by Angela Henry
I told him about Noelle and finding a piece of the manuscript and my theory that the title The Onyx Man could be referring to Harriet’s husband, Blackie, who could have had something to do with Vivianne’s murder. I was happy to see he looked somewhat pleased.
“Allegra told me she told Noelle about the check and Vivianne’s book. I’ll see if I can subpoena the publisher into handing over a copy, but right now I need to make bail arrangements.” He snapped his briefcase shut.
“Carl, we need to talk,” I said, when he still wouldn’t look at me.
“I know, Kendra. It’s just that now’s not the right time.” He walked away, leaving me standing in the empty courtroom.
I was headed to my car and a nice big pancake breakfast when my cell phone rang. It was Greg and he wasn’t happy.
“So, where is she?” he asked, sounding highly fed up.
“Who?” I was still feeling a little off balance from my conversation with Carl, and not really thinking.
“Lynette. Who else? Is she with you?” he asked. I’d forgotten all about Lynette returning from her camping trip that morning. I looked at my watch. It was only nine-thirty.
“No. I haven’t talked to her since last night. But it’s still early, Greg. She’s probably on her way home now.” I’d reached my car and noticed someone had placed a flyer under my windshield wiper. I reached across and grabbed it, intending to throw it away.
“She’d better be. I’ve tried to be patient and give her some space but I don’t know how much more she expects me to put up with.”
“Why don’t I ride out there and hurry her up? Will that make you feel better?” I said to appease him.
“I’d appreciate it, Kendra. I’d do it myself but my parents are here and I don’t want them to know anything is wrong.”
I hung up with Greg and was looking around for a trashcan to the throw away the flyer, when I finally looked at what I was holding. It wasn’t a flyer at all. It was one of Greg and Lynette’s wedding programs. Except Lynette’s face had a big red X through it. I frantically looked in the back of my car and, sure enough, the box was open and the programs were strewn across my backseat. Someone had been in my car. Not only was the box of programs open, but my glove box was hanging open, the contents spilling out onto the floorboard. I turned the program I was holding over and on the back, written in the same red ink, was a message: You have something that I want and I have your friend. Go home. I’ll call at noon. Tell no one or she’s dead! The word dead was underlined so heavily it had almost broken through the paper.
Oh my God!
THIRTEEN
I thought I was going to be sick. I had something someone wanted? What could I possibly have that someone would kidnap Lynette to get? This couldn’t be happening. And after I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down, I’d pretty much convinced myself that it wasn’t. This had to be joke, right? I’d just head on out to the John Bryan Park and check on my friend and hurry her on her way to her fiance’s waiting arms. Yep. That’s just what I’d do. My hands were shaking so badly it took me three tries to get my key in the ignition and start my car.
I flew down the highway, making it to the park in just under ten minutes and wondering how I hadn’t gotten a speeding ticket. Today the parking lot had a few more cars than yesterday. By the end of the day it would most likely be packed since it was the start of the weekend. Lynette’s car was still parked in the same spot and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. I looked through the driver’s-side window. Lynette kept her car spotless and nothing looked amiss. No bloodstains and nothing indicating the car had been searched. All the doors were locked. I headed on back to the campground and spotted the teepee Lynette had rented in the distance. I approached it slowly. I called out her name tentatively.
“Lynette, are you in there?” My voice was hoarse from my dry throat. No sound was coming from inside the teepee.
In one quick fluid motion I lifted the flap and peered inside. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The teepee was empty. No Lynette. No sign of a struggle. But Lynette’s sleeping bag and grocery sacks were sitting neatly inside the teepee’s entrance as though she’d been just about to go. I went back outside on the off chance she was somewhere outside.
“Lynette!” I screamed so loudly she could have heard me back in Willow. No response. Just the sound of birds chirping and a squirrel scrambling up the side of nearby tree. No Lynette. Shit! I walked a few feet from the teepee and called again. Still nothing. I leaned against a tree and buried my face in my hands as tears threatened to spill. What was I going to do? Then I noticed something at my feet. I bent down for a closer look. It was two black and mild cigarette butts. Blackie Randall. Had he been here? Did he have Lynette?
I hurried back to my car and pulled my cell phone out of my purse. I started to call 911 but stopped. The message had said to tell no one or Lynette was dead. The memory of the word dead, underlined in red ink, burned itself into my brain. I quickly put down my phone. I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock, two hours before whoever had Lynette was going to call me. I started up my car and headed for the home of the one person I knew could tell me where Blackie Randall was: His wife... Harriet.
I headed down Troyer Road until I came upon a lone farmhouse with a large barn in back. Vivianne’s farm was the only one around for several miles. I turned into the gravel driveway that led up to the plain, white, two-story, Shaker-style house with green shutters. I didn’t see Harriet’s silver Cadillac. I got out anyway and walked up on the porch and rang the doorbell. I heard it chime through the house. No one came to the door. I got back in my car, intending to wait for her when I remembered what Kurt had said about Vivianne’s will being read that morning. I figured that’s where Harriet was. At the lawyer’s office. If I knew where the office was I could go there and wait for her. Willow had dozens of lawyers. The office could be anywhere, even out of town. I looked at my watch. It was almost twenty after ten. I still had time to track Harriet down. Then I remembered the old woman Harriet visited the nursing home in Park Hurst. Maybe she could help me.
My cell phone rang as I headed to Woodlawn Nursing Home. It was Greg’s number. I didn’t dare answer it. What could I tell him? Sorry Greg, I got your bride-to-be kidnapped because someone thinks I have something they want. And just what was it I was supposed to have anyway? I hope this person didn’t want money. Anyone with eyes could take one look at my raggedy Nova and thrift-store wardrobe and tell I barely had two sticks to rub together. The cell phone stopped ringing and I turned it off.
Woodlawn Nursing Home may have had a beautiful lawn but the inside smelled just like every other nursing home I’d been in. A mixture of disinfectant, food and urine. They must bottle this scent and sell it to nursing homes all over the country to mask the odor of decay and sadness. I walked up to the front desk and stood in front of the surly-looking nurse’s aide, who was filing her nails while watching a small color TV, and who I’m not sure I’d trust a pet with, let alone a family member. She finally looked up at me, annoyed, like I was interrupting something important.
“Can I help you?” she asked, as her eyes reverted to something more interesting on the TV screen.
“I’m Harriet Randall’s niece. I’m her to see my grandma, um, Perkins,” I said quickly thinking back to Rollins’s mention of Harriet’s maiden name. “Can you tell me which room she’s in?”
The woman’s face frowned up like she smelled something bad, though there wasn’t much that smelled worse than parfum de Nursing Home.
“Who?” she asked.
“Mrs. Perkins? Her daughter, my aunt, Harriet Randall, is here all the time visiting.”
“Oh, Mrs. Randall,” she said, finally recognizing the name. “She is here all the time but it’s not to see her mother. And if you’re really her niece you’d have known that wouldn’t you? What are you, a reporter?”
Great. I watched her reach under the counter and press a button. A
big, burly, bald male nurse’s aide rounded the corner. His white uniform strained to contain his muscles and he looked as if he was allergic to smiling.
“You got a problem here, Candy?” he asked, giving me the once-over.
“No big deal,” I said backing away. I already had enough problems. I didn’t need to add broken bones to the mix. “I just got my nursing homes mixed up that’s all. Grandma must be in Sunnyvale across town. Y’all have a nice day.”
I beat it out the door just in time to see Harriet Randall’s Cadillac pull into a parking space. Talk about perfect timing. I marched right up to her as she was slamming her car door shut.
“I want to know where Blackie Randall is hiding, Harriet. I know you know where he is.” I caught her off guard. She looked startled and jerked back like I’d hit her. Her mouth was hanging open and I could tell she was scared. It was the only time I’d seen her at a loss for words.
“Everything okay, Ms. Randall?” yelled the bald nurse’s aide from the doorway.
“Just fine, Cookie,” Harriet replied giving him a friendly wave. Cookie and Candy? I’d rarely seen two less sweet people in all my life.
“Blackie has my friend Lynette and is holding her for ransom. If you don’t tell me where he is I’m calling the police.” I pulled out my cell phone. Harriet looked at me and her eyes narrowed.
“I remember you now. You’re that Clayton woman’s sister. You crashed Vivianne’s funeral. I knew I’d seen you before. If anyone needs to call the police it’s me.”
“Go ahead and call them. Then you can tell them how you killed Vivianne because she wrote a book revealing where your bank-robbing husband has been hiding all these years. Or maybe you killed her because she and Blackie had an affair. Is that how you got those scratches on your neck? Did she fight back?”
Harriet looked dumbfounded. Her fingers flew to her neck. Then she started laughing so hard she had to lean against the hood of her car for support. Somehow I’d imagined this going much differently. I glanced at my watch. It was eleven o’clock.
“Please,” I pleaded. “I really need to know where Blackie is. He has my friend.” Harriet wiped her streaming eyes. “Oh, my. You’re serious aren’t you?”
I nodded instead of speaking, afraid I’d start crying. She was eyeing me strangely, as though she was trying to make up her mind about something, then let out a heavy sigh.
“Go wait for me over by the fountain. I’ll be right back.”
I watched her walk into the nursing home. I walked across the grass and took a seat on one of the wooden benches by the fountain to wait for her. Minutes later, she emerged pushing the same elderly woman with long white hair she’d been visiting before only this time, as she got closer, I could see it wasn’t a woman at all. It was a man.
She parked the wheelchair right in front of me and the elderly man looked at me with blank eyes. He was breathing heavily through the oxygen tube wrapped around his head. Harriet looked around to make sure we were alone. Then made the introduction.
“I’d like to introduce you to my husband, Elgin Randall. Blackie to his friends,” she said in a low whisper.
My mouth fell open, and it was a several long seconds before I could speak. “But, how?” I asked, looking at the frail man in the chair.
“He showed up at the farm five years ago when he found out he was dying. He has emphysema. He’d been homeless and on the streets for fifteen years and didn’t want to die alone. Vivianne and I did the best we could to take care of him, but it got to be too much for us. We weren’t young women anymore,” she said, stroking Blackie’s long hair.
Rollins had said that Blackie Randall resembled actor Ron O’Neal and had pretty hair that women loved. Even though the man in the wheelchair was old and sick, I could still see that he’d once been a very handsome man until all those black and mild cigarettes finally caught up with him.
“Does the nursing home know who he is?” I asked, looking over at the entrance to see Cookie’s large form still standing in the doorway watching us.
“No,” Harriet said sharply. “He’s registered under my late brother’s name, George Perkins. George died when he was three from influenza.”
“So, did he really help rob that bank?” I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know. Harriet’s head jerked up and she glared at me.
“He had no idea what those losers he called his friends were up to that day. They told him to sit in the car and wait while they went in to make a withdrawal. Then they came running out and stuck a gun to his head and told him to drive.” Blackie let out a loud phlegm-filled cough that made his thin frame shudder violently. Harriet rubbed his back until it was over then wiped spittle from his lips.
“I heard they found his blood in the getaway car.”
“Nosebleed. Blackie has high blood pressure and he often gets nosebleeds. “
“What about the money? What did he do with the money?”
“He told me he buried it in the woods. He was too afraid to spend it because he thought the serial numbers would be traced. That’s how they caught those other three idiots.”
“But I thought Vivianne and your husband had an affair. Weren’t you angry with her?”
Harriet shrugged. “They had a lot of history. Vivianne was Blackie’s first love. She broke his heart when she married Cliff Preston. When she came back to Willow to live I could see he hadn’t gotten her out of his system. I thought there might be something going on between them, but I never knew for sure. But I knew he loved me and more importantly he trusted me. After what she did to him, he never trusted Vivianne again.”
“Weren’t you shocked when Kurt told you about them?”
“How’d you know about—”
“Kurt told me,” I said, cutting her off. I glanced at my watch again. It was almost eleven-twenty. Obviously, Blackie Randall didn’t have Lynette. I’d have to be going soon if I was going to be home in time to get that phone call.
“It was a long time ago. My husband is dying. I wasn’t about to rake that ancient history up because of something Kurt said.” It sounded all well and good but the grim expression on Harriet’s face said otherwise.
“So you didn’t kill her?” I persisted. Harriet stood up and towered over me. I shrank back against the bench.
“Despite all of her flaws, I loved Vivianne. She was the closest thing I ever had to a sister. She could be very kind and compassionate. She never purposefully set out to hurt anyone. She was a passionate and impulsive person and that always got her into trouble, especially with men.”
“I think her son would disagree. If she was so wonderful, then why did she lose custody of Kurt?” Harriet made a disgusted noise and sat down next to me.
“Vivianne lost custody of Kurt because Cliff Preston is a monster. He’s not the person everyone thinks he is.” I waited for her to elaborate but she wouldn’t, just sat stone-faced and staring straight ahead.
It was time for me to go, but I had more questions. “Where were you when Vivianne was murdered? I heard you stuck to her like glue at the auditorium.”
“I was in the ladies’ room when I heard the alarm go off. I suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. It was particularly bad that morning.” She rubbed her stomach. I didn’t have time to dwell on the irony of her ailment and pressed on.
“Did you know about Vivianne’s book?” I asked.
“I knew she had some scheme up her sleeve to try and earn some money for Blackie’s nursing-home fees but I didn’t know she’d written a book until after she died.”
“Why didn’t she just start acting again?”
“Because she knew how badly Cliff wanted her to and it was the only way she could think of to get back at him.” Once again I waited for her to elaborate. Once again she wouldn’t.
“Any idea what her book was about?”
Harriet was thoughtful for a moment then replied, “I’m betting it’s a love story. Vivianne always was a sucker for a good love story,” she said and let out
a harsh, humorless laugh.
“Did Vivianne have a computer that could have a copy of her manuscript on it?”
“Are you kidding? Vivianne barely knew how to turn on the TV without a remote, let alone how to use a computer.”
Blackie started coughing again and I took it as my signal to leave.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” I heard her call out to me as I walked away. I looked back and she gestured toward the still coughing Blackie.
“Your secret’s safe,” I said. And I mostly meant that.
Lunchtime traffic was heavy and by the time I pulled up in front of my duplex it was 11:51 a.m. I raced up my steps and heard my phone ringing as I hurried to unlock the door. I flew across the room and grabbed my cordless phone from its stand.
“Hello.” I was so out of breath I could barely get the words out. “Kendra, what’s wrong with you?” It was Mama. Damn!
“I just walked in. I’m expecting an important call, Mama. Can I call you back?”
“And I’m expecting you to help me with the cookout. Everybody’s here, including your sister, who really needs cheering up.”
Damn. I’d forgotten all about the cookout. If I told her I couldn’t come she’d want to know why. My only resort was to lie. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.” I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.
“Whose call are you waiting for? And you better not say Morris Rollins. Mattie Lyons told me some mess about the two of you coming out of the Heritage Arms together. I told her she didn’t hear any such thing ‘cause my granddaughter has better sense than that and—”
I listened to her rant, keeping a sharp eye on the digital clock on my microwave. It was 11:59 a.m. “Mama, we’ll talk about this when I get over there, okay? Love you. Gotta go. Bye.”
I pressed the off button just as clock flashed 12:00. The phone rang in my hand and I was so startled I almost dropped it.