Stones and Spark (36 page)
"You'll be stronger now,” he says. “And an even better friend."
I'm so tired, so weak, that he has to stand for us both. I lean into him and he doesn't strain or sway. Under that strength, I feel something wash over me, out of me. A calm warmth fills me, shakes away the chill.
Finally, he kisses the top of my head. "Why don't we talk in the morning? You need sleep."
I look up. "What about Mom—does she know about all this?"
He looks across the patio, through the back gate to the alley.
"Dad, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lied. If you ground me forever, I deserve it."
He squeezes my shoulder. But says nothing.
I watch his face. The anguish is still there, the weight in his blue eyes. This day, this night has been horrible for him too. But tomorrow will bring another nightmare. And who knows how many more bad days after that—all the never-ending shifts with my mother.
“Dad, what’ll we tell her?"
“He looks down and smiles. "The truth. We’ll tell her the truth.”
But which truth, I’m not really sure.
Until he tells me.
“We'll tell her Raleigh's home."
The End
Also by Sibella Giorello
The dead man's mother lived in a battered gray house on Castlewood Street surrounded by a mean echo of No Trespassing signs.
My partner for the day Special Agent John Breit took one look at the place. "Good luck in there."
I didn't believe in luck. For one thing it was Monday, the Fourth of July, and the heat index wasn't observing the holiday. The morning temperature was nudging one hundred degrees and when I climbed out of John's air-conditioned Cadillac, the humidity hit me like a wall. The sticky southern heat only lengthened my walk to the front door. So did the expression on the woman's face, suddenly appearing in the doorway. Her dark eyes hard as anthracite, she watched me pick my way down the cracked concrete path to where she stood. I introduced myself—Raleigh Harmon, special agent with the FBI.
She turned without response.
I followed her inside, closing the door behind me. The living room smelled of grape juice and stale cigarettes, and in the small kitchen beside it, Bernadette Holmes waited at a gray Formica table.
The mother of the dead man.
"Mama," the younger woman said. “FBI's here."
Mrs. Holmes looked at me. The Official Investigator. Her brown face was salt-stained from crying, and a sleeveless cotton housedress exposed her heavy arms where a delta of stretch marks flowed in sandy estuaries to her elbows.
"What happened to my boy?" she said. "What'd they do to my boy? My good, good boy -- he's gone!"
On Saturday her son Hamal Holmes fell from a factory rooftop. Another man also fell, Detective Michael Falcon of the Richmond Police Department. The seventy-foot drop to the sidewalk killed both men on impact, but exactly how they fell—and why they were on the roof—was anyone's guess. In the two days since it happened, no witnesses had come forward, though the police had already floated a theory that enraged half the city. Mr. Holmes was black; the detective was white. The police claimed the officer was assaulted. Yesterday, the mayor called the FBI, demanding a civil rights investigation. And now, here I was. Official Investigator. The only agent available on a city, state, and federal holiday.
Me and John, who stayed in the car.
Lighting a cigarette, the girl with the anthracite eyes lifted her face, catching a mild draft that blew from an air conditioning unit hoisted to the window above the sink. I sat down at the small table next to Mrs. Holmes and offered her my card. She didn't take it. I expressed my condolences for her loss, which she also didn't take, and I didn’t blame her. Even when I meant the words they sounded hollow.
Finally I explained how the civil rights case would work:
"I'll be looking into the circumstances surrounding your son's death. I'll need to ask you a lot of questions. Some of them might be difficult to answer."
Tears welling, she said. "Hamal's body. It's all broken up, ain't it? My baby, is he in pieces?"
Since the Bureau wasn't called right away, I missed the autopsy. But everybody knows rock crushes bone. When I didn't answer, her sobbing grew louder. I waited, feeling the usual awkwardness, since I could offer only silence, followed by impertinent questions.
I opened my notebook. "Mrs. Holmes, do you know why your son was on that roof?"
"Why?” Her voice turned molten with rage. "Why? Because that policeman done chased him up there, that's why. He chased my Hamal to the roof, then throwed him off! God forgive me, but I'm not sorry that policeman's dead. No, I'm not. That man deserved to die. Killing my boy like that."
The police department, naturally, had a different theory. As a young man, Hamal Holmes built a solid record of breaking and entering. Though he'd apparently changed his ways in recent years, the cops trotted out their claims:
Holmes broke into the abandoned factory Saturday morning. The detective was working nearby and spotted him, pursuing him to the roof, where a struggle ensued. The only thing everybody agreed on was that both men lost the fight.
Mrs. Holmes scoffed at the theory.
"Hamal didn't break into that place. Ain't nothing in that old factory. Been closed for years. My son was a businessman. A real good businessman. Paid all my bills. He didn't need to steal nothing from nobody."
I glanced at the girl, still smoking at the sink. She flicked her ash, returning my gaze.
"Are you his sister?" I asked.
"Wife." She pointed the cigarette at my notebook. "You can put this in your little book: My husband didn’t do nothing wrong.”
I didn’t move.
“You deaf? I said, write it down."
"I know this is a difficult time for your family but when—"
"You don't know nothin'."
Actually, that was true. I turned back to the mother, once more sliding my card toward her. "Mrs. Holmes, I'll be the agent in charge of the civil rights investigation. Please feel free to call me anytime, day or night. Any questions or concerns, let me know. And please call if you hear of anything that might help our investigation."
But she wasn’t looking at me. She stared across the table to a small television. Sound muted, closed captioning ran across the bottom of the screen. "That policeman killed my son."
"When all the evidence is—"
The widow took four steps forward. She was barefoot and held the cigarette like a javelin, poised to throw. "We done seen the evidence. It's in the morgue. My husband, he's dead. Dead! Dead!"
Mrs. Holmes released another wail and somewhere beyond the kitchen, children began yelling. Their voices came through the walls, but the widow raised her head and hollered back, demanding silence. They obeyed. She turned to me.
"You came here to help the cops. We know how it works."
"That's not how it works. This is a civil rights investigation. The FBI is investigating the police for possible violations. They are completely separate from our work."
"You're still one of them. I can smell it."
I glanced at Mrs. Holmes, still staring at a small television. Montel, the talk show host, was pawing his bald head with one hand, swinging the microphone with the other. The text announced today's topic: "I can't trust you!"
"Mrs. Holmes, who told you what happened on the roof?"
"I don't remember."
"Do you recall what was said?"
“No.”
"Did anyone tell you why Hamal was on the roof?"
"They told me Hamal was dead. After that my mind was gone."
Montel batted the microphone through the air like a wasp was loose in the studio. The camera panned to the audience. People applauding. When I glanced back at the dead man’s widow, her deep reserves of anger had compressed even further, all that hate-fueled anthracite hardening with heat and pressure.
"How did you hear about your husband's death?"
“I heard.” She took the last drag off her cigarette and tossed it into the sink. It sizzled. “And I heard it’s time for you to go.”
Her motherin-law nodded absently, and I followed the widow to the front door.
Holding the door open, she wore the same expression as when I arrived, but now as I walked past she wished me good luck. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
And I decided there was no point telling her: Luck didn't exist.
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy,” wrote Marcel Proust. “They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Certain people planted seeds of joy and encouragement that bloomed into this book:
Amy Lathrop of LitFuse Publicity, novelist Catherine Madera, and the steadfast insights that come from my friend at EditsByLora.com. Still more seeds of utter content were sowed by Pia Marshall and Susie Maxfield. And, of course, the superlative crew at Cool Gus Publishing: Bob “Make It Happen” Mayer and Jen “When Do You Want It?” Talty.
And above all, to the soil in which love grows, my Wise Guys: Daniel, Nico, and my Hunk of Italy husband, Joe.
Love you, all the way to heaven.
About the Author
Sibella Giorello was a features reporter for the Richmond
Times-Dispatch
for more than ten years. Her stories won many state and national awards, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. She now lives in Washington State with her husband and sons. This is her first novel in the Raleigh Harmon series. For more information, go to HYPERLINK "http://www.sibellagiorello.com"
www.SibellaGiorello.com
.
Copyright
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Sibella Giorello
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
License Notes:
Thank you for downloading this ebook, it’s yours to enjoy – but this ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.
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