Chapter 11: The Foot

On Friday morning I tried to ask Terrence Bayne one more question, and he had nothing left to tell me.

I had asked the Intake desk for twenty minutes in the cold room.

The funeral home was coming for him at noon.

He lay under a clean sheet with his hands folded by someone who loved him.

I took off my glove and put my fingers on his wrist, and a line rose in the air.

[Hour flat. Nothing left to read.]

Seven days had gone on the twenty-fourth at 9:34 at night, and I had known the date, and I had hoped anyway.

I wanted to turn his head the half inch toward the tagger's truck and read the plate, and the skill would never allow it now.

So I stood there with his whole last hour already in me, and I covered his hand again.

"Thank you, Mr. Bayne," I said to the empty room, and went to find the neighbor's garage.

It stood behind a gray two-flat on Honore Street, a one-car garage with a basketball hoop on the door.

The neighbor let me in through the side with a ring of keys, and the Marine and Deloris came behind.

The boy of fourteen was already there, sitting on an overturned bucket.

He was the one who had dropped a fold with a .22 that night.

He had not slept properly since.

"Is he going to be okay?" he asked me. "Mr. Bayne? I mean, in the ground. Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore," I said. "I promise."

He nodded at the floor, and the neighbor put her hand on his neck.

Two chest freezers stood against the back wall, with a padlock on each lid.

"The Monday truck was supposed to take them," the neighbor said. "We told the hide man the club was in mourning. He said no hurry."

"He said take all the time you need," the Marine said grimly.

Eleven hides from the cookout lay in the first freezer, rolled and bagged, and eleven sets of feet lay in the second.

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