The Clouds Roll Away

by Sibella Giorello

  “Sheriff, where—”

  “Right before Thanksgiving I caught the sons of guns. Bunch of bored teenagers who read about Nazis and went to the cemetery on a dare. Dumb kids but the media made them famous so they kept going. And you know what? Not one of those graves was Jewish. They were German, like Karl Stein. If you pay too much attention to this nonsense, it just gets worse.”

  “Sheriff, this particular cross burning goes beyond a teenage prank.”

  “That’s your theory.”

  “No, sir. It’s based on evidence. Forensics.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Best thing to do is ignore it. Let it die. Somebody got it out of their system. Now it’s done.”

  “Sir, do you expect the people in that house to ignore this? The fire could’ve burned the place down.”

  His blue eyes flickered. “You’re right. What do I know? I’m just a backwoods sheriff.”

  “Sir, I didn’t mean—”

  He stood.

  “Enjoy the biscuits, Agent Harmon.” He picked up his hat. “They’re on the house.”

  Tipping the hat, he walked out the door.

  I drove along the county’s winding rural roads, catching glimpses of the James River through the bare trees. The water flashed like channeled mercury and when I reached Rapland, a van with a satellite on its roof was parked in the driveway. Cujo stood in the guardhouse, waving his permission, and Sid met me at the front door.

  The foyer looked like an airport baggage claim. Suitcases were piled against the walls and more were coming down the stairs, carried by two young guys in dark nylon sweat suits. To my right, the pocket doors were slid back and music thudded from the speakers in the old parlor, rhyming rain and pain and complain. White boxes stood in rows, each labeled. Vaccines. Shoes. Toys. Bandages. Syringes.

  I was about to ask Sid a question when two little boys bolted across the hallway, screaming with joy, followed by a woman whose dark figure seemed shaped by Modigliani. She wore a batik wrap skirt and a University of Virginia sweatshirt. She called out to the boys in a foreign language, her tone more tired than angry.

  I looked at Sid.

  “RPM’s wife,” he said. “Wonkehmi.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “I’d introduce you, but she don’t speak English,” he said. “Her name means ‘only she who takes action can know the outcome.’ And the woman takes action; they got four more kids around here somewhere.”

  “It’s usually like this?”

  “Loud and crazy?” He grinned, his gold tooth glinting. “Man likes a full house. And he’s gonna be real happy if you came to tell him who burned that cross.”

  I gave my official smile. “Where can I find him?”

  Sid pointed toward the stairs and I started the climb while a little boy scooted down the stairs on his bottom, followed by an older boy who appeared to watch over him. Neither acknowledged me, just one more person in the house.

  At the top of the stairs, I turned right and walked past the fortune-making records to the door at the end of the hall where a bright light was shining within. I stood outside, listening.

  “Are you considering moving, now that you’ve been the target of a hate crime?” A deep voice, perfectly modulated.

  “I refuse to let something like that intimidate me,” RPM replied. “My ancestors faced worse.”

  The reporter asked several questions about RPM’s work in Africa. The questions floated as slow-moving softballs that RPM knocked over the fence.

  Waiting for the interview to finish, I stared at the old photos hanging on the wall, the black-and-white pictures frosted silver like daguerreotypes. The people wore high-collared suits and layered dresses, and behind them palm trees grew in powdery soil. There were no white people in the photos.

  As the reporter concluded the interview with a profuse thank you, I stepped into the doorway. The cameraman folded a reflecting panel set beside RPM, who stood by the fireplace, wearing a gray seersucker suit.

  “Miss Harmon,” he said as I came into the room. “I could use some good news. Have you come to tell me who’s responsible?”

  The reporter swung, hunger in his eyes. “You with the police?”

  “Miss Harmon is an FBI agent,” RPM said. “She’s looking into the hate crime.”

  The reporter shifted his coyote eyes to the cameraman already picking up his camcorder again, flicking on the light.

  “Don’t bother,” I told them. “My comment is no comment.”

  The reporter shoved the microphone at my face. “How long do you think the KKK was planning this attack? Do you have any leads on this cross burning? How serious is the white supremacist problem in this area?”

  I wanted to say something, but the only bad film was silent film. I looked over at RPM. He raised his eyebrows, expecting me to answer. In his world, publicity was a good thing.

  “What will you do if there are more attacks?” the reporter asked.

  When I didn’t respond, RPM stepped forward. He touched the reporter’s arm gently, almost deferentially.

  “I understand your need to pursue the truth,” he said. “But it appears Miss Harmon would prefer to speak to me in private. Could you give us that courtesy?”

  The coyote turned into a sheep.

  “Oh, of course, I didn’t mean to get in the way.” The reporter continued apologizing, performing a celebrity genuflection, and RPM promised to call as soon as “we” knew anything. I waited for them to pack up and watched them walk down the hall with their equipment. Down the stairs, out the door. I watched until they crossed the driveway.

  “You’ll have to excuse them,” RPM said as I came back into the room. “They’re from Entertainment Tonight. My publicist tells me the phone has not stopped ringing since news of the burning got out. And here I moved to Virginia for privacy. So much for that endeavor.”

  I closed the door. “We need to establish some boundaries. If you or your publicist talks to the media, I can’t keep you entirely up to date.”

  “Oh, certainly, I understand,” he said. “All right. You have my word. No more interviews. Not about this. And to be quite honest, I was speaking with them only to highlight my upcoming trip to Africa. I was hoping to raise awareness.” He paused. “Do you find that crass?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. Now, you have my word, I will not repeat anything without your permission. Tell me who did it.”

  “I wish it worked that quickly. Our lab managed to pinpoint the chemicals used to light the cross.”

  “Pardon me for asking, Miss Harmon, but how does that help anything?”

  “They’re obscure chemical compounds.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do not repeat this,” I said.

  “I gave you my word.”

  “One is mustard gas.”

  He frowned. “World War I veterans are after me?”

  “We don’t know who’s behind this. Yet. But these rare compounds are like fingerprints.”

  “Fingerprints. Provided you discover the hand behind the crime.”

  “Correct.”

  “And how much longer will that be?”

  “We’re moving as quickly as possible.”

  “Just how much patience do you expect I’ll need, Miss Harmon? And is my family safe while I’m waiting?”

  I let the jabbing questions go, and he drew a deep breath, holding it a moment before releasing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very sorry. I don’t like leaving my house under these circumstances.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Liberia. We’re taking over aid supplies to my wife’s village. The need is appalling.”

  “Can I reach you if something comes up?”

  “You can leave messages with Cujo; he’s staying to guard the house. I don’t take business calls on these trips. It distracts me from the good work we’re doing over there.”

  Sud
denly, I understood the daguerreotypes. When I asked, he smiled.

  “Yes, how observant of you. My ancestors recolonized Liberia. Freed slaves. I grew up hearing the stories and decided to continue the mission, if you will. Then I met my beautiful wife—our children are half Liberian—and things have come full circle.” He paused. “Which reminds me. May I ask you a question? It’s about Wall-Ace.”

  “I’m sorry—who?”

  “The photographer? I believe he lives with you.”

  “Wall—you mean Wally Marsh?”

  “That’s his given name, I’m certain, but in the rap world he’s known as Wall-Ace.” His smile turned apologetic. “As I told you, the linguistics don’t make much sense. He asked to come on this trip with us, to take pictures. Sid did a background check on him—that’s what Sid does—and his landlord came up as Raleigh Harmon. It seemed inconceivable that Richmond could have two Raleigh Harmons.”

  “I prefer to keep my personal life private.”

  “Oh, certainly, certainly. I struggle with that myself. I simply found it a curious coincidence.”

  “Wally Marsh rents a room from me, yes.”

  “Is there some reason we shouldn’t take him?”

  “He’s an excellent photographer.”

  “Good. We’re excited for him to document the trip. And he’ll be compensated generously,” he said. “You’re sure this isn’t a problem?”

  “Yes.”

  “You seem surprised.”

  “When will you come back?” I asked.

  “It’s difficult to pinpoint a day, Africa operates on its own time. But perhaps when we return, you’ll know who burned a cross on my property.”

  “That’s my sincere hope,” I said.

  chapter eleven

  There was more ballast for dinner—stuffed mushrooms, soggy as dish towels—but I ate second helpings of everything, hoping to make my mother happy, hoping to get used to the incessant cheerfulness that seemed as authentic as a plastic garland.

  Immediately after dinner, despite the dark and cold, I pulled on my running gear and sped down Monument Avenue to my sister Helen’s office.

  Even as a kid, I could have predicted Helen’s future career. My family couldn’t drive down Monument Avenue without her commenting on the Civil War statues that made the street so famous, and tonight, as I jogged down J.E.B. Stuart, I could still hear my sister’s critique. The war’s most famous cavalryman sat on a rearing horse, the animal’s right foot raised. The general was turning in his saddle, also to the right, which incensed my sister.

  “He should be turning left,” she said when she was ten years old. “His body should counterbalance the horse’s movement.”

  My own thoughts were more prosaic, even back then. I was bothered by the traffic pattern around the statue. The one-way street headed east so drivers could only see J.E.B. Stuart’s face in the rearview mirror. Helen said that was symbolism for you.

  And now she nested in academe, a professor of painting at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her books on Vincent van Gogh produced effusive reviews in the Sunday New York Times. She was lithe and agile and beautiful, and she irked me to the point that I empathized with van Gogh’s urge to sever his own ear.

  As I walked into her office off Broad Street, she said, “It’s Mom, isn’t it?”

  I was still panting from the cold night run, pulling off my knit cap and gloves, my fingertips stinging.

  “Well?” she said.

  A nice office. High ceiling. Picture window overlooking Broad Street. Nothing like my hovel next to an echoing stairwell.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “She decorated the house like it was five years ago. She’s trying to cook with white sugar and white flour, which she normally considers poison, and the Christmas carols are playing twenty-four-seven.”

  “Raleigh, I’m in the middle of finals. Can’t you come by the house next week?”

  No way.

  Helen lived in bohemian splendor on Oregon Hill with an abstract painter named Sebastian Woodlief. Spawned by prestigious British boarding schools, Sebastian considered himself a passionate supporter of the workingman, despite never having a job himself. My dad prayed Helen wouldn’t marry somebody like this. Unfortunately his prayer was answered. They weren’t married; they lived together.

  “Why don’t you come by Mom’s house?” I said. “She hasn’t seen you since Thanksgiving and she keeps asking about you.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Helen plunked down behind her drafting board. “She’s decorating, celebrating Christmas, and this is a problem because . . . ?”

  “She wanted to go to St. John’s on Sunday and wore some outfit from Montaldo’s. She sat frozen stiff through the entire service, then said it was perfect. Does that sound like her?”

  “Be glad she’s not with those nutty Pentecostals.”

  After my father died, my mother gravitated toward charismatic services.

  “It’s not about the church, Helen. It’s about why she’s going. She’s forcing herself to perform duties she doesn’t even enjoy or believe in. Maybe it’s guilt or fear or some paranoid obligation, but it’s like living with a robot.”

  “Leave her alone. Vincent said all religions are equal. Buddhist, Christian, Muslim. They’re all the same, so it doesn’t matter where she goes.”

  Queen of the button-pushers, my sister maintained an annoying habit of referring to Vincent van Gogh by his first name, as if they were intimate friends. But nothing sent me over the edge faster than when she moralized about my faith using the words of a guy who sliced off his own ear after an argument with his mistress.

  “Helen, what if I said all paintings were the same?”

  “What?”

  “It’s all paint,” I said. “So we shouldn’t judge Sunflowers as any better than somebody’s amateur watercolor.”

  She crossed her arms. Her enormous gray sweater hung on her tiny frame like a dress. “You are,” she said, lifting her fine chin, “the most annoying person on the planet.”

  “I love you too.”

  She rolled her eyes. Beautiful eyes. Almost turquoise. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Come see for yourself. She’s acting like a wind-up doll. Something’s about to snap.”

  “As soon as finals are over.”

  I sighed. That meant next week.

  “Are we done?” she asked.

  “Almost,” I said. “Is Milky around?”

  She shook her head. “Not this again.”

  A 265-pound former crack addict, Milky Lewis had a face that looked like it sped through puberty so fast it missed the exit. Soft and rounded, with bones that didn’t seem quite set, his brown face grew a wispy black beard sparse as tumbleweed. His childlike appearance disguised a bitter childhood, a childhood spent guarding the front door while his mother prostituted herself for drugs. Later Milky sold crack to support six younger siblings.

  Leaving Helen’s office, I ran down to the Lucky Strike building, a former tobacco warehouse on Canal Street. Shuttered by Philip Morris decades ago, the gouged pine floors still reeked of the sweet and bitter scent of curing tobacco leaf. I found Milky in one of the studios, swirling an acetylene blowtorch over frayed steel cables. An artists group had converted the warehouse into studios and a gallery.

  “R-r-raleigh?” He pushed up the protective visor.

  Milky’s stutter was terrible, but it had saved his life. Without it, he’d be in jail.

  “How are you doing, Milky?”

  “I-I-I thought you moved to Oregon.”

  “Washington.”

  He shrugged, signaling the truth. Most of the East Coast, particularly the South, saw Pacific Northwest states as one big indistinguishable region.

  Twisting off the blowtorch, Milky asked what I thought of his sculpture. It was a mess of soldered steel and I offered him the same response that I gave my mom for her food.

  “Wow.”

  “Ye-yeah
,” he said.

  “Helen says you’re working down here in the art gallery.”

  He nodded, telling me about the art show, and I listened carefully. But he would always be streetwise and finally he stared down at his beefy hands.

  “Wh-why are you here?”

  We would never be friends. I never pretended otherwise. The FBI had picked up Milky as part of a joint drug task force operation. I was a relatively new agent, assigned to the interrogation room. Milky’s stutter improved when I talked to him. To keep himself calm, and get around difficult words, he drew pictures. When the task force ended, successfully, Milky served four months on a plea. His buddies did years. I showed his drawings to Helen, who pulled him a full scholarship to VCU. Probationary.

  “Are you related to a girl named Zennie Lewis?”

  I watched another layer of betrayal settle into his dark eyes.

  “Wh-why?”

  “I can’t tell you, Milky. Is she family?”

  “C-cousin.”

  “Close cousin or four marriages and two half-brothers removed?”

  “T-tell me wh-what she’s done.”

  Close cousin, I decided. “I need to talk to her. That should tell you enough.”

  He wanted to know what we were offering her.

  “We talk first; any deals are later. If there are deals.”

  The soft brown flesh buckled across his forehead. “You hear about any other L-Lewises?”

  “Just Zennie.”

  But the pained expression on his face said he didn’t quite believe me.

  The cold bristled in my lungs as I jogged from the tobacco warehouse, heading up East Main. Although I didn’t like running at night, at times like this, happiness really was a warm gun, and when my cell phone rang, I didn’t stop but unclipped the phone from my waistband, glancing at the LCD display.

  The sheriff from Charles City County.

  “Miss Harmon?” he said in his slow drawl.

  “Yes?”

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “About what?” I was passing the Jefferson Hotel, so lit up the white stone glowed.

  “In case it’s true, y’all might want to get out to Rapland right quick,” he said. “Somebody just called in a bomb threat.”