Out of the Blues

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “No, sir,” she admonished him. “Stay.” She stepped out and put the leash over his head. With the leash wrapped around her wrist she pulled the dog by his haunches and lifted him up through the dormer to the safety of the attic and hoisted herself back inside. “How in the world do you do that?” she said to the dog as she scooped him up under his front and back legs and carried him over the beams, an awkward load but mostly because of his gangly physique rather than his weight. He knew to be compliant when she held him totally off his feet.

  The open-space attic began under the eaves, angling in over most of the third level. There was only one bare, hanging bulb for the entire floor, and its dim light allowed only partial visibility of a portion of the south side of the space. Salt sat with Wonder on her lap at the top of the ladder. He was docile and easy to hold until he tried to lift his hind leg to get at a flea. It had been a while since Salt had been up there—the last time the dog had gone up to the roof. It was empty except for a few boxes pushed back to the dark corners that contained old books and family ledgers, things she’d been meaning to sort. There were also some battered trunks that she remembered as being empty and a rolling hanger rack with old formal clothes that were misshapen, faded, and drab.

  Salt turned to face the ladder. With Wonder between herself and the rungs, she brought him down step by step. When they got to the bottom and she put him down, he looked back up as if to say “What next? Up?”

  “No.” She held up one finger to him, then lifted the ladder back to the ceiling, the door folding as the ladder retracted. Amid a scattering of insulation that lay on the floral hall rug was a small jagged piece of lead, a spent armor-piercing slug. She picked up the deadly, heavy-lead mushroom that still gave off heat from the attic, held it in the soft center of her palm, then pocketed it. She let Wonder off the leash and they went downstairs.

  After changing into jeans and work boots, Salt went out to tend the sheep with the miscreant dog. After they had corralled the flock, fed and watered them, she and Wonder went to the pile of branches, black walnut, new leaves beginning to fold inward from having been cut. They had to be another gift from Mr. Gooden. She’d briefly mentioned to him that Wonder had brought a few fleas into the house, and he’d recommended the walnut branches as a natural insecticide. Wonder “helped” her by tugging at the ends of the branches as she stood them in the corners of all the downstairs rooms. She got four more for upstairs, their slightly lemony smell beginning to override the cedar that gave most of the house its characteristic scent.

  The dojo was the last room to get the walnut treatment. Leaving her shoes at the entrance, she arranged some small branches in a woven-grass basket and placed it beside the altar. She lit the candle and put the spent slug she’d found between the candle and the picture of her father.

  Outside, the wind picked up, limbs and branches scratching against the sides of the house. Pepper and Ann were on her mind—Pearl, Dr. King’s packed bag, the caisson, Wonder on the roof, sheep chores. Salt transitioned from seiza to child’s pose, touching her forehead to the mat, arms lengthened toward the altar. Maybe Wonder, who lay in the doorway behind her, was scratching himself again, or sometimes the house trembled in a strong wind. She was too tired.

  “That’s armor-piercing,” said her father, who sat beside her wearing a black gi.

  She sat up. “I know, Pops.”

  “I didn’t have the blues, Sarah. The blues had me rather than me having The Blues. Ain’t nothing but a hound dog.”

  “Wonder?” she asked.

  “The hound, you and the hound. The hound and the hounded. You’re hounding and hounded.” The black gi grew fur. His voice grew growly. “Voodoo, woo oo. Woo oo. Woo oo. From The Bluesman.” Her father took a knife and cut off his pointer finger, placed it on the altar as it turned to gold.

  —

  IT WAS somewhat disconcerting to keep waking in various locations in the house, almost like she was trying on each of the rooms. But she never seemed any worse or better for having slept in places other than her bed. Actually, waking on the dojo mat felt fine, allowing her to move through various stretches and poses to begin the day.

  Somewhere downstairs her mobile phone began ringing. She went down, found Wonder lazing against the bottom step, and called Wills back while she dripped a cup of coffee.

  “Huff wants you to call him. Get a good night’s sleep?” Wills sounded like he was moving around, walking.

  “Where are you? I’m just getting going—had a strange dream.” She rubbed at her forehead where it had been touching the mat and tried to pull back the pieces of the dream.

  “Salt?”

  “I can’t remember much of it.”

  “Oh no. Not dreams. Please. Nooooo, noooo.” He made ghost-like sounds.

  “Funny, Wills, very funny. So what? I do it like I do.” She sniffed the lemony air. Down the hall toward the front rooms Wonder’s nails clicked on the hardwood floors along with a rattling sound. “This dog is driving me nuts,” she said to Wills. “I came home last night and found him on the gable above the back porch.”

  “What?”

  “He’s done it a couple of times, and I have no idea how he gets there or why he does it.” She looked out back and saw Wonder at his usual spot at the paddock fence and remembered she’d already let him out—the sounds weren’t coming from him. “I’ve got to go, Wills. I’ll call you back.” She punched the off key and quietly put the phone on the kitchen counter. Still barefoot, she turned toward the hall, listening hard. Now it sounded like a marble rolling on the floor. The sun shone in a gleam down the hall from the transom above the front door. Except for a dust ball or two there was nothing in the hallway. Past the dining room and bedroom Salt went, not quite in tactical mode, but cautious. It was too strange to go all stealth due to the sound of rolling marbles. The old house was like most old places, floors sometimes uneven from one side to the other and from room to room. Salt listened, standing in the hall between the library and living room. As she shifted her weight on one of the wide floor planks, a black walnut that she presumed had loosened from a branch rolled from the living room at the bottom of the stairs across the hall into the library, stopping at the edge of the woven rug. “Ah-ha.” She bent down, picked it up, then saw that the shell was polished, not newly shed of its green husk. “What in the world?” She rolled the nut in her palm.

  “Ghosts on the move. I’m remembering more, Pops.” The books, the case of blues tapes, the carpet, the drapes, one light, and the ledger. She turned it to the year of her father’s death. Beginning in January he’d listed one or two books a week. By May he’d begun to list the books on mental illnesses, depression, along with classics and the Bible. By June it was only “THE BIBLE,” in tall, hard lettering. Until recently Salt hadn’t looked at the ledger in years. Now she picked up the eleven-by-seventeen gray-covered accounting book and shook it. Nothing. She put it back on the shelf, letting it fall open, and began thumbing through the decades. He’d been an omnivorous reader: contemporary fiction, history, philosophy, Georgia politics, photography books of Atlanta, anything on blues music, jazz, and gospel, psychology, and one on raising a “well-adjusted child.”

  The Bible, the blues. Salt palmed the walnut and turned to get ready for work.

  LAURA’S SISTER

  The Metro section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the city’s daily paper, was faceup on one of the break room tables. “One Month Later, No Arrests in Buckhead Murders,” read the headline. Salt sat down with her empty coffee cup and picked up the paper.

  One month after Laura Solquist and her daughters, Juliet and Megan, were shot to death in the family’s Buckhead home, detectives still have made no arrests in the case and haven’t named any suspects or persons of interest.

  The victims, mother and daughters, each shot once in the head, were found March 16 by the family’s housekeeper. The victims’ husband and
father, prominent real estate atorney Arthur Solquist, was on a fishing trip with business associates when the murders are believed to have been committed. He has been in seclusion and reportedly under a doctor’s care since the incident.

  Laura Solquist was a native of Atlanta, her father . . .

  The lengthy piece ended on an inside page with the last line “The initial police report indicates there were no signs of forced entry.”

  It was almost certain that Wills had seen the piece, but just in case he might have missed it, she folded the paper and stuffed it in the trash.

  —

  “YOU GOT something pressing right now?” Wills leaned against the cubicle support of Salt’s desk, slightly slanting its partition and shelving.

  “Hey, big guy, you look beat.”

  He looked over the room, then turned back to her, lowering his voice. “Can you stay over at my place tonight? Get Mr. Gooden to let Wonder out to do his business? I could really use some TLC.”

  “I’ll call him right now. Something else up?”

  “Gardner is leaving early and I need someone to sit in on an interview with Patricia Morehead, one of Laura’s sisters.”

  —

  “LAURA WASN’T the type to complain. We were raised like that—growing up with a certain amount of privilege, our parents made sure we knew it and knew what it was like for people who had to earn their way. We weren’t allowed to complain.” Patricia’s resemblance to her sister was unsettling: fine, straight blond hair, olive skin with blue eyes . . . an attractive combination. She turned as Salt lowered her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m used to it. People get over the similarity after the first time.”

  They were sitting in the living room of Patricia’s condo near one of the newly constructed parks along the BeltLine. The furnishings were comfortable rather than heirloom or chichi contemporary—a bright fabric sofa and matching chairs slightly shredded with picks and pulls from the two tabby cats that wandered through their legs. Family portraits and arty photos of the cats and the city lined the walls. Patricia was single and worked for a local nonprofit.

  “But I’m not nearly as easygoing or uncomplaining as Laura,” Patricia said, picking up one of the cats. She laughed. “This one”—she patted the cat—“his name is Cliché. You know, single girl, cat.” She widened her eyes and screwed up her mouth, mocking herself. “Yeah, we were taught to give back. It’s one of the reasons I work where I do. I also love the job and this city.”

  “Your father asked me to talk to you,” Wills prompted.

  “About six months ago Laura and I managed a rare girls’ night out.” She loosed Cliché to the back of the sofa. “Neither of us is a big drinker, but she’d had a couple of glasses of wine, and when I drove her home, before she got out of the car, she asked me if I kept up with Sherman Overmeyer. Sherman’s family lived next door to us growing up and he’d gone to school with us. He went to law school at Emory and we see him at church sometimes.

  “I didn’t think anything of it and told her I’d e-mail Sherm’s contact information.” Patricia untucked an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve. “Looking back on that night, I remembered she’d made a few comments about Arthur—his being gone so much. She was worried about some of the people he had dealings with. She might have been trying to confide in me, and I didn’t pick up on how bad things were for her.” Patricia looked over to the portraits on the wall, then hung her head. “Truth is, I doubted that things could really be that bad. You know, prominent husband, beautiful home, two absolutely precious daughters. I think I wasn’t paying attention.” She swiped at the corners of her Laura-like eyes.

  “But now—Arthur’s behavior toward us is just bizarre. It’s like we’ve become his persecutors. He won’t take our phone calls. It’s hard to know what to think.”

  Wills nodded. “I’m having the same problem with him. Do you know if Laura ever talked to your friend? What’s his name again?” Wills took out his notepad.

  “Sherman Overmeyer.” Patricia picked up a sheet of paper from the lamp table beside her. “I’ve written out all of his contact details— mail, phone numbers, addresses. I don’t know if she talked to him or not.”

  —

  “YOU’RE DEAD TIRED and still you want to cook?”

  Wills stood at the stove, a glass of red wine on the counter beside him. “Cooking is therapeutic for me. Besides, we like to eat. Right?” The aroma of garlic and onions simmering filled the kitchen.

  “Your case seems to be gaining complications, too much for one detective to try to follow up on each thread. You’ve got leads on her husband’s business dealings; information from cops, informants, and people from the projects on a shooter; the family’s suspicions; and now working with the feds.” Salt simultaneously rubbed Pansy and Violet, who were parked on either side of her feet.

  Wills stirred eggs into the pan. “Yeah, but if one person is the repository for all the information, then there’s a better chance of fitting the pieces together. The picture that’s coming together for me right now is that Arthur Solquist’s wife found out something about his business, something either he or his associates may not have felt comfortable with her knowing, especially if she was becoming unhappy in the marriage.” Wills flipped the omelet, then slid it onto a plate. “I think it’s ready.”

  IT TAKES A TEAM

  The tall, square-jawed, evenly featured officer from the department’s Public Affairs Unit stood halfway out the door of Huff’s office. “Sergeant Huff, I don’t think you really want me to tell them that,” he was saying as Salt passed on her way to the conference room. Wills had asked the feds for help in following Arthur Solquist’s financial dealings, and for the entire unit’s benefit they’d offered to do a day’s training on money laundering and financial fraud crime.

  “The press is hounding us for updates on the Solquist case . . . No, sir,” the PA guy said. “We don’t suck media dick.”

  Huff brushed past him in the doorway.

  —

  SALT WAS in her cubicle going back through the physical evidence lists in the Michael Anderson file, hoping that something from the scant documents would connect with the little she felt she had learned, when her phone rang. “It’s Shepherd,” said the voice. “I already talked to your sergeant and lieutenant. I took your suggestion and made the first buy myself.”

  Absorbed in the file, it took her a minute to switch gears. “I appreciate that. I can’t think of any supervisors who’d do that. You’ve done your time. You didn’t need to put yourself out there anymore,” Salt said. “Thank you.”

  “Really, it went fine. Just like you said—they sold to me mostly because I looked the part. Stripper came from the back when I asked for snow and sold to me. Easy. Your Man was right on that count. I’ll make one more buy before the end of the week and we’ll be set for our probable cause.”

  “It’s nice of you to call me. You didn’t have to, just like you didn’t have to do the buy.” Salt tucked her chin to the phone.

  “Yes, I did, Salt. You know, I have to admit I do have a special place in my heart for women in the PD trying to do a good job. I guess it’s a combination of identifying with them and wanting them—us—to succeed. It was really hard when I first came on. But also, your dad was kind to me once when I was a rookie and really needed someone in my corner.”

  “My dad?” Salt sat up and leaned over the phone. “I didn’t know that there was anybody left who knew him. You’re the only person on the job who’s ever talked to me about having worked with him.”

  “Could be they don’t know how to bring it up, uncomfortable with suicide, you know. And I didn’t really know him. But on the night I’m talking about I was driving the wagon on morning watch, hauling the drunks to jail from the clubs in Buckhead, and I sideswiped a college kid’s Beamer. There were drunks coming out of the bars, cursing me, having fun at my expense. And I w
as scared, thought they’d fire me because I was still on probation. Then your dad pulled up. He had someone come and take over the wagon, got me to a diner around the corner away from the crowd of drunks, bought me coffee, and somehow made it all go away. I never heard from court, a supervisor, nothing. ’Course that was back when things like that could be made to go away. But my point is, he did it for me—a black chick, a rookie he didn’t know from Adam. I never got the chance to thank him. I was so shook up. I’ve always been sorry I didn’t seek him out to say that. You there?” asked Lieutenant Shepherd.

  Salt nodded at the phone.

  “Salt?”

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Okay. I’ll see you at the planning meeting.” The lieutenant hung up.

  Salt was glad now that Huff had stuck her in a cubicle in the back corner, grateful when Thing One and Two glanced at her and kept on walking.

  THE LEAST OF THESE