The Stones Cry Out (25 page)

I slowed to a walk by the Daughters of the Confederacy, staring at the cannons. The forged iron rims dripped with rain.

This defiant city. It was willing to acknowledge its troubled past, but it refused to turn that bygone era into a complete wasteland. It was a city that said cruelty and affliction don’t eliminate grace and gentility. The hope of salvation. I turned and walked down Monument Avenue. General Lee and Traveller glistened with bronzed water.

For better or worse, this city was in my blood. In my bones. My heart.

I could no more turn my back on Richmond than the Daughters could reverse those cannons.

Despite its troubles, despite wounds stretching back centuries, Richmond was my home. And asking me to forget what happened on that rooftop was like asking General Lee to turn and ride north. It wouldn't happen.

I couldn’t let it happen.

Later that night more storms rolled through, and when I crossed the courtyard early the next morning, the air felt thick as honey.

Wally sat at the kitchen table, perusing the newspaper for gossip. I didn’t see my mother anywhere.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"Building an ark."

"Seriously."

“Seriously?” He dropped the paper. "She got up in the middle of the night and made some weirdo herbal tea that stunk up the place. Smell gave me nightmares. I came downstairs, thinking I was dying. She just smiled and told me to go on back to bed, night-night. I still couldn't sleep. I finally got out of bed an hour ago, and she's sound asleep in her room. That dog’s with her. And I am choosing to greet this day with my usual good humor despite feeling the way tofu looks."

I poured a cup of coffee.

The only bread in the house was something called spelt. Worse than the name was the testimony on the plastic bag, insisting the bread had no flour. That seemed wrong. But I dropped two board-like slices into the toaster, and without turning around I explained my suspension to Wally. Two weeks. “And I don't want her to know.”

I heard the newspaper rustling. The toaster popped.

"Is this because of what happened down at the river?" he asked.

The bread resembled meatless meat loaf, which my mother has also served. I spread something on it that resembled butter. Maybe. "Disciplinary action. I made a mistake. A serious mistake. Now I have to deal with the consequences."

"What a load," he said. "You should fight it."

“I am,” I said.

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

In the cold case file that Detective Greene lent me, I found several small photographs of the murdered girl. Her name was Cecille Saunders. She was seventeen when she died. But government documents chronicled her prodigy-like career in prostitution, beginning at age thirteen. Child Protective Services said Cecille's father was "Not Known." One younger sister lived at home. And their mother worked sporadically at a post office on Southside. Cecille had been diagnosed with AIDS and was also picked up for possession of crack cocaine. The medical examiner's report completed her abbreviated biography: Cecille Saunders was shot in the back of the head in Chimbarazo Park by a .38-caliber pistol.

Closing the file, I snuck down the carriage house steps into the garage. My mother was still sleeping, so I didn't ask permission to drive the Benz to Southside.

When I pulled up at the Jefferson Davis Apartments, steam was rising from the black tar roof, the morning sun evaporating last night’s downpour. In a playground beside the building four children were playing on a metal swing set whose legs bucked out of the mud with each trajectory.

I found apartment 109A in a shared alcove with 109B. The neighbor’s door had an eviction notice from the sheriff's office nailed to its frame, but nobody was answering my knock on 109A either. Lifting my fist for a third time, the door suddenly opened and a woman stood staring at me. Her hair was an orange-yellow hue, radiating in a halo around her dark narrow face. With her tall straight body she resembled a sunflower.

“Mrs. Saunders?” I said.

She nodded.

“Raleigh Harmon.” I held out my hand.

Her shake was weak. Her eyes were bloodshot. I could smell a sharp chemical odor wafting from the apartment. I decided she was high.

"I don't know where those people went," she said.

It took me a moment. I glanced at the eviction notice next door. "Ma'am, I'm not here about that. I wanted to ask you about your daughter."

"I don't know where she went neither.” She waved her hand, dismissing the subject. “Took off last week. Or maybe even the week before. Ain’t even called to see how her kids are doing."

“Cecille?” I said, wondering what kind of drugs she was taking. “Your daughter Cecille took off?”

She scowled. "I'm talking about Cherry."

"Cherry...."

"Cheraine. My daughter Cher-
aine
?"

The younger sister, mentioned in the police file. "Yes, of course. Your daughter Cheraine."

"She’s not my daughter no more. That girl done took off for the last time. I’m tired of keepin’ her kids while she goes has herself a good time. What, I’m Mary Poppins?"

Before I could answer in the negative, she narrowed her eyes.

"But you asked about Ceelie."

Maybe she wasn't that high.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm looking into the circumstances surrounding Cecille’s death. I realize it was several years ago but there might be some new information."

“You know something?” Her stare was level, straight as a surveyor. "You tell me. My heart done broke over that girl."

From my purse I took out a picture cut from the newspaper. Detective Falcon’s police photo. "Did you ever meet this man?"

She smiled. Her face softened, as if she was surprised by a good memory. "Yeah, Detective Mike.” But the smile suddenly faded. She shook her head slowly. "I don't know how Cherry's gonna take
that
news."

"She knew Detective Falcon?"

"No, Hamal. She and Hamal." She tossed her head toward the playground. "Them's his kids."

I turned a half circle. A tingling sensation ran across my shoulders and down my arms. Sitting in the swings, the children twisted the chains into tight helixes, cranking the tension before letting go, spinning themselves into vertigo. I almost felt as dizzy. Less than two miles from this apartment, in a house on Castlewood Street, a young widow had even more children. Taking my last shred of benefit of the doubt, I asked about the children’s ages.

"Hamal Jr.’s nine. Came along the year after Ceelie died." She scratched her head, doling out the other ages. Her fingernails were long and sparkled with a pink glitter polish.

My heart was pounding. “How did she know Mr. Holmes?”

"You want to know for real? I’ll tell you. He buried my girl decent. That Hamal, he took care of people. Even paid for her coffin."

"You’re saying Mr. Holmes knew Cecille too?"

“No.” She shook her head. “He just wanted to help. That's why everybody's upset, him dying like that. He was good to people. And Cherry, when she finds out, she’s gonna lose her mind.”

I lifted the detective’s picture again. "Do you believe what they’re saying, about the detective.”

"Not 'specially. But don't matter what I believe. Truth's got its own way of going, you know."

I asked about the funeral, how Holmes paid for it, but she lifted a finger. The bright pink polish looked discordant with her hair.

“Hang on a sec.” She closed the door.

I turned, watching the children. They were throwing gravel into the mud puddles created last night. The oldest, Hamal Jr., was lifting bigger and bigger stones, trying to create the most splash. I felt an almost unbearable sadness.

Mrs. Saunders opened the door. She was holding a paper fan, the simple kind with rounded cardstock paper glued to a wooden tongue depressor. She showed me both sides. One had the twenty-third Psalm; the other advertised the Hope Eternal Funeral Home.

"I keep it, for remembering," she said. "He laid her down in those green pastures."

I nodded, writing down the address for the funeral home.

When I looked up, she was waving the fan through the humid air, blowing back the orange hair and the wet streams that carved down her hollow cheeks.

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

The awning above Hope Eternal Funeral Home was frayed and sagged, dripping with remnants of rain. Black iron bars covered the windows. And although the name implied infinite optimism, the atmosphere inside felt like every other funeral home: weirdly maudlin, vaguely spooky.

I walked down a cold hall that smelled of embalming fluid and cigarettes. A door marked OFFICE was cracked open two inches. I knocked on it softly.

“Come in.”

A thin man stood by the room’s one window, holding a cigarette. The window was cracked open like the door.

"Hello, I was looking for the funeral director,” I said.

“That would be me. Douglass Canes." He strode toward me, moving the cigarette to his left hand. His shake was firm and bony.

I introduced myself. Once again I left off any FBI affiliations, but I casually mentionned “law enforcement agencies” were looking into the circumstances surrounding some recent deaths. I left the connection open, hoping he would make his own presumptions.

Back at the window, he blew the smoke outside. But the damp heat pushed it back inside. "What deaths do you mean?"

"For one, Hamal Holmes. You knew him?"

"Yes, I did. And the family was heartbroken about the closed casket. But what could I do? We received the body from the medical examiner. I didn’t have much to work with."

I recalled the coroner's report. It described "insipient brain contusions" erupting across the men's faces. There were also "contrecoup contusions,” caused by the brain ricocheting forward, slamming into the skull. The brain then swelled to gross proportions, contorting facial features.

"Some years ago," I said, "Mr. Holmes paid for the funeral of a girl named Cecille Saunders."

"Oh, well, I wouldn't be at liberty to discuss something like that." He picked up a pack of Salems that rested on the windowsill. Shaking out a cigarette, he lit it with the one he had almost finished.

"Mr. Canes, it’s admirable of you to protect your clients. But Mr. Holmes is dead."

He puffed. "And my obligations go beyond this life. My services are
eternal
."

"So are public perceptions. Did you know that search warrants are public? That means once a search warrant is approved, the newspaper can report all the information. It’s considered a public service. People should know, if there’s an investigation."

He didn’t even bother blowing the smoke out the window. The gray stream leaked from his slack mouth.

“Investigation?”

I nodded, bluffing. No way I could get a search warrant. Not now, not when I was suspended. But he knew something, this chain-smoking funeral director with frightened eyes.

“Yes, sir. We have reason to believe that Mr. Holmes was involved in something, well, unsavory. You might be able to help clear up the matter. And avoid any need for a search warrant.”

"Well, in that case.” He smiled. But it was laced with resentment. "In that case, I suppose I have an obligation. To protect my other clients from harm, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

The boxing gym's tall windows welcomed all the hot sunlight, and it broiled the boys swaddled in heavy clothing. They jumped rope. The nylon strands nicked the linoleum in a steady rhythm, tick-tick-ticking like metronomes set for a death march.

While sweat poured from the boys, Ray Frey looked unbothered by the subtropical heat. His gray sweats were dry as dust.

"You're back," he said. "What now?"

"Now I have more questions."

"Shoot."

I asked whether he knew about Hamal Holmes paying for the funerals of strangers.

“What?”

I gave him the number. Holmes paid for twenty-four funerals in the last ten years, according to the human chimney named Douglass Canes.

Ray Frey just shrugged. "I told you about Coretta Scott King. That kid had so many screws loose you could hear 'em rattle."

After my visit to the funeral home, I had stopped by the Richmond PD and told Detective Greene about the funeral home connection. He cross-checked names that Canes gave me. Every name corresponded to a cold case. Every single one. Now I started reading the names out loud from my notebook, glancing at Ray Frey's weathered face.

Elvin Johnson, a drug dealer beaten to death in Jackson Ward. Quaniece Blue, an AIDS-infected prostitute whose body was found decomposing in a dumpster off East Broad Street. Tiny Walters, a pedophile who walked away from prosecution on a technicality. “Tiny Walters was later found mutilated on a Southside playground,” I said. “There are more. But what’s interesting is that Hamal Holmes paid for their funerals. You’re a smart man, Mr. Frey. You can put two and two together. And I think you know that detective wanted to talk to your partner."