Laneer was sobbing again, so he just nodded his head as he walked toward the front door of the house where Kali had lived with her mother. When he drew near, he reached out a hand to touch the doorknob, just in time to hear the deadbolt thunk into place.
The adults looked at each other. Now what?
Faye hoped to goodness that McDaniel didn’t do something stupid like yell, “Open up! It’s the law!” She also hoped that Reverend Atkinson did not try to invoke the will of God to get Kali to let them in, because she didn’t think the bereaved child would pay him much attention.
Did Kali know she was bereaved? She had to suspect it. How often did her mother disappear, replaced by a herd of grown-ups like this one, some of them weeping? It must be obvious to her that something was terribly wrong.
If, as Faye feared, Kali had seen the attack on Frida and had watched her being put into the ground, she had probably thought her mother was dead from the moment she ran to Laneer’s house. But knowing it and hearing somebody say it were two different things. If Faye were Kali, she wasn’t sure what it would have taken to get her to open that door.
There were windows on either side of the front door with venetian blinds hanging down nearly to the windowsill, leaving a wide crack at the bottom where light could get in. McDaniel and the minister hunkered down to peer into one window. Laneer and Sylvia did the same at the other one.
Faye and Walt, who both had no real reason for being there beyond circumstance, stared awkwardly at each other. They had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and neither was sure what was expected of them. His confrontational air was gone.
Leaning toward Faye, he murmured, “You were there? You found her?”
She nodded.
“I heard…” His voice trailed off, presumably because nobody really likes saying the words, “I heard she was buried alive.” He swallowed and found the guts to say them.
“You heard right. But how did you hear?”
He gave a soft laugh. “Sylvia’s been texting. She’s good at that. Cell phones have made children’s lives a lot harder, now that their candy lady can tell their mama when they’ve done wrong. Nowadays, she can do it before they can run home and tell a lie big enough to save themselves.”
“So yeah,” Faye said. “Buried alive. I’m guessing the bastard thought she was dead. Or maybe it’s worse than that. Maybe he’s getting his jollies right now, wondering whether she’s dead yet and wondering how long it took her to go.”
Walt shuddered. “Where did you find her? People usually try to hide it when they’ve done something like that. You must have been way off the beaten path.”
“I’m an archaeologist. A lot of my work happens off the beaten path. That’s why I’m here in Memphis. I’m doing an excavation in the park for the state of Tennessee, mostly along the creek and on the bluff above it. That’s where I found Frida.”
“You picked a fine time and place to start a job in Memphis.”
“No kidding,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this isn’t the first time I’ve found a murder victim. I guess it’s an occupational hazard for an archaeologist. Every time we put a trowel in the ground, there’s some chance that it’ll uncover a dead body. But this is absolutely the first time I’ve ever dug up somebody who wasn’t dead yet. I’ll remember the look in her eyes for as long as I live.”
Walt didn’t speak. There was horror on his face and Faye was sorry she’d put it there.
“I’ve said too much,” she said. “I’m sorry. We should focus on Kali.”
“I’m sorry I was hard on you.”
“I wouldn’t like someone who thought my people were charity cases, but I’m not like that.”
“I can see that now.”
He looked away, maybe to avoid meeting her eyes or maybe to watch McDaniel, Laneer, and Sylvia, standing at the front door and trying to coax a frightened little girl out of her lonely house.
“There are a lot of people out here who want to help you, Kali,” McDaniel was saying in a surprisingly gentle tone.
Sylvia reached into an apron pocket and pulled out a handful of candy wrapped in colorful waxed paper. She held it up to the window, and said, “Come see. I have your favorite.”
The blinds stirred, but no face appeared. The door stayed locked.
Laneer reached past Sylvia and tapped on the windowpane. “Kali, honey. You need to let us in. I know how much food you ain’t got in that house. You can’t lock yourself up in there forever without starving. Come out and I’ll make you a tomato sandwich just the way you like it. Nice soft white bread and lots of mayonnaise.”
Maybe it was the promise of candy, but Faye really believed it was the thought of Laneer’s tomato sandwich that did the trick. This was a child who liked real food well enough to hike miles for it, when she could have been eating ice cream sandwiches at home.
At long last, Faye heard the deadbolt slide open and the screech of yet another overpainted and out-of-square door. Kali stood in the open doorway, but she didn’t step out and she didn’t speak.
The minister got down on a knee next to her and said, “Kali, sweetheart, I came to tell you about your mama. She…well, she went to be with God this morning. I was with her, and her last thought was for you.”
“Somebody killed her, right?” The girl’s voice was rough-edged, but there were no tears in it, not yet. “She didn’t just go.”
The minister blinked at her like a deer that had stepped into the headlights of a Mack truck.
“And
