Scorch City

by Toby Ball

  “What?” Morphy asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Morphy grunted but didn’t pursue the matter and they continued on.

  Another block and they found a group of three prostitutes, no different from countless other groups, except maybe a little younger, a little less weary. They could flash the dead-eye as quick as the others though when they saw the two cops approach, at least until they got a better look at Morphy and warmed a bit. They’d staked out a bar called Drake’s, but it was too early for people to be leaving in any numbers.

  “Evening, ladies,” Morphy said, grinning, charming. “We won’t take any of your time, but we’re trying to track down any girls who saw a doctor name of Vesterhue.”

  One of the girls, small, dark, a pixie face, and shabby cocktail dress, met Morphy’s gaze. “Sure. What’s it to you?”

  70.

  Outside the Holiness Church, the cars were mostly gone but the din of the crickets was, if anything, louder. Westermann had no idea of the time, but it must have been on into the early morning, the moon bright enough to lend a shimmer to the silhouettes of the trees and hills. He leaned against his car, heart rate back to normal, head throbbing. He should have been in bed in the dingy room he had let above a dim bar on Main Street. But he wouldn’t be able to sleep in this state of exhilaration. He needed to talk to somebody to settle himself down.

  Allison was next to him, leaning against the car as well, his tie undone and his shirt collar open to the cool night. His hair was lank with dried sweat, his body sagged, his eyes shone.

  “The Lord got ahold of you,” Allison said, marveling.

  “Did he?”

  “I suppose you’d be the proper judge of that. But from where I stood, I’d say something had you.”

  Westermann nodded. Something. Outside, in surroundings less alien, less confined, he wasn’t so sure what it had been. The Holy Ghost? The heat, the music, the intensity of belief in the people around him—all these things, he thought, had drawn him along, pulling him outside himself. Circumstances, not the Divine. Or was it the Divine that created the circumstance? He couldn’t analyze it. He had no frame of reference.

  “I take it you’re not normally a churchgoing man. Or at least not a church like this.”

  Westermann shook his head.

  “Well, there’s never a bad time to come to the Lord, Brother West. I truly believe that your presence tonight was a gift from the Lord to you. He has a plan for you. He brought you here, praise God.”

  “I came here because of Prosper Maddox.”

  This took Allison by surprise. “Prosper Maddox? You’re seven years too late, brother.”

  “No. I know he’s not here now. I just … there’s been a problem and I think he can help us, but he doesn’t seem to want to.”

  Allison pondered this. “You police?”

  Westermann nodded.

  Allison frowned. “Brother West, I don’t bear you any ill will, but you have attended our church under false pretenses, and I think that you will have to excuse me if I take my leave now.”

  Westermann held up his hand in apology, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant it to go this way. I was just going to come in, have a word. But, as you said, I got caught up in it.”

  Allison frowned and nodded, conceding this point.

  “Could you just tell me who I might talk to about Prosper Maddox, about why he left town? Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Westermann waited while Allison, also drained, thought this over. Westermann wondered how often his congregation met. McIlvaine had made it sound as if it was nearly every night. Westermann couldn’t imagine maintaining this state of heightened emotion night after night.

  “You might could talk to Boyce Symmes. He wasn’t here tonight, but he’s another old-timer might could tell you about Prosper.”

  “I appreciate that, sir,” Westermann said, and held out his hand to Allison. Allison looked at it, then took it.

  71.

  Grip spent two uneasy hours sleeping on a cot in Westermann’s small office just off the squad room. Morphy had gone home to his wife, but they’d both agreed that someone should be on premises in case something came up. Grip wasn’t unhappy that he would be away from his apartment, with the skull still painted on the door and the memory of the presence in his room the other night.

  The prostitute they’d found that evening—the one who knew Vesterhue—had agreed to go back to the station with them after they promised her a decent meal and a payoff to her pimp. She claimed her name was Angel, and she was sleeping on a cot in a locked interview room. Grip needed a clearer head before they talked.

  She’d given up the names of four girls she thought had also seen Vesterhue; even the addresses for two of them. Exhausted and coming down off his whiskey binge, Grip had given the information to two uniforms and sent them out into the night.

  While the men were gone, Grip fell into a deep, troubled sleep, sweating as if he had a fever. He was awakened twice in the two hours, pale cop faces looking down at him, telling him they’d brought in another girl, set her up in a cot in a spare interview room. Two girls and Angel. It had the feel of something big. A break in the case. But Grip’s mind was carried by strange, unfocused currents, and he fell asleep again to be greeted with still more disturbing dreams.

  72.

  Grip woke after two hours of troubled sleep to a young cop named O’Lear leaning over him, shaking his shoulder. Grip wandered to the bathroom and rinsed his face, the water smelling of sulfur. Leopold leaned against the wall outside Interview Room Three, holding two paper cups of coffee for Grip. They’d decided to start with one of the women who Angel had pointed them toward. The uniforms that had picked her up were concerned about her health, had told Grip that she was in bad shape.

  “She’s been up fifteen minutes, used the restroom. Should be ready to go.”

  Grip thanked him and used his back to open the door, which swung back shut once he was inside. They’d rousted the woman from her apartment, where she’d been sleeping and feverish. Her name was Joan Draper and she sat with her elbows on the table, her hands in her snarled, brownish hair. She wore a heavy shirt and slacks, even in this heat, and Grip could see that beneath the cloth there was little to her. Her wrists, where they protruded from her sleeves, were barely more than skin over bone. Her face was slack and the capillaries in her right eye had burst, framing her blue iris in red.

  Grip sat down opposite her and set one of the coffee cups on her side of the table.

  “Miss Draper?”

  She stared at him; not defiant, just exhausted. “You got any aspirin?”

  Grip returned with two aspirin and a cup of water and started again.

  “You know why you’re here?”

  “Something about Dr. Vesterhue?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He in trouble?”

  “I don’t know. Have you seen him recently?”

  She thought about this. “A couple of weeks? I’m not too good on dates.”

  “That’s okay. Why did you see Dr. Vesterhue? Were you sick?”

  She nodded. “I’m sick. But that’s not why I saw him, or not the only reason. Dr. Vesterhue came around to some of the girls every so often, took a look at us, gave us medicine if we needed it.”

  “What? The clap? Something like that?”

  She stared at Grip for a couple of beats, letting him know she didn’t like that. “It’s not just social diseases with us.”

  Grip regretted the remark and held up his hands. “I apologize. No insult intended. I’m just trying to understand what he was doing.”

  “He was a doctor.”

  “Okay. I get it. So, he makes house calls.”

  She nodded. “He didn’t want us in his clinic. At least when we were really sick.”

  “Because?”

  “He ran a Christian practice, or something. I don’t remember exactly what he called it. He had a
lot of religious people come to his clinic.”

  “What religious people? Do you know?”

  “Sure. He gave me stuff—gave us all stuff—from his church, all the time. The Church of Last Days. It’s a joke with some of the girls.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah, that this church is paying him to look after us.”

  “Wait. The church is …”

  “Dr. Vesterhue would give us little books to read and say they’re paying him to see us, like maybe that’d get us to read them.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  She laughed and it turned into a coughing fit. “I don’t read.”

  “Why do you think the Church of Last Days is paying a doctor to look after you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Christian charity,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” he said, thinking about getting Prosper Maddox into this room; asking him some questions.

  Grip rubbed his eyes. Joan’s head sagged between her lean shoulders.

  “You said you’re sick right now, Miss Draper?”

  She nodded; her eyes focused on the table between them.

  “If it’s okay to ask, do you know what you have?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did Dr. Vesterhue know you were sick?”

  “Yes. He said it was like a cold. Nothing to be done about it.”

  “Do you know how you got it?”

  “No. A couple of the other girls have it—had it.”

  “Lenore?”

  She looked up. “Who?”

  “Mavis Talley?”

  “Yeah, she’s one. Who’s Lenore?”

  Grip ignored the question. “Miss Draper, I’m going to want to get the names of the other girls you know who you think might be sick. But let me ask you first, did all these girls see Dr. Vesterhue?”

  She thought about it. “I guess so.”

  “Are there other girls who saw Dr. Vesterhue but aren’t sick?”

  She didn’t need to think about this one. “Sure.”

  Grip played it cool, but his mind raced. “Miss Draper, I really think we need to get you to a hospital.”

  This suggestion alarmed her.

  “What is it?”

  “The boss. He won’t like it.”

  “You let me take care of that. I need to get you to a hospital. I’m going to send an officer in here to take the names of the other sick girls. Then I’m going to get someone to drive you to a hospital and make sure you get looked at. We’ll keep someone at your door, just in case.”

  He thought he saw fear and bewilderment in her expression; but mostly he thought he saw relief.

  Kraatjes was waiting outside the interview room, frowning. Startled, Grip checked the wall clock over Kraatjes’s shoulder. Four a.m.

  “Sir?” Grip wondered what the hell would get the deputy chief in here at this early hour.

  “Westermann hasn’t returned, has he?”

  Grip shook his head.

  “Still in Fort Deposit?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “I need you to get in touch with him. Tell him to get back here as soon as he can. No delays.”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Detective, if I wanted you to know, I would have told you already.”

  73.

  A light rain fell in the City the next morning, almost like steam in the humid air. Frings carried an umbrella, but his clothes were still somehow getting wet. It was early, not yet nine, and the streets were quiet, even for this part of town. Frings took his time despite the rain, his head still a little foggy from sleep, the heat slowing him down.

  He’d left Renate sleeping, her hair spread across the pillow, reminding him of Lenore in the river, her hair floating around her pale face. He’d been about to kiss Renate on the forehead, an almost rote gesture, but he hadn’t. Because of the association with Lenore? Or something else? He tried to make sense of this as he walked through the misting rain.

  The weather seemed to have scared off the crowd from Father Womé’s stoop, but two huge bodyguards nevertheless loomed underneath the awning on either side of the front door, scowling and making quiet conversation, eyeing Frings’s approach.

  As Frings turned to ascend the steps, the guards bounded down, guns drawn, Frings’s head in their sights. Frings dropped his umbrella and put his hands up.

  “What’s your business here?”

  Frings looked from one man to the other, getting nothing back. “I want to speak with Father Womé.”

  The man who seemed to be in charge frowned and shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

  “Come on, fellas. I’m with the Gazette, my name’s Frank Frings. I’ve spoken with him before.”

  The guard shrugged as if it couldn’t have made less difference. Without his umbrella, Frings was becoming soaked through; Womé’s men, too.

  “Look, can you put the guns away? I’m not armed.”

  The guard in charge nodded to the other, who holstered his gun and gave Frings a quick, professional pat-down. Finished, he nodded to the guard in charge, and he, in turn, holstered his piece. Frings put his hands down, feeling the tension ease a notch.

  “How about this? Can one of you go in and ask Father Womé if I can have a few minutes of his time? I’m with the biggest newspaper in the City. We’ve talked before. If he doesn’t want to talk, I’ll leave.” He looked from one to the other.

  The guard in charge said, “This about last night?”

  “Last night?”

  The guard in charge shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, well, last time I was here, he told me about the assaults down by the shanties; asked me to look into them. I did. I want to tell him what I found out. Can you give him that message? Let him make the decision?”

  The guard in charge nodded and the other man climbed the stairs and disappeared into the house.

  Frings wasn’t led upstairs this time. Instead, he followed a guard down a narrow hall draped with what appeared, in the dim light, to be cloth hangings, probably African. Frings was presented to Father Womé in a small room off an enormous kitchen. Womé sat at a modest white table, eating a breakfast of fruit and cheese. A cup of steaming coffee was placed by an empty chair. Womé looked up at Frings and nodded to the chair, his face showing none of the warmth of their previous meeting. His lids threatened to close altogether, his lips were pressed into a tight, concise line.

  “Mr. Frings.”

  “Father Womé.”

  “How can I help you?” Womé’s voice seemed to come from far away. Something about him was off.

  “Last time I came here you asked me to look into the assaults by the shanties.”

  Womé didn’t answer, focusing on peeling an orange with a small knife.

  “Well, I did; and you were right. The police sat on the investigation. And there’s a reason why they did.”

  Womé pulled his eyes from the orange to fix Frings with a tired stare.

  Frings said, “The officer in charge of the investigation; he was one of the men committing the assaults.”

  Womé nodded.

  Frings said, “You probably already know that, what with your people beating the hell out of him and his friends the other night.”

  “My people?” Womé slid a slice of orange into his mouth and began to chew.

  “Uhuru Community people.”

  “Yes. That’s true.”

  “I’m not sure I understand why you don’t consider them your people.”

  Frings waited for Womé to finish with his bite of orange.

  Womé wiped his mouth with a napkin. “The Community people are indeed my people. But you—all of you—mistakenly see the Community people as unified, everyone the same. These people who took revenge on the group of violent fanatics, they are not the same as the women who work with your friend Carla Bierhoff, who are not the same people as the leaders in the Square. These are all my
people, but … Am I clear?”

  Frings nodded. “So, who took care of those ‘fanatics’?”

  “Young men. Followers of Samedi.”

  “Samedi?”

  Womé waved away the question. “You have never been to the Square. In two days’ time you must come to the shanties with your friend Carla Bierhoff. You must witness the Square. You can’t understand the Uhuru Community without seeing the Square.”

  “What’s the Square?”

  Womé shook his head. “Two days’ time.”

  This was as far as Frings was going to get on this topic.

  “Things will most likely get worse, you realize. We’re sitting on the story about the second body they found, but not for much longer. It’s going to come out. And that cop? He’s going to be a martyr.”

  Womé was ripping apart a roll now, releasing the smell of fresh bread into the room. Frings remembered his coffee and took a sip—dark, bitter.

  Womé said, “Again, the perils of living in white man’s society. This is why the Community is so important. When we are strong, our strength is twisted against us. Do I know that things will get worse? Of course. A group of men endeavored to set fire to the shanties last night. But they met resistance.”

  “From Samedi’s people?”

  Womé shrugged. “Them. Others. We aren’t victims, Mr. Frings. We are merely disadvantaged in our struggle.”

  “How about Mel Washington?”

  “Mel Washington is one of my people and I love him as I love the rest.”

  Frings wondered what Mel would think about being characterized as one of Womé’s people. “You understand that his presence in the Commmunity just encourages the anticommunists and rightists to come after you.”

  Womé laughed a short, sour laugh. “Anticommunists and rightists? These are but a small number of the people who hate the Uhuru Community and what it stands for. Do you think that if Mel Washington and Betty Askins and Warren Eddings were sent away from the Community, that these people you mentioned would suddenly support us; want to help us; even tolerate us? Mel Washington is a very important member of the Uhuru Community even though, like me, he does not live in the shanties. Would I turn my back on him to curry favor with my enemies?” Womé ripped another roll in two. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking we will allow ourselves to be victims. We aspire to peace through isolation. But if our community is put in jeopardy, we will do what is necessary. I think people will be surprised by our capacity in this regard.”