Sacrificial Ground fc-1

by Thomas H. Cook

  “The rearview mirror?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not straight ahead?”

  “Well, there was nothing but a fence in front of us,” Stan said, “and the Cyclorama sign.” He shrugged. “Once in a while she’d glance up at the sign, then back in the mirror.”

  “Did you get the idea she was waiting for someone?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know,” Stan said. “I couldn’t figure out what was going on with her. She’d smoke one cigarette, then another one. I’d never seen her smoke before.”

  “She didn’t say anything at all?” Caleb asked unbelievingly.

  “Not until just before we left,” Stan told him. “Then she just looked over at me with this real hard look in her eye, and she said, ‘Well, this is your lucky night,’ and that’s when she started the car again, and we drove out of the park.”

  Frank could hear the engine as he wrote in his notebook and could smell the smoke of her cigarette, see its white garlands in the air around him.

  Caleb leaned forward slightly. “Did she drive through the park some more?”

  “No, not through it,” Stan said. “We went around it once. I was getting sort of bored. She was so weird. She wasn’t talking or anything, and when she did say something, it was something you couldn’t understand.”

  “Why couldn’t you understand it?”

  “It was under her breath,” Stan explained. “She was sort of muttering under her breath.” He looked at Frank. “I just wanted to go home.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell her to take you?” Frank asked.

  Stan shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess because she was so beautiful. Just being near her, it was like a thrill, or something. It was like something was coming off her body. It just swept around you. You couldn’t pull away from it. At least, I couldn’t.”

  As he listened, Frank tried to recall the intensity of such youthful desire. He remembered long nights when he’d been unable to sleep because of it. Everything became moist, swollen, infinitely sweet. He knew that that was how Stan must have felt as he sat beside Angelica Devereaux. Frank had felt that way for Sheila, and it struck him that the slow decline of such passion, the way time wore its sharpness down to a flat, featureless nub, was one of life’s great losses.

  “I had had some experience before,” Stan said, quietly. “I mean, before that night. But nothing like Angelica.”

  “Where did you go after you left the park?” Frank asked.

  “We drove around that same area,” Stan said. “We just went all around that part of town.” He shrugged. “I’d never been over there much before. But Angelica, she seemed to know it pretty well.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She just acted like she knew it, like she’d been around there a lot.”

  “Did she ever mention any names? People she might have known who lived in the area?”

  Stan shook his head. “No.”

  “Did she concentrate on any particular streets?”

  “Well, there was one that she went up and down a couple of times.”

  “Do you remember the name?”

  “No, sir,” Stan said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t notice a name. I’m sorry.”

  “Think hard,” Caleb said.

  “I’ve been trying to remember everything,” Stan said, “I really have. But it was at night, and I’d never really been around that part of town much.” He looked at Frank. “It’s sort of seedy over there, you know. I got sort of nervous. I mean, I locked my door. I remember that. And I even told Angelica to lock hers.”

  “Did she?” Frank asked.

  “No.”

  Frank jotted a few notes into his notebook then looked back up at the boy. “So you drove around the Grant Park area for a while, then what?”

  “We ended up in this back alley,” Stan said. “It was behind some buildings. I don’t know exactly where it was.”

  “Did you notice any signs in the alley?” Caleb asked. “Any particular kinds of trucks, like a beer truck or a TV repair truck, anything like that?”

  “It was empty,” Stan said. “I think that’s why she stopped.”

  “Because it was empty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what we did,” Stan said. “I mean she picked it because she knew what she was going to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “Well, have sex,” Stan said hesitantly. “She stopped the car and just sat there for a while. She didn’t say anything. She just stared out the window. I don’t know how long. I didn’t say anything to her. Angelica had a way of making people keep their mouths shut. When she wanted you to be quiet, she could make you, just with a look. And that’s what she wanted, just to sit for a while and be quiet. Finally though, I just mentioned that we could go over to the Varsity and have a hamburger and onion rings.”

  “What did she say?” Frank asked.

  “She gave this little laugh of hers,” Stan said. “Very cold laugh, almost nasty. And she said, ‘Hamburger? Is that what you want?’ Then she laughed again. Then she said, ‘Don’t you want me, Stan? Isn’t that what you want?’” He glanced nervously to Frank, to Caleb, then back to Frank. “Then she just started to unbutton her blouse. She laughed again, that same laugh. ‘Me,’ she said, ‘everybody wants me.’”

  Frank could almost hear Angelica’s voice, almost see the flinty look in her eyes. There was something in both that was wounded beyond repair. He could sense that some part of her was either already dead or swelling with the wish to die.

  He wrote “everybody wants me” in his notebook, then looked up at the boy. “She started to unbutton her blouse,” he said. “Then what happened?”

  “I really didn’t know what to do exactly,” Stan said. “I mean, I’m not stupid or anything; I knew what she was getting at. But I couldn’t figure out why she was doing this with me. She could have had anybody. Some hotshot college man or something. That’s who I figured she’d end up doing it with. But not me.” He shook his head. “And not like that with anybody. I mean, in the car, in a back alley. She didn’t seem to be the type for a quick thing like that.” His voice softened, and his eyes took on a look of tender wonderment. “She was so beautiful. I couldn’t believe it.” He stared out the front window as if he were looking for something in the trees. “Anyway, it was fast. And then she just got dressed and drove me back to Northfield.”

  “Did she say anything?” Frank asked.

  “No,” Stan told him. “Not one word. I tried to make a little conversation. Who wouldn’t at a time like that? But she wasn’t interested. Every time I tried to talk to her, she’d just glare at me like I was something terrible, something ugly, like she was disgusted with everything that had happened.” He looked at Caleb. “And that’s the way she looked at me from then on.” He turned back to Frank. “Of course, I couldn’t really blame her. I mean, when it’s your first time, you want it to be special.”

  “First time?” Frank asked.

  “Yes.”

  “For you?”

  “For her,” Stan said. “I mean, I haven’t been around a lot, or anything. I’m not saying that. But I wasn’t a … virgin.”

  “But Angelica was?” Frank asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Stan smiled. “I’m not that stupid,” he said. “I know the difference.”

  “What was Angelica like when you saw her after this?” Frank asked.

  “She acted just like she had before. Before that night, she barely knew I existed, and that’s the way she acted after it.”

  Frank wrote it down, then closed his notebook. “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  Caleb stood up. “Yeah, thanks,” he said. “And we’ll stay in touch.” He handed him a card. “You keep in touch, too. Especially if you think of something that could give us some help.”

  Stan got to his feet
. “Listen,” he said cautiously, “I know it’s not exactly right to bring this up, but this pregnancy thing, my father doesn’t know anything about that. I mean, I didn’t know about it before you told me.”

  “And you’d just as soon keep the slate clean as far as your daddy is concerned, right?” Caleb asked him.

  “If it’s possible.”

  “It’s possible,” Caleb assured him. He looked at Frank. “Think we could keep this just between the menfolk?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” Frank said. He got to his feet slowly. “We’ll probably talk to you again, Stan,” he said. “We may have to go over everything several times.”

  “I understand.”

  Within a few minutes the three of them were standing together on the front lawn.

  “Must be interesting, being a policeman,” Stan said casually.

  “Sometimes,” Caleb answered dryly.

  “I thought about law enforcement as a career,” the boy added, “but my father wants me to go into something else … something more … more …”

  “Well, he’s probably right,” Caleb said. “The flatfoots, they walk a ragged way, don’t they, Frank?”

  Frank nodded quickly. He could see Angelica in her muted frenzy, hear the sharp pain in her voice. What had caused it? He wondered if Sarah’s silent agony had been like this, dark, sullen, edged in a rage he could neither see nor hear in his own daughter. A sudden wave of depression swept over him.

  “Well, we’d better be going, Stan,” Caleb said heartily. “Nice meeting you, son.” He walked to the passenger side of the car and got in.

  For a moment, Frank stood frozen, staring lifelessly at the neatly kept yard.

  “Hey, Frank,” Caleb called.

  Frank turned to him. “I don’t want to drive, Caleb,” he said.

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed slowly. “You don’t? Well, okay.” He slid over behind the wheel, and waited as Frank took the now empty passenger seat.

  “Nice boy,” Caleb said, after he’d backed the car out of the driveway.

  “Yeah,” Frank said dully.

  “No killer in Ansley Park, that’s for sure.”

  “No.”

  “’Course he could be lying,” Caleb added, as he pulled the car into Piedmont Avenue and headed back toward downtown, “but I don’t think so.”

  Frank fixed his eyes on the angular gray wall of the city as it rose before him.

  “Hey, Frank, you okay?” Caleb said after a moment.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You look like you ate something that didn’t agree with you.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Caleb stared at him closely. “No, you’re not,” he said. “Do you need a drink?” He smiled softly. “All you got to do is tell me you can handle it.”

  “I can,” Frank said firmly.

  “Good enough,” Caleb said. He pulled into the next bar he came to, a little plaster imitation of a Mexican tavern.

  There was an empty booth in the back, and they walked directly to it.

  “Give me one of them Tequila Sunrises,” Caleb said when the waitress arrived. “What about you, Frank?”

  “Scotch.”

  They drank silently when the drinks finally came, and Frank allowed his eyes to drift idly over the grain of the wood of his table, then up along the rough, exposed beams toward the plaster ceiling, and beyond that to where the sky could be seen, blue and vacant, through a small skylight at the very crest of the ceiling.

  After about a half-hour, Caleb glanced at his watch. “Want another round?”

  “No.”

  “You look like you’re coming down with something, Frank.”

  “I got tired all of a sudden,” Frank said. “Got very tired. That ever happen to you?”

  “Yeah. It’s the sign of a bad ticker, the doctor told me.”

  Frank nodded slowly. “Could be.”

  “That’s what the doctor told me, anyway,” Caleb added. “So I said to the doctor, ‘If you got a bad ticker, what can you do about it?’ He said you couldn’t do very much. So I said, ‘Well, there must be something I can do, for Christsake.’ And that bastard just smiles at me and says, ‘Just one thing, Caleb. Live like hell.’” He gulped down the last of his drink with a laugh and grabbed his wallet. “This one’s on me, Frank,” he said. “With a bad heart, you don’t ever know, it might be your last one.”

  It took almost another half-hour to make it back to headquarters. Alvin was standing beside Frank’s desk as the two of them entered the bullpen. His face looked as stricken as Frank had ever seen it. He looked as if everything he’d ever cared about had been tossed over a cliff.

  “What is it, Alvin?” Frank asked immediately. He thought of Alvin’s wife, of Sheila, even, illogically, of Karen, but he could not guess what dreadful thing had happened.

  “What is it?” he repeated.

  Alvin shook his head slowly. “Daddy died about an hour ago,” he said quietly, as he drew his only brother gently into his arms.

  17

  It was almost midnight two days later before Alvin pulled over to the curb at Waldo Street to let Frank out.

  “Well, I thought the funeral went about as well as could be expected,” Alvin said.

  Frank glanced toward the backseat. Alvin’s wife and Sheila were both dead asleep. “Give them my best when they wake up,” he said.

  “I will,” Alvin said. “Hey, listen. Maybe I could drop them off and come on back over here.”

  Frank shook his head. “I don’t think so, Alvin.”

  Alvin leaned toward him. “Don’t go on a drunk over this, Frank,” he said.

  “I won’t,” Frank assured him.

  “You got a good case. Don’t mess it up.”

  “Good night, Alvin,” Frank said. He closed the door and headed up the stairs to his apartment.

  The single lamp he’d left burning days before was still on in the living room, and the light, as it passed through the red shade, colored the air like a spray of blood. He wanted to turn it off, but he didn’t have enough energy to do it. It was as if he had returned to a different planet, one whose greater density and more rapid spin held things down with an enormous, insurmountable force.

  He lit a cigarette, and watched helplessly as his mind went back over the last few days. He saw his father in the coffin, his face rouged and powdered, in his makeup for God. He could hear the preacher at the funeral, his voice flowing over the congregation: His life was goodness. His reward is glory. There was no doubt that his father had believed all that, and for a moment Frank felt himself all but captured in the mystery of such belief. And yet he knew such faith was lost to him, lost entirely.

  He took a long drag on the cigarette and tried to think of something he believed in. Only the most negative ideas emerged. He believed that if you hit a man very hard in the face, he would pay attention to you after that. Everything else seemed soft and inconsequential when compared to the finality of sudden violence. “If I was God,” Caleb had said, “I’d keep one hand on everybody’s balls.” Caleb had said it more or less as a joke, but to Frank it was the one true reality of life, the hard bedrock of everything else. But it was without comfort. It had no place for love or hope or mercy, but only raw and dreadful force, and the aching need for vengeance which it left behind.

  He glanced about the apartment, taking in its usual disarray. He thought of Karen’s house, then of Angelica’s room, its immaculate walls, perfectly made bed, polished mirror. It seemed as little a part of the real world as his own, and he wondered if a balanced life did not have to be lived somewhere in between order and disarray, in a borderland of neither too many rules nor too few.

  The smoke from the cigarette gathered in the far corner of the room. The light from the lamp gave it a distant, lavender hue. It was graceful in the way it moved, and for a time he watched as it coiled and spun in the reddish light. Slowly, his mind drifted to Karen, and he saw her as she had appeared to him on the day they met, a woman in
an artist’s smock. He wanted to see her, more powerfully than anything else he could think of.

  Within a few minutes he was in his car, heading toward West Paces Ferry Road. It was past midnight and the city seemed to sleep peacefully in a dark cocoon. The air was still warm with the day’s heat, but he could feel a coolness in it now, a comforting relief, and he hung his arm out the window, as if dipping it into a mountain stream.

  For a time, he hesitated at her door. The house was dark, but he felt certain she was not asleep. Finally, he knocked gently, and when she opened the door, she did not seem surprised to see him.

  “I heard about your father,” she said. “Mr. Stone at the police station told me. I’m sorry.”

  “I wanted you to know that it won’t have any effect on how I handle your case.”

  “You could have told me that in the morning.”

  “I know,” Frank said weakly. “But I didn’t want to wait until then.”

  She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”

  Frank followed her into a small study toward the back of the house. It was not like the rest of the house. It was more cluttered. A few paintings lay scattered about, and there was a battered wooden desk and a few metal filing cabinets. A single bookshelf rose almost to the ceiling and, beside it, an ancient manual typewriter rested on a paint-spattered metal stand.

  “This is my room,” Karen said. “This is where I work.” She smiled slightly. “I even sleep here sometimes. There’s an old mattress in that closet.”

  “Are you going to stay in this house now?” Frank asked.

  “No,” Karen told him, “I’m not even going to stay in Atlanta.”

  Frank felt something very small break inside him. “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “New York.”

  “Why?”

  “I just can’t stand Atlanta anymore.”

  “I see,” Frank said quietly. “Well, I’ll be sorry to see you go.” Because there seemed nothing else to do, he took out his notebook. “I wanted to let you know that we found out a few things about Angelica.”