Undercurrents

by Mary Anna Evans

  “No. I didn’t hear any words that I could understand. Once I got up there, I realized that I didn’t hear any words because there weren’t any words to hear. I was hearing her groan. She—”

  “You didn’t answer my question about how you found her in the first place. I need you to back up and tell me what you were doing alone in these woods at the crack of dawn.”

  Faye, who considered herself even-tempered in the extreme, wasn’t quite able to keep the edge from her voice as she said, “I could answer your questions if you stopped interrupting me.”

  This was his cue to apologize. He did not. He gestured at the parkland around them—trees, creek, wildflowers, tall grass. “Why were you out here before sunup?”

  “I’m doing a cultural resources survey. For the state.”

  He looked at her blankly, so she tried again.

  “I’m an archaeologist with a state contract.”

  Faye looked around her and realized that she had nothing to prove she was who she said she was. No identification, because her purse was locked in the trunk of her car. No proof that she was a respected professional who was currently in the employ of Tennessee’s state government. No piece of paper stating that she held a doctorate. No tools to support her statement that she had arrived early to prepare for her crew’s arrival. Nothing, not even the trowel she’d left at the bottom of the bluff when she heard the moaning of a woman buried alive.

  When she realized that she had nothing but the clothes on her back and her brown skin, she stopped being irritated and began being afraid. It became imperative that she convince this man that she was no threat to him or to anybody else.

  “I have the state contract in my car that will explain everything. It’s got contact information for their archaeologist. Ordinarily, he’d be on-site, but we’re just getting started. He’ll be here Monday.”

  And then, despite him saying, more than once, “This isn’t necessary,” she led him down to the creek. On its bank, she bent down to retrieve her trowel, then she pointed out the first load of equipment that she’d brought with her from the car, intending to go back and fetch the rest.

  He tried to tell her that he was satisfied with her story, but he ended up saying it to her back, because she wasn’t finished. Trowel in hand, she strode across the creek. He followed.

  When they reached her car, she reached deep into her right pants pocket to retrieve her car keys. A small object, hard and metal, brushed her hand and it scared her. The object was nothing new. She’d owned it since her teens, when her grandmother gave it to her. And it wasn’t particularly scary, despite its sharp blade. It was just a pocketknife that she carried because it was handy to have while working in the field. When faced with a law officer who seemed to dislike her for no reason, she felt the urge to shove the knife down further in her pocket, where he could never see it, so she did just that.

  Easing her keys out of pocket, she left the hidden pocketknife right where it was, and she unlocked her trunk. In it were an array of digging tools that supported her claim to be an archaeologist. Unfortunately, they also would have been useful to anyone needing to bury an assault victim, so they scared her as much as the pocketknife did.

  Reaching past them into the far right corner of the trunk, she pulled out a bankers’ box full of files. “See? Here’s my contract for a cultural resources survey to be done in this part of the park. And here’s my correspondence with the state’s contracting agent, including the project schedule.”

  He wasn’t looking at the contract, so she took it out of its folder and thrust it under his nose. There were still traces of crusted dirt and blood on the hand holding the folder, and her forearms weren’t any better. The alcohol wipes the paramedics had given her hadn’t done much more than spread the filth around. She did think she’d gotten her face pretty clean, because she’d spent a lot of time scrubbing it. God bless the man who had reached in the ambulance’s glove compartment and pulled out an undershirt, still in its package, which she guessed he kept there for occasions like this. It didn’t fit well, but it allowed her to shed her own dirty shirt, so she was grateful.

  She knew there was still wet dirt in her short, straight black hair. Her fingertips were abraded and raw, and there was more mud under them. The too-big undershirt gapped at the armholes, so she instinctively held both arms crossed across her breasts in protection. Faye knew that her body was covered decently, although just barely, but Detective McDaniel stirred up every defense she had. His smooth, bland face gave her no sense that he felt any compassion for her, a witness who was literally smeared with bloody horror.

  She was so rattled that she’d begun babbling. “Look here,” she pointed to the project calendar. “My crew is due to arrive at nine. Doesn’t it make sense that I might want to get here early this morning, so that I can be ready for them?”

  “It’s what I would do.”

  There was a shred of grace to his “It’s what I would do.” It broke a barrier between them. It suggested that they were conscientious people who thought alike. It made her bold enough to ask the question that fully occupied her mind.

  “Am I a suspect?” A warm breeze stroked her shoulder, and she crossed her arms tighter.

  “There is no reason to suspect you at this juncture. Killers around these parts don’t generally bury people alive, then dig them up and call 911. And then do CPR. I won’t say that’s never ever happened anywhere, but our killings in south Memphis aren’t usually that complicated. Besides, you showed me your work truck full of tools and your file box full of contracts saying that the state hired you to be here. You’re no suspect. I thank you for doing what you could for the victim.”

  For the first time, the man’s mouth stretched into something resembling a smile. It was not convincing.

  If he had ever once smiled before that, Faye wouldn’t have been nervous enough to trot out her contracts and tools to prove she had a right to be where she was. She’d lived her entire life as a person of color, but this was the first time she’d ever worried about being considered guilty-while-black.

  “I need to get back to the scene. You’re an important witness. I have more questions, so I’d like you to come with me.”

  So she’d followed him back across the creek to the place where medical personnel were pulling the still-unconscious victim from the ground, preparing to transport her to a hospital. Faye wanted to go brush the hair off the woman’s dirt-crusted forehead and smooth the wrinkles out of the pale yellow dress that was emerging from the ground as the rescuers dug more dirt from the woman’s body and worked to free her legs.

  Even from a distance of fifteen feet, Faye noticed a series of dark blotches on the top of a foot still shod in a silvery sandal.

  “What’s that?” she asked, moving close enough to make out the tattoos. The unfriendly detective followed her closely, as if he were afraid she might do something stupid or dangerous.

  Tears came to her eyes as she got a good look at the four little marks on the wounded woman’s foot. The tattoo consisted of four letters and they spelled K-A-L-I.

  “I know who she is,” Faye said, wiping her eyes on the back of a hand that was shaking. “I know who she is,” she said again, and her knees went so weak that she had no choice but to sit down on the ground, hard.

  Faye was the kind of person who never faltered in a crisis. It was her way to cry after the fact, when her child’s fever broke or when a friend’s funeral was done. She dealt with things as they came, as cool as if she had ice water in her veins, but everybody has limits. Eventually, the time came when adrenaline failed and she crashed. Today, this was her limit: seeing a little girl’s name tattooed on the foot of a woman who could only be her grievously injured mother.

  Deep down, she had already known. While clawing dirt away from the beautifully plaited hair, while wiping the full soft lips clean of caked dirt, while doing her leve
l best to press life back into the bleeding chest, Faye had known that this was a little girl’s mother. Knowing that there was no way to protect Kali from hearing this news, she sat on the ground and cried.

  McDaniel bent over her and this time there was softness in his voice, maybe even kindness. There might also have been respect, but he had already raised Faye’s hackles too much for her to be sure.

  “Ma’am. You say you know who she is. Can you tell me her name?”

  Between sobs, she said, “I don’t know her name, but I know her little girl. They live right there,” and she raised her arm to point down a path worn through the woods by little feet.

  At the end of the path, Kali waited for the news that Faye didn’t want her to hear. Worse than that, if she was the one who had abandoned a half-eaten ice cream sandwich, she already knew the news that Detective McDaniel would soon be bringing to her door. It was possible that the little girl had just seen something that nobody should ever have to see. She led the detective across the creek and along the path that would take them to Kali.

  Chapter Nine

  Detective McDaniel knocked again, hard. Nobody came to the dead-bolted front door.

  He looked at Faye. “Ma’am, does anybody else live here but the victim and her little girl?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t swear that either of them live here, but I’ve seen the girl walk down the path we just walked. She said she lived with her mother, and she didn’t mention anybody else living with them. That’s really all I know.”

  The curtainless windows on either side of the front door revealed nothing. No lights were on and the television was dark. McDaniel stared at the blank façade. He had to be worried that he would soon be adding a missing child to his report of the morning’s crime. The detective looked like he was wishing as hard as Faye was that Kali would miraculously appear.

  Nothing of the sort happened inside the house, but a deep voice behind them saying, “Officer, can I help you?” made both Faye and the detective jump.

  Faye turned, hoping that Kali was beside the owner of that deep voice. Instead, she saw an elderly man and a middle-aged woman coming up the front walk toward them. Faye was wondering how they had known to come, when the woman answered her unspoken question. She had a voice like an organ, deep, reedy, and rich.

  “When the police come knocking before breakfast, that can’t mean nothing good. You people looking for Frida?”

  The policeman spoke up. “Woman in her twenties, African-American? Long braided hair, tattoo on her foot?”

  The woman nodded, and said, “That’s Frida,” but the old man just stood there quietly, like someone who’d gotten bad news before.

  “I’m Detective Harold McDaniel. Do you know her?”

  “She’s my late sister’s granddaughter,” the old man said. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, but she’s been attacked.”

  Both the woman and the man bowed their heads and stood silent for a moment. Finally, the old man spoke. “Is it bad?”

  Faye was trying to let McDaniel do the talking, but she couldn’t help herself. She nodded. The man held her gaze. “How bad?”

  Faye looked down at the blood and dirt stains on her pants and boots, and his eyes followed hers. She could see tears welling in his eyes. Still, she let the officer do the talking.

  “The paramedics have taken her to the hospital. Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth administered first aid and CPR, or they might have gotten here too late.”

  The old man’s eyes returned to hers and there was gratitude in them, but his companion was still doing the talking. She took one look at the too-big sleeveless shirt that was barely covering Faye’s body and took action. Shrugging her big shoulders out of a heavy black cardigan, she held it out. Faye took it, grateful for the chance to cover herself.

  “I know Frida won’t mind if we go in and get you a pair of her pants, at least until you can get to your own clean clothes,” she said. “Did he say ‘Doctor’? Thank the Lord you were there!”

  “I’m not that kind of doctor. My doctorate is in archaeology.”

  The woman hesitated. Faye figured she was thinking, “What kind of good does that do us? What kind of good does it do anybody?” because she frankly was thinking the same thing.

  “But what happened?” The woman was wearing a black-checked apron with deep pockets and Faye could see her hands in those pockets, opening and clenching shut.

  “All I can tell you at this time is that she was attacked,” McDaniel said, stating something terrible as a simple fact.

  “It was that damn boyfriend,” the old man said.

  “Which one?” said the woman in the apron. “The new one? The old one? The other old one?”

  “She was dressed for a date,” McDaniel said. “Do either of you know who she might have been with? Where they went? What time they went out? When she came home? Whether she came home? Anything at all would be a help.”

  “I told that woman that she should give up the men,” the woman said, jamming her hands into her apron pockets. “And that she shouldn’t be wearing the kind of clothes that get their attention. To tell you the truth, Frida is so pretty that she really oughta stop wearing makeup. She needs to hide from all the men that keep coming after her.”

  “Ain’t no crime to be pretty. Ever since she was a little thing, Frida was the prettiest, sweetest child.” And now the old man finally broke down, bringing a big, long-fingered hand to his eyes.

  Faye pictured the hand grasping the neck of a bass guitar and violated her resolution to let McDaniel do all the talking.

  “Sir, is your name Laneer?”

  “It is. Actually, my name is Lucius Laneer Billings, but people call me Laneer and you saved my Frida, so you can, too. How did you know my name?”

  “I met Kali yesterday, and she mentioned her Uncle Laneer. I’m Faye.” She reached out and shook his hand. “I’m very worried about her. Do you know where she is?”

  McDaniel, eager to regain control of the conversation, shot Faye a look that said, “Would you please shut up and let me do my job?”

  Laneer paused before answering her question about Kali’s whereabouts. He looked at the police officer out of the corner of his eye, then skipped the answer altogether. Instead, he pointed to his companion and said, “This is Sylvia Cochran, Kali’s candy lady.”

  The woman said, “You can call me Sylvia.”

  McDaniel had noticed Laneer’s side eye, so he pressed the question. “Do you know where Frida’s daughter is?”

  Laneer looked like he wanted to claim he didn’t know but he knew that lying to the police wouldn’t go well for him. “Kali is at my house, asleep,” Laneer said. “Been there all night.”

  McDaniel said, “That’s not possible. We found ice cream in a place where Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth says that the little girl likes to play. It hadn’t even melted. She had to have been there just a little while ago, and she may have seen something important.”

  Laneer was long-legged and raw-boned. He stooped a bit, but it wasn’t an old man’s stoop. It was the stance of a tall man who had spent sixty or seventy years trying not to look threatening, yet refusing to look subservient.

  He paused a moment before speaking. Perhaps it was to gather his thoughts, but perhaps it was to let McDaniel know that he didn’t have full control of the conversation, just because he was an officer of the law. Finally, he said, “I don’t know nothing about any ice cream, but I know what I know. Kali’s at my house and she’s been at my house. She ain’t got nothing to say to the police.”

  “Somebody left that ice cream there and I’ve got good reason to think it was your great-niece.”

  Ever the persnickety genealogist, Faye said, “Great-great-niece.”

  McDaniel didn’t say, “Would you keep your pointless comments to yourself?” but his sharp blue eyes said it
for him. This made Faye want to complicate his life, so she did.

  “Kali said that her mother loved ice cream,” she said, “Maybe Frida dropped the ice cream sandwich when she was attacked.”

  This would have required Frida to be in Kali’s hidden space in the trees or for her attacker to randomly throw the melting ice cream into just the right spot. Faye didn’t necessarily think that these possibilities were plausible. She was just having a moment of seriously disliking McDaniel. And she also didn’t mind taking some of the detective’s focus off Kali, but it would have to return there eventually. Faye did honestly agree with him that the girl might have been watching when her mother was attacked and buried alive.

  “Where’s your house?” McDaniel asked to Laneer. “I want to talk to the girl.”

  Laneer turned and the others followed him. Faye expected at any minute McDaniel would tell her to go away and let him investigate this crime in peace, but she was resolved to tag along until he did.

  Laneer’s house was on the same side of the street as Frida’s, several houses down. The street hugged the curve of the creek, so Frida’s house was invisible from his, hidden by a row of their neighbors’ houses. It was noticeably older than hers, but its siding had a fresh coat of emerald green paint and the window frames were bright blue. The colorful house was a fitting backdrop for the vegetable garden that took up most of his front yard. Big red tomatoes and small yellow ones hung on head-high plants with feathery green leaves. Underneath, bulbous purple eggplants peeked from their own broad leaves. Behind them, yellow okra flowers stared at them with black eyes.

  They all followed Laneer onto his porch and waited for him to unlock his shiny red front door. Key in hand, he turned to them and said, “Shhh. She’s asleep.”

  Laneer pushed open the door to reveal a small living room. It was stuffed with furniture yet still managed to look orderly. There was color everywhere—yellow walls, 1960s turquoise furniture, and pale green curtains—and little Kali lay nestled inside all those brilliant hues, asleep on the couch. She was covered with a patchwork quilt that brought all of Laneer’s love of color together in a single yellow, turquoise, green, red, and purple object.