Sylvia didn’t wait for her to respond. She talked fast, like a woman with no time to waste, but then Sylvia always sounded that way. “I need for you to tell the police some things.”
Faye still wasn’t sure yet why this merited a middle-of-the-night call, but Sylvia was talking about the police, so she must be getting to her point.
“I can do that, Sylvia, but why don’t you tell the police yourself? It sounds like you know something important, so they’re going to have questions for you that I can’t answer. It’s way easier for you to do the talking.”
“I don’t talk to the police.”
“I’ve seen you talk to McDaniel. He’s not a bad guy.”
“I answer questions from the police when they get asked. I know how to be polite and respectful, when I need to be, because it’s the people that act nasty who they remember. But I don’t offer them anything extra, and I sure don’t call up the police to pass the time of day.”
This debate was going nowhere, and Faye hadn’t lived Sylvia’s life. Who was she to say whether the woman’s suspicion of police officers was warranted or not? If the woman had information that needed to be passed on to Detective McDaniel, the smart thing for Faye to do was to listen.
“I’ll tell him whatever you want me to tell him, Sylvia.”
“First of all, tell him that Mayfield and Linton ain’t as dumb as they look.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Mayfield is smart when he wants to be smart. When he was in high school, he used those long arms and legs to be the best quarterback we ever had. Good grades, too. Woulda gone to college if his rap sheet didn’t scare off the scouts. Mayfield ain’t dumb. Dumb people make bad quarterbacks.”
Faye wasn’t much of a sports fan, but this sounded true. “What about Linton? Was he an offensive lineman or something?”
“Don’t know what he did in high school, but I know what he did after. Seems like he made a big score on some test the Navy gave him and they were gonna train him to do electrical work on nuclear submarines. He could’ve worked for them for his whole life, or he could’ve done his time and got out, ready to be an electrician. That’s a good job. You can be your own boss. Hire some people to help you. Build up a good business.”
“Then why is Linton working at the convenience store?”
“Couldn’t keep his fists to his self. The Navy only likes you to hurt people when they say so.”
McDaniel was going to want some proof of the things Sylvia was saying, but Faye had no doubt that he could get it. Surely, he had underlings who could check the local high school yearbook for its football rosters.
Sylvia wasn’t finished talking. McDaniel would be fit to be tied when he realized how much helpful information he couldn’t get because his badge scared people.
“Tell him to talk to Arkansas. And Mississippi.”
Faye let a beat of silence pass while she processed that statement. “Well, now, you’ve got me stumped. How is McDaniel supposed to talk to two whole states?”
“To their police. To their sheriffs. Their highway patrol. Hell, I don’t know who’s who when it comes to people in uniforms with guns. Just tell him to talk to the people who are out there hunting for missing girls and pulling dead women out of dumpsters.”
Faye fought back the memory of two hands thrusting up from the ground, grasping for help. There were people who saw things like that all the time.
“What are you saying, Sylvia? Do you know of someone in particular? Someone who was killed? Someone missing?”
“None of those things. I’m just saying that our policeman needs to talk to the other people who are looking. Or who should be looking.”
“Who? It will help him do his job if you can tell me who.”
Faye was shocked to hear Sylvia sobbing. She had been so calm, even when coming to terms with terrible news about a young woman she clearly cared about. Faye recognized the sound of someone who had been strong for other people until she just had nothing left.
“Laneer is in his house, crying himself sick, because that detective called to tell him how Frida died.”
“He got the coroner’s report? Since I was there with Laneer?”
It had only been a few hours since Faye left Laneer’s house and McDaniel had spent some of that time talking to Faye. Since she doubted that the coroner had called at eleven p.m., McDaniel had known the cause of death when he spoke with Faye, and he had made it a point not to tell her. Maybe he’d known more than that and he was keeping it from her. This information rankled.
“Yeah. You hadn’t been gone an hour.”
“He must have called right after he hung up from talking to me.”
“He didn’t tell you nothing about it, right? With you helping him every way you know how? And you wonder why I don’t talk to the police. Everything they say and everything they don’t say—it’s all a lie.”
Faye’s mother had taught her to trust and even revere the police, telling her to run to them when she was in trouble. She felt that lifelong trust begin to crack. “Mississippi and Arkansas. What were you going to tell me about them?”
“Tell the policeman to call the minister at Clay Creek Baptist Church in Corinth.”
“Corinth, Mississippi?”
“Yeah. My sister goes there, and they spent six weeks last year praying for a woman what never came back. Somebody buried her in the old graveyard out behind her own church, and they never did find out who done it. They ain’t used that cemetery since the Depression and nobody noticed that somebody’d dug an extra grave out there. Marked it with a big rock, he did, like people
