Thomas Cook - Streets of Fire

Ben took out his notebook. ‘What does he look like?’

‘Sort of gray around the temples.’

‘Big? Small?’

‘A large man. Tall. I’d say a little over six feet.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of him, would you?’

Mrs Davenport chuckled. ‘Of course not. What would I be doing with a picture of Jacob?’

‘Do you have any idea where he went?’

‘Not the slightest.’

‘Maybe to family,’ Ben suggested. ‘Does he have any family in Birmingham?’

‘I have no idea,’ Mrs Davenport said.

‘Sister?’ Ben asked insistently. ‘Brother? Anything like that?’

‘I never mingled in Jacob’s life,’ Mrs Davenport said resolutely.

‘All right,’ Ben said exasperatedly. ‘What’s his full name?’

‘Jacob, like I said.’

‘I mean his last name,’ Ben said.

Mrs Davenport looked at him with amusement. ‘Now isn’t that funny?’ she said.

‘What?’

She laughed lightly. ‘I don’t know if he had one.’

The unpaved alleys of Bearmatch had been turned into muddy trenches by late afternoon, so Ben finally pulled the car over to the side and slogged toward Esther’s house on foot.

The door opened only slightly when he knocked.

‘Who there?’ someone asked.

‘Mr Ballinger?’ Ben asked.

‘Who that?’

Ben could see a single cloudy eye staring through the crack in the door. ‘I’m looking for Esther,’ he said. ‘Are you Mr Ballinger?’

‘You looking for Esther? How come?’

‘It’s about Doreen,’ Ben said.

‘She dead,’ the man said. ‘Somebody done kilt her.’

‘I know,’ Ben said. He pulled out his badge. ‘I’m trying to find out who did it.’

The door opened slightly. ‘Little gal never hurt nobody,’ the man said resentfully. ‘Didn’t deserve to git kilt.’

‘May I come in, Mr Ballinger?’ Ben asked.

The door opened wider and the old man stepped into the light.

‘Esther ain’t here,’ he said. ‘She gone to work.’

‘I know,’ Ben told him. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

Mr Ballinger looked at him suspiciously. ‘What fer?’

‘Just ask you a few things.’

The old man continued to stare at him apprehensively.

‘I’d be much obliged if you’d let me in out of this rain,’ Ben said.

The old man retreated back into the room, leaving the door open. Ben followed him inside.

‘Set down, then,’ the old man said.

Ben waited for Mr Ballinger to lower himself into the rocking chair, then sat down on the sofa opposite him.

‘Esther told me that you noticed Doreen never made it home on Sunday afternoon,’ Ben said.

The old man nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘You didn’t see her at all on Sunday night?’

‘Naw, sir. But Esther seen her on Saturday. They went down to the church together.’

‘When was the last time you actually saw Doreen?’ Ben asked.

Mr Ballinger took a can of snuff from his shirt pocket and opened it slowly. ‘Well, now, that musta been on … lemme see … that musta been on …’ He took two fingers, dug them into the snuff, then brought them to his mouth. ‘I ain’t too good at figuring back.’ He thought a moment longer. ‘Saturday afternoon, I guess. I was still sleeping when she left on Sunday.’

Ben took out his notebook. ‘Well, I know that she went –’

Mr Ballinger leaned forward suddenly and held out the tin. ‘Want a dip?’

‘No, thank you,’ Ben said.

Mr Ballinger smiled. ‘Young folks don’t much like snuff no more,’ he said. His eyes drifted over to Doreen’s room. A large tin bucket sat at the base of her bed, gathering a stream of droplets that fell from the ceiling. ‘I promised her I’d fix that leak in her room,’ he said quietly. ‘Now, I guess it don’t matter.’

‘The man who used to take Doreen to work and then bring her home,’ Ben said. ‘Do you remember him?’

‘Why sure,’ Mr Ballinger said. He started to go on, then suddenly stopped, his eyes squinting slightly as he concentrated on Ben’s face. ‘I seen you before,’ he said. ‘You was at the ballfield. You the one that come to look after Doreen.’

It came together instantly. ‘And you’re the one who found her,’ Ben said. ‘Who called the police. You’re the one who was watching us from across the field.’

Mr Ballinger’s eyes seemed to grow inexpressibly weary. ‘I seen that little hand from a long way off,’ he said. ‘But I knowed it was Doreen. My heart knowed it.’ He shook his head. ‘She a good little girl. When she didn’t come home that night, I knowed it was something wrong.’ He picked an empty Buffalo Rock bottle from off the floor beside his chair and spit into it. ‘I looked all over just the same. But that wadn’t enough for Esther. She stubborn, that gal. She say she gone down to the police, and that’s what she done.’

Ben glanced down at his notes. ‘The man who drove Doreen back and forth from her job – did you get to know him?’

‘I talk to him a few times,’ Mr Ballinger said. ‘Name of Gilroy, Jacob Gilroy. He got a sister down on Nineteenth Street.’

‘Where on Nineteenth Street?’ Ben asked immediately.

The old man shrugged. ‘Little house there on the corner of First Avenue. Look like a cave or something, all them vines growing on the porch.’

Ben wrote it down quickly, then glanced back up at Mr Ballinger. ‘I talked to Mrs Davenport today,’ he said. ‘Gilroy doesn’t drive for them anymore.’

‘That’s right?’ Mr Ballinger asked without surprise. ‘I thought something wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, that last Sunday,’ Mr Ballinger said, ‘I waited and I waited, but I never did see her.’ He blinked rapidly. ‘I seen the car, though. It passed right by the house.’

‘This house?’

‘That’s right,’ Mr Ballinger said. ‘Went right by, but they wasn’t no little Doreen in it.’

‘Did you see anyone?’

‘Just a white gentleman,’ the old man said.

‘Mr Davenport?’

Mr Ballinger shrugged. ‘Don’t know ‘bout that. I never seen Mr Davenport.’ He shook his head. ‘He live a long way from here.’

SIXTEEN

The house was not hard to find, and from Mr Ballinger’s description, Ben instantly recognized it. Dense clusters of poke salad grew along the porch, their pink stalks surrounding it like a rail. Vines spiraled upward toward the roof, then nosed over it, while thick waves of kudzu tumbled over the edge in an impenetrable green flood. A dark oval had been hacked out of the vine, and through it, Ben could make out the brown rectangle of the front door.

He knocked once and waited. There was no sound but the rain as it slapped against the leaves or drummed on the tin roof overhead.

He knocked again, this time a bit louder, rapping his knuckles against the wooden frame of the screen. Still there was nothing but the rain which swept across the sodden porch or streamed off the roof in slender white threads.

A low moan came from the house after he knocked a third time, and the door opened slowly to reveal a large man, slightly bowed, with gray hair and large brown eyes.

‘Yes, sir, what can I do for you?’ the man asked blearily, his eyes blinking painfully in the grayish light.

Ben took out his identification. ‘I’m looking for Jacob Gilroy.’

The man’s head bobbed slightly to the left as he stared at Ben. He labored to hold it upright. ‘What you want him for?’ he asked weakly.

‘It’s about Doreen Ballinger,’ Ben said.

The man’s eyes lowered drowsily. ‘That little deaf girl?’

‘Yes.’

The man retreated back into the house. ‘I’m Jacob,’ he said. ‘You can come on in, I guess.’