The Stones Cry Out (8 page)

Yellow chiffon dress

And

She won't tell

And

Mighty fortress God

Written vertically down the page like Oriental script, the letters lined up to form new horizontal words. Nonsense words. Crazy words. The acrostics of chaotic thought.

Folding the pages, I walked upstairs. The house seemed to be closing in, getting warmer. Tighter. We kept most of the upstairs closed year round, using only two bedrooms and two baths, with one bath doubling as Wally’s darkroom. The third floor was entirely closed. It stored my father’s belongings. I didn’t have the courage to sort through it all.

Knocking on her bedroom door, I waited for a reply. It didn't come and when I opened the door, slowly, she was lying on the bed. The four-poster bed she once shared with David Harmon for more than twenty years.

"Mom?"

The black curls were unruly, rising from her head like sprung coils. Her greenish-brown eyes were an unreal color, like polished jasper. They were the eyes of a beautiful doll. A lost doll.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded.

She nodded the way small children do when they’re trying to be brave—emphasizing the top of the nod, then the bottom. I walked over, sitting on the bed beside her, and took her outstretched hand in mine. Despite the heat around us, her skin felt chilled, and I could suddenly see that red blanket pulled up tight against the summer heat, while she scribbled crazy words into nonsense phrases and Gustav Mahler pounded the plaster.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Tea." Her lips were dry, white. "Hot tea. Please."

Down in the kitchen, I boiled water on the stove— we didn’t have a microwave because she believed the energy waves altered our brains. I blotted perspiration from my face with a paper towel, and when Wally and Madame came in from the courtyard the dog's eyes were darting back and forth, as if preparing for enemy attack.

Wally opened the freezer and dropped two ice cubes into Madame’s water bowl. She lapped greedily, splashing more than she drank.

I kept my back to him, waiting for the water to boil. "What's your schedule for tomorrow?"

"Photo shoot in the afternoon. But I can stay all morning."

"Thanks. I really do appreciate it.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be home by lunch."

"Like I said, a deal’s a deal."

When the water boiled, I carried the tea upstairs. Madame followed me and jumped on the high bed, turning in a circle, and dropping down beside my mother. All was forgiven. The world’s most loyal dog.

My mother wrapped her hands around the steaming mug and ignored the bowl of ice I’d placed on the tray. I picked up a cube and rubbed it on the inside of my wrist, catching the melt with a paper napkin. Sweat beaded along my hairline, rolling down my neck, then down my back.

"What happened?" I asked softly.

She stared into the teacup. Her eyelashes were thick, coal black. When she looked up, tears hovered. "I'm a burden on you."

"You're no burden. Tell me what happened."

"I heard a voice, it told me not to go outside."

"A voice?"

"In the kitchen. It said I would get hurt if I went outside." She looked into the cup again. "Did you use tap water?"

Gently, I took the cup from her hands then sipped the tea. I smiled. "See? It's fine."

Her eyes searched my face, searching for doubt, for any reason why she should believe her daughter over the voices in her head.

"Please don't call the doctor," she whispered.

"I won't."

"Promise me?"

"Yes, I promise."

The dog sighed, then rolled over.

"I just need some rest," she said. “Just some rest, that’s all.”

Leaning over, I kissed her cheek. “I’ll be here the rest of the day. And Wally’s downstairs.”

She nodded.

I got up and stepped into the hall, closing her door most of the way. Down the hall, Wally was in his bedroom and I could hear the fan whirring on High. I walked downstairs, put everything away in the kitchen, picked up my purse, and walked outside.

The afternoon heat felt tangible, something to scoop up with both hands.

In the carriage house, I cranked the air conditioner set in my bedroom window and peeled the damp clothing from my body. When my knees hit the floor, my prayers had no pauses.

Because they had no words.

Possession was nine tenths of the law, and early the next morning I found myself arguing for the remaining one tenth. But the argument was going nowhere with the director of internal affairs at the Richmond Police Department, a guy named Jeremy Owler.

“Agent Harmon,” he said, as I stood in his office, “until we close our investigation into Detective Falcon’s death, the FBI will not get one shred of evidence.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your department’s work. I just want to look at the physical evidence, anything collected at the scene. I don't even want to take it -- just look at it."

"Say, I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Tell me what you have on the case. Then we can talk."

This was Owler's idea of a joke. A mean little joke, from a mean little man. Because when civil rights were involved, the attorney general recommended the FBI didn't share any information with the local police, particularly if the police were the subject of our investigation. But the AG encouraged -- backed by threatened legal action -- that the local police spill everything to the FBI.

Leave it to government lawyers. The lop-sided equation might come out even on paper but in real life, they turned the simmering dislike between federal agents and local cops into a full boil.

And unfortunately, Jeremy Owler was real life. Sitting behind his orderly desk in the city administration building, his small face wore the grin of a politician. Polite and ruthless. Still young -- thirty-two was my guess – he knew nailing a cop killer was a real resume booster.

"You know I can't tell you what I have, Owler.”

The smile grew, ratcheting the small wire-rimmed glasses further up his beak-like nose.

"And,” I said, “because you know that, let’s stop playing games."

"No games? Then I guess we're done with this conversation. Have a nice day, Agent Harmon.”

I hadn't slept since my mother's episode yesterday, and now a hard pulse pounded against my temples. I also hadn't eaten, which for me was a sure sign of distress, and today I faced desperate hours trying to avoid Phaup, who would demand to know why this case wasn't closed.

And here was the grinning little politico, hooting over my circumstances.

"Owler." I could hear a pleading tone in my voice. It made me want to gag. “Just let me see the shoes. Some footwear impressions, then maybe I can figure out who went where."

"Sorry, can’t help you," he said cheerfully. "Richmond PD collected the evidence. It stays here until I say we’re finished. When we clear Detective Falcon – if we clear him – I’ll be sure to give you a call. In the meantime, good luck with that civil rights investigation."

My hand was already on the doorknob, but I turned around. Sarcasm, particularly coming from a guy who looked like a nocturnal bird, never worked. And now it nicked a nerve deep inside. My mind flashed to those file cabinets inside Detective Greene's office. All the cold cases. All those unsolved murders tucked into a back room with no windows and one detective with no time to come up for air.

"Owler."

He looked up, the smile returning to his thin lips. "Yes, Agent Harmon?"

"Why are you making this so difficult?”

“I’m just playing by the rules. If you don’t like the rules, choose another game.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“Depends how you see it.”

I saw it as battle. And he was an adversary. "The harder you fight me on this, the farther I'll take my investigation."

"You don't like having information withheld? Good. Now you know how we feel."

"What I don't like,” I said, “is your attitude. You seem to find this amusing.”

“Perhaps not amusing.” He failed to stifle the grin. “But I do enjoy holding all the cards."

"Get a good look at them. You won't have them long."

“Is that a threat, Agent Harmon?”

“Not a threat.” I opened the door. “A promise.”

From Owler’s tree hole, I drove up Broad Street and turned left, cutting over to Franklin Street. As I pumped quarters into the meter, students from Virginia Commonwealth University were strolling down the sidewalk. Their callow expressions suggested my K-Car was a pile of hot elephant dung. Since I couldn’t disagree, my mood grew even darker.

And then I saw my sister.

In the campus art building, Helen was lecturing her students in one of the studios. Gesticulating her thin arms, she looked like a messy ballerina, her chestnut hair pulled into a hasty bun and secured with a chopstick. Her audience of grungy art students waited at easels, listening to the esteemed professor of painting. In the background, on the sound system, a pop singer whined softly. The room smelled of mineral spirits and unbathed youth.

When she saw me standing by the door, Helen's face disguised her irritation. She told her students to begin working, then walked over to where I stood and pointed down the hall. I looked back at the class. Half the students started painting; the other half looked like they were waiting for her to leave so they could set fire to the place.

“How have you been,” I said, following her down the hall. The sign on her office door read: Dr. Helen Marie Harmon, Ph.D. Professor of Painting.

"I really don’t have time for this," she muttered.

For seven years Helen had taught at VCU, and any day now I expected to hear she was chair of the art department. She fit this place like an iron hand in a velvet glove. In the mid-morning sunlight her big office was glowing, the yellow beams pouring through the ceiling’s Plexiglass panels.

She closed the door. Postcards blanketed the back. Fields of lavender awaiting harvest. Golden Tuscan skies. My sister was an expert on Vincent van Gogh, and she traveled the world proving it.

"You have that look," she said.

I described yesterday's events. How the neighbors on Monument Avenue called Wally, how he found her huddled under a blanket with all the windows open. The usual. If anything about our mother's mental health could be considered usual.

“And?" she said.

"And she’s writing all that crazy stuff. Those weird acrostics. And this morning she didn’t come out of her room."

Striding to the corner of the room, Helen dropped into a canvas director's chair. Her name was printed across the front, followed by "Ph.D.” Not the back; the front, where she could admire herself, too.

"Monument Avenue is just a bunch of stuffed shirts,” she said. “If those neighbors had any sense they’d listen to that music. Grow their minds. Nadine’s not the problem. It’s those people who need to remove the hair from their --"

"Helen, they have a right to peace and quiet."

"And I have a right to tell them to bug off."

"Yes. And it's a big help."

"Raleigh, what is the problem here? So Nadine just needs to release some pent-up creativity.” Helen always referred to our mother by her first name. “Nadine craves expression for what ails her soul."

"It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“It's not.”

“Anyway,” I said, trying to avert the old argument. “I thought you should know what happened."

"Uh-huh. Thanks."

She scowled. On someone so lithe, so very pretty, the crabby expression only made her more beautiful. Ethereal anger.

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked.

“Give her a call. Come by and see her.” My sister lived less than a mile away, but her visits were on the same rotation as Santa Claus.

“I don’t have time this week. I'm leaving for Amsterdam in two days."

"Go, van Gogh."

"Raleigh, for your information, I’ve been invited to a conference of internationally ranked scholars. I'm one of three keynote speakers."

"How can there be more than one keynote?"

"You don’t even care. But the rest of the world understands my work is groundbreaking."

How many times had I heard this? And how many times did I want to say, "You want to study a crazy person? Come by the house sometime."

She uncrossed then recrossed her arms. “You want me to cancel the trip?”

“Bring her some clogs. That’ll fix everything.”

“Don’t get high and mighty with me. You probably use her to practice interrogation techniques."

"Excuse me?"

She stood, and walked to the drafting table that doubled as her desk. For several moments, she pretended to read the papers scattered across the wide surface. Her way of telling me she was busy, I should leave. Helen was the classic passive-aggressive.