Old Bones

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “Don’t many people get to see my place,” said Flash. “What do you think?” He waved his cigar over the room. Shaded umbrellas, beach tables, and lounge chairs surrounded the money-sign-shaped swimming pool. At one of the far tables two bikini-clad women chatted while a third ate a burger from a take-out bag.

  “Impressive,” she said.

  In the tropical warmth and humidity of the nouveau-Hefner, climate-controlled pool house, Salt took off her fedora and loosened her coat.

  “Punkin’,” he yelled. One of the girls jumped up and teetered over, high heels clacking on the tiles. “Tell Maya to get this damn door fixed.” The girl tapped toward an inner door to the house. “Can’t get nobody who takes responsibility these days,” he said. “You want something to eat or drink? These girls work for me. They my personal assistants, you might say.” He smiled, showing his famous diamond tooth.

  “I’m good,” she said, removing her coat. “Can we sit?”

  He led her to a pair of low lounge chairs under one of the umbrellas. Flash sat down and stretched his legs out on one of the lightweight and insubstantial chairs, which threatened to tip at the slightest unbalance. Salt sat sideways in another lounge chair, knees higher than her waist. Looking uncomfortable, and testing the wobbling aluminum frame, he said, “Let’s get to business. You lookin’ for that dancer, JoJo? Right?” He grinned as if he’d surprised her.

  “You’re on top of things, I see, Mr. Jones.”

  “I got my nose close to a lot in this city.”

  “I’m sure you do.” She gave him a gentle, almost friendly smile. “So it’ll be easy, I’m sure, for you to get in touch with those girls and assist me with arrangements to interview them,” Salt said, her voice mildly flattering.

  He canted his head, chin forward, and made one-eye contact. “You smart, I see.” His eyes narrowed, mouth tightened, he nodded at her.

  “I like to think I’m talking to the right people.”

  “See, you did that again.” He leaned back in the chair. “That good-girl trick,” he said, grinning, tapping cigar ashes on the tile floor. “I like that.” He smiled out at the room.

  “I am talking to the right person?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He looked at the girls around the room, then at the cigar in his hand and took a puff. “How ’bout I call you? See, you could have saved yourself the trouble and asked your favor over the phone and not had to come all the way out here.”

  “I’d appreciate that, Mr. Jones. The sooner the better.” She unbent from her mantis-like posture. “I didn’t mind the trip—wouldn’t have wanted to miss seeing all this.”

  A woman wearing tailored slacks and a long-sleeve black silk shirt came from the inner door to the house.

  “Maya! Be right there,” Flash shouted as he stood. “I’ll get her to take you out.”

  Salt followed him to where the woman waited. “She leavin’,” he said, gesturing at Salt. “Why all the doors in this mansion I got don’t work right? They all hard to open. Handles be breakin’.”

  “I believe we had this same discussion about the plumbing,” Maya said, her expression as flat as her voice.

  “Yeah, well, I ain’t happy. I paid a shitload of green for this place. You think you at least could open the goddamn doors.”

  Maya looked at Salt. “If you’ll follow me.” She turned and went through the door to the rest of the house.

  “I’ll be expecting your call, Mr. Jones,” Salt said over her shoulder as she followed Maya’s tapping heels on the faux-marbled-floor hall. They walked past an exercise room, a game room with a bar and pool table, bedrooms with canopied beds, and back to the blue-water fountain in the foyer.

  “Must be a job, looking after a place this big. Have you worked for Mr. Jones long?”

  “You might say that.” Maya stood at the main door, waiting for Salt.

  Salt reached in her pocket. “Sometimes I find myself giving these out in my dreams,” she told Maya, handing her the flyer of JoJo, Mary, and Glory. “I’m Detective Alt, Atlanta Homicide. I’m looking for these two women,” she said, once again pointing at JoJo and Glory.

  Maya did not once change expression or tone of voice; her eyes were dull. Beneath flawless, matte-beige skin Salt detected anger in her tightened jaw and slight downturn of her eyes and mouth. “What did he tell you?” Maya asked.

  “He said he’ll call.”

  “I will encourage him to do that.” Maya folded the flyer and led Salt out.

  As Salt drove out of the gate she whispered under her breath, “He didn’t mention Glory, only JoJo.”

  • • •

  Salt had never before had a conversation with the deputy chief, any deputy chief for that matter, but here he stood, white shirt gleaming, brass shining, beside her flimsy, leaning-walled cubicle. “Hi,” he said.

  She pushed back her rolling chair from the desk. “Chief,” she said, struggling to sit at some kind of semi-attention.

  “What are you working on?” He repositioned himself so he could look at the monitor on her desk.

  “The girl found over at Fox Street.”

  “Oh,” he said uncertainly.

  “She was dead three or four months before her body was found? That one.”

  He looked around her cubicle as if looking for a clue.

  “Can I help you, Chief?” Huff skidded to a stop beside the deputy chief. All around the office, heads appeared over the tops of cubicles.

  “No,” said the deputy chief, turning to look over the room. Heads ducked. “Just wanted to see how the move was progressing.”

  Eyes bugging and giving Salt a what-did-you-do look, Huff asked the deputy chief, “Coffee?”

  “Might as well,” the deputy chief said, turning to Huff.

  PRESSURE

  “Close the door,” Huff said, his tone of voice unusually flat. He lifted a stack of murder books from the chair in front of his desk. “They gave me a direct order and said if I didn’t carry it out, someone else would.”

  “That bad?” she said mechanically. Knees going weak, she dropped into the chair and folded her hands in her lap, trying to prepare for whatever the bad news was.

  He massaged his forehead with one hand. “I’m inactivating your McCloud case. You’re back in rotation. Next body is yours.”

  “Okay,” she said, remaining still, waiting for him to continue.

  “Okay? You’re not going to argue with me?”

  “No, I figured you’d tell me why.”

  “I’m serious as a heart attack, Salt. I got called to the deputy chief’s office. And—now, this is between you and me—if they find out I told you, I’ll be back pounding a foot beat in The Bluff.”

  “Let me guess—Flash Daddy Jones?”

  “They want you to quit ‘harassing’ him.” Huff’s air quotes again.

  “Not sure how interviewing someone once is harassment, but okay, I won’t try to get anything more from him. That doesn’t seem to be a reason to inactivate the case.” She was beginning to feel the blood come back to her face. She’d thought he was going to tell her something worse.

  “Salt, there is more.” Huff stood and turned his back to her. “God, I hate this job!”

  “Sarge, you’re scaring me.”

  He turned around and put his hands on the back of his chair, as if propping himself up. “They asked me—”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I’m just saying it was discussed. They’d gotten wind of a rumor and they want your fitness-for-duty results.”

  “What rumor?”

  “You and Wills.”

  Salt sat staring, thinking, Why all this now? It sounded like they were out to get anything on her.

  Huff went on. “There’s also a new complaint.” He waited.

  Salt lifted her eyes to his.

 
; “They showed me a video from a surveillance camera. It was the looting at Walter’s.”

  “Sarge, they ordered us not to confront the looters.”

  “Roger that. But Salt, what they have—a surveillance video that shows you abetting one of the looters. You could be charged with party to a crime. You gave some guy shoes from the store. They said you could be arrested and fired. It’s possible you could be convicted of a misdemeanor theft. Even if you managed to keep your job you’d be assigned to some position where you couldn’t work cases or make arrests. You’d never be able to testify in court. Your value as a witness would be compromised.”

  Salt’s mouth went dry. The room went out of focus and Huff’s voice sounded muffled behind the sound of her heart beating. She became aware of the rise and fall of her chest. She smelled gunpowder.

  “Salt? Salt?”

  She blinked. “What do they want?”

  “They want the McCloud case inactivated so you won’t have any reason for harassing Jones.”

  “Or what?”

  “They were playing it like they didn’t know if bringing criminal charges would be necessary, like whether the video was clear enough—if it was a case of your giving the guy the shoes or if you just handed them to him so you could deal with the perp you’d cuffed.”

  She tried to think. “So they’re holding it over my head?”

  Huff said nothing, just shook his head slowly side to side.

  • • •

  “I’d like to leave early,” Salt said. A numbness had come over her, except for her skin, which felt on fire, like pinpricks along her arms and legs.

  “Stay here,” Huff said. “I’m going to get Wills . . .”

  “I can—”

  “Not an option, an order. You don’t look good.” Huff shut the door behind him, leaving her staring dumbly in the direction of the wall behind his desk. He quickly returned with Wills and shut the door again.

  “What’s going on?” Wills asked. “Salt? Sarge?”

  “I gave her some bad news. She can tell you. I’m not letting her go home alone,” Huff said.

  “Salt?” Wills said, coming around to face her.

  “I’m okay.” She stood.

  “At least drive her home.”

  She led the way to her cubicle; Wills grabbed his coat as he passed his desk. She pulled her coat tight and covered her head with the fedora.

  “This is scaring me,” Wills said in the elevator. “I’ve seen that look on your face.” But of course, here on the city’s property, even in the parking lot or in his truck, he wouldn’t risk holding her; they were still being cautious about their relationship, especially now. Wills, impatient, drove to the nearest side street, put the truck in park, leaving the engine running like they were teenage lovers, turned, and took her hands in his. “Salt, whatever this is it is not going to make a difference in the long run. Nothing can ruin the life you and I have and will have. It may be a bump, a hill, or a mountain, but we will get over it. Now tell me.”

  For the third or fourth time in as many days, Salt wept, Wills tightly holding her shaking body.

  • • •

  “I don’t like no carpet—too hard to keep clean with kids,” Latonya said, tearing greens for their supper. But she didn’t sound unhappy. She said it with her chin up, smiling.

  “It look real nice, La,” JoJo said, doing her part to keep the good mood going. “Jes get you a vacuum, thass all.”

  Latonya had unpacked all the plastic bags, hung their clothes. Everything was neat and clean. It even looked all right with just the TV, beanbag chairs, and mattresses in the bedrooms. Danny T could run and fall and not hurt himself. Latonya’s new shoes in the box were beside her GED book on top of the counter between the kitchen and living room.

  Lil D was watching the cartoon channel, sitting in one of the bag chairs with Danny T in his lap, when his phone vibrated. “Yo. Hole on.” He sat Danny in the chair and went to the back bedroom. “Wass up?”

  “You comin’ to the club tonight?” Man asked.

  “I ain’t got a ride. Piece-a-shit car still not workin’. Man, I ain’t got no money to get it fixed.” Lil D clicked his cheek in disgust.

  “A’ight. I come get you.”

  “Naw.”

  “Why you don’t want me to come there?”

  “It ain’t that.” Lil D worried he’d screwed up.

  “’Bout ten.” Man hung up.

  Lil D sat, legs crossed Indian-style, on the edge of the mattress, trying to decide if he needed to ask JoJo about Mary. He didn’t know how Man would take it if he found out JoJo was staying with Latonya and him. Man was all about Flash Daddy these days; showed Lil D pictures from the paper of Flash and the mayor.

  The bedroom door opened and JoJo stuck her head in. “La say your food’s ready.” She turned to go.

  “Who you so scared of, Bit?”

  She came back and stood in the open door, respecting Latonya, not coming in the room alone with Lil D, even though they all knew how tight he and Latonya were.

  “Who would kill Glory? Why?” he asked her.

  “You ain’t got to know, Lil D,” she said. “And I best not speculate.”

  “Do it have to do with my sister?”

  “Don’t go axin’ me no questions.”

  “You gone hide forever?” he asked.

  “I don’ know, D.”

  “I ain’t gone be able to keep hidin’ shit from Man.”

  “What am I gone do? I got no place away from the ’hood.”

  “That poleese, Salt, been lookin’ for you.” He watched JoJo’s reaction. Looking back down, he pulled at the new carpet. “She straight,” he told her.

  “She gonna protect me from the mayor, Lil D?” She started to tear up. “You seen pictures of him and Flash Daddy.”

  “Naw, come on.” He stood. “Come on, less eat. I’ll think on it.”

  JoJo wiped her eyes with the hem of her oversized T-shirt, which had a “Thug Life” logo over an image of guns and money.

  • • •

  Wills’ Rotties, Pansy and Violet, lay on the kitchen floor with Wonder, snoots on their paws, looking up with mournful eyes.

  “I can’t live that way. I can’t work waiting for the ax to fall,” Salt told Wills. Wonder began pacing, back and forth, staring out the door, then back to Salt’s side, wanting her to let him out to the sheep. The Rotties’ eyes darted between him and Wills and Salt.

  “We need to sort this out. Right now we don’t know who’s pulling the strings.” Wills poured them each a finger of whiskey.

  “I don’t want you tainted, Wills.”

  “You insult me by saying that. I don’t give a damn about anything they do. Yes, I like, love, working homicides, but what we’ll have, Salt, at the end, will be that we did good work, acted with integrity, and cared for our family, you and me.”

  She took a sip of the whiskey, felt it sliding down, immediately blurring the sharp edges. “Integrity,” she repeated.

  “No matter what, we, you and I, will come through this righteous.” Wills put his whiskey down and pulled her to standing, holding her at arm’s length, forcing her to look into his honest brown eyes. “What you cannot do is isolate yourself. You’ve done that before. We’ll figure this out. We’re a team. Tomorrow we’ll sit down and come up with a plan.”

  “Isolate.” Salt listened to the word reverberate in her thoughts.

  “Salt?”

  “You’re right,” she told him. Her eyes fell on her coat hanging on the hook by the door and the fedora.

  • • •

  The next morning, Salt sat at the table, head in her hands. She pushed back the tangle of hair from her forehead, rubbing the scar with two fingers. Wills was at the stove putting egg-soaked bread into the cast-iron pan and pouring
water into the filter for their drip coffee.

  “Eat,” Wills said, setting a plate of French toast, buttered, dusted with powdery sugar, in front of her. He put maple syrup and a platter of bacon and soysage in the middle of the table and a cup of coffee in front of Salt. He sat down with his own plate and coffee, leaned over to the counter, and grabbed a legal pad and pen. “We have to get to the source of this.” He tapped the pad with a finger, forking a bite of toast. “Somebody is feeling threatened. Why?”

  “Whoever killed Mary.”

  “That’s a reasonable leap. But we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions. Maybe instead of Mary it has to do with the other two girls? JoJo?”

  Salt nodded.

  “And the girl from the quarry.”

  “Glory.” Salt took a sip of the strong coffee. “Jim Britton, the environmentalist from the quarry, said the mayor, or someone high up in the city, gave Flash Daddy Jones the access code for the gate. Britton said he saw Flash there and that he entered before the mayor got there.”

  “And just because they take you off Mary’s case doesn’t mean you can’t work it, Salt.”

  “But if they find out . . .”

  “What are your options?”

  She shrugged. “Quit? Work under their thumb?”

  “Or cut off the hand that’s biting you.”

  “I think you mixed a metaphor or four.” Salt gave him a grim smile. “If they want, they’ll not just fire me but they can charge me criminally. It’s possible I could go to jail.” She dropped the fork and pushed back from the table.