The Stones Cry Out (15 page)

"She would haul the Bible into this."

"I heard that, Wally Marsh,” she said. “And let me explain something to you. The Bible is the source of all wisdom. Once you realize that, your life is going to take on real meaning."

"Did you just call my life meaningless?"

"I said, real meaning. There's a difference."

"According to who?"

"Whom. And if you would simply listen--"

I chewed my health food and let them work out another evangelical version of "Who's on First?" The tempeh bacon didn't taste that bad, provided your teeth were strong. I washed it down with coffee and kept score on their arguments. Back when Wally applied to rent the one bedroom and bath, I interviewed a dozen people. He seemed like the nicest. Raised by hardworking parents who sacrificed to send their four children to private schools, Wally described himself as a "recovering Catholic." No ill will toward any faith, he said, but nuns wielding wooden rulers had beat the love of Jesus Christ right out of him. For that reason, I wondered if he could get along with my mother. But every other renter seemed worse. The Wiccan with her candles. The inarticulate computer geek. The college girl who wanted to know if her two boyfriends could move in too. Wally's references checked out. I also ran a deep criminal background search and bribed Helen to ask around the VCU photography department, where Wally had graduated several years before. The guy was universally liked. We signed a one-month lease, in case either side changed its mind. During those thirty days I slept in a bedroom down the hall, wide awake every night. But Wally found a way to playfully tease my mother about everything from the way she dressed to her faith in God. And though she pretended to be upset, secretly she adored the attention. And with my dad gone, my mother desperately needed something to do with her life. Converting Wally to Christianity kept her very, very busy.

Most importantly, Wally treated her mental illness with authentic compassion.

I was washing down the tempeh bacon with the organic decaf, starting on the life raft of whole wheat toast, when I attempted to steer the conversation back on track. "Wally, what was the part of that gossip you didn't understand?"

He turned to me, then glared at my mother and snapped the paper in his hands. "I almost forgot, what with Joan of Arc yelling in my ear."

"You are truly hopeless," she murmured.

But he was already reading again. "The anonymous woman said, 'Meade Ann has become Rosewell's power mower.'" He lowered the paper, looking at me over the top. "All this time I thought the brothers came up with the best lingo. But here's some rich West End lady tossing out 'power mower.' I like it. Power mower! I dig it."

“No.” My mother shook her head. “That story was written by a Yankee."

"Now you’re gonna bring the war into this?" he said.

"No, I'm saying that the Yankees are ruining the South. Again. No respectable southern lady would ever say the mistress was Rosewell's 'power mower.' For heaven's sake, that's ridiculous. But Yankees have tin ears. We should have won the war on language alone." She looked at us.

But I still didn’t get it. “Mom?”

"You can’t hear it? She was calling that floozy a 'paramour.' But that Yankee heard ‘power mower.’"

Wally glanced at me. I raised my eyebrows. She was right. That was the term proper southern ladies used.

But she continued to say the words, softly under her breath. “Power mower. Paramour. Power mower.”

Wally looked at me again. We were thinking the same thing. These words might hunker down in her mind, compelling her to scrawl them forward and backward and sideways, scribbling away until she broke a code that didn't exist.

"I like power mower better," Wally said, finally.

"Mom,” I tried to sound casual. “Are you going to the camp today?"

She nodded, suddenly smiling. "Wally's coming with me!"

I almost choked on the toast.

"Just to take pictures," he said defensively. "It’s got nothing to do with God."

“Everything has to do with God,” my mother said.

"Nice pictures?” I asked him. "You're going to take nice pictures out there, right?"

He snapped the paper again. "Please. I don't take any other kind."

After a shower and change of clothes, I drove to McDonald's in Carytown and ordered high-octane coffee and two Egg McMuffins. I ate them inside the K-Car listening to static on my AM radio.

Then I headed north to Ashland.

The Falcons’ home was part of a new subdivision called King's Charter. Once upon a time the land probably did belong to a charter granted by the king of England, but today the landscape resembled so much of late twentieth-century America. Vinyl-sided homes built in days, lined up like dominoes on streets with names such as Tree Pond Drive but with no trees, no ponds and too much drive.

I parked in the Falcon driveway and walked to the door. Janine Falcon answered, holding a toddler on her left hip. They both had pale blond hair, and the boy's eyes were green jade like his mother's. But his square face resembled his late father.

"May I help you?" she asked.

I introduced myself, showing my ID, and saw several emotions register before her face went blank.

"I’m sorry,” I said, “I just wanted to ask a few questions, if you have the time.”

The living room was furnished with oversized chairs upholstered in denim, and it connected to a small dining room where the table was full of floral bouquets. Somber arrangements. Funeral arrangements.

Mrs. Falcon sat on the sofa and placed the boy on the floor at her feet. "Did you know my husband?" she asked.

"No, ma’am."

Her eyes went to the boy. He was standing now, navigating the living room floor. It looked like a Fisher-Price obstacle course.

"From what I've heard, your husband was a very dedicated detective."

Her green eyes remained on her son. "Mike hated working crowd control. I loved it. One day of not worrying." She looked at me. "That's what I can't understand. Why it happened this way."

After my father died I read a newspaper story about a meteorite that landed in upstate New York. The stone weighed 26 pounds and was hurled toward earth by the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The same rocky belt express-delivered tons of geologic material each year to earth, but most of it landed in the oceans, unnoticed. But this stone, burning through the atmosphere at thirty-three thousand miles an hour, hit a car. A direct hit. It killed the woman behind the wheel and the child in the back seat. The reporter found the grieving husband but all he could say was, "Why?"

Over and over. "Why?"

"I'm so sorry for your loss," I said. As usual, the words sounded totally insufficient.

Her face went blank again.

And here was something else I knew about sudden violent loss. When “why" didn't have an answer, every emotional reaction came on time delay. We were like shell-shocked vets trying to process life.

Finally she said, "M.J. keeps asking, 'Where's Daddy?'"

The boy turned his blond head. He stood at the other end of the room, near the dining table smothered with flowers. “Daddy?”

"No, honey." She smiled wanly, waiting for him to return to his toys. "I don't mean to be rude, Agent . . . ."

"Harmon."

"Agent Harmon. If you didn't know my husband, why are you here?"

"The FBI has opened a civil rights case and I --"

She stood. "M.J.” Her voice was tight. “How about a video in Mommy’s room?"

The boy’s chubby legs raced for the hallway. "Elmo!" he cried, "Elmo, Elmo!"

She followed him, not saying anything to me.

I gazed around the room. The beige wall paint seemed unusually bright, the way paint does in houses that haven't seen much daily life. A white fireplace mantel held framed family photos. A heavy-set man in sunglasses, hair graying at the temples. Detective Falcon’s strong features suggested that under the flabby layer he was once handsome. The next photograph showed Mrs. Falcon. Holding the blond boy, they smiled wildly, the wind disheveling their pale hair. The boy also wore a blaze-orange life preserver. It obscured everything except his face and forearms. I picked up the frame.

"That was taken on the boat, just a few weeks ago,” she said, coming back into the room. "Mike’s dream was to fish for a living."

I put the photograph back in the lineup, restoring the order. "He must have been very proud of you two."

"M.J. was his life. He wanted to find a better job, something nine-to-five. I keep thinking, what if...."

Her eyes were red.

Right after "why," the next question was “what if." What if my dad stayed home that night? What if my mother didn't suddenly ask for cookies that she usually claimed were nutritional poison? What if I wasn’t in DC and had been living with them, with plenty of junk food cookies in the carriage house? What if, what if, what if.

"Mrs. Falcon, nobody has a good answer for why your husband was on that roof Saturday."

"It’s simple." Her voice was almost shrill. "He was doing his job. Trying to protect people. And now my son doesn’t have a father."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, sorry won't bring him back. What am I supposed to do, what about my son?"

Her questions echoed the questions I heard from Mrs. Holmes. But I would never tell her that.

"Did your husband talk to you about his work?"

"No. I didn't want him to. I wanted him to quit."

"So he never mentioned his cases?"

She gave me a hard look. "Are you trying to find out if Mike did something wrong?"

"I'm trying to find out what happened on that roof."

"Well, I knew him better than anybody, and my husband would never, ever, do what these people are accusing him of. Throw a man off a roof? Not in a million years. And if you knew my husband you'd know how sick those accusations are. That's what they are -- sick."

I waited. "Did he keep any work here, at home?"

"Not his police work."

"He had other work?"

"He was trying to start a business. We bought this house because it has an office. So he could work from home, spend time with M.J." Her lip trembled. "We just bought this house.”

"May I see his office?"

In the small space next to the laundry room, Detective Michael Falcon had set up a computer, printer, and fax. On the wall above the desk he’d hung various certificates and commendations from the police department. And I could see he was a graduate of Virginia Tech. A Hokie banner hung above the door.

"Mom-eee!" The boy was calling.

Mrs. Falcon hesitated.

"Momm-eeeeeee!"

She looked at me. "Promise me you won't take anything?"

“May I look?"

"Momm-eeee!"

She nodded and ran from the room. I walked over to the small file cabinet. The folders inside were labeled for household bills, receipts, taxes, medical expenses. The Falcons filed joint tax returns and took a huge medical deduction two years ago for treatment at a fertility clinic. Mrs. Falcon quit her job last year, and payments were due on two vehicles, both fairly new. But the boat was paid for, so were the moorage fees. And another folder was labeled "Horizon." The top page was a typed proposal outlining a business plan. For a private security firm.

Mrs. Falcon walked into the room, brushing her blond bangs over her eyes. They looked even more bloodshot. Her skin was blotchy. "I’m letting you look because Mike would tell me to. Because he's innocent. He would want everything out in the open."

I stared at the folder. It was difficult to look at someone holding in so much pain. "Your husband put some serious thought into this security firm."

“He was eligible for early retirement this year, but we decided he should stay with the department, because, you know, benefits and all. Our son...."

She didn’t finish.

I could hear what-ifs running through her mind.

"I don’t want to disturb you. May I borrow some of the files? Just to get a more thorough look?"