Skies of Ash Read Online Free PDF Page B

She dabbed her eyes with tissue. “She promised Chloe that she could plant seeds in the backyard at springtime. But no sunflowers in the spring. No roses in the spring. Just awful, awful, awful.”
    I looked back at the damage done to the Chatmans’ rose beds by fire crews, investigators, and utility guys. Those Streisand roses, especially the bushes that lined the walkway, had been shaken apart, and the mauve petals crushed into ashes and mud.
    I scribbled invisible loops on my pad to coax the pen back to life. “I’m told that Mr. Chatman wasn’t home when the fire started.”
    “He wasn’t,” Nora Galbreath said. “Neither were my husband and I.”
    “Do you know where he was? Mr. Chatman, I mean.”
    “I’m told he was at work. My husband, Micah, and I—that’s M-I-C-A-H—we were staying at a lovely bed and breakfast over in Playa del Rey. Oh, it was lovely, lovely, lovely. We were celebrating since I had sold three condos—”
    “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Galbreath.” I handed her my card. “I’ll contact you—”
    “You don’t want to know about the guy?” she asked. “I was just about to tell you about the guy. I’ve seen him around the neighborhood a few times. The last time was two days ago, early, when I was walking to the park. Black, midtwenties maybe. Suspicious. He carried a black backpack, and he kept staring at me like
I
didn’t belong.
He’s
the one who didn’t belong.”
    A suspicious guy?
My pen ejaculated all over my hand and the notepad.
    “And he was wearing an orange hockey jersey.” She handed me a tissue to clean up. “Isn’t that suspicious? A black man in a hockey jersey?”
    “Maybe,” I said. “Would you be able to identify him again?”
    She nodded eagerly. “He really looked like he was up to something.”
    I took down a more specific description of the Guy in the Orange Hockey Jersey: five foot ten, muscular, brown eyes, dreadlocks, neck tat, and another tat of a dragon on his left calf. Dreads could be cut. And that dragon tat could also be removed, but that would leave a helluva scar.
    “Wait, wait, wait,” Nora Galbreath said. “Before I forget.” She opened her hand and selected a slick business card from the small stack. SELLING A HOME ? TOP-RATED REALTOR NORA GALBREATH CAN HELP. Beneath the text was a picture of Nora Galbreath, her arms folded, wearing a red-sequined sweater.
    I thanked the real estate agent, then wandered over to the brick two-story house, where an impossibly round black woman had climbed out of a red Camry. She carried a giant purse in one hand and a Bible the size of an unabridged dictionary in the other. The car’s back bumper was decorated with two Jesus fish and three MY CHILD IS ON THE HONOR ROLL bumper stickers.
    Ruby Emmett had lived in this neighborhood for almost twenty years, and she, too, had seen the Guy in the Orange Hockey Jersey. “I was plannin’ on callin’ the police if I saw him again. Wish I had.”
    “He could be just a guy,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
    Ruby Emmett shook her head. “Can’t think that way no more cuz look what happened. I’m never one to question God but… Why
this
family? Why
this
house?”
    But why
not
this family? Why
not
this house? Bad shit had to happen to
someone
—the “good” someones, too. Children as well. Even the Bible said so.
    “I just came from the hospital,” she said, hoisting the giant purse onto her sloped shoulder. “That Christopher: he’s such a brave man. I told him: the Lord give
strength
to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace.”
    “And how is he doing?”
    “How you
think
he doin’?” she growled. “He almost killed himself tryna save his family. He was comin’ home from work and he saw the fire and tried to run in, but the firemen tackled him. Banged up his head. Nearly broke his arm.”
    I pointed to the bumper stickers. “You have kids. How are they?”
    “Devastated,” she said. “They gon’ be all