Grace

by Howard Owen

  “It’s about the Cole boy’s murder. And James Alderman.”

  “Good God,” Wheelie mutters. “Do you want to get us both fired?”

  I lay it out as succinctly as I can:

  •No evidence points to Sam McNish as the murderer beyond the fact that he was the last one known to see the boy alive.

  •Stories about some creepy white guy hanging around poor neighborhoods have been out there so long that “Frosty” has become kind of an urban legend. And they go back so far that McNish could hardly be that guy.

  •The late James Alderman, who helped as a mentor with the Children of God program, once was accused of trying to abduct a black kid who, as a present-day adult, freely admits that his now-dead mother got him to retract his accusation in exchange for someone paying off her mortgage. Another source with the police says L.D. Jones was there when it happened.

  •And Alderman’s rather gruesome slaying seems, because of the time frame if nothing else, to be linked to Artesian Cole’s murder. A source I can’t name is as much as telling me that.

  “A lot of unnamed sources and maybes in there,” Wheelie says. “Maybe you need to get some names.”

  I explain that naming names will not be possible. I further explain that we would be doing some good, honest journalism if we ran what we know and let people draw their own conclusions.

  “She will fire us both, on the spot,” Wheelie says.

  I suggest that I can write something for tomorrow’s paper that does not name James Alderman at all but raises considerable red flags about McNish’s guilt.

  “If we get our foot in the damn door,” I tell Wheelie, “maybe we can kick the son of a bitch in later.”

  He sighs.

  “Write it,” he says. “I’ll take a look at it. I can’t promise we’ll run it. Write it so it doesn’t get us fired or sued, and I’ll think about it.”

  And so I do. I call Sarah Goodnight, who comes in on what ought to be her day off. She’s dressed the way you should dress on a Saturday when you’re not even getting paid, but on her it looks good: the kind of jeans that a woman should only wear when she has no blemishes to hide and a white blouse on which she might have buttoned one more button at the top, but who’s complaining?

  Cindy has said to wait for her to call first regarding our future. Sitting there, with Sarah beside me as we do one of the most awkward things in journalism––cowrite a story––I get a whiff of her scent. If you’ve ever slept with a woman once and were really paying attention, you will remember that scent. A horndog never forgets. I am hoping Cindy calls soon.

  What we finally send to Wheelie at one thirty has plenty to suggest McNish didn’t do the deed. It mentions the lack of evidence. It mentions Frosty and all the permanently disappeared kids over the years. It regurgitates some quotes from some of their mothers, and Sarah manages to get some fresh reaction as well. It mentions the boy all those years ago who accused a pillar of the community of attempted abduction, without mentioning the boy’s or the pillar’s names. It mentions a check the boy’s mother accepted when the boy recanted. It does all this without naming anyone except the mothers of the missing. Gunderson becomes “a source who was then a police officer.” Ray-Ray Soles is “the boy who said he was accosted, now an adult living in Richmond.” Some background from Big Boy Sunday we attribute to “a source in the black community familiar with the case.” I hate using unnamed sources. It puts me in bed with writers who make shit up. But sometimes playing by the rules isn’t enough.

  Even Sarah doesn’t know the identity of Soles, Gunderson, and Big Boy. I tell her the less she knows, the less likely she’ll have to spend a night or two in jail for refusing to name sources.

  Wheelie doesn’t want to run it. When I take him down the story, graf by graf, and show him that we haven’t actually libeled anyone, he insists that I tell him my sources. So I do, trusting that Wheelie is still enough of a newspaperman not to throw any of them under the bus. I actually threaten him with physical harm if he tells anyone, and especially our publisher.

  “I don’t think you’re allowed to threaten the editor,” Wheelie says.

  I tell him that you can do anything once.

  Finally, after I’ve taken out the juicy revelation that our present police chief was there twenty years ago when Ray-Ray Soles took back his accusation, he sighs and says he guesses we can run it. The much-awaited A1 blockbuster that blows the lid off the amazing rise of microbreweries and fruit-flavored beer in the greater Richmond area will have to wait until next Sunday.

  Give Wheelie credit. He could have wimped out of this one by sending it to the publisher, who is up somewhere in Vermont skiing. He briefly considers it, then says, “Nah. Fuck it. She just said you couldn’t write about James Alderman. Am I right?”

  Right as rain, I assure him. We are both sure, though, that her wrath will be upon us when she gets back in a couple of days––before then if she can crawl her ass out of the hot tub long enough to read our online edition.

  I don’t call the chief. I should give him a heads-up, but I don’t trust L.D., not after word of my suspicions about Alderman beat me back to the office last time we talked. He’ll just have to read it in the paper like everyone else. It won’t be the first time I’ve made him spit his cornflakes. Maybe he’ll think twice before he rats me out to the publisher again.

  I do check in with Peachy Love. She can at least have a running start on damage control before the shit hits the fan. I extract a promise that the chief won’t hear about it until the paper hits his front doorstep. I tell her the part about L.D. that we’re not running.

  “Jesus Christ,” Peachy says. “He was there? Man, when I put you onto Gunderson, I didn’t know that.”

  I tell her not to worry, that nothing will splash up on her. Gunderson doesn’t know who pointed me to him.

  “Well, I’m not looking forward to Monday. Hell, you might even have caused me to get called in on Sunday. You owe me more than flowers for this one, Willie.”

  I check my cell phone and see a familiar number on it. I go down to the deserted end of our once-bustling newsroom.

  “Willie,” the much-anticipated voice on the other end says, “can we talk?”

  She called forty-five minutes ago. I have a bad habit of accidentally muting my phone. That or the fact that I can’t hear shit when there’s a lot of background noise caused me to miss the call I’ve been waiting for since two days ago.

  When I call Cindy back, it flips over into voice mail.

  I explain, trying not to sound needy, that I somehow missed her call and to please call me back as soon as possible.

  To my great relief, she does, five long minutes later.

  “OK,” she says.

  I wait.

  “I’m a glutton for punishment. I love abuse.”

  “That sounds like good news, at least for me.”

  She sighs.

  “I’ve always thought that it was a waste of time to try to change what can’t be changed. And I’ve decided I am happier with you than without you, warts and all.”

  I start my tired-ass promise to be better. She stops me.

  “I know you will try, Willie. I don’t doubt that. But, you know, old dogs and new tricks. I’ll hope for the best and brace myself for the worst.”

  I promise her that this old dog will do his best.

  “I’ll sit up and beg if you want.”

  I think I hear a chuckle, certainly a heartening sign.

  “Make me proud,” she says. “Make me proud to be seen with you.”

  I’m almost moved to tears. The knowledge that I have brought shame to someone I’d chew off my right arm to be with makes my chest hurt.

  I can’t think of much to say that won’t sound like bullshit.

  “I promise one thing,” I say when I get the lump out of my throat. “I will make you happy.”

  “I believe that. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  �
��When can I see you?”

  She says she is busy tonight.

  I don’t ask with what or whom she is busy. I’m not holding a hot hand right now. No need in pushing it.

  “Tomorrow night?”

  She says that would be fine. As we hang up, I tell her I love her. Again, really pushing my luck.

  “You, too,” she says.

  It’s more than I deserve.

  A SHOOTING in the East End becomes a fatality when one of the gun-toting teenagers dies at the scene. I’m standing there, looking at a white sheet covering a wasted life and wondering why we can’t at least have a Christmas truce. The cops are already bundling the other shooter into a van. He’s headed for a life that probably won’t be a big step above a dirt nap.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a rather large black woman approaching me.

  “When are you all going to write something about that man been killin’ our babies?” she says, loudly. I don’t think this woman says anything softly. It is a phenomenon I see often in our poorer neighborhoods. Speaking softly, the powerless understand, does not get people’s attention.

  Others wander over, some echoing the woman’s frustration, others just looking for more entertainment on this cold, hopeless night. They know me here, since my ass is on their streets far too often. To them, I’m just part of the big white establishment. I’m The Man. I’m not black enough to be black in the East End. I see a couple of cops watching from a safe distance, enjoying my discomfort.

  Just then, a woman breaks through the crowd. Laquinta Cole stands in front of me and faces them.

  “Leave him alone,” she says. “He’s doing the best he can.”

  She commands enough respect that she doesn’t have to shout it. She’s accorded deference. Around here, she’s like those Gold Star Mothers who lost a child in a war. Hell, this is a war.

  There is more grumbling, but then a fight breaks out back in the crowd and my fifteen seconds of fame are thankfully over. Farther back, watching from a safe distance, I see Big Boy Sunday, surrounded by kids about the age of the one who just died, seeking to curry his favor. I wonder if Laquinta came here with him.

  I thank her for having my back and promise her that we are far from done with getting to the truth.

  She looks at me and shakes her head.

  “Truth is hard to come by around here,” she says. “Truth, justice, we don’t get too much of that.”

  She turns to walk away but then turns back around and gives me a better understanding of why she stood up for me.

  “But we do appreciate what you did for Shorty,” she says.

  I’m almost to my beat-up Honda when my cell phone rings. This time, I hear it. It’s almost eleven thirty. Usually, that’s the office wondering whether I’m going to file or not. This one won’t get more than a couple of grafs on B2, it being so late and our deadlines getting earlier every time we get some new technology. Plus, it is the East End.

  If it isn’t the office, it’s usually bad news.

  This time, it’s neither.

  I can’t hear the other party that well, so I get in the car and shut the door. Finally I recognize the voice.

  “I need to tell you something,” Sam McNish says.

  I ask him how he’s managed to call me from the lockup this late at night.

  “One of the guards,” he says. “He had a son that went to Children of God. I guess he thinks I helped more than hurt. At least he doesn’t think I’m guilty.”

  So the guard, no doubt breaking a few rules, loaned McNish his cell phone. I’m waiting, letting him do the talking. Whatever he wants to tell me is worth my patience. People don’t call you from the jail at damn near midnight to chew the fat.

  “It’s about James Alderman.”

  He admits he was angry yesterday. The idea of his mentor and longtime friend being involved in the unthinkably heinous was not something he was willing to even contemplate.

  “But then I started thinking,” he says. “And something came to me. I’m sorry to call you so late, but it just occurred to me. And I felt as if I had to tell you.”

  “What occurred to you?”

  “That you might be right.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sunday

  What Sam McNish told me last night made me miss my deadline, although we did get the latest homicide in on the replate. Sally Velez was pissed, but it was worth it.

  At least, sitting here this morning a couple of houses down from James Alderman’s place on Seminary, I think it was.

  What McNish remembered was a casual remark, one of those things that don’t mean much to you at the time but hit you like a runaway truck later.

  “If what I fear is true,” McNish said, “it will shake my faith in everything I’ve done. It will be as if I’ve spent my whole life on the wrong path.”

  I’m guessing that he figured having his faith shaken was at least a pinch less devastating than standing trial for a murder or five. Or maybe he just wants justice.

  “Why didn’t you tell the cops about this?”

  “I don’t think they’d believe me. They might think I was making it up, that I’d done it myself, or that I was his accomplice. Plus, it just came to me.”

  Like a vision, I wanted to say, but making fun of the man’s religion right then would not have been smart or kind.

  What McNish remembered was this:

  Several years ago—he said he thought it was at least five—he was having lunch with Alderman in the house I’m just about to break into.

  They were having a philosophical conversation, which seems to me like a perfect way to spoil a good meal, but to each his own.

  “We were talking about good and evil, about whether some people are born evil, whether there are souls that belong to the devil before they’re even born.”

  Sitting there drinking coffee afterward, McNish said his spiritual guide told him he needed to share something with him that he had never shared with another human being.

  “It made me uneasy. He had this strange look to him, like I’d never seen before. We’d killed a bottle of wine and half another one with lunch, and maybe it made him more open. I don’t know.

  “He told me to follow him. He walked over to this china hutch in the corner of his dining room, and he unlocked it with a key he had in his pocket. He knelt and he lifted up this little gravy boat on the bottom shelf. Underneath it, he slid a little block of wood forward, and hidden under it was another key.”

  He told McNish that, in the event of his death, he should retrieve that key. McNish asked him what the key was for. He said Alderman just smiled and told him that it could answer any lingering questions he might have about the nature of good and evil.

  “He said, ‘I hope, Samuel’—that’s what he called me—‘that you won’t be too disappointed in what you find.’

  “And then he put the key back and slid the block of wood over the top of it and laid the gravy boat back on top.”

  When McNish asked him to be more specific, he said Alderman told him that a “smart lad” like him should be able to figure it out eventually.

  “But he said something, as I was leaving. He gave me this little smile and said that, if you wanted to find evil, it was traditional to look downward.”

  McNish said they never discussed it again.

  “I just forgot about it. It didn’t make much sense at the time. And then he never mentioned it afterward, and I didn’t think about it again, not even after I heard he was murdered. Until yesterday.”

  I told McNish that this sounded like pretty thin gruel, not exactly what you would hang your hat on if you were the chief of police.

  “Well, maybe that’s why I called you,” he said. “You go on hunches sometimes, don’t you? Well, I don’t usually, but I’m feeling a pretty good one right now.”

  I told McNish I would see what I could do, and he hung up.

  EVEN WITHOUT my felonious plans for this Sabbath morning, it’s been an even
tful day so far.

  Turns out that Rita Dominick was able to rouse herself from the joys of skiing in Vermont to check our website this morning . . . about five, apparently. My story on the unnamed James Alderman and the murder of Artesian Cole caught her eye, and not in a good way.

  By the time she got through burning Wheelie’s ears and he called me, it was almost six, not my favorite time of any day.

  “She wants you to call her,” Wheelie said. I reminded him that we agreed that this story should run.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but maybe we should have talked to the publisher first.”

  I could see a bus coming. I’m standing on the curb, and Wheelie’s behind me.

  “But you told her you OK’d it, right?”

  A slight pause.

  “Sure.”

  Shit.

  I didn’t bother to tell Wheelie what a no-guts move he’d made, just reminded him that I’m going to need backup. No point in burning bridges. If I don’t get fired, Wheelie’s still my newsroom boss.

  “I’m with you, Willie,” he said and gave me her phone number.

  Wheelie, I understand, is with me until he isn’t.

  Since our publisher obviously was already wide awake and loaded for bear, there was no sense in delaying my call.

  “What were you thinking?” is the way she greeted her star reporter.

  I answered a question with a question.

  “Did you see James Alderman’s name anywhere in that story?”

  “I didn’t have to. Half the town probably knows who we’re talking about by now.”

  I asked her how that could be.

  She dodged my question.

  “I told you not to write anything about Alderman, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you that?”

  I was getting a little tired of being lectured like a second-grader before the damn sun had even come up. I expressed this sentiment to Ms. Dominick and further drove home the point, which should be obvious to anyone but an idiot, that we have in no way identified James Alderman as a potential murderer and child molester.

  “You can’t talk to me like that!”

  I assured her that I can and have. I further explained that there likely will be more information coming about Alderman. Furthermore, I told her, I had a feeling what I dig up will be so hot she will either have to sign off on it or read about it in the Washington Post while our readers wonder just how far we have managed to jam our heads up our own asses.