Out of the Blues (30 page)

F
or Bring Your Pet to Work Day it was remarkably quiet in the Homicide office. Some animal-loving corporate tycoon had enough pull with city hall to demand the city's participation in bringing awareness to the bonds between people and their pets, and to encourage adoption from the local animal shelters. So the mayor ordered as many photo ops as possible throughout the city departments, no exceptions, including the PD. They especially wanted photos of the “hard-bitten” homicide detectives and their beloved pets. Rosie volunteered to keep order and had designated which interview rooms would be time-out for dogs in case they misbehaved or in the event of a callout on a fresh body. Majority ruled that only dogs would be allowed in Homicide—they'd let the robbery boys bring in their kitty cats.

Huff's wife had read about the program and had been relentless in insisting that their Foo Foo, a Shih Tzu–Pomeranian mix, accompany the sergeant for their special “father-daughter” day, as he quoted
her calling it. Huff had locked himself in his office. The detectives had seen only a glimpse of pink-tinted fur under his arm when he arrived.

Homicide did seem to be a unit for dog lovers, Rosie being the only one of the team that didn't own a pet. “Too busy petting myself,” she said, looking up from under improbably long lashes. Pansy and Violet were being perfect ladies, reclining in the aisle at Wills' desk. The Things both owned cats so were exempt from the festivities. Gardner's hound was too elderly. They were all surprised when Felton showed up with a pit bull rescue named Roscoe. “What? You expected a coiffed, bejeweled poodle?” Roscoe went about his business of charming everyone, presenting his belly and back to each of them for scratches and rubs—not taking no for an answer. He'd stare at his targets, tail wagging his hind end, until they gave in.

And while Wonder was his usual standoffish self, he impressed the crew with his attention to Salt's every move and command. He arrived at her side off-leash and stayed at her heels. Actually he just wanted her, was dogging her, to take him home to his sheep. He barely acknowledged Pansy and Violet when they enthusiastically greeted him. They slumped back to the floor depleted by his rejection.

The Public Affairs photographer had set up a backdrop and lighting in the conference room. It was like some Wegman shoot, props, lanyards with badges for the dogs, and little fedoras. Salt didn't mind them putting Wonder in her father's trench coat. They took a lot of photos of the two of them taking turns wearing the coat.

Wills stood watching from the door as the last shots were finished. “You two look amazing, intense,” he said. “I hope they can capture that beautiful weirdness you and Wonder share.”

“What?” Salt said, dropping the coat over her arm.

“I don't know how to describe it. It's like an otherworldliness,” he
said, shrugging as they walked back to her desk. “We're having a meeting, break room.” He tapped his watch. “Five minutes.”

As the detectives came in the break room and gathered around a fresh pot of coffee, Wonder and Wills' pooches finally fell into their usual play-and-lay, rolling around, jaws opening to gently chew on each other. Thing One and Thing Two, Wills, Gardner, and a few detectives from day shift, Hamm and her partner, took chairs around the room. Felton saluted Salt with a raised mug. Rosie stood leaning against the doorsill holding Huff's little silvery-pink lapdog.

“Take a seat, gentlemen and ladies,” Huff said. “Thank you, Rosie.”

“Oh, Charlie, don't you mention it.” Rosie glowed and scratched the top of the little pooch with a sparkled fingernail.

“Since our office has been conscripted for the edification of the public as to our canine orientations—”

Yap, yip, yap!
snapped the soprano in Rosie's grip.

Huff raised part of his upper lip, Elvis-like, sneering at his “daughter.” “As I was saying, normally we'd hold this small ceremony in our glorious conference room, but here we are.” He lifted his arms, indicating the break room. “Mr. Felton, the floor is yours.”

Felton stood and retrieved a large, round, brown-paper-wrapped box from one of the cabinets. Crime scene tape had been used as ribbon and bow. “As some of us know, not everyone”—he lifted his eyes to Huff—“was enthusiastic when it was learned that a brand-new detective, Sarah Alt”—Felton inclined his head to Salt—“was being assigned to our esteemed and lofty ranks.”

“Hear! Hear!” marked the chorus of men and Rosie.

“But here she is. Her first day with us she single-handedly tracked and took into custody a child murderer.” He smiled. There was more applause, and Hamm put her fingers to her lips in a loud whistle. Salt backed up to the wall. Her face felt hot. Heat spreading down her neck, she lowered her head.

“DNA came back.” Hamm stood, letting her statement hang for a moment. “Positive for The Baby, Jesus!” She pumped the air in a touchdown gesture.

More whistles and applause.

Felton carried on. “She has since, in little more than one month, contributed to solving one of the highest profile cases this city has seen. Detective Wills thanks you.”

Wills nodded and bowed to her while the crew pounded the tables in applause.

“And at great risk and incurring serious bodily harm, she closed not only Detective Wills' case but also the murder of Dan Pyne”—he straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat—“by hastening the demise of one DeWare Lovelace.” The dogs barked and the men hurrahed. Salt dug her fingers into Wonder's fur, averting her red-blotched face. “Information you gathered has led to a large-scale child abuse investigation. And, most important for our team, you cleared the first case you were assigned, the murder of Michael Anderson, making your clear-up rate one hundred percent so far.

“And now, Detective Wills, if you'll do the honors, we can quickly relieve the distaff member of our gang of her torture.” Felton moved aside and Wills stood, beckoning Salt to his side in front of the room. “Come on. Don't act like we're trying to murder you.” He pulled her to his side, then pointed to the box. “Open it.”

Salt opened the lid. Inside was a hat, a beautiful fedora, the same color as her father's coat. Her coat. Wills took it from her hands. “You are now officially the murder police. You speak for the dead. You stand at the gates of heaven and hell and listen and bring justice to those unnaturally parted from this world—”

“All right, all right, blah, blah. People we've got work to do,” said Huff. “Put the hat on her head.”

“Bow your head, Detective,” said Wills as he fitted the crown, then turned the brim just so. The crew once more shouted and clapped.

Salt bent over and took a quick peek at her reflection in the microwave door. She got just a glimpse of her silhouette with the hat. She touched the soft felt brim, moved up to the crown, where the creases seemed to fit her hand perfectly. She tipped the hat to the room. “Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.”

“Who's she talking to? ‘Gentlemen.'” The Things stood to get coffee. Rosie came up and kissed her cheek, the little dog yapping at Huff. Wills and Felton patted her back. Gardner saluted her from the door.

Hamm took her by the arm and walked with her out of the room and down the aisle. “Well, girl, you made it.” Hamm had on her usual comfortable shoes, her feet spilling from the tops, shoes for walking crime scenes. They came to Salt's desk, where Salt had two books open, Dan Pyne's green one and the old manila one, Mike Anderson's, faded and frayed, soon to be an official murder book. Another brown file was beginning to fatten, her copies of the reports to SVU, accumulating reports from victims of Midas Prince. “This is harder than people think,” she confided to Hamm. “And I don't mean the physical part or danger.”

“I been doin' this awhile. I know what you mean. But you can't let them—” She tipped her head toward the center of the office. “You can't let them see you cry.”

“Maybe it won't always be that way, Hamm. By the way, can't I call you by your first name?”

“Nope,” said Hamm, smiling. She sighed, sniffed, hugged Salt, and walked away.

Salt held the hat out, turning it around, feeling the ribbon-trimmed edge, the silk lining. Then she held it beside her coat, confirming the color as an exact match.

—

“
A
ND
IN
the category of ‘no good deed going unpunished' . . .” Wills stood beside her desk.

“Uh-oh,” said Salt, clearing Dan Pyne's autopsy report off the chair.

Wills sat down and leaned on his elbows. He had his jacket on. “I just had dinner with a buddy from Internal Affairs who thought you should hear this first.”

Salt's heart raced, thinking of Lil D.

“They're opening a large-scale investigation of extra jobs, hours, and possible conflicts of interest. The chief is also asking that the rules and regulations regarding the off-hour jobs be tightened. And Sandy Madison has been busted out of SWAT. He's going around saying it's your fault about the EJs.”

“Damn,” Salt said. “I can't seem to keep out of one thing or another.”

“Yeah, but Sarah,” he whispered her name, “there's a lot of good people who've got your back.” He looked around and, not seeing anyone, tapped the back of her hand. “Homicide got your back.”

T
here was a new neon sign outside the Blue Room, “BLUES,” and a new door replacing the corrugated tin contraption that had previously been there. Salt went to the front take-out window and told Sam that she wanted to go over the crime scene one more time. When Sam let her in and turned on the lights, the room lit up with multicolored stringed bulbs crisscrossing the ceiling and giving the room an old-fashioned county fair feel. “Like the changes?” he asked.

“I do,” she answered, coming on in, turning around in the center of the room.

Sam went back to the kitchen between the take-out business and Blue Room. The overhead speakers popped and Bailey Brown's muddy voice picked up mid-tune.

Good Lord, good Lord, send me an angel down

Can't spare you no angel, but I'll swear I'll send you a teasin' brown.

Probably recorded more than ten or twenty years ago, his voice sounded even then like he'd swallowed a '57 Ford pickup truck. The room, music, and party lights created a dream-like feel. She listened closely for the licks of a rhythm guitar while standing on the approximate spot where Dan had been shot.

“I dig the hat,” Man said coming in, going behind the counter like he owned the joint. He bent down and the music fell to a low volume.

Salt reached up with a now practiced move, lifted the fedora, and ran her fingers through her hair. “That was Bailey Brown doing Blind Willie's ‘Talking to Myself.' Blind Willie McTell lived in Atlanta, you know.”

“How you know so much about black folks' ol' music?” Man asked.

“My dad liked blues, gospel, and old jazz, the sixties and seventies. You know, blues is not just for black people anymore,” she said, grinning.

He waved his hand at the lights overhead and at the new door. He pointed at the neon. “What do you think?”

“I like it, the door and the sign, lights. I hope that means there will still be blues here.”

“Yep, I'm keepin' it ol' school.”

“So you got at least one club, huh, Man?”

“Not just this place but I'm gonna be runnin' both the others, Toy Dolls, and someday, Magic Girls.” Man came out from behind the bar, sat down on a barstool, and crossed his arms in a self-satisfied posture.

Salt turned the fedora in her hands.

“You kept your deal with Stone, Miss Dee Tec Tive. He got his time reduced. They gone transfer him to Jackson for treatment, and soon as he gets well they're going to let him out.”

“You think you're going to be able to keep him out of trouble, out of harm's way?” Salt asked.

Man laughed and shook his head. “What's with you? You worried 'bout Stone, 'bout me? You best be concerned les' you cross paths with him again.”

“He's likely to be more your problem than mine. He'll want to be back with you, Man. He'll be your next of kin and asshole sidekick. It's hard to go legit when you've got a full-time psychopath on your payroll. And you know he and Lil D aren't fond of each other at all.”

Man looked off as if considering her words. His eyes came back to the room and Salt, then he raised his chin, nodding at her. “Lil D gonna go legit with me.” There was little change in Man's expression, no different tone of voice, nothing that would give more import to this information than any other.

Walking to the new door, she wondered if it would or already had come full circle—her and Man, Lil D. Man came along behind her. She really did like the new little neon sign “BLUES” blinking off and on, on and off.

“I want to show you something,” Man said. When they were outside, he pointed to the familiar rise a half mile or so to the north. “See that ridge? You know what that is, right?”

“You mean the railroad track?”

“Sure,” Man answered, “but it ain't just any old track now.”

She turned toward Man, top man of one of the tightest gangs to operate in an Atlanta ghetto, “Let me guess—the BeltLine?”

“Yes, Lord.” Man walked toward the ridge on the horizon.

The BeltLine was a project that the city expected would do more for its economy than any other undertaking since the airport. The plan called for using existing rails that had in the past been used for both passenger and freight, that had once supplied industrial sites, some of which had been discovered to be toxic, and rails that had become defunct, currently in use but only infrequently for light industry. Routes had been designated to create an approximate thirty-three-mile
transit and green space that would encircle the central city, spurring business and housing and linking neighborhoods.

“Yes, Lord,” Man repeated. “My business sittin' right up against the BeltLine.” He turned to her, spreading his arms, smiling. “‘Legit,' that's what I say. ‘Legit.'”

—

S
ALT
DROVE
the half mile and parked in a liquor store parking lot, as close as she could get to the tracks, then climbed a rutted path to the top. From the looks of the trail, weeds beaten back and freshly strewn trash, people had been trespassing on the railroad easement for decades or maybe even a century. She'd always known that gangs, as well as others, used the tracks as an escape way, a meeting place, somewhere to stash stolen goods. It was gang territory.

She keyed the mic on the Handie-Talkie. “Radio, hold me out on the tracks at Pryor and McDonough.” She listened for responses, in particular from Wills, but only dispatch acknowledged, then the frequency was quiet.

From time to time she and Wills had taken the dogs on walks along parts of the BeltLine already reclaimed for recreational use. Tracks had been removed, walkways had been installed and paved, and muralists had enhanced bridges and tunnels. There had been BeltLine-sponsored events, footraces, bike tours, art celebrations, and parades. New parks were being dedicated. Developers were buying up properties along the proposed route, the feds offering a lot of money for development and toxic site cleanups.

There were other stretches like this one she was walking, right-of-ways that were still active and still owned by the railroads. But now the railroad tracks that had created, then divided, the city would provide a means by which its residents could travel easily from neighborhood to neighborhood without impediment. Tracks that had once
been barriers were going to unite communities—paths that had first been cleared by slaves and convicts building the railroad that ended at the place that would become Atlanta.

From the top of the ridge she turned and faced south in the direction of The Homes, the housing project she'd spent ten years policing.

Man and Lil D might make it out, might be able to move from the ghetto and transition to the paths of legitimacy. She hoped so. But then there was
Stone.