Old Bones

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “You and Felton already work a lot together.”

  “We do. And we get along. But still he’ll have to be the one that wants to make it official.”

  Wills smiled. “That’s the kind of talk people do when they’re talking about maybe getting married.” He looked at her and winked. Then he sat up. “Could you ask him along? Just when you go near The Homes?”

  The folds of the white cotton curtains that were pushed back from the front window were shadowed where the fabric doubled over, shades of white, soft uneven lines like the angles of a woman’s body, hanging curves. Between the cotton panels were old lace ones. The room was suffused with music and rich layers of light and dark. The music . . . themes and variations, Salt raised her hands and held her breath. The musicians unconstrained, uncontained, breaking through.

  She exhaled. “Wills, people like Man and Lil D know me. They don’t know Felton. I’ll look weak to them if I start showing up all the time with Felton, like I need protection.”

  Wills paused the music. “Can we compromise? How ’bout you ask Felton to come along with you when he can, when you’re gonna be out in The Homes? And you ask him to hang back?”

  She thought about it. “I already do that some and I told him some of the backstory with Stone. Deal.” They shook hands. “We’re getting better at this,” she said.

  “It made me crazy when you’d go off on your own, never telling anyone what you were up to.”

  “There is one other thing.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, really, it’s not life-threatening.”

  “Okay.”

  “I got smart with Dr. Marshall.”

  “How so?”

  “He was pushing me about my dad. I insulted his parenting—his daughter.”

  “Oh.”

  “Next appointment I’ll apologize, but I don’t want to lose it talking about my dad.”

  “So tell him.” Wills turned on the music.

  The spaces between notes, notes on a blues scale, gritty, greasy, created a longing for a return to funk. Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter introduced a theme, rhythms, and inflections forming tense line questions. Some notes were like destinations; some, certain pitches, signaled the melody to have the questions answered. They held the theme. The harmony grew richer, thick and more complex. “Come on. Now. Just listen,” Wills said, pulling her to lie close beside him.

  BAD NEWS

  Salt was walking by Hamm’s desk as the veteran detective punched at the computer keyboard. “I don’t give a shit,” she said to the supervisor standing over her shoulder. “I got murders to solve.”

  “The city will take the hit. On paper our murders, and probably our solve rate, will look horrific—up fifty percent,” her lieutenant said.

  The bold one-inch newspaper headlines were scattered throughout the office—break room, conference room, wherever Salt went, even the ladies’ room, the black type catching her eye: NO PROGRESS, NO ARRESTS.

  Again the office roiled with activity. Phones rang with calls from the press, politicians at every level, council members, and candidates for office who sought information so they could report back to folks who wanted to be the first to express outrage.

  Salt stopped in the doorway of Huff’s office and waited for him to finish his phone call. He smiled, mobile phone to his ear, rocking back and forth in his swivel chair. “They were delicious, sweetie.” He waved an expansive welcome for Salt to come in, stood and vigorously swiped several green murder books off the chair to the floor in front of his desk. “Gotta go now. Workie, workie. You, too.” He tapped the phone. “Hold on,” he said to Salt. Humming, he fumbled at his phone and then tapped its screen several times. Sitar music began playing.

  “Sarge? I was just gonna give you a quick update.”

  “Sarge, Sarge, Sarge. I love the sound of Sarge.”

  “You taking medication?” she asked.

  “Close the door,” he said. “Want a brownie?” He brought a Tupperware container from under his desk. “Best brownies ever.” He scooped up some chocolate gooey paste with his fingers.

  “Uh, Sarge—brownies? Really?”

  Huff looked at the chocolate on his fingers, then back at Salt. “Brownies,” he repeated. “She only gave me two, said I could have just one, and save one for later. She wants me to watch my calories.”

  “Brownies, Sarge.”

  His eyes widened in realization. “What was she thinking?” Quickly scraping his fingers on the edge of the plastic container, he shook his head. “My God! I could be fired. How fucked up am I?” he said, blinding his bloodshot eyes.

  “Just keep your door closed for a couple of hours or three. I’m sure your wife had the best intentions, probably worried about all the stress you’re under. Besides, who’s going to know? Give me the evidence.” She grinned. “Uh, brownie. I’ll get rid of it.” Salt slid the Tupperware from beneath his hand. Closing the door behind her, she left him, head hanging between his hands, sitar still thrumming.

  “They were able to date the bodies. Nineteen ten—around then. I don’t know—belt buckles, buttons or something . . .” Pieces of conversation floated up like captions.

  At her desk Salt got a small plastic evidence bag, scooped in the remaining THC-laced chocolate, and took the container to the break room to wash it.

  “Yeah, family still here, old money,” Thing One was saying to Thing Two as they sat sipping coffee at one of the tables.

  • • •

  “I don’t know, man.” Lil D stood looking from the office window out to the stage of Toy Dolls.

  Man, smoking a blunt, crossed his feet on the top of the small round table in the middle of the rectangular space. “You have your ride. East Lake’s not that far.”

  “She don’t know nobody over there. It’s bad. Them Blood wannabes frontin’. I don’t want Danny T growin’ up in no gang.” Lil D tugged at the towel around his neck, staring out without seeming to see the dancers onstage.

  “Salt be back about your sister.” Man took a puff, watching the smoke filter through bands of light coming from the stage, streaking the dark office with blue and pink.

  “Why she come to you ’bout Mary?” Lil D turned his back to the window and faced Man. “’Cause Stone out?”

  “Naw, man, that ain’t it.” Man uncrossed his feet and sat up. “Chill, bro. She had a picture of Mary with JoJo and Glory. She want to talk to them ’bout her.”

  “You holdin’ out on me? Mary come ’round here?” Lil D swiveled his head to one side, making a disturbed click with his mouth.

  “I ain’t got to explain nothin’ to you but yeah, she come ’round, once. I run her off. Got JoJo to take her home even.”

  “You know who killed my sister, Man? You ain’t tellin’ me?”

  “Naw, Lil D. Your sister out of it. She weren’t no problem.”

  Lil D tilted his head down, then looked up at Man sideways. “How come Salt always mixed up in our shit? You ever think about that?”

  “She all right. She straight.”

  “We gangsta, Man. Don’t no other gangsta got no one cop hangin’ ’round all the time.”

  “Check it out.” Man pointed the blunt at Lil D. “We gettin’ out that illegal shit anyway. We be gangsta when we got to, but we be gettin’ out a that. You never put your hand on no dope ever again. Soon as Johnny C ready, he be the one makin’ the deals.”

  “How come C be stayin’ in?”

  “My brother like thug life. He don’t have no ambition. You and me”—Man stood up and went over to beside Lil D at the window—“we got families, mouths to feed.” They both watched two dancers come to the stage.

  “That’s what I’m sayin’.” Lil D nodded. “I don’t want Danny T and Latonya livin’ next to some shit I don’t know ’bout. But I don’t know nothin’ but The Homes.”
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  “Just go on get Latonya moved. She be all right.”

  For a while they watched the dancers, the young JoJo and maybe younger Glory. “Flash Daddy like him some fresh pussy, huh?” Lil D asked Man.

  “Yeah.”

  “Salt be back.”

  “Yeah.”

  DAUGHTERS

  Salt put the old Ball glass jar with the three pink camellias on the counter. “For you,” she said to Dr. Marshall’s daughter.

  “We can’t accept gifts.” The girl frowned, fingering the twine bow around the neck of the jar.

  “Then it’s for the office, for the other patients, clients, whatever we’re called.”

  Marshall came out. “Come on back,” he said to Salt.

  Standing in his office, still holding her coat, Salt said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “I doubt it but go ahead. What for?”

  “I was angry. I didn’t like you pushing about my dad. So I used your daughter’s, um, issues to get back at you. I’m sorry.” She sat down.

  “You brought flowers for her?”

  “Just because I acted badly doesn’t mean I was wrong about her needing some cheering up.”

  “You got angry—yes. But why, Sarah?” Marshall sat.

  The same wash of emotion came over her, though this time she was prepared and took a breath. “I am protecting myself.” Salt bowed her head, pressing a fist to the place that felt hollow, the center of her chest where her mother had once laid her hand and pressed a warm cloth to soothe her when she’d been ill. “She must have been so afraid.”

  “Who, Sarah? Who was afraid?”

  Salt looked up. “Mary, Mary Marie.”

  Marshall sat back. “Your body in the weeds?”

  “Pokeberry . . .” Salt’s gaze drifted to the window. “She was left in a patch of pokeberry.”

  They sat on a large exposed root of the oak tree, its hard veins creasing the back of her skinny legs. Sarah and her dad, heads bent toward each other, dipped their index fingers into a green chipped bowl, in which they’d mashed pokeberries to a vivid purple paste.

  Below the hem of her shorts, on the front of her thighs and on her shins, she’d drawn squiggles, jagged Z’s, half-moons, and radiant lines—magic berry juice marks.

  “Now I’m a Cherokee princess,” she declared, standing up, arms out from her sides and looking down at her decorated legs.

  “What about your arms?” Her dad grinned.

  “And my face,” she added.

  He shook his head, “You’re not gonna get it on your face this time. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Your mama will give me heck if I bring you home with marks that won’t wash off.”

  Sarah stuck her finger in the bowl and started a line of large purple freckles on her left forearm. “It’s poison if you drink it, you know.” She hummed while she drew charm bracelets on both wrists. “When school starts back I’m not going.” She sat down in the grass and dirt in front of her dad. “I’m not going into fifth grade at all. Lean forward.”

  “You are too.” He kept his eyes wide while she put an S on his right cheek.

  “Nope, I’ve decided to get a job,” Sarah said, dipping her finger again.

  “You’re just a kid. Kids don’t get jobs, and besides, your mama and daddy won’t let you quit school.”

  “I’ll be invisible so you won’t know. There, now put some stars on my face.” She pushed the bowl toward him and swept her hair back from her forehead.

  “What kind of job?”

  “I’m going to be a spy or a secret agent.” His finger felt like a bug’s feather tracing the points of the stars. Sarah inhaled her father’s self smell.

  He leaned back from her to admire the stars he’d drawn. “Ta-da!”

  Sarah jumped up and spun around three times. “Do I look magical?”

  He squinted at her. The sun through the branches of the big oak spangled one of her arms.

  Salt turned back to Dr. Marshall, who’d sat sharing the silence. “She bled out in those weeds—fourteen years old. I blame myself. I should have been more vigilant,” she said.

  “I imagine there are quite a few children you’ve come to know who needed more taking care of than they were getting.”

  Salt lowered her head, eyes on her hands in her lap.

  “It must be hard to constantly empathize with all the kids you come in contact with, their abandonment.”

  Head still bowed, “Fuck you,” she croaked weakly.

  “Salt, just because someone else is in pain doesn’t mean you don’t hurt. You can’t push your tragedy away or cover it by focusing on others. As you may be starting to realize, it surfaces, breaks through anyway—in dreams, memories, images.” He raised his hands, palms up.

  • • •

  JoJo and Glory had given their address on the permits as Marvin’s, a whore motel on Metropolitan. Although she was sure they’d never lived there, Salt wanted to check with the women that tricked out of the place to see if they might have some bit of information. At the top of the hill overlooking Metropolitan Avenue, the motel consisted of freestanding units that reminded Salt of slave cabins. When she drove up, a cold, white moon shone down directly over six women gathered around a fire barrel in the median of the circular drive. Bright orange fragments floated from the barrel, illuminating the women’s faces and cleavage.

  Rocksand put a hand above her eyes, shielding them from the firelight. Peering in Salt’s direction, she was the first to recognize her. “Salt!” she called in a voice somewhere between a greeting and a warning to the others. But all of them, except one older woman Salt didn’t know, came over to the Taurus and got in, like a clown car in reverse, sharing the warmth of the car. Before she got in, Peaches, the youngest, tucked something into her cleavage.

  “Where you been?”

  “She got promoted, didn’t you, Salt?”

  “Ooh, you stink, Peach.”

  They talked over each other.

  “Ya’ll be quiet,” Glenda said. “Maybe Salt wants to say something.”

  “I’ve missed you,” Salt told them. “What are you hiding, Peach?”

  Glenda in the front seat smiled a missing-teeth, gummy grin. “Peach got a sweet tooth, always trying to hide some Snickers.”

  “I do not,” said the young whore. But the smell of chocolate from the backseat was unmistakable.

  Salt handed Glenda the photo of Mary and the two strippers. “Do you all know these girls?”

  One of the women in the backseat snatched the photo. “That . . .”

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “Who’s that?” Salt pointed to the woman by the fire, who now stood alone except for a dog beside her.

  “She go by ‘La Luna,’” Glenda said.

  “She Mesican,” added Peaches. “But she speak English okay. She just live here. She don’t work. She got ostiosis and cartridge in her legs.”

  Salt let them stay in the Taurus while she went to talk to La Luna. The dog, a medium-size collie mix, trotted out to her, his tail wagging behind him. At the fire he lay down with his snout pointing at her shoes.

  “He do that when he want get sheep,” said La Luna. “He come here with my niece from sheep country. He think you have sheep.”

  “My secret is out.” Salt tried the hand signal for the dog to come to her side. With a slightly skeptical look, white showing at the corners of his eyes, he got up and came to her left hand.

  “You know the language,” said the woman, dressed in an off-the-shoulder white blouse and a colorful full skirt, with a long black braid down her back, the stereotype of a peasant señora.

  “You’re new out here?” Salt said.

  “Mi marido está muerto.” La Luna drew the braid from her back, holding it at her heart. “Mi sobrina, su prop
ietaria, ha sido deportada.” She squatted and cupped the dog’s muzzle in her palms.

  Salt handed her the photo. “You ever see any of these girls?”

  La Luna took her time, holding the picture of the girls close to the fire. “These two”—she pointed at the strippers who’d given Marvin’s as their address on the permits—“no. But this one in the middle, I see her at church.”

  “Church?”

  “The one across from The Homes, God’s World. Priest of the Streets, he have mass there Sunday mornings early, for us who just getting finish work. He hear confession. He have mass. The girl, she come to the rock ’n’ roll preaching they have there, after mass.”

  “Was she ever with anyone? Did she talk to you or did you see her talk to anyone?” The dog watched Salt’s hands, jerking his head and shoulders one way or the other when she’d gesture. She crossed her arms and the dog lay down. “How often did you see her?”

  “I doan know, maybe tree, four times. Reason I remember is she stand at the door like she waiting. She look, what is word? Eyes wild? She do her fingers like this”—La Luna pulled at each of her fingers, one hand, then the other, as Salt had seen Mary do.

  A red minivan crammed with men drove around the corner and stopped. The girls got out of Salt’s car, hurried to the idling van, and began bantering and gesturing. Rocksand, the only white non-Hispanic of the group, laughed loudly and came over from the johns. “There’s one a those guys wants to know how much for you to take him ’round the world, Salt. You got to go. He thinks your uniform is a costume.” The girls at the car of johns looked her way, laughing. “He wants to be handcuffed.”

  “Okay. Okay.” She waved and held up a finger. She turned to La Luna. “Most of the women here know how to get in touch with me. Just in case, here’s my card. If you think of something else, about the girl especially, call.”

  La Luna took the card.