Flashpoint (26 page)

Sonora picked her beer up, put it back down. “Oh.”

“‘Oh,' she says. I take that as a yes.”

“But why would he, I mean how could she … you think she's been, like, dating him?”

“I admit it's a stretch, but who else could it be? Any signs he's been seeing somebody?”

“Yeah, right, I should know them by now.”

“Would Chas tell all that to somebody he barely knew?”

“I think maybe so, especially since he was so mad at me. Jesus, this is so weird.”

“You ought to pick your fellas a little more carefully, girl.”

“So she did do it. She killed him. If you could have heard her on the phone, going on about threes.”

“I wouldn't know about that, would I, since you been holding out? But, Sonora, jacket buttons don't prove murder. Can't build a casebook on something like that. We need to get a look at her car, get the physical evidence. We'll run this by Crick in the morning, play up the sympathy bit over Chas so maybe he won't kill you.”

Sonora put her head in her hands.

“You okay?”

“I feel lost, Sam. Like I'm falling. I don't know how to put it, I just know it feels really bad. It makes me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“If this is like the way she feels.”

38

Records from Selma Yorke's alma mater showed that she had gone to high school in Madison, Kentucky—a small town, barely on the map, resting in a valley at the foot of a mountain raped by strip-mining. Sonora looked at the raw wound of land, thinking that Selma had grown up with it.

There was one restaurant on the outskirts of town. A Pizza Hut.

The two-lane road twisted and turned, leading them downward toward the river. Woods pressed on both sides, relieved now and then by a sprawl of mobile homes and boxlike whitewashed houses. Men sat outside on front porches and smoked.

Sonora stared out the window. “What are these guys doing? It's a working day.”

“Maybe they work night shift. Maybe there is no work.”

“And maybe they're just watching the marijuana grow.”

“Watch your stereotypes, girl.”

“Lookit, Sam, there are dogs under that porch.”

“Don't point, Sonora, it's not polite.”

Sonora pushed her nose against the glass. “You know, I think I've seen that house already.”

“They just look alike.”

“This is the second time that woman in lavender pedal pushers has waved at me, Sam.”

“There's a little grocery about a mile down the road. We'll get directions there.”

“How do you know?”

“'Cause we passed it a couple times already.”

The sign over the screen door said Judy-Ray Food Mart. It was warm inside, poorly lit. Almost everything was old—the linoleum, the shelves, the dairy case. Only the stock was new—bright-colored wrappers on old metal shelves. There was a large selection of cigarettes and chewing tobacco. Sam helped himself to both, along with a packet of peanuts, a Moon Pie, and a bottle of Ale-8 One.

“Hidee,” he said to the girl behind the counter.

She wore acid-washed jeans and a woven belt that said
DONNIE'S GIRL
on the back. Sonora stepped aside and let Sam do his stuff.

She was hungry. She eyed the counters and settled for tiny white powdered doughnuts, a packet of cashews, and a Coke. Sam opened his packet of peanuts and poured them into the bottle of Ale-8 One.

He grinned at the girl behind the counter. “Wonder if you could help me out some.”

Sonora wandered to the back of the store, opened her pack of doughnuts. Checked out the movie rentals.

All the latest films. Rural wasn't rural anymore.

“Sonora?”

She swallowed a mouthful of doughnut. “Yeah?”

“Come on, girl. We took a wrong turn, but I know where I'm headed. It's out of town, no more than fifteen minutes away.”

Sonora settled back in the car, wondering what Sam meant by town. The grocery store? The mobile homes?

He sat beside her, drinking Ale-8 One and crunching peanuts. He seemed happy.

“I'll be damned, they
said
a chicken on the mailbox. This has got to be it.”

A faded plastic chicken sat on top of a dented mailbox. Some joker had shot a bullet through the chicken's head. Sam turned into the drive, and gravel crunched beneath the tires of the car.

The house was small, two stories, painted blue with white shutters. Children's toys, bright-colored plastic, littered the sagging porch and the sandy, dirt-packed yard. Clumps of grass and weed had turned brown. Sonora could see a tire swing and a burned-out barn behind the house.

“This looks a lot like where she's living now,” Sam said.

“Yeah, and see that, Sam?”

“The barn? Fire follows this girl, doesn't it?”

There was no screen in the storm door, just a warped metal frame. Sam knocked on the sun-bleached wood.

They waited. Sam knocked again, and the door was opened by a woman in a blue cotton dress. The thick hams of her calves were encased in heavy stockings and showed like stumps beneath the hem of her dress. Her navy blue leather shoes, Pappagallos, looked brand-new.

She opened the door wide. “You'uns must be the police. Come in, won't you?”

You'uns. Sonora exchanged looks with Sam. They were in the right place.

“I'm Marta Adams, Selma's aunt. Ray Ben, the police are here.”

The living room was small, the wood furniture polished and slick. A braided rug gave a cozy Early American look. The furniture was maple, and there was a profusion of end tables, coffee tables, side tables—all covered with ceramic animals, seashells, ashtrays, and coasters. There were doilies on the arms of the floral chintz couch. Heavy green curtains kept the sun out.

Ray Ben Adams sat at the edge of his recliner. In spite of being skinny everywhere else, his belly bulged over his belt buckle. He wore black leather work shoes, the lace-up version, and a blue, oil-stained work shirt that had his name printed on the pocket. He had sideburns, an angular, sun-burnished face, and his hair was gray-streaked and greasy. His brown eyes were bloodshot. Oil and dirt had permanently stained the cuticles around his fingers.

He took a deep drag of his cigarette, smoking it down to the filter, and stubbed it out in an ashtray that said Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He stood up to shake hands.

Marta Adams fanned her blue dress out behind her and sat on the edge of the couch. Beside her, on an end table, was a large, worn black Bible, reading glasses folded neatly to one side. Marta Adams crossed her legs, and the nylon sang.

“You'uns want to talk about Selma, that right?”

Sonora nodded, thinking that Marta Adams was the kind of woman you could imagine waiting tables, calling people honey, and snapping gum. Her favorite brand would be Dentyne.

“What's she done?” Ray Ben asked.

Sonora set the recorder on the coffee table and slid in a new tape. She was on the verge of saying “nothing,” then decided that would be an insult. She and Sam hadn't come all the way out here for nothing.

“We're homicide detectives, Mrs. Adams. We think Selma may be involved in a case we're investigating.”

“Homicide? You mean murder?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, ma'am, we mean murder.”

Ray Ben pulled a package of Winstons from his shirt pocket. “You think she done it?” He offered the package to Sam, who looked wistfully at Sonora, then declined. Ray Ben struck a match and inhaled tobacco. Sonora's head began to hurt.

“That's what we're trying to figure out.”

“What'd she do?”

Sonora looked at him steadily. “Handcuffed a man to the steering wheel of his car, doused him with gasoline, and set him on fire. Sir.”

Ray Ben sagged in his chair. Marta Adams tightened her lips and settled back against the couch. Large tears rolled down her cheeks.

She took a crumpled wad of tissue from the bosom of her blue dress.

“When's the last time you talked to Selma?” Sam's voice was gentle.

Ray Ben cleared his throat. “Mama, maybe we better not talk to these folks. We don't have to say a word, if we don't want to.”

Marta Adams patted her husband's knee. “We'll do what the Lord would want us to, Ray Ben. She's beyond us, we known that a long time.”

He swallowed hard and took a deep drag of his cigarette. Sonora was tired, and the tobacco smoke irritated her eyes. She thought of her children. Stuart would look after them. They were okay.

“What you want to know?” Marta Adams asked.

“Just tell us about her,” Sam said. “Anything you can think of.”

Marta Adams fiddled with the top button of her dress. She blew her nose delicately and with apology, and began to talk.

Selma had come to them at age five with nothing more than a doe-eyed baby doll that played Brahms's “Lullaby” and the soot-stained nightie she had been wearing when a fireman carried her out of her burning bedroom to safety. Both parents, Marta's sister, Chrissy, and her husband, Bernard, had died of smoke inhalation.

It had been a fire of suspicious origin, starting in the living room. There had been speculation that little Selma was playing with matches, but the final conclusion was that a cigarette had ignited the couch. Bernard had smoked.

The baby doll had reeked of smoke, but Selma pitched a fit when they tried to wash it or get her a new one. They let her keep it. It was all she had.

She did not smile or talk the first year she was with them. Shock, they were told. She was an intelligent child. Her parents—Bernard in particular—had been “yuppies” (this confided in an embarrassed whisper) and had started her in Montessori schools by age three.

After she was with them a year, she resumed talking. They did not make a big deal of it, they were warned not to. The smiles never came.

She had been art uncomfortable child.

Selfish. They hated to say it, but it was true. She didn't like to share, but Marta and Ray Ben had five of their own, and sharing was par for the course. She liked pretties, not necessarily valuable. There was no predicting what would catch her eye, but whatever did had a way of migrating to her secret stash. Sometimes she buried things, then forgot where, and would dig the yard up trying to find them. Made little holes everywhere.

She was mesmerized by mirrors and water, puddles and lakes. She'd sit and look into the river for ages, not moving a muscle. But she hated the ocean.

“The waves scared her. We went to Myrtle Beach once, and she wouldn't go in the water. Said it was too big and too noisy.” Marta Adams looked at Ray Ben, and he nodded.

No, she did not get along with other children. She was uninterested in the other kids, preferred her own company, and played alone for hours, taking inventory of all of her treasures.

Dolls? Oh, yes, she loved dolls. She would scream till her face got red if you touched one of her dolls. Ray Ben had tried to fix one once, they were always losing the arms and legs, and Selma had not liked it one bit. She hadn't cared about the missing limbs, not like Marta's little, girls, who would die a thousand deaths over a Barbie who'd lost a leg.

Sometimes, Ray Ben spoke up suddenly, she secretly mutilated the other girls' dolls, so they would pass them on to her.

“You don't know that,” Marta told him.

“I seen her do it once.”

No, no, the barn had burned a couple years after Selma had gotten there, but she'd only been seven at the time. Seven years was too young to blame. It had been a terrible fire. They had lost an old milk cow and a goat, and their entire crop of tobacco.

The kids had cried for weeks about the animals. Except Selma. She didn't cry unless she was mad.

They tried to give her religion. The minister of their Baptist church went the extra mile with Selma, but she was never grateful. They had church on Wednesday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday evening. They said grace at every meal and had a Bible reading after supper most nights.

None of it rubbed off on little Miss Selma Magpie.

Sonora looked at Sam. There was spite in the way Marta Adams said “Miss Selma Magpie.”

“That was her nickname?” Sam's voice was honey.

Marta Adams laughed, but her eyes were cold. “I guess we did call her that, a few months after she come. Most of the kids had nicknames.”

“What was she like as a teenager?” Sonora asked.

Ray Ben stubbed out a cigarette. “She was trouble, that's what she was.”

“Now, Ray—”

“You said tell them the truth, Marta. Tell them the truth.”

Marta looked at the wall. “Those were difficult years.”

“I'll say they were. She drank and she smoked, refused to go to church with us on Sunday, and did things with boys by the time she was thirteen.”

Marta Adam's face turned dark red. “Ray Ben.”

“It's true. We caught her, didn't we?”

“Not
boys
. That one boy.” Marta Adams bowed her head. “It's a wonder that child never got pregnant. The truth is, no matter how much I punished that girl, she done as she pleased, even when she was little bitty.”

“When did Selma leave home?”

Marta sniffed. “Two months after she turned fifteen, she walked out this house and down that road, and we never seen her again.”

Ray Ben shook his head. “She never called, she never wrote, never so much as sent us a card. We ain't heard word one out of that girl since she left.”

“Did you adopt her?” Sonora asked.

“We always meant to, but just never got around to it. She always went by Adams, though, like the rest of our kids.”

Sonora frowned. “That was how long ago?”

“When she up and left? Been, oh, gosh, eleven years. November, I think, 'cause she went with no coat and it was cold. Just took that old worn-out jean jacket and her doll.”