Dominion Read Online Free PDF Page B

evidence. Interfering with an investigation. Assaulting a police officer.”
“I’ll handle it, Manny. I said back off.”
Manny hesitated, then self-consciously gestured, a disgusted look on his face. His look seemed to say, “I followed procedure—we get in trouble for this and you’re on your own.”
“Look, Mr. Abernathy” Ollie said. “Trust me. You don’t want to go in there anyway. It isn’t pretty.”
“I have to see her.”
“I can’t let you in.” Ollie glanced around, assessing the situation. He looked at a few of the worker bees. “We’ve done all the work on the steps, right? You got that footprint, right Bo?”
A nonuniformed man carrying a little kit nodded.
“Okay, Mr. Abernathy. I’m not supposed to do this, but if you promise to stay right here, you can sit on the steps. If you let us finish our job they’ll…wheel her out in a few minutes.”
Manuel shook his head in disbelief. He pulled Ollie aside.
“We can’t let him…” Clarence heard them arguing. At one point he heard Ollie say, “We’re done with the steps. They’re history. If it was my sister…” The voices trailed off, then he caught a few more snatches.
“The lieutenant hears this and he’s gonna have a fit,” Manny said.
“It’s my case, my call. I need to talk to the medical examiner. Ken, watch Mr. Abernathy, okay?”
Ken, the uniformed officer up on the porch, stood in front of the door like a jackal guarding an Egyptian tomb. Clarence watched several bursts of light come from Dani’s bedroom. A few minutes later he saw the police photographer through the open door, kneeling down to change film.
“Clarence!” The sobbing voice called to him from across the street, inside the outer cordoned zone. Clarence stepped over the inner yellow tape and embraced the big woman, Hattie Burns, who ran past another frustrated uniformed officer.
“I’ve got Ty and Celeste,” Hattie said. “How’s Felicia?”
“She’s in surgery. They’re trying to take out the bullet…,” his face suddenly distorted, “from her head.”
Hattie’s arms surrounded him again. Clarence didn’t know whether the moan that reverberated through him was his or hers. He pretended he was hugging Mama again, after all these years.
“What happened, Hattie?”
“It was an explosion that went on and on. I looked out the window. Saw someone up on the porch, hard to see with just the streetlights. Think I saw a big rifle in his hands. He ran to a car in the middle of the street, got in, and they were gone, just like that. Why would they do this? What’s wrong with those gangbangers?”
Clarence wanted to ask her many questions, but not now. He stood silently, not sure of the whats, but certain he would never understand the whys.
He looked across the street and saw Ty standing on Hattie’s porch, numbly looking over the situation. The air hung wet now, little droplets moving from mist to shower. He walked from Hattie and went toward Ty. Clarence hesitated as if there was something he needed to apologize for, then tried to put his arms around his nephew. Ty resisted, as though he was trying to be tougher than he was. Suddenly the raindrops on the boy’s face were joined by tears.
“Why they do this to my mama?”
“I don’t know, Ty. I don’t know.”
They stood in awkward silence for a few minutes, until Mrs. Burns joined them. “I’ll take care of the children till…till we figure out what to do. Don’t worry about them.”
“Thanks,” Clarence said, his face feeling as if it had been shot with novocaine. He crossed the street and went back up the stairs, scrutinized by Officer Ken. He started to sit down, then something caught his eye. The shredded blinds that had been hanging so precariously a few minutes ago had dropped out of sight. He could now see part of Dani’s bedroom. He leaned to his right over the stair railing, trying to look in. Suddenly he went up the final stair and strode the eight feet to her window.
“Hold