Criminal

  Evelyn supplied, “Treadwell-Price was knee-deep in the campaign. Daddy Treadwell had his picture in the paper with Jackson the day he won. They had their arms around each other like two showgirls. Adam? Allen?” She blew out a stream of air. “Andrew. That’s his name. Andrew Treadwell. Sonny boy must be a Junior. I bet they call him Andy.”

  Amanda shook her head slowly from side to side. She left politics to her father. “Never heard of any of them.”

  “Junior was certainly walking around with confidence. Hodge was terrified of him. Pantomime aside. Wasn’t that a gas?”

  “Yes.” Amanda looked up at the red light, wondering why it was taking so long to change.

  “Just pull through,” Evelyn suggested. She noticed Amanda’s worried expression and said, “Relax. I won’t arrest you.”

  Amanda checked both ways twice, then a third time, before edging the Plymouth forward.

  “Watch it,” Evelyn warned. There was a Corvette cresting the hill on Spring Street. Sparks flew from under the engine as it scraped the asphalt and blew through the intersection. “Where’s a cop when you need ’em?”

  Amanda’s calf ached from pounding the brake home. “My car insurance is with Benowitz, if you’re trying to make your husband some money.”

  Evelyn laughed. “Benowitz isn’t bad once you look past the horns.”

  Amanda couldn’t tell if Evelyn was mocking her or stating her own opinion. She checked the light. Still red. She inched forward again, wincing as she pressed the accelerator. Amanda didn’t feel her shoulders relax until they had passed the Varsity restaurant. And then they went back up again.

  The smell engulfed the interior of the car as soon as they had crossed over the four-lane expressway. It wasn’t sewage this time, but poverty, and people living stacked on top of one another like animals in crates. The heat was doing no one any favors. Techwood Homes was made of poured concrete with a brick façade, which breathed about as well as Amanda’s nylons.

  Beside her, Evelyn closed her eyes and took a few shallow breaths through her mouth. “Okay.” She shook her head, then looked down at the map. “Left on Techwood. Right on Pine.”

  Amanda slowed the car to navigate the narrow streets. In the distance, she could see the brick row houses and garden apartments of Techwood Homes. Graffiti marred most surfaces, and where there was no spray paint, there was trash piled waist-high. A handful of children were playing in the dirt courtyard. They were dressed in rags. Even from a distance, Amanda could see the sores on their legs.

  Evelyn directed, “Take a right up here.”

  Amanda went as far as she could go before the road became impassable. A burned-out car blocked the street. The doors were open. The hood was raised, showing the engine like a charred tongue. Amanda pulled onto a berm and put the gear in park.

  Evelyn didn’t move. She was staring at the children. “I’d forgotten how bad it is.”

  Amanda stared at the boys. They were all dark skinned and knobby kneed. They used their bare feet to kick around a flat-looking basketball. There was no grass here, only dry, red Georgia clay.

  The kids stopped playing. One of the boys pointed to the Plymouth, which the city bought in lots and the population easily recognized as an unmarked police car. Another boy ran into the nearest building, dust kicking up behind him.

  Evelyn huffed a laugh. “And there the little angel goes to alert the welcoming committee.”

  Amanda popped open the door handle. She could see the Coca-Cola tower in the distance, sandwiching the fourteen-block slum with Georgia Tech. “My father says Coke’s trying to get the city to tear this place down. Move them somewhere else.”

  “I can’t see the mayor throwing away the people who elected him.”

  Amanda didn’t vocally disagree, but in her experience, her father was always right about these things.

  “Might as well get this over with.” Evelyn pushed open her door and got out of the car. She unzipped her purse and pulled out her radio, which was half as long as a Kel-Lite and almost as heavy. Amanda checked to make sure the zipper on her own bag was closed as Evelyn gave dispatch their location. Amanda’s radio seldom worked, no matter how many times she changed the battery. She would’ve left it at home but for Sergeant Geary. Every morning, he made all the women dump out their purses so he could make sure they were properly equipped.

  “This way.” Evelyn walked up the hill toward the apartment block. Amanda could feel hundreds of sets of eyes tracking their movement. Given the setting, not many people were at work during the day. There was plenty of time to stare out the window and wait for something awful to happen. The farther away they got from the Plymouth, the sicker Amanda felt, so that by the time Evelyn stopped in front of the second building, she felt as if she might be ill.

  “Okay.” Evelyn pointed to the doorways, counting off, “Three, four, five …” She mouthed the rest silently as she continued walking. Amanda followed, wondering if Evelyn knew what she was doing or was just trying to show off.

  Finally, Evelyn stopped again and pointed to the middle unit on the top floor. “Here we are.”

  They both stared at the open doorway that led to the stairwell. A single shaft of sunlight illuminated the bottom steps. The windows at the front of the vestibule and on the upper landings were all boarded over, but the metal-encased skylight provided enough light to see by. At least so long as it was daytime.

  “Fifth floor, penthouse,” Evelyn said. “How’d you do on the fitness exam?”

  Another one of Reggie’s new rules. “I barely clocked the mile.” They were given eight and a half minutes. Amanda had pushed it to the last second.

  “They gave me a pass on the pull-ups or I’d be at home right now watching Captain Kangaroo.” She gave a cheery smile. “I hope your life doesn’t depend on my upper body strength.”

  “Surely you can outrun me if it comes to that.”

  Evelyn laughed. “I’m planning on it.” She zipped her purse, then buttoned the flap closed. Again, Amanda made sure her purse was closed tightly. The first thing you learned about going into the projects was you never left your bag open and you never put it down anywhere. No one wanted to bring lice or cockroaches home to their families.

  Evelyn took a deep breath, as if she was about to dunk her head underwater, then entered the building. The smell hit them both like a brick to the face. Evelyn covered her nose with her hand as she started up the steps. “You’d think sniffing a baby’s diaper all day would accustom me to the smell of urine. I suppose grown men eat different foods. I know asparagus makes mine smell. I tried cocaine once. I can’t remember what my pee smelled like, but zow-ee, did I not care one bit.”

  Amanda stood shocked at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at Evelyn, who seemed not to realize that she’d just admitted to using an illegal narcotic.

  “Oh, don’t pimp me out to Reggie. I looked the other way on that red light.” Evelyn flashed a smile. She turned the corner on the landing and she was gone.

  Amanda shook her head as she followed her up the stairs. Neither of them touched the handrails. Cockroaches skittered underfoot. Trash seemed glued to the treads. The walls felt as if they were closing in.

  Amanda forced herself to breathe through her mouth, just as she forced one foot after the other. This was crazy. Why hadn’t they called for backup? Half of the signal 49s in Atlanta were reported by women who’d been raped in stairwells. They were as ubiquitous to the housing projects as rats and squalor.

  As Evelyn rounded the next landing, she tugged at the back of her hair. Amanda guessed this was a nervous tic. She shared the anxiety. The higher up they climbed, the more her insides rattled. Fourteen cops killed in the last two years. Gunshots to the head. Sometimes to the stomach. One officer had lived for two days before finally succumbing. He’d been in so much pain you could hear his screams all the way downstairs in the Grady Hospital ER.

  Amanda’s heart clenched as she rounded the next landing. Her hands started s
haking. Her knees wanted to give out. She felt seized by the desire to burst into tears.

  Surely one of the patrol units had heard Evelyn call in their location to dispatch. The men seldom waited for any female officer to request backup. They just arrived on scene, taking over the case, shooing the women away like they were silly children. Normally, Amanda felt slightly irked by this macho grandstanding, but today, she would’ve welcomed them with open arms.

  “This is crazy,” she mumbled, rounding the next landing. “Absolutely crazy.”

  “Just a little bit farther,” Evelyn happily called back.

  It wasn’t like they were undercover. Everyone knew there were two cops in the building. White cops. Female cops. The hum of televisions and whispered conversations buzzed around. The heat was as stifling as the shadows. Every closed door represented an opportunity for someone to jump out and hurt one or both of them.

  “Okay, what’ve we got?” Evelyn asked no one in particular. “Four hundred forty-three rapes reported last year.” Her voice clattered down the stairs like a bell. “One hundred thirteen were white women. What is that, a one-in-four chance of us being raped?” She looked back at Amanda. “Twenty-five percent?”

  Amanda shook her head. The woman might as well be speaking in tongues.

  Evelyn continued up the stairs. “Four times one hundred thirteen …” Her voice trailed off. “I was almost right. We have a twenty-six percent chance of being raped today. That’s not high at all. That’s a seventy-four percent chance of nothing happening.”

  The numbers, at least, made sense. Amanda felt an ounce of pressure lift off her chest. “That doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “No, it doesn’t. If I had a seventy-four percent chance of winning the Bug, I’d be down on Auburn right now betting my paycheck.”

  Amanda nodded. The Bug was a numbers game run out of Colored Town. “Where did you—”

  There was a commotion down the hallway. A door slammed. A child screamed. A man’s voice shouted for everyone to shut the hell up.

  The pressure came back like a boulder dropping from the sky.

  Evelyn had stopped on the stairs. She was looking directly down at Amanda. “Statistically, we’re fine. More than fine.” She waited for Amanda to nod before continuing the climb. Evelyn’s posture had lost its certainty. She was breathing heavily. Suddenly, Amanda realized that the other woman had taken the lead. If there was something bad waiting for them at the top of the stairs, Evelyn Mitchell would meet it first.

  Amanda asked, “Where did you get those numbers?” She’d never heard them before and frankly did not care. All she knew was that talking was the only thing keeping her from vomiting. “The reported rapes?”

  “Class project. I’m taking statistics at Tech.”

  “Tech,” Amanda repeated. “Isn’t that hard?”

  “It’s a great way to meet men.”

  Again, Amanda didn’t know if she was joking. Again, she didn’t care. “How many of the perpetrators were white?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Techwood is ninety percent black. How many of the rapists were—”

  “Oh, right, right.” Evelyn stopped at the top of the stairs. “You know, I can’t recall. I’ll look it up for you later. This is it.” She pointed down the hallway. All the lights were blown out. The skylight cast everything in shadow. “Fourth door on the left.”

  “Do you want my Kel?”

  “I don’t think a light will make much difference. Ready?”

  Amanda felt her throat work as she tried to swallow. There was an apple core on the floor that seemed to be moving. It was completely covered in ants.

  Evelyn said, “Smell’s not so bad up here.”

  “No,” Amanda agreed.

  “I suppose if you’re going to relieve your bladder on the floor, you need not climb five flights of stairs to do it.”

  “No,” Amanda repeated.

  “Shall we?” Evelyn walked down the hall with renewed purpose. Amanda caught up with her in front of the closed door. A plastic cutout of the letter C was nailed to the wall. Taped just below the spyhole was a strip of notebook paper with blue capital letters written in a child’s hand.

  Amanda read, “Kitty Treadwell.”

  “The plot thickens.” Evelyn took a deep breath through her nose. “You smell that?”

  Amanda had to concentrate in order to discern the new odor. “Vinegar?”

  “That’s what heroin smells like.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve tried that, too?”

  “Only my hairdresser knows for sure.” She motioned for Amanda to stand to the side of the door. Evelyn took the opposite side. This marginally ensured their safety in case someone was standing behind the door with a loaded shotgun.

  Evelyn raised her hand and knocked on the door with such force that the wood shook on its hinges. Her voice was entirely different—deeper, more masculine—when she shouted, “Atlanta Police Department!” She saw Amanda’s expression and gave her a wink before banging again. “Open up!” she ordered.

  Amanda listened to her own heartbeat, the quick gulps of breath. Seconds passed. Evelyn raised her hand again, then dropped it when a muffled woman’s voice said, “Jesus,” from behind the door.

  There was a shuffling noise inside the apartment. A chain slid back. Then a lock turned. Then another lock. Then the handle moved as the thumb latch was toggled.

  The girl inside was obviously a prostitute, though she was dressed in a thin cotton shift that was more appropriate for a ten-year-old girl. Bleach blonde hair hung to her waist. Her skin was so white it bordered on blue. Her age was between twenty and sixty. Track marks riddled her body—her arms, her neck, her legs, pricking open like wet, red mouths on the veins of her bare feet. Missing teeth gave her face a concave appearance. Amanda could see how the ball-and-socket joint in her shoulder worked as she folded her arms low on her waist.

  Evelyn asked, “Kitty Treadwell?”

  Her voice had a smoker’s rasp. “Whatchu bitches want?”

  “Good morning to you, too.” Evelyn breezed into the apartment, which looked just as Amanda expected. Molded dishes filled the sink. Empty fast-food bags were everywhere. Clothes were strewn across the floor. There was a stained blue couch in the middle of the room with a coffee table in front. Syringes and a spoon rested on a dingy washrag. Matches. Pieces of cigarette filters. A small bag of dirty white powder was laid out beside two cockroaches that were either dead or so high they couldn’t move. Someone had pulled the kitchen stove into the middle of the room. The oven door was open, the edge resting on the coffee table to support the large color television set on top.

  “Is that Dinah?” Evelyn asked. She turned up the volume. Jack Cassidy was singing with Dinah Shore. “I just love her voice. Did you see David Bowie on here last week?”

  The girl blinked several times.

  Amanda checked for roaches before turning on the floor lamp. A harsh light filled the room. The windows were covered in yellow construction paper, but that only served to filter the bright morning sun. Perhaps that was why Amanda felt safer inside the apartment than she had in the stairwell. Her heartbeat was returning to normal. She wasn’t sweating any more than dictated by the temperature.

  “David Bowie,” Evelyn repeated, turning off the TV. “He was on Dinah last week.”

  Amanda stated the obvious. “She’s stoned out of her gourd.” A heavy sigh came from deep inside her chest. They had risked their lives for this?

  Evelyn patted the girl on the cheek. Her palm made a firm slapping sound against the skin. “You in there, sweetheart?”

  “I’d soak that hand in Clorox,” Amanda advised. “Let’s get out of here. If this girl was raped, she probably deserved it.”

  “Hodge sent us here for a reason.”

  “He sent you and Vanessa here,” Amanda countered. “I can’t believe we’ve wasted our whole morning—”

  “Fonzie,” the girl mumbled. “He wa’ talkin’ to F
onzie.”

  “That’s right,” Evelyn said, smiling at Amanda as if she’d won a prize. “Bowie was on Dinah last week with Fonzie from Happy Days.”

  “I seen ’em.” Kitty ambled over to the couch and collapsed onto the cushions. Amanda didn’t know if it was the drugs or her circumstances that made the girl’s speech almost unintelligible. She sounded as if someone had turned upside down the entire Flannery O’Connor canon and shaken her out. “I don’member what’e sang.”

  “You know, I don’t either.” Evelyn motioned for Amanda to check the rest of the place.

  Amanda asked, “What am I looking for, back editions of Good Housekeeping?”

  Evelyn smiled sweetly. “Wouldn’t that be funny if you actually found some?”

  “Just hilarious.”

  Reluctantly, Amanda did as she was asked, trying not to let her arms touch the walls of the narrow hallway as she walked to the back. The apartment was larger than her own. There was a proper bedroom separate from the living area. The door to the closet was off its hinges. Several torn black garbage bags seemed to hold the girl’s clothing. The bed was a pile of stained sheets wadded up on the carpet.

  Impossibly, the bathroom was even more disgusting than the rest of the apartment. Black mold had replaced the grout in the tile. The sink and toilet were serving double duty as ashtrays. The trashcan was overflowing with used sanitary napkins and toilet paper. The floor was smeared with something Amanda didn’t want to know about.

  Taking up every available surface were various personal grooming products, which, to Amanda’s thinking, was the very definition of irony. Two cans of Sunsilk hairspray. Four Breck shampoo bottles at varying levels. A ripped box of Tampax. An empty bottle of Cachet by Prince Matchabelli. Two open pots of Pond’s cold cream, both caked with a yellowed rind. Enough makeup to stock the Revlon counter at Rich’s. Brushes. Pencils. Liquid eyeliner. Mascara. Two combs, both clumped with hair. Three very well used toothbrushes sticking out of a Mayor McCheese drinking glass.

  The shower curtain was torn from the hooks, giving the cockroaches in the tub a clear view of Amanda. They stared at her intently as she shuddered uncontrollably. She gripped her purse, knowing she was going to have to shake it out before she even thought about putting it in the car.