Every Dead Thing

I stood and he moved aside to let me pass. Wallace waited at the end of the corridor, his thumbs tucked into his belt to take the weight off his shoulders.

“Give him back his things, Deputy.”

“Even his gun?” asked Wallace, not making a move to do as he was told. Wallace had that look about him, the look that told you he wasn’t used to taking orders from a black guy and didn’t like it when he had to. It struck me that he might have more in common with the Rat and his friends than was really wise for a conscientious lawman.

“Even his gun,” replied Martin calmly but wearily, giving Wallace the eye. Wallace shoved off from the wall like a particularly ugly ship setting out to sea and steamed behind the counter, surfacing eventually with a brown envelope and my gun. I signed and Martin nodded me toward the door.

“Get in the car, please, Mr. Parker.” Outside, the light was starting to fade and there was a cool wind blowing from the hills. A pickup rattled by on the road beyond, a covered shotgun rack on the back guarded by a mangy hound.

“Back or front?” I asked.

“Get in the front,” he replied. “I trust you.”

He started the cruiser and we drove for a time in silence, the a/c blasting cool air into our faces and onto our feet. The town limits receded behind us and we entered woods thick with trees, the road twisting and winding as it followed the contours of the land. Then, in the distance, a light shone. We pulled up in the parking lot of a white diner, topped by a green neon sign blinking Green River Eatery on the road beyond.

We took a booth at the rear, far away from the handful of other patrons, who cast curious glances at us before returning to their food. Martin took off his hat, ordered coffee for both of us, then sat back and looked at me. “It’s usually considered good manners for an unlicensed investigator packing a pistol to drop into the local lawmen and state his business, at least before he goes around beating up pool players and stealing library files,” he said.

“You weren’t around when I called,” I said. “Neither was the sheriff, and your friend Wallace wasn’t too keen on offering me cookies and swapping race jokes.”

The coffee arrived. Martin added creamer and sugar to his. I stuck with milk.

“I made some calls about you,” said Martin, stirring his coffee. “A guy called Cole vouched for you. That’s why I’m not kicking your ass out of town, least not yet. That and the fact that you weren’t afraid to whip some cracker ass in the bar last night. Shows you got a sense of civic pride. So maybe now you’d like to tell me why you’re here.”

“I’m looking for a woman named Catherine Demeter. I think she might have come to Haven in the last week.”

Martin’s brow furrowed.

“She anything to Amy Demeter?”

“Sister.”

“I figured. Why do you think she might be here?”

“The last call she made from her apartment was to the home of Sheriff Earl Lee Granger. She made a number of calls to your office as well the same night. Since then, there’s been no sign of her.”

“You hired to find her?”

“I’m just looking for her,” I replied neutrally.

Martin sighed.

“I came here from Detroit six months ago,” he said after about a minute of silence. “Brought my wife and child. My wife’s an assistant librarian. I think you may have met her.”

I nodded.

“The governor decided there weren’t enough blacks in the police force here and that relations between the local minority population and the cops might not be the best. So, a post came up here and I applied, mainly to get my kid away from Detroit. My father came from Gretna, just a ways from here. I didn’t know about the killings before I came here. I know more now.

“This town died along with those kids. No new people came to live here and anyone with an ounce of sense or ambition got the hell out. Now the gene pool here’s so shallow you couldn’t drown a rat in it.

“In the last month or two there’s been signs that something might happen to change that. There’s a Japanese firm interested in locating around half a mile out of town. They do research and development of computer software, I hear, and they like the idea of privacy and a quiet little backwater they can call Nippon. They’d bring a lot of money to this town, a lot of jobs for locals, and maybe a chance to put the past to rest. Frankly, the people here don’t much care for the idea of working for the Japanese but they know they’re sucking shit as it is, so they’ll work for anyone as long as he’s not black.

“The last thing they want is someone sniffing around ancient history, digging up the past to come up with the bones of dead children. They may be dumb in a lot of cases. They may also be racists and shit kickers and wife beaters, but they’re desperate for a second chance and they’ll mess up anyone who gets in their way. If they don’t do it, Earl Lee will.”