Working Rich Boys
The first reporters gathered early at the border on Hallow Road. Sun had risen in the rest of Briar County so the line was stark like usual and they fired off shots. They were local, most had friends who lived in Grace, and they were still chalking it to a storm, but there’d been rumblings of the missing girl and the Bird and a churchman. They couldn’t link to the Briar girls ’cause the Grace girl had run, and Black and Ernie Redell had played it low, but when you added everything there was a flavor getting stronger.
Tib Tyler, from the Briar County News, had dressed smart, yellow corduroy suit, bolo tie, and black Panama, and he’d tried to get a meeting with Black but kept getting stonewalled. Tib had a friend who worked as a cameraman over at WXFB and he was en route with a van and a pretty face and they were planning on running something light, just about the dark town.
“I ain’t liking it,” Tib said. “I ain’t liking it not one bit.”
The man beside was Brent Mann and he worked for the Maidenville Herald. “There isn’t much to like. It’ll be a bad one.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about the storm. The girls. You heard about the Ryan girl?”
Brent nodded. “Heard she ran, maybe with a boyfriend. Nothin’ in that.”
Tib chewed the end of his pen and stared high at the sky. “The Bird’s back, and he’s brought the devil with him.”
Brent shook his head. “You run with that and Ernie will lynch you.”
*
Savannah kneeled on the grass and fussed with the flowers. The stone seemed too big to mark a child’s grave, hard when it should’ve been soft. St. Margaret’s was a simple church, white boards and pretty steeple, acres of rolling Maidenville green framed it.
She’d bought him a gift. It was a toy car and she’d wrapped it careful in teddy bear paper. He would have been seven and she worried the paper was too babyish because she didn’t know what seven-year-old boys were like.
Bobby hadn’t fitted the car seat correctly. The strap should have been looped through at the shoulder, that way when the truck hit, Michael might have escaped with nothing more than bruises. She tried to imagine carrying what Bobby had to, she tried to imagine hurt beyond her own but it was too much.
“What did you get him?”
She turned and saw Bobby and smiled. “I didn’t know if you’d come. You were out all night again.”
“Summer.”
“Anything?”
He shook his head and kneeled beside her.
“I bought him a car, the kind you pull back and let go. Is the paper too babyish?”
“No.” He took it from her and placed it by the grave. There were carved doves, an angel and a scroll and a photo where Michael smiled so wide.
She wished the birds would stop singing a while.
“I thought it might get easier, because that’s what they say,” she said.
He wore dark glasses that hid his thoughts.
When he reached forward and laid a hand on the stone she cried, and when she cried her eyes swelled and her nose ran.
“I miss him,” she said.
“Yes.”
She reached out and he took her hand. There was so much to say but nothing that would change much of anything.
*
“You’re quiet,” Peach said.
Black held a cigarette in his hand but didn’t light it.
She’d fixed him something to eat, though he said he didn’t want nothing. She’d cleaned her place, always did if she knew he was stopping by. He smelled some kinda lemon cleaner, bleach like it’d strip the sin back.
She fluffed cushions on the sofa then sat down and smiled at him. It was the kinda nervous smile that almost kept him from showing up.
She kept clippings in a box beneath her bed. It’d crossed his mind she knew the Bird. That he was one of her men, those silent men that showed and came and left. The dark side of nature but nature all the same.
“Drink?” she said.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Anything on Summer Ryan?” she said. No one called her no more; not Ernie Redell, not the state cops. There weren’t no one keeping in touch and he knew it killed her.
“Nothin’ at all.”
“You’re holdin’ that guy from the church though.”
“It’ll go off, I can feel it. People are angry, lookin’ for somethin’ to fight about. Could be it’s me holdin’ on to a pastor’s son.”
She came over and perched so close he could smell her perfume. There was a new photo of Della by the window. She was a quiet kid. Peach would entertain and do what she did and Della would stay locked in her bedroom. The men didn’t know she was there; it was safer that way. She’d called once, they found it, when she was eleven and heard her momma taking a beating. She’d called 911 like Peach had taught her.
“You reckon he’s back and he’s taken Summer Ryan?”
He said nothing, just stared at the television set.
She leaned in and kissed him. That’s how it started between them. She couldn’t bear it, all the waiting around, the tension. There was much unsaid, about how the state cops were with her, what they said about Della and Peach in the newspapers. They wrote Della off quick: knocked up and ran. Opinion turned as time rolled by, Peach drew something from that. She gave an interview to a hack from a national, showed him Della’s report cards and he was fair when he ran it, painted her as the rose that grew in weeds, mother a whore but daughter canonized. That was the first time Black saw Peach, her real smile, and it was beautiful.
“That guy ain’t stopped by?” he said.
“Told you I’d call you, didn’t I.”
He nodded, making certain. There were times he wanted her to call, just so he could do something more than nothing for her.
“Those photos you gave me,” he said. He’d sat with them and studied them while Milk looked on.
He took the photo out of the envelope he brought and held it to the light.
It was a clear shot, the face behind Della looking straight at the camera. There weren’t no doubt it was Tommy Ryan.
“You know this guy?” Black said.
Peach stared at the photo, glanced at Black then back at the photo.
“How long?” Black said.
“Once, maybe. Long time back.”
Black rubbed his eyes.
Peach reached a hand out and looked so sad he couldn’t help but take it in his.
“He weren’t with us that day. I ain’t seen him in a long time.”
“Was Della home that time he stopped by?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“I know Tommy Ryan,” he said. “He’s got a reputation.”
“He got a temper on him?”
“Yeah, but more a reputation with the ladies. He’s popular.”
“Ain’t just the losers that pay for it, Black.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean nothin’ by that.”
“I know.”
He wondered if she did.
“I better get goin’,” he said.
He saw the look again. “Thanks for supper.”
“You didn’t eat much.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, keeping it brisk, but she held him after and wouldn’t let go. He felt her spine, her ribs, like they were outside her skin. She was getting clean. Some kinda program they ran over at the Pinegrove Center, handing out prayers and methadone like they had equal worth.
She held him close. “You’ll keep lookin’ for Della won’t you, Black?”
He nodded, eyes closed in case she saw it, that he was all she had and he pitied her for it.
*
Black took the Coyette way back, passing Gin Creek and the big houses along Route 29, by the state line. He opened the window and let night in. He passed the Green Acres Baptist Church on 84, heard they had some trouble a few months back, kids with spray cans. He pulled over.
His mind ran to the Ryan girls. He’d see them in the square when they were small, pretty dresses and holding their momma’s hands, gussied up like they were headed to a party ’stead of the grueling run to Holman to visit their daddy. They’d be smiling, chatty, full of all things innocent and right. They’d arrive back at dusk, dresses wrinkled like their eyes.
He sighed and looked out the windshield and thought of all that Raine had said to him, all that hurt and anger in her eyes.
The church was white, lit up bright but quiet. He could see the faint outline of the Bird, sprayed on the wall, by the picket. Briar girl number four had gone to that church. He could see her face clear; brown hair that touched red and that shy kinda smile they all shared.
He got out and stood on the sidewalk awhile, then walked the curved path to the church.
The front was grand and pillared and stucco smooth. He walked along the side, past the arched windows ten feet high and stained yellow and red and green.
“Can I help you, Officer?”
Black turned. The girl was young but carried a godly confidence, like she’d smile at a perfect stranger and not worry about the return.
“I’m Chief Black, from over in Grace.”
She reached out and spoke while he shook her hand gently. “Eliza McKissack, my daddy is the pastor here. We were just finishing up inside if you want to speak with him.”
Black shook his head.
She looked down. “I thought maybe you were here about Coralee.”
“I guess I was. I am. Not to speak with nobody, just to see the church. Did you know Coralee?”
They walked slow, she fell into step beside him. The church grounds were large and lit and tended.
“Yes, sir. She was in my class, and she came to church every week. I spoke to Sheriff Redell back then. You still haven’t heard nothin’?”
Black shook his head. They stopped by a cedar, mighty and beautiful, its branches swaying gentle.
“We pray for her every week.”
Black nodded.
“We were close. She was good, you know that? Not that the others weren’t, but she was so sweet. Why’d he pick her?”
“I don’t know.”
“My momma said it’s the devil’s work. I hate when she talks like that. Makes it like there ain’t no one to blame, just blanket evil, faceless, like that’s somethin’ real, somethin’ we all have to live with. Why’s he choosin’ church girls?”
“I don’t know.” Black reached up, ran a hand over his badge and felt the shine coming off.
“But you’re still lookin’ for him?”
“Yes.”
He glanced at the girl. She wore a dress that fell to her ankles.
“You reckon she’s somewhere out there alive, Chief Black?”
He thought about lying, but her eyes, they were so wide he just smiled and she read the smile well ’cause she took it and nodded like she was disappointed in him.
They started toward the church.
“Me and my friends went over to Grace. We got as far as the dark wall. It’s somethin’ else.”
“It is.”
“I went back with my parents ’cause they didn’t believe it. And then they saw it and Momma was cryin’. And I don’t even know why. Daddy was quiet, and he was lookin’ up and he said he didn’t know where the sky began. The sky and the earth, Chief Black. That’s our world. The sun and the stars. I worry that it’s changin’, since I was small it ain’t the same. Are people gettin’ crueler?”
“People have always been cruel,” Black said.
“Daddy says we have to fight harder to keep principled. I see kids in my class dressin’ black and listenin’ to hard metal, but that time’s passing us now, they don’t even know what they’re rebelling against.”
Eliza walked him all the way back to the cruiser.
“You take care,” she said. “Keep lookin’ for my friend.”
He got in and started the engine. She motioned for him to roll down the window.
“God’s darkened Grace, Chief Black. It’s important you realize that and you do somethin’ about it. The clouds pour down their moisture, and abundant showers fall on mankind.”
“Eliza, will you do somethin’ for me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay away from church for a while. Just till we catch him,” Black said.
She smiled. “I don’t have a fearful heart, Chief Black. God will come with vengeance and divine retribution. You’ll see. But I will pray for you.”
“Thank you, Eliza.”
She gave him a warm smile and was about to wave him off when she looked past him, at the photograph on the seat beside.
“Is that Della Palmer?” she said.
He passed it to her.
“You know that man behind?” he said.
She stared for a long time before she nodded slowly.
*
It didn’t take long to find it. There was a bar on Dallas Court Road, a honky-tonk with sawdust floors, a dead neon sign, and Confederate flags tacked to the siding.
Raine had gone back to the Maidenville library, spent a couple minutes flirting with Henry, and found out all she could about Walden Lauder, the boy that’d dated Briar girl number three, Lissa Pinson. Walden was the Maidenville Academy’s golden god, smart and good at football and good looking; a total prick was the way Henry told it. Henry told her about the bar too, the Bowery, served kids from Maidenville and Brookdale and Whiteport, didn’t ask for proof so long as they paid over. Maybe Raine had been there once before, with Danny, but she’d been so lit it could just as well’ve been any shithole five towns wide.
“Sure you don’t want us to come in?” Noah said. “I could flash the badge, watch those rich kids shit it when a lawman rolls –”
She got out while he was still talking.
It was hot and crowded; smoke blurred a lone man on a small stage playing bluegrass that just about cut above the talking and laughter. Raine wore cutoffs and boots and drew hungry stares from men her daddy’s age.
She found him in the corner, a head taller than the group he was with, brown hair and golden skin just like the photo in the Maidenville Herald. There was a long line of empty bottles on the table. She moved slow, watching a couple hard-faced women dancing, asses jutting like bait as burly men gazed on.
When she was near she stood beneath purple light that fell from spots so low she felt the heat. Took him two songs before he caught her eye and smiled. He gestured her over but she just grinned and turned her back. He came to her a minute later.
“You’re pretty,” he said, cheeks red and hair matted, tongue thick with booze.
“I am,” she said.
“Where you from? I haven’t seen you here before. I’d remember you.”
“Whiteport,” she said.
He smiled. “Whiteport girls are fun.”
She took his beer from him and drained it. He fetched another bottle from the table, made eyes at his friends like he was onto something good.
*
They sat in a shiny SUV in the lot, Raine straddling him, her tongue in his mouth, his hands on her ass. Music thumped heavy from the bar, light spilling as people came and went. He’d already told her shit he thought would impress her, something about his father’s boat in Orange Beach. She’d made him order tequila, matched him till his legs wobbled then led him out.
She broke the kiss, pulled back a little, and was about to start working him when the door opened. She saw the badge first then sighed.
“Hands where I can see ’em.”
“What the fuck . . .” Walden said as Noah and Purv climbed into the backseat.
Raine moved over to the passenger side.
“I’m lookin’ for my sister,” Raine said. She pulled the photo outta her bag.
Walden glanced at it quick. “I haven’t seen her.”
He made to get out but Raine took the gun from her bag.
“Jesus Christ,” Walden said, sobering fast.
“Show him again,” Noah said.
“She might’ve been lookin’ for you,” Raine said. “She might’ve been lookin’ for Lissa Pinson.”
Walden reached for the door again. Raine pressed the gun into his side.
“Fuck,” he said. “You fucking crazy bitch.”
“Shoot him,” Noah said.
“All right.”
“Shit . . . Jesus. I don’t know anything. I took Lissa out a couple times, I already told the police. I don’t know where she is. He took her, the Bird.”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“Here.” Walden watched the gun as he spoke. “I met her here.”
“I need to find the Bird,” Raine said.
“The cops can’t find him, what chance have you got?”
“You said Whiteport girls are fun,” Raine said. “What did you mean?”
He shook his head.
She slapped him hard across the cheek.
“Fuck,” he said.
She aimed the gun high, pressing the barrel into his chest. He was sweating, eyes darting across the lot.
“Tell me. I’m just tryin’ to find my sister. You tell me everything and I’ll go. I won’t say nothin’ to no one else,” Raine said.
He stared at her awhile. “Lissa was wild, not like they said in the newspapers. Church girl . . . she dragged me out back . . . against the fence, we did it against the fence. She told her friends, that’s why the cops came to me.” Walden’s hands were shaking, his eyes red and sad. “I couldn’t tell them that. My mother was sitting there. She would’ve found out. My father . . . I’m heading to college. I have a future.”
“Ain’t a big deal, you fucked some girl,” Raine said. “So what?”
Walden looked through the windshield, at the heavy moon and the low stars. “Lissa came here, maybe a month later. Showed me the test . . . I wasn’t buying it at first.”
Noah listened silent.
“What test?” Purv said.
Walden just stared out.
“She was pregnant,” Raine said, gripping the gun tighter. “Lissa Pinson was pregnant.”