Robbins hid a grin behind a few more fries. The kid might be worthwhile after all.
“You want me to stay with this tonight or get back on those car prowls? I also have the vandalism at the cemetery. Some kids spray-painted the outside wall.” Jordan finished his sandwich, crumpled the paper and lobbed it at the trash. The wad tapped the rim but tumbled into the can. “Score.”
“Lucky shot. Work the car prowl tonight, and see if anything comes up on the cemetery tagging. The chief’s catching heat over both of those. He wants some visibility there. I’m going to check one more thing before I head home.”
Robbins rummaged through records for a while. He didn’t find anything on Beason, but he finally found the daughter’s complaint. There was no paperwork, no file, but he recognized the patrol officer’s name. He dialed a number.
“Carl Moses.”
Moses had recently moved to Columbia, taking a sergeant’s position in the larger agency. “Hey, it’s Robbins. I got a question for you. Maybe a theoretical.”
“I do love the theater.”
“You and the drag queens. Listen, I’m working a report on an old man who maybe wandered off. The neighbor thinks maybe he got dragged off, but I just talked to a family member who thought he might be taking a sabbatical from the rest of his life.”
“It happens.”
“Well, she was… You remember a case, not so much a case as a call from about a year ago.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“It happened right before you left. Old lady died and the daughter claimed the dad killed her.”
Silence, but it was the kind of silence that said Moses was thinking about it.
“I kinda remember, ‘cause it ain’t your usual call. About all I remember is everybody thought the daughter was over-reacting. Having hysterics ‘cause her mama died.”
“All I found was the initial complaint. Any follow-up?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Okay. Thanks. Beason has family in Columbia. Let me know if you run across him or his gold Caddy.”
“Will do.”
Robbins hung up the phone and stretched. He’d done all he could tonight. The old man wasn’t senile or diabetic or anything. Normally, in a situation like this, they’d call the BOLO and the guy would eventually turn up—usually after a week at the beach or in Sin City. The captain had let him run with it today. Robbins had made an issue about the dog—something similar might’ve happened to the old guy—but probably the captain knew the old man was black and figured pushing to find Beason helped the department’s image.
Robbins could give a shit about the PR. His efforts today had been for Miz Rose.
Twenty minutes later, Robbins turned into his own street. Like his neighbors’ houses, the brick ranch style house sat on an acre of ground. His, however, was the place with the crummy looking yard.
Why had he ever thought that much land was a good idea? With the kids grown and out of the house, cutting all that grass and trimming the hedges were back on his Honey-Do list. And Sharon stayed pissed off because the chore stayed on the list instead of getting done.
He pulled into his driveway. Maybe he should buy a cow or a goat. Let it eat the grass all summer, then they’d eat the meat all winter.
He could hear Sharon’s reaction to piles of cowshit all over the place.
He sighed. How was he supposed to plan to mow the lawn when he couldn’t even plan what time he’d get home from work?
His headlights caught the roll cart—placed right where it blocked the entrance to his side of the garage.
Damn.
Today had been trash day. The garbage truck wouldn’t be around again until next week. There sat the bin, full, because he forgot to roll the cart out to the street.
A flush of anger tightened his chest. Sharon had pushed the cart in front of the garage door so he couldn’t miss it. If she could move it there, why couldn’t she roll it to the curb?
He popped the car door, left the engine running and dragged the bin over beside his pickup. He’d have to haul the bags to the dump.
Sometime.
He returned to the car, groaning a bit as he eased inside. He was too old for fourteen-hour workdays. He’d have to let the kid take on more of the leg work. Except Jordan was so green, he didn’t know where to start without someone telling him every step to take.
Chapter 4
Robbins looked across Miz Rose’s breakfast table at the toddler.
Cute kid.
Tasha cut her eyes and smiled, a natural flirt.
Her daddy’s gonna need a shotgun when this one gets older, he thought—then remembered she didn’t have a daddy.
Daintily pinching the Cheerio between forefinger and thumb, Tasha offered him a cereal circle. Mouth open, he lowered his head. She dropped the Cheerio inside. He kissed her fingers in return, a loud smack that drew laughter.
“Don’t you be encouraging her,” Miz Rose said. “Tasha, you eat that cereal. And use yore spoon.”
The child jammed the spoon into the bowl, spilling more cereal onto the highchair tray, then lifted the mounded spoon toward her mouth.
“That’s right.” Miz Rose turned back to the sink and tackled the older kids’ breakfast dishes. Sunlight reflected off the glass beads in her hair. Overnight, she’d braided her hair into a bunch of cornrows, a sure sign she was worried.
Robbins sipped his coffee, watching both Tasha and her. Two months ago, when he and Child Services dropped the toddler off with Miz Rose, the kid had been a clingy, weepy mess. “Tasha seems happy.”
“She just need to be where folks ain’t angry.”
“Don’t we all?” Robbins considered the mood at home. The tension level there needed to drop below an “orange” threat level, but how was he supposed to change Sharon’s attitude?
“Most peoples forget to think about the other person,” Miz Rose said.
Robbins sat back. The woman had an eerie ability to say things that mirrored his thoughts.
Miz Rose had a point, though. How often did he consider Sharon’s feelings?
What would make her happy? Other than him taking out the trash and cutting the grass? He slurped more coffee. To be fair, how much of the tension in the house was his fault?
Miz Rose dried her hands and stepped across the kitchen. The place—the house and the furniture—was old and worn, but other than the area right around the highchair, it was clean. She wiped Tasha’s grubby face and hands, then plucked the toddler from the high chair and kissed her chubby cheek.
Tasha leaned into Miz Rose, molding against her body, stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked—the picture of contentment.
“I ‘spect you didn’t come over here for my coffee or to check on this chil’. You hear anything about George Beason?”
“We have a BOLO—Be On the Look Out—issued. The TV people ran a picture of him and the car last night. A lot of calls came in overnight. We’ll find him.”
“You want more coffee?”
“Please.” He gratefully accepted the refill. It had been a late night.
He waited until she returned the pot to the counter. “I know you told Ellis you didn’t see anyone over at Beason’s house the other night. The night he went missing. But what about earlier in the week? Anybody hanging around? Stranger in the neighborhood?”
Miz Rose moved to the playpen in the corner of the kitchen and deposited Tasha inside it. She handed the child a toy, then returned to the breakfast table. “I tol’ you about that house down to the corner? The people coming and going?”
He nodded. He’d passed the tip to the Drug Task Force.
“Every now and then, you get some banger drive up and down the street, showing out. Flashing guns or cash.” She cocked her head, thinking. “I did see one fella earlier this week. A hard man. I ain’t just talking muscle. There be something in his face made those young punks step back.”
Huh.
“You get a good look at him?
”
“Not too tall. Same size as me. Wearin’ blue-jeans and one of them sweatshirts with a hood.”
Robbins pulled out a notebook. “Age? Hair color? Race? Any of that?”
“He black. ‘ Bout thirty. He bald, but look like he be shaving his head like the toughs doing now.”
“Think you could work with our sketch guy? The Faces program?”
“Like they do on TV? I could try. You think he might be the one run off with George?”
There was no sense in alarming her—she had enough to worry about with the gangs taking over the next block. “We’d want to talk to him. See what he knows. Like we did with you and his neighbors. I called most of Beason’s family. They haven’t seen him, but I’m having a hard time finding a couple of them. The middle daughter. You have any idea where she might be?”
“She dead.”
Hard to return a phone call from the afterlife.
Miz Rose picked up a cloth and wiped the highchair tray. “Latoya be in school with me. Leastwise ‘til she drop out. She be into crack. I heard she do whatever she thought needed doing to get her next high.”
“Vicious cycle.”
“Uh-huh. Never was sure who the daddy was, but she had three babies. Poor little ones never had a chance to be nothing but wild childs.”
“Know where they are?”
She shook her head. The beads woven into the cornrows clicked a musical tune. “They come ‘round. George give them a place to stay and clean up. Food. Then they gone again. The oldest one, Akeem, he stay with George a while. Seem to steady the boy. He finish school and join the army just in time to go fight Mr. Bush’s war. ‘Bout broke George’s heart when that boy got kilt.”
“The Gulf War?”
“One of them wars. I can’t keep straight what they calling it. Seems like soon as one place be done, another war breaks out next door. Our boys and girls been over there for forever.”
“Over ten years since the Towers fell,” Robbins said. “I don’t know what we’ve got to show for all the dying.” At times, fighting those wars seemed a lot like what he did as a law enforcement officer. He could keep arresting speeders, druggies, and wife-beaters for the rest of his career and it wouldn’t change a thing. New speeders, druggies and wife-beaters would step up and take their places.
Just like the wars would breed new terrorists who’d rise up and replace the ones the army killed.
But life would be a lot worse if neither he nor the army tried.
“Lord, it be sad when a man buries a child, much less a grandchil’.” Miz Rose crossed the kitchen and pulled a broom from inside a closet. “George buried him over to the cemetery, next to his mama. Now his grand-mama buried there, too.”
Beason’s wife. Robbins toyed with his coffee mug. The daughter’s accusations curdled the milk in his coffee and his stomach. He couldn’t discuss the case, but could he call this an interview? “Beason’s wife died?”
“Last year. The cancer got her. She didn’t want to go to the old folks’ home. Said she wanted to die in her own bed.”
“Can’t say I blame her.” It would be awful to end up in a hospital bed somewhere, hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes. “Someone come by the house to help take care of her? A visiting nurse? Hospice?”
“The nurse come around, but George, he the one did most the work. I helped much as I could.” She shook her head, remembering, as she slowly swept the floor around the highchair. “Give him some time to hisself; chance to get out the house. Taking care of Delores be just like taking care of my babies. Poke food in one end and wipe it off the other.”
Robbins tried to imagine doing that for Sharon. Or worse, her taking care of him that way.
“I always says, you do what you gotta do. The Lord give us the strength we need. It weren’t the care-giving got to George. Delores’ pain what tore him up.”
“Pain?” He’d seen people shriveled up from chemo but hadn’t thought about pain.
“The cancer eat into everything—started in her female parts, but got into her bones.” She propped the broom against the table and sat down. “I ‘spect you talked to the daughter.”
Robbins looked up, caught off guard again.
“Gloria come by, once a month, Sunday after church and pretend she don’t see her mama’s thin as a shadow. Delores put on her wig and a smile for the girl. But I seen her afterwards. Cryin’. Beggin’ George to make the pain stop.”
Miz Rose stood and walked to the sink. “Girl shore shot her mouth off when Delores passed.”
Robbins stared at her straight back, at the hands that gripped the edge of the counter. Only the white knuckles gave away her tension. Was she telling him George killed his wife?
“He love that woman.” The words were a whisper. “They married over fifty years. I wasn’t sure he wanted to live on without her.”
Something unexpected squeezed Robbins’ chest, sent waves of pain surging out of the black well inside him. He didn’t want to put himself in Beason’s shoes. He didn’t want to hurt for Beason’s loss—or wish he had that kind of relationship.
Would he be able to do that for Sharon? Nurse her day and night?
Know she was in agony and nothing he did could stop it?
Did he love her enough to end that kind of pain? To risk alienating his children? Risk his badge? Jail?
“Don’t you be down on George Beason. Or you-self.” Miz Rose had turned away from the sink and was watching him.
It was facing reality, not being down on himself. He’d never thought about getting old. Dying by inches.
Never had to make the harsh choices Beason had faced.
He did know he would never put Sharon in a position to make that call. He’d eat his gun before he put her through that kind of hell.
But right now, the thing that scared him the most was, he’d spent twenty-five years with Sharon and he didn’t know the answer.
Shouldn’t he know?
Chapter 5
The Newberry County Sherriff’s Department had a large new building just outside the city limits. Built during the housing boom, when Newberry became an ex-urb of Columbia, the larger agency had a lot of technology upgrades, including a Faces program. City and county got along, or at least Robbins got along fine with the deputies. Whenever he’d asked, they’d never turned down a request to use the automated sketch artist program.
Robbins escorted Miz Rose into the station. Given the work she did with Child Services, she knew a good many of the deputies and staff, but since he was asking her to stick her neck out and identify a guy who might turn out to be a scumbag of the first order, he wanted to make sure they treated her right.
“Don’t worry if the sketch looks like a hundred other men,” he told her. “The guy isn’t a suspect.”
“Not yet.” Cornrow beads clicking softly, Miz Rose followed the tech to his computer station. “How we get started with this?”
Robbins watched for a moment, then returned to the front desk. “If one of your guys can’t run her home when they finish, give Jordan or me a call.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” the desk officer said. “It’s been a slow week.”
The Newberry city police station was on the other side of town, less than ten minutes away. Robbins passed the courthouse with its big white columns and rounded the square. The flowered bushes—azaleas mostly—were blooming and tourists were already wandering around the memorial gardens.
Between the Revolutionary War and the War Between the States, South Carolina was full of historic sites. Not what he wanted to spend time doing, but as long as the crime rate stayed down and the tourists—and their dollars—kept coming, the City Council would be happy. And happy City Councils kept the chief happy, which kept the chief off everyone’s ass.
Robbins left the small historic district, crossed the river and passed the municipal building. Unlike the sheriff’s department, the police station shared space with fire and rescue, as well as the municipal court. H
e automatically counted the ambulances, pumper and ladder units, the Haz-mat truck. All present. Slow week, slow day, Robbins agreed, as he turned into the parking lot.
All he had to do was find George Beason.
He picked up his messages and flipped through them, noticing the Beason-related calls had been batched into Best-Chance, Follow-up and Hopelessly-out-there groups. For a moment, he tapped his fingers against the desk, his mind still churning with Miz Rose’s comments about family tension.
He could do his part.
He pulled out the Yellow Pages, turned to lawn services, and hired a guy to cut the grass.
The yard taken care of, he made another personal call, then turned his attention to the message slips. He’d already returned the first three Best-Chance calls without learning anything worthwhile when Jerry Jordan hurried through the squad-room door.
“Anything new?” Jordan asked.
Robbins thought about giving him crap for coming in early, but it was the kid’s first interesting case. “Miz Rose saw a guy hanging around the house. With the kids there, she keeps an eye on the street. Her first impression is the guy’s an ex-con. Maybe something there, maybe nothing.”
“He might’ve been casing the place, but that neighborhood wouldn’t be the first place I’d head for B&E.”
Robbins agreed. “Either he’s in with the dealers or he was looking for somebody. Miz Rose said he was around in the afternoon. All her kids are home from school by then. Could be he was watching them. I asked for patrol to drive through the neighborhood for the next few days. Here.” He handed the batch of Follow-up message slips to Jordan. “Anything from the bank?”
“No activity at all on the account.” Jordan flipped through the message slips. “I set up a watch on it.”
Robbins wondered if no activity was good or bad. Was Beason dead or alive? His car high-jacked? Or was he off somewhere on a personal mission?
No way to know until they found the old guy.
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