Sandhill and Ryder walked the route Maya Ledbetter had taken. A fast-fading sun bronzed a final corner of sky as night air lay hot and thick, sticky to the touch. Though a few people were on the street, most hunkered in bars, safe behind the neon windows. Sandhill’s crown gathered looks but, because wary eyes picked up cop vibes, no remarks.
The pair walked past the two bar-lit blocks to a darker one occupied by a two-story redbrick warehouse, a
FOR SALE OR LEASE
sign faded almost white.
“Think she walked this side of the street, Detective Ryder?”
“The other side would have been out of her way.”
They crunched across broken glass, the night darkening with distance from the corner street-lamp. Cars hissed by like so many anonymous boxes. Ryder pointed ahead.
“The grandmother’s apartment is on the next corner. Which means the best place for her abductor to wait would have been right here.”
Sandhill stopped at the tight recess of a loading bay and slipped a small Maglite from his pocket. He walked back fifty feet to the dock itself, covered with rotting skids and scattered newspapers, his light reflecting from dead bottles of Thunderbird and Gallo port, here and there a bottle of gut-rip whiskey. The bay stunk of urine and feces and vomit.
“Wino lair,” Ryder said. “Place to sleep it off. The recess is deep enough to avoid overt notice by the cops, plus the loading dock’s wood, easier sleeping than concrete. Not a bad crash, altogether. If you can get used to the smell.”
A sound from the sidewalk. In an eye-blink Ryder had his back to the wall. He tiptoed over broken glass and garbage, then sprang, flinging an arm around the corner.
He reeled in a skinny, wild-haired white guy dressed in Salvation Army motley: camo pants belted with clothesline, a stained white dress shirt, mismatched running shoes, an outsized black raincoat nearly reaching the pavement. Ryder pulled the protesting man into the bay by his shirtfront, Sandhill aiming the flashlight into red-threaded eyes huge with fear.
“I know this guy,” Sandhill said. “Hey there, brother Franklin.”
“Who’s talking at me?” the man said.
Sandhill turned the flashlight on his face. The wino broke into a gap-toothed grin. Ryder released his shirt.
“Yo, Gumbo King. What you doing back here?”
“I’m checking into the disappearance of that little girl that lived a couple blocks from here, on Franklin.”
The man frowned. “I heard ‘bout that ugliness.”
“What else you hear?”
“I don’t tune in too hard to the news, you know what I mean.”
“What were you doing around the corner, Franklin?”
“Heard y’all back here rootin’ around. Just was listening.”
“We in your living room?”
“Here? Too damn stinkin’. I crib a couple blocks over. Got me a prime hidey-hole ahind a printing place. Got these big old bins of paper I can make my nest.”
“You know anyone cribs here?”
“Not regular.”
“Any cops ask you if you’d seen or heard anything about the girl’s disappearance?”
“Hunh-uh. I see cops, my feet turn around.”
“I figured. See you later, Franklin.”
Sandhill slapped palms with the wino. The man turned to go, hesitated. “Gumbo King? You got a buck for a man with sad luck?”
Sandhill flipped through his wallet, popped out
a five and some ones. The bills disappeared in a swoosh of outsized sleeve.
“You’re gonna get some food with that, aren’t you, Franklin?”
“Uh, yeah, sure…”
Sandhill sighed. “Come on with us, brother. Lemme buy you supper.”
When they reached Sandhill’s truck he filled a foam cup with crab gumbo and handed it to the wino. He two-handed the cup of gumbo to purple lips with shaking fingers, thick drops of sauce dribbling down his chin as his tongue licked into the cup, getting every drop.
Finished, he belched and dropped the cup on the sidewalk.
“FOR CHRISSAKES, FRANKLIN!” the Gumbo King roared.
Ryder froze. The wino’s eyes widened in terror. “What?
What
?”
Sandhill jabbed his finger at a trash receptacle twenty feet distant. “Don’t litter. Use a trash can.”
The man looked mortified, almost diving to retrieve the cup. When they drove away Ryder watched the man jam the cup deep into the waste-basket, pushing it deeper with his foot, making sure the cup wouldn’t escape.
“How you know that rummy, Sandhill?” Ryder asked.
“He’s a semi-regular at the soup kitchen we’re headed to now. You guys check street people like Franklin?”
“As much as we could. It’s hard to get a fix; they float around, aimless.”
Sandhill shook his head. “No, Ryder. They rarely wander aimlessly. When your life revolves around getting drunk and finding a safe place to sleep it off, you develop a finely honed regimen. You find what works and keep doing it.”
Ryder filed the information away, wondering what else he would learn from the strange ex-cop.
Ryder had passed by the mission a hundred times but had never been inside: two stories of whitewashed mason block with one big window downstairs,
CHARITY’S HAND MISSION
painted on the glass in gold. The paint was flaking and from a distance read
H IT AND MISS
. Sandhill retrieved the tubs of gumbo and the pair pushed through the door.
Ryder saw a dozen banquet-style tables surrounded by metal folding chairs. Over two dozen of the chairs were claimed by bodies, all looking like they’d gone through a wringer, some more times than others. The room smelled of coffee and sweat, sour breath and unwashed clothes. A large crucifix centered the front wall, Christ’s head turned away, as if He Himself had tired of the nightly parade of wretches. A serving table held limp sandwiches and spotted bananas. Several men broke into grins when they saw Sandhill.
“
Looky there, it’s his highness.
”
“
Hey Gumbo King, what’d you bring?
”
There were swinging wood doors to the side; a
kitchen, Ryder noted, aluminum pots and pans visible through round windows. The doors burst open for a man in his late twenties, carrying a bowl of slaw, which he set beside the sandwiches. He was slender, blond, and dressed like any younger guy on Casual Friday: brown loafers, blue jeans, tee shirt. Instead of touting a brand of sports-wear, the shirt said,
God Knows This Place Needs More Work
. The man looked up, saw Sandhill, brightened.
“I was wondering if I’d see you tonight, Conner.”
Sandhill set the tubs of gumbo on the table. “Not too much left over today, Tim. A quart of crab, a couple quarts chicken and sausage. This is Detective Carson Ryder. And this, Ryder, is Saint Timothy of the Downtrodden.”
Ryder smiled and extended his hand. “Never met a saint, Padre. Thought you’d glow.”
“Call me Tim,” the priest grinned. “And the glow, like everything else, is snarled in red tape somewhere.”
Sandhill nodded at the crowd. “Not a bad house tonight, Tim.”
“We’re running near capacity most nights lately. It’s the abductions. My folks don’t know the details, just that there’s something dark on the streets. Fear registers, and they’ve been more inclined to sleep in here than out there.”
“That’s what I’d like to ask your folks about, if I may.”
Father Tim lifted a puzzled eyebrow. “You’re with the police again, Conner? But I thought—”
“A purely temporary arrangement, Tim. Too depressing to talk about.”
Sandhill walked to the front of the room and clapped his hands. “Listen up, folks. I need three minutes of your time. There’s been two little black girls abducted in the past three weeks. These girls are seven and eight years old. One was taken over by Braxton. One was taken just blocks from here, down by Clary. She was found dead in a house fire, arson.”
A mumble of voices, anger and fear.
“I know no one here’s involved in anything like that. But someone might know something and don’t know that they know. I’m particularly interested in outsiders who might have been seen around the warehouse in the twelve-hundred block of Clary.”
Murmurings as the information was digested.
“Anything?” Sandhill asked. “Anyone?”
An Appalachian-accented voice twanged from one of the near tables.
“Just maybe I know something about that.”
Ryder leaned against the wall and studied the speaker. Mid-twenties. White. Average height with wide shoulders. Long dirty-blond hair with the accent on dirty. A cocky grin. A sleeveless red shirt displaying jailhouse tattoos on arms that retained definition. Ryder figured the guy for a biker who’d drank and drugged away the bike and most
everything else; on the downhill slide, but hadn’t lost the biceps or the attitude yet.
Sandhill said, “Talk to me.”
The man batted his eyes at the ceiling. “Say please.”
“Please talk to me.”
The man spoke slowly, enjoying being the center of attention.
“I been sleeping there. Ain’t much of nothing but a place to lay. Had another place over behind the parts store, but some muthafucks done run me off. Took four of ‘em, though. I started up sleeping at the truck dock. No big deal.”
“How about it…you see anyone different hanging around there a couple weeks back?”
“Might have.”
“I’m not talking ordinary. I’m talking about maybe a person didn’t fit in with the street crowd.”
The man milked the moment like he was thinking hard, whisking his chin with his fingers.
“Coulda been.”
Sandhill said, “How about telling me about it.”
“Say please.”
“Please tell me about it.”
The man cupped a hand behind his ear. “I didn’t hear you.”
Sandhill upped the volume. “Please tell me about it.”
The man leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head, and grinned.
“I dunno, partner. Anything in it for me?”
Sandhill crossed the floor in a half-heartbeat, seized the man by his hair and the back of his pants, half-dragging and half throwing him into the kitchen, the doors swinging shut behind them. A long angry howl was followed by a clamor of pots and final stentorian
bong.
Father Tim shot Ryder an anxious glance.
Ryder crossed his arms, not moving from the wall. “All I can tell you is it’s a good thing the guy wasn’t littering, Father.”
“His name is Lee Ray Harland,” Sandhill said as they drove away. “Hits the mission once a week for a shower and three-four times for chow. Like he said, he’s been cooping at the dock now and then.”
Sandhill flicked on the AC. Cool air hissed into the cab. He angled a vent over his face, sighed, and continued.
“A week or so ago—most of these guys have no concept of time—Harland went to the dock for a pint of gin he’d stuck behind the skids. He said it was getting dark, so that puts it around seven thirty. Two guys pulled up in a cream or white van. A guy got out and ran Harland off; said he owned the warehouse and it was private property I checked. The owner’s eighty-six, lives in Florida.”
“Harland have a description of the guy who ran him off?”
Sandhill shook his head. “The visitors arrived
after Harland put down most of the gin. He’s hazy on detail. He thinks the guy was young, maybe had blond hair under a light-colored Stetson-style hat, straw. He remembers the guy keeping the brim pulled low over his eyes. Wore shades, too.”
“Late in the day for sunglasses,” Ryder noted. “Unless you’re hiding behind them.”
“You got it. But mostly Harland recalls a Chihuahua.”
“The guy had a dog?” Ryder said.
“No. Harlan kept saying the guy reminded him of a Chihuahua: small and loud.”
“Great. We don’t need a police artist, we need a Kennel Club registry.” Ryder thought a moment. “How come a biker-boy like Harland didn’t just whup the yappy guy’s ass?”
“Because of the man in the van. Harland had a canine description for him, too.”
Ryder raised an eyebrow. “Which was?”
“Bulldog. Huge fucking bulldog.”
Truman leaned out the window of his van. “I’ve been looking for you, Jacy. I thought you might be in the park. I want to show you something. Can you come here? Over to the van?”
“Aunt Nike says never go up to people I don’t know.”
“You know me, Jacy.”
“Just from school. Not through and through.”
“I want to show you something. You won’t believe how cool it is.”
“What?”
“Your school pictures. Hurry and I’ll let you see.”
“The pictures don’t come to school like always?”
“All the ordinary pictures go to school. I was bringing you yours because it’s super special.”
“Special how?”
“It won a contest…”
Norma Philips turned from her office window.
“Quieter out there this afternoon, Tom.”
A dozen protesters walked on the pavement below, a few chanting half-heartedly, most talking among themselves. Tom Clay sat in the high-backed chair in front of Philips’s desk, a legal pad and PDA in his lap.
“Turnbull’s not there to fire them up. It’s the fifteenth of the month, payday for some folks. He’s out counting rent money.”
“Doing what?”
Clay produced a pocket aerosol of breath freshener and spritzed his tonsils. “Turnbull’s a slumlord, Norma. You think he buys silk suits and gold rings by passing the plate at an inner-city church?”
“A slumlord preacher?”
Clay flicked lint from his tie. “If he didn’t preach he’d just be one more mouth feasting on the poor. This way, he’s a businessman who got the calling. Plus being a community rabble-rouser keeps the code-enforcement team from coming down too hard on his ratbucket properties. If they do, he howls that he’s being persecuted for being a black organizer.”
“And people believe him?”
Clay grinned mischievously and pressed his hands together as if in prayer. “He’s a man of the cloth.”
“Y’know, Tom, sometimes I feel pretty naïve.”
“You’re a great community organizer, Norma, a red-hot wire. You’ve saved greenspace and wetlands,
fought for that new park, the clinic, but you’re still a babe in the woods, politically. However, I have no doubt you’ll be a quick learner…” Clay winked, “given another term.”
“And on that subject, what’s my event today?”
Clay consulted his PDA. “Supper at the Morningview A.M.E. church. Unfortunately, Runion’s attending a Chamber of Commerce dance. Guess who’ll pick up more campaign money?”
“It’s not about money, Tom.”
“It’s all about money, Norma. And image. If you’re seen as a person who can get things done, you’re halfway there. The other half is buying ads saying you can get things done. Runion’s got five times the war chest you have.”
She shrugged. “What can I do?”
“It’d help if the cops nailed the bastard taking the girls,” Clay said.
“How’s that boost me in the public eye?”
“As mayor, you get to talk up the great work of the police, administrative teamwork, government in action, all that feel-good bullpuckey. You get a halo just from standing beside the angels. Plus, the protests will stop. They remind people there’s something bad happening, which unfairly comes to rest on your shoulders.”
“I don’t have much control over—”
Clay smiled wryly. “Keep pushing Squill to solve this case now; stay in his face. Be a shrill and relentless harpy; it’s what you’ve always been best at.”
Philips tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Squill does what he wants, Tom. God knows what it is, though. He seems to be trying to find the person taking the girls, or at least the rank-and-file is. They’ve got a couple new leads, but…” She held her hands out, empty.
Clay said, “Can you at least tell the public what the leads are? It might give them some hope and settle things down a bit.”
“I won’t risk jeopardizing the investigation just to grab a few quick points in the polls.”
Clay grinned. “Just testing.”
She shook her head. “Say the killer is caught. I do the brothers-in-arms bit with the police. Am I the one who benefits most?”
“No. That’d be Squill. He’ll grab the big headlines. But you get to bask in reflected glory.”
“But what if the case isn’t solved? The protests get worse, even violent, and I lose the election. Who will Runion push as chief of police?”
“Squill. They’re two peas in a pod.”
“So no matter what happens, Squill comes out on top.”
“This is politics, Norma. Cream sinks, shit rises.”
Philips smiled sadly. “How many years you been watching the rise and fall, Tom? Fifteen or so?”
“I’ve been a city employee for…” Clay looked at the ceiling, counted silently. “Sixteen years, Norma. Parks department, police oversight board and so forth. Just another brick in the wall, until you.”
“You know how things work. I don’t. And somebody’s got to keep me honest.”
Her smile dropped away and she tapped an unpolished nail on her watch. “I suppose I should work on my speech for tonight.”
Clay left. Philips began jotting notes for her speech. She wasn’t looking forward to the event. The audience would be polite but insistent on information regarding the missing girls. What answers did she have for them? Squill was full of assurances that his department was doing everything possible, but what did that mean? Despite the personality of a slime-eel, the man projected confidence and ability, but in twenty years of community activism, she’d found that packages didn’t always reflect content.
And what happened to the ex-cop who was supposed to be such a firebrand? Squill said the guy didn’t find anything new. But suddenly comes word the department’s looking at athletic types. Where’d that come from?
She reached for her phone. Her assistant answered halfway through the first ring.
“What you need, Norma?”
“Quick question, Tom. You ever hear of an excop named Thornhill or something like that?”
Clay’s line clicked dead.
“What kind of contest did my picture win?” Jacy asked.
“A special contest for the best school picture in
the whole state of Alabama. The winner goes to Montgomery and gets on TV and in the papers. It’s like the Junior Miss Pageant.”
“Can you show me the picture?”
“We’re too far apart for you to see it.”
“You could bring it to the fence.”
“I sprained my ankle yesterday and can’t walk. I’ll mail it. Unless you can come over here.”
“The fence is in the way.”
“There’s a hole in the fence, Jacy. Like a door. Right over there. You can push through.”
Jacy walked to the cut in the fence. She pushed the fencing to and fro, testing the opening by pressing a foot against the mesh.
“The Junior Miss Pageant? For sure?”