“Maybe she looks familiar. Could be I took her out one time. I take out a lot of ladies.”
“You got an alibi for the day Della went missin’?”
Tommy took a moment. “I was fishin’ the Wheeler Lake for a few days, best spot below the Guntersville Dam. I caught it on the radio on the drive back.”
“Anyone see you fishin’?”
“I went with Merle.”
“And that is you with Della Palmer.”
Tommy looked at the photo again. “I ain’t with her. That’s the rodeo at Red Oak Mountain. I go every year, ask round.”
“How about the Green Acres Baptist Church, you ever been there?”
Tommy stared at Black and Black stared back.
“Well?” Black said.
“There’s a lady there, lives off Route 80. I was seeing her, now I ain’t.”
“And she dragged you to church?”
“Not just church, down to Pinegrove where she volunteers.”
“You did all that just for a lady?”
“Sucker for a pretty face.”
“Write down her name and address.”
“How desperate you gettin’ here, Black? How worried should we be about Summer? I mean, I figured she’d show, that she’d fought with a boy or one of her friends, or maybe Ava was riding her too hard or somethin’. I thought that guy was done. The Bird.”
Black handed him a pen and watched as he wrote.
*
After he was done with Tommy Ryan, Black found Deely White waiting in his office. Black sighed and sat heavy in his chair.
Deely sat across from him, fingers steepled across his gut like he was mulling something casual. He was old, red faced with white brows and a chin that weren’t more than a puddle of fat.
“Let me guess . . . Pastor Lumen sent you to do his bidding,” Black said, tired and in no kinda mood.
“You ain’t to talk to the boy again, not unless you’re bringing charges.”
“He ain’t a boy. He can speak for himself.”
Deely closed his eyes like he was pained and Black was dumb. “The family have a lawyer, Milt Kroll –”
“I know Milt, he’s older than the pastor. Tell him to come down, I’ll talk with him.”
“Well, he’s on vacation, but his office –”
“More like he knows what’s playin’ with the Ryans and he don’t want to touch it.”
“The pastor was clear, ain’t nobody to talk to the boy. You can’t ask him nothin’.”
“Why not, is he hidin’ somethin’?”
The eyes closed again.
“Open your fuckin’ eyes,” Black said.
Deely startled.
Black raised a hand. “I’m busy, Deely. We got a missin’ girl, that’s all anyone should be worried about. If Samson ain’t got nothin’ to hide then I don’t see the problem, do you?”
“I . . . I just –”
“You tell the old man I’ll do what I like. Samson knows the deal, he said he don’t want to talk to a lawyer. I got that on record now.”
Deely stood with a face so red Black worried it’d burst. “You shouldn’t think the pastor is weak, Black. That’s a mistake.”
Black sighed and watched him leave. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a bottle of Crown. He opened it, inhaled deep, then closed the cap and put it away.
*
“I can’t take much more Disney,” Noah said, frowning at the television set.
Purv hushed him. “Turn it up. I wanna see how this plays out. I get that she’s a lady and all, but that tramp ain’t taking no for an answer. Should’ve been fixed long ago, fuckin’ mongrel.”
Noah licked his lips then rubbed his eyes. He shifted in his seat, battling the urge to rip the tubes from his arm and walk away. He got like this now and again, felt the weight of his troubles so heavy on his lungs he couldn’t squeeze a breath. He hated coming to Mayland. When he was younger they’d set up the machine at his house, showed his momma how to use it. It was loud though, so loud it ran into his dreams, twisting hot dreams where the machine keeping him alive turned into some kinda monster, locked onto him, claws in his veins.
“If the earth spun the other way then the rain forests would turn to deserts and the deserts to rain forests,” Purv said.
“Fascinating,” Noah said.
Noah glanced over at Missy and smiled but she just frowned ’cause he’d skipped another session. The hospital had written his grandmother but he’d tossed the letter in the trash.
“They brought in Tommy Ryan this mornin’,” Noah said.
“Why?”
Noah shrugged. “Probably nothin’. Maybe they wanted to ask him some more about Summer. I tried to get near the room but Milk was hanging by the door.”
“You gonna tell Raine?”
“No, don’t seem worth tellin’.”
“How’d it go at the clinic?” Purv said.
Noah shrugged ’cause Raine had been quiet on the drive back to Grace. “We’re goin’ back tonight.”
“It’s open at night?”
Noah shook his head and Purv sighed.
“You comin’?”
“ ’Course. Y’all know how to pick a lock?”
*
They sat in the Buick till midnight, when the lot and the street were empty. Raine told them what had happened, how the lady with the fire-red hair had taken her to a room and asked her a bunch of questions while she sipped sweet tea.
Raine gave a fake name and a Haskell address. She asked if Raine had told her parents, asked her that three times, even asked if she’d told her friends ’cause she was worried Raine didn’t have no support.
The lady’s name was Dolores and she said she’d check the diary and give her a call, that she could come back and talk to somebody but by law they couldn’t carry out the procedure without parental consent.
Raine didn’t get a chance to look around ’cause she weren’t left for a moment.
“We should take it to Black,” Noah said. “What Walden told us, we should tell Black all of it.”
“He’ll sit on it, or kick it to Briar and they’ll sit on it. Black don’t want to see Summer linked, he’s too drunk and too scared.”
“I don’t like this,” Purv said as they got outta the car. “What if they got an alarm?”
“Then we’ll have to move quick,” Raine said.
They skirted to the back of the building, across the short grass. There was an American flag tangled in a tree branch, and maybe there was some words on it but they were too dark to make out.
Purv crouched by the door, slipped a thin wire from his pocket, and got to work on the lock.
Raine watched as the minutes ticked by. “Does he know what he’s doin’?”
“Hush, baby girl,” Noah said.
Raine shook her head, pained.
“I’ll tell you a little somethin’ about Purvis Bowdoin. When it comes to locks, the guy’s a technician –”
They both jumped as Purv smashed the glass pane with a rock.
“What happened?” Noah said.
Purv shook his head and looked down. “Must be a foreign lock.”
Noah put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Jesus,” Raine said, frowning at them.
“No alarm,” Noah said.
“Wait outside,” Raine said.
“If we had the time I could dust for prints, see if Summer was here,” Noah said. “Just need some talc and a little jojoba oil.”
“MacGyver?” Purv said.
Noah nodded and they bumped fists.
Raine slipped through careful and crunched shards under her sneakers, Noah followed close behind. They moved along the hallway in darkness, checked three offices before they found the file cabinets. There was a bank of them, eight, wide and tall but they were in order. Raine switched on the flashlight.
“What are we lookin’ for?” Noah said.
Raine pulled the pap
er from her pocket. “Briar girls. You look for Braymer and Hinds, I’ll check for the others.”
They searched fast, thumbing files. They didn’t find the Briar girls.
They moved into another room and they saw a bed and a screen and trays of equipment. There were paintings on the wall of fall trees with orange leaves, and desert beaches more than a world away.
“This is where they bring the ladies,” Raine said.
“Yeah,” Noah said.
The smell was chemical and harsh.
“I see ’em on the news, those people that stood out front,” she said.
“I remember.”
“They got that look in their eyes, like they got God on their side, you know. Nobody knows what he’d say though . . . not really. Sometimes I think about Mandy Deamer.” Raine put her hand on the bed, on the cloth. “I used to think it was wild, that story. But imagine her, how desperate she must’ve been to take her own life. Surely that ain’t right, feeling that way, or being made to.”
“It’s not,” Noah said, his eyes on the painted sea, on the folding white waves.
“And Momma said Mandy had a head on her, that the Deamers was tough people. Mandy and her brother used to show at church . . . but everyone sins, right? Even those folk that lay judging. You can’t live perfect, it ain’t . . .” She looked through the slats at the shape of the night sky. “I ain’t even sure what I’m sayin’. It’s just sad is all.”
When they were back in the Buick and driving up Highway 72 they saw a cruiser pass, lights flashing as it turned down Kenton Road toward the clinic.
“Shit,” Purv said. “Must’ve had a silent alarm. Took their time though.”
Raine followed the lights till they went to nothing. Her mind ran to David Gunn, the doctor that’d offered abortion services in the boondocks. He was shot dead ’cause pro-life was restricted to the unborn. “Probably the cops don’t give a shit about the Dayette Women’s Clinic.”
*
Savannah crossed the hallway and watched Bobby sleep. He wore only shorts and she followed the contours of his chest as he breathed shallow breaths. He ran, there was a bench in the garage, he lifted weights so heavy the bar bent as it rose. It wasn’t vanity that drove him.
They didn’t sleep together, not since Michael. She missed sex, which was a truth that came hard in the wake of burying their only child. It was as much the physical act as the emotion that came with it, and that was a feeling far too indulgent to speak of.
She tried, sometimes she wore her hair up because he liked it that way, and she wore the French perfume, but she fell far short of brazen because she knew her husband. She still loved him, which was as troubling as it was comforting.
Her mother had called again. She’d made small talk awhile: the trip to Bermuda, the housekeeper that was stealing, and then she’d pressed hard. She told Savannah of the Patterson boy, of how he was going through a difficult divorce but how he was handsome and about to be made partner. Savannah had slammed the phone down.
She could still protect Bobby, to keep him from suffering further. Despite what was coming she could still right one wrong. And so she crept from the house and into the heavy night, and she walked toward Hell’s Gate National Forest. For him, she told herself. This was for him now.
23
Summer
Sometimes I caught Savannah watchin’ me play, and she’d get this look on her face like she’d seen God and she couldn’t understand why he looked so fuckin’ normal.
*
“Have you written that paper yet?” Bobby said.
“No.”
“Savannah asked me to tell you to get on it.”
“Why does she care so much?”
“You ever think maybe she sees what you don’t?”
“Imagine me at that school. I’ll be like some monkey using a tool. Heads will turn. Come see the redneck girl play cello. They’ll listen so hard they’ll reckon they hear my pain in every piece . . . echoes of my tainted life.”
“You worry too much.”
“It ain’t worryin’, Bobby.”
“So what is it?”
I shrugged. “I’ll die young. I won’t have to make these decisions.”
“That’s not a good plan.”
“People don’t plan to die young, it just happens. Some people ain’t made for this world.”
“Oh.”
“You reckon music can take you someplace else?” I said.
“Like to a fancy school in Maidenville?”
“No. I mean someplace you ain’t never heard of. You just catch a ride on the notes and let ’em carry you away.”
“Is that how you feel when you’re playin’?”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s how Savannah feels, when she closes her eyes, and when she opens them and they’re full of tears. Maybe she went somewhere during my piece. Maybe during Elgar it’s worse. The tears I mean.”
I glanced over and Bobby looked so sad, like he’d gone to that same place.
“Are you okay? You and Savannah, are the both of you doin’ all right?” I wanted him to tell me.
He rubbed his eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder.
I snatched it away when I saw Samson walk out of the office. He shot us a glance, looked away quick, then went out the main door.
“Marriage isn’t easy.”
“No.”
“Two people and one union.”
He put a hand on my knee.
I glanced at the sainted wall, at Madonna and her fat kid, rolls on his knees and ringlet hair. She’s got a hand up to the saints like she’s tryin’ to stop them from doin’ somethin’ bad. They’re saints though, they don’t do nothin’ bad.
I glanced down at his hand of glory so bold against my skin.
“Savannah is suffering,” he said.
He squeezed my thigh gently.
I was calm; I’d learned to slow my breathin’. I counted in my head.
“Marriage . . . the imbalance of rights and obligations. I watch them, the brides and the grooms, their faces and their unknowin’ smiles as I join them together. Imagine if you could hold on to that.”
I nodded and wondered if there was a difference between innocence and naivety.
“You’re not supposed to hinder . . . the children, they belong in the kingdom of heaven. I try to believe again. I do the Christian Youth thing. I drive out to the churches and talk to the teens. The Green Acres Baptists, the Mission, Valedale.”
I swallowed.
He shook his head, like he was sad or mad. He inched his hand higher and glanced at the door. I never thought about kissin’ him, or holdin’ him, it went beyond touch and feel and feelin’. There’s another level, below, so much of life piled on top I reckon most don’t even know it exists.
“Does being a pastor mean I don’t belong to me anymore?” he said.
I wanted to give the right answer, the one that wouldn’t see him snatch his hand away.
There’s a piece of music, Bach, his Cello Suite No. 1, there’s a point at the end of the prelude where it climbs so high I know what death feels like, so acute and so delicate, that end to a life so ordinary it barely exists.
“I count days that are short and endless.”
Another inch, under my skirt now. Then he stopped for a long while.
I reached for my book and held it up over my lap. The Call of the Wild. I thought of Buck and turnin’ feral, and I thought maybe civility should’ve been on that list beside envy and pride.
“You ever wonder where life is being lived?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Another inch. I held my breath till I saw light but no dark.
I stared at the pages. Words turn funny if you look at them long enough. Sticks and curves and dots.
“I don’t want to be sorry. I see sorrow. I see it in the broke faces. They’re so lost. They come to me thinkin’ they’re found again.”
“You ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry fo
r.”
“What I did and what I’ll do.”
I held the book steady as he moved his hand across and rested it firm between my legs. I thought I was cool but I was hot. He had to feel it. My heart drummed loud enough to shake the walls of the old church. I saw it crumble and I saw it ruin, and I wondered about Augustine and hereditary guilt ’cause there was comfort in knowin’ we’d burn before we even took breath.
“I think about never meetin’ you,” he said. “If I hadn’t come to Grace. You find your own crossroads out there, or it finds you.”
“I don’t want to be sad,” I said, my throat so dry.
“The lows make the highs.”
“So it’s important to make the highs count.”
The lightest rub. I could’ve died. That edge I’d always been scared of, that edge where my sister lived her life.
“We’re supposed to set our minds on things above.”
“That means there’s no one watchin’ below.”
Back and forth and light and strong. The book was shakin’, I did my best to grip it tight.
“Stone and wood. Sometimes that’s all this is. This place. Human hands sculpting somethin’. What do you see?”
He didn’t know how hard it was to form words. “I see stone and wood and nothin’ more.”
The book hid me, when I felt my underwear slide and when I felt his skin against mine, I kept it in place. He traced a path across light hair, gently feeling around, like he was lost.
“I see life in differing shades of sunken color. There’s no red or yellow. Maybe there was before but before has happened. Sometimes I wish I was dead but I know it will come.”
I dipped the book as he found me.
I swallowed a cry. I tried not to move but couldn’t.
He didn’t stop, just kept the same stroke over and over, like he didn’t know that he was killin’ all that went before.
“It is beautiful though, the stone and wood. Whatever they meant, whoever they built it for, they achieved somethin’ in a world of nothin’.”
“Bobby,” I said, breathless.
I didn’t know why I was sayin’ his name.
“They made a thing of beauty.”
He pushed.
“Bobby.”
I looked at Abraham and the three angels, and I saw Sarah laughin’ ’cause she don’t believe it’s real.
All the Wicked Girls Page 15
