Free Richmond Noir by Andrew Blossom Page B

a couple of cases in recent years like this: rich folks on either side of the river cutting down trees to get the view they paid for, willing to pay the fine and repent, claiming ignorance of the law. The rich don’t read the paper apparently. You see, it’s illegal to fuck with the watershed like that. Who better to do an illegal job than an illegal?
    Every level of the house has a grand balcony of some sort. Windows gleam in the sun. All empty. No eyes at home. Maybe they’re looking to heaven in some slate-roofed church. I climb among the fallen trees. There’s sawdust everywhere. I approach a fallen sycamore trunk lying flat that comes up to my chest. About ten yards from the water, a hollow has been dug out of the sandy soil beneath it. I stare into the shallow recess, and I can hear the shovels hitting the dirt to make this hole with quick, frantic strokes. I buried dog in our tiny backyard. It’s probably illegal. I fought with my wife about it. She was probably right. I can’t say it’s actually delivered on the promised closure I’ve heard others say it gave them. Maybe I don’t want closure.
    I crawl into the hole to see the underside of the sycamore, like a beached white whale, and there’s blood, has to be, soaked into the bark. The tree indeed did it. There are at least four distinct shoe tracks on the beach, not counting mine. There’s a furrow through the sand to the water. A beaver maybe, or a man’s heels. In the grass beside the furrow, I find an ordinary work glove like the dead man was wearing. A left. The river had an accomplice.

    It doesn’t take long to find out who owns the house. I even have a nice Google Map photo of the place from space taken back when there were trees along the river. Naturally, I’ve heard of the guy. If you’re rich enough to have a big place on the river, chances are you’ve made a ripple. This guy’s more like a deep current. Lately he’s been riding that current right into the legislature. Illegals are his hot-button issue. His TV ad promising he’ll get tough on illegals has him in front of St. John’s Church where Patrick Henry made his treasonous speech.
    I call up the cop who questioned me, leave several messages. I’m sitting in the backyard beside dog’s grave, drinking a beer, when he finally calls me back Monday evening. I tell him what I’ve found out. He tries to talk me out of it meaning anything.
    “What about the glove?”
    “And what links the glove to the victim?”
    “The matching glove on the victim?”
    “There was no glove on the victim.”
    “What are you talking about? I saw it. There was a glove on his right hand.”
    “I’m telling you. I’ve got the file right here in front of me, and there’s no glove.”
    “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you whose house it was right off.”
    There’s a silence I take to mean I’m supposed to think he’s offended. “I assure you we will investigate as we deem appropriate. I suggest you leave this matter to the proper authorities. And I remind you that trespassing on private property is a serious offense and potentially dangerous to the trespasser.”
    He hangs up.
    I check the photos I took of the dead man. I must’ve thought I was doing a portrait study or a mug shot. None of them show his right hand.
    Next morning I’m at the corner of the Lowe’s parking lot where I’ve seen brown men gathering looking for work. A dozen or so guys cycle through, hired by circling SUVs and pickups with law-abiding citizens behind the wheel. I show the workers pictures of the dead man, talk to them in my awkward, rusty Spanish. They’re nice to me, patient. They admire my white beard. Señor Barbas one of them calls me. Mr. Whiskers. I figure they think I’m a cop, INS, or a crazy street person, but I hang around anyway, boring them with stories about my travels in Mexico.
    Another man, however, who’s been in Richmond awhile, gives me the nickname that sticks. “General Lee,” he says.