J. Kerley - The Broken Souls

I slipped into cutoffs, T-shirt, and running shoes a half-mile short of disintegrating. At the kitchen sink I slapped cool water over my face and glanced out the window. Dani paced beside the deck table; on it something hidden beneath my kitchen towel. I dried my face on an oven mitt and went to the deck.

The waning day remained beautiful and springlike, enhanced by a salt tang breezing up from the strand. Gulls followed a school of baitfish in the small breakers, keening and diving. Several pleasure boats bounced across the Gulf, including a big white Bertram I’d seen a lot lately. High above, a single-engine plane banked at the far edge of the sky, so small it looked like a lost kite.

Dani stood beside the towel-shrouded tabletop in white shorts and red tank top. Sunlight shimmered from her ash-blonde hair, her big gray eyes made blue by the bright sky. I raised my eyebrows at the table.

“A magic show? You’re going to make a rabbit appear?”

She snapped off the towel. Centering the table was a bottle of pricey champagne iced down in a plastic salad bowl, flanked by my two champagne flutes, $1.49 apiece at Big Lots.

Dani thumbed the cork from the bottle and froth raced out behind it. She filled the glasses, handed one to me.

“We’re drinking to my elevation from reporter to…” she lifted her glass in toast, “a full-fledged anchor.”

I stared like she was speaking in tongues. “What?”

“They’re making me an anchor, Carson. I start this week.”

“This is out of the blue.”

I saw the edge of a frown. “Not really. I’ve felt it coming for a few weeks, caught hints. Heard a few feelers.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s June, Carson. When was the last time we had a real conversation? Early April?”

“I was working.” I heard myself get defensive.

“I tried to tell you a couple weeks back. But one time you shushed me and went on writing in your notepad, and the other time I looked over and you were asleep.”

“Why not a third attempt?”

She didn’t appear to hear the question.

“I’ll start by subbing for anchors when they’re out. Do weekends. Get viewers used to me.”

“They’re already used to you.”

“People only know me as a woman holding a microphone. It’s important the audience comes to know me as an approachable presence. Someone they want to spend time with. Someone they trust. It’s like a relationship with the viewer, something you give them.”

It sounded like the kind of hoo-hah she’d always laughed at in the past. I was wondering what I’d missed or who she’d been talking to about viewer relationships and approachable whatevers.

“What’s this lead to?” I said.

“Regular hours, at least for this biz.”

“All we have now are weekends, and only sometimes at that. Didn’t you just say that’s when you’ll be –”

“A trial period, that’s all. Break-in period. Things will change.”

“Seeing less of each other is better for each other?”

“I can’t help it, Carson. This is my chance to try a high-profile position. Plus the money is almost double.” She changed subjects. “You already rented your tuxedo for Saturday, right?”

I slapped my forehead. Channel 14 was having their annual to-do on Saturday night, a formal event. I guess I’d figured if I didn’t have a tux, I didn’t have to attend; sartorial solipsism, perhaps.

“Get it tomorrow, Carson. This is the big wing-ding of the year and all the honchos from Clarity will be there. I’ve got to make an anchor-level impression.”

We sat on the deck and I listened as Dani told me things I probably should have heard weeks back. Her job change seemed rational and good for us in the long run; more time, regular hours. But somewhere, behind the hiss of the waves and gentle blues drifting from the deck speakers, I heard a faint but insistent note of discord, like my mind and heart were playing opposing notes.

I arrived at the department at eight the next morning. It was quiet, a couple of dicks on the phones, digging. Most of the gray cubicles were empty. Pace Logan was sitting at his desk and staring into the air. I didn’t see Shuttles and figured he was out doing something Logan didn’t understand, detective work maybe. After grabbing a cup of coffee from the urn and tossing a buck in the kitty for a pair of powdered doughnuts, I headed to the cubicled, double-desk combo forming Harry’s and my office.

I walked into our space, saw Harry on his hands and knees on the floor, looking under his desk.

“That’s right. Crawl, you miserable worm,” I snarled.

He looked up and rolled his eyes. “There’s a couple photos missing from the murder book. I figured they dropped down here.”

The murder books – binders holding the investigational records of cases – had sections with plastic sleeves to hold crime-scene and relevant photos, trouble being the sleeves didn’t hold very well.

“What’s in the pix?” I asked.

Harry stood, brushed the knees of his lemon yellow pants, and cast a baleful eye at the wastebasket beside the desk. It wouldn’t be the first time something disappeared over the side, dumped by the janitorial crew.

“I dunno. I got the file numbers. I’ll call over and get some reprints.”

I looked at the pile on his desk. Harry had been checking records and information removed from Taneesha Franklin’s office, adding potentially useful pieces to the book.

“Finding anything interesting, bro?” I asked.

“Funny you should ask. I was going over Ms Franklin’s long-distance records. Here’s a couple calls caught my eye.”

He tapped the paper with a thick digit. I looked at the name.

“The state pen at Holman?” I said. “What’s that about?”

“Eight calls in two days. Seven are under a minute. The final one lasts for eleven minutes.”

I nodded. “Like she finally got through to someone.”

Harry jammed the phone under his ear, tapped in the numbers. “I’ll call the warden, see when we can come up and hang out. You want a king or two doubles in your cell?”

The warden was a pro, not a bureaucrat, and said we’d be welcome any time. We pointed the Crown Vic north. Two hours later, we were checking into prison.

Warden Malone was a big, fiftyish guy with rolled-up white sleeves and a tie adorning his desk instead of his neck. His hair was gray and buzz-cut. Loop a whistle around his neck and he’d have been Hollywood’s idea of a high school football coach. We sat in his spartan office overlooking the main yard.

“I had the visitor logs checked,” Malone said, patting a sheaf of copies. “T. Franklin was here on Wednesday before last, nine a.m. She designated herself as Media, representing WTSJ. Ms Franklin spent twenty-one minutes with Leland Harwood. It appears to have been her sole visit to the prison.”

“What’s Leland Harwood’s story?” Harry asked.

Malone leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Low-level enforcer type, legbreaker. A couple thefts in his package, assaults. He bought his ticket here last spring, when he shot a guy dead in an alley behind a bar. A fight.”

“The guy he killed was in Mobile?” Harry asked.

“Harwood and some other moke got into a tussle at a Mobile bar. Went outside. Bar patrons heard a shot, found the other guy dead. Come court day, everyone in the bar swore the other guy started the fight. The prosecution had no choice but to let Harwood plea to Manslaughter two, light time.”

“Maybe that’s how it went down,” Harry said.

“My boy’s an attorney in Daphne,” Malone said. “Prosecutor, naturally. He knows a lot of folks at the Mobile Prosecutor’s Office, including the lady who handled Harwood’s case. She says the patrons weren’t so in tune with Harwood’s story on the night of the action. Only when they hit the stand did they sing his innocence. Note for note, too. Like they’d had some choral training, you know what I mean.”