by Angela Henry
He was a hard man to read. One minute he seemed sad over his impending divorce and the next minute relieved by it. And I didn’t quite buy that “we’re still friends” stuff. It seemed like he was trying to convince himself that there was still a relationship there. I didn’t quite know what to think of Carl Brumfield other than the fact that he had a killer smile that could easily melt my panties. And I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. Whatever had gone wrong in his marriage to Vanessa, he seemed genuinely disappointed. I just hoped my sympathy wasn’t misplaced.
I arrived home around midnight. As I walked up the steps to my apartment, I saw two yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Perched on my top step was Mahalia, Mrs. Carson’s Siamese cat.
“Shoo,” I hissed in a loud whisper. I was still mad at the damn cat for almost killing me the week before. I had been in a hurry to get to work one morning and had tripped over Mahalia as she lay stretched out on the step, sending me almost headlong down the steep stairway. I’d been able to save myself by clutching the wooden railing as I fell against it. I got a handful of splinters and torn pantyhose in the process.
Mahalia gave me a disdainful look, stretched, and then made her way slowly down the steps. I wish I had a rock to speed up her departure.
My apartment looked like a disaster area. Clothes, shoes, and underwear were flung all over the place from my frenzied preparation for the date from hell. As tired as I was, I couldn’t go to sleep with the place a mess.
I bent over to pick up the clothing and pain flared up in my back. I went to the bathroom to get some aspirin. It was in just as bad a shape as the rest of the apartment. The skirt and blazer that I’d worn the night before were lying on the floor. As I picked them up, I heard the crunch of paper. I looked in the pocket of my blazer and found a folded white envelope. It took me a few seconds to realize that this was the wet envelope that I’d found the night before by the back door of the house on Archer.
It had completely dried. There was nothing written anywhere on the outside of the envelope. I opened it. Inside was a single sheet of white paper. Typed in uppercase letters and punctuated by an exclamation point was a single word typed in the middle of the page: murderer!
FOUR
“You say you found this by the back door between the step and the shrubbery?” asked Detective Trish Harmon, who was eying the envelope in question. It was now enclosed in a plastic bag.
I was sitting on my couch Sunday morning wondering what I’d done wrong in a previous life that I was having to be questioned again for the third time in three days. I had called the police first thing the next morning about the note. Not that I’d gotten any sleep after reading what I had found. Between the note and my back pain, any plans that I had had for a good night’s sleep were shot to hell. It was as if the anger that had punctuated that single word had come off the page and permeated the air in my apartment.
I had tried to call Bernie after I called the police. If she was home she wasn’t answering her phone. I left a message on her machine to call me as soon as possible. I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t gotten a hold of her. The story about Jordan’s murder, complete with a picture of Jordan cheesing for all he was worth, was splashed across the front page of the Sunday paper. After reading my name in the article, in which I was described as a witness at the scene of the crime, I quickly took my own phone off the hook.
“May I ask why you took the envelope and why you took so long to bring it to our attention, Miss Clayton?” asked Detective Harmon before I could answer her first question.
“It was in the pocket of the blazer I wore Friday night. I stuck it in my pocket and in the excitement forgot about it. I found it again last night and read it. Look, I told you all this on the phone before you came over. I called you first thing this morning, and I don’t appreciate being made to feel guilty.”
“It was not my intention to make you feel guilty unless, of course, you have something to feel guilty about.”
She was sitting on the edge of my recliner leaning forward as if the act of sitting back in the chair would detract from the efficient image she was trying to convey. Her clothes were as drab and lifeless as they’d been on the other two occasions I’d spoken to her. Today she was wearing a gunmetal gray suit, the skirt of which was pleated and fell almost to her ankles, giving me a glimpse of flesh-colored pantyhose and black flats. Her brown hair was cut mannishly short and was streaked with gray. Her sharp-featured face was devoid of any make-up, making her as pale as death. Her expression was one of practiced neutrality, which made me wonder if she ever had an unguarded moment. I was surprised to notice for the first time that she was wearing a plain white-gold wedding band. I had a hard time imagining this woman as anyone’s blushing bride.
“If I had anything to be guilty about, I sure as hell wouldn’t have called you.” My face flushed with anger.
“Let me assure you that removing evidence from a murder scene is a criminal offense. Are you sure you don’t have anything else to tell me? Because I’m trying to figure out why I shouldn’t arrest you right now.”
I could think of a few things I’d love to tell her, starting with the run in her hose. But I decided now wouldn’t be the best time.
“How many times do I have to say this? I didn’t intentionally take the envelope. It just happened. What reason could I possibly have?”
“Time will tell, Miss Clayton. Time will tell.” She finally sat back in the chair and gave me a hard intense look. She was trying to make me squirm. She was about to succeed before I decided I had a question of my own.
“Do you think that the murderer could have left that note?” I asked in an attempt to deflect her away from me.
“I’d be willing to guess, going by where you found it, that it wasn’t left in that spot intentionally. It’s possible that it could have been dropped there by accident. It’s also possible that it has no connection to the murder. We don’t know how long the note lay there before you spotted it.”
“Now, let me get this straight. A man is murdered and a note with the word murderer is found outside of the house where the murder was committed and you think there’s no connection?” Could I be hearing this right?
“All I’m saying is that it’s possible. I’ll take this to the station and have our lab take a look at it. Hopefully they’ll be able to give us some more information.”
“Has there been any news about Vanessa Brumfield?”
“Actually, we’ve spoken to a woman who was out walking her dog on Archer Street early Thursday morning and claims to have seen Vanessa Brumfield being picked up at her house. This person also said she was sure Mrs. Brumfield had what looked like an overnight bag with her. That combined with the fact that she took two days off from work would indicate that she might be out of town. We’ve left instructions with her family and her place of employment for her to contact us as soon as possible.”
“So you don’t think she’s involved in any way?”
“We’re looking at all possibilities at this time, Miss Clayton,” she said, rising from the recliner.
“Will you let me know what you find out about the note?”
“Oh, I will definitely be getting back to you about this mysterious note,” she said, heading for the door.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked suddenly as a thought came to me. She paused, indicating that she was waiting.
“How did Vanessa’s family react to all of this? I’ve heard that she wasn’t on speaking terms with her father on account of her marriage.”
“They were very concerned, of course. They gave no indication that there was any estrangement. Her father was especially concerned.”
That was strange. I’d heard that her father had put her out of the house when he found out she was involved with a black man and hadn’t had anything to do with her since.
I headed over to my grandmother’s house around noon. The sun was shining and the temperature, having moved back and forth betwee
n very warm and jacket weather for the past few weeks, had finally settled on a nice seventy-five degrees.
I thought about calling first and then decided against it. I knew she was probably mad at me, and trying to talk to her on the phone when she’s mad is an experience I don’t like to endure. It usually consists of me rambling about nothing in particular while the heat of her angry silence on the other end singes my eardrum.
Mama still lives in the house on Orchard Lane that she and my grandfather shared for almost the entire fifty years of their marriage. It’s a two-story brick house with a wraparound porch. I turned into the steep gravel drive that wound up to the house and came to a stop in front of the detached garage. There had been talk of Mama selling the house and moving into an apartment after my grandfather died but that never came to pass.
I walked around to the backyard where I figured she’d be working in her vegetable garden. It hardly seemed like the same place where I’d spent so much of my childhood. When I was a child, there had been a big cherry tree in the back of the yard along the fence. I had spent countless hours under that tree every summer with my nose in a book, or playing freeze tag and hide-and-go-seek with my sister and the neighborhood kids.
The backyard was empty. I walked up on the porch and knocked on the back door before walking in. Mama was standing with her back to me at the counter by the sink. The kitchen was newer than the rest of the house with gleaming white countertops, oak cabinets, and blue and white tiles on the floor. Mama had made the blue curtains that hung in the windows. She kept all of the appliances shining so brightly that anyone walking into the kitchen on a sunny day when the curtains were open was in danger of being blinded. She decorated the kitchen herself, and it was her pride and joy. There was food cooking on the stove and the smell was making me swoon. The aroma of collard greens and frying chicken was filling the air. I’d yet to eat.
“Hi, Mama.”
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, turning toward me. I could see that she was mixing something in a ceramic bowl. “Haven’t seen or heard from you all week but I should have known you’d show up to eat today.” She turned away from me and reached for a cake pan that was sitting on the counter next to her and poured the contents of the bowl into it.
She was dressed in baggy jeans and a floral-print T-shirt. It was still strange for me to see her dressed this way. Up until my grandfather’s death a few years ago, she never wore anything but skirts and dresses. My grandfather didn’t like women in pants. In fact, my mother never wore pants until her senior year in high school and that was only after years of pleading.
Mama was wearing her short white hair pulled back from her face with a blue elastic band; this, too, was a change. Mama is part Native American on her mother’s side and she’d had hair almost to her waist and always wore it pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. After I got mine cut last year, she followed suit and now her hair is about an inch longer than mine. It’s pure white and makes a startling contrast against her red-brown skin.
I look more like Mama than I do either my mother or my father. My mother and uncle Alex are both tall and thin like my grandfather, as is my younger sister, Allegra. Mama and I are short and have had to fight our weight all our lives. I have clothes in my closet that range anywhere from a size six to a sixteen. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle. Judging from the way that dress fit last night, it would seem I’m headed toward the top again.
“It smells good,” I said lamely as I lifted the lid on the pot of greens and took an exaggerated whiff. The steam almost burned my cheeks. Mama looked at me and gave me one of her famous ‘you poor, stupid child’ looks and nudged me out of the way so she could put the cake in the oven.
“All right, Mama. I’m sorry. I was busy this week.”
“So I’ve heard, Miss Witness at the Scene of the Crime,” she said, gesturing toward the newspaper spread out on the kitchen table. “Donna Ivory called me yesterday to tell me all about it, although half of what she said was wrong as usual. I kept expecting to hear from you, but I guess I was expecting too much,” she said with a weary sigh, as if dealing with me had taxed all of her energy and had left her drained. This woman could give classes on how to dish out guilt.
Like a scared mortal trying to appease an angry goddess, I offered up the story about Delbert Ivory hitting on me at the Red Dragon. That at least earned me a chuckle that gave way to laughter on both our parts as I played the story up for all it was worth.
“I always knew that man didn’t have good sense. If he did, he never would have married Donna. I don’t know how he puts up with her. Least now I know why he broke his neck to avoid me at sunrise services this morning. He should be ashamed of himself. Of course, if you came to church more often, he would have known who you were.”
I should have seen that one coming a mile away.
She walked over to the table and picked up the newspaper. “What in the world has Bernie Gibson got you mixed up in?”
I told her everything, only excluding the part about my having gone along with Bernie’s lie. Mama was big on helping friends in need, but she was also adamant about not getting caught up in other people’s dirt. I for one couldn’t think of anything dirtier than murder.
“I saw that Jordan Wallace strutting around town like some peacock. I knew he was bad news the minute I laid eyes on him.” Mama has made this claim about many a person, but when asked to pinpoint the precise reason for her opinion, is never able to give any solid evidence other than beady eyes or a weak chin. But in this case I’d have to agree with her. “How’s Bernie doing?”
“I really can’t tell to be perfectly honest. I think she’s more horrified about what happened to him than she is upset at his loss. I mean, let’s face it, it’s not like she lost her soul mate.” It shocked me to realize that I felt so coldly about Jordan’s death. I might have felt differently if I’d noticed even one redeeming quality in him.
“That surprises me, especially with them being engaged and all.”
“Engaged! Who told you that?” I asked.
“Well, it’s in the paper plain as day.”
I snatched up the front page of the paper and started to reread the article.
“No, Kendra, the obituary section,” she said, handing me the right section. When I’d read the paper this morning, I was so caught up in the glaring headline and had been so preoccupied with the note that it had never occurred to me to read the obituary section. It took me only a second to locate it. I saw that it was accompanied by a smaller version of the same picture that was on the front page. It was also very brief.
Jordan Wallace, 42, of Willow died unexpectedly Friday, May 18, 1998. Mr. Wallace was born April 10, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio, and had resided in Willow for a year. He was a 1976 graduate of Morehouse College and was self-employed as a business analyst. He is preceded in death by his parents and is survived by his fiancée Bernice Gibson of Willow. Funeral services are pending.
Bernie hadn’t lied when she had said she didn’t know much about Jordan’s family. How could you have lived with a man and not at some point have been told his parents’ names? As for the engagement, maybe she wanted to legitimize their relationship in the eyes of the public. Maybe she felt survived by a fiancée sounded better than survived by a live-in girlfriend. Or rather, girlfriend with whom the deceased had resided.
“Well, this is the first I’ve heard of any engagement.”
“Maybe it’s all a figment of her imagination. The man’s dead and not here to tell anyone any different. If she says they were engaged, who’s going to prove that they weren’t.”
“I don’t think Bernie was so desperate that she’d go and invent some phony engagement.” At least I didn’t think so.
“You’re forgetting that I knew Bernie’s mother. I was one of the few people who was still speaking to Althea after she made her big move out to the Knoll. I’ve known Bernie since she was a little girl. Believe me, all that woman has ever wanted since
she was little was to get married. Was always running around with some white sheet wrapped around her, pretending to be a bride. You can ask your uncle Alex. She was always after him to be the groom. I’ve never seen him run as fast as when he knew Althea was coming over and bringing little Bernie with her.” She chuckled at the memory. “Bernie put Althea through a lot of grief right after she graduated from college and was working in her mother’s real estate office. She was running around with—”
Before she could get another word out, the back door opened and in walked Alex and Gwen. Damn! Just when things were getting good. I felt like I was about to get a whole new insight into my friend that might clear up some questions that were beginning to bug me. Now it would have to wait.
Alex and Gwen were dressed in identical red-and-black Nike warm-up suits and tennis shoes. Gwen was wearing a short brown wig in a feathery pixie cut.
“Ms. Mays, your son about killed me this morning!” said Gwen breathlessly as she plopped into a kitchen chair and fanned herself vigorously with a section of the newspaper.
“How’s that, Gwen?” Mama asked as she turned the chicken over.
“With all this walking, that’s how,” Gwen said, glaring at Alex.
“We both agreed that we needed to lose some weight. How are we supposed to do that by sitting around?” Alex responded calmly. “You’d think we just ran a marathon the way you’re acting.”
“No, you decided that you needed to lose some weight. You’ve been dragging me around for company or so you claim!” Gwen is always convinced Alex is trying to get her to lose weight.
I looked at my uncle and had to admit he had a bit of a gut. I didn’t see what the big deal was myself. He still looked in pretty good shape to me. Alex is a tall man about six-two, slender, bald, and with Mama’s smooth red-brown skin, he hardly looked his forty-five years. He’s always been very athletic, playing basketball and softball. But, like me and everyone else in the family, he’s hooked on Mama’s cooking. He eats here most Sundays. He also has the calm, serious nature of my grandfather, who thought long and hard before he committed himself to words.