To Live Perfect
They got Tommy early, when Joe had run home to wash up and check in with Ava.
The men watched Milk as he strolled over, calm and slow, a cup of coffee in his hand.
Tommy was sitting on the middle bench, lacing his boots, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips.
Each day brought the tension a little closer to the surface, the men a little more eager to act. Some hadn’t worked steady in years. They were skilled in dying practice, a lifetime wasted watching their fathers haul timber and working up a proud sweat.
Now they picked up odd jobs in towns far from Grace. They’d ride a hundred miles to spend a day laboring, back breaking, but worth it for the feel on the drive back. They were focused on Summer, on helping Joe and holding a line against the cops, and maybe against the church ’cause their wives’ prayers had gone unanswered for so long. That dead feeling that came when their purpose was snuffed out by faceless outfits with smiling shareholders was turning to something like anger. So they didn’t grouse about sitting in darkness night and day, they were doing something, they were ready to move and fight.
“Mornin’,” Milk said.
“Is it?” Tommy said.
“A couple miles out maybe.”
He finished lacing his boots and stood. He was tall, not as broad as Joe but he had the height to look big and scary to a kid seeking monsters in Hell’s Gate.
“Black wants a word.”
“Joe’s gone home for an hour. I’ll send him over when he gets back.”
“With you, not Joe.”
Tommy glanced around, nodded at one of his boys, then took the cigarette from his mouth and slipped it behind his ear.
*
They sat on East Pine Road and watched the clinic. It was built into the trees, one story, and painted a shade like moss that saw it blend nice. The Dayette Women’s Clinic. There weren’t no signs, they’d had trouble since the day it opened. Raine remembered the news reports, the placards: WOMEN DO REGRET ABORTION; AMERICA’S SHAME; CHOOSE LIFE. The center was run by a lady name Cara Delaney. A few years back the news was hot with her ’cause she was prosecuted for helping desperate young girls the state said she had no business helping.
Raine rolled the window down. It was early but there were cars in the lot beside.
“So this is where he sent her,” Noah said.
Raine nodded, her mind running to Lissa Pinson. Walden spilled all of it. He’d given Lissa five hundred bucks and driven her to Dayette himself. He said it cold and flat and she almost slapped his pretty face again.
“Wait here,” Raine said.
“You want me to come in? We could pretend it’s mine,” Noah said.
“I ain’t sure they’d believe that.”
She opened the door and crossed the street, squinting against the morning light ’cause she weren’t used to it no more. She carried her pack with her gun and her maps and she felt Noah’s eyes on her as she walked up to the glass doors.
Inside it was cool with central air that pricked her skin. There was a line of plastic chairs facing an old television that rolled CNN without sound; just a talking head and a background of O. J. looking on as doctors and lawyers clashed.
Raine saw a girl sitting opposite. She was young and she kept her head down so her hair fell, eyes locked tight on a magazine. She shuffled her feet, rolling toe to heel and back like she was anxious, which weren’t all that surprising.
An old lady came out and she was carrying a file. “Amber King?”
The nervous girl nodded and stood and followed her back.
“Can I help you?”
Raine turned and there was a lady with fire-red hair wearing a kind smile.
“I’m pregnant,” Raine said.
*
“Raine said you’re close with her and Summer. She said there ain’t nothin’ you wouldn’t do for ’em,” Black said.
Tommy softened at that, sank back a little in his seat, and finally took a sip of the coffee Trix had brought in.
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
“You’re closer with Raine though?”
“Not always, just when she started gettin’ in shit. Summer’s got a head on her, she can take care of herself.”
“You see yourself in Raine?”
“She’s got that Ryan fire, you know? And she’s more into the woods, the huntin’ and trackin’; she’s got talent for it. But that don’t mean I play favorites. Summer’s a kid to be proud of. If I knew she was comin’ to stay with Raine then I’d go the extra . . . maybe rent a movie she’d like or somethin’.”
“You stepped up when Joe went to Holman.”
Tommy shrugged like it weren’t nothing but Black remembered well. Tommy taking the girls to Mae’s every Sunday after church. They’d sit by the window, the girls sharing a sundae while Tommy watched them, a smile on his face.
Black heard Milk out front, on the telephone, maybe another call about the storm cloud.
“You ever met a lady named Peach Palmer?”
Something flickered in Tommy’s eyes, some kinda realization, like he could see the snare.
“Could’ve.”
Black slid the photograph over.
Tommy picked it up.
“That the Briar girl?”
Black nodded.
“You tryin’ to blindside me, Black?” He stood quick, the chair fell back and clattered to the floor.
“I’m tryin’ to find your niece. Bring her back safe. If I gotta upset you to do that then I ain’t got no problem with that.”
Tommy eyeballed him awhile.
“I can make this formal if you want, Tommy. Start recording. Lock you down while you wait on your lawyer to get over from Maidenville, charge you a couple hundred bucks just for the miles. I don’t care either way.”
Tommy picked up his chair and sat down again. “You gone tough again, Black?”
“It’s what y’all want. I gave Joe my word, and Raine.”
Tommy watched him awhile, maybe looking for a change but there weren’t none, not outside. “You figure me for this? This shit with the Briar girls. Hell, Black, what the fuck would I be doin’ sittin’ outside a police station if I had shit to hide?”
“Peach Palmer?” Black showed him a photo of Peach, a file shot from a few years back when she’d got charged with possession.
“Maybe she looks familiar. Could be I took her out one time. I take out a lot of ladies.”
“You got an alibi for the day Della went missin’?”
Tommy took a moment. “I was fishin’ the Wheeler Lake for a few days, best spot below the Guntersville Dam. I caught it on the radio on the drive back.”
“Anyone see you fishin’?”
“I went with Merle.”
“And that is you with Della Palmer.”
Tommy looked at the photo again. “I ain’t with her. That’s the rodeo at Red Oak Mountain. I go every year, ask round.”
“How about the Green Acres Baptist Church, you ever been there?”
Tommy stared at Black and Black stared back.
“Well?” Black said.
“There’s a lady there, lives off Route 80. I was seeing her, now I ain’t.”
“And she dragged you to church?”
“Not just church, down to Pinegrove where she volunteers.”
“You did all that just for a lady?”
“Sucker for a pretty face.”
“Write down her name and address.”
“How desperate you gettin’ here, Black? How worried should we be about Summer? I mean, I figured she’d show, that she’d fought with a boy or one of her friends, or maybe Ava was riding her too hard or somethin’. I thought that guy was done. The Bird.”
Black handed him a pen and watched as he wrote.
*
After he was done with Tommy Ryan, Black found Deely White waiting in his office. Black sighed and sat heavy in his chair.
Deely sat across from him, fingers steepled across his gut like he was mulling something casual. He was old, red faced with white brows and a chin that weren’t more than a puddle of fat.
“Let me guess . . . Pastor Lumen sent you to do his bidding,” Black said, tired and in no kinda mood.
“You ain’t to talk to the boy again, not unless you’re bringing charges.”
“He ain’t a boy. He can speak for himself.”
Deely closed his eyes like he was pained and Black was dumb. “The family have a lawyer, Milt Kroll –”
“I know Milt, he’s older than the pastor. Tell him to come down, I’ll talk with him.”
“Well, he’s on vacation, but his office –”
“More like he knows what’s playin’ with the Ryans and he don’t want to touch it.”
“The pastor was clear, ain’t nobody to talk to the boy. You can’t ask him nothin’.”
“Why not, is he hidin’ somethin’?”
The eyes closed again.
“Open your fuckin’ eyes,” Black said.
Deely startled.
Black raised a hand. “I’m busy, Deely. We got a missin’ girl, that’s all anyone should be worried about. If Samson ain’t got nothin’ to hide then I don’t see the problem, do you?”
“I . . . I just –”
“You tell the old man I’ll do what I like. Samson knows the deal, he said he don’t want to talk to a lawyer. I got that on record now.”
Deely stood with a face so red Black worried it’d burst. “You shouldn’t think the pastor is weak, Black. That’s a mistake.”
Black sighed and watched him leave. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a bottle of Crown. He opened it, inhaled deep, then closed the cap and put it away.
*
“I can’t take much more Disney,” Noah said, frowning at the television set.
Purv hushed him. “Turn it up. I wanna see how this plays out. I get that she’s a lady and all, but that tramp ain’t taking no for an answer. Should’ve been fixed long ago, fuckin’ mongrel.”
Noah licked his lips then rubbed his eyes. He shifted in his seat, battling the urge to rip the tubes from his arm and walk away. He got like this now and again, felt the weight of his troubles so heavy on his lungs he couldn’t squeeze a breath. He hated coming to Mayland. When he was younger they’d set up the machine at his house, showed his momma how to use it. It was loud though, so loud it ran into his dreams, twisting hot dreams where the machine keeping him alive turned into some kinda monster, locked onto him, claws in his veins.
“If the earth spun the other way then the rain forests would turn to deserts and the deserts to rain forests,” Purv said.
“Fascinating,” Noah said.
Noah glanced over at Missy and smiled but she just frowned ’cause he’d skipped another session. The hospital had written his grandmother but he’d tossed the letter in the trash.
“They brought in Tommy Ryan this mornin’,” Noah said.
“Why?”
Noah shrugged. “Probably nothin’. Maybe they wanted to ask him some more about Summer. I tried to get near the room but Milk was hanging by the door.”
“You gonna tell Raine?”
“No, don’t seem worth tellin’.”
“How’d it go at the clinic?” Purv said.
Noah shrugged ’cause Raine had been quiet on the drive back to Grace. “We’re goin’ back tonight.”
“It’s open at night?”
Noah shook his head and Purv sighed.
“You comin’?”
“ ’Course. Y’all know how to pick a lock?”
*
They sat in the Buick till midnight, when the lot and the street were empty. Raine told them what had happened, how the lady with the fire-red hair had taken her to a room and asked her a bunch of questions while she sipped sweet tea.
Raine gave a fake name and a Haskell address. She asked if Raine had told her parents, asked her that three times, even asked if she’d told her friends ’cause she was worried Raine didn’t have no support.
The lady’s name was Dolores and she said she’d check the diary and give her a call, that she could come back and talk to somebody but by law they couldn’t carry out the procedure without parental consent.
Raine didn’t get a chance to look around ’cause she weren’t left for a moment.
“We should take it to Black,” Noah said. “What Walden told us, we should tell Black all of it.”
“He’ll sit on it, or kick it to Briar and they’ll sit on it. Black don’t want to see Summer linked, he’s too drunk and too scared.”
“I don’t like this,” Purv said as they got outta the car. “What if they got an alarm?”
“Then we’ll have to move quick,” Raine said.
They skirted to the back of the building, across the short grass. There was an American flag tangled in a tree branch, and maybe there was some words on it but they were too dark to make out.
Purv crouched by the door, slipped a thin wire from his pocket, and got to work on the lock.
Raine watched as the minutes ticked by. “Does he know what he’s doin’?”
“Hush, baby girl,” Noah said.
Raine shook her head, pained.
“I’ll tell you a little somethin’ about Purvis Bowdoin. When it comes to locks, the guy’s a technician –”
They both jumped as Purv smashed the glass pane with a rock.
“What happened?” Noah said.
Purv shook his head and looked down. “Must be a foreign lock.”
Noah put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Jesus,” Raine said, frowning at them.
“No alarm,” Noah said.
“Wait outside,” Raine said.
“If we had the time I could dust for prints, see if Summer was here,” Noah said. “Just need some talc and a little jojoba oil.”
“MacGyver?” Purv said.
Noah nodded and they bumped fists.
Raine slipped through careful and crunched shards under her sneakers, Noah followed close behind. They moved along the hallway in darkness, checked three offices before they found the file cabinets. There was a bank of them, eight, wide and tall but they were in order. Raine switched on the flashlight.
“What are we lookin’ for?” Noah said.
Raine pulled the paper from her pocket. “Briar girls. You look for Braymer and Hinds, I’ll check for the others.”
They searched fast, thumbing files. They didn’t find the Briar girls.
They moved into another room and they saw a bed and a screen and trays of equipment. There were paintings on the wall of fall trees with orange leaves, and desert beaches more than a world away.
“This is where they bring the ladies,” Raine said.
“Yeah,” Noah said.
The smell was chemical and harsh.
“I see ’em on the news, those people that stood out front,” she said.
“I remember.”
“They got that look in their eyes, like they got God on their side, you know. Nobody knows what he’d say though . . . not really. Sometimes I think about Mandy Deamer.” Raine put her hand on the bed, on the cloth. “I used to think it was wild, that story. But imagine her, how desperate she must’ve been to take her own life. Surely that ain’t right, feeling that way, or being made to.”
“It’s not,” Noah said, his eyes on the painted sea, on the folding white waves.
“And Momma said Mandy had a head on her, that the Deamers was tough people. Mandy and her brother used to show at church . . . but everyone sins, right? Even those folk that lay judging. You can’t live perfect, it ain’t . . .” She looked through the slats at the shape of the night sky. “I ain’t even sure what I’m sayin’. It’s just sad is all.”
When they were back in the Buick and driving up Highway 72 they saw a cruiser pass, lights flashing as it turned down Kenton Road toward the clinic.
“Shit,” Purv said. “Must’ve had a silent alarm. Took their time though.”
Raine followed the lights till they went to nothing. Her mind ran to David Gunn, the doctor that’d offered abortion services in the boondocks. He was shot dead ’cause pro-life was restricted to the unborn. “Probably the cops don’t give a shit about the Dayette Women’s Clinic.”
*
Savannah crossed the hallway and watched Bobby sleep. He wore only shorts and she followed the contours of his chest as he breathed shallow breaths. He ran, there was a bench in the garage, he lifted weights so heavy the bar bent as it rose. It wasn’t vanity that drove him.
They didn’t sleep together, not since Michael. She missed sex, which was a truth that came hard in the wake of burying their only child. It was as much the physical act as the emotion that came with it, and that was a feeling far too indulgent to speak of.
She tried, sometimes she wore her hair up because he liked it that way, and she wore the French perfume, but she fell far short of brazen because she knew her husband. She still loved him, which was as troubling as it was comforting.
Her mother had called again. She’d made small talk awhile: the trip to Bermuda, the housekeeper that was stealing, and then she’d pressed hard. She told Savannah of the Patterson boy, of how he was going through a difficult divorce but how he was handsome and about to be made partner. Savannah had slammed the phone down.
She could still protect Bobby, to keep him from suffering further. Despite what was coming she could still right one wrong. And so she crept from the house and into the heavy night, and she walked toward Hell’s Gate National Forest. For him, she told herself. This was for him now.