by Layton Green
“Can I ask you something else ?”
“Of course.”
“The two people you saw in Claire’s house that night—is it possible one of them had crutches ? Or walked with a pronounced limp ?” The whine of a boiling teakettle increased in the background. “I don’t think so,” she said, after a moment. “In fact, I’m sure of it. I’ve thought about that night a lot since we talked. I saw two people walk across the room, and neither of them had any sort of impediment.” “Thank you,” he said. “Enjoy your tea.”
A squat Latino woman with coiffed gray hair and a stern bearing answered the door to Alana Silver’s working class cottage. As the older woman’s eyes narrowed to regard Preach, she fingered a wooden rosary resting on top of a sleeveless blue blouse that had seen better days.
“Are you Alana’s mother ?”
“Si.”
“Is she home?” He produced his badge and introduced himself. “I’d like to ask her a few questions about Nate Wilkinson.”
At the mention of Nate’s name, Alana’s mother stiffened, her eyes opening so wide Preach worried he might have induced a heart attack. “One moment, please” she said, with a heavy accent.
A few moments later, a teenage girl came to the door who bore little resemblance to the confident wild child Preach had seen at the football game. Dressed in a conservative white shirt with puffy sleeves and a neck doily, Alana stood meekly at the front door, using her mother for support on one side.
“How can I help you, Detective ?” Alana asked, pouring innocent charm into her words. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything useful about Nathan Wilkinson. We only dated a few weeks and split up months ago.” Preach didn’t have the option to play nice. He had a murder investigation to conduct. “I saw you at the game with him last night. On the baseball field.”
Alana didn’t miss a beat. “My friend Rebecca is dating one of his friends. I didn’t know Nate would be there.”
“Alana—” her mother began, but her daughter cut her off.
“That’s all, mama. I swear we’re not dating again.”
Her mother spoke to her in rapid-fire Spanish, then turned back to Preach. “She will answer any question you need, for as long as it takes.” “Thank you,” he said, though the support did him no good. During his questioning, Alana admitted that Nate still liked her, but she refused to concede she was seeing him. By the end of the conversation, Preach honestly couldn’t tell where the truth lay. Alana professed to know nothing about Nate’s criminal activities or his fight with David. She swore she was at home the night of the murder, alone, though her mother admitted she had not checked on Alana after midnight. When Preach confronted Alana about Nate’s claim that he had visited her that night, she said she had only agreed to his remark because she was scared. Her mother put a protective arm around her and claimed that Nate was a dangerous influence.
Preach’s one small victory was that, since Alana had changed her story, she could no longer confirm Nate’s alibi. Whether she was telling the truth or feared her mother more than lying to a police officer, he couldn’t tell.
“Do you know where Nate is now?”
She smiled sweetly. “Have you tried his home?”
“Of course,” he said, working to control his temper. “Do you have any other ideas ? His hobbies, who his friends are ?”
“I’m sorry, I really don’t know him that well. I tried to bring him to church but he would never go.”
Her mother’s grip on her arm relaxed a fraction.
“Alana,” Preach said, “Do you realize that lying to me is an obstruction of justice ? If I find out you’re not telling the truth, I’ll bring you to the station for formal questioning and possible charges.”
“You better be telling this man the truth,” her mother said.
Alana gave a solemn nod. “I would never dream of lying to an officer of the law.”
As he left the Silver house, Preach felt like tearing his hair out. He needed to bring Nate downtown but didn’t have time to look for him. He debated asking Terry to conduct a search, then decided he needed him on other things.
With a sigh, Preach stopped for lunch at the Buena Vista Café, an open-air coffee house and Cuban-themed sandwich shop. Nestled among a community of farms north of Creekville, the thatch-roofed, bohemian little joint was built atop a row of storage containers and had a covered, wraparound balcony that overlooked the rambling herb and flower garden surrounding the café.
The day was sunny and mild, and Preach relished the fresh air. He ordered the daily special, picadillo with fried plantains, and thought about how the people around him barely resembled the neighbors he had known growing up. There was so little permanence in the new republic of Creekville. Everyone was from somewhere else or was emulating another culture, opening Tibetan prayer centers and Honduran coffee collectives and African jewelry boutiques. Preach did not think these legions of new residents were vapid or disliked their country; he simply thought they no longer felt connected to their own heritage, to the piece of earth they called home. It explained the other half of the equation, the resurgence of rustic Americana, the tribes of local craftsmen and bluegrass bands and drinkers of craft rye whiskey. Yet even this was an adopted culture from the past and no longer an organic one.
Was it a backlash to technology? Disorientation in the face of globalization? The incessant migration of American workers and families to other states?
He didn’t know. He just knew the people of this era, more than the one he had grown up in, seemed to be searching for an identity.
Or maybe we all grow up and think the same.
When the food arrived, he dug in with gusto, his thoughts refocusing on the case. A few raindrops turned into a downpour slashing against the corrugated iron balcony, blurring the view of the gardens.
All of us, he thought, were on the inside of our own little bubble looking out. True reality was filmy. Obscured.
The world of a murder case was even murkier. Who was telling the truth? Who had a hidden motive?
David and a woman had been in Claire’s house that night.
Soon after: one shot to the gut, followed by a kill shot to the head.
A woman and a man were in the woods, disposing of the body.
The Brett and Lisa theory bore some weight. They had a reason to shut David up, and Brett had a temper. Yet Preach couldn’t wrap his mind around this angle. Lisa did not strike him as a murderer, and Brett had a size eleven shoe.
Had Claire fed him the information on Brett? Planted that receipt to deflect suspicion?
Preach’s sticking point with Claire was motive. Why would she help Brett, or anyone else, kill her own son? He didn’t believe the fit-of-rage theory after the argument with David, or the run-away-with- Brett motif. She didn’t even love the man.
He knew he had a bias, a visceral rejection of the thought of a mother killing her own child. It was a crime against nature itself, contrary to the natural order of things. Or maybe human beings were slowly going insane, devolving. That would explain the daily news cycle.
Could it have been an accident, he wondered? Followed by a cover-up? Maybe David had gotten his hands on a gun, argued with his mom about it, and then shot himself ? Then Claire, or even Brett— worried Claire might be blamed—had delivered a post-mortem shot to the head to deflect suspicion?
He was reaching.
The rainstorm passed. Back at the station, he spent the afternoon rereading his notes, typing up new ones, and issuing orders.
To Terry: Dig into the lives of all the key players. Bring me a fresh angle.
To Bill: Track down Nate Wilkinson like your pension depends on it.
To Chief Higgins: Request info from the Durham PD on Cobra and Los Viburos.
To himself: Talk to David’s other friends, have a frank conversation with Claire, figure out what to say to Ari, and talk to Wade Fee. His old friend had his finger on the pulse of the social scene in Creekville and might have some insight
.
First, though, Preach had something else to do. A task he had put off for much too long. It might be nothing, but he needed to scratch a growing itch in his skull about the hidden thread he suspected tied this case together.
After wrapping up at the office, he drove over to the Wild Oaks subdivision for the second time that day. This time, he parked at the entrance to a public trailhead two streets over from Claire’s house, striding into the woods from a different entrance point. The rain started up again, slow and dreamy this time. The smell of fecund earth, of mushrooms and soil and pine needles, stuffed his nostrils.
As he suspected, the footpath fed into the larger trail that led to the murder site. Preach kept walking. He had put off finding out where these woods led for long enough. A few hundred yards in, the trail intersected another, and then another. Both times, he plowed ahead on the main trail, staying more or less in a straight line.
When the trail split in two, forcing him to break left or right, he paused, wondering if he should wait until the government offices opened on Monday so he could find a plot map. Waffling, he peered through the trees, and was about to turn around when he thought he glimpsed something off to the right. A smudge of gray that might be a house or a building. He kept going, guessing he had walked a half-mile at most. Probably less.
The rain slacked off, exposing a patch of blue sky for the first time all day. As if a fog had cleared, he lifted his face and reveled in the blaze of fall sunshine. In the better light, the smear of manmade gray clarified, breaking the spell, and he realized with a start what he was seeing. Not a hundred yards away from where he stood, the trail spilled into the unruly sprawl of a trailer park Preach recognized by its decrepit condition and by the water tower squatting in the distance behind it.
Carroll Street Homes.
23
During her stay in Greensboro, Blue lost count of all the restaurants where she applied for a job, including the cheap diner where she ate breakfast every day. Eight of the places said they were looking for immediate help. Two said to come back the following Monday.
Emboldened by her success, Blue returned to the motel and changed clothes for the evening: ripped jeans, white T-shirt, and a green denim jacket. She would never have gone out by herself in Chapel Hill or Durham. This was a new start for her. As far as anyone in Greensboro knew, she was a budding filmmaker.
Camera tucked safely into her bag, Blue stuck twenty dollars in her pocket and left the motel. It was 8:30 p.m. Crisp. Dark. A street full of shadows.
Nervous at how many sketchy people were idling by her motel, pimps and pushers and addicts, she set her jaw and strode forward, clutching her bag tight, daring anyone to challenge her.
Blue returned to the popular district unmolested and relaxed, basking in the vibrant culture. She browsed the narrow shelves of the local bookstore for a few minutes, enjoying the comics and the pulpy smell of books. Feeling better about her money situation, she had a burger and fries at a diner, followed by a chocolate latte at a place advertising “coffee and libations.” People glanced at her camera when she set it on the table, causing her to preen.
After browsing the bulletin board for a room to rent, fantasizing about sharing a refurbished loft with fellow artists, she left the café and began shooting the city, emulating the professional filmmakers she had seen in documentaries and on YouTube videos: kneeling for a better angle at a street corner, jumping to stand on benches, backpedaling from a crowd of pedestrians, capturing the graffiti scrawled on the side of a train as it passed in the moonlight.
Once all the businesses had closed and the people cleared out, she started toward her motel, as pleased with herself as she had ever been. When she was a block away, she noticed a young Latino wearing a black down jacket, standing on the corner near the Piedmont Inn. He watched her approach and looked down at his cell phone. Then he stared at her again, more intently than before.
As if matching a face to a photo.
Blue stopped walking and noticed the colors on the bandana tied around his left ankle. Gang colors.
Los Viburos colors.
Blue turned and fled.
Behind her, she heard the gang member cursing in Spanish as he gave chase, and Blue had a surge of adrenaline that scooped out a pit in her stomach and made her feel as light as a balloon, except this balloon had arms and legs pumping furiously as she ran. For the first few moments, she thought she could outrun Usain Bolt.
Whipping left at an intersection and sprinting twenty yards down another empty street, she risked a glance back and saw the Latino rounding the corner, stopping to peer in both directions. He noticed her and started running again.
Blue didn’t recognize the guy chasing her, but Cobra must have known she was gone. She guessed the assassin had gone to the trailer park to look for her that morning and put the word out when he didn’t find her. Her stupid mother had probably told him she had skipped town.
Was there a bounty on her head? Dead or alive? Delivered in the back of a trunk or the bottom of a canal ?
She didn’t want to find out.
A few quick glances over her shoulder revealed that her pursuer was medium height and stocky. She was faster, barely, but maybe he had more stamina. When he had surprised her at the corner, she had run back toward the nice part of town, since it was the only area she knew. Yet even if she managed to double back to her hotel, they would just break inside or wait for her to leave.
Blue scanned her surroundings as she ran, desperate for a place to hide. She reached the corner of Elm and West McGee, hoping to see a pedestrian or two, but everyone had gone home for the night.
A fire escape caught her attention, followed by a van she could hide under. Both were too obvious. To her left, after the shops, the street spilled into the high-rise district. Nothing but wide streets and empty sidewalks in that direction. To her right, she saw darkness and the stultified shuffle of the homeless, the unforgiving bowels of the city.
Directly ahead, a block away, the road led through an underpass. She couldn’t see beyond it and didn’t want to get stuck inside. For all she knew, a dozen gang members were waiting on the other side of that tunnel.
She had no time to decide. Her choices were poor. On impulse, she darted toward the underpass, then turned left just before she reached it, at the next block. She swallowed as the scenery took a turn for the worse. Addicts and homeless men prowled the street ahead, zombies of the night waiting for a warm body to wander into their midst. They would give her up in a heartbeat. After debating slipping over a low brick wall and hiding on the patio of a brewery, she eyed the embankment to her right. A grassy slope led up to a set of train tracks that crossed over the underpass.
The embankment intrigued her. Whatever was up there, if anything, was invisible from the road. It meant she would no longer have the chance to run into more people or even a cop, but she had lost hope in that. Greensboro had died on the vine after the shops had closed.
With a quick glance to make sure her pursuer couldn’t see her, she bit her lip and raced up the embankment, slipping in the mud and wet grass, planting her palms on the slope as she scurried up on all fours, terrified someone on the street would yell at her and alert the gang member.
At the top of the slope, she pushed through a low thicket with a homeless camp hidden inside: a few pairs of old shoes, empty bottles, and a filthy blanket that smelled like urine. Thank God it was deserted. After emerging from the copse of undergrowth, she clambered over two sets of railroad tracks, one of which led to the underpass, before pausing to absorb her surroundings.
What she saw caused a shiver of unease to whisk through her.
Three more sets of tracks curved into the darkness opposite the underpass. Two of them dead-ended not far from where she stood, as if chopped up long ago. On the far side of the tracks, a flat plain filled with gravel extended for a few hundred yards, ending at the back of a line of buildings. It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but they looked like wa
rehouses.
She had stumbled onto some sort of nether world forgotten by the city below, an abandoned terminus of roads and civilization. Isolated, deserted, eerie.
The kind of place people went to disappear.
A brisk wind cut through her coat. She felt the chalky taste of gravel on her tongue. She debated crossing over the underpass and slipping back down the embankment, but that would expose her to view. She looked to her left and saw nothing but tracks and gravel. Too open. Behind her, in the distance, a handful of skyscrapers rose like giant candles in the darkness.
Someone grunted at the bottom of the embankment. Without thinking, Blue dashed across the tracks and fled across the gravel plain, away from the overpass. She had to find a place to hide before her pursuer reached higher ground.
Puddles of water pockmarked the gravel. An abandoned railcar emerged in the darkness. She eyed an old propane tank, a mound of silt, and the outline of a station house in the distance. As the rustling on the embankment grew louder, she noticed a cement platform off to her right, about fifty feet away.
The railcar was too obvious, the old station house too far away. She veered toward the platform, searching desperately for a place to hide. She could make a dash for the buildings on the other side of the gravel plain, but she would definitely be seen, and then it was a footrace with no clear destination. Her pursuer would probably just shoot her in the back.
About three feet high and hemmed in by railroad ties, the cement platform extended for a hundred feet on either side of her, parallel to the tracks. What in the world was its purpose ? She began to lose hope when she saw a square of blackness at the base of the platform, deeper than the night, almost hidden inside a thicket of weeds and low shrubs.
Thorny branches clawed her face and hands as she fought through the undergrowth to view the hole. A square had been cut out of the cement, two feet by two feet. Just enough to squeeze through. She peered inside and saw a pool of filthy water that had collected at the bottom of the opening.