“Every campaign does it,” Neal says.
True, Jay thinks. But if the missing girl was indeed volunteering for Axel’s campaign, it will mean nothing but trouble for the former police chief.
Johnetta, sensing the political danger of being in this room for even another second, tucks her purse under her arm. “I wasn’t here,” she tells Sam. “Until you fix this, I wasn’t here.” She makes a quick survey of the room, eyes lingering on Jay Porter, probably wondering if she’s already hit him up for a contribution to her reelection campaign, before deciding now probably isn’t the time. She turns to Mr. Wainwright. “Lend me a smoke, would you, Jim?” She waits for him to light it, then turns on her black heels and walks out.
At her exit, Vivian says, “Don’t let that woman in my house again.”
“We don’t keep records of all our volunteers,” Sam says.
Not the ones paid under the table, Jay thinks.
Now, more than ever, he understands why the meeting was moved from the community center at the last minute. The building may have Sam’s name over the door, but it’s city property, open to any resident, or any member of the press for that matter. This room, with its curtains drawn, is Sam’s domain. “You have to disclose the possibility,” Jay says, looking at Sam first, then Neal. “You can’t play coy with the cops, not about this.”
“We’re working in-house to look into it,” Neal says. He pulls his phone from his pocket, checks a missed call on the screen, then flips it closed again. “As of right now, none of our staffers remember her, nor does Tonya Hardaway, our field director, remember assigning her to Pleasantville. But if she was working for us, we have every intention of cooperating fully with the investigation.”
“Last reports had Alicia in a blue shirt, long sleeves,” Jay says.
Sam nods, but is unmoved. “Her mother said she never heard anything about her daughter working for a campaign. She didn’t follow politics.”
“The color might have confused some people,” Neal says.
“Clarence and them,” Jim says, looking at Arlee, in particular, “they may have seen a blue shirt and just assumed she was walking for the campaign.”
“So you didn’t have anybody in the field Tuesday?” Jay asks.
“In Pleasantville?” Neal says, glancing at his grandfather. “No.”
“She wasn’t one of ours,” Sam says, as if willing it so.
“You guys were out here celebrating though, weren’t you? Axel and the campaign going door-to-door?” Jay says, repeating the rumors he heard.
“Ruby set out a pound cake,” Jim says, looking at his wife.
“It’s still sitting on my kitchen counter,” she says, crossing her arms in irritation.
“We weren’t able to make it to every house that night,” Sam says, glancing from his grandson to Marcie, the communications director. “But the bottom line is, the campaign has no knowledge of the girl or what happened to her.”
“We’ve put together a search, first light tomorrow,” Arlee says. From a leather tote at her feet, she pulls out a roll of paper, weathered at the edges. She unfurls the map across the coffee table. It’s Pleasantville, each block broken into tiny squares, pencil marks scribbled on each plot of land, notes about the residents in every house in the entire neighborhood. It’s the Voters League map. “We’ll attack this like any other canvass, like every outreach we’ve ever done, on any and every issue that affects this community. House by house, we’ll find out who saw what on Tuesday. We’ll start to piece together her last hours.”
“Pastor Jennings at Gethsemane, and Pastor Williams at Hope Well Baptist,” Morehead says, “we’re all planning to make statements during this Sunday’s services, warning our congregations about the threat. I’m advising folks to meet their schoolchildren at the bus stops if they’re able. Students, the girls especially, should walk in groups of two or three, everybody in before nightfall. The Blue Hawks,” he says, speaking of the boys’ basketball team he coaches at the rec center, “we’re thinking of starting a patrol group for the neighborhood. We’re asking folks to be on the lookout for any strange faces hanging around.”
“You still having problems with the trucks?” Jay asks.
Arlee nods, and Jay makes a note to call Sterling & Company Trucks first thing in the morning. It isn’t a part of his official duty as Pleasantville’s civil attorney on record, has nothing, in fact, to do with the chemical fire. But for years Sterling has been allowing its commercial drivers to cut through the neighborhood on their way to the Port of Houston, and a while back Jay agreed to intervene. He sent a few strongly worded missives on his letterhead, but apparently these aren’t doing the trick, because two, three times a week, Sterling’s drivers still tear through in 18-wheelers and oversize box trucks, men who have no business in Pleasantville. “I’ll get on it tomorrow,” he says. It would give him something to do.
CHAPTER 3
By Friday morning, her picture’s in the paper.