by Angela Henry
“I remember when Nessa and I first started dating, she was working in a health clinic over in Dayton that performed abortions. She had to walk through a picket line of right-to-lifers every single day and some of them got pretty ugly with her. One guy in particular, some weirdo named Russ Webster, took a particular dislike to her. Followed her home from work and started harassing her. Sent her notes. She was scared to death.”
“What happened?”
“She got a restraining order against him, quit the clinic, and started working at Willow Memorial. Then as quickly as he started, he just stopped. We didn’t question it. Just figured he’d found someone else to bother.”
“What did the notes say?” I asked, suddenly feeling very lightheaded and excited.
“Murderer, baby killer. Crap like that. It really freaked her out.”
“I’ll bet,” I said thoughtfully.
I was wondering if I should tell Carl about the note I found at the scene of Jordan’s murder. Could Russ Webster have killed Jordan, mistaking him for Vanessa? Could he have broken into the house looking for her when Jordan arrived and Webster, mistaking him for Vanessa, clobbered him as he rounded the corner? Upon discovering he’d killed the wrong person, he fled, dropping the note he had meant to leave on the body. But that didn’t explain why Jordan was at Vanessa’s house in the first place. Another thought came to me. Had Carl dropped this little tidbit of information in my lap hoping I’d tell the police? How far was Carl willing to go to protect a woman he obviously still cared about? Would he lie for her? Was he still in love with her? Damn. I hate red flags.
EIGHT
“You can just poke that lip back in anytime now, missy. I didn’t say you should never see the man again. Just wait a while until this murder business is solved. You can never be too sure just who you’re dealing with nowadays. But, then again, if you want to worry your poor grandma to death, you just go right ahead and do what you want.”
Mama was in rare form today. Not even my own mother had the power to make me feel like a spoiled child, a reckless fool, and a heartless hussy all in one breath. I’d stopped by for breakfast after a night spent tossing and turning. Brought on in part by all of the questions that were still churning in my mind. It also didn’t help matters that Carl and I had shared a goodnight kiss that had curled my toes and left me fantasizing about all kinds of indecent possibilities.
I turned and caught a glimpse of myself in the chrome toaster oven on the counter. My lip was indeed stuck out just like a little girl who wasn’t getting her way. I straightened up quickly and told Mama about what Carl had told me about Russ Webster harassing Vanessa.
“And that’s supposed to mean what exactly?” she asked with her hands on her hips.
“Well, it could mean that Jordan wasn’t the intended victim after all. Maybe this Russ Webster was after Vanessa again and killed Jordan by mistake,” I said hopefully.
“How’d he get into the house? I read in the newspaper that there was no sign of a break-in. So, you think Vanessa Brumfield went away for the weekend and left her door unlocked for whatever lunatic that might want to stop by? Naw, baby, I think Jordan knew the person who killed him and that person must have let him into the house.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I hadn’t thought about how the killer had gotten into the house. I was too busy trying to make it all work out in my mind, because it would mean that both Bernie and Carl were in the clear.
“Who all do you think have keys to that house?”
“Bernie and Vanessa definitely have keys. Jordan used to live in the house before he moved in with Bernie. It’s entirely possible that he never gave his key back to Bernie. Vanessa could have given a key to someone.”
“You think Carl could have been given a key?” she asked, as she slid another pancake onto my plate and sat across from me. I doused it with syrup and took a couple of bites, catching a drop of syrup with my tongue before it dripped on my shirt.
“I don’t see why he would have been,” I said a little too defensively. “Most women aren’t in the habit of giving a husband they’ve walked out on a key to their house. I wonder if maybe she left an extra key hidden outside somewhere, like under a doormat, in case a family member or friend might want to get into the house.”
“Speaking of family members, didn’t that man have any family? Does anybody know where he was or what he did before he came here? Seems awful strange to me that anyone would just come to Willow to live when they had no job, friends, or family here. He didn’t strike me as being the small-town type.”
“All I know, is he was born in Cleveland and was raised by his grandmother in Columbus. His parents are dead. If he had any brothers or sisters I don’t know about them. I don’t get the impression that Bernie knows any more than that herself. She always told me that Jordan was a business consultant. I have no idea what businesses he was supposed to be consulting. I always wondered why, if he was so wonderful, he wasn’t consulting Gibson Realty.”
Mama sucked her teeth in disgust.
“Like I’ve always told you and your sister, it doesn’t pay to be desperate when it comes to men. If Bernie had been thinking straight instead of jumping on the first man who smiled at her a minute too long, she wouldn’t have been caught up in that man’s web. She turned out to be just the fool he was looking for. The man’s dead, and he’s still causing her heartache.”
She wasn’t getting any argument from me. I wondered how I could find out about Jordan’s background. Jordan’s obituary had said he was a graduate of Morehouse. Gwen’s brother Ed was a Morehouse graduate. He was around the same age as Jordan. Ed and his wife lived in New York City. But Gwen had mentioned once that a lot of Ed’s things were still stored in their mother’s basement. I wondered if he had any college yearbooks. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. In the meantime, I wondered what Vanessa might know.
I don’t know what I was hoping to accomplish by going to Willow Memorial. Bernie once mentioned that Vanessa was a rehab nurse. The plan was to find out where the rehab unit was and wander around until I ran in to her. I didn’t want to think about what I’d say after that. If I thought too far ahead I’d lose my nerve.
Willow Memorial is a big, squat, gray-brick building that has always reminded me of a prison. No matter how many flowers and trees were planted around the grounds, nothing could soften the effect of the cold gray brick.
I walked into the maroon-carpeted lobby and up to a large rectangular desk. A pleasant-faced sixtyish woman, whose name tag identified her as a volunteer named Maggie, told me that the rehab unit was in five north. She gave me directions on how to get there. I walked through the hospital following the blue arrows on the walls that pointed the way to the north wing. Soon I came upon a lounge area with a TV and some well-worn plaid furniture arranged around it. There was an elderly woman leaning heavily on a cane talking to a nurse who was guiding her to one of the couches.
“You should be coming out here to the lounge every day, Mrs. Gilman. The best thing you can do after knee surgery is to maintain a normal routine. That’s why we want you to get dressed every day and come out here to eat with the other patients in the dining area.” I could tell by the strain in her voice that this was an old subject.
“I don’t want to eat with a bunch of old people. It’s depressing. Mr. Tate won’t put his teeth in when he eats and Mrs. Shockly drools. And every time I come out here to watch TV, that old man in the room across from mine is watching some stupid nature show on PBS. I don’t give a damn about the mating habits of the tsetse fly! I haven’t seen my soaps since I got here! Why can’t I have a TV in my room?”
Off to the left of the lounge area was a nurses’ station where two nurses were drinking coffee and looking on in amusement. Their backs were to me, so 1 could get close enough to hear what they were saying without them noticing.
“I told Mary it was her turn to deal with Mrs. Gilman today. I had her yesterday,” said one of the nurses.
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“Vanessa sure knows how to deal with her. She’s the only one who can get her to come out of her room without a fight.”
“It’s too bad about her father,” said the other nurse.
“I know. They released him this morning. There’s nothing more they can do for him. He wants to die at home. Vanessa’s moving back today to help take care of him.”
“I’d be moving anyway if someone was murdered in my house! Does anybody have any idea what that man was doing there when she wasn’t home?”
“Well now, I could be wrong, but I thought I heard something about her being involved with him. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Better not let Adamson hear you say that. He’d have a fit if—”
They both turned and saw me standing there.
“May I help you?” they both asked automatically.
“I was looking for the cafeteria. I must have gotten lost,” I said, smiling.
“It’s on the other side of the building. Just follow the red arrows on the wall, and they’ll take you right to it.”
I thanked them and left.
I was hoping to catch Vanessa over on Archer before she moved out. I made my way through the hospital maze. It seemed as if there were more volunteers and employees than patients. I had tried after my grandfather died to get Mama to volunteer at the hospital so she could get out of the house for a few hours a day. She had flatly refused. She told me that the only reason for anybody to be in a hospital is if they were a patient, a visitor, or a paid employee. Even the free lunch given to volunteers wasn’t enough of an incentive for her. That had shocked me since free was Mama’s favorite word.
Every day her mailbox is filled with free samples and coupons for stuff she has absolutely no need for. Any free offer she sees on TV or in a magazine she snaps up as if her life depends on it. Once she got a package of free condoms. When I’d sarcastically asked her what she was going to do with them, she’d said she had planned on giving them to me but figured with the sorry state of my love life I had as much need for them as she did. The sad part is she was right. Instead, for reasons I’ve yet to figure out, she gave them to Alex. Gwen found them and, combined with her usual paranoia, swore he’d been cheating on her. They got into a big fight and didn’t speak for a month.
I walked past a woman in a white lab coat who was pushing a cart. As I walked past, she whirled and called my name.
“Kendra Clayton, I know you’re not gonna just walk past me and not speak!”
Startled, I turned around to see who it was. “Gigi?”
“Who else would it be?” she said, coming toward me, arms outstretched.
We hugged and I pulled back and looked at her in astonishment. The last time I’d seen Gina Gregory, or Gigi as she’s known to family and friends, had been about seven years ago after I’d graduated from college. She’d been dating a minister or so he liked to call himself. Reverend Calvin Watkins of the House of Jesus Church, which actually was an old house two doors down from the Spotlight Bar and Grill. Gigi had sported no make-up and wore skirts past her ankles. No drinking, smoking, or fornicating. But I had a hard time believing that Gigi wasn’t lifting those long skirts of hers for Reverend Cal.
Then again, Gigi always did have what I like to call a tofu personality. Meaning, like tofu, she was rather bland on her own. She got all of her flavor from the men she dated. When we were in high school it was Gerald Tate, class president and preppy freak. The boy would have probably wiped his ass with Izod toilet paper if he could.
Gigi was right by his side with a 4.0 grade point average and a preppy wardrobe of plaid pants, button-down shirts, and loafers. After high school, Gigi had followed her preppy prince to Miami University where he promptly dumped her. We kept in touch throughout college, and I got the lowdown on all her exploits.
She wasn’t alone for long. Next in line was Malik Witherspoon, campus activist and president of CBS—Concerned Black Students. It was good-bye loafers and plaid, hello Birkenstocks and dreadlocks, or at least an attempt at them. Judging from the picture she sent me, she only succeeded in looking as if a dried-up baby spider plant had taken root on top of her head. After Malik, there was a brief fling with a member of the football team. But since Gigi is rhythmically challenged and not gymnastically inclined, cheerleading was out of the question. Gigi’s not one to stick around if she can’t stand by her man in his every endeavor.
“Where have you been?”
“We were out in California for a while. Too many damned earthquakes. We brought our butts home.”
“We?”
“Man, it has been a long time, hasn’t it? I’ve been married going on three years now. We’ve got a little girl eighteen months old,” she said, beaming.
“That’s great, Gigi! So, are you a nurse?” I asked, gesturing toward the cart.
“A med tech. I work part-time in the lab. What about you?”
We stood and gabbed for about ten minutes. The only way I could tear myself away was to promise to have lunch with her later that day. We both agreed to meet at Estelle’s at one o’clock.
I headed over to catch Vanessa before she was completely moved out, and I almost lost my nerve. I parked in front of the house. The red Mustang convertible was parked in the same spot in the driveway and a brown station wagon was backed up into the driveway behind it. As I walked up the driveway, I saw that the station wagon was almost filled with clothes and boxes. The front door of the house was propped open. I noticed a piece of yellow crime-scene tape hanging from the screen. Before I could knock, a young woman carrying a CD player came rushing out. Her head was down and we almost collided.
Vanessa Brumfield hadn’t changed much since high school. She still had the same lean boyish figure and the same long dark curly hair. She let out a small gasp upon looking up and seeing me but recovered quickly.
“If you’ve come to look at the house, you’ll have to come back later. As you can see, I haven’t finished moving out.”
“I came to see you, Vanessa.”
She looked at me hard. “You look familiar,” she said finally. “Where do I know you from?”
“Springmont High, Mrs. Vance’s home ec class. I’m Kendra Clayton.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember now. Listen, Kendra, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have time for a high school reunion.” She walked past me to the passenger side of the station wagon and put the CD player on top of a box on the front seat.
“Actually, I came to see you about Jordan Wallace.”
“What about him?” She had stopped automatically at the mention of his name, and her cheeks turned pink.
“I was wondering if he ever talked about his past at all, or if you knew anything about his background?”
“What exactly does this have to do with you? Are you a police officer?”
“No, I’m a friend of Bernice Gibson’s. I thought something in Jordan’s past might hold a key to his murder.”
“I barely knew the man. He came over here a few times to pick up the rent and to do some minor repairs. We certainly didn’t know each other well enough to have any in-depth conversations.”
I guessed that rolling around in the sack didn’t leave much time for intelligent, let alone coherent, conversation. I say guessed because it had been so long since I’d participated in the act myself that it was a hazy memory at best. I should have known Vanessa wasn’t going to volunteer any information that would point to any intimacy between her and Jordan. If she wanted to play it that way, it was fine by me.
“Why don’t you ask your friend what happened to Mr. Wallace?”
“She thinks you did it,” I blurted before thinking.
“Me! I was out of town. I have absolutely no reason to kill anyone, let alone someone I barely knew.” She looked away from me when she made that last statement. Even she had to know how thin it sounded.
“It doesn’t make any sense that he came here unless he thought you were home. Your car was in the d
riveway, wasn’t it? He must have thought you were home.”
“That car has been in the driveway for three weeks now. The transmission went out, and I don’t have the money to get a new one put in. I’ve been driving my dad’s car. He won’t be needing it anymore.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly looked away. When she looked back at me, the tears were gone, replaced by weariness.
“Look, I’ll tell you the same thing I told those detectives. I don’t know why he was here. The last time I saw him was on the first of the month when he came by to get the rent.”
“Why did you tell me to ask Bernie what happened to Jordan?”
“Because she called me a couple of weeks ago and told me she was putting this house up for sale and that I’d have to move out at the end of the month. When I reminded her that I’d signed a yearlong lease, she freaked out and told me she knew all about me and Jor—ah, Mr. Wallace. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about. Like I said, I had no reason to kill him, but she acted like a crazy woman that day. She probably lured him over here and killed him and set me up.”
“Do you know if Jordan had a key to the house?”
“No, but Ms. Gibson does.”
Before I could ask anything else, an electric-blue BMW pulled in front of the house. A short, balding, pudgy man got out and came walking up the driveway. As he got closer I could see that he was in his early thirties and was dressed in jeans, a red polo shirt, and expensive-looking cross trainers that looked too clean to have ever been worn for exercise. I also recognized him as the man I’d seen in the birthday picture on Vanessa’s refrigerator. Vanessa looked momentarily panicked, and then quickly pasted a smile on her face.
“Hi, hon,” he said and planted a kiss on Vanessa’s cheek. “Got here as soon as I could. I got tied up at the hospital at the last minute.” He gave me a curious look.
“Oh, this is Kendra, a friend of mine from high school. She just came by to look at the house. She’s looking for a place to rent.”