The Stones Cry Out Page 7

  "God can heal any wound! Any wound. Give it to him! He’s ready to heal you. Do you hear me? He wants to make you whole again!"

  She walked down the front line of worshippers. Preaching, blessing, laying hands, and when she reached my mother, the woman’s thick fingers wound into the dark spiraling curls. Cradling my mother's pretty face, she shook her and cried out to God, praying to God for healing. In one split-second she drew back her hand and slapped my mother’s forehead.

  My mother fainted. She dropped like a cut tree.

  And she was caught by the people standing around her. Backing up, they laid her on the floor. The large woman was continuing down the line, laying hands, slapping more foreheads. The crowd moved around the supine like a river flowing around boulders.

  Standing up, I tried to see my mother's face. As the crowd parted around her, I could see her lips moving. I was too far away but continued to watch her, hoping for the impossible.

  Hoping to hear the words she murmured.

  ===============

  It was nearly midnight when we got home. My mother seemed pleasantly tired, and after getting her settled into her bed, I staggered across the courtyard and collapsed in my own. It was earned sleep, deep slumber, and my dreams seemed to revolve around an onyx sky dusted with quartz stars.

  In one dream a charcoal mist veiled the courtyard between our two houses, but I could see the goitered woman was there too. Only this time my mother was laying hands on her. Tenderly she touched the bulb on the woman's neck and lifted the woman's face, calling on God to heal her, to mend a broken vessel.

  I was leaning against the brick house, feeling the heat of the day radiated from the stone through my shirt, into my skin. My mother cried out with clarity, with conviction. I hadn’t heard that tone of voice in years. And suddenly Wally was there. He was taking pictures of the women who also appeared suddenly. A chorus around my mother and the goitered preacher lady. I looked around, expecting Madame to come next.

  And then I saw my father.

  His seersucker suit was wrinkled, the way it looked when he spent long hours at his desk. He stood directly across from me on the other side of the courtyard, but he was watching his wife. His blue eyes sparkled like topaz. I started to walk over to him, but I couldn’t move. The wall gripped my shirt, holding me like hands. I stretched out my arms. My hands scraped the night air, but the wall wouldn’t let go. I cried out for help, but the camp women started singing, rattling tambourines, drowning out my voice.

  "Glory, glory, glory!" they sang.

  My father turned. He looked right at me.

  “Dad?”

  He nodded, smiling. Then reached out his hand.

  But I couldn’t move. “I can’t --”

  He suddenly disappeared.

  "Hallelujah!" the women sang. “Praise God!”

  I felt a stab in my heart, like a spear, and started crying. The woman sang louder but the pain grew worse, until it was so severe I woke up.

  My face was wet. And when I reached for the clock beside my bed, my hands were shaking.

  3:33 AM.

  I lay down, closing my eyes. I tried to see him again. Those blue eyes, that wrinkled suit. But all that came back was the expression on his face. Serenity, I finally decided. He looked like a man experiencing perfect joy. And I remembered the first time Helen and I met him. I was five, she was eight, and later she said our birth father looked nothing like David Harmon. I didn’t remember --our dad was gone by the time I was two.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "He never looked like that,” Helen said. “Nice. Happy. In love with Mom."

  I lay there for almost an hour but the dream refused to come back, and the loneliness refused to go away. Finally I threw back the cotton blanket and padded through the carriage house, turning on as few lights as possible in case my mother happened to glance out her window.

  In the kitchen, I poured cold milk into a mason jar glass and drank it with the refrigerator door open, letting cold air ripple over my pajamas until I was shivering. My clothes were damp from perspiration, from that fevered dream.

  The kind of dream that was vivid for days. Weeks. Maybe forever.

  I closed the refrigerator. One thing bothered me. Why couldn't I run to him? Why was my shirt stuck to the wall? And the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I felt. As if there was something in that dream that I didn’t want to hear. What, that I felt stuck? Literally tied down to my mother's house?

  But my father smiled. Nodded at me, like I got the message.

  Back in bed, drawing the covers up to my chin, I missed him more than ever. Her mind had crossed that trip-wire inside her head, and nobody was here to make it better. He always took care of her. On a family cruise to the Bahamas, she decided the sea was calling to her. She accused the postman of reading our mail, spying for the government. She sometimes wrote messages in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, notes to the voices. And he dealt with it all, full of love and compassion.

  My damp pajamas were evidence of fear and worry.

  Did I feel stuck, really?

  I had begged the Bureau for this transfer to Richmond. Pleaded with management to let me stay close to her. And I was grateful when they said yes.

  I didn’t feel stuck.

  So the dream had another meaning. I closed my eyes again and let my mind wander over the details. I could still feel the brick wall against my back. How the stone grabbed at my clothing. And how my father smiled when it happened.

  The choir's hallelujah.

  I opened my eyes.

  The clock read 5:18 a.m.

  Out the window I could see dawn eliminating the dark. I threw back the covers once more and felt almost numb walking into the kitchen. I made coffee and gathered my thoughts and waited until 6:00.

  Then called John Breit at home, and told him we needed to get to the Fielding factory.

  Right away.

  Chapter 13

  "Just take it slow, Raleigh."

  Peter “Boo” Bowman patted my shoulder.

  "Remember to keep your feet on the wall," he said. "And whatever you do, don't look down."

  I looked down. My stomach cartwheeled.

  Between me and the slab of concrete below was seventy feet of thin air, and I could see the faded bloodstains on the gray stone, the sickening testimony to the bodies that fell from this height. The warm breeze gusted up the factory wall, billowing my ponytail.

  I tried to swallow; no saliva.

  On the roof next to Peter, John was looking at me like I was somebody about to jump out of an airplane, without a parachute. "You sure about this, Raleigh?"

  I nodded.

  But I wasn’t sure. All my brutal Quantico training hardly prepared me for this moment. Standing on a roof with ropes and a harness, I felt so inadequate that I wanted to run away. Only our SWAT guys, like Boo Bowman, trained with ropes. The rest of us poor saps stayed on a need-to-know basis. And until now, I didn't need to know.

  But here I was, about to jump off the Fielding factory and rappel down the side of the brick to search for material evidence.

  Because I was convinced that was what my dream was all about. The way my shirt stuck to the brick. The way my father smiled. The choir crying out hallelujah. Trace evidence was on the brick.

  "Evidence bags secured?" Boo asked.

  I patted my waist harness, checking for the two small packs attached to the rappelling equipment. Earlier, while Boo set up the ropes, I collected soil samples from the southwest corner of the roof, the corner from which Hamal Holmes and Detective Falcon fell. I hoped to get footwear impressions but the tarred surface looked like a disordered dance routine. The cops walked all over the crime scene.

  “Raleigh,” Boo said.

  I looked up again.

  "You've got enough line to hit the ground."

  "That's a really bad choice of words.”

  "I’ll rephrase.” He smiled “When your investigation is done, ra
ppel to the bottom of the building. Better?"

  “Not really.”

  Boo had secured one line around the building’s north smokestack. A second line—the backup, in case the first rope failed—was tied to the steel fire escape on the west side. Boo was a careful man. A ropes expert who never explained his nickname, though we all suspected it had something to do with being brave. Boo didn't scare.

  My knees shook.

  "John,” he said, “head down to the sidewalk for the belay."

  "Belay," John said, turning to me. "That’s rope talk for, if Raleigh bonks her head and starts falling, yank the rope. Presto! You stop falling."

  "Bonk my head?"

  But he only waved and disappeared through the stairwell door. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.

  "Chalk helps," Boo said, noticing my clammy hands.

  "I can’t risk the cocoliths contaminating the evidence."

  He stared at me. His blond hair was fine, almost white, blowing in the warm breeze. I could see he was waiting for an explanation. But right now I didn’t have enough spit to discuss the calcareous nannofossils in calcium carbonate and how they could obscure other minerals during a microscopic examination.

  When John appeared on the sidewalk below, waving his arms, Boo flung the coil of rope over the side. After a frightening free-fall it plopped on the sidewalk. Dead as a snake.

  “Okay, you're good to go," Boo said.

  Taking a deep breath, I leaned back into blue sky, feeling the harness grab my thighs. I slid the line between my fingers. Underneath my tennis shoes the brick felt gritty and unforgiving.

  Boo leaned over the roof’s edge. “Relax.”

  I shuffled down the wall and grabbed the brick window frame.

  "You don't need to hold the wall,” Boo said. "The line’s holding you. Tie off, remember?"

  No way, no how. I didn't care if the brick sandpapered the skin off my fingertips, I was not letting go. I inched my toes into the cracks and placed my face against the wall, sighting for fibers. But all I could see was craggy stone the color of arsenic, the surface wavy from antique methods for baking clay, sand, and gravel.

  Nothing was evidence of a crime.

  Grabbing the rope again, I tiptoed from the window ledge across the building. My heart was beating like a jackrabbit on amphetamines. Every fourth step, I leaned my face against the wall again, sighting for something. But by the next window, the mortar began crumbling under my fingers. Dry as burnt toast, it fell to the ground below. I was tempted to look but remembered Boo's advice. Taking a chunk of pale mortar from the window frame, I dropped the sample into the evidence bag on my right hip. I continued to cross the building, still pressing my left cheek to the stone. Every fourth step.

  But the view of the brick started to frighten me more than the bloodstains on the sidewalk below. I had walked all the way from the southwest to the eastern corner. Far, far from the scene of the crime. Or the accident. Or whatever happened up here on Saturday.

  "Raleigh! Tie off!" Boo was yelling from above, motioning with his hands to demonstrate again how to hook the rope into the figure-eight clip.

  My fingertips were bleeding. And still I wouldn't let go of the brick ledges.

  But I did look down.

  People had gathered on the sidewalk. Lots of people. And the four Richmond police officers who escorted us here today formed a line, trying to keep the crowd from swallowing John. I wanted to look away, but my eyes were riveted by the horrifying distance. The nothingness between here and there. The thin air of it all.

  Down the street another cruiser arrived. The officer threw open his door and lifted a megaphone. The metallic voice clanged up the brick.

  "This is a police matter. Move along!"

  "Raleigh!" Boo yelled. "Don't look down!"

  I turned my face away. The warm sun on my back cast shadows on the craggy red stone. I was trying to breathe, but now it was more than fear. Something hopeless was trying to roost inside my heart. I laid the left side of my face against the brick, drawing in two slow breaths. My cheek stung from the scratches, but the pain was nothing compared to the worry bubbling inside my chest, percolating to the verge of hysteria. I suddenly doubted this grand idea. This expensive idea. And potentially a huge embarrassment to these guys who agreed to help. And embarrassing to the Bureau. I had found nothing out there, and if nothing came from this search for evidence I would be forced to explain how I got this idea.

  I would have to admit something even more embarrassing: I got the idea from a dream.

  Earlier this morning, holding my damp nightgown, it all seemed so clear. The way Madame knocked me against the brick house that day, how the stone snagged my shirt. And my father coming to me, smiling because my clothes were stuck to the wall. That was the point. Hallelujah.

  Naturally, John wasn't excited. "You haven't closed that thing?" he asked, when I called him at 6 a.m.

  "No. And I won't close it until we know what happened to those guys."

  Today's forecast called for afternoon thunderstorms. Richmond’s summer rains came hard, full of sound and fury, bulleting out of the sky. As I told John, one good rain could wash every bit of trace evidence from the Fielding factory.

  "So let the rain take care of it," he said.

  "Please, John. I won't ask you for another favor. But I’ve got to check this. Please."

  Reluctantly he called Boo, our ropes expert. And I called the Richmond chief of police, who during my diplomatic visit, made the mistake of saying his department would cooperate fully with our investigation.

  And now, literally hanging by threads in this dream-inspired expedition, I had nothing. Nothing. All right: I had pieces of mortar and some roof soil which for all I knew was ordinary dried mud from cop shoes walking across the crime scene.

  I was tiptoeing west when the prayer came. The kind of prayer that's more like whining. Pleading.

  "Please," I whispered, passing another window. "That’s all. Please?”

  Through the window I could see a wire mannequin. She canted her empty face with coy allure, but her feet were gone. Behind her Agent Harvey Guilder kicked through the dusty old trash, an MP-3 in his hands. Boo brought Harvey. His reason: "We don't know if there are squatters in that building. Somebody could open a window, slice your line." To which John replied, "And don't expect me to play Spiderman for your remains."

  Standing on the ledge, I gave Harvey a thumbs-up sign which I didn't feel. I was five feet from where I had started. Fingers bleeding. Face stinging. Heart quivering. And whispered prayers even more desperate. The megaphone was growing louder, the orders more insistent. I didn't want to look down. Or up. Staring at my fingertips, I felt the red skin pulsating.

  Nothing. I would take nothing to Phaup and then transfer to Sioux City to investigate fertilizer theft. Sucking in one final deep breath, closing my eyes, I leaned against the window frame. The rope tightened like a snake as I lifted my face, ready to tell Boo the mission was over. And then I saw it.

  One blue fiber.

  It was above my head, shaking in the breeze like a squiggly line. Without taking my eyes off it, I reached into the second bag on my hip and pulled out a pack of adhesive lifts. My fingers were almost numb, swelling with abrasions. I pinched the sheets between my thumb and index finger. One fiber. I had one fiber. Send it to the lab. Dream vindicated.

  When the wind gusted up the building again, my eyes were still on the blue thread. But the plastic sheets suddenly floated from my hands. I lunged, trying to snatch them back, but the wind dropped just as suddenly. The sheets began tumbling through the air like fat confetti. Out of reach.

  I looked down. John’s face was pinched.

  "What are you doing!" he yelled.

  "Hold the rope!" I yelled back.

  He shook it.

  Behind him on the sidewalk the crowd was pointing at the plastic sheets, falling like paper airplanes. As they landed, people picked them up, turning them over as if some secret
message was there. When none was found, the people seemed even more upset. Like we were hiding something. They were yelling, raising fists at me.

  "Um, Raleigh?"

  I looked up. Boo leaned over the roof directly above me. Blue sky framed his corn-silk hair.

  "How much longer?" he asked.

  "Do you have any Scotch tape?"

  "What?"

  "Tape!" I stopped, took a deep breath. "Sorry, I need tape. Do you have any up there?"

  He walked away, and I searched the brick for that one blue fiber. Moments later a metal clip zipped down the line holding white circle of First Aid tape.

  "That's all I've got,” he said.

  "It’ll work. Give me fifteen minutes."

  "You’ve got five. It's getting ugly down there."

  I shifted the rope to the other side of my face, suddenly realizing that by lunging for the adhesive sheets I inadvertently tied off. Both hands free, I pried a strip from the white roll, stretched one arm up and laid the swatch over the blue fiber, pushing hard before pulling it off the brick. Somebody in the lab was going to complain about the tape, but I didn't care. I had evidence. One blue fiber.

  My dad had told me the truth. Again.

  I dropped the folded tape into my side pouch and looked up again. The building had four capstones, one at each corner, done in an elaborate pattern. The kind of architectural flourish typical of the late 1800s with hollow space in the middle. The blue fiber was just below it.

  "Boo, I need to climb up."

  He leaned over the wall again. "Up? You said you wanted to go down.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “But we’ve only got rappelling equipment. I didn’t bring any climbing tools."

  “Just to the capstone. Can we do that?"

  He measured the distance with his eyes. "What d'you weigh?"

  "One fifteen."

  Reaching over the short wall, he grabbed the rope, arm muscles flexing. "When I pull, start walking.”

  I also shoved my bloody fingertips into the mortar crevices, trying to take some weight off the rope. My shoulder muscles were cramping with exhaustion, and fear, but we managed to climb two and a half feet. My head was even with the capstone’s base, the bottom of the hollow part.