Kendra Clayton Mystery Box Set

by Angela Henry

  “Ah, yes, Harriet. No one can accuse you of beating around the bush, Kendra,” he said drily. I stopped chopping and stared at him until he answered me.

  “I’ve known Harriet Randall since I was a kid. Her family lived next door to mine and sometimes she’d babysit me and my brother. I knew her husband Blackie for longer than that.”

  “Blackie?”

  “Elgin ‘Blackie’ Randall. He was quite a character,” Rollins said, chuckling.

  “Why’d they call him Blackie?” I asked, thinking about the title to Vivianne’s book, The Onyx Man. Could The Onyx Man refer to Vivianne’s old love, Blackie Randall?

  “Well, it wasn’t because he was a dark-skinned man. In fact, he sort of put you in mind of Ron O’Neil, that actor who played Super Fly, even had that pretty hair women seem to love so much. He was one of the flashiest cats I’ve ever known. He got his nickname ‘Blackie’ because he was addicted to black and mild cigarettes. I don’t think I ever saw him without one pinched between those long fingers of his.”

  “Was he a friend of the family?”

  Rollins chuckled again. “Let’s just say my mother, like a lot of women, had a thing for Blackie Randall, even though she was a good twenty years older than him.”

  “Was the feeling mutual?” I asked, handing him a can of tomato paste to open.

  “No. I think he thought of my mother as the big sister he never had. Blackie would show up at our place whenever he wanted a home-cooked meal, or when he needed a little bit of pocket change to buy cigarettes and liquor. But the only woman I’ve ever known him to be head over heels in love with was Annie Burns.”

  “Annie Burns? Oh, you mean Vivianne.” I suddenly remembered that was her birth name.

  “They were supposed to get married, but Vivianne went off to Los Angeles about a week before the wedding. Told everybody she was visiting relatives. Turns out she’d hooked up with a talent agent—”

  “Cliff Preston?” I asked, interrupting him. He nodded in agreement and continued.

  “She never came back. Blackie even borrowed money from my mother to fly out to California to beg her to come back to Willow. No such luck. She convinced him to stay out there with her for a while but they never did get married.”

  “Why?”

  “Two reasons, the main one being that Vivianne was running around on him with Cliff Preston. And secondly, men like Blackie don’t do well in big cities. As long as he was a big fish in a little pond like Willow he was fine. But in a city like L.A.,” Rollins said, shaking his head, “he was a hick from the sticks.”

  “How’d he end up with Harriet?” The short, squat, sour-faced woman was a far cry from Vivianne and her stunning beauty.

  “Blackie lost his step after he came back from California. Started drinking heavily. Getting into bar fights. Harriet Perkins was Vivianne’s best friend. But she’d been in love with Blackie herself all along. I think she was the one who encouraged Vivianne to go out to California to seek her fame and fortune. Once Blackie came home alone, Harriet saw her chance. She became Blackie’s rock. Got him clean and sober. Even got him into church. Blackie ended up marrying Harriet, though I don’t think he loved her the way he loved Vivianne.”

  “When did Vivianne come back into the picture?”

  “Late seventies. She was in her mid forties and by then her career and marriage were over. Her parents were long dead and had left her the family farm. I don’t think Harriet was very happy when her ex-best friend moved back home. She kept her distance at first, but Vivianne was determined to be friends with Harriet and Blackie again, especially Blackie. Then things got bad for the Randalls.”

  “You mean the bank robbery?”

  “Exactly. Blackie never had a real job in his life. He used to tend bar at an after-hours bootleg joint but that couldn’t have paid much. Besides that, I can only imagine where he got the rest of his money from.”

  “I bet it wasn’t from anything legal,” I added, stirring the spaghetti sauce. Rollins laughed.

  “Once he married Harriet, she wouldn’t let him run the streets anymore. Eventually he got a job as an orderly at Willow Memorial making minimum wage. Harriet was mainly supporting them on her salary from her job at Bank Ohio. But Blackie had the streets in his blood. After years of being married to Harriet and never having much money, he hooked up with some of his old running buddies. He was a middle-aged man when the still-beautiful Vivianne, who he probably never stopped loving, moved back to town. I think hooking back up with his old friends made him feel young again, like when he and Vivianne were still together.”

  “Were they the ones he robbed the bank with?”

  “Blackie was definitely there when that bank got robbed. But his involvement has always been open to debate.”

  “How so?”

  “I have a hard time imagining Blackie willingly being a part of robbing the bank his wife worked at. I’ve always wondered if he even knew what was going down that day. I think he drove his friends to the bank not knowing they were going to rob it. A whole lot of people say they saw him sitting in his car in front of the bank that day looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.”

  “No one actually saw him in the bank?”

  “It didn’t matter whether he was in the bank or not. He still drove the getaway car. That made him an accomplice.”

  “I know he got away, but did they catch the others?”

  “Eventually. It took them a while to track them all down. But they never found Blackie, just his abandoned car with some blood smears that matched his blood type. People think he may have been killed by the others to keep him quiet.”

  “What happened to Harriet after that?”

  “Poor Harriet. Life got really hard for her. First she kept getting dragged down to the police station and questioned for hours on end because they thought she was in on the robbery. She was absent from work that day and that looked really bad for her. Then the bank fired her. She couldn’t get another job and couldn’t pay her bills. She lost the little house she and Blackie owned. And to make matters worse, some people in the community shunned her. She changed after that. She wasn’t always the hard, aggressive woman she is today. Luckily, Vivianne offered her a job as her assistant, though to be honest, since she was no longer acting, I have no idea what exactly Harriet assisted her with and where Vivianne got the money to pay her.”

  “And no one ever saw Blackie Randall again?”

  “Nope. There were rumors that he had been spotted as far away as Canada. The three friends of his who actually robbed the bank never admitted to killing him and would never say why his blood was in the car. They served their time for the robbery and got out of prison. Two have since died and the third one killed some guy up in Cleveland and is back in prison for life this time. I don’t think Harriet ever gave up hope that Blackie would come home one day.”

  I drained the spaghetti and wondered if Vivianne’s book, The Onyx Man, was about Blackie Randall and the bank robbery. Did Vivianne find out Blackie was alive and reveal in her book where he’d been hiding for the past twenty years? Could Harriet have killed her friend for being about to reveal her husband’s hiding place? Or could Blackie Randall have found out about the book and emerged from hiding to kill Vivianne himself?

  I put Rollins to work chopping vegetables for the salad. Our fingers touched as I handed him a head of lettuce. The warmth of his fingers made me feel flustered and I quickly turned back to the stove where my sauce was bubbling away, filling the kitchen with its aroma.

  He walked up behind me and looked over my shoulder into the sauce pot. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. “I don’t know which smells better—you or the sauce,” he said in a low voice that sent a delicious shiver down my spine. I wiped a trickle of sweat from my brow. I was suddenly hot and it wasn’t from the heat of the stove.

  “Is Inez home? Will she be joining us for dinner?” I asked hopefully.

  He gave my neck a quick feather-light kiss
before answering. “Inez is so busy since her new beauty shop opened that I barely see her.” He poured us each a glass of wine. I took a big gulp.

  “You can relax, Kendra. I don’t bite. We’re just two friends enjoying each other’s company. Nothing wrong in that, is there?”

  Yeah, right. He sounded sincere enough, but there was definitely something in his eyes that said otherwise.

  “Not everyone would agree with that assessment,” I said, and filled him in on the rumor that was currently floating around town about us, at which point Rollins threw back his head and howled with laughter. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen him laugh so hard. I was starting to get a little offended.

  “That sure explains a lot,” he said, after he’d calmed down. “Some of the church sisters were giving me mighty strange looks when I ran into them today. I couldn’t figure out why. Guess I know now.” He chuckled, taking a sip of wine.

  “I sure hope your lady friend doesn’t believe it. Maybe you should call her and explain,” I said drily.

  “What lady friend?” he asked, looked genuinely confused.

  “Winette Barlow. I heard the two of you are an item now.” I fixed two heaping plates of spaghetti and followed him to the kitchen table.

  “You heard this from the same people who are currently spreading the rumor about us, right?” I felt foolish and didn’t answer. He started laughing again. “Kendra Clayton, what am I going to do with you?” I still didn’t answer. But I could fantasize.

  Two hours later, after we’d eaten the spaghetti, salad and big slices of the chocolate cake I’d brought and had done the dinner dishes together, Rollins walked me to my car and managed to turn an innocent kiss on the forehead into an erotic experience by letting his warm mouth linger seconds longer than was necessary. It was definitely time for me to go. But I had one last question.

  “What do you think happened to Blackie Randall? Do you think he’s dead?” I asked. Rollins thought for a moment before answering.

  “I have no idea what happened to him. But there is one interesting fact that points to him being alive,” he said, holding my car door open for me.

  “And that would be?”

  “There were four men involved in that robbery. The police only recovered three-fourths of the money that got stolen. There’s still a fourth of that money that’s never been found or accounted for.

  “Calm down, Greg. It’s going to he okay,” I told my best friend’s fiancé. Greg had shown up at my front door first thing that morning babbling about Justine threatening to cancel the wedding. He hadn’t shaved and was dressed in a wrinkled tank top and sweatpants. I hadn’t slept well the night before and couldn’t fully focus on what he was saying. I was trying hard to get him to talk quietly because Allegra had gotten in late and was still sound asleep on the couch. But he was much too upset to care about waking up Sleeping Beauty. I finally led him past Allegra’s slumbering form back to my kitchen and made us a strong pot of coffee.

  “Can she do that?” he said angrily. “Cancel our wedding, I mean? Lynette and I paid for most of the wedding. How can Justine cancel it?” He looked so lost and upset that I wasn’t sure who I was madder at: Justine, for making a bad situation worse, or Lynette for running away in the first place.

  “She’s just blowing smoke out her ass, Greg. Don’t worry about Justine. We need to focus on finding Lynette. Have you heard from her at all since that first call?”

  “No. Not a word and I’m really getting worried. You don’t think something has happened to her, do you?”

  “I don’t know, Greg. I would have thought she’d have been home by now.” I took another bracing sip of coffee and tried to shake the cobwebs from my mind.

  “You think we should call the police?”

  “I’d say if she’s not back by the end of the day then, yes, we should call the police.” He sighed heavily and buried his face in his hands. Then something must have occurred to him because his hands fell away from his face and he looked panic-stricken.

  “Kendra, if I ask you something will you tell me the truth?” “Of course.” I had a feeling I knew what he was going to ask.

  “There’s not another man is there? When you saw her at the Heritage Arms she was alone, wasn’t she?”

  “Of course she was alone, Greg. There is no one but you. Lynette loves you.” Finally—a question I could answer truthfully.

  After Greg left, I got dressed, and headed out to run errands and, at Greg’s request, pick up things for a wedding that might not even happen. Allegra was still asleep when I left, making me wonder where she’d been last night and if it was with Carl. Not that I had a right to be too upset since I’d spent my evening with another man. Carl and I hadn’t been spending much time together lately, and for some reason it wasn’t bothering me nearly as much as it should have.

  By the time I arrived at Garrison’s Print and Copy Shop it had started to drizzle. I dodged raindrops as I headed inside to pick up Greg and Lynette’s wedding programs. I walked up to the counter and had to wait a few minutes while the skinny woman with frizzy gray hair manning the counter finished a phone conversation before coming to the counter to greet me.

  “I’ve come to pick up the order for Lynette Martin- Gaines. It’s for wedding programs.”

  “Yes. I was wondering if someone was going to pick up that order. It’s been ready since Monday,” she said mildly and then turned to the wall of shelving behind her. The shelves were filled with boxes of printing to be picked up. She scanned the boxes until she came upon a white one and brought it to the counter. She told me the price and I handed her the cash without asking to see the programs first. Big mistake.

  “Here you go,” she said and slid the box across the counter. “Have a nice day.” The phone rang again and she hurried off to answer it.

  I opened the lid of the box to look at the programs. Greg and Lynette smiled up at me from their engagement picture printed on the cover of the cream-colored program. Gold lettering beneath the picture listed the date of the wedding and underneath that larger gold lettering declared, Grog & Lynette Forever. Huh? I flipped though the stack of programs and sure enough, Grog & Lynette Forever was printed on each and every one. Oh, no.

  “Excuse me,” 1 said loudly to the woman behind the counter, who was still on the phone. I could tell by the way she was smiling and laughing that it wasn’t business- related. She turned and looked at me as though she’d never seen me before and I waved a program at her.

  “There’s a typo on these,” I said, pointing at the offending O in Greg’s name. This should be Greg not Grog” I said, as she approached the counter. She pulled a pair of spectacles from her pants pocket, perched them on the end of her nose, and squinted at the programs.

  “Yeah, that’s a mistake all right.” She checked the copy of the order form taped to the top of the box, which indeed confirmed that it should be Greg and not Grog. “Sorry about the mistake ma’am. I’ll redo these personally and you can pick them up next Monday.”

  “Next Monday? The wedding is this Saturday,” I said, my voice rising to a high-pitched shriek. I gestured to the date on the front of the program. “I need these redone today.”

  “Today? Nope. Not possible,” she said shaking her head vigorously. “If you’d have come in on Monday when they were ready then maybe I could have redone them this week. But I’m the only one here today and I’m swamped.”

  “But it’s your mistake and it’s not my fault you’re swamped. Is the manager in?” I asked, looking past her.

  “I’m the manager and owner, young lady,” she said, gesturing to the name tag that read Patsy Garrison/Owner pinned to the front of her denim smock, “and I don’t appreciate your tone.” She leaned forward menacingly against the counter and I caught a whiff of her onion-and coffee-scented breath. I took a step back before it melted my face.

  “And I don’t appreciate the fact that these programs have been paid for and there’s a typo in them. I demand the
y be redone today or I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what?” she said, straightening up and crossing her arms over her bony chest. “What can you possibly do?”

  “Picket! I’ll stand in front of this shop all day if I have to and make sure everyone who comes in here today knows you do crappy work.”

  “Go ahead. If you want to stand outside in the rain like a fool, you go right ahead. That still don’t change the fact that I don’t have time to redo these programs today.” She turned her back on me.

  I turned and looked outside to see that the light drizzle had turned into pouring rain. Standing outside in that downpour was not my idea of a good time.

  “Look, ma’am, isn’t there any way you could redo these programs today? It’s really important,” I pleaded. 1 even tried to wring out a few tears but they wouldn’t come. Not that she’d have noticed anyway as she continued to ignored me, instead giving me a view of her flat polyester-encased ass as she bent over a box on the floor.

  “I’ll pay extra,” I said finally. That got her attention and she turned to smirk at me. “No need, young lady. I have something else in mind.

  Instead of paying extra for a rush job on the corrected programs, I ended up spending the next two hours dressed in a denim smock helping Patsy Garrison work through her backlog of printing jobs. Before she got busy redoing the programs, she showed me how to run two of the large, complicated-looking copiers and left me several boxes of resumes, flyers and brochures to copy on various types and textures of colored paper.

  The resumes and flyers were easy enough and I got them copied and out of the way in no time flat. But the brochures were giving me fits. The copier that did two-sided copying was out of order, which meant I had to manually flip the copies over to the other side in the paper tray once one side had been finished. The first time I did it the print on the flip-side of the brochures was upside down. I was in such a hurry to get done that I failed to test one to makes sure it came out right side up.

  I ended up ruining two hundred and fifty brochures for the Venus De Milo Day Spa and discreetly pitched them in the recycling bin before Patsy could see what I’d done and punish me by breathing her dragon breath in my face. By the time I finally got them to come out right, which took three tries, I was highly annoyed and almost in tears. Wedding jitters or not, Lynette had now moved to the top of my shit list.