Chapter Sixteen

An hour later Raven and Billy Ray stood on a rundown cement porch of a red-brick house near the Bottoms. No lush green grass in the small front yard. Instead, a tangle of ankle-deep weeds blessed here and there with yellow wildflowers. Raven took a deep breath, and then looked at Billy Ray, who was eyeing her curiously.

“Are you going to knock or are we going to stand here just looking?”

He stood behind her with his pork pie hat on, and his Oakley sunglasses draped over the back of his neck. Raven wondered why he even bothered with sunglasses. Clouds had started moving in hours ago, turning the sky a washed-out gray. Billy Ray gazed back at her with a casualness that said he could step away as easy as whistling.

“What if I said stand here all day looking?”

“You’d be standing by yourself. Food’s not going to cook itself. I have a restaurant to run.”

“Is that more important than finding Noe?”

He sighed hard, and stuck his hands in the pockets. “You don’t need me to do that. I mean finding Noe ain’t no hill for a climber. You got this, Raven.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “I need you to have my back.”

“Like I told you when you asked me to come here with you, I’ll do what I can, but that might not be much. I’m not a cop anymore. And I’ve got a business to take care of.”

Lucky you, she thought, but didn’t say out loud. She lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it fall against the door.

The man who answered was tall, his brown lips spotted pink from drink or maybe from disease. He had narrow shoulders, and a defeated caved-in chest. But his intense black eyes were spectacular. They were large and long-lashed – probably beautiful eyes once, probably made him look deep and mysterious when he was younger. But now they danced with a meanness that would frighten the devil.

“Y’all selling something?” he asked, his eyes swinging from Raven to Billy Ray.

“No,” Raven said, showing him her badge. “I’m Detective Burns and this is Billy Ray Chastain. We’re looking for the parents of Clyde Darling.”

The man reared back as if he wanted to fight. Raven suddenly felt sorry for the boy who ran the streets of Byrd’s Landing with Noe.

“He hurt?” he barked.

“May we come in?” Billy Ray asked, his voice mild and unthreatening.

The man’s eyes narrowed knowingly. “He hurt someone?” It was barely a question, and there was a hint of glee in it.

“Please, Mr. Darling—” Raven started.

“I ain’t no Mr. Darling,” he said. “My name is Brown. Memphis Fields Brown. I’m the boy’s stepfather. Y’all come in. I’ll go find his mother.”

His tone was such that Raven wouldn’t have been surprised if he said its mother. They followed Brown inside. The house smelled of recent cooking. A plate of fried potatoes and fluffy yellow eggs sat on the coffee table.

“Sorry to interrupt your supper, Mr. Brown,” Raven said.

“It just better be important,” he huffed before leaving without any further comment.

While he was gone, Billy Ray made his way around the small room. He picked up a framed picture on a brick fireplace that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

“The man’s into music,” Billy Ray said as he turned the picture toward her.

The silver frame held a photo of a much younger Memphis Brown. He wore a gray slender suit and black pointed shoes. He was caressing an upright bass lying across one shoulder like a lover. His eyes were indeed striking, filled with both pain and ecstasy.

“Wonder if he was any good?” Raven asked.

Billy Ray put the picture back and gestured toward the upright bass on a stand in the corner. It was the only thing in the room polished to a high gloss. A careless layer of dust lay over everything else.

“Look like he still plays,” Billy Ray said.

“I don’t think so,” Raven said. The bass Brown had cradled so lovingly years ago now had no strings.

Remnants of Clyde were all over the room. An English book on the coffee table, a sweatshirt draped over an armchair, a Spider-Man comic book claiming the edge of an end table. She was relieved when Brown came back in the room with Clyde’s mother, a broad-shouldered woman as tall as her husband; but unlike him, there was a look of abject fear in her eyes. She wore an apron over a pair of sweatpants, and was wringing, literally wringing the tea towel she was holding into a tightrope. Brown plopped down on the couch, picked up the plate and began shoveling egg in his mouth. He hadn’t even bothered to introduce his wife.

Raven introduced herself and Billy Ray, which made the fearful light in her eyes brighter.

“Is Clyde all right?” she asked.

“Can we sit down, Ms. Brown?” Raven asked.

“Call me June. Please,” she said. “And I still go by Darling. June Darling.”

June Darling wrung the tea towel so hard that Raven was surprised it didn’t rip in half. She saw Raven’s look and let go. June breathed deeply before smoothing her hands over her long braids.

“I’m sorry I’m not dressed,” she said, tugging off her apron. “I didn’t expect company. I was just cooking. We’re eating early so we can go to the movies later.”

“We sorry we have to interrupt you,” Billy Ray said in a soft voice.

She looked at him as if he had just thrown her a lifeline. But it wasn’t a lifeline that was nearly long enough.

“Is it about Clyde?”

“Yes,” Billy Ray said.

“When was the last time you saw your son, Ms. Darling?” Raven asked.

June’s eyes flashed on Raven. “I told you, June. Call me June.”

“June, then,” Raven agreed.

“Friday before he went to school. Said he was going to spend the weekend with a friend.”

“Kid’s spoiled,” Brown snapped. “My mama never made me no hot breakfast every morning before I went to school. And she certainly didn’t let me slap up out the house and go God knows where for an entire weekend.”

“Mr. Brown,” Raven said. “Didn’t you get a call from Noe’s father asking if you had seen Noe? Asking about Clyde?”

“Some mealy-mouthed man sounding like a teenager called me about Clyde. I told him I hadn’t seen his boy, and mine wasn’t missing. Told him he was spending the weekend with a friend.”

“But he was supposed to be spending the weekend with Noe. Didn’t Cameron tell you that?” Raven asked.

Brown waved his hand dismissively. “I didn’t have time for all that. Man can’t keep track of his boy.”

“You mean Clyde wasn’t with Noe?” June said, her eyes wide.

“You have other children?” Billy Ray asked. Raven knew it was to turn the subject from Clyde. They didn’t want the grieving mother just yet. They needed June thinking clearly for a while longer.

“Two girls,” she said. “But they went with their father after the divorce.”

“Ain’t no surprise about that,” Brown said. “They went with the person with the most money.”

June made no move to indicate that she even heard her husband. She was staring out of the big picture window to the spots of yellow in the yard.

“I got Clyde. He got the girls, and I got the boy. We still tease each other over that. My ex is okay. Divorce wasn’t bitter. It was just time, you know?”

“Because you and that no account womanizer think y’all on a TV show or something. Ain’t no real black folk gone be liking on their ex like that. But at least the brotha got some sense. Not you, though. The only reason that boy want to live with you is because you ain’t got no rules,” Brown said. “If that fool murdered someone you’d help him hide the body.”

She favored Brown with a look, not an angry look, but one of sympathy. “Quit it, Memphis, I say. Don’t let these detectives see how ugly you can be. Where is my boy, Detective Burns?”

“What kinds of things did Clyde get away with, Mr. Brown?” Raven asked.

He balanced the plate of food on his skinny lap. He leaned forward and counted on his fingers. “Truancy, shoplifting, staying out all night, stealing from his mama’s purse, and all kinds of drugs.”

“Those are lies, Memphis. So he skipped school a couple of times, fell asleep over a friend’s house and forgot to call. He smoked a little weed. You did worse when you played, if I remember right. Why you so high and mighty now?”

“How about stealing from your purse? Shoplifting?”

“It’s not stealing if he’s welcome to it,” she said. “And he didn’t shoplift anything. The store made a mistake. He had nothing on him. You had it in for Clyde ever since we got together.”

Brown eventually crossed one leg over the other and sat back. He muttered something loud enough for them to hear, but not loud enough for them to understand.

“What was that, Mr. Brown?” Raven pressed.

“I said what about the lying,” he said. “You can’t explain that away, now can you?”

June sighed and ran her hands over her face. “He does do that, you right. He has a little trouble with lying.”

“How’s that?” Billy Ray prompted.

“Clyde likes to make money….”

“You mean hustle. He likes to hustle.”

“Shut up, Memphis!”

They sat in silence for a moment before June continued. “He likes money, you know, the feel of it, the smell. And so every chance he gets, he’s mowing somebody’s lawn, or cleaning somebody’s gutters, or helping them with odd jobs.”

“I don’t understand how that’s a bad thing,” Billy Ray said.

“It’s bad because he’ll lie about it in a second. I didn’t have a problem with a lot of it, but in spite of what my husband says, I do draw the line at some things.”

“Like what?” Raven asked.

“We’ve talked enough and you’ve heard plenty. Where is my son, Detective?”

“Just one more question…” Raven tried. Once she did tell June where Clyde was, June wouldn’t be in any shape to answer more questions. Not right away, anyway, and they had no time to waste.

“No,” June said. “No more questions.”

“Yeah,” Brown said. “Get on with it so I can finish eating and we can go. We late already. Shoot.”

This time June threw the tea towel she had been wringing. “Get out, Memphis. Get out. I can’t stand the sight of your face right now.”

Brown slowly removed the tea towel from his plate. He walked from the room in a put upon but dignified manner. When he was gone June sunk into an armchair and covered her face with her hands.

“Lord. Oh, my Lord. That man.”

They waited through several sighs. Raven sensed that June knew what they were about to tell her. The woman with the braids and tea towel had gone from wanting to know to putting it off for just a bit longer.

“Brown’s not a bad man, he’s just scared is all,” June said.

“How long you been married?” Billy Ray asked as he took Brown’s place on the sofa.

“Going on ten years now,” June answered. “He used to play bass in a jazz band at this club me and the girls used to go to after work.”

“And what do you do, June?” Raven asked.

“I’m a paralegal. Between jobs now. I used to work at a firm downtown. Got laid off when the owner got put in the hospital.”

“Put in the hospital?” Raven asked.

“Yes,” June said. “Robbery or something. They beat him up pretty bad. He’s not getting out anytime soon.”

“Sorry to hear that. They catch the guy?” Billy Ray asked.

June shook her head. “Just life, you know?” she said. “Sometimes bad things come at you all bundled up.” She looked them straight in the eye. Raven started to speak, but June cut her off.

“But Memphis? His bark is worse than his bite. He loved playing bass, the band, all that stuff. But he was scared of it, too. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Took to drinking. Pretty soon he was doing more drinking than playing and the band got sick of it. We were, you know, going out at that time, and he asked me to marry him. Said he’d help me take care of Clyde. But I just think he did it because it gave him an excuse not to play.”

“Can we call anyone for you, June?” Billy Ray asked.

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I can’t rehearse, he’d say, because you know I got to take care of you and Clyde. We were the perfect excuse. He just thought he wasn’t good enough. He tortured himself all the time, now he’s torturing us.”

“Must be hard on Clyde,” Raven said, not missing the way June’s eyes brightened at the use of present tense.

Billy Ray reached over and covered June’s trembling hands with his own. He looked into her eyes and said, “You said you saw Clyde on Friday before school?”

She nodded warily. “Yeah, that’s right. I made him breakfast, we joked around for a few minutes, I helped him pack for the weekend and he left.”

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“He sent me a text Friday afternoon from Noe’s phone saying he would be late coming home today. But you just said he wasn’t with Noe.”

Billy Ray and Raven exchanged a look.

“Why didn’t he use his phone?” Raven asked.

June looked embarrassed. “Memphis took it. As punishment for breaking curfew.”

“Did Clyde say why he would be late?” Billy Ray asked.

“Said he and Noe had a gig together, a way to score some cash.”

“A legal way?” Raven asked.

“Of course, legal. My boy’s not a hood rat. But I get worried because sometimes he can be careless, and like I said, he can be loose with the truth. He said he was going to do some yard work for somebody.” June shuddered. “I was okay with that. As long as he wasn’t going to work with that creepy blood and guts guy.”

“Blood and guts guy?” Raven asked.

June nodded. “That’s what I call him, anyway. He cleans up after dead bodies and stuff. I found out that Clyde had worked for him and I told him to cut it out. That he wasn’t allowed to do that.”

“Why?” Raven asked.

“Clyde had nightmares,” June said. “That’s how I found out. Those jobs followed him in his dreams and he’d wake up screaming. So, I put my foot down. No more. Besides, I met that Willie Lee Speck, and there’s something wrong with him.”

Willie Lee Speck, Raven thought. The same piece of excrement she was thinking about hiring to clean the crime scene at Oral’s house.

“What made you think he was creepy?” Raven asked.

“Because he’d come around here begging me to let Clyde work for him. Kept spitting in my flowers and winking at me. Had some guy with him with all sorts of junk in the back of his VW truck. I asked who he was, and he told me just some homeless guy who helped out, too. All that stuff was dead people’s stuff. Sick. Both of them grave robbers if you ask me.”

“Do you think that’s the gig that he was going to, to make him late coming home?” Raven asked.

“I already told you no. I ordered him to stay away from that guy. Where is my son, Detective Burns?”

Raven told her. And there was a wail so loud and long that Raven thought the sound would follow her to the grave. She looked up to see Billy Ray with his hands over his face. Brown stood in the entryway to the living room with a look of greedy elation in his luminous eyes.