But you know all that.” She shrugged. “Why was Stone put in that room with me without handcuffs? We may be missing a piece, something that links DeWare and Stone—I don’t know. But if Dan hadn’t asked me to dance . . .” Salt looked past the reflections of herself and the café, out to the night and the rain.
Wills shut the notebook as their coffee came. “Come on, girl. We’ve got this working now. I put a bug in someone’s ear in Internal Affairs, the corruption supersecret group. They’ll work Sandy Madison. We’ll get with the narcotics folks, maybe tonight. Sarge’ll get the Special Victims’ history. How was your paella?”
“Good.”
NARCOTICS
Salt drove while Wills called Sergeant Huff so he could set up a meeting for them with a Narcotics supervisor. She headed in the direction of the Old Fourth Ward, where the Narcotics Unit had taken offices in another closed school. An eight-foot-high controlled-access fence protected the lot where the detectives parked their personal vehicles, indistinguishable from the undercover cars, some of which had been confiscated in drug busts. Wills gave her the keypad code and the gate slid back to admit them.
The rain had stopped and clouds were parting around the kind of close-up moon Salt thought of as a howling-wolf moon, when the sky was very dark and the light from the moon bright, silhouetting the fleeing clouds. She drew her coat around her as she followed Wills along the portico that led to the side entrance.
Fluorescent tube lights lined the hall and room ceilings, giving everything a bluish glow. The entrance double doors clanked shut behind them and one of the narcs stuck his head out of a classroom midway down the hall. Smiling broadly, he said, “Welcome to the war,” motioning them forward to the room. “L.T., the reinforcements have arrived,” he said over his shoulder. He kept the smile up, grabbing Wills, hugging Salt. “Wills, Salt, it’s good to see you. You make a good-looking crime-fighting duo.”
Salt and Wills stepped back and gave each other exaggerated scrutiny, scanning each other up and down. “Too bad we’re just partnered for this one case.” Wills wiggled his eyebrows at her.
The “L.T.,” Lieutenant Mary Shepherd, sat at the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. Pepper sat in front of her on an aqua-colored hard plastic kid’s chair. “Hey, girl,” he said, his hands in an almost undetectable prayer bow as she came over.
“Namaste,” she replied, sitting down next to him. The room’s light called attention to the glassy-looking skin on his long scar. “I thought you’d be out there mixing it up with the boys in the hood,” she said, remembering Ann’s anxiety and hoping that he wouldn’t be a part of this detail, something she’d initiated.
“L.T.” Salt held up her hand in greeting. Wills and the narcotics guy who greeted them pulled up desks to close the circle.
Lieutenant Shepherd had a reputation as a tough, street-hardened veteran. She came across as wary, but was known to support and defend her colleagues, especially other women on the PD. “Tell us what you’ve got, guys, and how my team can help. You both probably know these two. We got our veteran.” She nodded her appreciation to her detective. “And our man Pepper is, as you know, new, but has great promise—if we can keep his ass alive long enough to get him past the hand-to-hands.” She referred to the street-level buys that the new detectives, their faces unknown to the drug dealers, tried to transact.
But nothing about Pepper looked rookie, from his height to the scar to the baggy street attire he was wearing. Affecting an admiring glance at his outstretched fingers, nails polished to a high shine, he said, “I clean up nice, don’t you think?” She thought of their day putting the rough fence posts in the ground. He poked her in the ribs and laughed.
“God, you scared me for a minute.” Salt shook her head but wasn’t relieved of the anxiety that had set in when she realized Pepper might be in on this.
“Salt has come up with a location where DeWare, our suspect in the Solquist murders, might be hiding.” Wills took out the notepad. “We’ve identified him as DeWare Lovelace, DOB 8/22/75, black male, five eleven and one hundred eighty pounds. Not only is he suspected in the Solquist case, but he might be the doer at the Blue Room last week.”
“So he likes to shoot.” Lieutenant Shepherd made notes of her own on a yellow legal pad.
“I’d say,” Wills nodded. “And he has the usual record a mile long that includes gun arrests.”
“But you don’t have good probable cause to get a warrant for his hidey-hole, right?” the narcotics guy said.
“Did Man give you this?” Pepper knew The Homes almost as well as Salt did.
“He’s always been reliable in my dealings with him for over ten years. He admits his own agenda. Says we can get in with a buy. I’ve never known him to steer me wrong. I did push him, though.”
“Where does he say DeWare is?” Lieutenant Shepherd asked.
“Toy Dolls,” Wills answered.
The lieutenant had been relaxe
d in her chair listening but now sat up, leaning in at a sharp angle. “Could be a cluster fuck to serve that place.”
The city’s Narcotics Unit had a recent history of botched raids and bad warrants based on dubious information or outright lies. Undercover work lent itself to eagerness that had to be tempered by someone with a long view. The unit had been cleared of miscreants, some of whom had completed their careers with the justice system behind bars. Lieutenant Shepherd had been one of the house cleaners.
“Who will they sell to? Anybody? Everybody? Who’s their main market?” asked the lieutenant.
“They’d recognize Pep at Toy Dolls,” Salt said, eager to protect him, especially in light of her conversation with Ann. There was no way she wanted him endangered because of a lead she’d initiated.
Pepper frowned at her, lifting his eyebrows in puzzlement, twisting his mouth down.
“Don’t look at me. It’s close to our old beats,” she said.
“I don’t know that we’d have to use him for the buy, but he needs to get the warrant service, as well as the tactical experience. Will they sell to white dudes there?” The lieutenant looked at her veteran, who shrugged his gameness.
“Actually, L.T., you fit the perfect buyer at the Dolls,” Salt said. “Black lesbian friendly there.”
“My husband, four children, and minister would all take offense at that,” she said, laughing. “’Course my girlfriend would be pleased.”
There was a sudden silence in the room. Nobody moved.
“Kidding. Jeez, lighten up.”
“Whew,” Pepper exhaled. Wills leaned back. They stretched their legs and waited for the lieutenant’s word. “Let me give this some thought, come up with a plan and think of who to make the buy. I’d be game to do it myself, actually. I’ve been off and out of the action long enough so I wouldn’t be made,” said the lieutenant.
“L.T., I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t, Salt. But if I’m best, I’m best, and I can’t think of any of our folks right now that fit the profile as well, like you say. I know there’s a sense of urgency because of the Solquist murders and now the Blue Room shooting.”
“I can deal with the push, L.T. No way do we want to put anyone at unnecessary risk.” Wills sat up straight.
“Let me get a plan—two days, at the most next week depending. Okay?” Shepherd put her pen down and stood up, stretching her back, dismissing them.
Wills walked out with the narcotics guy talking about their Rottweilers, leaving Pepper to escort Salt down the hall. “How are the boys and Ann? I enjoyed having lunch with her.” Salt stopped halfway to where Wills stood talking, scrolling and showing his phone.
“We’re in a bad patch—too little time for each other. The boys take up so much energy—sports, school, extra activities—and then her job, my extra jobs, and the new assignment. It’s a lot.” Pepper looked away from her, cleared his throat, and adjusted his shoulders.
“It’s probably a lot more fun to come here and slip into pretend world, where you can become Mr. Street Cool, no ties, no responsibilities, no one relying on you. I know I’d rather play cops and robbers than . . .”
“What? Figure out that old family crap that causes you to put yourself too close to the edge?” Pepper gave her a playful punch, but it landed on her collarbone and hurt.
She winced and they looked away from each other. They were out of sync, missing their usual cues. “Seems like we’re both a little on edge,” she said.
“Namaste,” he said, stopping and bowing as she continued on out to join Wills.
HOPE FOR PEARL
You look good,” Salt said when Pearl got in the passenger seat. Pearl had shed some layers.
“You look good.”
“I smell better, too. Don’t have to try to cover up my stink. I got a shower at the Gateway.” The scent cloud that usually followed her had been reduced to a slight mist, a welcome change especially in the close confines of the Taurus. They were meeting Leeksha Johnson at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. The HOPE Team had found a placement in a group home near there where Pearl could live and receive treatment. Pearl was jittery, turning her head looking at things they drove past, then jerking her head to catch something else, as if she might miss something important.
The morning was fresh from the night before’s deluge. Pearl held Salt’s hand as they walked from the parking lot past the statue of Gandhi and a civil rights mural in primary colors. Spring field trips for schoolkids had begun and there were lines of kids, some holding ropes to keep them in together, some in uniforms. One elementary class wearing khaki pants and skirts and yellow and blue uniform shirts, quiet, eyes wide open and curious, held hands while they waited to go in the King Center. Abruptly, Pearl dropped Salt’s hand and darted in through the entranceway past the groups of children, their chaperones lecturing them on respect and silence.
Pearl grabbed Salt’s arm, pulling her through one of the travel-back-in-time exhibits of iconic people and places of the struggle—Selma, Birmingham, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Memphis. The life-sized figures had been depicted mid-stride on an uphill path through which visitors were encouraged to walk—alongside Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Medgar Evers, Dr. King, and others on the road to justice.
At the south end of the room where, in the far corner, behind velvet ropes, was the antique wagon that had been pulled by two mules carrying Dr. King’s coffin through the streets of Atlanta. Its green-gray weathered boards were loosely fastened with thin, vertical wood strips halfway down the sides of the wagon bed. Three-foot-high wheels were connected by heavy axles underneath. The end of the wagon was open, a spray of white roses where Dr. King’s coffin had lain on the bed of the simple farm wagon. Salt could almost smell the soapy-hide sweat off the mules, hear the jangle of the harnesses and the sound of Dr. King’s coffin as it slid into the wagon amid silent mourners. Pearl touched her arm. “See?”
Throughout the exhibition, overhead speakers projected Dr. King’s voice, recordings of the most famous passages from his sermons and speeches. “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” Pearl pointed up at the ceiling, cupping her hand to one ear below her Braves cap.
Pearl put her hands out, hovering them along the sides of the caisson. She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling and started to hum, then quietly sang,
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Teachers touched their students’ shoulders, the children in their lines turned toward Pearl. Other visitors stopped where they were and turned.
Standin’ at the crossroad, risin’ sun goin’ down.
Pearl lowered her head, silence all around. Dr. King’s voice came from overhead. “Discrimination is a hellhound that . . .”
“Pearl.” Salt leaned down and whispered. “Pearl, our meeting, across the street.”
Pearl scooped up the hem of her skirt and stood, straightening the Christmas vest she wore over a sweater and blouse.
“That was beautiful,” Salt said.
“Your voice sounds funny,” Pearl said, and took Salt’s hand again as they walked out to the sidewalk to cross Auburn.
Pearl glanced at the eternal flame and the crypts of Martin and Coretta, surrounded by a reflecting pool, but didn’t stop until they entered the museum, climbed the stairs, and turned left into one of the rooms filled with tall, lighted, glass-enclosed cabinets. Behind the glass, on shelves or attached to the sides and top, were items that had belonged to Dr. King: awards, mementos, photographs, honorary degrees. Pearl stopped at one and stood looking at it.
Inside the cabinet was a small pasteboard overnight suitcase that a placard identified as the one Dr. King carried on all his trips, the bag he had taken to Memphis. It was open and packed, as if waiting for him to close the cover—a pair of light blu
e pajamas with dark blue piping, a white dress shirt, an alarm clock, a shaving kit, and a Bible.
Salt quickly turned around, went out to the hall, and found the nearby restroom.
“You the police.” Pearl peered up at her from under the stall door.
Salt laughed and tried to blow into the balled-up tissues in her fist. “Damn, Pearl! Come on, let me open the door. The boys won’t let me stay in the club if I cry.”
“I won’t tell,” Pearl said, waiting while Salt washed the pieces of tissue off at the sink. “The wagon and his suitcase always get me, too. But I have to see them.”
“There you are.” Leeksha came around the corner from the restroom door. “I thought I saw you. I’m Leeksha Johnson with the HOPE Team. You must be Pearl. Salt told me you sing.”
“Sometimes,” said Pearl. “Sometimes.”
—
ON HER WAY HOME, on the last stretch of highway, the trees grew closer to the ditches and the texture of the road changed, creating a whine-and-thump rhythm as the wheels met each patched concrete section, ka plump, ka plump, ka plump. The beat slowed as she got near her drive. Like a scene in a child’s picture book, across the front acre, light from behind the white curtain of the front room glowed and light from a high half-moon sparked off the nicks of mica in the gravel of the long drive. Salt parked in the usual place under the trees in back beside the paddock fence. As soon as she got out of the car, she heard him and looked up. Wonder’s bright beady eyes glowed down on her, his tail thumping as loud as a drum as it hit on either side of the gable where he straddled the peak over the second-floor sleeping porch.
“Stay,” Salt ordered, giving him the hand signal as she hurried to the porch, fumbling the key in the kitchen door lock, at the same time registering a new pile of branches beside the porch steps. Inside the door she dropped her bag, grabbed Wonder’s leash from the hook beside the door, made it through the hall in yard-long strides, and took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. She had no idea how Wonder had gotten up on the roof. It wasn’t his first time. He seemed to be forever discovering things about the old house—crawl spaces, hollow walls—that she’d never known about. Her only immediate access to the gable was through the attic. Little bits of gray insulation spilled down when she tugged at a cord for the pull-down door on the upstairs hall ceiling and unfolded the ladder. Salt climbed the ladder stairs into the still-warm attic, getting sweatier at every rung. She tugged the string pull for the overhead light. Balancing on the beams, she crossed the unfinished space, made her way to the latticed dormer, and carefully unlatched and pushed on the hinged shutter. Wonder looked back over his shoulder up at her and gave one of his quick barks that meant “Let’s play!”
Out of the Blues Page 22