Old Bones

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  The dogs on Salt’s heels followed her back in. From the hall Salt saw JoJo standing close to the kitchen wall, touching the plaster and lath with her fingertips. “There’s something looks like hair in this stuff between the wood pieces.”

  “You’d make a good detective, noticing details like that. You’re right. Back in those days they mixed hog hair or cow hair in with the plaster to make it stronger, make it hold together better.”

  “Really?” JoJo kept going over the wall, looking closely.

  Salt put the dishes in the sink.

  “Can I touch that littler dog, the all-black one?” asked JoJo.

  “Sure. Sit back down. His name is Wonder. I found him over in The Bluff.” Salt called to her dog, “Heel.” Then she led him in front of JoJo sitting in the kitchen chair, sideways to the table. The dog looked up, anticipating a command. “That’ll do,” she said, releasing the dog to do what he wanted. “Just sit there. No need to do anything,” she said to the girl.

  Wonder relaxed, circled Salt, then wagging his tail came up to JoJo.

  “Okay. Bring your hand up, palm side down. Let him sniff the top of your hand.”

  Wonder sniffed, then moved closer, going between JoJo’s knees to her lap.

  “He wants you to scratch under his chin,” Salt said.

  JoJo turned her fingers up, hovering beneath Wonder’s mouth. “He won’t bite me?”

  The dog’s whole back end was wagging.

  “He wants a scratch.”

  JoJo tickled him, barely touching his fur. He turned his chin up, giving her access.

  “Harder,” Salt told her.

  Smiling now, JoJo continued rubbing Wonder until he laid his chin on her knee. “He’s so shiny.” She smoothed her hand all down the back of his head to his flanks. “He don’t smell like other dogs.” She flung a little fur from her fingers. “Flash Daddy”—she patted and petted—“he had these parties, for guys who like—he call us ‘fresh girls.’” Wonder turned around so JoJo could scratch his back, right above his tail. “Me and Mary—he broke me in before he did her.”

  Salt held her breath. She was scared she’d make a false move or say something wrong or judgmental.

  “You think I can come visit this dog again?”

  “Sure.” Salt slowly exhaled. “You can come back. I hope you do.”

  ACCOUNTING

  The attic was even colder than the rest of the house; wind mewled in the rafters. Salt tugged on the light pull chain, made her way to the trunk, hung the lantern, and opened the lid. She filled the bag with the letters, carried it over to the attic opening, then went back to the trunk. After lifting the tray out, she removed the silverware box and the remaining ledgers and photos, put the tray back, and closed the lid. She went back and forth taking the trunk contents to the ladder and then brought them down to the hall.

  • • •

  She’d warmed the house a little but still wore her jacket as she cleared the dishes and sat down at the table piled high with the dusty trunk contents. She took a first sip of coffee, considered where to begin, and finally picked up the smallest ledger that lay atop the rest. Leather-bound, it had an embossed “Ledger” in fading gold script. With fountain-pen-cursive flourishes, the inside cover page was inscribed “Marion Henry Alt, Cloud, Georgia, Feb. 24, 1861.” Each subsequent page had the month and year on top of the page. Down the sides of the pages were the days of entry, “Oct. 1, harness repair,” and the amount of money spent or taken in, “$.75,” “Six pecan bushels, $1.40.” Salt turned the pages, not so much yellowed but tanned with age, ink turned brown. “Dec. 23, female negra Mary, $300.” Salt shut the ledger, dropped it on the floor beside her, and sat there. “$300, Mary.” She pulled the photo album she’d previously gone through from the stack, opened it, and turned the pages until she came to the photo.

  • • •

  When Wonder didn’t bark at the knock, she knew it had to be Mr. Gooden. “Saw your light on. Thought you might could use a piece of pie.” He stood in the doorway holding a paper plate covered in plastic wrap.

  “I see two pieces on that plate. I hope you’re planning on eating it with me. Coffee?” she asked. “You’re becoming the master at pecan pie.”

  “Don’t mind if I do, even if it is late. This is cause for a little celebration. I’ve missed seeing the lights, and you and this cur.” He patted Wonder’s back, right above the dog’s tail, causing Wonder to back up to him for more.

  “What’s all this?” he asked, setting the pie on the counter and nodding at the piles from the attic.

  She began clearing the table and putting the trunk contents on the counter beside the laundry room. “Cleaning out the attic. Trying to make good use of my time,” she said.

  Mr. Gooden came over and put his hand on her shoulder. “I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better. And while it is true that time heals and that one day you’ll look back on this as just a bump in the road, still it’s little comfort right now. Sarah, those of us who know you, well, let me speak personally—I’m very proud of you.” He patted her back.

  Bowing her head, she covered his hand with hers.

  Mr. Gooden cleared his throat. “So, what have you got here?” He looked down at the album still open on the table. “These people look familiar.” He touched his finger to a figure in one of the group photos. “This boy might be your grandfather. He’s in some old pictures we, I, have.” He peered closely at the picture.

  “Do you know anyone in this one?” She turned the page back to an older photo, one with the girl.

  “Looks to be taken of the property before this house was built, maybe right after the Civil War.” He leaned over the album for a closer look. “They look like your kin, but I couldn’t tell you who’s who.” He straightened and pulled out a chair. “Let’s have that pie,” he said and sat down. “Not many folks your age are that interested in old family histories and pictures. What got you curious?”

  Salt put the water on again. “It’s a long story, but the short version is that I was going through the albums and found this photo.” She nodded at the page. “The girl in that looked familiar to me, at least her features do.”

  Mr. Gooden turned several pages of the album.

  Salt went in her jacket pocket and brought out one of the copies of the picture of the trio of girls. She pointed to Mary. “Now turn back.” She reached and turned the page herself. Holding the flyer next to the album, she pointed to the woman and then to Mary.

  Mr. Gooden leaned close again. “I can’t . . .” He pulled back. “Maybe one of your criminal scientists could tell, but all I can say is that those two, the girl and the woman, look alike. This photo”—he tapped the album—“is old. And they’re different ages.”

  “Here’s the thing.” Salt picked up the ledger off the counter. “Just now, going through this.” She held the book. “I found an entry for the purchase of a slave named Mary. This woman”—she touched the photo again—“would have been about the right age. This girl”—Salt picked up the flyer—“her name is Mary. I’m trying to find out how she died and who killed her.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mr. Gooden. “What’s the connection? What do they have to do with each other?”

  “The woman, her braids, her nose, mouth,” Salt said. “And this girl”—she pointed to Mary—“her grandmother’s name is McCloud. Sister Connelly told me that the McClouds came to Atlanta from around here, and I know that some slaves when they were freed took the name of where they came from, the town or plantation.”

  “Cloud,” said Mr. Gooden, repeating the name of the town whose address they shared. “What does it matter?”

  “Maybe nothing.” Salt put their pie and coffee on the table. “Or maybe it matters a lot.”

  “I’m old,” said Mr. Gooden. “My generation didn’t talk about this kind of thing
, not in so many words. We’ve got all kinds of debts.”

  “Sister quoted the Bible, said that God loves his children, but that they still have to deal with the ‘sins of their fathers to the third and fourth generation.’”

  They finished the pie and coffee, and as they were putting things away, Mr. Gooden asked, “You ever think you take things too serious, too literally?”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” she said, turning out the lights and locking the door.

  IN THE PAN

  Two of Flash’s posse opened the doors to Flash’s house and led them down some stairs. As much as Lil D hated the Magic Girls Club, he instantly hated this more. It smelled bad, a stale odor of cigarettes and spilled beer coming from hard gray carpeting. The walls were gray, lit from above by purple wall lights. Three steps down a level from the bar along the far wall there was a half circle of dark gray sofas surrounding a long coffee table. The room, with its own stripper pole, was almost as big as the main room of the Toy Dolls Club, but it was empty except for Flash smoking his nasty cigar, a glass of something blue on ice at his elbow. Stokes played bartender. Flash and Man gave dap.

  Lil D wandered, stepping down to the sofas away from Flash and his cigar. He didn’t know why he and Man were here. Flash said something, “Salt . . . ,” as Lil D sat down out of earshot of their conversation.

  Stokes got Man a beer, then came out and down to Lil D. “You want something? Bar’s open.”

  “Naw, I’m good,” Lil D told him. Lil D was the only one in the room in street clothes, a pair of jeans and the old Homes-smelling jacket. Man and Flash were wearing suits, jackets and matching pants. Stokes wore a black T-shirt tucked in black suit pants.

  On the low table, which looked like it was made of some kind of fake wood, in front of the sofas were big ring binders arranged by colors, real pale white, regular white, light pink, pink, all the way to a red so dark it was almost black. Lil D got antsy and stood back up, then went up the steps to the bar.

  “She got mojo,” Man was saying to Flash. “You ain’t gonna keep her down. ’Sides she ain’t your real problem anyway.” Man lit and puffed on his own cigar. “Your girls done broke rank.”

  “Ain’t but one,” Stokes said.

  “Shut up!” Flash glared at his manager.

  Lil D caught Man’s eye for a second.

  Man said, “It was bad luck Detective Salt got Mary’s case. She ain’t never let go nothin’. I know you told me you ran Mary off just like I did, but then she got herself killed and that picture turned up with her and the other two.”

  Lil D didn’t like the talk of his sister. He went back to the lower level of the room, sat down again, and, for something to do, opened the white binder.

  • • •

  “She ain’t supposed to be here,” said Huff.

  “She’s not, Sarge.”

  “What do you . . . oh.” He raised his fingers in air quotes. “Not here. I get it.”

  Standing in Lieutenant Shepherd’s large office, the former classroom, were Salt, who because she was suspended wasn’t supposed to be there, Huff, Pepper, Wills, Felton, and Sergeant Fellows, who had a copy of the CD of JoJo’s forensic interview.

  “Here you go.” Fellows handed the CD to Lieutenant Shepherd. “I’ve seen it once. I’ll be taking notes for the warrant.” She sat down in one of the chairs arranged in a circle around the computer monitor on Shepherd’s desk.

  “How is it that the Narcotics Unit is involved in a sex trafficking case and a homicide case?” Huff asked. “Not that I give a shit, but for the record.”

  “Let me worry about that, Sergeant,” said Shepherd. “PD’s all one team, right? We’ll call it a task force. Homicide is here because of the girls being murdered. Obviously, SVU is involved because of the age of some of the victims. And Narcotics has the surveillance equipment and allegations that drug money is being laundered out of Magic Girls. Of course the real reason is—off the record—they’ve pissed me the hell off fucking with Salt.”

  “Right,” they all, except Huff, answered in unison. He gave them a skeptical mouth-turned-down glare.

  The CD slid in, the monitor lit up, and without any preliminaries there was JoJo on the screen and a woman at a table across from her. The lieutenant turned the sound up. ”. . . and I’m Sally Sims. Today is February nineteenth . . .” Ms. Sims began, and explained to JoJo she was with the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy. Her tone was mild, neutral, but kind and matter-of-fact as she established JoJo’s particulars: age, date of birth, competency, as well as JoJo’s understanding of the truth versus a lie. Then, “I’ve been told that recently some things have happened to you.”

  Rather than the “Thug Life” T-shirt she’d worn when Salt last saw her, JoJo was wearing a pastel green V-neck T-shirt that was tight across her breasts. JoJo kept looking down at her cleavage and tugging the V up. Salt saw how a jury might see her: full-breasted, a history as a runaway, stripping. JoJo kept her head down.

  Felton, Wills, Pepper, and Huff shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

  Holding the end of her ponytail, JoJo said in a barely audible voice, “You mean the reason I been hidin’?”

  “Tell me what happened,” Ms. Sims said.

  The short history of JoJo’s life, while terribly familiar, was torture to listen to in specific. The details were heartbreaking. Repeatedly molested by an uncle and a “play” brother, she’d been a poor student. Her mother’s home was chaotic: too many kids, too many of her mother’s boyfriends. JoJo had run away several times before being taken up by a young drug dealer and brought to William Stokes, whom she knew as “Money,” the manager at Magic Girls. “I already weren’t no little girl,” she told Sims.

  “I was told there were other girls,” Sims prompted.

  “Yeah, at first we was just like roommates. Me and Glory, then later Mary. And it was all good. They give us new clothes, regular jeans, and kicks and stuff like kids wear—all the good stuff.”

  “What do you remember most clearly?”

  “I just black out the first stuff,” JoJo said, looking away from Sims and off to the side. “It weren’t so bad like with Flash Daddy, him being famous an’ all. I thought, I thought I was maybe—maybe I was special.”

  The detectives, Felton, Wills, and Pepper, didn’t seem to be breathing. Salt lowered her head, praying that she could somehow avoid having to hear what was coming.

  Sims was tough. She said, “Tell me about that.”

  “He did it in my bootie and then my mouth and he had Mary there so she know what to do.”

  Pepper stood up. “Can you turn that off, LT? I need a break.” He walked out of the office-classroom. They could hear him going down the hall, hitting the lockers as he went.

  “I don’t know how you do this day after day,” Lieutenant Shepherd said to Sergeant Fellows, who’d remained bent over her notepad. When she looked up, there were tears streaming down her cheeks.

  • • •

  By the end of the hour-long interview JoJo had given descriptions of herself, Glory, and Mary having been coerced to perform at private parties where they were sexually assaulted by multiple men while other men watched. It was excruciating to hear. “I was told that you were afraid and that was why you were hiding,” Sims added, coming to the end of the hour.

  “Mary run away and she got kilt anyway. Now Glory dead, too.”

  “I was told you may know something about that.”

  Salt could not imagine the strength it must take for Sims to remain as calm as she appeared.

  “I don’t know for sure.” JoJo chewed the end of her braid. “I think Mary weren’t killed by Flash Daddy’s people ’cause she run away from him. But when Detective Salt come ’round with that picture, with me and Glory and Mary—Flash don’t want us talkin’ ’bout what we do workin’ for him. That’s what started him off.”
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  PLAN OF ACTION

  “There’s no way we can make this case solely on her testimony. Not only would we not be able to get a conviction, it would be cruel to put her through a trial with that much pressure.” Sergeant Fellows leaned back, tapping her pen on the notes she’d been taking.

  “So, what’s the next step?” Huff was all in now after watching JoJo’s interview.

  “Go for the low-hanging fruit,” Pepper said. “Stokes.”

  “That worm will definitely turn,” Salt said. “He cut a deal on his previous arrest. He’s a violent motherfucker, though, but once he’s had, he’ll roll. It’s taking him down that will be hairy.”

  • • •

  Felton had a friend. So did Rosie. They divvied up Sergeant Fellows between the two of them. There had to be some fun to being a superhero. Salt got to play sidekick watching the “average” Fellows turned into a celebrity-whore Cinderella. Her resulting appearance turned out to be not so average; instead, Fellows was a perfect canvas for the nightlife glitter. Sean, Rosie’s friend, had picked out a red dress that somehow curved under the sergeant’s butt, which was revealed also to be a not-so-average derriere and, in fact, was an astounding asset. “Who knew?” said Rosie as she escorted Fellows hobbling into the Narcotics office on strappy heels. “Practice, honey,” Rosie said, patting Fellows’ hand as they walked. Fellows seemed more concerned about the shoes than the scene she’d be walking into. “I worked Vice details” was her answer to the expressed concerns of the rest of the team. Her lipstick, thick and shiny, was the same red as the dress. But what made her almost completely unrecognizable was that her shoulder-length brown hair had been dyed cobalt black with streaks of crimson, piled and lacquered to her head like a sculpture, adding even more height to the extra five inches from the heels.

  Lieutenant Shepherd wolf-whistled. Wills and Felton stood up from their chairs. “My God!” exclaimed Wills.

  “Hold your horses, big boy,” Salt warned.