Free Those Bones Are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara Page B

over one of her gardening tools in his hand, the one she’d used to rake the dirt into an even grade so she could plant.
    “The Iron Claw,” he said, suddenly up and playful, except that she could see he was serious, lunging around with the tool, fencing with the shadow the loose telephone wire made against the side of the house. He was so completely unself-conscious it floored her. She wondered if a .32 Smith and Wesson strapped to her thigh would give her that kind ofconfidence. And she was wondering why she felt embarrassed and he didn’t.
    The phone ringing brought the swordplay to a halt. He leaned over on one leg and put back the claw, a golfer on the green. She heard the children shoving each other aside in a race to the phone.
    Hall’s partner walked up to the hedges. “Anything back there?”
    “Nothing of interest. Any sign of the nephew?”
    “Not yet.” Officer Eaton looked off toward Ashby.
    Kofi was swinging back and forth on the door with his knees when Zala reached the front steps.
    “That was Nana Cora looking for Dad. He was supposed to be down there at two o’clock. He didn’t show.”
    “And she’s mad,” Kenti said, coming to the door.
    “Onnaconna she was waiting for him to pick her up at the Eastern Star ’cause Grandaddy Wesley took the car to go to the lodge.”
    “She still on the line?” From the doorway, Zala could see the phone had been hung up, but the heat of the house messed with her timing. “Kofi, please go to the bathroom if you need to. And cut off all these lights. It’s like a furnace in here.”
    “We told her,” Kenti said, taking Zala’s hand to feel her hair. It was dry, which meant it would be a battle to comb through and braid up. Zala patted her head and went down the steps.
    “We told her about Sonny. And she said Sonny was a caution. What that mean?”
    “See if you can call her back, Kenti.”
    “She’s not home, I told you that.”
    “Beg pardon?”
    Kenti tucked in her lips and backed into the house.
    She had to step between the two officers and the patrol car. They seemed to be ready to leave.
    “It looks like the boy’s with his father, wouldn’t you say, Mrs. Spencer?”
    “Took in an air-conditioned movie is my guess, ma’am. I know that’s where I’d be,” Eaton chuckled.
    “Like you said, your husband comes by to visit the children on Sundays. I’d say the two of them hooked up on their own. What do you think?”
    “Well, he doesn’t come by every single Sunday,” she began, but Hall and Eaton both seemed so sure. These men weren’t rookies. They should know how things went. They’d told her already it wasn’t an unusual situation. And before Old Man Murray talked Sonny out of his bike, Sonny often rode over to Campbellton to see Spence. She concentrated on the certainty in Hall’s voice.
    “So, missing the campers,” he was saying, “feeling left behind, so to speak, he went to see his father. It’s Sunday. And your husband, to make up for the outing, took him to a show, or maybe for pizza. Can you think of some regular place they would go? Six Flags, is that a possibility?”
    “Makes sense, ma’am.” Officer Eaton was encouraging her with his eyebrows. “Took a drive out to Six Flags. Some Sunday crowd, phew. Or just a drive, the kid and his old man. Air-conditioned car, I bet.” He invited her to smile with him.
    “The time got away from them and your husband neglected to notify you of the boy’s whereabouts.”
    “Having such a good time, they got a late start heading down to the old folks. In the country, is it? They got a farm somewhere?”
    “Columbus,” she said.
    “Don’t discount the possibility of road trouble, either.”
    “Now, I’d say that was pretty likely in this heat. And God help him if he left antifreeze in the engine. Boy, that can get sticky.” Officer Eaton was suddenly an old family friend ready to wire money to a buddy stuck on a “country” road down in Columbus,