the previous occupant, AAA-Printing. Darkness hung behind the window and a magnetic sign inside the glass door informed me I was a half hour late. Hands cupped against the glass, I peered inside at cheap plastic furniture in a waiting area. A long counter separated the front from the rear work area, and a sign taped to one end of the counter said, advertising display and personals. There was a sense of bare-bones, ramshackle enterprise, and I surmised the optimum employee would be a reporter who could run a printing press while selling advertising space. Opening time noted, I picked up the latest copy from a rack by the door and headed home. I was rolling south on I-10 when the car suddenly veered off an exit and turned north, as if responding to a distress call from another world.
Ava lived in a compact white Creole near the end of a cul-de-sac. I drove by slowly, staying low, wearing shades, my cap pulled down.
Flowers and a sextet of crepe myrtles bordered her drive and several flower boxes sat on the porch. A Japanese magnolia stood in a circle of pine straw. Everything wanted water, including the yellowing lawn.
The morning paper nudged the front door. Her Camry was in the drive. I phoned the morgue and Vera Braden answered. I Yankee-voiced her, talking fast, pushing flat sounds through my nose.
'I need to talk to Dr. Davanelle and right now.'
'Ahim sorry, she's not in the o-fice today,' came Vera's creamy drawl.
'May Ah take a message, sir?'
'Is this her day off? This is Sanderson. I'm the sales representative from Wankwell Testing. Dammit, I thought she'd told me her day off was tomorrow. Listen, I've got some new products I want to show your people '
Vera spiked her southern cream with venom. 'She was s'posed to be in today, Mr. Sanders, but I do believe she called herself in ill. How 'bout I have her phone you up when she feels perky enough to trouble with it.'
Click.
My next call was to Ava. I left nothing at the beep, and drove away.
I made it two blocks before returning to park behind her car. There was a hose falling from the side of the house and I gave everything a good soaking, almost hearing the dry lawn drink its way back to green.
I found it oxymoronic that the word dry described sober but lush meant drunk, when few things parch body and mind more than addiction to alcohol. I stayed fifteen minutes and didn't knock at the door. If she was awake she knew of my presence, and the choice of coming out was hers to make.
CHAPTER 14
Morning took me straight to the NewsBeafs offices, hoping for information to set my day's structure. Harry had a meeting at the DA's office on a previous case, and would spend most of the day either there or in the courtroom. I smelled wet ashes before turning onto the NewsBeafs block. Where yesterday stood an alternative newspaper, today squatted a fire-gutted building. The interior was a sodden pile of wreckage with the blackened carcass of an offset press and scorched file cabinets. A tall, stovepipe-lanky woman in a black shirt, jeans, and work gloves kicked disconsolately through ashes at the rear of the building.
A siren whooped as a cruiser slipped beside me, Officer Bobby Neeland's thick wrist over the wheel. Neeland was a square-built thirtyish pecker wood who never smiled when he could smirk or laughed when he could sneer. Even the most desperate cop groupies at Flanagan's avoided Neeland and gigglingly referred to him as Baby-Dick behind his back. His excessive-force complaints needed a separate folder, but since there were never witnesses beyond the aggrieved, he dodged them all. Neeland slowly lowered his window and peered over dark shades.
'Why you here, Ryder? No one died.' The blackheads clogging his nose looked like pencil leads.
'I'm following up on something, Bobby. What the hell happened?'
Neeland slipped off his glasses and stuck a sidepiece in his mouth, sucking noisily as he talked. 'Somebody busted the window and tossed a can of gas inside.' He sneered. 'Bye-bye hippie paper.'
'Any idea who did it?'
'Check the alley side, Ryder. It's autographed.'
I walked to the side of the building. Spray-scrawled against the discolored brick was white power in letters two feet high. Actually, it said, white po…, the last three letters a horizontal swipe toward the back alley.
When I returned, Neeland was gnawing his glasses with tiny sharp teeth.
The clicking made me queasy.
'Whoever did it was more interested in running away than making a statement, Bobby.'
'Huh? What say?'
'Forget it. Not important.'
He stuck his spit-wet frames on and stared through black ovals. 'Heard the paper'd been writing about the white power folks lately. Guess them boys got a little pissed. Shit, Ryder, you're a college boy, you tell me, hows come the ni blacks can have all their shit like the NCPA, but white people want to stand up for their own and it's a big deal? I mean, where the fuck's the justice in that?'
Inside the front of my skull a hornet started buzzing. I said, 'Know who the woman in the building is?'
'Owns the paper. No, owned it. She ain't s'posed to be in there on order of the fire marshal. I kicked her skinny ass out an hour ago and I'm about to do it again. Stay and watch, Ryder. It'll be fun, she's a real cop-hating cunt.'
'Keep your pimply ass on the seat, Neeland. Drive away.'
'Hell, you say.'
'Go tickle your baby dick.'
'You can't talk to me like that, you fuck.'
I stuck my face in front of his, provocation for the terminally insecure. 'I'm believing I just did, Bobby.'
Neeland's knuckles were white on the wheel. I felt his hatred through the sunglasses; must not have been polarized. His voice shook with anger. 'Get outta my face, cocksucker, or we're gonna have trouble.'
I snatched his glasses from his face and tossed them over my shoulder, stepping back as I pulled his door open. Without the glasses his eyes stopped glaring and started blinking. He jutted his fat jaw and screamed at me from inside the cruiser. 'I know what you're doing, you crazy bastard! I beat your ass and who goes up on charges? Me. You ain't getting me busted down, Ryder. I know your shit.'
I gave Neeland his redemptive moment of grabbing the door and slamming it shut. He screeched away howling curses. His sunglasses lay on the pavement glistening with saliva. Not wanting rabies, I let them lie.
Then, not wanting anyone else afflicted, I stepped on them.
An aluminum awning hung off the building. I enjoyed its shade until the forty something woman trudged from the wreckage. She seemed overpoweringly familiar until I realized she looked like Abraham Lincoln. First, it was the eyes, deep set under cragged brow, as dark and honest as coal. Her cheekbones were high and prominent and her chin was firm and square. Black hair rose like a wave before being pulled back and secured behind her neck by a blue bandanna. Though her motions were reserved, her feet lifted high and coltish when she stepped, gangly frame following the large boots like it was surprised where it was going. She sat on the step to the parking lot and pulled off her gloves to reveal lovely hands. She leaned back on her elbows and closed her eyes.
'Salvage anything?' I asked.
She looked up, squinting against sunlight. 'What do you care?' She'd seen me with Neeland, knew I was Cop.
'Just do, I guess.'
'We've published enough negative stories about your people that I doubt it.'
I sat down beside her. The smell of smoke was thick on her clothes.
'My people? On my daddy's side or my mama's?'
The nuggets of coal inspected me. I said, 'I read the article on the white power movement last night.'
'And?'
'It made me angry at people whose hatred of others is based on something as transparent as skin color or personal beliefs. Then I realized most of those folks have been stewed in those prejudices since they slid into the world.'
