Streets of Fire

The floor had not been swept in days, and a small rounded ball of dust and grit rolled silently across its wooden surface. He stopped, glanced about the floor, gearing himself up for the quick cleaning it already needed. Everything needed it. A layer of light dust and pollen lay on everything. The chairs, the small telephone stand, the coffee table. But the floor was worse than anything. A whitish dust had gathered in one corner of the room, layering there like a light, gritty snow. Other things had come from the yard, bits of leaves, grime, small slivers of sunbaked grass. But the dull white dust which had accumulated in the corner, blown there by the breezes that swept over the room each time he’d opened the front door, that was different, and as his eyes lingered on it, he realized that it had come from somewhere else.

Patterson’s voice was thick with interrupted sleep. ‘What, what?’ he stammered. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Wellman.’

‘Ben?’ Patterson said, wonderingly. ‘What time is it?’

‘Around three in the morning,’ Ben answered quickly. ‘Leon, listen, I’m sorry to wake you up, but I got a question for you.’

‘If it’s about that ring, the news is bad,’ Patterson said. ‘Breedlove’s ring was completely clean. No prints of any kind.’

‘It’s not about his ring.’

‘What then?’

‘His shoes.’

‘Shoes? Breedlove’s shoes? What about them?’

‘You said there were two different kinds of dirt on them.’

‘That’s right.’

‘One was a sort of white clay?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What was it?’

‘What do you mean?’ Patterson asked faintly irritably. ‘I told you – a white clay.’

‘Where would you find that?’

‘Not up in the northern counties, that’s for sure.’

‘Whereabouts, then?’

‘Well, it’s the sort of stuff they use on road crews,’ Patterson said. ‘They mix it with plain granite gravel. That’s the kind of clay it is.’

‘So where would you find it?’

‘Patterson answered immediately. ‘Gravel pits, probably. They’d be your best bet.’

‘Thanks, Leon,’ Ben said. He started to hang up.

Patterson stopped him with a question. ‘What’s this all about Ben?’

‘Nothing I’m really sure of.’

‘A hunch?’

‘Maybe a little more than that,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll let you know when I get back.’

‘Get back? From where?’

Even as he hung up the phone and headed for his car, he was not sure he had an answer.

Ben dropped his identification on the counter. ‘I was hoping you boys might be able to help me a little,’ he said.

The uniformed desk sergeant glanced at the badge. ‘Birmingham police, huh? What you doing out here?’

‘Checking on a murder.’

‘In our jurisdiction?’

‘No, mine.’

The officer looked back toward the nearly empty office. ‘Well, this early in the morning, things thin out a little.’

‘I just need some information.’

The man smiled, relieved. ‘Well, I’d be happy to give you what I can. Who you looking for?’

‘Nobody in particular,’ Ben said. ‘A place.’

‘Well, we got a map of the whole area right on the wall,’ the man said happily. ‘Shoot.’

‘A gravel pit of some land,’ Ben said. ‘You know, where they make chert.’

‘You mean in the whole county?’ the man asked.

Ben thought for a moment, trying to remember. He could see Kelly Ryan’s body swaying gently in the moist air and hear the rain falling across the tarpaper roof of his house. Over the rain, he could hear voices talking about Kelly, about the crazy things he said, the crazy accusations about an old Negro buried in a chert pit in Irondale.

‘Just here in Irondale,’ Ben said, his eyes focusing on the officer once again.

‘Well, we got one, all right,’ the man said, ‘but they wouldn’t be nobody there until later in the morning.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Ben assured him.

‘Okay,’ the man said with a shrug. He stepped over to the map which had been spread across the wall and pointed to a tiny gray square. ‘It’s right here,’ he said. ‘Dawkins Road goes right by it.’

Ben found Dawkins Road only a few minutes later. It was long and narrow, and it spiraled its way up a hillside thick with the full summer growth of brush and forest. About halfway up the hill, the black pavement ended in a sudden jagged line. After that, the road narrowed even further, finally becoming little more than two clay ruts cut out of the undergrowth. The twin yellow beams of the headlights jerked violently up and down as the car plunged forward along the pitted road, and in his rear-view mirror, Ben could see swirls of yellow dust rising in the hazy dawn light.

The gate to the gravel pit was fully open, and after pausing a moment at the entrance, Ben guided the car inside. A second narrow road led through the trees to a flat, unpaved parking area which had been blasted out of the side of the hill. A wall of jagged rock rose at the far end of the parking area, and Ben could see a small shed at its base. A large red sign warned that explosives were housed inside the shed, and that any unauthorized meddling with them was a federal offense.