by Angela Henry
“Caesar likes you. He likes very few people.” She said it like I should be grateful.
I smiled to show how honored I felt and even stroked Caesar’s head for good measure. Caesar decided he liked where he was and proceeded to fall asleep. I felt my legs start to go numb.
“So what’s this about Wally being murdered?”
I told her all about what happened, including Bernie’s arrest and Jordan’s involvement with Vanessa.
“That’s too bad, really it is, but it hardly surprises me. Wally always did have a way with women, starting with his grandmother. She spoiled him rotten. After her husband died in an accident at work, she came into a chunk of insurance money and moved across the street. It must have been thirty-odd years ago. She was the first colored lady in the neighborhood. When her son and daughter-in-law were killed in a smash-up on 1-70 up in Cleveland, Wally came to live with her. He must have been about twelve and a cutie even then. Ina never got to see him much before then ‘cause she didn’t like her daughter-in-law, so they hardly ever came to visit.”
“Is this his grandmother?” I asked, pulling the snapshot out of my purse and handing it to her.
“Yes, this is Ina all decked out in her pearls. She loved her pearls. Where’d you get this picture?”
“I found it in his things after he died.” At least it wasn’t a complete lie.
“Who’s this other woman?”
She looked hard at the picture a minute.
“She lived with them for several months before Ina died. Oh, damn, I can’t remember her name. It’ll come to me in time. She was a nurse’s aide. At least that’s what I was told. Took care of Ina when she was sick. Ina had Alzheimer’s.”
The marriage license I found listed Jordan’s wife as being a nurse’s aide. Surely the sullen, obese woman in the picture wasn’t Jordan’s wife. She didn’t exactly look like his type. Maybe she had some money. There would have to have been something she had that Jordan had wanted or needed. What had it been?
“Dee Dee, that’s what they called her. She was from somewhere in the South I believe. She had an accent as thick as molasses. Can’t remember her last name though.”
“She doesn’t look too happy in this picture.”
“I felt sorry for the poor thing. She of course had it bad for Wally. In fact, I think she was someone he met while he was in college at Morehouse, and she followed him here after graduation. I was real surprised that Wally even graduated. Wasn’t exactly the academic type; more into extracurricular activities, if you know what I mean.”
“So, she just showed up here, and they let her stay?”
“Yeah, I was always surprised by that. But Ina had Alzheimer’s and even though she wasn’t real bad then, she still needed someone to stay with her all the time. Wally was too busy running the streets, and he wasn’t the type to stay at home and take care of his sick grandmother anyway.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t try and put her in a nursing home.”
“Well, he might have looked into it and found out the same thing I did when I was thinking of putting my father into a nursing home years ago. The state would have taken everything, including his house, and left him with fifteen hundred dollars. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I can’t imagine Wally letting it happen either. His grandmother was his meal ticket.”
“What was Dee Dee like?”
“Quiet, but not shy. Was real self-conscious about her weight. Ina treated the girl like crap, always making fun of her. Used to call her names. Dee Dee took it all in stride on the surface, but I saw real hatred in her eyes at times. It scared me. And smart, the girl was smart as a whip. She wouldn’t let many people see that side of her. Told me once men didn’t want smart women. I told her she was crazy. I think she may have had that eating disorder. The one where you stuff yourself and then throw it all up later.”
“You think she was bulimic? Why?”
“I went over there for dinner once while Dee Dee was there. She hardly ate a thing. Later, I went into the kitchen to see if she needed any help cleaning up, and I saw her stuffing food in her mouth like she was starving. It was weird.”
It dawned on me that I’d recently had an almost identical conversation as the one I was having now. Who had it been about? I couldn’t remember.
“How did Jordan—I mean Wally—treat her?”
“He was kind of indifferent. The more she worshipped him, the more indifferent he became. I believe Ina used to try and pit the two of them against each other. She would be real nice to Dee Dee in front of Wally, making him think that Dee Dee was her new favorite and that she was going to leave all her money to her. Ina wanted Wally to stay home more and he would for a week or two to get back into Ina’s good graces, then it would be back to the way it was.”
“It sounds like Ina Graham wasn’t a very nice woman.”
“Oh, she had her good qualities. She could be very kind when she wanted. She was just very insecure and lonely.”
“What happened to them?”
“Ina died. It was right after Thanksgiving. She must have left everything to Wally ‘cause he sold the house and everything in it about two weeks later. I haven’t seen him since. Dee Dee showed up here around that time. She’d gone back home after Ina died. She came back here looking for Wally. I told her he had sold up and left. She was heartbroken. I asked her how she’d been doing and she told me she’d gotten married but it hadn’t worked out. I didn’t even know she was seeing anyone. She only had eyes for Wally.”
“Would you know how to reach her?”
“The funny thing is, her sister came looking for her. Must have been about five years ago. Seems Dee Dee never went back home after she came up here looking for Wally. Just disappeared. Her sister needed to find her because their mother was dying and her last wish was to see Dee Dee again. I don’t know if she ever found her. She left me her card. Let me see if I can find it.”
She got up and left the room, and I took the opportunity to gently nudge Caesar out of my lap. He shot me a reproachful look and went to finish his nap on the couch, wedged between a pile of Life magazines and a stack of newspapers. I stretched my legs out to get the circulation going again and wondered for a split second if the cat still liked me.
“Here it is,” she said, gleefully waving a small square of paper. “It pays to be a pack rat.”
I took the card and looked at it. Carol Briggs-Mason, CPA. It listed an address and phone number in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Can I have this?”
“Yeah, keep it if you want. But it’s five-year-old information. It might not be the same anymore.”
I’d just have to take a chance.
“Who can I say is calling?” asked the woman who answered the phone.
Luckily, Carol Briggs-Mason was still at the number listed on the card and was working on Saturday to my great surprise. I was at a pay phone at the Eastland Mall and was hoping I had enough time left on my phone card to complete the call.
“My name is Kendra Clayton. I’m calling from Ohio. Tell her it’s about her sister Dee Dee.”
“One moment, please.”
I listened to a Muzak version of a Celine Dion song for a few minutes before she finally came on the line.
“Yes, Miss Clayton, how can I help you?” She sounded very professional with a husky Southern drawl. Suddenly I was tongue-tied.
I explained who I was in one breathless rush. There was no sound from the other end of the line, and for a minute I thought she’d hung up on me.
“I guess I don’t know how I can help you,” she said finally with a tired sigh. “I haven’t seen or heard from Dee Dee in more than twenty years. She could be dead for all I know.”
“I was just wondering what you could tell me about her. It might help me to understand Wallace Jordan’s past and why he was killed.”
“You mean you want to know if she could have killed him?”
“Yes.” There was no reason to beat around the bush.
“I don’t have the time to talk about this right now. I just came in to finish up some work before they close the building at noon. You can give me your number, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to call you until tomorrow.”
I was disappointed but gave her my number and Mama’s number, thanked her for her time, and hung up.
THIRTEEN
Seven thirty found me sitting in Carl Brumfield’s condo in Worthington. The condo was a two-bedroom unit with white walls and beige carpeting throughout. Not much personality, and it had probably cost him an arm and a leg. Carl had livened it up with a few Jonathan Green prints, an aquarium of tropical fish, and a few plants courtesy of his mother. The furniture was the typical bachelor sparse with a caramel-colored leather sofa as soft as butter and a great entertainment center, complete with a Sony PlayStation and an assortment of video games.
After spending the rest of my day window-shopping, which is the only kind of shopping I could ever do in a mall, and changing in the restroom (not one of my better ideas), I was grateful to be sitting on Carl’s living room floor, going through his CDs listening to Earth Wind & Fire’s “That’s the Way of the World” and sipping a glass of wine. I’d kicked off my sandals and made myself right at home while Carl was busy getting dinner together. I got up from the floor and took a look at his family pictures on the mantel above his fireplace.
“These are my parents,” he said, coming up behind me and gesturing toward a picture of an attractive older couple.
I felt his breath against my ear and a chill went down my spine. He put his hand on my waist and gently pulled me back against him.
“You look just like your father. Are these your sisters?” I asked, gesturing toward a family picture.
“Yeah, that’s Anita with the braids. She’s a flight attendant and lives in Newark, New Jersey. The other one is Monica. She and her husband own a car dealership up in Cleveland.”
He was still standing close behind me and had started kneading my shoulders ever so slightly.
“They’re very pretty,” I said, pulling away just a bit. “Your parents must be very proud of all of you.”
“I think so. We haven’t given them too much grief, and we’ve all done pretty well. Of course, I’m the only divorced one. That doesn’t sit too well with my mom.”
“Did your family like Vanessa?”
“My family, in their hearts, wanted to see me with a black woman. They didn’t know Nessa very well and they didn’t try to. But they weren’t unkind to her, just sort of indifferent.”
“You know, I could have sworn I saw you earlier this week. I was at Wendy’s on State Street in the drive-through. I thought I saw you at the bank.”
He nodded and gave me a sheepish “I’m busted” grin.
“Yeah, that was me. Vanessa and I were closing our joint accounts. I’d been wanting to do it for weeks but with her father being sick and the other stuff going on, she didn’t have time—”
“Carl, it’s okay,” I said, cutting him off. “You don’t owe me any explanation. I just wondered if it was you.” I breathed a silent sigh of relief and prayed he was telling the truth.
“I hope you like lasagna. It’s one of the few things I know how to make. I’m glad you called and said you wanted to come here for dinner tonight. I’ve been eating out all week because I’ve been busy moving and putting stuff away. That’s another reason why I was in Willow. I really needed to get my share of our savings account. I closed on this place Thursday and closing costs were more than I expected. Vanessa had been putting me off for weeks. I was beginning to wonder if she’d spent the money buying fancy clothes trying to impress her new boyfriend.”
“She has a new man in her life?” I asked innocently, peering over the top of my wineglass.
“Oh yeah, some doctor at Willow Memorial. I’m sure her father’s pleased as hell.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“Me?” he said, a little surprised by my question. “I’m fine. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a free woman and can do what she wants with whomever she wants. Just like I’m a free man. I wondered how I’d feel once I got my half of our savings. Getting that money meant it was really over. But it was cool. Wasn’t bad at all. And in case you’re wondering, I also knew about her and that dude who was murdered. Saw them through the window when I went over there one night to talk about the divorce,” he said, looking away from me.
“Did you ever think she may have been involved in his murder?” I asked carefully.
“Nah, Nessa’s harmless. She has her faults, and she’s greedy, but murder... I don’t think so.” We were silent for an awkward minute. Then Carl broke out one of his brilliant smiles.
“Man, how’d we get on this subject? Come on, dinner’s getting cold.” He took my hand, pulling me toward the dining room where dinner was on the table and smelling good.
I wondered if I should tell Carl about my attack. If he’d noticed my bald spot he hadn’t mentioned it. I was also relieved that he didn’t seem to care who Vanessa had been sleeping with and that he had an alibi for Thursday night when I was attacked.
The lasagna was great, as were the salad and homemade bread. Carl had acquired the bread maker in his divorce settlement. We were having a great time. I drank a little too much wine and was feeling no pain.
“You know, if you drink much more of that stuff I’ll have to insist you stay the night.”
“I can think of worse places to spend the night.”
“Such as?”
“My lonely apartment.” I gave him a look that should have dispelled any questions he may have had as to my meaning.
Carl’s eyes widened in surprise, then he smiled.
“Would you like to dance?”
I nodded my agreement and we headed into the living room. Five minutes later, the lights were low; Peabo Bryson’s “Feel the Fire” was playing on the CD player. And dammit, I was feeling that fire, too, as we danced slowly. He smelled great and I buried my face in his neck. I heard him groan softly as I started nibbling his earlobe and kissing along his jawline. When I reached his mouth, we stopped dancing and stood there kissing hungrily. He pulled me tightly to him and I felt the hardness of him pressing against me. His hands blazed trails of fire up my bare back to the tiny buttons at my neck that fastened my halter dress. He quickly unbuttoned them, letting the top of my dress fall to my waist. Gently cupping my breasts, he bent down and took one hardened nipple into his mouth, bathing it with his tongue. I moaned and felt like I would melt into a puddle at his feet.
That’s when the rock came crashing through the window.
We jumped apart like two little kids caught with our hot little hands in the cookie jar.
“What the hell!” Carl shouted as he raced to the front door. He flung it open just in time to see a car speeding off into the night. I quickly fastened my dress and stared at the broken glass and the ruins of our evening. Shit!
I helped Carl clean up the glass and tape plastic over the hole in his living room window. We worked in silence. Carl was looking grim and angry but had refused to call the police.
“You know who did this, don’t you?” I finally asked when we’d finished. “Does it have anything to do with a case you’re prosecuting? Are you going to answer me?” I asked when he didn’t speak right away.
“I’m sorry, Kendra.” He sat on the couch and gestured for me to sit down next to him. “I do know who did this. And it doesn’t have anything to do with my job. I thought I had put all this shit behind me when I moved back here to Columbus.”
I poured us some more wine because suddenly I was quite sober. I waited for him to pull himself together and tell me what the hell was going on. Finally he did.
“When Nessa left me, I was a mess. It was completely out of the blue. I was hurt, confused, angry. It didn’t help matters when I found out that she had been lured away from our marriage by promises of big money from her father. Anyway, I was lonely and got involved wi
th someone I had no business getting involved with. She was the widow of a fraternity brother of mine. We were both Kappas involved with the graduate chapter out of Dayton. He died of a heart attack last year, and his widow and I started kicking it a few months after Nessa left me.
“I’d never really been attracted to her before then. She was a little too flashy for me and was about twelve years older. But one thing led to another and before I knew it, I was in deep. I wasn’t even divorced yet and she was planning our wedding. She called me at all hours of the day and night. Kept showing up at my job. Bought me expensive gifts. She really freaked me out. Finally, I broke it off and she started stalking me. It was like that movie Fatal Attraction, only with no rabbit boiling in my pot.” He gave me a weak smile.
“You better keep an eye on those fish,” I said.
He laughed shakily.
“She hasn’t bothered me since I moved here. Now this.”
“I know you don’t want to go to the police, but you may have no choice. You can’t live like this. Has she ever threatened to hurt you physically?”
“No, just hang-up phone calls, love letters. I came out of work one day and my tires were punctured. I don’t have proof, but I’m sure she did it. She’s hinted at committing suicide. But I don’t think she’d ever do it.”
“She must be following me if she knows where I’m living now. When I first moved back here, I was living with my parents, waiting for the financing on this place to go through. She hasn’t bothered me in about two weeks. I thought I was home free, now this. I just hope she doesn’t start bothering you. Damn, this is such a mess.”
I did end up spending the night at Carl’s place. Having been hit over the head with a bottle left me very wary about driving home late at night with a rock-wielding crazy woman on the loose. I decided not to tell Carl about my attack. He had problems of his own. Carl let me have his bed while he slept on the couch. We spent the rest of the evening playing with his PlayStation. Somehow this wasn’t what I had in mind.