Part 6 (1/2)
The main street was empty. Lights from the garage made a yellow circle in the darkness. A fragment of memory flickered to life. He was running barefoot down a small dirt lane with the smell of wood fires all around him. He ran fast toward a light. The memory grew stronger and Emmanuel pushed it aside. Then he disconnected it.
4.
DOWN THERE.”
Shabalala pointed to a corrugated iron shack anch.o.r.ed to the ground by rocks and pieces of rope: Donny Rooke's house since his fall from grace. Emmanuel pulled the sedan into the patch of dirt that was the front yard. The early-morning light did nothing to soften the hard edge of poverty.
He exited the car, and the first stone, sharp and small, hit him in the cheek and drew blood. The second and third stones. .h.i.t, full force, into his chest and leg. The stones. .h.i.t hard, and he lost count of them as he ran behind the car to take shelter. He crouched next to Shabalala, who calmly wiped blood from a small cut in his own neck.
”The girls.” Shabalala raised his voice over the torrent of sound made by the pebbles. .h.i.tting the roof of the car.
”What girls?” Emmanuel shouted back.
Shabalala motioned to the front of the car. Emmanuel followed and risked a quick look out. Two girls, skinny as stray dogs, stood at the side of the shack, a pile of rocks in front of them. Behind them, a man with blazing red hair took off across the veldt.
”Go after him,” the black policeman said, and filled his pockets with stones. ”I will get the girls.”
Emmanuel nodded and sprinted full speed across the dirt yard. A stone knocked his hat to the ground, another skimmed past his shoulder, but he kept the pace up, eyes on the redheaded man running into open country.
”Ooobined age couldn't have been more than thirty. They stared back, used to violent confrontation and worse. He turned to Donny.
”Where were you?”
The girl had given him time to collect himself. ”I was here all day and all night with my wife and her sister. As G.o.d is my witness.”
”Why did you run?” Emmanuel asked quietly.
”I was scared.” The tears were back, turning Donny's face into a mud puddle. ”I knew they'd try to pin it on me. I ran because I thought you'd do whatever they asked you to.”
”We was here with him all the time,” the child wife insisted. ”You have to leave him alone now. We's his witness.”
”You sure you were here, Donny?”
”One hundred percent. Here is where I was, Detective.”
Emmanuel took in the sordid ruin that was Donny Rooke's life. The man was a pervert and a liar who'd sc.r.a.ped together a flimsy alibi, but he wasn't going anywhere.
”Don't leave town,” he said. ”I'd hate to chase you again.”
The air outside Donny's squalid home smelled of rain and wild gra.s.s.
”Detective.” Donny scuttled after them with Emmanuel's filthy hat as an offering. ”I'd like my camera back when you find it. It was expensive and I'd like it back. Thanks, Detective.”
Emmanuel threw his hat into the car and turned to face the scrawny redheaded man. ”Just so you know, Donny. Those are girls, not women.”
He slid into the sedan and gunned the engine, anxious to leave the shack behind. The car wheels b.u.mped over the potholed road and threw up a thin dust serpent in their wake.
”Where are the parents?” he asked Shabalala.
”The mother is dead. The father, du Toit, likes drink more than he likes his daughters. He gave the big one as wife, the small one as little wife.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
The mechanical hum of sewing machines filled Poppies General Store as Emmanuel and Shabalala walked in for the second time. Zweigman was behind the counter, serving an elderly black woman. She pocketed her change and left with a parcel of material tucked under her arm. Zweigman followed and shut the doors behind her. He flipped the sign to ”Closed,” then turned to face his visitors.