Authors: Lynn Hightower
“Yolanda Clements, there is no choice but to obey the law concerning leaks in theâ”
Clements slammed the car door.
“You didn't lock it,” David said.
“Never do. Keep hoping somebody will take it. Almost happened once, but the damn car talked 'em out of it.”
“Might try leaving it here later tonight.”
She grinned at him, and he was relieved that her bad humor was only for the car. She glanced at a huge watch with a wide, white leather band. David could see the time over her shoulder. 12:46.
“You by yourself?” she asked.
“Just like you said. What's up?”
She slung the briefcase over one shoulder and headed down the street. “Follow me.”
“Where's your Elaki?” David asked.
“Left him back at the office, studying a chi-square analysis of investors in this property.” She jerked her head toward the supper club. “Expecting it's changed hands several times the last few years, but evidently it hasn't. We're looking at mortgages and all, see if some familiar names come up in the list of investors.”
“Got any?”
“Don't know. My guess is they will. Most of these arson fires are about money, though this one may prove to be the exception.”
She stopped walking, leaned against a brick house, checked her watch again.
“I wouldn't lean against that brick there,” David said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Side walls in an alley make good bathrooms.”
She jerked upright. “Oh.”
More suburban than she admitted, David decided. If she'd grown up like he had, she wouldn't need to be told.
“Anyway,” she said. “I didn't think it was fair to bring my Elaki when I asked you not to bring yours. And they'd just fight over that van String drives. You ask me, it wasn't even dented. Good Lord save me from obsessive Elaki.”
David frowned. “String is very proud of the van. And Detective Warden did dent it.”
“I checked, Silver, I didn't see any damage.”
“I checked too.”
She looked up at him. “At the rate you and I are getting along, we might as well have that Neanderthal here, plus both the Elaki.”
“I assume by Neanderthal you mean your buddy, Cobb? The one who scratches?”
“No, I mean your buddy, Burnett, the one who calls me Yo. And
he
scratches too. His
crotch
.”
“He was making a point, Clements.”
“That's an excuse?”
A silvery tingle of music was palpable in the thick humid air. A pink Sno-Cone jeep crept down the grids.
“Saved by the bell,” Clements said. “Look, we're hot and crabby. Let me buy you a Sno-Cone, and let's start over.”
She waved a hand. The jeep veered right, just as a stream of children emerged from the side window of a tan brick two-story. The tires made screeching noises and the jeep stopped, rear end jumping the grid.
The side door opened and an Elaki flowed out.
David looked from the Sno-Cone vendor to Clements. “An Elaki?”
“That's right. I warn you, the root beer's not worth getting.”
The Elaki held a fin high and swayed sideways, reminding David of a trained dolphin in a water show. His scales were small and close together, no bald patches. He was firm, almost rigid, and his eye stalks were small and close to his head. The happy-face pattern of breathing slits on his belly was elongated, gaping open in the heat.
“Good of the day, sirs, ma'ams.”
The voice was high-pitched, but male. David had the feeling the Elaki was very young. He wore a white cotton vest stained with pink and purple juice.
Clements looked over her shoulder. “Now where'd she get off to?”
“Who?” David asked.
“My informant. There she is.” Clements raised her voice. “Get on over here, girl, tell me what flavor you want.”
The tiny little girl who trudged toward them had her thumb in her mouth. She wore cheap plastic sandals and yellow shorts. Her T-shirt said
LAFARGE AND GROAT
and showed a fat cat and a dachshundâspin-offs from the old Ren and Stimpy cartoons.
The little girl popped the thumb out of her mouth. “Booberry.” Her voice was tiny, but shrill. It carried.
“You mean blueberry?”
The Elaki waved a fin. “No, iss booberry. The flavor that comes in the cartoon.”
“Oh,” Clements said.
“Oh,” David said. They exchanged looks.
The Elaki pushed a button on an oven-shaped lump of brown metal. “One booberry. And ma'ams and sirs?”
“Got grape?” David asked.
“Got grape, yessss. And the ma'ams?”
“Oranges Jubilee.”
The Elaki set a dial and pushed a button. “Wait for this beeping, like machine of answering phones. Can pay while the wait goes away.”
Clements looked at David. “He's a sociology scholar, on some kind of funded project.”
The Elaki slid close. “Joint questions for the sirs and ma'ams. Thissss is to be in the confidence of. No names will be taken. For the anonymousness.”
David braced for something personal.
“Please to tell. Any swimming fanatics in family history? Much swimming in early years?”
“That's two questions,” Clements said. “You're overcharging.”
“Swimming?” David echoed.
“There are three Sno-Cones, ma'ams, it is not to be overcharging.” He cocked an eye prong at David. “Do not be of the embarrassed, sirs. Is anonymous this. Please to tell, much swimming?”
David leaned close to the Elaki and lowered his voice. “We swam almost three times a week, during the summers. Sometimes for hours at a time.”
The scales on the Elaki's midsection quivered. “Fringe wetting or submerged?”
“Submerged. All afternoon. Just came up for air.”
Clements put a hand over her mouth. “I had
no
idea, Silver.”
“Keep it to yourself,” he said.
“And ma'ams? The swimming?”
“Certainly not. What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“Not evenâ”
“Hush that talk or I'll smack your fin. And no pestering the kid, her cone's on me.”
The machine beeped. The Elaki opened the hinged door and handed out Sno-Cones cupped in thin, edible rice paper. He twitched an eye prong at David, giving him a second look.
Clements bent down and handed a red and blue Sno-Cone to the little girl in yellow shorts. Her hair was a nimbus of tight brown curls. She held the Sno-Cone in both hands, took a test lick, then munched ice sprinkles off the top at a rate that made David's teeth ache just to watch.
“Am I getting old,” he said, “or are the informants getting younger?”
SEVENTEEN
The little girl grudgingly admitted her name was Penny, though she preferred to be called LaFarge after the cartoon cat on her shirt. David, familiar with the cat's habits of personal hygiene from his own daughters' gleeful recitations, was quietly appalled.
Clements sat beside Penny, both of them swinging their legs. Clements wore cutoff army fatigues, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a dark, conservative tie. Penny took a slurp of juice from the side of her Sno-Cone and peered at Clements over the mound of pink and blue ice.
“Most of the polices I know dress nice.”
“I ain't most polices,” Clements said.
The little girl pointed at David. Pink juice stained the pale white skin of her chin and reddened her lips. “He dress nice, like my daddy.”
“Do I remind you of your daddy?” David asked conversationally.
The little girl stopped mid-lick. “No.”
Clements laughed quietly, under her breath. She rustled the red plastic bag and took out a small pink pair of chippers.
Penny's eyes got big and she leaned close to David. “Those the shoes that talk.”
“What do they say? Tie me? Wash your feet?”
Penny giggled, dribbling pink juice down her shirt. “They tell stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Spaceships. Little pigs with cones on their heads. Parrots run away to the Big Apple.”
David smiled. The parrot story was one of Mattie's favorites. “You know where the Big Apple is, Penny?”
She swung her legs. “Yeah, do you?”
“Omaha?”
“
No
, New York.”
“You're pretty smart. Maybe we should get married.”
She cocked her head to one side, then glanced at his left hand. “You're already married. Can't be married two at the same, my mama says so.”
David looked at Clements. “How old?”
“Four,” Penny said.
Clements gobbled ice. “Tell Detective Silver what you told me.”
“Which thing?”
“Start with the balloon man.”
“He was fat and silly shape, puffy. And he walk funny.”
David was intrigued but knew better than to interrupt.
“And he have lots and lots of big purple balloons. I didn't want one.” She looked down at her sandals, and David knew her feelings had been hurt. “But Markus got one. He got a whole bunch. I waited to see if he might share or trade meâI got a dead turtle. But he didn't come back out.”
“Why didn't Markus come back out?” David glanced at Clements. She looked away.
“Burnt up.” Penny's lower lip drooped.
“Where did Markus live?”
Penny twisted sideways and her Sno-Cone dipped. With the immediate reflexes of an experienced father, David grabbed the Sno-Cone and turned it back up before it spilled.
“Hold it straight,” he said.
“I know.” Penny said. She pointed. “Markus live there.”
David looked over his shoulder to the house where he'd found the woman and child in the stairwell ⦠where the baby had died of carbon monoxide poisoning ⦠where a mother had piled her children on the bed and shielded them as they died ⦠where the family dog died outside the baby's room, body next to that of Theresa Jenks, mother of Arthur Jenks.
“That house,” David said.
“Markus had talking shoes too. Chippers. And lots of new clothes. And a new scooter
and
a key chain with a whistle. He got lots of new stuff.”
“You miss Markus a lot?”
Penny shook her head and a tear slid down her cheek, leaving a trail in the sweat on her heat-flushed face. “He let me ride the scooter and blow the whistle. He let me keep the chain for a while.”
David sat down beside Penny, looking at the thin legs, the scabs on her left knee. He pointed to a partially healed scrape.
“How'd you do that?”
“Fell off the scooter. And I stumped my big toe.” She pointed to a toe swaddled in a filth-encrusted Band-Aid.
“How come Markus got so much new stuff? He have a birthday?”
“Nope. For his birfday he got a trike with a horn. It was used to belong to his sister, but his mama clean it up and paint it. It had a dent, but it worked good. The scooter was bran' new. It smelled nice.”
“You know where he got all the presents?” David asked.
“From the lady. Markus said there was lots more where that came from.”
“You know who the lady was?”
“Nope. But she come to the house.”
“She did?”
“The day Markus burnt up. She come and then the balloon man come.”
“You said he walked funny?”
She tipped the rice paper forward, trailing her tongue in the juice, which ran down her chin and lined the soft folds of skin in her neck.
“Did he limp?” David asked.
She shrugged.
“Just walked funny?”
She dug into the pocket of her shorts, fists bunching them tight against her leg. She opened her palm, showing David a key chain and a whistle. David remembered the woman in the white dress, clutching the ring in her fist.
“I better give this back.” Her chin sunk low on her chest.
David closed her fingers around the whistle, pressing gently. “Markus won't mind if you keep it.”
EIGHTEEN
Penny who liked to be called Lafarge was blowing the whistle as they walked away. The new shoes were tied neatly on her feet, the old sandals tucked into the red plastic bag.
“You realize her testimony's tainted now, Clements. DA will never get around the Sno-Cone and tennies.”
“Like I'm going to put a four-year-old in court.”
The whistle shrilled again and David grinned.
“You think this lady Penny talked about was Theresa Jenks?” Clements asked.
“Extremely possible. Interesting that she's giving them money, bringing them gifts. Something very funny going on here, Clements. How'd you find Penny, anyway? Door-to-door?”
“Naw, Silver, my son was with me. He went out to play, and she liked his shoes.”
“New police tactic. Take your kids along.”
“Kids on the street know more than the hookers.”
“Balloon man the torch?”
“We got witnesses saw him deliver a balloon bouquet to the supper club right before the fire. Maybe half hour, forty-five minutes, three weeks. Nobody ever agrees on the time, you noticed that?”
“Excuse me, Clements, but where are we headed?”
She chewed the edge of the rice paper cup that held the remains of her Sno-Cone. “I got two problems. One, this case is going in too many directions, and taken together, they don't make a hell of a lot of sense.”
“And two?”
“I'm so hungry I'm going to eat this cup, and I don't care how nutritious they are, they taste like crap. You like Caribbean food?”
“I don't know.”
“Come on then, baby. Time you found out.”
The Jamaican Café was brown insideâbrown upholstery on the booths, brown tile floor, brown doors. The walls were painted in murals by an artist who favored broad strokes, parrots, vibrant shades of green, red, and blue that somehow made David wish for time off and a slower pace.
He noticed two doors in a hallwayâone for MONS and one for
WOMONS
. A ceiling fan swirled and his hair stirred. David looked up, mouth open.