P. Parrish - South Of Hell

“About what?”

“Imagination, real memories, that Amy is just mixing all this up in her head,” Louis said.

Joe gave him a warning with her eyes to lower his voice. He looked to the open door and went to it. Amy was sitting on the floor of the living room watching Phil Donahue. Joe had been slowly introducing the girl to television, and she was mesmerized by everything. She was sitting only a foot from the screen, and for a second, Louis thought about telling her to move back, but then he remembered how it annoyed him when his foster mother, Frances, bugged him about the same thing. He closed the door and turned back to Joe.

She was going through the photographs from the tin. She held one out. “Did you see this?”

Louis came forward and took it. It was a sepia-toned photograph of a white man and woman. And a second woman, dark-skinned, holding a baby.

He turned it over. No names or date. But the clothing looked as if it could be of the Civil War era. The man was bearded, with wire-rimmed glasses, wearing a suit. The woman was thin-faced, with severe dark hair, wearing a light printed gown and a dark shawl bound with a cameo brooch. The black woman was much younger, her ebony skin a sharp contrast to the white of her blouse, which seemed too large for her slender frame. Her hair was bound in a scarf. The face of the baby in her arms was as white as its long christening dress.

“Amos and Phoebe?” Joe asked.

“That’s my guess,” Louis said. He took his glasses from his pocket and slipped them on.

“Then who’s the other woman?” Joe asked.

“Charles Brandt’s mother?” Louis said.

“And maybe the woman we found in the barn?”

“There’s no way to prove it.”

Joe sat back against the headboard. “But you want to.”

Louis took off his glasses, bringing Joe back into focus. He had known her for more than a year but had told her little about his past. Yet she seemed to know him so well at times. He came over to sit next to her on the bed.

“When I was on the force here in Ann Arbor, I had to take a leave to go to Mississippi,” he said. “I didn’t want to go. I hadn’t been there since I was seven, but my mother was dying, so I went.”

“I didn’t know you were from Mississippi,” Joe said.

“I was born there but went into foster care here in Michigan with the Lawrences when I was seven,” Louis said. “While I was down there, I got involved in this old case. Some bones were found in the woods. They turned out to be a lynching victim. No one wanted to know who this man was. No one wanted to speak for him. So I had to.”

“Did you ever find out who it was?” Joe asked.

Louis nodded. “His name was Eugene Graham.”

Joe drew in a long breath. “Louis, we have other things to consider here. We can’t get distracted by this.”

“I know that, Joe.”

“We have Jean’s murder to think about,” Joe said. “And we have another hearing coming up in less than a week, and if we don’t find something, Owen Brandt will step in front of that judge and ask for his daughter back.”

“I know that, too. Maybe the judge will give us more time.”

Joe shook her head. “But I don’t have more time. I have to get back to work.”

Louis rose and walked away, waiting a moment before he turned back to face her. He held up the old photograph. “Things like this are important to me, Joe.”

“Well, what happens to that girl out there is important to me, Louis,” Joe said.

Louis was quiet. A sudden crazy thought had come to him: Phillip and Frances taking in Amy. But the Lawrences hadn’t taken in a foster kid in more than a decade.

A squeak drew their eyes to the door. Amy poked her face in through the crack. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said.

“It’s okay, Amy. What is it?” Joe asked.

“Mr. Shockey is here.” She lowered her voice. “And I think he’s been drinking beer.”

Louis went out into the living room. Jake Shockey was standing just inside the door. His face was flushed, and his jacket looked as if he had slept in it. But it was his expression that made Louis go to him.

“Jake, what’s the matter?”

Shockey managed a hard smile. “Hey, peeper. Just wanted to drop in and see how things are going.” His red-rimmed eyes drifted past Louis and found Amy standing with Joe at the bedroom door. “How’s the kid?”

Louis glanced back at Joe, then took Shockey’s arm. “Come on, I think you need some coffee.”

Shockey didn’t seem to hear him. He was still looking at Amy.

“I’ll be back in a while,” Louis said to Joe. He took Shockey’s arm and steered him out the door.

They were the only two people in the hotel lounge. It was a sports bar, strung with NASCAR banners, UM pennants and Big Ten flags. A maize-and-blue football jersey was encased in plastic behind the bar: #48 — GERALD FORD, 1932-34.

Shockey hefted himself onto a bar stool and leaned on his elbows. Louis took the stool next to him, looking around for a bartender. The place was quiet except for the swish-swish of the glass-washing machine.

“You don’t have to babysit me, Kincaid.”

“You look like you had a tough day.”

“Tough doesn’t begin to cover it,” Shockey muttered.

A woman emerged from the back room. Her eyes brightened when she saw them, apparently surprised to discover she had customers.

“You want something to eat, Jake?” Louis asked.

“Beefeaters, straight.”

“How about a coffee?”

“I said I didn’t need babysitting, peeper.”

Louis looked back at the bartender. “Club soda for me.”

The bartender set down both drinks. Shockey swallowed his shot of gin before the bartender had picked up Louis’s ten dollars. Shockey motioned for a second. Louis waited until Shockey downed it before speaking.

“So, what happened? Did you get your ass chewed at work?” Louis asked.

“I got my ass fired,” Shockey said.

Louis was quiet as he picked up his change off the bar. Shockey should have been fired, but Louis wasn’t about to offer that opinion. He was almost sorry now he’d asked the man down for a drink. He had been in this situation before — spending the evening with middle-aged cops who for one reason or another were washed up. Sometimes it was a screw-up and flat termination; most times it was burnout. But Jake Shockey looked like a man hanging on to the last knot in the rope.

“You can find another job,” Louis offered.

“At thirty-six?” Shockey asked. “Most departments only want guys under thirty. Or women. Or… hell, you know it better than me… minorities.”

Shockey was right. Things were different from ten, fifteen years ago. The rookies were younger and stronger, better trained and better educated. Being white and male was no longer the huge advantage it had been in the seventies and early eighties.

“There’s other kinds of jobs,” Louis offered.

“I could never be a peeper,” Shockey said.

“What about security?”

Shockey grunted and gestured for another shot of gin. He dug into his pants pocket for some money and came out with a twenty and a worn leather wallet. The kind a badge was kept in. He set the wallet next to his shot glass and pushed the twenty to the drink well.

“Look,” Louis said. “Life throws you a curve now and then. I don’t have to tell you that. I know a guy in Florida who tried to hang on to his job even though he was going blind. Almost killed a kid before he realized he couldn’t be a cop anymore.”

“How’s he doing now?”

Louis took a long drink of his club soda. “He’s fine,” he lied. “Still adjusting, but he’s getting there. But you’re not going blind, Jake. You’re not old, and you can do other things.”