“But she wasn’t back then. Heard she was a real chicken-picker. Would give up her face for ten dollars.”
Devra said nothing.
“Was she pretty like you?” said McKinley. “Probably not when she was geekin’ behind that shit. They lose their ass at that point. But I wonder, at one time, if she was as fine as you. If she had the ass on her that you got on you now.”
McKinley stepped in and put his free hand, thick as a mitt, on Devra’s hip. Then, suddenly, he moved it to the crotch of her slacks. He rubbed her clumsily through the fabric. She pushed herself against the door and felt the bars of the windows press into her back. She wanted to cry out. She wanted to look away, but she kept her eyes on his.
“You are fine,” said McKinley, his voice soft and raspy.
“Don’t,” said Devra.
He pressed harder at her objection, and she said, “Uh.”
“That hurt you? I didn’t mean to.” McKinley inspected her body. “Let’s see what else we got here.”
His hand slid up and over her shirt and went to her right breast. He kneaded it and found her nipple. His forefinger made small circles there. Her nipple grew hard. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and it grew harder still.
“There you go,” said McKinley, smiling silver. “Your body is betrayin’ you now.”
He pinched her nipple harder and heard her breath catch. Devra’s eyes filled with tears and one broke free and rolled down her cheek. He tightened his fingers more, pinching her there until she closed her eyes completely. He got very close to her face.
“I know you’ll stand tall,” said McKinley. “You gonna do this for your son. Make sure he has the kind of childhood you never had. Boy needs his mother, right?”
Devra’s lip trembled. She couldn’t bring herself to speak. She nodded instead.
McKinley released her and stepped back. He brought the cigar around and put it to his mouth. He drew on it and backed up toward the doorway. At the open frame he stopped and looked at her.
“We understand each other, right?”
Devra said, “Yes.”
But in her mind she said, You have made a mistake.
chapter 18
THAT afternoon, a boy was cutting through the woods of Oxon Run and came upon a body lying on its back in a small clearing beside an oak. The body was bloated and ripe from the heat. If not for the smell and the sound of the flies, the boy might have missed it.
He picked up a stick. He approached the body cautiously and touched the stick to its side. It was a woman. She was dead, and he was frightened, but he had the curiosity of a boy, and even as he trembled he knew that this would be a story to tell his friends later on.
Flies buzzed all around him, some scattering momentarily as he bent down to inspect the body. There were three bullet holes he could count, two in her stomach and another in one of her breasts. The blood around the holes was close to black and looked thick, like syrup. The thing that made him run was her face: The bottom part of her jaw was set off from the top part, and her lips were drawn back over her teeth so it looked like she had died trying to smile. Also, one of her eyes had come out some and was lying on her fat purple cheek. In the empty socket, maggots clustered and writhed where the flies had laid their eggs.
The boy, who was named Barry Waters, bolted from the woods, saying things like “Go, boy” and “Go now” under his breath as he ran. He realized that the woman was beyond the need of help, but he went directly to Greater Southeast Community Hospital, which he knew to be close by. He tried to tell the woman behind the desk of the ER what had happened, and as he did she tried to calm him down. Barry Waters would be a celebrity of sorts in his neighborhood for the next few days. For years he would dream about the maggots, and in those nightmares he would see that anguished thing that looked something like a smile.
Sixth District police officers and homicide detectives were dispatched to the scene. For the next couple of hours a forensics team and photographers worked over the body before it was moved by ambulance to the D.C. morgue. Neighborhood people watched as “the white shirts”—lieutenants and the like—arrived in their unmarked vehicles. Obvious gang-related killings and hits on young men did not usually draw this kind of official attention; murders of women and children brought out both suit and uniform heat.
It wasn’t long before the investigation became focused on a Toyota Tercel, one of two cars parked on the street closest to the entrance to the woods. Blood was visibly smudged on its driver’s door handle. In a nearby sewer police found a shower curtain stained with blood along with the keys to the car.