Pleasantville Page 5

  The handful of neighborhood folks who’ve gathered, Jay’s clients each of them, have congregated in the sitting area of the living room. But around a long, elegant dining room table are faces from the campaign Jay doesn’t recognize: a heavyset white woman with stick-straight gray hair running down the back of her blue Hathorne T-shirt; a white man in his late forties, in brown slacks the exact color of his neat, close-trimmed hair; and a young black guy in shirtsleeves and slacks, who’d been on the phone when Jay walked in. He flips his cell phone closed, pushing down the antennae with his teeth. He’s the youngest in the room by a decade.

  “This is my grandson, Mr. Porter,” Sam says. “Neal Hathorne.” Neal shakes Jay’s hand.

  “Heard a lot about you, sir,” he says.

  Up close, Jay can see the family resemblance. He’s on the short side, like his grandfather, but he has the same caramel-colored skin as every Hathorne Jay has ever laid eyes on, the same diamond-sharp features that tell the legend of distant Cherokee blood running through the entire brood. Their bright, honey-colored eyes stare out at him from portraits and photographs across the plush living room. Axel in his dress greens from the army; Ola, Camille, Delia, and Gwen, the four beauties, in graduation uniforms, cotillion whites, and wedding gowns. There are two doctors among them, a banker, and a professor of engineering, the Hathornes having produced a line of incredibly accomplished children. Grandchildren too, if Neal is any indication. This one graduated law school at the University of Texas, Sam says, smiling, full of elder pride.

  “He’s running his uncle’s campaign.”

  “And we’re on top of this, trust me.”

  He can’t be more than thirty, slim as a department-store model, and handsome too. “You Ola’s son?” Jay asks, thinking he sees a resemblance there.

  At the question of his lineage, Neal turns, caught off guard.

  “No.”

  He offers nothing further, neither as a courtesy nor as a clarification.

  Jay glances again at the family portraits on the walls, trying to place the young man, to divine from which Hathorne he sprang.

  “We’re in touch with the police department,” Neal tells the others.

  Behind him, the front door opens and in walks Johnetta Paul. “What the hell, Sam?” she says, trailing a smoky scent of Shalimar. She’s wearing a custom pantsuit in fuchsia, her signature color, her braids woven into a rather large, boxlike structure on her head. She is the incumbent councilwoman for District B, which includes parts of Fifth Ward and all of Pleasantville. Like Axel Hathorne, she is heading into a runoff on December tenth, having been ill-prepared for a challenge from a political upstart out of Clinton Park. “I’m getting calls, Sam, one month before the goddamned runoff I’m getting calls from people wanting to know how scared they should be,” she says. She’s a woman in her fifties, but carries herself like an impatient, overly made-up teenager, flitting restlessly.

  “Where is Axel?” she demands.

  “At the Chronicle’s offices downtown.”

  “Well, tell him to get his bony ass down here.”

  “He’s meeting with the editorial board at the paper, making another pitch,” Neal says. “We barely secured their endorsement in the general.”

  “And that’s only because the Chronicle couldn’t figure out a way to sell papers in this city if the editors didn’t endorse the first viable black mayoral candidate in memory, especially against a Pop-Tart like Wolcott,” the white woman says. “But we can’t necessarily count on their support again. Behind the scenes, everything I’m hearing on the ground is that the paper is pushing for Wolcott.” Then, remembering herself, she turns to the room, as if meeting new members of the campaign’s team. “Marcie Hall, communications director.”

  Arlee and Ruby Wainwright exchange a glance, but say nothing. Jim, Ruby’s husband, frowns.

  “We did well on Tuesday,” Sam says. “But some of the numbers were troubling. Bob Stein at Rice is polling the new landscape, tracking where Acton’s votes are going. We’ve got twenty-nine days to push this thing our way.”

  “Our way, exactly,” Johnetta says. “I was the first one on the council to come out for Axel, the ‘Pleasantville ticket,’ you called it, and I don’t intend to be dragged down ’cause Axe is too slow to get on top of this thing.”

  “Sit down, ’Netta,” Sam says, the pet name only fueling the long-standing rumor about the real nature of their relationship. “Unless you’ve already forgotten who put you in that council seat in the first place,” he says, not bothering to look her in the eye, not needing so much as a glance to shut her up.

  “What are the police saying?” Jay asks, getting back to the girl.

  “They’ve opened a case,” Neal says.

  “That’s it?” Johnetta says.

  “That’s a start,” Neal says. “And not as easy as you might imagine. The girl was eighteen. She was living at home, but as far as HPD is concerned, Alicia Nowell is an adult female. For all they know, she doesn’t want to be found.”

  “What about the others, Sam?” Arlee says.

  Mr. Wainwright clears his throat. He’s a retired engineer, and he speaks in a deep baritone, hands clasped behind his back. “Did the police detectives indicate a belief that the cases are connected? This girl and the others?”

  “We didn’t really get that far.”

  “Well, what did they say?” Johnetta says.

  Neal sighs. “We’ve left several messages at the precinct. Axel left word with the chief downtown. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear back.”

  Arlee is stunned. “You haven’t even talked to them?”

  “Good lord,” Johnetta says.

  “Sam, what is going on here?” Arlee says.

  Keith Morehead, youth pastor at the Pleasantville Methodist Church, one of the youngest clergymen in the community, is in jeans and sneakers. “Why aren’t we meeting at the community center? There’re a number of families who’ve expressed their concern to me personally. I’m sure they’d like to be heard on the issue.”

  “Why aren’t the Wellses here? Or Deanne’s parents?”

  “I wanted us to be able to speak freely.” Sam pours himself another bump of whiskey. “Grief and guilt cloud things,” he says, leaving Jay to wonder to whose guilt he’s referring, why that word would enter this room. “We have a young woman missing, in my neighborhood, Axel’s old stomping ground, a story that will get out of our hands if we let it, and at the worst possible time.” Neal opens his mouth to speak, but Sam shakes his head, hushing him. “I thought a gathering here, among friends, people we trust, was the more prudent approach,” Sam says. “Arlee, Ruby, you know as well as anyone how meetings at the center can easily get off track, veering into arguments over deed restrictions and what kind of punch to serve at the next PTA meeting. Especially in the last few years, with the newer folks coming in.”

  There are nods of recognition around the room.

  These are some of the oldest families in Pleasantville.

  What was once a segregated oasis, a black Levittown where flowers grew and families thrived, now seems hardly worth the gas money for young black professionals, not for a daily commute ten miles past downtown, not when they can buy property anywhere these days. No matter the best efforts of the old-timers to keep the neighborhood as it’s always been, to secure its borders, keep the money in and the newcomers out, there are, every year, new families who are buying their way in, working-class blacks from places like Fifth Ward and South Park, and Latino families from the north side, who see in its quaint, tree-lined streets their chance at the American dream. You can’t put up fences on change.

  “It’s been two days,” Arlee says. “Three, when the sun comes up. We’re losing time every hour that passes, every hour there’s a killer still out there.”

  “We don’t know that’s what this is, Arlee,” Sam says.

  “We’d be fools to think otherwise,” Mr. Wainwright says ruefully.

  “It’
s been two days,” Arlee says again. “Deanne, Tina, whether HPD wants to say so publicly or not, those girls were still alive at this point. You all saw the reports. If HPD had made a bigger push to find them, who knows how things might have turned out for them, for their families. I imagine the Duchons and the Wellses might have cause for a civil suit against the department, if they wanted to go that route.” She glances across the room at Jay, who feels put on the spot, aware too late that Arlee had something like this in mind the second she called his office this afternoon. He had come tonight to offer what support he could. His heart aches for the girls’ families. But he is in no position to consider a lawsuit against the police department. Sam follows the look between them, Jay and Arlee, wrongly assuming that this was planned.

  “You can’t be serious,” Marcie says.

  “I’m in the middle of the biggest fund-raising push of the campaign,” the man in the dark brown slacks says. “We’re waiting on a dozen five-figure checks right now. Any word about this would be a disaster.”

  “We’re on top of it, Stan,” Neal says. Stan, the moneyman, Jay thinks.

  “I love you, Sam, I do,” Arlee says, looking at him, one of her oldest friends. “But I am not putting your campaign ahead of these girls.”

  “Suing the police department won’t do a thing for Alicia Nowell right now,” Sam says, and Jay is inclined to agree.

  “Elma,” he says. “You saw her Tuesday?”

  “Tuesday night, ’bout a quarter to nine. She was just standing by herself.”

  Vivian Hathorne, Sam’s wife, emerges from the kitchen. She leans against the door frame, cupping a tumbler filled with a clear liquid she’s sipping too slowly for it to be anything other than vodka. She’s wearing a navy skirt, a lace apron tied around her waist. She was a schoolteacher once, back before Sam’s bank set them up in comfort and style. Viv is taller than her husband, and round in every place he is stick straight, her hips opening like a rose beneath her narrow gold-plated belt. She wears her hair in a thick braid, streaked with pewter; it rests dramatically across the front of her left shoulder. She is, even in her late seventies, utterly striking. Johnetta, at the sight of her, rolls her eyes. “What’s her name?” Viv asks, her voice soft and bell-like. “The girl?”

  “Nowell,” Arlee says. “She wasn’t from around here.”

  “What was she doing in Pleasantville?”

  “She work for your uncle’s campaign?” Jay asks.

  He remembers the description of the blue, long-sleeved T-shirt she’d been wearing. And the reports from at least two residents in the area that Alicia was leaving leaflets on doorsteps in the hours before she went missing.

  “She wasn’t on the payroll, no,” Neal says.

  “Which means what exactly?”

  “She wasn’t employed by the campaign, that much we know.”

  “Which is exactly what everyone in this room needs to say if asked,” Marcie says, looking up from her legal pad. Her upper lip is sweating.

  “Was she a volunteer?” Jay asks.

  “Was she?” Vivian says, alarmed. “Sam? Was she working for Axel?”

  Sam, staring into the bottom of his glass, doesn’t answer right away.

  “Sunny?” It’s Mr. Wainwright, pushing for an answer.

  Neal sighs. “The truth is, we don’t really know.”

  “She was off the books?” Jay says. He makes a gesture with his right hand, rubbing his fingers together to suggest the untraceable cash that might have landed in Alicia Nowell’s hands, street money to get out the vote.

  “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 f
ire. 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.

  The Houston Chronicle runs a small piece in the City Section, page 2.

  When she first sees the girl’s face, Lonette Kay Phillips is sitting in the front room of her duplex on Marshall Street in Montrose, in a run-down, redbrick colonial that rests directly behind the West Alabama Ice House, where Lonnie passed a good amount of time the previous night, drinking her way through the world’s weirdest blind date. It’s a high school graduation picture, black gown and fingers cupping her chin, the whole deal, surrounded by three inches of copy, more than Lonnie would have thought the Chronicle would spare for the occasion. Back when its rival, the Houston Post, was still alive, the Chronicle had ignored the stories of the two girls who had disappeared off the streets of Pleasantville, their bodies found less than a city block from where Alicia Nowell was last seen. Lonnie, who had a Shiner Bock and two arsenic-white Hostess Donettes for breakfast, wipes the powdered sugar from her fingers onto the thighs of her jeans and lights a Parliament, staring at the Nowell girl’s face.

  She’s pretty.

  But they all are at that age.

  Seventeen, eighteen, god don’t make much ugly, not for girls like these, with mothers and fathers who check their beds at night, make sure the front and back doors are locked. In Lonnie’s experience, it’s time and circumstance that sully a complexion. She must have aged ten years the first time her daddy let her walk out of the house and into the car of some boy who couldn’t be bothered with more than a honk from the driveway, the dented tail end of his Le Mans already pulling out into the street. “She looks like the others,” she says, exhaling smoke. On his desk, Jay has the newspaper open to the same page. He called Lonnie first thing this morning, hoping she could help, remembering that she’d written about the other girls when she was still at the Post. “You know her?”