As the Wicked Watch(33)
For goodness sake, Bartlett! Are you trying to make me cry?
Bartlett is an empath, which I must say is one of the things I really like about him. He had read the autopsy report. He knew as well as I did the extent of Masey’s injuries, and that only a monster would be capable of inflicting such unimaginable horror on a human being. But I do worry about him. His malnourished ego and sympathetic leanings, devoid of the machismo that’s heralded in this jewel of the Midwest and certainly within his profession, makes him vulnerable to departmental mutiny. The slightest fissure in his armor, and Fawcett would make a play for his job. I’d bet money on it.
The remorseful expression lingered on Bartlett’s flat, round face, but its effect on me withered posthaste. Bartlett’s a sweet man, but he’s also in charge of this police department. The buck stops with him. Thus I didn’t hesitate to pose the question I’ve heard again and again from people in the community while covering this story and many others.
“Superintendent Bartlett, let me be clear, there’s skepticism among Black residents that homicide and missing persons investigations are taken as seriously when the victim is Black, and that that’s the reason there have been so many unsolved murders of Black women in Chicago.”
Then I bore down. “Superintendent, this surely isn’t a surprise to you that people feel that way. So why aren’t you doing more to ease their concerns?”
Bartlett’s face turned from ashen to crimson. He began to fidget with a pen on his desk, tapping it against a brownish folder. My question must have felt like a betrayal, but it’s my job to hold his feet to the fire. And in fact I was doing him a favor by giving him the opportunity to speak directly to Black Chicagoans and calm their fears.
“I’ve spoken many, many times with black community leaders, ward leaders, and clergymen and women right here in my office about these very concerns. I share their concerns. But it’s simply not true that police aren’t prioritizing these cases. I have tremendous faith in our investigators, and I assure you, we’re giving this case everything we’ve got, and it’ll remain a top priority until we make an arrest,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, and nodded to Scott: That’s a wrap.
I stood up and extended my hand to the superintendent. Even if he was put off by my question, he wasn’t the type of man to leave me hanging. “Thanks, Chief,” I said, flashing a warm smile.
“Anytime, Jordan,” Bartlett said, returning a firm handshake.
Scott and I passed Fawcett’s desk on the way out. The lieutenant glanced at us but quickly diverted his eyes. I didn’t go out of my way to acknowledge him, either. It’s been an emotional day already, and I still have Pamela to deal with. I’m nervous, on edge, fragile. I wondered: Am I about to get my period? Why am I such a wreck?
Scott and I have two hours to kill. Pamela told me to meet her at her sister-in-law’s house at three o’clock. But we couldn’t just show up and start filming, as we had done with Bartlett. I haven’t seen Pamela since she found out her missing daughter had been murdered. I needed a moment, unencumbered by professional protocol, to acknowledge her loss, and heck, deal with my own grief. Once more, I would have to ask Scott to remain in the news van, so soon after admitting to myself that this might not have been the correct course of action at Louise Robinson’s. Then again, once she inserted her cryptic tale about some fictionalized boogeyman character into our very real-life discussion, I couldn’t decide whether Louise Robinson was eccentric or insane.
“Who’s Red Moley?” I asked her.
“You never heard of Red Moley?”
“No . . . I . . . I can’t say that I have. Is that his nickname? What’s his real name?”
“It’s a story. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Red Moley. Did you ever go to camp when you were a kid? Didn’t you have sleepovers?”
“Well, yeah, I did,” I said.
“Y’all didn’t tell scary stories?” she asked.
Her line of questioning began to aggravate the hell out of me. Before I could respond, she asked another: “You ever heard of Bloody Mary?”
No, I’ve never heard of any of this crap!
“No,” I said wryly. Then I remembered. “Wait, you mean the Bloody Mary of folklore? What was she? A witch, right? She lived in the woods and abducted kids or something like that.”
“Yes!” she said with excitement. “She’d put ’em under a spell and they would come right to her.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard it. It scared me to death as a kid. I haven’t thought about that in years,” I said.
Where was she going with this?
“Red Moley is kinda like Bloody Mary, except it’s a he—half man, half monster—who preys on children and takes their hearts, because children have the most loving and trusting hearts.”
What’s that got to do with Masey James?
I’d pictured several versions of the first conversation I would have with Louise Robinson, and so far this matched none of them.
“When Red Moley gets done with you, there’s nothing left of you,” she said.
Eviscerated.
I didn’t need a mirror to know that I looked perplexed. As much as I wanted to ask what she meant when she said, “If there’s one, there’s two,” I’d heard enough of her hoodoo and pushed on to another topic. Louise caught on, floated back down from Planet Strange, and snapped back to reality.