Out of the Blues (14 page)

“I'll ask the guys and I'll get you a list of anybody I can remember who played with Mike then. You gonna hang around till we finish tonight?”

Salt set her glass down. “How about I just see you guys one more time, down on the south side.”

“I'd hoped to get to talk to you again.” Dan looked at her plainly. “And worried I would.” He covered his upper lip with his lower.

“You're a good man, Mr. Pyne.”

“And you, Detective Alt, are an interesting woman.” Dan reached and touched his index finger to the knuckles of her hand on the porch rail.

O
ver the double doors to the church gym was a sign in script bordered by flowers and vines: “Your Body, Your Temple.” Little black girls in pink T-shirts and boys in blue leapt from the last step of the church bus onto the parking lot and filed drop-shouldered and slow through the doors. Other kids got out of cars, quite a few of which were older models, some beaters. The kids arriving in the cars were handed T-shirts at the door by an older boy who dipped into a cardboard box for the shirts. Some of the children hadn't had a comb or brush through their hair, or they looked dusty, wearing less-than-clean pants or jeans.

According to the church's website and other sources on the Internet, Midas Prince had come to Big Calling Church more than fifteen years ago when the nondenominational congregation was only three hundred souls. The church had grown into a megachurch of more than ten thousand. Prince had come from nowhere, literally. His hometown was listed as Nowhere, a tiny crossroads in rural South
Carolina. He had degrees from nonaccredited colleges and an honorary doctorate in preaching. Salt had run his name through the department databases and had come up with only a couple of traffic tickets over the ten years that were covered by computerized records. She'd called the church office for an appointment and hadn't received a return call. Madison seemed irritated when she'd pressed him over the phone. “He's a busy man, Salt,” he said, his voice rising like he was mad at her for putting him on the spot. “His secretary will call you.”

The church website had a schedule that listed something called “Youth Health,” led by Reverend and Mrs. Prince for this Saturday afternoon. Salt leaned forward against the steering wheel, slipped her arms out of the shoulder holster, removed the 9mm, and tucked it inside a belt holster at her back. She got out, grabbed her jacket off the backseat, and followed the children through the doors.

Inside, the boys and girls crossed a basketball court, gleaming beams of sunlight crosshatching the out-of-bounds, half-court, and full-court lines on a high-gloss floor. The children broke off by gender, the line of pink going toward a far door and the blues headed to one of the large-windowed rooms that bordered the court. The sound of free weights falling to the floor clamored from the room. The young man Salt had seen previously with Prince was at the door to the boys' room, clipboard in hand, checking the boys' names as they entered. “The girls are in the kitchen—” he said to her, then halted. “Oh, you're that policewoman. Reverend Prince—” he turned, calling across the room.

Midas Prince stood in the center of the room, a semicircle of boys seated on the rubber-matted floor in front of him. His upper body in a tight-fitting red athletic shirt was freakishly muscular and large in relation to his wasp-like waist and short stature. Black stretch shorts showed off his overly developed thighs. He was smiling at the boys
and taking selfies with one of them with his phone. He looked up, frowning at being called, as Salt crossed to where he stood, his frown deepening as the floor-to-ceiling mirror reflected Salt next to his own squat bulk.

“I tried to make an appointment,” she said.

“Dismissed.” Prince clapped his hands at the boys. “Go with D.V.” He made a basketball shooting motion to the young man at the door. The boys scrambled to their feet and ran, bumping and tugging one another until stopping at the door, where D.V. reached for the boy Midas had been taking the pictures with. “God doesn't like you.” His fingers closed over the boy's shoulder. “Quit shoving.”

The preacher once again glanced at the mirror, sat down, picked up some free weights, and began doing alternating bicep curls. “As you can clearly see, Officer, I'm a busy man. I don't know anything about Mike Anderson's death. It was more than ten years ago when his parents asked me to help him.”

“Did you know any of his friends? Young people he met here at church?” She glanced toward the boys on the court, nodded in their direction.

Prince let the weights fall from his hands to the rubber mat. “You can't expect me to remember from back then. I've had probably a thousand kids through my groups since.” The voices of the boys on the court bounded off the walls along with the sounds of balls bouncing on the floor and against the backboard, and the occasional ringing of the rim and swoosh through the nets was accompanied by excited yelps.

“Did you meet with him? Do you remember counseling him? Did he confide in you?”

“He quit coming to church. That's all I remember. I don't know who he knew.”

“Were there others in the church, other young people who might remember him? Was he part of a group? What about your assistant?” She turned her head in the direction of the court. “He said he was a fan of Mike's music.”

“D.V. couldn't remember much. He was only ten or so. He wouldn't have known Michael.” Midas Prince stood, looked in the mirror, frowned, and then walked to a far corner of the room to a leg-lift machine. Salt followed only to give him her card. Prince let the leg bar fall, ignoring the offered card in her hand, and grabbed a towel and patted his face. “How tall are you, Officer?”

“How tall?” Salt repeated.

“Tall people have an advantage starting out in life, you know.” He squinted at her through the sweat dripping into his eyes. “But as you can see, I beat the odds.” He kept seated, yelling, “D.V., show this officer the way out.”

“My card,” she said, placing it on the bench. “I'd appreciate any help, anything that you might remember.”

D.V. shifted his weight from one foot to the other as if he might take action but didn't know what course to take. Salt relieved his uncertainty by heading to the door. He followed, jogging behind her, but before she could ask him anything, he ran back when Reverend Prince called.

—

I
T
DID
S
ALT
no good to come back into The Homes. A teenage girl stood talking to Latonya on the stoop. Parked on Thirkeld half a block from Latonya's apartment, Salt stiffened her leg, pressing her foot against the floorboard of the Taurus as she watched Lil D's eighteen-month-old son toddle toward the brindle pit bull chained to the girl's wrist. Latonya's tall, skinny body in profile looked like a stick
figure, while the soft, plump baby, Dantavious, was all roundness, at the bouncing stage, ricocheting from destination to destination.

Finally, the girl with the pit jerked the dog's heavy-gauge chain, wagged her fingers at Latonya, and walked up the sidewalk toward Pryor Road. Salt exhaled and put the Taurus in drive.

B
efore the day began, she knelt beside the dog in the backyard and took in a deep breath, inhaling the fragrances of the clean early morning: sheep lanolin, the peppery smell of the new leaves on the pecan trees, the scent of sun on Wonder's fur as she patted his flanks. She closed her eyes against the unwanted image of the boy The Baby, Jesus had killed beneath another pecan tree. Hearing the sound of Wills' truck, she said to the dog, “They're heeere,” and stood to greet Wills and his dogs.

Pansy and Violet fairly bolted out of their crates in the truck bed. Wonder ran and jumped around them in excitement. The three dogs brawled, rolled, and twisted with each other until Wonder broke off and ran to the sheep pens, back and forth. “He's showing them the sheep, ‘Look, look, sheep! We have sheep, you guys! Sheep! You wanna catch sheep?'” Salt laughed. “Look at him. He doesn't know what he's more excited about.”

“Yeah, and my ladies are all like, ‘We'd like to have a go at the sheep, Wonder, but first we'd like to sniff you, please.'” Wills did
Pansy's and Violet's voices in a British falsetto. He kissed Salt's neck before hefting a market bag from the truck bed. “Beans and corn bread, deviled eggs.” He grinned, proudly raising the tote bag away from the dog fray.

“Yum.” Salt's mouth watered already. “Need help with anything?” she asked.

“I got it,” he said, holding the bag up on his way to the kitchen.

“You want coffee? There's some made. Help yourself.” She had on old jeans, torn at the knees, a long-sleeved gauze shirt, and work boots. While Wills took the food inside, she began laying out shovels, gloves, insect repellent, and sunscreen in preparation for the day's work, a start to fencing the acre in front of the house. Her dream was to have the property, the five acres, become self-sustaining, beginning with the sheep replacing her mower for the front acre.

“Perfect weather, not too hot, low humidity.” Wills came down the steps with his coffee. “Do I hear company?”

The sounds of motors revving and rattling came from the drive as Pepper and his family in their minivan arrived, followed by Mr. Gooden, Salt's neighbor, on his small tractor. Pepper's boys, like Wills' Rotties, flew from the van before it was fully stopped so they could watch the approach of the tractor. Ann, Pepper's wife, was out after them, grabbing their collars as they danced, then dangled, trying to get out of her grasp. “You cannot be jumping out of cars like that. Stay away from any vehicle that's moving. Do you hear me?”

Mr. Gooden, smile set in his sun-weathered face, idled the tractor. “Hello, hello! Now I bet I know some boys who might want a ride on this little bitty tractor.” His long legs were bent up around the sides of the motor so that he looked like a praying mantis, his little tight belly pushing against the wide belt of his jeans.

“Me first.” Miles strained against his mother's hold.

“Me, me,” cried Theo.

Pepper got the van parked under some shade and joined them, carrying a big, flat cardboard box. “Where do you want this?”

Ann tapped the box. “Chicken, ham, and fruit.”

“Who's in charge of this operation?” Mr. Gooden pointed at Theo. “You?” He handed his gloves to Miles, who was suddenly shy.

Wonder barked three times at the old farmer.

“Oh, the Border collie's in charge, as usual.” Mr. Gooden climbed off the tractor.

Ann shook hands with Mr. Gooden. “I believe we met once, when we brought Salt home from the hospital the last time,” she said.

“Yep. You're right. She does have her ways of bringing folks together.” Mr. Gooden smiled over at Salt.

Wills and Pepper and Ann all hugged each other. Wills, with mock gravity, shook and held the boys' hands before they broke away toward the sheep in the paddock.

“Oh, God, they're wearing me out before the day's even begun.” Ann wiped her brow, her cream-'n'-coffee color already gaining some pink. She was petite and pretty, and her jeans showed her strong thighs to their advantage.

“What is the plan, Salt? You've got a bunch of city slickers out here to build a fence for sheep. What were you thinking?” Pepper hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his boot heels. “Pardner?”

“Well, Pilgrim,” Salt said in her best John Wayne. “The onliest one of us not a greenhorn is the man with the tractor, and he's agreed to be our boss today. The rest of us, well, just call us ‘Pilgrim, Pilgrim.'”

Sweet-smelling white oak posts from a discount lumberyard nearby were in a stack on the south side of the house where Salt and Wills had hauled them. She'd measured and marked every six feet around the perimeter where Mr. Gooden would bore down with his auger attachment for the postholes. The day's task was to get a third of the
posts in, with Mr. Gooden doing the digging and the rest of them putting the posts in the ground. There was nothing on the property that could hurt the boys and nothing they could damage, so they were free to roam within calling distance.

“Grab a cup of coffee in the kitchen if you need one. I've got water and ice tea in a cooler,” Salt told them, and followed Mr. Gooden on the tractor around to the front acre.

After they were all reassembled and Mr. Gooden had dug the hole, Wills and Salt hefted in the first post. “Let the fencing begin.” Wills poured water over the post, anointing it. They paired off, bantering and catching up with one another, carrying the posts and taking turns holding, filling, and tamping the dirt around the righted posts. The boys' shrieks, the dogs' barks, and the sheep's baas and bleats could be heard coming from the back of the house. Every now and then one or both of the boys would run to the front chased by Wonder, followed by either the other brother or the Rotties or all three.

After the first hour and the first four posts, Salt and Ann waited by the cooler while Wills and Pepper wrestled the next post into a hole. There were jugs of water, ice tea, and mismatched glasses on ice in the cooler. “If it had columns and a bigger front porch this place would look like something out of
Gone with the Wind
.” Ann looked around at the house, field, and woods, wiping her brow. “I declare, Miss Scarlett, you got some of us darkies workin' back on this heah plantation again.”

Salt grinned. “When we get back in the house, I'll just get right to tearing down those drapes to make my dress for the cotillion.” She dusted her gloves, hitting them against her leg.

“Seriously, this is an amazing property, Salt. Not many of us belong to a place and history like you have here.” Ann filled a glass from the jug of ice water.

Salt wasn't sure which “us” Ann was referring to—“us” as in everyone or “us” as in black people.

“It's a privilege that comes with a price.” She paused to regain some of their levity. “I've been mowing this front acre since I was nine years old.” They both laughed, then Salt sighed. “It goes back—generations. There's a lot of history. Well, you can imagine.”

“Really. Did your family own slaves here?” Ann looked at Salt over the rim of a blue glass.

“Except for the house and the few acres around it, the big farm was sold off. But that doesn't answer your question. My parents and grandparents wouldn't have talked about that, like a lot of families—at least those ashamed enough didn't talk about it. I believe there were slaves. Most of the descendants of slave owners destroyed the documentation, but if you go to the Atlanta History Center library there are records.”

“How do you reconcile that? I'm sorry. Maybe not you in particular, but how do people—”

“White Southerners?” Salt bent down to pour herself a glass of tea.

“The owners, their descendants, those who benefited, still benefit by having had advantages.” Ann had put her glass down and had her hands on her hips, feet wide. “Not being from the South, I don't know if asking these questions is considered rude.” She tipped her head attentively. “People don't seem to want to talk about race here, but it feels like it is always such a presence, the elephant in the room.”

“Or like a hellhound?” Salt said. “I don't know, Ann. The South never really recovered, never caught up economically, and in a lot of other ways, with the rest of the country. The South failed its children. Individually, some families thrived, continue to thrive, some lost everything. Most poor people, black and white, were kept or stayed poor. I suspect there's quite a few, like me, with the house, some property, an education, that still don't understand what having those advantages means or has meant. And we're left with a whole lot of, not guilt, but you used the right word, ‘reconciliation,' to do. It's a
hard, complicated conversation. People get defensive and offensive.” Salt looked up at her old house. “I guess we have to find reconciliation individually, personally. Then that gets mixed up with all kinds of stuff like religion and family.”

Pepper yelled. “Y'all just gonna stand there girl gabbin' or you gonna do some actual work?”

Ann grabbed a handful of ice and ran after him. Salt admired her forthrightness. Atlanta folks especially seemed to want to tiptoe around their history, like it was a hellhound at the crossroads—always there, ready to bite if it was acknowledged or when folks weren't paying attention.

Mr. Gooden had gotten quite a few holes ahead of them. Wills and Salt carried a post to the next hole. “This work really makes a person appreciate what it must have taken to run a real farm. Helps me understand how people developed such strong ties to the land,” he said.

“Yep, it's an investment,” she replied, settling the post into the ground as Wills held it upright.

They'd gotten fifteen posts in when Salt waved to Mr. Gooden for a lunch break and they all walked together to the back porch. Wills and Ann came and went from the kitchen, uncovering dishes of deviled eggs, potato salad, sliced ham, and chicken. Salt had set out more of the mismatched china and silver, pieces she'd found at estate sales. She also took charge of keeping everyone refilled on tea and water, then coffee.

They sat around the screened porch, Ann and Pepper in the glider, the boys on the steps just outside. Mr. Gooden leaned back in the wooden straight-back chair next to the door. “This is nice, Sarah. Reminds me of when Peggy and I were young. There used to be parties like this where people, mostly church folks, would come together to help each other out. Don't see too much of that these days.”

“Not everybody is so lucky to have a neighbor with a tractor.” Salt smiled at him. She and Wills were in wicker armchairs across from him, plates in their laps. She'd relied on the old man over the years, especially the year before after she'd been shot and when she'd needed him to check on Wonder from time to time. He regularly brought her produce from his garden. He and his wife, who died twelve years ago, had known three generations of Salt's family.

Pepper said, “This is good for Theo and Miles, to see how things are built, how hard people have to work to actually make something themselves, to learn where wool comes from, how pecans grow.”

“Dad, can we go climb the tree again?” Miles asked.

Salt had nailed small step boards to her tree about every third year, as the tree grew, so that her old perch was still accessible. The boys' legs dangling from the limbs reminded her how much she'd once loved being in that tree.

“Go.” Ann shooed them. “Good riddance,” she mumbled after they'd raced away. “They're driving me nuts. I think they've picked up on how nervous I am about Pepper's new assignment. I hate it.” Ann also called him Pepper when they were around others who used his nickname.

“What is your new assignment?” Mr. Gooden asked.

“Drugs, Narcotics,” Pepper answered.

“I know I sound like an old man, but somebody please explain to me how drugs have taken over. I just don't get it.” Mr. Gooden shrugged. “'Course, we had moonshine back when lots of folks were poor and that's all they could get. Rich folks drank it, too, but they didn't have to.”

Pepper stood up. “And we, Pilgrim, are not going to figure that one out today—got a fence to build.” He tugged Ann to her feet.

“Ann and I will put stuff away and be right out.” Salt looked over,
caught Ann's eye, and motioned with her head. Together they started gathering up the dishes as the men left the porch.

In the kitchen Ann put down the platter she was carrying. “I'm sorry, Salt. I didn't mean to lay that on you guys. It's just that I'm scared for him. And that earlier legacy thing. If it weren't for so much poverty, especially in the city's black communities, narcotics wouldn't even be an assignment and my husband wouldn't be in danger.” She turned her back to Salt, who quietly finished putting the dishes in the sink and waited. Ann tore off a paper towel and blew her nose.

“You haven't seen the upstairs yet, have you?” Salt asked.

“The dojo? No.”

“Come on.” Salt reached for Ann's wrist, escorted her down the hall and up the stairs. At the door of the new room Salt took off her shoes and pointed to Ann's. “Just for a second, I want you to feel what it's like.” She went to the shelf, lit the votive candle, came back to Ann, and motioned for her to sit in front of the shelf with the candle and photo. “I'm sure Pepper has told you what happened with my father here. Actually, it was probably right where we're sitting.” Salt kept looking at Ann, who lowered her chin and touched her eyes with the wadded paper towel. “Ann.” Salt turned to the framed photo on the shelf. “I don't fully understand how the past has affected me—like the Bible says about the sins of the fathers? We work out in this room, struggle, so we can get better at making peace in the street.” She bowed her head to the photo of the sensei, her father in his police uniform. “It's a small bit of finding some kind of reconciliation.”