In the gloaming dusk, Taylor exited her vehicle to the usual catcalls. In these projects, men and women of variable ages roamed the streets aimlessly at all hours of the day and night, talking, watching, being. The typical crowd had gathered when they heard the news. She ignored the rude gestures, the propositions and threats. She walked through the manufactured similitude of the run-down buildings to the complainant’s front door. The screen was cut. The wooden door stood open. Taylor could hear the sound of crying and smell the blood. Though there were other police around as well as EMTs, she instinctively put her hand on her gun.
A pale-faced EMT saw her looking through the screen and came over to the door. He opened it silently. His motions were sluggish. He looked as though he might be sick. She gave him a look of concern, then continued into the cramped house. The walls were paneled with dark walnut, lending the depressed air of the room a morose tone. Attempts had been made to keep the walls clean, but it seemed half-hearted. Lace curtains, yellowed with cigarette smoke, hung limply over the window. Taylor could see a bullet hole in one pane. The carpet was orange shag, about a million years old, and it didn’t quite reach the four corners of the room. The home was squalid. The fetid stink of despair hung from every corner like a blanket.
She stepped through to the kitchen. She immediately realized why the home was such a mess—the woman sitting at the tiny, unstable kitchen table was blind. Her eyes were milky white, made more opaque by the contrast with her blue-black skin. She was old, very, very old. Taylor bit back a curse. The woman should be in a home with people to take care of her, not living on her own.
There were tears leaking ever so slowly from the woman’s blind eyes. For a moment, it seemed she and Taylor were alone, just the two of them in the putrid little kitchen, and she looked right into Taylor’s soul. Taylor got a chill down her spine. Then the old woman’s head turned and Taylor spotted the body of the girl. All other thoughts left her. She stepped carefully, avoiding the pooling blood.
The girl was lighter than her grandmother, her skin unmarred by the ravages of age. Her hair was braided into tiny rows, each held in place with alternating blue and white beads. Though dispatch had said the girl was twelve, she looked older. Taylor guessed that came from living hard.
She threw off all the cloaking of compassion and became a cop. She turned to the EMT leaning against the counter.
“What’s the story here?”
“Tamika Jones, twelve years old. Seems she had an abortion today. Came by to check on her grandmother, collapsed on the floor. I’m assuming something went wrong with the procedure, and she bled out.”
Taylor gave him a sharp look. Assuming wasn’t allowed.
“You know she had an abortion for a fact?”
A voice, deep and rich, drifted toward Taylor’s ears.
“She told me she was. That’s how I know. Honeychile told me she was riddin’ herself of the child. I told her it was a sin. She didn’t care. Never listened to old me, anyways.”
Taylor turned and saw Tamika’s grandmother looking her straight in the eye. Taylor shuddered and the woman laughed. “Don’t take sight to see, girl. I know you’re right there in front of me. Honeychile’s been acting stupid for a while now, whoring around, taking drugs. I told her it would come to no good. She don’t listen to her Gran, though. I told her that man would kill her, one way or the other.” The woman turned away and Taylor stood, frozen, as if Medusa had glared out of the woman’s sightless eyes.
“Ma’am, what man are you talking about? Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Haw,” the woman spit out. “Boyfriend. Girl, child like that, she got herself a pimp. A sugar daddy. He whores her out, give her the drugs.”
“Do you have his name, ma’am? Any way I can contact him?”
The woman made the guttural noise again. Taylor understood it was a mirthless laugh. She got quiet, then seemed to shrink in on herself, drawing into the collar of her stained dressing gown like a turtle. The interview was obviously over.
Taylor took a deep breath and stared down at the little girl. The story was all too familiar.
Fifty-Two
“The medical examiner’s autopsy report found the girl had in fact procured an abortion within the past twelve hours. You were able to contact the doctor that performed the abortion, one Carl Murray?” asked the foreman.
The question yanked Taylor back into the small room. She nodded and licked her lips.
“Correct. I was given his name by one of Tamika’s friends. The girl only identified herself as Annya, wouldn’t give me her last name. She was the one that confirmed that Tamika had seen Dr. Murray earlier that day. I visited Dr. Murray, and he denied ever seeing the girl. There was no way to confirm either story. Unfortunately, even if he had performed an abortion on Tamika, I couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.