The Killings by J.F. Gonzalez, Wrath James White Page A

curse had not died with her; it was still alive and well and working its murderous evil.
    A shudder went through Carmen. Goosebumps rose on her skin. She tried to imagine treating this case like a normal news story - spending weeks investigating it only to have it amount to a twenty minute story forgotten with the next big headline. Even if they made some kind of weeklong special out of it, then what? The police may be galvanized into action. Someone might get arrested. Maybe even a few of the old crimes would finally get solved. But Carmen had little doubt that the murders would continue. After the last guilty verdicts were handed down, the books closed, the evidence stored away, the last sensational headlines, tabloid TV news stories, and pulp crime novels written, there would be more dead African Americans. Of that she was certain. There had to be a way to finally stop the killings forever.
    There had to be a way, but Carmen had no idea how.
    Carmen heard the bumpity bumpity bump of her car veering across the line of highway reflectors into opposing traffic. She jerked the steering wheel, overcorrecting and nearly sideswiping a Hummer traveling in the lane beside her. The driver leaned on his horn and shot Carmen his middle finger as he passed her.
    “Fuck!” Carmen cried out. She swallowed hard and tried to catch her breath, which had sped up so that she was almost hyperventilating. She considered pulling to the side of the road to compose herself but thought better of it. She was almost back in Atlanta, and besides ... there was an unsolved series of murders on the I-20 too.

SEVEN
    July 20, 2011, Atlanta, Georgia 
    The neighborhood watch was led by a large Black woman named Glenda Carter. Its ranks had swelled since the murders began. She had called for an evening vigil and more than half the neighborhood - nearly three hundred men, women, and children - had turned out in support, marching through the historically Black neighborhood of Old Fourth Ward with lighted candles and flashlights. They were not just patrolling. It was a protest against police inaction and media apathy regarding the murder spree currently threatening the women in their community. Tonight they were out to make a statement. There would be no killings this evening.
    It had worked. The street was full of police officers, following the marchers to make sure everything remained civil. News cameras followed their every move, and reporters interviewed whoever they could.
    The protestors called out for the chief of police and the mayor to do something about the murders.
    Mrs. Carter led the chant. “No more killings! No more killings! No more killings!”
    Beside her, her son, Michael, smiled. Later he would slip away to Dekalb County while the police were busy in the Old Fourth Ward watching the protestors and keeping the peace. There was a young lady he knew over there, a beautiful young woman named Alicia Meyers whose father worked for a law office downtown and whose mother worked for an advertising firm. Her father was White and the mother was Black, and if he didn’t do anything, Michael was certain Alicia would follow in her mother’s footsteps. But Michael was going to do something. He was going to do a lot.

EIGHT
    July 21, 1911, Downtown, Atlanta, GA
    The police headquarters on Decatur Street was an imposing stone structure with Romanesque columns and a large stone archway at its entrance. Several White officers were lined up outside the police station, handing out fliers to every colored man who passed.
    Robert walked up and took a flier from one of the officers. Robert had seen the fliers appearing in his neighborhood.
    “You want to join the police force, boy?” one of the officers asked. He was a young, red-haired man with freckles who looked like he barely weighed a hundred pounds. He had a large bucktoothed smile and an unpleasant gleam in his eyes. He was twirling a police baton absentmindedly in one hand while handing out fliers