It was the worst day he’d had since Iwo Jima.
Reluctantly, he picked up the microphone and pushed the send button.
“Dispatch, this is Car One Four, I am ten-eight.”
“Earl, where you been?” It was the major, taking over for Dispatch.
“Been at that crime scene, Major, you copy and send units?”
“Negative, One Four. Earl, you got to let that nigger gal cool till we catch up with Jimmy Pye. I seen the record, he’s a Polk County boy, and you were his last A-O.”
“I know the family,” said Earl.
“Okay, good.”
“You want me on roadblock or sweeps, Major?”
“Negative, One Four. You go cover the family. Maybe he’ll make some contact with them. Don’t he have a wife, that’s what the records say.”
“Married her a week before he done his jail time,” said Earl.
“You check on her, then, Earl. You cover her and any other kin he might have there in Polk. You need help, you wire up with the sheriff’s boys.”
“Got you, Major. But when am I going to see that forensics team? I want them out here on the crime scene fast as possible.”
“Maybe by the late afternoon, Earl. Them boys got lots of work still to do at the Fort Smith IGA. It’s a bloodbath. He shot two boys in the office, a nigger outside, and he popped a city officer in a car. He’s bad news, Earl.”
Earl nodded bitterly, checking his Bulova.
Earl drove through Blue Eye’s Colored Town, on the west side, under the bulk of Rich Mountain. It was small and scabby; why couldn’t these lost people pick up their garbage, mow their lawns, tend their gardens? Everywhere he looked, he saw signs of decay and lassitude and disconnection from decent living. The children, barefoot and in rags, lolled on the porches of the shanties, staring at him with big eyes and slack faces. They wore ragamuffin clothes and their eyes were huge, unknowable pools as they stared at him, though when he rounded a corner and caught them unawares, he was able to see them playing games like jump rope and hide-and-seek with their natural exuberance; but when they saw the big black and white car and the white man in the Stetson with the harsh eyes, they immediately cooled way down and met him with those empty faces.
In time, he passed the most impressive building in Colored Town, Fuller’s Funeral Parlor, an old mansion from the days when white people lived in this end of town, nestled under elm trees; and a little farther down, the second most impressive building, a church, white clapboard; and then, finally, down a tree-shaded street where the small Negro middle class lived.
The Parker house was the third on the right, also clapboard, with a porch and a trellis hung with bright wisteria, tiny but neat and well tended. Mrs. Parker led the choir in the church; her husband, Ray, was a clerk for the gas company, the only colored man employed there.
Earl was both glad and sick to see no other police vehicles; that meant he could talk alone to the Parkers without the presence of a lot of bulky white men with badges and guns, which would quiet them down and scare them or at the least drive them into the guarded conditions Negroes affected in the presence of a lot of white people; but it also meant he would have to give them the news himself. Maybe he should have called that minister.
He parked, aware of eyes upon him. The girl’s mother stood on the porch. Her skin seemed not brown at all, but ashen; her features were drawn up as if she’d been stricken and she breathed heavily.
He took off his hat as he approached.
“Mrs. Parker?”
“Did—did you find my girl?”
“Mrs. Parker, you’d best sit down, now. You sit down, maybe you’d let me call the minister to come over.”
“Mr. Earl, what is it, please? Just tell me. Oh, Lord, just tell me.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. Your daughter has passed. Someone found a reason to kill her. We found her off the road, twelve miles out of town, ma’am.”
“Oh, Lord,” said the woman. “Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord. Oh, why do he test me like that? He knows I love him. Lord, I love you, Lord. Amen, I loves you.”
She began to sob, and rocked back and forth in the chair. It was said commonly and Earl half believed, because he’d never tested it, that Negroes didn’t feel grief or pain like white folks; that there was something undeveloped about their systems. But not here: there was nothing Negro in it at all. Mrs. Parker let the power of the news have its terrible way with her. He recalled seeing men give in to grief like this in the Pacific, just letting it roar out and over them. He thought of his own son, and how he’d feel if he lost that little boy. He wanted to touch the woman, comfort her somehow, but it never worked when people with different skin touched.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am.”
“Oh, Lord,” she said.
He ducked into the house, which was dark and neat. He found the phone and picked it up.
“Operator.”
“Betty, this is Earl Swagger.”
“Earl, what you doin’ in Niggertown? That’s Mrs. Parker’s line.”
“They got some trouble. You connect me to Reverend Hairston.”
Betty put him through and he told the minister, who said he’d call Mrs. Parker’s sister and her aunt and be over in minutes to take charge. Earl went back out onto the porch, where the woman still sat.
“How did my daughter die, Mr. Earl?”
“It wasn’t very pretty. Looks to me like someone choked or beat her. I don’t think she suffered long.”
“Was she—you know, did he—”
“I’m afraid he did, ma’am. You know, these animals get heated up, they just can’t control themselves.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Mrs. Parker. “He done took ever last thing from us. Every last thing.”
“Your baby is in heaven where it don’t hurt no more,” Earl said. “Tomorrow, there’ll be some policemen to talk to you. They’ll want to know what time she left, who she was with, who her friends were.”
She looked at him.
“Mr. Earl, they don’t care about no Negro girl. They won’t ask a thing. It don’t matter to them.”
Earl said nothing. As far as the Blue Eye Sheriff’s Department went, she was probably right.
“Well, ma’am, since this happened outside of town, the state police detectives will have to work it. And I’ll make sure the work gets done. We’ll catch whoever done it, you understand? I swear to you, as I live and breathe, we will solve it.”
“Oh, Lord,” the woman said again, knitting a tissue up against her ruined face.
“Mrs. Parker, I know it’s hard now, but I want you to answer me two, maybe three things to get this all started. You concentrate on answering me and helping your baby girl.”
She said nothing.
“Do the initials RGF mean anything to you?”
“No sir.”
“Okay. Now exactly when did she leave and where was she going?”
“It was Tuesday night, four nights ago. She went to church meeting, that’s all. She don’t never come back.”
“You sure she made it?”
“The Reverend say she was there.”
“What kind of meeting was this?”
The woman looked at him, and Earl, who had an instinct for such things, thought he picked up a little something here.
“Just a meeting. You know, Mr. Earl, a church meeting. For the Lord.”
He wrote down, “Meeting? What kind? Who there?”
“Then she left okay?”
“Yes sir. And come on walking home.”
Earl looked down the street. It was but two blocks to the church. Lord, she’d been picked up on this very street!
“Mr. Earl, where is my baby now? She ain’t still there, is she?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid she is. We have to wait for the detectives to come out from Fort Smith. Seems we had another crime today. A robbery, some folks killed. A bad boy from right around here did the shooting, they say.”