and yards of chain-link fence. A few feet ahead, there’s a sudden turnoff in the road, a path of dirt and gravel to the left that winds around to the back of a warehouse... and toward the water. Jay takes the left turn, slow and easy. He drives cautiously, maybe ten, fifteen miles an hour, tossing his cigarette through the crack in his car window. Dirt and gravel kick up a fine dust that swirls in the hazy white light of his high beams.
Around back of the warehouse, there’s a locked gate.
Behind it, Jay sees the silhouette of small hills, mounds of broken concrete and quartz, finely crushed, like tiny sand dunes. A sign on the fence reads quartz industrial, inc. Jay remem bers the name from the newspaper.
In front of him, the dirt road ends abruptly.
Jay slams on his brakes, almost running into a thin film of yel low police tape. It’s blocking off a large, burnt-up patch of grass, probably twenty-five yards wide. Jay shuts off the engine to his car, but leaves his headlights on, shining them past the field of dirt and grass to the hawthorn trees and bunches of scrub oak and Spanish moss on the other side. He still can’t see the bayou from here. If he didn’t know better, he would laugh if somebody told him there’s water on the other side of those trees, running right through the middle of the city.
Part of the crime scene tape has come loose and is trailing in the dirt. It seems the cops have already come and gone, their business done, which makes Jay feel better about getting out of his car. He notices the white spray paint right away. Four X ’s in a rectangle mark a ghostly shape of something once there and now gone. Jay takes a careful step over the yellow tape to get a better look. Up close, he sees tire tracks. Somebody was parked here, he thinks. There’s another mark in the grass, a misshapen oval of white police paint, indicating something that once lay beside the tire tracks. White male, Jay thinks, shot twice. At Jay’s feet there’s a dark patch of motor oil... or blood. He is too afraid to touch it, to have any of this on his hands. He backs up suddenly, overcome with the feeling that this was a superbly stupid idea. He should never have come out here.
It’s when he turns to leave, toward his car and the street, look ing back the way he came, that he sees something in the distance, high above the trees.
The lights of the Freedman’s National Bank clock: 9:37 78Ú
It’s the same thing he saw from the boat Saturday night, the same image, the same angle. He turns and looks behind him, past the trees to the downtown skyline. It’s all the same. He’s standing on higher ground, some twenty or thirty yards above the surface of the water, but there is now no doubt in his mind: This is where she must have been standing when they heard the shots.
The thought makes him ill, the fact that he carried that woman with his bare hands, spirited her away from what he now realizes was a crime scene.
There’s a sudden flash of white light on the main road, a pair of headlights coming down Clinton. The car hits the same curve in the road, its lights momentarily streaking down the dirt path, hitting Jay in the chest. In an instant, he sees himself in the driv er’s eyes: a black man, after dark, standing inside police tape. For all he knows, it’s a cop on the road. For all he knows, this is still an active crime scene. He watches the car’s brake lights come on as it slows on the main road. If his eyes are right, the car is back ing up toward him.
His first thought is to hide.
It’s a few long strides to his car, the path to which is awash with the light of his high beams. It’s much easier, safer, he rea sons, to step backward, out of the light and into the thick brush. He moves quickly, crouching low, pushing his body through the trees. The branches pull at his clothes, grazing his face, digging into his skin. He feels a hot sting on his cheek. Knee-deep in weeds and a fog of mosquitoes and
Around back of the warehouse, there’s a locked gate.
Behind it, Jay sees the silhouette of small hills, mounds of broken concrete and quartz, finely crushed, like tiny sand dunes. A sign on the fence reads quartz industrial, inc. Jay remem bers the name from the newspaper.
In front of him, the dirt road ends abruptly.
Jay slams on his brakes, almost running into a thin film of yel low police tape. It’s blocking off a large, burnt-up patch of grass, probably twenty-five yards wide. Jay shuts off the engine to his car, but leaves his headlights on, shining them past the field of dirt and grass to the hawthorn trees and bunches of scrub oak and Spanish moss on the other side. He still can’t see the bayou from here. If he didn’t know better, he would laugh if somebody told him there’s water on the other side of those trees, running right through the middle of the city.
Part of the crime scene tape has come loose and is trailing in the dirt. It seems the cops have already come and gone, their business done, which makes Jay feel better about getting out of his car. He notices the white spray paint right away. Four X ’s in a rectangle mark a ghostly shape of something once there and now gone. Jay takes a careful step over the yellow tape to get a better look. Up close, he sees tire tracks. Somebody was parked here, he thinks. There’s another mark in the grass, a misshapen oval of white police paint, indicating something that once lay beside the tire tracks. White male, Jay thinks, shot twice. At Jay’s feet there’s a dark patch of motor oil... or blood. He is too afraid to touch it, to have any of this on his hands. He backs up suddenly, overcome with the feeling that this was a superbly stupid idea. He should never have come out here.
It’s when he turns to leave, toward his car and the street, look ing back the way he came, that he sees something in the distance, high above the trees.
The lights of the Freedman’s National Bank clock: 9:37 78Ú
It’s the same thing he saw from the boat Saturday night, the same image, the same angle. He turns and looks behind him, past the trees to the downtown skyline. It’s all the same. He’s standing on higher ground, some twenty or thirty yards above the surface of the water, but there is now no doubt in his mind: This is where she must have been standing when they heard the shots.
The thought makes him ill, the fact that he carried that woman with his bare hands, spirited her away from what he now realizes was a crime scene.
There’s a sudden flash of white light on the main road, a pair of headlights coming down Clinton. The car hits the same curve in the road, its lights momentarily streaking down the dirt path, hitting Jay in the chest. In an instant, he sees himself in the driv er’s eyes: a black man, after dark, standing inside police tape. For all he knows, it’s a cop on the road. For all he knows, this is still an active crime scene. He watches the car’s brake lights come on as it slows on the main road. If his eyes are right, the car is back ing up toward him.
His first thought is to hide.
It’s a few long strides to his car, the path to which is awash with the light of his high beams. It’s much easier, safer, he rea sons, to step backward, out of the light and into the thick brush. He moves quickly, crouching low, pushing his body through the trees. The branches pull at his clothes, grazing his face, digging into his skin. He feels a hot sting on his cheek. Knee-deep in weeds and a fog of mosquitoes and
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