The Righteous Men (2006) Read Online Free Page B

race — raged on these streets all the same.
    The first woman he spoke to was blank, so was the next.
    The third had heard the name but could not place where.
    She recommended someone else until one neighbour was calling out to another
and eventually Will was facing the woman who had found Howard Macrae.
    African-American and in her mid-fifties, her name was Rosa. Will guessed she
was a churchgoer, one of those black women who stop communities like this one
from going under.
    She agreed to walk with him to the scene of the crime.
    ‘Well, I had been at the store, picking up some bread and a soda, I
think, when I noticed what I thought was a big lump on the sidewalk. I remember
I was annoyed: I thought someone had dumped some furniture on the street again.
    But as I got closer, I realized this was not a sofa. Uh-uh. It was low down
and kind of bumpy.’
    ‘You realized it was a body?’
    ‘Only when I was right up close. until then, it just looked like, you
know … a shape.’
    ‘It was dark.’
    ‘Yeah, pretty dark and pretty late. Anyway, when I was standing over
it, I thought. That ain’t a sofa, that ain’t a chair.
    That’s a body under that blanket.’
    ‘Sorry, I’m asking you to go back to what you saw right at the
beginning. Before the blanket was laid on the corpse.’
    ‘That is what I’m describing. What I saw was a dark blanket with
the shape of a dead man underneath.’
    ‘The blanket was already there? So you were not the first to find him.’
Damn.
    ‘No, I was the first to find him. I was the one who called the police.
Nobody else did. It was the first they’d heard of it.’
    ‘But the body was already covered?’
    That’s right.’
    ‘The police seem to think it was you who laid down the blanket, Rosa.’
    ‘Well, they’re wrong. Where would I get a blanket from in the
middle of the night? Or do you think black folks carry blankets around with
them just in case? I know things are pretty bad round here, but they’re
not that bad.’ None of this was said with bitterness.
    ‘Right.’ Will paused, uncertain where to go next. ‘So who
did leave that blanket on him?’
    ‘I’m telling you the same thing I told that police officer.
    That’s the way I found him. Nice blanket, too. Kind of soft.
    Maybe cashmere. Something classy, anyway.’
    ‘Sorry to go back to this, but is there any chance at all you were not
the first there?’
    ‘I can’t see how. I’m sure the police told you. When I
lifted that blanket, I saw a body that was still warm. Wasn’t even a body
at that time. It was still a man. You know what I’m saying? He was still
warm. Like it just happened. The blood was still coming out. Kind of burbling,
like water leaking from a pipe. Terrible, just terrible. And you know the
strangest thing? His eyes were closed, as if someone had shut them.’
    ‘Don’t tell me that wasn’t you.’
    It wasn’t me. Never said it was.’
    ‘Who do you think did that — closed his eyes, I mean?’
    ‘You’ll probably think I’m crazy, what with the way they knifed
that poor man to death, but it was kinda like … No, you’ll think I’m
crazy.’
    ‘Please go on. I don’t think you’re crazy at all. Go on.’
    Will was stooping now, an instinctive gesture. Being tall was usually a
plus: he could intimidate. But right now he did not want to tower over this
woman. He wanted to make her feel comfortable. He bent his shoulders lower, so
that he could meet her eyes without forcing her to look up. ‘Go on.’
    ‘I know that man was murdered in a horrible way. But his body looked
as if it had been somehow, you know, laid to rest.’
    Will said nothing, just sucked the top of his pen.
    ‘You see, I told you. You think I’m crazy. Maybe I am!’
    Will thanked the woman and carried on through the projects.
    He only had to walk a few blocks to get into real sleaze country. The
boarded-up tenements he knew served as crack houses; the shifty looks of young
men palming off brown parcels