Quicksand (9 page)

Nora couldn't help shivering. “Nice.”

The other agents had finally arrived, and she waited for John to hand over control of the crime scene, then followed him gingerly along the alleyway heading away from the street. They walked slowly, aware of each step, looking for signs that the terrain had been disturbed in any noticeable way.

“So, like Kylie's, we're looking here at a secondary crime scene,” Nora said as they walked.

John nodded, his eyes scanning this other entrance to the alley, then looking up and down the street. “Yeah, let's hope we have better luck finding the primary crime scene this time.”

“Probably not a car, like we'd postulated for Kylie.”

“That was Eric Burton's idea, not mine. No black man kills anybody
in
his ride.”

Nora said, “Well, it would be impractical in this case, right? Messy. And she would have had to make a lot of noise, don't you think? Unless they drugged her first?” They bent under the outer perimeter of yellow tape and slipped out of their booties. John thought for a moment, then answered, “Sounds too merciful. It looks like they wanted to cause her a lot of pain.”

They continued along the sidewalk. “I wonder what she saw to make them wanna cut out her eyes,” Nora said.

“Or who,” John countered. They had arrived at Elfreda Chambers's home. Iron bars wove impenetrable webs across the windows and storm door, always evidence that the homeowner had been frustrated by more than one break-in. “Ready?”

Nora motioned at the doorbell. “Go for it.”

He punched it, and they waited. John was not good at waiting.

“
Patience is beautiful
,” Nora quoted, as John sighed in irritation and was about to punch the doorbell again. Just as he let his hand fall to his side, they heard a slow, shuffling step approaching.

No less than three bolts creaked open before Elfreda Chambers pulled open the door, leaving the agents on the other side of the security storm door. Looking at least eighty, she was erect but battle-weary. She added a perturbed frown to the landscape of wrinkles on her face. “I've already spoken to the police.”

Nora and John offered up their badges for scrutiny. “Mrs. Chambers,” Nora said, “we're with the Violent Gang Safe Streets Task Force. We are so grateful for all the help you've provided already today, and we hate to bother you. But we would really appreciate getting a chance to stand on your balcony as part of the investigation of this crime.”

Elfreda Chambers regarded them steadily, then pulled open the iron door and stepped aside to usher them both in. “You can go straight upstairs. The balcony is off my bedroom, at the end of the hall.” Mrs. Chambers was sharp and her diction was perfect. Nora pegged her for a former English teacher.

John walked straight toward the stairs; Nora hesitated, her instinct being to await their hostess. But Mrs. Chambers waved her on. “It takes me awhile, dear. I'll join you, but you get started.” Indeed, although she could walk, her gait was slow and it seemed that the left leg dragged slightly. Nora nodded, offered Mrs. Chambers a smile, and followed John.

They walked up a steep stairway that was lined with family photographs. It looked as though Elfreda Chambers was the matriarch of a large family. From the stillness and total order in the house, however, it seemed that she lived alone. They passed two tidy bedrooms with perfectly made beds. No traces of clutter, nothing out of place. The woman's bedroom had high ceilings and a queen-sized bed that stood regally under a handmade quilt. A pair of reading glasses sat like a tiara upon the stack of books on the bedside table. Powder-blue curtains were primly tied on both sides of a bank of windows and the door leading to the balcony; all of the glass was secured with a framework of iron. John tugged at the locks and then led Nora out onto the balcony. They could see Watt and his techs still bent over the scene. A tech noticed them and must have said something to Watt, who looked up and acknowledged them by raising his chin in greeting. Mrs. Chambers's balcony afforded a view of the alley that was clear enough; Watt and the corpse could not have been more than one hundred feet away. The tall fence lining the alley was chain-link, with occasional viney weeds braiding themselves along the twisted wire.

Nora regarded the balcony. It was neatly arranged and held several planters; a few were empty, while others contained small evergreen shrubs. Mrs. Chambers maintained four bird feeders. Nora noted a wide metal scoop sitting on a large plastic lidded tub. The floor around the tub was littered with strewn birdseed. This balcony stood in stark contrast to the ones around it. To the left, most of the balcony wall had tumbled into the yard below, revealing a rotting floor; the whole house looked abandoned, and Nora spied a few old tires and a discarded commode in among the weeds. The balcony on the right was cluttered with junk, including a rusted ironing board, a child's plastic basketball backboard, and a collection of scum-encrusted chairs piled atop one another.

Nora glanced behind her to make sure that Mrs. Chambers had not appeared behind them, then said. “So … my friend and I have just brutally murdered a twenty-five-year-old woman. We roll her up in a carpet, toss her in our…”

John filled in, “Van. Or truck. I'll ask Watt to spend some time on trying to find us some tire impressions.”

Nora continued, “… And we pull up at the entrance of this alley. Probably if we back up between the two houses, we can slip our package out the back with little chance of anyone seeing us.”

He nodded, staring down at Watt's bent form. “It just doesn't sound like gangbanger MO to me.”

“Yeah, me neither. Someone was meant to see her, John. Probably not Mrs. Chambers. Let's figure out whose houses these are,” Nora said. “There's only like, what, ten possible candidates in eyeshot here. And a couple are vacant,” she added, gesturing at the house to their left.

Elfreda Chambers pulled open the door and walked out onto the balcony as she wrapped a heavy shawl around her shoulders. She cast a long look at the crew down at the crime scene, and the truck just visible beyond the houses that bordered the alley's entrance.

“Mrs. Chambers,” began John slowly. “Do you know anything about gang activity around here?” John asked.

She tightened her shawl around herself. “Young fools. Selling their drugs. My hairdresser says that the A&A gang is trying to take over the territory here.” Nora's and John's eyes met, as Mrs. Chambers continued: “I lost many young students to these gangs over the years, but somehow it seems much uglier now. Much uglier.”

Wansbrough quizzed her on some names, but she shook her head each time.

“Have gang members ever threatened you in any way?”

Mrs. Chambers shook her head. “No threats. Maybe I'm just too old of an old lady. But just … rudeness, you see. Rudeness is just as bad, in my book.”

“Do any gang members live in your immediate neighborhood?”

She shook her head again. “No one I know of. But the one who will know is my hairdresser, down at the Tress It Up. Cheryl.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Chambers. Just a couple more quick questions.” Nora said. “What about the makeup of the neighborhood?”

“With regard to what, exactly?”

John clarified: “Your impressions. Black folks, immigrants? Who are your neighbors?”

The elderly woman looked thoughtfully from home to home. “Used to be just black folks. Many more immigrants now, lots of Hispanics. Some Africans. Some of the Black Muslims, those men in the gowns and the beards, women in the…” she paused, frowning, as though searching for a word that eluded her, then came up with, “burkas—No,” interrupting herself. “That's what they call it in Afghanistan, isn't it. What is it here?”

“Niqab?” Nora offered.

Mrs. Chambers nodded. “Yes. Niqab. So … oh, yes, lots of renters, I think. I can always tell because they don't really take care of their homes the way they would if they owned them.”

“Is there violence that isn't gang-related?” Nora asked.

Elfreda Chambers exhaled in disdain. “Of course. Always. Gunshots, here, screams there.” She sighed, gesturing with a small nod of her head to the balcony with the basketball hoop. “The white man next door, when he is around, beats his wife mercilessly,” she said.

She shivered, and Nora realized it was as much from the cold as anything else.

“Perhaps we could continue inside?” she suggested gently.

Mrs. Chambers nodded and entered. The agents cast last glances over the alley and the surrounding area, then followed her in.

*   *   *

John and Nora
emerged into the fast-waning afternoon.

“I like her,” said Nora, scribbling the name of Mrs. Chambers's hairdresser into her file as they walked back to the crime scene.

“What's not to like? She looks just like my grandma but without the crazy. I kept waiting for her to give me some pie.”

“It's always food with you.”

“I've been married twenty-four years. It's all about the pie now.”

Nora rolled her eyes at him.

He said, “Okay, look, I can tell you want to keep asking questions here. But I also know that Cook and Crone already questioned a lot of these neighbors, and I guarantee the rest aren't gonna be sweet old ladies like Mrs. Chambers. I think we should check in with Watt, get that report that Burton's working on, and start here in the morning. Nobody's gonna open the door to us in the dark anyway.”

Nora was nodding her assent as she huddled deeper into her jacket. “I can work on some demographics from my laptop tonight.”

But Watt was motioning to them. “There's one more thing I want to show you before we go ahead and transfer her to the lab,” he said. He gestured toward the woman's toes. “Look here.”

Nora and John dug two more pairs of booties out of the box and crossed over the tape again. They squinted in the fading light.

The woman's toenails, like her fingernails, were unpainted. It looked like they had been scraped and torn, and the tips of her toes were bloody. John said, “Digging in with her toes.… Or, she's been dragged over gravel. Both, maybe?”

Watt nodded. “Yes, but that's not what I wanted to show you.” He tapped the skin on the top of her right foot. “Here, and here, above the talus.”

Nora squatted and peered closely at the woman's flesh, then swallowed hard.

Watt was saying, “Calluses, but I've never seen calluses quite like that, as though she.…”

“Prayer calluses,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

“Hmm?”

Nora said softly, “She's sat on the floor for long periods of time with her feet tucked under her. Probably on a mat, maybe straw, or just a rough rug or Berber carpet. From sitting to prostrating and back again. Not much of a shift for the foot, but just enough friction that, if repeated, will roughen this part of the skin.”

She straightened and looked at John. “Muslim woman. The pious kind.”

 

PART
TWO

 

CHAPTER
4

Wansbrough drove in
silence for several minutes before a stoplight allowed him to turn and regard her. “What makes you so sure about those calluses?”

Nora took a long breath and looked out the window. “Mmm. If I tell my secrets, you guys won't keep me on as the token Muslim chick.”

He snorted, “There are lines of them, as you know, waiting to fill your position.” He went back to navigating the crush of traffic on Market Street as they put Kingsessing behind them.

She waited a moment. “My mom had them. She … was really good about all that, the five daily prayers, the reciting Qur'an in the night. Her dad had a passion for the written word, and taught her to love reading everything from old Arabic poetry to law books. So she was like an encyclopedia. As for the calluses, she always had them. She usually prayed on a mat instead of a soft rug.” Nora was still, remembering the feel of her mother's skin under her fingertips, her warmth.

She watched John as he nodded meditatively. She was grateful that he didn't ask about her mother. It was one of his best traits; he seemed to know when she couldn't talk about things any further.

“You see them on guys's foreheads sometimes,” she added, after a while.

“Huh?”

“Calluses.” She was tapping the center of her own forehead. “They look sorta like bruises. Sometimes I think they bang their heads on the floor in order to look, you know … pious or something.”

“Your dad got one?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said. “He thinks he's supposed to pray, and feels guilty for not praying, but doesn't quite muster enough energy to actually do it. He'd like to go to the mosque on Friday afternoons, but always has the excuse of not being able to leave the restaurant, so he never, ever goes.”

Wansbrough smiled. “Good intentions thwarted.”

Nora nodded. “Well, he'll always quote at you, ‘Work is worship.' He's worked really, really hard his whole life.”

“Noble work,” John said earnestly.

She looked over at him. “You talking about all the free kabob you get?”

Wansbrough laughed, patting his stomach. “Girl, being your partner has been the high point of my career.”

“Thank God,” she said. “I knew I was here for some sort of higher good.”

“So why would a gang killing—with two gangs who have no known Muslim members—involve a nice, praying Muslim woman?”

“Well,” Nora said, “now we have Rashid, Kevin's brother.”

“You were working on him, right?”

“Yes. His real name is Roland Baker. When he said he'd been ‘gone, ' it was because he was doing five years of a seven-year sentence for grand larceny.”

“Larceny? Nothing gang-related?”

Nora shook her head. “Class D felony larceny. He'd been working for some kind of warehouse in South Philly on the docks, and was caught swiping merchandise stored there. There's no record of him ever being in a gang.”