Streets of Fire

FIFTEEN

The heavy rain had slowed traffic considerably, so it was already early afternoon before Ben made the graceful turn down the circular driveway of the Davenport house. It was a large colonial mansion, complete with tall white columns and a rounded portico. Even in the rain the dark-blue facade appeared grand and inviolate.

The great oak door opened almost immediately, and the woman who stood behind it looked surprised to see Ben standing on her front porch. She was small, with a pale, angular face, and her gray hair was gathered in a small bun which sat at almost the exact top of her head.

‘May I help you?’ she asked.

Ben showed her his badge.

‘My goodness,’ the woman said softly. ‘I am Mrs Davenport. Has something happened?’

‘May I come in?’ Ben asked.

‘Of course,’ the woman said. She stepped out of the door and allowed him to pass into the foyer. ‘Please now, what is it?’ she asked urgently.

‘You have a little Negro girl who works for you, I believe?’ Ben said.

‘Yes,’ the woman said.

‘Doreen Ballinger,’ Ben said.

‘Little Doreen, yes,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘Has something happened to her?’

‘Yes.’

The woman’s right hand lifted to her throat. ‘What?’

‘She’s dead, Mrs Davenport,’ Ben told her.

The hand curled gently around her throat. ‘Hit-and-run?’

‘She was murdered,’ Ben said.

The hand dropped softly to her side. ‘May I sit down?’

Ben nodded.

The woman’s hand swept to the left toward a large sitting room. ‘In here, please,’ she said.

Ben followed her into the room and watched as she took a seat on a large floral sofa.

‘Such a pretty little girl,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘So sweet.’ She looked up at Ben. ‘Please, sit down.’

Ben took a seat at the other end of the sofa. ‘How long had Doreen been working for you?’

‘Almost a year,’ Mrs Davenport said. She thought for a moment. ‘Yes, almost exactly a year. It was last spring when she came to us.’

‘When did you see her last?’

‘She was here on Sunday,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘She attends to my daughter on Saturdays and Sundays.’ She picked a gold frame from the table and handed it to Ben. There was a picture of a small child standing happily beneath the green curtain of a weeping willow. ‘That’s Shannon,’ she said. ‘She’ll be so upset to lose Doreen.’

Ben handed her back the picture.

Mrs Davenport gazed lovingly at the photograph. ‘She’s actually my adopted daughter,’ she said.

Ben shifted slightly in his seat. ‘About Doreen,’ he said. ‘You said you last saw her on Sunday afternoon?’

‘Well, no,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘Doreen was certainly here on Sunday afternoon, but I was not.’

‘Was she here alone?’

‘Goodness, no,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘My husband was here attending to some business. He’s in Atlanta right now, but I’m sure he’d be pleased to talk to you when he gets back.’

‘When would that be?’

‘The day after tomorrow.’

Ben took out his notebook and wrote it down. ‘Was anyone else in the house on Sunday?’

Mrs Davenport considered for a moment. ‘Well, Molly, our maid, was off, but Jacob was here.’

‘Jacob?’

‘Jacob, our driver,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘He always went and got Doreen, and, of course, took her home when she was through.’

‘Did he do that on Sunday?’ Ben asked.

‘I suppose.’

‘Is he around?’

Mrs Davenport’s face grew cold. ‘No, he is not,’ she said crisply.

‘When will he be back?’

Mrs Davenport’s back arched upward. ‘He is no longer in our service.’

‘Why not?’

‘A question of loyalty,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘Jacob had been with this family for over forty years, then one day he suddenly decided that we weren’t good enough for him anymore.’ She laughed. ‘Can you imagine? Since he was just a boy my husband’s father, and then, later, my husband, had provided him with everything he needed, a place to live, money, everything.’ She shook her head. ‘The passion of the moment, what can you do about it? Especially with Negroes.’

‘He quit?’ Ben asked.

‘He decided to join the other side.’

Ben looked at her, puzzled.

‘The Negro side,’ Mrs Davenport explained. ‘The demonstrators.’

Ben nodded.

‘Well, if you know anything about the Davenports,’ Mrs Davenport added, ‘you know that you are either with them or against them.’

‘So he was fired?’ Ben asked, trying to pin it down.

‘Well, I prefer to think that he abandoned us,’ Mrs Davenport said. ‘We had made it clear that we would not tolerate anyone in our service having anything to do with all this business in the streets and lunch counters and that sort of thing.’ She waited for Ben to respond, and when he didn’t she added, ‘It’s not as if we hadn’t made it clear.’

Ben took out his notebook. ‘What does he look like?’

‘Sort of gray around the temples.’

‘Big? Small?’

‘A large man. Tall. I’d say a little over six feet.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of him, would you?’

Mrs Davenport chuckled. ‘Of course not. What would I be doing with a picture of Jacob?’

‘Do you have any idea where he went?’

‘Not the slightest.’

‘Maybe to family,’ Ben suggested. ‘Does he have any family in Birmingham?’

‘I have no idea,’ Mrs Davenport said.

‘Sister?’ Ben asked insistently. ‘Brother? Anything like that?’

‘I never mingled in Jacob’s life,’ Mrs Davenport said resolutely.

‘All right,’ Ben said exasperatedly. ‘What’s his full name?’

‘Jacob, like I said.’

‘I mean his last name,’ Ben said.

Mrs Davenport looked at him with amusement. ‘Now isn’t that funny?’ she said.

‘What?’

She laughed lightly. ‘I don’t know if he had one.’

The unpaved alleys of Bearmatch had been turned into muddy trenches by late afternoon, so Ben finally pulled the car over to the side and slogged toward Esther’s house on foot.

The door opened only slightly when he knocked.

‘Who there?’ someone asked.

‘Mr Ballinger?’ Ben asked.

‘Who that?’

Ben could see a single cloudy eye staring through the crack in the door. ‘I’m looking for Esther,’ he said. ‘Are you Mr Ballinger?’

‘You looking for Esther? How come?’

‘It’s about Doreen,’ Ben said.

‘She dead,’ the man said. ‘Somebody done kilt her.’

‘I know,’ Ben said. He pulled out his badge. ‘I’m trying to find out who did it.’

The door opened slightly. ‘Little gal never hurt nobody,’ the man said resentfully. ‘Didn’t deserve to git kilt.’

‘May I come in, Mr Ballinger?’ Ben asked.

The door opened wider and the old man stepped into the light.

‘Esther ain’t here,’ he said. ‘She gone to work.’

‘I know,’ Ben told him. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

Mr Ballinger looked at him suspiciously. ‘What fer?’

‘Just ask you a few things.’

The old man continued to stare at him apprehensively.

‘I’d be much obliged if you’d let me in out of this rain,’ Ben said.

The old man retreated back into the room, leaving the door open. Ben followed him inside.

‘Set down, then,’ the old man said.

Ben waited for Mr Ballinger to lower himself into the rocking chair, then sat down on the sofa opposite him.

‘Esther told me that you noticed Doreen never made it home on Sunday afternoon,’ Ben said.

The old man nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘You didn’t see her at all on Sunday night?’

‘Naw, sir. But Esther seen her on Saturday. They went down to the church together.’

‘When was the last time you actually saw Doreen?’ Ben asked.

Mr Ballinger took a can of snuff from his shirt pocket and opened it slowly. ‘Well, now, that musta been on… lemme see… that musta been on…’ He took two fingers, dug them into the snuff, then brought them to his mouth. ‘I ain’t too good at figuring back.’ He thought a moment longer. ‘Saturday afternoon, I guess. I was still sleeping when she left on Sunday.’

Ben took out his notebook. ‘Well, I know that she went — ’

Mr Ballinger leaned forward suddenly and held out the tin. ‘Want a dip?’

‘No, thank you,’ Ben said.

Mr Ballinger smiled. ‘Young folks don’t much like snuff no more,’ he said. His eyes drifted over to Doreen’s room. A large tin bucket sat at the base of her bed, gathering a stream of droplets that fell from the ceiling. ‘I promised her I’d fix that leak in her room,’ he said quietly. ‘Now, I guess it don’t matter.’

‘The man who used to take Doreen to work and then bring her home,’ Ben said. ‘Do you remember him?’

‘Why sure,’ Mr Ballinger said. He started to go on, then suddenly stopped, his eyes squinting slightly as he concentrated on Ben’s face. ‘I seen you before,’ he said. ‘You was at the ballfield. You the one that come to look after Doreen.’

It came together instantly. ‘And you’re the one who found her,’ Ben said. ‘Who called the police. You’re the one who was watching us from across the field.’

Mr Ballinger’s eyes seemed to grow inexpressibly weary. ‘I seen that little hand from a long way off,’ he said. ‘But I knowed it was Doreen. My heart knowed it.’ He shook his head. ‘She a good little girl. When she didn’t come home that night, I knowed it was something wrong.’ He picked an empty Buffalo Rock bottle from off the floor beside his chair and spit into it. ‘I looked all over just the same. But that wadn’t enough for Esther. She stubborn, that gal. She say she gone down to the police, and that’s what she done.’

Ben glanced down at his notes. ‘The man who drove Doreen back and forth from her job — did you get to know him?’

‘I talk to him a few times,’ Mr Ballinger said. ‘Name of Gilroy, Jacob Gilroy. He got a sister down on Nineteenth Street.’

‘Where on Nineteenth Street?’ Ben asked immediately.

The old man shrugged. ‘Little house there on the corner of First Avenue. Look like a cave or something, all them vines growing on the porch.’

Ben wrote it down quickly, then glanced back up at Mr Ballinger. ‘I talked to Mrs Davenport today,’ he said. ‘Gilroy doesn’t drive for them anymore.’

‘That’s right?’ Mr Ballinger asked without surprise. ‘I thought something wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, that last Sunday,’ Mr Ballinger said, ‘I waited and I waited, but I never did see her.’ He blinked rapidly. ‘I seen the car, though. It passed right by the house.’

‘This house?’

‘That’s right,’ Mr Ballinger said. ‘Went right by, but they wasn’t no little Doreen in it.’

‘Did you see anyone?’

‘Just a white gentleman,’ the old man said.

‘Mr Davenport?’

Mr Ballinger shrugged. ‘Don’t know ‘bout that. I never seen Mr Davenport.’ He shook his head. ‘He live a long way from here.’