Sacrificial Ground fc-1

by Thomas H. Cook

  “Hear that?” Caleb said after a moment.

  Frank listened. He could hear faint groans at a great distance.

  “You got to want it real bad to do it here, “ Caleb said with a sad smile. “We could go over and throw a few questions, but I don’t think they’d be able to help us much right now. “ He nodded straight ahead. “Let’s just let them be. What do you say, Frank?”

  They continued to move deeper into the park. The brush thickened slowly around them, wrapping them in warm, leafy arms. To the right, they passed a derelict sleeping soundly, his naked arms wrapped lovingly around a bottle of cheap wine, and to the left, a wiry young woman in a flowered dress who was muttering madly to a stone.

  “After a while,” Caleb said, almost to himself, “it’s what you see that kills you.”

  They were almost halfway through the park before they heard the first coherent voices. Two voices. A man and a woman. The woman’s voice was high, thready, the man’s was low, gruff, threatening.

  “You gone tell the kids ‘bout it?” the woman demanded. “You gone tell them how you back in the joint again?”

  “Just shut the fuck up, nigger,” the man said angrily.

  Caleb stopped and patted the pistol beneath his coat. “Careful, Frank. You know how it is. Nothing worse than a domestic.”

  They continued to walk forward together, and as the fog parted around them, Frank could see a man and woman as they faced each other beside an enormous oak tree. They were arguing frantically, their voices echoing lowly, despite the enveloping fog. They were entirely oblivious to everything but the fury of their struggle.

  “Evening, folks,” Caleb said gently.

  The man whirled around instantly, his hand reaching for his belt.

  “Easy now,” Caleb said sternly. “Police. Don’t move.”

  The man’s hand continued to linger at his belt.

  Frank stepped to the left and pulled out his revolver. “Put your hands up,” he shouted. “Now!”

  The man’s hands leaped into the air.

  “Turn around, and put your hands on that tree,” Frank commanded.

  The man did as he was told, standing motionlessly while Caleb frisked him.

  “This a toy?” he asked with a laugh, and he pulled a twenty-two pistol from his belt.

  “I knew they’d ketch you,” the woman said mournfully. “You too dumb, Charlie. That’s yo’ problem.”

  Caleb shoved the pistol into his jacket pocket. “Turn around, Charlie,” he said.

  Frank put his pistol back in its holster.

  Caleb eyed the woman’s purse. “Got anything in there, ma’am?” he asked.

  She shook her head slowly.

  He eased the purse from her fingers. “Don’t mind if I take a look, then.” He opened the purse, searched it, then returned it to the woman. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “I just knowed they’d ketch you,” the woman repeated sorrowfully. “Now it’s me and the kids by ourselves again.”

  “He’s not caught yet,” Caleb told her.

  She looked at him wide-eyed. “Whut?”

  “We’re just here to ask a few questions,” Frank explained.

  The man looked at him suspiciously. “Whut kind of questions, man?”

  “Well, how’s this?” Caleb asked as he dangled the pistol in the air. “You got a permit for this?”

  “Nah.”

  “How about a record, Charlie, got one of those?”

  The man turned away and grunted under his breath.

  “Long as my arm, I bet,” Caleb said. “Guy like you probably shouldn’t have a piece.” He looked at Frank. “What do you bet our friend here is out on parole?”

  The man stared lethally at Caleb. “Fuck you, man.”

  Suddenly, with furious speed, Caleb slapped him hard across the face. The man stumbled backward, his back slamming against the tree. Caleb leaped forward, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up into his own face.

  “The woman said something about kids, you asshole,” he shouted. “You got kids?”

  The man nodded slowly.

  “You ought to take care of them,” Caleb said. “You hear me?”

  “Caleb, “ Frank said gently, “back off.”

  Caleb drew in a long, deep breath to calm himself. He released the man’s collar, then stepped back.

  “Go ahead, Frank,” he said.

  Frank moved closer to the man and woman. “You folks live around here?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” the woman said.

  “Where?”

  “Over on Cherokee.”

  “So you’re in the park a lot?”

  “Sometimes,” the woman said.

  “With kids, you must be out here quite a bit.”

  “I’m out here some,” the woman said cautiously.

  Caleb stared at the man. “You do a little business in the park?” he asked coldly.

  “I don’t do nothing,” the man said. He massaged his cheek. “You didn’t have no right to hit me, man.”

  “Disarm a felon,” Caleb said, “I didn’t have a right to do that?”

  “Wanted to sell me,” the woman hissed angrily. “Wanted to sell my ass around here. “ She thumped her chest bitterly. “His ownself’s wife, the motherfucker!” She shot him a withering look. “My mama didn’t raise me to be no ho!” she screamed.

  “So you decided to pimp for your wife?” Caleb asked, his eyes fixed on the man.

  Frank quickly took the picture of Angelica from his pocket and handed it to the woman. “Have you ever seen this girl?”

  The woman glanced at it halfheartedly. “She on the street?”

  “Just tell me if you’ve seen her around,” Frank said.

  “Naw, I ain’t seen her,” the woman said.

  Frank took the picture and handed it to the man. “How about you?”

  The man glanced contemptuously at the photograph. “I don’t deal with no white ass,” he sneered.

  Frank stepped over to him. “What did you say?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed into tiny, snakelike slits. “Like I done told you, I ain’t seen that piece. I don’t deal with no white ass.”

  Frank could see Angelica’s body as it lay sprawled across the vacant lot. White ass. He could feel a terrible rage build slowly within him, and he knew that he wanted to take his pistol from his belt, press its cold black barrel into the man’s face, and pull the trigger again and again until all his strength was gone.

  “Dead white ass,” the man said, as he leered at the photograph. “That’s all you got there.”

  Frank could feel the nails of his fingers as they bit into his palms. “You’d better shut your fucking mouth,” he said thinly.

  The man smiled confidently. “You stop the fatman. The fatman stop you. That’s the way it works.”

  Frank felt his hands release, felt one of them as it made a slow crawl toward his pistol. He knew what it would look like. The man’s eyes would widen in one moment of frozen terror. For an instant he would believe that it was all an act: and then, for a single, shattering instant, as the sound swept over him and the bullet struck his skull, he would know that it was not, that a wild, passionate justice had finally overtaken him, and there would be no appeal.

  “Not yet,” Caleb said, and suddenly Frank could feel Caleb’s fingers wrapped around his wrist.

  “Get on out of here,” Caleb said harshly to the man and woman.

  Frank stood motionlessly and listened to the couple’s footsteps as they rushed away from him. He could feel an immense exhaustion in his arms and legs, a heaviness in each cell of his body, as if he were being pulled downward by millions of tiny weights.

  Caleb tugged gently at Frank’s arm, urging him out of the park. “You know, when I was a kid … still in uniform, I mean. Well, I had a partner. His name was Ollie Quinn. He had come right out of the country, just like me. Atlanta was like the big time for him. “ He shook his head as he and Frank continued to move
steadily out of the park. “He should never have left the farm. He should have spent his little life fishing in the river and picking muscadines. But no, Ollie came to the big city, got a job on the force, and ended up walking a beat with me, night after night, listening to my bullshit.”

  He glanced to the left, out into the park. “This was our beat, mine and Ollie’s. And one night we got a call. It was a domestic. Neighbors had heard a woman screaming, kids, too. From what they could tell a guy was beating up on them.” He turned to Frank. “Well, we headed over there, Ollie and me, and, sure enough, it was a domestic, all right. From way outside, we could hear that bastard tearing through the house, throwing people around. It scared the shit out of Ollie, and made him mad, too.” He took out his pipe and began to fill the bowl. “Anyway, we busted in, and dear God, Frank, what we saw. A couple of little boys beat to shit, lying unconscious in one corner. And just a few feet from them, the wife, slumped against the window with an extension cord wrapped around her neck. The man was all on her, strangling her with that cord when we broke through the door.”

  He lit the pipe and the blue smoke sailed behind him as he walked. He looked like a locomotive cutting through the fog. “Well, we jumped this guy. Actually, I jumped him. I pulled him off the woman and threw him over to the other side of the room. Ollie went to the woman and started trying to untie the cord. That’s when she bit him. She sunk her teeth into his hand and wouldn’t let go. Ollie kept trying to get loose from her, but she kept bearing down on his hand, so he finally hit her.” He pulled the pipe from his mouth. “That’s when the man got loose from me. He just bolted right over me and slammed into Ollie full force. He started pounding on Ollie, and the woman started scratching at his face. I pulled the man off, but the woman kept at it, screaming at the top of her voice. Ollie finally got up, but the woman kept at him, screaming like you can’t imagine, Frank, like a wild animal, and clawing at Ollie’s face while he backed away from her. But she kept coming at him, with this scream, and clawing at him until his face was covered with blood, and he kept stepping back, trying to get away, but she wouldn’t let him. Ollie pulled out his pistol and waved it in the air, but she just kept on him, clawing and screaming, until he leaped away from her, Frank, and lifted that goddamn pistol, and shot her right between the eyes.”

  He stopped dead and simply stared out toward the end of the park to where their car could be seen in the ghostly distance. Then he looked at Frank, his eyes glistening in the streetlight. “They sentenced Ollie Quinn to life for that, Frank,” he said slowly. “There was a lot of politics and a shithead D.A., and Ollie Quinn got life.” He glanced away, his eyes rolling upward to the phantom trees. “But he didn’t serve much of it. He hanged himself two days after the trial.” His eyes shot back to Frank. “And that husband? His name is Towers, Harry Towers. He still lives in that same fucking house. He’s had a wife or two since then, and he’s beat up on all of them, new wives and new kids. We still get domestics on him.” He smiled coldly. “He lives at Two Sixty-five Boulevard, Frank, and one day, after I’m retired, one day, Frank, when it feels just right, I’m going to go over to Two Sixty-five Boulevard, and I’m going to blow Harry Towers’ head off.” He looked at Frank pointedly. “But not yet, my friend, not yet.”

  A few minutes later they were in the car together. For a moment Caleb sat motionlessly behind the wheel. Then, suddenly, he hit the ignition and pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator, pumping the engine wildly until it filled the air with an angry roar.

  23

  Frank began calling the galleries early the next morning, but all of them were still closed. He wasn’t sure when they opened, but he thought that Karen might know, so he called her instead. She sounded breathless when she answered the phone.

  “I’m a little harried,” she explained.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been packing for New York.”

  “You’re leaving right away?” Frank asked unbelievingly.

  “Within a few days, I hope,” Karen said.

  Frank could feel all of his remaining strength drain out of him. “I’m sorry you’re going so soon,” he said quietly.

  For a moment, she did not answer, and Frank could feel something in her as it reached out to him. He wanted to seize it like a bird out of the air and draw it gently into his arms. He loved her, he realized with astonishment, with the kind of feeling they sang about in those plaintive, heartbroken ballads Caleb sometimes listened to on the car radio.

  “Listen, Karen,” he said softly, “I need to see you.”

  “What about?”

  He couldn’t answer her as he wished, couldn’t tell her that he wanted to be with her, talk to her and touch her until the bond between them had become so firm that nothing could draw them apart.

  Instead, he stammered, “The galleries.”

  “Galleries?”

  “There are a few of them in Grant Park,” Frank said.

  “Yes, I know. What about them?”

  “Evidently Angelica sometimes hung around in them,” Frank told her, his voice now under control again. “And so I was thinking that you might want to check them out with me.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. This afternoon, if possible.”

  “Well, I have a few things to do this morning,” Karen said, “but I could be free by noon. Would that be all right?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. “Should I pick you up?”

  “No, I’ll pick you up this time. Will you be at headquarters?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, I do,” Karen said. “Unfortunately.” Then she hung up.

  Two hours later, Frank glanced up from his desk and saw Karen as she entered the detective bullpen. She was dressed in a summery, light blue dress, and every man in the room turned to look at her.

  “Mighty fine,” Gibbons whispered as he passed Frank’s desk.

  Frank glared at him. “Go to work, Charlie.”

  Gibbons smiled thinly. “You seem a little strung out, Frank. That’s not a good image for a cop.”

  Frank turned away from him and watched as Karen came up to the desk.

  “I made it a little early,” she said.

  “That’s okay.”

  “Are you ready, or should I go somewhere and wait for a few minutes?”

  “No,” Frank said, “I’m ready.”

  It took them only a little while to reach Grant Park, and as Frank pulled the car onto Cherokee, he remembered the night before, the way his hand had inched to the pistol before Caleb could stop him. He had never done anything like that before, and it scared him that he might have killed without justice, out of some impulsive rage, like a blind serpent that strikes toward nothing but the nearest heat.

  “It’s odd to be here in the daylight,” Karen said.

  Her voice returned him to the present, the grim gray street, the parched edge of the park. He turned left off Boulevard and headed up Cherokee.

  “According to the boy, Angelica knew this area pretty well,” he said. “But I’ve already told you that.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been trying to find out how she knew it,” Frank added.

  “Have you found out?”

  “I’m not sure,” Frank said. “But I do know that she’s been seen in a few galleries around here. And she’s been seen in them more than once.”

  “You mean the galleries on Hugo Street?” Karen asked.

  Frank nodded.

  “Then turn left on this street, then take the second right,” she said. “It’s the only street around here that I know how to get to.” She paused a moment, her eyes lifted upward. The bright summer light had faded slightly as a wave of grayish clouds began to drift over the city. “Maybe we’ll get some relief soon,” she said.

  Frank looked at her. “From what?”

  “The heat,” Karen said quietly. She turned to him. “You know, it doesn’t surprise me that Angelica was up to
something. Her life was too flat. It was too much like mine.” She smiled softly. “But yours has action, doesn’t it?”

  “Some.”

  “It seems more real,” Karen added. “And I think maybe that’s what Angelica was after, something she could touch, something real.”

  “Is that what you’re after, Karen?” Frank asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “And you think you’ll find it in New York?”

  “I think I will try to find it there,” Karen said. “But this city, at least for me, is full of ghosts.”

  Frank took his second right and eased the car slowly up and over a small hill.

  “There it is,” Karen said, pointing to a narrow side street. “Gallery Row.” She smiled derisively. “Like everything else in Atlanta, pretentious.”

  Frank pulled the car over to the curb. “I thought we’d just walk it together. Go into each gallery, see what we can see.” He smiled. “I don’t have a plan, Karen. I’m just trying to find my way out of a dead end.”

  She took his arm, and he felt a tremor run through him. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her away to some place where they could be alone forever, where she could paint and he could think through the whole scattered landscape of the life he had seen through the battered golden screen of his badge.

  “We’ll just take them one at a time,” he said.

  “All right.”

  There were three galleries on the block. The first of them was called New Palette. It was in a large Victorian house which had been painted bright blue with white shutters.

  “It’s all mythological themes,” Karen said a few minutes later, after they had walked through each of the gallery’s brightly lighted rooms. “Nothing but paintings of Diana and Aphrodite.” She glanced down at a small plaque beside one of the paintings. “Vincent Toffler,” she said. “He must be interested in—what would you call this—erotic mythology?”

  “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sell,” someone said from behind.

  Frank turned to see a short man in jeans and sweatshirt. He peered at them through thin wire glasses.

  “I don’t suppose you’d want to buy any of this stuff,” the man added. “Maybe for the barn, or some bathroom you don’t use anymore?”