Tuscaloosa Boneyard: An Addie Bramson Mystery

By Carolyn Breckinridge

There are mysteries to be solved in the cosmopolitan Southern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama as the community prepares for the internationally-recognized Kentuck Festival in the adjoining city of Northport. Besides burglaries and assaults, Detective Addie Bramson finds herself coming to the aid of two sisters searching for their missing grandmother, mother, and baby brother. And all of this before she gets the phone call reporting murder. As the cases untangle, Addie learns that the secrets of some citizens hang heavy in the graveyard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524651169

Carolyn Breckinridge

Not everyone pecks away at the word processor with an African grey parrot perched on her forearm. Carolyn is the recent author of two popular mysteries based in her adopted hometown, Tuscaloosa Moon and Tuscaloosa Boneyard. She is the 2017 recipient of the Druid City Arts and Humanities Literary Award, and her second mystery enjoyed a fun, positive review on Alabama Public Radio. She holds bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Alabama, and worked professionally as a clinical social worker. As an adolescent, she traveled extensively with her globe-trotting parents, and lived in Tanzania, Lebanon and Pakistan. She shares her home with her husband, two rescue dogs, two parrots, a pond full of koi and myriad volunteer frogs. Carolyn enjoys meeting her readers through book signings, festivals, and book club events.

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© 2016 Carolyn Breckinridge. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Jim and Jon Ezell, 2016

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/23/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5117-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5116-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919249

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Tuscaloosa Boneyard is a fictional work. All characters were born in the author’s imagination and have lived solely in the minds of author and reader. Perceived similarities, including similarities in name to any person, living or dead, are coincidental and unintended. The lone exception is the inclusion of an eccentric frog-chasing female, who has unequivocally and enthusiastically given full permission to be captured in printed word as found within these pages. All places, behaviors, and incidents are likewise products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally throughout.

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To the

Hatties, Noahs, Rebekas, and Zenahs

Of our world

Who devote their lives to the care of

Vulnerable children and animals

With special thanks to family and friends

and

Amanda, Chad, Mary, Pat, Oz Records,

Milady, Shirley, Laurie, Ann, Jean,

Ruth, Margaret, Rick, Vince, Marti.

And Hannah, Allie, Moshi and Chloe

Who have faithfully kept me company long into the nights

And very early mornings of creativity.

1

I’m telling you, Henry honey, our girl doesn’t have the sense God gave a billy goat. She’s flat not right. Hattie Louise Cooper pushed a wisp of gray hair from her cheek and curled it behind her ear. The night chilled her face, leaving the tip of her nose and her ear lobes as tingly as when she immersed them too long in the kitchen deep freeze. But how else could one find anything in there? Frozen meat wrapped in butcher paper always worked its way to the bottom beneath the field peas and string beans and frozen figs. She hasn’t been right ever since that skinny, pimply Germaine Johnson flipped her off his shoulders in the pool at the Oppenheimer’s house when she was fifteen and her head hit bottom and she said she saw stars and yellow lights. Just like in the cartoons, she said. Couldn’t believe there really were stars, she said. And a loud buzzing, too. Henry didn’t answer, of course. She didn’t expect him to. That’s the way it had always been with Henry. She talked and he listened and every once in a while he said something in a soft kind of fashion that let her know he was paying careful attention. It was one of the things she liked most about him, even when they were teenagers and the world seemed a banquet only for them, for their love and her talk and his quiet ways.

Jake shifted slightly at her feet, his furry back pressing into the rubber of her left boot, warm against her toes, and she heard his tail sweeping the ground, back and forth, the way it did whenever he was awake. Sometimes even when he was sleeping she’d seen it wag, and she guessed he was dreaming about chasing squirrels and chipmunks and the occasional possum. It was the way his paws moved and the little woofs he made that led her to guess he was hunting. She was glad Jake was with her, he was big, really too big around the stomach, and solid and devoted the way only a rescue dog could be. She had four more at home but only Jake was really hers. The others took turns coming to visit Henry. Jake never missed a visit.

Hattie kept rocking. Slowly, like it wasn’t already past midnight and she wasn’t in the middle of the cemetery and it wasn’t early October. With each rock forward her toes moved against Jake’s ribs. With each backward rock, she lifted his side ever so slightly. He didn’t seem to mind a bit. She’s getting worse, she said. She’s left that baby of hers with more people than you’d invite to a Tupperware party, dropping him off here and there, leaving him for a day, a week, and he’s only now three months old. Just turned three months two days ago. Cute little fellow, Henry. Looks a lot like pictures of you as a baby. Lexis Ryan Cooper, she named him, but I’m repeating myself, I told you that before. Lexis. Another one of her car names. And misspelled, just like the rest of them. Whoever heard of such nonsense? It’s like she’s running a used car lot, not raising children. I told her to give that baby a normal kind of name. But when did she ever listen to a word I said? Told me the name was sophisticated, can you believe that? She calls him Lex. She waited. Rocked. A pair of headlights headed straight toward the cemetery. There was not a lot of traffic downtown after midnight except in the restaurant district closer to The University of Alabama and the river. She watched the car slow, turn to the right and head toward Stillman Boulevard. She saw the shape of Jake’s head raise up, take note, settle back down.

But he’s got a whole head of hair, that baby does. Looks dang near like a wig, so straight and brown. She paused and rocked and listened for his words, pulled from somewhere deep within her own head, and she nodded. He was right. Even before their daughter had cracked her head in the pool that night she’d been an odd child. They’d whispered about it from their pillows and read Dr. Benjamin Spock’s books trying to find out if they were doing anything wrong. Maybe she’d grown up odd because of the name they’d given her, but it seemed perfect at the time. Jubaleigh Haney Cooper. They usually called her Leigh.

A whisper of a breeze played against the oak leaves above her head and some fell like confetti onto the lap of her worn, green P-coat and onto her purple rain boots she wore for added warmth and onto Jake and onto the head of the marble statue presiding above them. Around ten o’clock she’d set five tall, thumb-width candles on the slave-made bricks that walled off an old family plot nearby. She’d lit each candle and held it sideways and let it drip a small wax pool before pushing the end into the bricks. In their flames’ glow, her boots looked more black than purple and her coat, charcoal gray, not green. And Jake’s reddish fur was brownish-purple, like a big river rock covered in algae. She’d told Henry she reckoned the marble statue was Gabriel because it was holding a long horn of some type and he’d agreed although he said the face seemed a little feminine. But whenever their granddaughter Porcia was with her, she argued it had to be Jesus because the statue didn’t have wings. ‘Never you mind,’ Henry said. ‘Let our sweet Porcia think it’s Jesus if that’s what she wants.’ And he said he felt sure the statue didn’t mind being Jesus or their angel, either, even though it was really there marking another family’s graves. And with Gabriel hovering above her, her rocking chair chained to the wrought iron fence nearby and Jake at her feet, and rocking and talking to Henry, Hattie felt comforted and safe and somehow assured she wouldn’t have to shoot a hole through anyone who might try to take advantage.

A girl named Alabama was buried near the statue’s base. Hattie liked the name, and imagined a young woman with an impish smile and a touch of the tomboy in her. Maybe a little like their own daughter before Jubaleigh grew up, or maybe never grew up, and started leaving her baby all around any which-way-and-where, and before she started putting too much responsibility on her two girls, Porcia and Mersadies. Never mind that Porcia’s twelve now and can take fine care of her sister and little brother, and the house too, bless her soul. That’s not the point. I’m telling you, Henry, our Jubaleigh never has acted like a proper mama. She paused and rocked and listened for his voice and when it came, she smiled. Thank you. I don’t think she learned her ways from me either. I always tried to do right by that girl.

What he said made sense. Leigh acted more like his crazy Aunt Evie who bought a motorcycle when she was seventy-five and took off for the Rocky Mountains and was never seen by the family again. The story went that she was devoured by a bear. Rumor had it she’d circled back around and had been making moonshine for the past decade with a couple of men friends up in the wild hills along the Calf Killer River just south of Monterey, Tennessee.

Hattie squinted into the darkness. She loved the cemetery at night. With its tall jutting obelisks and false crypts and old iron fences and crumbling walls it looked like the ruins of a mysterious ancient city. Laden with secrets. Romantic. Haunted. Like something she fancied she’d find in Rome or Athens or in the jungle city of Angkor Wat. Greenwood was the oldest cemetery in Tuscaloosa. A sign at the entrance said some of its graves dated back to 1821, but she’d always heard the ground was full of unmarked graves of slaves and freed blacks and poor whites dating back a lot further than that.

Looks like those neckers are back. She watched two vehicles stop far across the grounds where the land sloped down toward Twenty-eighth Avenue and Eleventh Street. One pair of headlights winked off, then the second. Two weak light paths crisscrossed. Flashlights, she was certain. It was somewhat of a puzzlement. Nowadays kids didn’t have to sneak out to cemeteries or riverbanks or hidden spots in the woods when they wanted to get naked and smoochy. Not like in the old days, before apartments and easy access to motels, before parents left children unchaperoned in their homes. But there they were. Probably stretching out together, body warming body in the cool night air, oblivious to the public hangings that took place in the city’s early days on that very spot. The same place where dead animals like horses were dragged to decompose. The Boneyard, it was called back then.

They come here a lot, you know, she told Henry. Eighth or ninth time I’ve seen them this month. She sat forward in the rocker and Jake stood and stretched, rump up, back slanted like a sliding board. Jake’s right, you know. It’s time to be getting home. Even as she said this, she lingered, waiting for him to answer. She waited and rocked and waited some more until Jake appeared resigned to their staying and sat down sort of impatient-like and stared at her. You’re right, she said to Henry’s quiet voice when it came into her head. They could be dealing dope, maybe worse, now that’s a fact. Saw in the paper where there was a big dope bust yesterday, meth they said. I swear to goodness, it makes a soul wonder what the world’s coming to.

She stood and Jake followed expectantly. But Henry wasn’t through. As she listened, a smile spread slowly across her thin lips. Now, Henry, you know you don’t have cause to worry. I’ve got your pistol, Maggie Girl, right here in my pocket and I can still shoot the dang wings off a mosquito. She imagined he was smiling, straight white teeth, brown gentle eyes. You go to sleep now, Henry Davis Cooper. Jake and I’ll be back tomorrow night, probably with Ariel. She darn near broke the door down when I left without her tonight. And she howled like a whole wolf pack. She’ll give some adoptive family fits, that one will. But she’s a good dog despite it all. She ran her fingers lightly, lovingly, across his tombstone then moved efficiently from candle to candle snuffing flames between her index finger and thumb.

2

The taller man stopped, one hand supporting the bottom of a pillow case, the other clenching its top above the knot despite a flashlight pushing catty-corner against his forearm. Somehow the flashlight tube had worked its way beneath the sleeve of his flannel shirt and it was annoying the crap out of him. He wrapped the top of the pillowcase several times around his knuckles. It felt heavy and lumpy and he moved his left foot backward to better brace himself. What the shit’s that? he asked, nodding across the cemetery toward a circle of little flames. Looks like damn lightening bugs.

What? asked the younger man, Tony. He didn’t appear remotely interested. The cops, if they came, would approach from Eleventh Street or maybe Twenty-eighth Avenue. They wouldn’t park at the cemetery entrance and walk all the way across the grounds. He was sure of it.

Those damn lights.

Tony glanced in that direction. Oh, her. Some crazy-ass old woman. No sweat. He’d crept up behind her when he first started using Greenwood, but not too close for fear of alarming her dogs. She’s mental. She’s got a rocking chair chained to the fence. She shows up at night with dogs, and lights candles and talks to herself.

Yeah? Well I don’t like it, said the taller man. We don’t need anybody getting in our business, mental or not.

Tony took eight or nine steps, grasped the pillowcase and jerked it from the man’s hand. He swung it into the bed of the Silverado. It was a borrowed truck. Different vehicles kept the cops clueless. Yeah? Well, don’t sweat it. I don’t see her stuck up your ass.

You’re a punk. An arrogant punk. And the way you threw that into your truck, you probably broke half the stuff I brought.

Tony’s finger brushed the metal of his eyebrow ring. He’d gotten a re-piercing two weeks before and the hole was still sore. It was one of the first things he’d done upon his release from jail, the county jail just off Fifteenth Street. He’d been locked up since May. It felt damn weird to be in jail in Tuscaloosa, to hear the city’s sounds and smell the city’s air and know that Grams was sleeping alone in their house only a few miles away. He’d served six months on multiple counts of theft, but he’d been able to plead down. And the charge of accessory to murder was dropped. It was one time the law had gotten it right, seeing as he didn’t have a clue about the wasps and the woman and the preacher’s plan to kill her.

Truth was, he’d lucked into a slick lawyer. Even his name was slick. Carlton Chambers Thornton III. The man wore bow ties made out of honest-to-God hundred dollar bills, damnedest thing, all folded up and clipped to the necks of his shirts, old Ben Franklin’s eyes peering out at everyone. The guy said he folded the ties himself. Origami, he called it. Each week a new one. Ben Franklin bow ties and yellow suspenders and Italian shoes as reflective as mirrors. He looked like a pimp the way he strutted around the courtroom, throwing sly glances toward judge and jury. Sly glances plus the beady stare of old Ben Franklin sitting primly on his Adam’s apple. But what the hell? It got him six months with two years’ probation in exchange for testimony against the Baptist preacher, Lincoln. They’d put that asshole away for life.

And now this bastard with the pillowcase had the balls to call him arrogant. An arrogant punk. He’d picked guys up by the throat, thrown them down and stomped them for less. But this was business. And the guy looked like he could beat his ass. It wasn’t the time for a stomping. He moved back toward the other truck. It was a Ford F-150 and as best Tony could tell, it was red. You gonna stand there all night telling bedtime stories?

This is good shit, the taller man said. Worth five hundred at least.

You’re full of crap. Two fifty. That’s it.

Hell, you know your cousin’ll triple that on the streets.

There’s lots of risk between here and Chicago.

The taller man squinted across the cemetery. Damn lights are gone.

Are you freakin’ afraid of the dark? He laid the flashlight in the Silverado’s bed, leaned against its tail gate and dug deep into his pocket. I’ll be checking all this shit when I get to my cousin’s van. Better all be there. And it’d better be good. Don’t never screw us over. He pulled out a wad of bills, tens and twenties, a few fives and ones. Two hundred and forty dollars, ten dollars short, he’d counted it before he left home. A good businessman stayed on top of his game, reduced overhead, maximized profits. Time to go, he said, laying the money in the F-150’s bed and his flashlight on top. He held his wrist to the light. One-twenty. There’s the cash. Now get lost. If Grams woke up and checked his room he’d be back in jail by morning. She’d call his P.O. right there on the spot, she wouldn’t care if it were the middle of the night. And he still had to take the stuff to the van, ditch the truck, hoof it home. He was breaking probation sneaking out. ‘Sunset till six a.m.,’ his probation officer told him. ‘You’d better be glued inside your house.’ That’s the way he’d said it. No exceptions without permission. It’d been easier with Ms. Myloh in Juvenile. But turning nineteen and having a long rap sheet threw him up with the adults.

Call me when there’s more. And get your pansy-ass in gear. That woman’ll be back tomorrow night and you’ll still be here staring at nothing, dumb as a cow.

3

Luke Bramson, Ph.D., his doorplate announced, Clinical Psychologist. Addie shifted the cardboard carrier into her left hand and tapped with her right.

On-tray. See-vu-play.

He was sitting behind his desk concentrating fiercely. An empty Animal Crackers box lay sideways near his phone. Beneath his fingertips miniature animals scurried right and left, corralling Goldfish. The fish crackers, brightly colored and all smiling, huddled in a tight school. He smiled more sheepishly than they.

Besides horribly corrupting the French language, Luke, what are you doing? She slid the carrier onto the desk’s corner, scooting rhinos and lions backward.

He picked one up in each hand. Whatcha’ say we head for the coast, Leo? the rhino asked in a guttural voice. Hang out, relax, eat fresh fish? He put down the rhino and picked up a fish. Oh! No! he cried in a high pitched voice. He picked up the rhino again.

Addie pulled a Styrofoam cup from the carrier. The coffee smelled divine. You’ve been doing play therapy much too long, Dr. Bramson. You’ve lost your grown-up somewhere. But she laughed and grazed his forehead with her lips.

Fresh seafood sounds spot-on to me, Rhinehardt. The lion might have had a British accent.

She grabbed the rhino and lion, popped them in her mouth and crunched their bodies to bits, followed by a sip of coffee. That takes care of that.

Man, Addie! You cops are ruthless! They were inviting you to the Bay.

Somehow I gathered that.

To walk in the sand, eat fresh seafood… He picked up an orange Goldfish and guided it toward her mouth. What do you think, honey? Before you get another murder case and while my caseload is relatively calm here at Metamorphosis.

The salty goldfish didn’t go as well with coffee. Where’d you get all these Animal Crackers?

He began raking them into a pile. I keep a secret stash. In case you run out. And I’m contemplating ways to introduce them into our foreplay.

She could think of ways.

It’d be nice to drive down Friday, stay till Wednesday. We haven’t been to Fairhope in a long time.

She handed him a blueberry smoothie. Fairhope sunsets. Tourists from all over the globe mixing with locals on the quarter-mile pier, others in an overlooking park with lawn chairs, picnic baskets, cameras, and dogs. There was often applause as Mobile Bay doused the sun. Addie thought the applause quaint, like the city itself. Founded as an experiment in utopian socialism, Fairhope attracted artists, free thinkers, writers, and plenty of eccentrics. Petunias, begonias and impatiens dripped from baskets along its streets. Why not? He was right. Their schedules weren’t tight at the moment. O.K. Let’s do it. I’ll turn in a vacation request today.

Ah! Ze rhino and ze lion, zey sac-re-fised zemselves for ze most noble of causes.

She rolled her eyes. Their last trip, they’d happened upon a pod of bottlenose dolphins driving mullet toward their hotel’s sea wall. It was an intimate experience, listening to dolphin breath as bay water splashed gray-brown skin, intelligent eyes catching theirs in passing. She opened her purse and removed her Ziploc bag. She wasn’t certain they’d all fit. She scooped a handful. Bodies crammed sideways, upside down, pieces of animals, too. I’m confiscating your creatures, Dr. Bramson. Before someone walks in and declares you absolutely crackers.

"I am absolutely crackers over you, Addie, my love." They both glanced to confirm no adolescent eyes peeking through his windows before he stood, wiggling his eyebrows all the while. He twisted the blind’s plastic wand. The room darkened. She laughed and moved toward their embrace.

4

I’ve damn-well died and gone to heaven! exclaimed Elwood Riley, jutting an elbow into his buddy’s ribs. Tell me those hips aren’t double-jointed. Like one of them belly dancers, ‘cept she’s wearing more clothes.

It was true. She was wearing a slinky blue blouse, silk probably, and slacks that flowed with every step. And skinny yellow heels that made her ankles look sexy even though they wobbled ever so slightly. His buddy, Bob Tulane, stopped dead on the sidewalk to take it all in. ’Member when crazy J.T. McGuires hired that belly dancer lady for New Year’s? he asked. She’d danced into the party, her naked flat belly draped in metal coins jingling below her navel and her hips undulating some kind of double-jointed. And now, here was this lady walking straight toward them, hips doing the same thing. Well, if you’ve gone to heaven, move over fast. I’m headed up to join you.

Bet she’s going to a funeral or a wedding or such, said Elwood. On account of those white gloves.

That was true, too. Bob hadn’t seen a woman in white gloves since his Aunt Eunice died back in 1989. And even then, that’d been an old fashioned country funeral with lots of potato salad and fried chicken served up afterward. Her hair was long and chestnut brown with bangs that fell to the top of her sunglasses. But why’s she wearing sunglasses when the clouds are so thick we could stir them with a spoon? The glasses made it hard to figure where she was looking. But still she was approaching, just like in the movies. No one walking behind her. No one walking in front of her either. In fact, the street was deserted. Side streets could be like that in Tuscaloosa early in the morning.

Elwood propped his foot against the city’s trash can. He sucked in his gut, poked out his pecs, turned a little bit in order to directly face her.

For the love of Pete, said Bob, put your leg down. You look like a urinating hound.

He slipped the toe of his shoe back toward the sidewalk. Yeah? Well you don’t look like any kind of hot dog yourself.

As she neared, they could see she was small-boned and pale-skinned, and her movements reminded Elwood of the tire swing he’d hung in the front yard oak for his granddaughter. They could both see her lips now, an odd shade of brown, some kind of copper color. They curled smirk-like into the slightest of smiles. She maneuvered around a shallow pothole in the sidewalk, heels punching through Fall leaves and scattering brown pine needles. Little needles bunched together at their tops, three needles per bunch.

Mornin’ ma’am, said Elwood cheerfully. Goofily, Bob thought. She nodded curtly causing pearls dangling from her earlobes to brush her shoulders. My buddy, Bob, and I were just sayin’, we haven’t seen you around town before. I live right down the street here in one of them new condominiums they’ve constructed, and Bob, here, lives in Coker but he comes to Tuscaloosa a lot on account of his tree service business.

Maybe it was Elwood’s jabbering that caused her to break stride and her ankle to turn and the skinny heel of her shoe to snap off. Bob reached out to steady her. Careful, darlin’, he said, grabbing her elbow and half-grabbing around her waist. He remembered her body stiffening and thinking she looked as nervous as a high-strung filly. But he wasn’t quite sure how he landed on the cement seeing double out of an eye he could tell was swelling fast. Damn! he said, listening to the clicking of one heel as she ran with one shoe on and one in her hand. He saw her disappear around the corner onto Greensboro. His nose throbbed. He wiped it with his fist. He was bleeding all over his Crimson Tide Sixteenth National Championship t-shirt. What happened?

Whoo, doggies! She got a hold of you!

He struggled to stand. He had a killer headache. His nose was dripping. His eye was closing. How the hell am I gonna cut down and remove three trees today when I’m seeing double? He pulled his phone from his pocket. It was sweaty from their jog. He wiped it on his pants.

Who you calling?

The cops. I’m filing an assault charge. No sense in her slugging me when I was trying to be neighborly. No sense in that at all. He nodded toward the broken heel. And we’ve got evidence.

It looks like she’s gone and broken your nose, said his friend. But I’ll be damned if she didn’t smell about as sweet as a woman can smell.

She sure as hell smelled like vanilla. Like old fashioned vanilla ice cream, back before all the probiotics and frozen yogurts and non-fat, non-sugar dairy products and milk made out of almonds. He dialed the police. I’ll tell you what. Soon as I talk to the cops and I get my nose to stop bleeding, let’s go to one of the diners around here and get us vanilla milkshakes. The real kind.

*     *     *

She was beautiful, there was no disputing that. She’d slipped back into their house, closing the front door quietly, and she stood giggling in front of the hall mirror in her slinky blue blouse and one skinny yellow heel, clearly titillated by her early morning romp.

He touched me first but I got him good! Knocked him flat on his ass, I did!

You’re going to end my career, Carlton Chambers Thornton III said. One day you’re going to slip up, get caught, do something that ruins my reputation, Annie. And then where will we be? He sighed long and deep, a kind of exclamation point that followed each of her escapades.

She raised her eyebrows and smooched her lips toward the mirror. She was the sassy one. His twin who knew no boundaries. An overt risk-taker. The risks he took were in the courtroom, always orderly, cognitive, and with an eye toward consequences. Not Annie. She was wild, impetuous, and as ferocious as a cougar if she got her hair up.

I have to take a shower and get ready for work, he said softly.

Her gaze lowered and the happiness dissolved from her face and he felt sorry.

I’ll always keep you safe, Annie, and you’ll always be here with me. You’re my baby sister. He always said that, even though he was born only six minutes before her. We just have to be careful, that’s all. If the townsfolk knew about you, about how things really are with you… He couldn’t even finish his sentence. It frightened him that much.

5

She was fidgety and flat-chested, that’s what he noticed first. She had almost translucent skin, and he found that attractive, but it was eagerness in her eyes and her lip that quivered ever so slightly that engaged him. So why did you answer my ad? he asked.

The question clearly caught her off-guard. She glanced at the motorcycle tattoo racing up his arm before closing her eyes in an effort, he supposed, to generate a response. Quite candidly, my husband is an artist and not a very good one, and we have bills and I’m goddamn sick of being poor.

Good answer. I like hiring people motivated by money.

Why else would someone work?

Tony laughed. Isn’t that the hell of the truth? Psychology types’ll say for self-fulfillment, world betterment, recognition, all kinds of bull hockey.

Well, we need money. Eriq, that’s my husband, he’s going to sell his Harley at the end of the month and he’ll be in an art show, but I doubt any of that will amount to much.

He’s selling his bike?

It’ll be in the paper this week. He’s behind on the payments… Her voice and eyes trailed away. She wasn’t sure why she was saying all this. None of it was his business.

What’s your name, honey?

Lynne.

Lynne what?

Higgenbothum.

He had two rings in his eyebrow and a bright gold cross around his neck. There was a time when she had two tiny rings in the cartilage of her upper ear, but when they got infected she’d ditched them.

So, Lynne, have you ever been arrested, charged with a crime? I’ll do a background check so don’t waste my time or yours in bullshit.

It’s illegal for you to ask me that nowadays.

So, turn me in.

She rolled her eyes. Before I met my husband. Theft, burglary, receiving stolen merchandise.

He hadn’t expected it. She looked too wholesome, middle class. Serve time?

A little.

Would you do it again?

Breaking the law isn’t worth it.

Tony stared. I’d say getting caught isn’t worth it.

It was a surprise. He didn’t care at all that she’d been in trouble. Well, of course, I mean, if a person knew there’d be no repercussions, why not? Why the hell not?

His lip curled like it was caught on his incisor. A snarl. A smile. God. He made her feel thirteen. And can you drive long distances? Say, from here to Chicago by yourself. I mean, you can spend the night along the way. I’ve got friends who’ll treat you right. But you’re good to drive?

She’d never been there. She wondered how many lanes of traffic there were in the city. She worried it might snow. She’d never driven in snow. Who couldn’t drive to Chicago?

Any driving problems?

Not even a parking ticket.

Yeah? Well, I’ll get you a car and gas. You drive some shit to Chicago. Connect up with my cousin. Bring the car back. Half a grand cash. Then, you forget you know me, forget you’ve been to Chicago, forget everything you hear and see, got that?

Drugs?

No.

Guns?

No.

Illegals?

What the fuck? No. But shut up.

Five hundred dollars. She’d use half for bills. Put the other half in a new account. Her name only. She’d have to tell Eriq something. A visit to her parents in Florida. He was so busy with Kentuck he’d hardly notice she was gone. When does this happen?

Soon. I’ll put you in a motel till I need you. When I say ‘go,’ you’re out the door, even if it’s the damn middle of the night.

I can’t be missing too long.

Hell, I said ‘soon.’ Today, tomorrow, the day after. It’d be good to have a woman like Lynne deliver. She’d be invisible to the cops. He’d slap a University of Chicago sticker on the rear bumper, make it even easier.

Lynne smiled. A motel. She wondered where he’d be. Okay. Sure. Hire me.

6

Dr. Luke Bramson sat in an orange chair in the Green Room of the residential treatment facility Metamorphosis. He stared over the heads of his co-workers and into the happy yellow eye of a green caterpillar permanently affixed to the wall. No wonder it was smiling. Someone had given it sixteen high-end Nikes, and its long black antennae pierced a Crimson Tide baseball cap. Clever, he said. Do we know who graffitied our caterpillar?

Rico, Head Mentor for the day shift in the Luna boy’s cottage, swiveled in his chair and chuckled. I could guess. They all could. He turned his attention back to his laptop. Notes indicate a quiet night for the Luna boys. Looks like Harry had trouble going to sleep and James awakened at five but he stayed in bed. Ernie asked for something to eat around one a.m. and was given a few crackers and a pint of milk. He looked toward Luke. They all seemed in good spirits and were on good behavior this morning when I arrived. Five wet beds. The Luna boys were fifteen and sixteen, but bedwetting, enuresis by its therapeutic name, was common in the population they served.

Okay, said Dr. Lydia Hutchinson, Metamorphosis’ founder. Her eyeballs, sharp and bright like an eagle’s up-close and personal, flicked here, there, around the room before eventually settling on Jennifer. Jennifer was Rico’s counterpart in the Luna girl’s cottage. Luke envied her biceps. She was a weight lifter. And the girls?

Um, said Jennifer. The notes say Esmeralda was heard crying in bed. When staff checked on her she said she was missing her grandmother, thinking about the way she died from being snake-bit. Kenyia was caught reading a book with a flashlight at four a.m. And Amelia refused her meds this morning. She eventually took them with a lot of coaching. Four wet beds. Oh, and staff found a pack of cigarettes in Missy’s room. She admitted stealing them from her grandmother during her last home visit. She’s grounded for a week and has to research and write a report on the dangers of smoking, including some photos of smoker’s lungs. I think that’s it.

Good. Anything else? asked Lydia Hutchinson.

Shelby McDonald, Clinical Social Worker for the Lunas, stretched her hands forward on the table. She had the fingers of a gymnast, muscled by years of vaulting and uneven parallel bar routines. She wore a plain jade band on her right ring finger. I’ve called the Kentuck Center to request complimentary passes for their upcoming Festival. The kids always love it.

I think everyone loves it, said Luke. And the artists are thrilled to see Addie and me coming. Addie’s a folk art freak.

Shelby and Dr. Lydia, that’s what almost everyone at Metamorphosis called Dr. Hutchinson, knew that to be true. Folk art and fine art were everywhere in the Bramson’s home. There was a dirt painting of a log cabin in the Bramson’s foyer. The late Jimmie Lee Sudduth made his log cabins internationally famous painting with soils and weeds, rubbing them onto plywood with sinewy fingers. Round-faced people painted by Mose T smiled out from their hallway. A ceramic mask signed S.Rice that reminded Shelby of the Buddha, gray and smiling and as smooth to touch as a river rock, presided over guests in the living room, and meals were served on dishes crafted by the locally celebrated artist, Imogene Hankner. And that was just the beginning.

Dr. Lydia looked toward the wall clock. A white face, big black numbers. Anything else?

With both Elaina and Tamekia leaving, we’ll have two empty beds, said Shelby. I’ve been looking through our referrals, checking to see who’s the most critical for admission. There’re six we might want to consider.

Tomorrow? asked Dr. Lydia. A working lunch?

Okay by me, said Luke.

Sure, said Rico.

Jennifer nodded.

Shelby wrinkled her nose. Working lunches meant missing time with her three-year-old, Molly. Okay. The muscles around her nose relaxed. Luke loved her nose. He often drew it while doodling. Pixie-like. As short and perky as Shelby, herself.

That it? asked Dr. Lydia. Morning meetings lasted five to ten minutes tops, a quick get-together to keep the Center running smoothly. Since there were twenty cottages, that meant ten separate meetings for her with ten different staffs.

Luke cleared his throat. I’m taking Benjamin to see his lawyer this morning. Mr. Thornton wants to meet before his court appearance next week. He’ll finish his community service hours before then. I’m sure he’ll come off probation.

Excellent, said Dr. Lydia.

And when does that fellow Tony get out of jail? asked Shelby.

Luke reached back, scratched his neck. Two or three hairs had escaped their leather tie. Addie says he’s out already. Hopefully we can keep Benji away from him. I worry he could get caught up in Tony’s criminality again.

Dr. Lydia curled her big knuckled hands around the table’s edge. Luke studied roadmaps of blue-black veins traversing them. Benjamin is much too curious and energetic for his own good. But perhaps this experience has taught him not to get involved in illegal activities.

It was what set emotionally conflicted children apart, the difficulties they had making better choices the second time, the third time, sometimes during their whole lifetimes. She motioned toward the walls plastered with caterpillars, cocoons, butterflies and moths. Metamorphosis. Transformation. It defines the very essence of our professions, of our Center.

Of course Luke knew she was right. None of them would have jobs if they didn’t believe behavioral change possible. But the caterpillar across from him, jogging in its sixteen high-topped tennis shoes with the Crimson Tide hat balanced jauntily on its head, had a shit-eating grin on its face. There was definite mischief in its eye. I’m glad I’m going on vacation, he said. I clearly need it. That caterpillar over there is starting to look remarkably to me like Benjamin.

7

R.J. glanced up from his tablet. Hey, who was that guy we interviewed in the Beaty case? The fellow from Coker with the tree service?

He had Addie’s attention. Bob Tulane. Why?

He’s sure got a way with women. Picking the wrong ones, I mean. He’s called for assistance. Claims he’s been beaten up by an unknown assailant, female.

She opened the door of her VW. Where is he?

Downtown on Sixth, a block off Greensboro.

Bob Tulane was not a frail man. Years of wrestling errant limbs and removing diseased and unwanted trees left his body wiry and powerful. I’ll drive. Let’s check it out.

One uniformed officer was on the scene when they arrived. Addie recognized her as a new member of the force. Sarah, Sasha, Sondra, Sorena, something that started with an S. She looked at her name badge. Her last name was Smith. Officer Smith, she said.

Detective Bramson. Detective Morrow, Smith said with a curt nod. I’ve finished here. Mr. Tulane declined to travel to the ER by ambulance. He’s agreed to give a detailed statement later, but I’ve interviewed his friend and he’s offered some details to supplement. I’ll get my report to you ASAP.

Thanks, said Addie. She turned to Bob Tulane’s friend. And you are?

Elwood. Elwood Riley. A good friend of Bob’s.

She was surprised to hear he had friends. Or at least one.

I was, ah, filling the officer in on what happened. Bob’s feeling a little poorly, as you can see.

She could definitely see. It looked like a falling tree had clonked his face. There was crusted blood around his nostrils and he was already growing an impressive shiner. His backside was perched on the edge of a brick flower box. He was trying valiantly not to squash the red salvia spikes. Mr. Tulane, it’s been a while.

The man frowned. He’d never quite forgiven her for probing into his past, discovering his mother died from a cliff fall while hiking with him during childhood, and that previous romances were marred by fiancée disappearances. And then, he’d been on her list as a prime suspect in Priscilla Beaty’s murder. All the questions. All the insinuations.

R.J. shook his head. Whoever it was, she sure did a number on you.

If you don’t mind, can you go through the incident once more for Detective Morrow and me? She glanced toward R.J. He was sitting on the other side of the planter balancing his tablet on his knees, fingers ready, houndstooth glasses hugging the bridge of his nose. She smiled. He was wearing crimson socks.

Ah, sure thing, said Elwood. If you don’t mind me doing most of the talking since Bob’s kinda incapacitated.

Of course.

Well, Bob and I were standing here, maybe a little after eight a.m., winding up our jog around downtown. We try to do one or two miles at least once a week.

Addie leaned forward. Where was she?

Well, all of a sudden, here she comes. Walking down this street toward us. I mean, I’m a married man with two sons and a daughter and a cute grandkid, but she’s the kind of woman a person notices.

R.J. kept typing but Addie caught the hint of a smile.

Anyways, she was walking toward Bob and me and she was wearing a flimsy blue top and pants that moved like an electric fan was blowing them. And yellow shoes with heels so high no human could wear them without practicing. Like stilts almost. One of them broke and it was right here on the sidewalk until that lady officer put it in a bag and took it away.

Would you be able to identify her if you saw her again?

Damn thing is, Bob and I hardly noticed her face, ma’am. She was, ah, she was giving her hips a real side-to-side workout.

R.J. chuckled. Addie rolled her eyes.

Besides, we couldn’t make out much about her. It was an odd thing. She was wearing sunglasses and she had hair across her forehead. It was long and bouncy in the back. And she wore white gloves like an old-fashioned church lady.

R.J.’s fingers danced across the keys. And exactly how did the assault occur?

Elwood’s eyes grew big. He stared, blinked, took a long, deep breath. Man, she’s one freaky female. She got right up to us, I think I said something like ‘hi,’ and I started conversating with her in a friendly kind of way but she didn’t answer. And next thing we knew she kind of tripped and Bob grabbed her to prevent her from falling, and whammo, he’s decked like he’d been in the ring with that famous boxer from here, Deontay Wilder. ‘Cept she was a little thing. Probably only came up to my armpits and was kind of skinny, too.

From where Addie stood, Mr. Riley’s armpits were nosebleed high. He was one of those people with longer legs than necessary. And did she say anything?

No, ma’am, not one thing. Nothing. Just landed some good ones on Bob and ran off, one shoe in her hand and the other on her foot. She turned toward University Boulevard right over there at Greensboro.

Is there anything else you remember that might help identify her?

Elwood ran his tongue around his lips, top to bottom, left to right. Only that Bob and I thought it peculiar. She smelled like vanilla wafers or ice cream. We’re getting vanilla milkshakes when we get all this settled.

When she was younger she often bought vanilla body lotion, the smell deliciously wafting off her skin throughout the day. Before she