The Stones Cry Out (19 page)

She walked away, adjusting her slip. I held the phone, thinking about my lie, and decided it really was time to call the U.S. Attorney's office.

Charles Reynolds was third-in-command with our lawyer branch. He had worked with our joint task force that got Milky his plea deal, and when I explained to him that the FBI was looking into possible civil rights violations which may have occurred on the roof of the Fielding factory, he said, "I read the paper, you know."

I told him we had soil from the roof -- very specific soil, the minerals distinct as fingerprints -- and the FBI’s Hairs and Fibers unit could get a DNA profile of at least one person.

"But we don't have any witnesses. And the Richmond PD refuses to release the victims' belongings. I have asked for the shoes, specifically, but Internal Affairs claimed they don't have to cooperate since they have their own investigation pending."

"You want a subpoena?" Charles asked. "Is that why you're calling?"

I was pretty sure most of my troubles came from sins of omission rather than commission. Rather than lying outright, I usually withheld vital information. For instance, telling my mother I was a geologist and leaving out the part about the FBI. Worse, omission meant I could still convince myself I wasn't lying. Not exactly something to be proud of. And I felt a stab of shame as I did it all over again, leaving out the reason why I was asking the next question.

"Charles, what about a declination?" I asked.

His voice barreled through the phone line, blasting me like a double-ought shotgun. Just like I knew it would.

"What – what did you say? A declination? I didn’t hear that. Tell me I didn’t hear you right."

“We don't have witnesses. And it is a civil rights case. I’ve heard we never solve them."

The shotgun-blast voice boomed in my ears again. Southern Black Male, the more heated Charles got, the more lyrical he became. I listened to the righteous tone undulating with inflections, ringing on the syllables.

"I grew up on Southside--I know these people. I
belong
to these people. And if y'all blow past this one, saying we can't solve it, we're
all
gonna lose. Whatever
fraction
of credibility we might enjoy in that particular community, you can kiss it good-bye. And forget about future cooperation. These folks will see to it our goose is cooked and cooked
good
."

I tried once more, one for the boss who made my life difficult. "But, Charles, I've got no witnesses. Six hundred people were out there, and nobody saw a thing. How can we go to court without witnesses?"

"I don't care. This whole thing happened—when—
last week
? Already you're asking for a declination? Girl, what's the matter with you?"

My pride begged me to save face. Tell Charles the declination wasn't my idea. It was Phaup's lousy idea. But I clung to one last shred of integrity, and chose not to hang her out to dry publicly.

And his lambaste continued.

"Let me tell you another thing. You're not going to get
witnesses
. Not honest ones. So forget about witnesses. It's Southside--that's how the place works. Know why? Because the Feds do stupid things like close a civil rights case that's been open one week. Declination, my eye."

I waited, wondering if the chastisement is over.

No, it wasn’t.

"And for that matter, why didn't you call me when the cops wouldn’t give you the evidence?"

"I'm calling you now."

He grunted. "Get on down here. I'll have the subpoena ready."

"You're sure about this?"

"I'm saying it, Raleigh. No declination."

===============

In her office, Phaup was reading some green sheet reports, which meant some poor agent was going to have to account for every single routine procedure and decision. She was the bureaucratic equivalent of asking for a hall pass to use the restroom.

She motioned toward the chair.

I sat down, readying myself. "I just called the attorney's office."

"Excellent. I do realize, Raleigh, that this is difficult for you. We train agents to pursue cases to their conclusions. But with some more experience, you'll understand why we closed this one."

I opened my mouth, but she cut me off.

"Civil rights is a hornet's nest. We step in and get stung." She smiled, enjoying her metaphor. I bet she had a drawer full of them. "I'm simply sparing you the pain."

"Yes, ma’am, but I --"

"Every agent eventually learns to let certain cases go. Now you can move on."

"I could, provided the attorneys wanted the declination."

Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"The US attorney's office just refused to grant the declination."

"Refused?"

I nodded.

"But we’re requesting the declination."

"Yes, ma’am. That's what I told them."

"And they refused?"

"They’re drawing up a subpoena for the physical evidence at the Richmond PD."

Her small gray eyes were trying to read my face, but I was granite. Stone. Garden statuary. She finally swiveled her enormous office chair toward the window facing Parham Road. I stared at the chair's wide back until she turned around. Her voice was as flat as a delta. "With whom did you speak?"

"Charles Reynolds."

She punched a button on her phone and told her secretary to dial the attorney’s office downtown. She had the speaker on, so I heard her getting transferred twice. But when Charles' supervisor came on, she lifted the receiver, severing the voices. I could only hear her explanation. How the case wasn’t coming together. How we were deferring to the police investigation. How we had manpower needs in other areas.

She never said civil rights was a waste of time.

I waited, barely breathing.

She hung up. "Congratulations."

I willed myself not to move. Not even a blink.

"Understand my words, Raleigh. Because if you force me to say this again, there will be dramatic consequences."

I pressed my forearms down into the chair.

“Get what you need from the Richmond PD. Then close this case. Immediately. Are we clear?"

I nodded, and stood to leave.

She swiveled back to the window. "And Raleigh?"

"Yes, ma’am."

"I expect this matter closed by tomorrow afternoon. Will that be a problem for you?"

"No problem," I told the chair.

At 5:46 p.m., in the tiled lobby of the Richmond Police Department, I waited for Charles Reynolds to finish blotting the glistening beads of sweat from his forehead. The moisture made his black skin look like polished obsidian.

"You want to look over the subpoena?” His handkerchief was so heavily starched it barely absorbed the perspiration.

I shook my head. “I know it’s airtight. You want that evidence as much as I do.”

“And I’m telling you, don’t mess this up. Southside’s ready to riot.”

He folded the handkerchief, tucking it into the chest pocket of his gray seersucker jacket and signaled the desk officer who buzzed the double doors. We walked down the hall, past Detective Greene's office, to the end of the corridor. A stout man wearing a blue police officer’s uniform waited for us, standing in front of a steel door with the stenciled words, “EVIDENCE Authorized Personnel Only.”

Charles handed the subpoena to him. I read his brass name badge. Harrold Teddrow.

"Wait, this is why you called?" Teddrow held the paper with both hands. “You said you just wanted to see something.”

"Yes, sir," Charles said. “I do.”

Teddrow shook the subpeona. His blue uniform fit him badly, puckering at the buttons, sagging at the shoulders, like clothing released from evidence for him to wear. "You couldn't give me some warning?"

"It's legit, Teddie," Charles said.

"I figured that. But I’m wondering who’s gonna get ticked off at me more. The chief, or that ferret in IA."

The ferret. Jeremy Owler, I presumed.

"Sorry, not our problem," Charles said. "And we don't have time for you to send up a signal flag."

"Signal flag? They’re going to send me up the pole, tarred and feathered."

“Open the door, Teddie.”

Teddrow sighed. "I want to go home."

He pulled a six-inch key ring from his belt and unlocked the steel door. The evidence room was cold and looked like the communal garage for the deranged. A prosthetic leg standing next to a stained-glass window cracked from bullet holes. A white rug spattered with brown blood. Three mangled screen doors. An electric amplifier, the mesh front was sliced open. But Teddrow keyed open a tall yellow locker and took two plastic bags from the shelves. He handed one bag to Charles, the other to me. The bag felt heavy, but my heart felt suddenly light.

"Thanks, Teddie," Charles said.

"You got the papers, you get the goods."

"I meant, thanks for not making waves."

Teddrow shrugged. The uniform scrunched across his shoulders. Then he slammed the lockers shut. "I don’t need to make waves. When they find out what just happened, it’s gonna be like a tsunami hit this place."

===============

I walked with Charles back to the federal courts building, promising to come to his church in New Kent soon. With bagged evidence in the trunk of the K-Car, I drove out Broad Street to the office, trying to decide which emotion was stronger -- excitement or anticipatory dread.

Many years from now, the personal effects of dead people might not bother me. But as I carried the bags of evidence into the office, standing in our evidence collection room, the dread was like a lead apron.

The first bag contained the clothing taken from Hamal Holmes' body. The denim pants were torn and stiff with blood and human tissue. I also found a three-inch gold crucifix on a chain. Holding it in my gloved hand, I saw the tortured face of Bernadette Holmes, weeping in her kitchen. The sound of children yelling in another room. The widow, deeply wounded. But Holmes’ wallet had no pictures of the wife and kids. And I didn’t find a wedding ring, either.

I heat-sealed the crucifix and the wallet into plastic bags, made notes for myself and for the Bureau’s evidence log, then dropped the bags into the wall slot. Tomorrow morning the evidence would be deposited in our vault.

The next bag held Detective Falcon's destroyed Dockers and ruined sport shirt, both stiff as boards. His nylon-and-Velcro wallet contained pictures of his wife and his son. I found a gold wedding band. And a watch. Smashed, hands frozen at 12:07. I noted the time in my notebook, wondering whether Janine Falcon would keep the watch, like I did. Marking the moment when time stopped. I wrote down the time in my notebook and remembered what the blind woman on Southside told us, that the sun was directly overhead.

I laid white paper over the exam table and placed both pairs of shoes on top. Hamal Holmes wore size 14 Nikes made of red and black suede. The soles were swirls of amber rubber. I brushed a gloved finger over the suede, wondering whether the fibers on the wall could have come from these shoes. Was it possible that he hung there before falling? Struggling somehow? Using tweezers, I scraped the soil that remained in the tight rubber treads then placed it in a marked film canister.

The detective's shoes were worn brown leather. Lug-soled. Wide but deep treads. I collected an ounce of soil, scraping deep into the treads, and placed that in another canister.

Finally, I signed the evidence log with my name, the time, and the case number. Then I pressed the buzzer on the wall beside the Dutch door.

Allene Carron opened the top half of the door. The woman wasn’t mean, but after climbing the ladder from FBI clerk to head of evidence control -- fifteen years of reading federal paperwork -- she was skeptical to the extreme. She read over my documents, corrected two errors, then assigned the evidence a barcode sticker which she scanned with a ray-gun. The barcode logged the evidence into the Bureau's database.

"Thanks," I said.

“Today's your lucky day.”

I would never, ever try to tell Allene luck didn't exist. The woman could take heads off with one glance.

"Lucky, because you're working late?"

"There's that," she acknowledged with an elegant nod, "but the last mail pickup hasn’t gone out. They’re coming late. Your evidence might make it to DC tonight."

With that, she closed the Dutch door, and I headed upstairs to my desk. My first phone call was to Eric. I left a message on his voice mail, explaining that evidence was on its way, and that my supervisor expected the case resolved by tomorrow.

"…Otherwise you can reach me in Sioux City. I'll be the agent hanging around the feed store."

I dialed Rodriguez in Hairs and Fibers, got his voice mail too, and told him to proceed with a DNA analysis of that one follicle. And he could expect comparison clothes and shoes by tomorrow.