Free Southern Gothic by Stuart Jaffe Page B

utilitarian. Then there were those that made Max thankful for his crappy trailer.
    Pulling up to one of these disheveled buildings, Max noted the dented cars and scattered trash in the yards. In warmer weather, he imagined most of the people hung around outside — indoors would be too hot. But winter had arrived early, and the biting chill hit Max every time he got out of his car.
    Knocking on the door to Apartment B, Max skipped from foot to foot and blew warm air on his hands. He had waited until Luther left for work, and he knew Luther’s wife, Maria, was still inside. So, he knocked again. “Mrs. Boer? Please answer the door.”
    When the door finally opened, Max faced a short but harsh-looking white woman. With a cigarette in hand, scraggly hair tied back with a dirty kerchief, and eyes that didn’t want to be bothered, she glared at him like a petulant teenager. “What do you want?”
    “You’re Mrs. Luther Boer?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I was hoping you could answer a few questions about your husband’s involvement with the police department’s crime scene division.”
    Her face lost all of its swagger. Jabbing her cigarette in his direction, she said, “I am not going through all that crap again. You IAD people can talk to him direct. And he ain’t dirty, so there ain’t nothing to talk about anyways.”
    Max smiled and decided to play along. “No, no, ma’am, you misunderstand. We’re not investigating your husband for any wrongdoing.”
    “You’re not?”
    “I promise you, he’s not in any trouble coming from us. But he is involved in a case that has crossed our table regarding another officer, and I hoped by speaking with you, I might be able to get the information I need without causing your husband any embarrassment at headquarters. Those things can stall a career, and frankly, when it comes to IAD asking the questions, other police officers might make poor assumptions.”
    Her brow furrowed tight. “You sayin’ that by talking with me, you’re trying to protect him from getting an ass-whooping from the other cops?”
    “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m saying.”
    “Shit, why didn’t you say so? Come on in.” She walked away from him and headed into the kitchen. “Want a beer?”
    Max glanced at his watch — 10:14 am. “I can’t. I’m on duty.”
    The apartment stank of mold and grease. Max suspected the windows had never been opened, and the grime coating the bottoms of the panes backed up this idea. A torn couch sat against one wall and off to the side was a plastic table with two chairs. Junk mail piled up on the chairs, and the table looked like a dumping ground for pizza boxes and take out. In front of the couch was a stained coffee table with three full ashtrays. A few feet away, a small television perched on a pile of old phone directories. Behind the television, hung on the wall bold and proud, Max saw a large poster of a black fist.
    Sauntering over to the couch, Maria took a swig from a beer bottle. “So, Mister IAD who don’t want a beer, what is it you want to ask me?”
    “I was interested in Luther’s family history.”
    “Huh?”
    “You see, the person I’m looking into has a long history in this area going back all the way to the days when the land your home is on was probably a plantation. How far does Luther’s family go back around here?”
    With her mouth drawn tight, Maria set her beer on the coffee table. She stared at that beer, nodding to herself, and then stood. “Mister, we’re good people and we don’t deserve you trying to drag us down because of things that got nothing to do with us. We’re down far enough as it is.”
    “I’m not trying to cause you trouble.”
    “Bullshit. I can hear it in your voice. You ain’t good people. I seen the way you looked at that poster. You think you know everything and you’ve got your nose in the air about my home. Ever since y’all found out about Chicken, you been harassing us. Why you always giving