Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “Like what?” She kept her gaze trained on the road, but her jaw was set. She was angry too.

  Cars passed us. The street was busier than I would have expected at 10:30 on Easter Sunday.

  “Black families do adopt black children, but have a tougher road of it,” I said. “The model for a stable family is white. The woman is a homemaker and the man is the breadwinner, which is not the norm in black families. In black families, both parents work, and right there that makes the court assume that the household is unfit. If by chance the woman does stay home, then the white inspectors come and judge everything by their standards. They assume the neighborhood is bad because of the preponderance of blacks—”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Laura said.

  “I don’t care if it’s ridiculous, Laura,” I said. “It happens. When I lived in Memphis, I used to do investigative work for attorneys who sometimes handled adoption petitions. More than once I had to prove that a black neighborhood, which looked dangerous to a white inspector, was actually safer than its economic counterpart in the white community.”

  Laura sighed. “So my donation made it seem like I was patronizing everyone there, then.”

  She finally understood. But I didn’t want to upset her further, so all I said was, “I’m sure they knew you were sincerely trying to help.”

  “One thousand children without a place to go.” Her voice was quiet. “That’s a crime all by itself.”

  “I know.”

  We were heading into Hyde Park now, getting close to my street.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted this to be a pleasant evening, Smokey.”

  I placed my hand on top of the one she had resting on the gearshift. Her skin was warm and soft.

  “It was pleasant,” I said, and it wasn’t a complete lie. “It was fun to hear Ella again, and dancing with you—”

  “Again?” Laura looked at me. She had chewed the lipstick off her lower lip, and more strands of hair had fallen around her face.

  “I saw Ella a few times in Memphis.”

  Laura’s carefully plucked eyebrows rose. I recognized the look. It was a combination of fear and panic.

  “Does she know you?” Laura asked. “Could she have recognized you?”

  I smiled. “Only as a familiar face in the crowd. We never spoke. I was just another nameless fan bebopping to the music.”

  “Bebopping.” Laura smiled, too, and returned her gaze to the road. “I can’t quite imagine you doing that.”

  Maybe not any more. I hadn’t had the lightness and relaxation I had enjoyed on those nights in Memphis for more than a year.

  Laura had never seen me comfortable or lighthearted. From the moment I met her, I had been on guard, and then events conspired to make me serious, protective, and justifiably paranoid.

  She turned the car onto my street, saving me from having to comment on my past. She expertly eased the Mercedes into an empty parking space a few yards from my apartment’s main sidewalk.

  Half of the streetlights were broken, sending uneven pools of light throughout the neighborhood. Most of the buildings were former houses turned into apartments or pre-World War II six-flats which had been allowed to run down.

  I lived in an older building on the second floor, in the apartment first rented by the Grimshaws. Laura had found them a home more suited to their needs, and now Jimmy and I lived in three-bedroom comfort, at least compared with last summer’s crowded conditions.

  Still, the apartment was small and meager, especially when I thought of Laura’s penthouse suite on Lake Shore Drive. Even though Laura claimed the difference didn’t bother her, it bothered me. Every time I brought her here, I kept seeing how mean my circumstances were—and it made me wonder if each of us wasn’t slumming in our own separate ways.

  As she parked, worry must have shown on my face. Laura shoved the gearshift into Park, shut off the ignition, and then smiled at me.

  “It’s all right, Smokey.” There was amusement in her voice. “I’m insured.”

  I never doubted that she was, but insurance wasn’t really the point to me. I was used to taking precautions, and leaving a valuable car on a street filled with poor people didn’t count as one to me. Sure, my rusted Impala wasn’t pretty, but it belonged here.

  I opened the door and got out. She did the same, and I waited for her to come around to my side. As she approached, I held out my hand, and wondered if she would take it.

  She did. Her fingers were surprisingly warm. We walked up the sidewalk, hand in hand.

  The six-flat regained some of its elegance in the darkness. The unkempt lawn was harder to see and the chipped paint covering the brick looked almost clean.

  Still, this building was clearly a multi-family dwelling, with different curtains in each window, and the air of public property outside.

  The door to the building was propped open, something I wished the other tenants wouldn’t do. But as the weather got nicer, people liked to have a breeze fill the hallways, which got stuffy in the afternoons. Once the door was open, no one bothered to close it.

  Laura and I stepped onto the porch. Last summer, I had discovered a body here, and each time I walked up the porch steps I thought of it.

  Tonight was no different. Little ghosts haunted me everywhere.

  We stepped inside. The hallway was wide at the entrance, with a staircase to our right—a wooden staircase with an elegant banister that once had been polished and lovely. Now it was dingy with years of dirt.

  The main floor had two apartments, the first near the metal mailboxes that had been built into the wall. Both apartment doors were closed, and each had extra deadbolts, just like mine did, even though the neighborhood was considered safe by Chicago standards.

  The hall smelled faintly of baked ham and melted chocolate. The remains of a chocolate bunny was mashed against the doorknob of the nearest apartment. Foil Easter egg wrappers glittered on the floor, proving that someone had had a sweet holiday.

  Laura smiled when she saw the mess. Her hair was losing its height, and the change made her seem more like my Laura, instead of the glittery society woman I had taken to the benefit.

  She headed toward the staircase, careful to avoid the foil wrappers.

  “Don’t touch the railing,” I said. “Who knows if sticky little hands were there first.”

  “The chocolate should be hardening by now,” she said, and reached for the banister.

  Above us, something thudded. Something heavy had fallen. I didn’t like the sound. Laura looked at me, a slight frown making a line between her eyebrows.

  I shrugged. This apartment building had its share of odd noises. I had owned my own house in Memphis, and even though I’d been here nearly a year, I still wasn’t used to all the sounds that neighbors could make.

  I turned, closed the front door, and latched it, like all of the tenants had agreed to do after dark. Then I joined Laura on the stairs.

  She slipped her arm through mine. The tension from earlier had fled, and we were heading into that perfect moment I had initially imagined when we had left for the benefit. We took our time climbing up, as if we were heading toward a glorious suite in a fancy hotel instead of my dingy apartment.

  Halfway up, she let go of my arm, and reached into the pocket of my topcoat for my keys.

  Even though she and I had grown closer these last four months, I had not given her keys to my place, nor had I asked for keys to hers. Since I did most of my work out of my apartment, I wanted to be cautious about who came into my apartment and why. Keys to her place wouldn’t have mattered, since I never would have used them. Even though the current building security was used to me, I was worried that some new overzealous employee would see a black man trying to open Miss Hathaway’s door and act before thinking.

  She managed to grab the keys, laughed, and with surprising agility for a woman in high heels, ran up the remaining steps. She thumbed the keys, looking for the square one that unlocked the top deadbo
lt.

  The thud came again, closer, this time followed by a cry of pain. A door banged softly, as if it had been partially opened and had suddenly slammed closed.

  Laura turned. She had obviously heard the sound, too. “Isn’t that where your neighbor lives?”

  The question wasn’t as inane as it sounded. The only neighbor of mine that Laura had met was Marvella Walker, a stunning woman who had set her sights on me the moment I had moved into the building. Last winter, Marvella did her best to make Laura’s visits hellacious, until I let Marvella know I wouldn’t tolerate her behavior.

  Laura was looking at the thick wooden door across the hall from mine. I took the last few steps two at a time, and reached the top. There I could hear a woman’s voice, making short sharp cries.

  “I think she’s calling for help,” Laura said.

  I didn’t wait. I hurried to the door. The sounds were louder here. In between the cries were moans.

  “Marvella?” I asked, reaching for the knob. “Marvella, it’s me, Bill. Is everything okay?”

  “Help…me…please…” This cry was louder than the rest, but I still wouldn’t have been able to hear it if I hadn’t been nearby.

  I turned the knob and to my surprise, it opened. Marvella was usually as meticulous about using her deadbolts as I was. But the door jammed, as if something were pushed against it.

  Through the crack in the door, I could see a woman’s bare foot on the hardwood floor, a bit of satin robe, and a blood stain that appeared to be growing.

  “Marvella?” I tried not to let the panic I suddenly felt into my voice. “Can you move away from the door? I can’t get in.”

  She grunted. The foot moved, braced itself, revealing some leg. Blood coated the inner thigh, and had run down to the ankle. As she moved, the blood smeared against the hardwood floor, and I realized the stain was really a puddle.

  “What’s going on, Smokey?” Laura had come up behind me.

  I held up a hand to silence her, and pushed on the door. It finally opened far enough for me to slip inside.

  When she saw me, the woman on the floor moaned in relief. But she wasn’t Marvella. She was small, her features delicate and elfin. Her skin had gone gray, and the area around her eyes was almost bluish, indicating a great deal of blood loss.

  “Thank God,” she whispered when she saw me. “I need some help.”

  “Where’s Marvella?” I asked, uncertain what had happened. Most of Marvella’s tidy living room was intact. The wooden sculptures, all of faces in an African style, remained on the surfaces, and the plants still covered the window seat in front of the large bay window. But the add-on kitchen was a mess of glasses and dirty dishes, and Marvella’s normally pristine brown couch was covered with blankets, towels, and even more blood.

  The woman shook her head, then closed her eyes, and lay back down, as if all that movement had been too much for her. Next to her, a half-melted bag of ice added to water to the blood puddle.

  Laura pushed her way in behind me.

  “Oh, my God.” She crouched beside the woman, and put a hand on her forehead. “She’s burning up. Smokey, we have to get her help. Now.”

  The blood was coming from between the woman’s legs. She wore Marvella’s white satin robe, and it was partially open, revealing a slightly distended stomach.

  “Get towels from the kitchen,” I said. “See if you can stop the bleeding. I have to make sure Marvella’s all right.”

  I had visions of her dead or dying in the bedroom. I hurried toward the narrow hallway, wishing I had my gun. My topcoat flowed behind me, catching on the small table Marvella used to accent the space between the bathroom and bedroom, and knocking it over. The sculptures on top of it scattered.

  Laura moved behind me, making soothing noises to the poor woman as she gathered towels.

  The bathroom light was on. Drops of blood covered the white tile around the toilet, and more blood stained the orange rug in front of the bathtub. The brown and orange shower curtain was open, revealing a mound of wet towels in the tub. No towels hung on the racks, and a bloody handprint stained the white porcelain of the sink.

  But Marvella was not inside.

  I moved quickly to the bedroom, and flicked on the light. I had never seen this room, but it continued the browns and oranges Marvella used to decorate the rest of the place. Instead of sculptures, though, big oil paintings of tribal figures covered the walls.

  One painting was so large and narrow that the figure on it was life-sized. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, and had to do a double-take to make sure it wasn’t a real person.

  My heart was pounding. I made myself take a breath and slow down so that I could scan the room.

  The batik bedspread had been pulled back and someone had removed one of the matching pillows. Women’s clothing pooled near the closet, unusually sloppy in a very tidy room.

  The bedroom smelled of Marvella’s sandalwood perfume, and I realized that it was the only place in the entire apartment that didn’t smell of fresh blood.

  I checked the closet just in case, and saw nothing except rows of brightly colored clothing. Then I lifted the bedspread. Boxes of shoes, neatly labeled, were stored beneath the bed.

  No one was in there either.

  Marvella was missing and a woman was bleeding to death in her living room.

  Something awful had happened here, and I had no real idea what that something was.

  TWO

  “SMOKEY, we have to get some help right now,” Laura said.

  She was kneeling between the woman’s legs, on the ever-expanding puddle of blood, pressing a large wad of towels against the woman’s genitals. Laura’s hair had fallen out of its bun and trailed over her shoulders. Her hands were streaked with blood, and her shoes had slipped off the backs of her feet, refusing to bend with her toes.

  She didn’t seem to notice, and neither did the woman. The woman’s eyes were closed, and she was still moaning. She was smaller than Laura, her hands folded beneath her breasts as if she were protecting her heart.

  The robe had opened most of the way, and I saw no obvious wound, only a reddish area around the stomach. The woman’s pubic hair had been shaved, but I couldn’t see where the injury was because there was so much blood.

  Her face seemed even grayer than it had before. She wasn’t going to make it until help arrived.

  “You’ve got to hold those towels against her,” I said to Laura as I moved between the woman and the coffee table.

  The blood puddle was seeping toward the kitchen—apparently the floor was downhill to the outside wall—and I had no choice but to step in the wetness. It soaked through my thin dress shoes, and surprised me with its chill.

  Probably the melting ice. But even with it, the blood was still thick. The woman was bleeding heavily.

  “What are you doing?” Laura asked. “We have to call for help.”

  “There’s no time.” I bent down, and slid my arms behind the woman’s back, pulling the robe the rest of the way open. She moaned, but didn’t open her eyes.

  “Smokey!” Laura was protesting, but I didn’t care.

  I could feel the woman’s skin through the back of the robe. She was burning up.

  “Hold those towels in place,” I said, and Laura didn’t argue. “Move with me as I lift.”

  Laura nodded. She stood as I picked up the woman, making sure the towels didn’t shift.

  The woman was lighter than I expected. Her head draped back and one arm fell toward the floor. This time, she didn’t moan, and that had me worried.

  Laura’s pantsuit was covered in blood, and there was a smear of blood on her face where she must have wiped the hair out of her eyes. But she didn’t seem to notice.

  “We’ve got to get her downstairs,” I said. “Your car is closest, but—”

  “If you think I care about interiors at a moment like this, Smokey Dalton, you’re crazy,” Laura snapped.

  “All right then.” I adj
usted the woman so that I could put one hand under her buttocks. That way, I could hold the towels in place and carry her at the same time.

  There, the blood was slick, heavy and warm. I hadn’t felt anything like this since Korea. Then I had carried a friend off a battlefield as he bled to death from a gaping wound in his back.

  Laura pulled the apartment door open, and I headed toward the stairs. My shoes squeaked. I knew I was leaving bloody footprints on the dirty wooden floor.

  “You’ve got to go ahead of me,” I said. “You have to open the front door which I so stupidly closed and then you have to unlock the car. Open the back passenger door so I can put her inside.”

  Laura nodded and ran down the stairs. Her shoes were slick with blood, and she was leaving a trail as well. She clung to the banister, using it to catch herself each time a foot slid out from underneath her. Her heel caught halfway down, and she lurched forward, grabbing the banister with both hands. For a moment, I thought I was going to lose her, too, then she righted herself, and continued the rest of the way down.

  The towels grew wet under my hand. I pulled the woman closer to me, as if I could heal her just with touch. I kept one arm braced around her slender back, wishing she was conscious enough to hold onto me.

  I thudded down the stairs, trying not to jostle her too much. I felt a desperate need to hurry—I didn’t want her to die in my arms.

  We were on the middle step when the woman shifted in my grasp. The towels slipped, and I almost dropped her.

  Her eyes fluttered open. They were oval-shaped and dark brown, with an upward tilt on the outside edge. Beautiful, as much for the intelligence in them as for their shape.

  “Marvella?” she asked me, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” I said, grunting the words as I thumped down the steps. “Do you know where she is?”

  The woman shook her head slightly, her straight black hair catching on my top coat. She slipped her arm around my neck, and I was grateful.

  I didn’t want to drop her.