Dying in the Dark

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

“She didn't do it!” I said, more loudly than I meant to.

  “I beg your pardon?” It wasn't so much a question as a demand for clarification.

  “She didn't do it!”

  “Do what, kill herself or kill Celia Jones? Every bit of evidence says she did.”

  “There were a few irregularities at the scene that I'll be sharing with Chief DeLorca shortly. They point to the fact that Annette Sampson didn't commit suicide. If she didn't kill herself, then she didn't kill Celia Jones.”

  “So you think somebody else killed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “That .22 had her prints all over it. And that drawing she made of Celia Jones found under her pillow points to her guilt and anger. It was as good as a suicide note.”

  “Someone else could have given her pills mixed with alcohol, placed her fingers on the gun, and planted the drawing of Celia Jones. We both know that what seems is often what's not.”

  He sighed or yawned, I wasn't sure which. “Please don't tell me that you think this has something to do with Drew Sampson.”

  I stood my ground. “Yes, I do, and so does Larry Walton.” I was bending Larry's words a bit, but Griffin could draw his own conclusions once they spoke.

  “Ms. Hayle. This case is on the verge of being closed, and frankly I'm happy as hell that it's off my desk. I don't want it opened up again over bullshit.”

  “This isn't bullshit, believe me. I think you'd better hear what Walton has to say.”

  He didn't say anything for a moment. I didn't know whether he was looking through his calendar or thinking of another way to put me off. “Okay, Monday morning. And it better be early because I have a full schedule.”

  I was supposed to report to Cosey in Short Hills at 10:00 A.M. If I got to the station early, and put things in Griffin's hands, I could still make my appointment without any problem. The truth would out; I was sure of that. I just needed to give it this last little nudge.

  “Yes, early is good for me, too. Will seven o'clock be too early for you?”

  “Seven o'clock in the morning! Make it seven-thirty”

  “Thank you. I think you'll find it will be worth your while.”

  “It better be,” he snapped, then added, “By the way, we picked up the guy who killed Pik.”

  “Pik?” The events of the last twenty-four hours had all but erased Pik and what had happened to him from my mind.

  “Yeah. The Sampson kid's friend. The kid who was stabbed on Wednesday. When you were here before, I mentioned that we knew who killed Cecil Jones, right, and that fate had taken care of it. Well, Pik killed Cecil Jones, and fate definitely took care of his thuggish little butt.”

  “You're saying that Pik killed Celia's boy? I thought they were friends!”

  “Apparently not. You never know with kids. Here's the way we figure it went down. They had beef over that young girl, Cristal. Anyway, it seems like she was Pik's girl until she started tipping on him with that other kid, Cecil Jones.”

  “But wasn't it common knowledge that she was seeing Cecil? She had a child by him.”

  “No. That baby was Pik's. Ever wonder why he called himself Pik? Weird sense of humor, that kid had. He had babies by a couple of different girls. ‘Pik’ was some kind of crude reference to his sexual organ. He was also known for ‘pickin’ people, in other words, stabbing them. And he stabbed that Jones kid right through the heart with his knife, with what he liked to call his pick, as in ice pick. Who the hell knows what motivates these damn kids to do what they do!”

  I recalled Cecil's funeral and Cristal's reaction to Brent Liston and Beanie's stares at her baby. There had been hatred in Brent Liston's eyes and fear in Cristal's. Now it made sense.

  “So Brent Liston killed Pik,” I said, realizing just how fate had taken a hand in things.

  “You got it. Brent Liston apparently loved something in the world more than his miserable life, and that something was his son. So he took his revenge on the kid who murdered him. He stabbed Pik right through the heart like Pik had his boy. I guess we're lucky the girl wasn't there or she'd probably be dead, too. Violence begets violence. It never ends, does it?” Griffin sounded weary.

  “The other kid, the Sampson boy, was lucky, too. No telling what Liston would have done if he'd found him. But after Pik died, we thought he might have had something to do with it, so we kept an eye on him until we had the evidence we needed. His woman put up a fight when we finally picked him up. We thought we'd have to take her down, too.”

  “Beanie?”

  “Was that her name? I knew it was something that started with a ‘B’ but that wouldn't have been my first choice,” he said, chuckling at his own attempt at a joke. “So that's it, Ms. Hayle. Pik killed Cecil Jones, like we suspected, and Cecil Jones's old man killed Pik. He finally admitted it when we questioned him, so that's that.”

  ‘And I guess you'd add that Annette Sampson killed Celia Jones then killed herself, and that ties things up nicely, too, right?”

  “That's what the evidence points to.”

  It didn't tie up for me, though, but I wasn't ready to say it.

  “You will talk to Larry Walton and me on Monday, right?”

  “Yeah, I said I would, didn't I? For what it's worth. Early Monday morning,” he said and hung up.

  I called Larry Walton, and left a message on his machine telling him that I'd spoken to the detective and requested that he meet me at the precinct Monday morning. I apologized for it being so early, and said I hoped that he would understand. I turned on my computer, waited for it to boot up, called up “redlocket” and added some final notes about Cecil Jones, Pik, and Brent Liston.

  It was Friday night, and Jamal was spending the night with a friend, so I decided to take Wyvetta up on her offer for dinner, but she'd already left. I thought about calling Jake to see if he was up for a drink, but changed my mind. If my suspicions about the nature of Jake's relationship with Ramona Covington were true, then he was probably with her. One run-in with Ramona was enough for one week. Finally, I decided to simply head home, maybe stop at the fish fry place on Central Avenue for some fish and coleslaw.

  I grabbed my coat and bag, turned off the lights, set my second-rate burglar alarm, and headed to the rest room on my way out. The building was empty and cold as a tomb, and I shivered as I came out of my office, making a mental note to take up the heating problem with my friend Annie, who owns the place. It was also dark; two of the ceiling lights had burned out. Another matter to take up with Ms. Annie B. Landlady. She'd recently installed a new lock on the ladies’ room door, which locked when it was closed, and I was happy she'd done that. With fried porgies on my mind, I came out of the rest room heading toward the stairs.

  I saw him as the lavatory door closed behind me. He was kneeling in front of my office door. His hat was pulled down low over his face, and the black coat trailed on the floor behind him like a train. He glanced up and around when the door closed, then went back to fiddling with the lock. He wasn't very good at it. It's a cheap lock and any professional with nimble fingers could have jacked it open in a minute flat. I could have done it in two.

  I stopped where I stood, my heart pounding so hard I was afraid he could hear it. He was breaking into my place so he probably had a gun. I was alone in this building. My first impulse was to run back into the rest room, but it was too late for that. I'd have to dig through the junk in my bag to find the key again, and he'd hear me sure as hell. If he saw me standing here, he could rush me, shove me back into the bathroom, then lock the door behind us before I had a chance to get away.

  I could make a run for it, down the hallway, down the stairs, but I'd have to pass him on the way out, and the stairway was long and steep. If I ran too fast, I'd risk breaking my neck on the way down. Or he could give me a shove to make sure I went down faster than I should.

  I stepped back into the shadows and reached for my cell phone, which was on the top of my junk. I'd put 911 on speed dial, and was sure I
could put up a noisy enough struggle for the cops to get here within five or ten minutes. I could fight him off until then. But then came the realization that the damn thing needed to be recharged. I always forget to do it. I cursed my forgetfulness. The man looked up again, as if he sensed my presence, then stopped long enough to glance warily to either side. I stepped deeper into the shadowy corner of the door, thankful for the darkness I'd cursed a moment ago. He started working again. The best I could hope for was that he would manage to open it. When the door opened, it would set the alarm off.

  And then I smelled it, the same scent that had been in my house that night I'd come back from Jake's, that heavy fragrance that I couldn't quite place but I knew was from my past. It was Tabu, Celia's perfume, the heady, cheap fragrance she'd worn as a kid. Along with my memory came her father, who had been a mean-spirited drunk, not like my own, who was loving if irresponsible when he “got in his cups,” as my grandma used to call it, but a mean son of a bitch, who chased his kids out of his house as soon as they had the means and money to go. I never knew what became of her mother.

  He used to tease Celia about that perfume, I remembered that. Made her smell like a backstreet whore, he'd tell her, and Celia would throw back her head and laugh that devil-may-care laugh that said she didn't give a damn what he thought, and that he should go back to hell where he came from. But those hateful words, spoken so often to a daughter who felt no love, had taken their toll. Maybe they were the reason she acted out the role he told her she was destined to play; maybe they were why she'd ended up where she did.

  “Celia!” I said her name without thinking about it; that fragrance and the pain of that memory brought her back. And at that moment, he opened the door, setting off my cheap-ass alarm. It was louder than I'd remembered, startling both me and him, but it was the chance I was looking for. Before he could get his bearings, I pounced on his back like a wildcat, shoving him headfirst through the door and onto the floor of my office. He sprawled out, hitting the floor with a thud, and I jammed my cell phone into the back of his head. Startled by the screech of the alarm and what he took for a gun, he tossed his hands up over his head and screamed.

  “Please don't shoot me! I don't mean no harm. Please don't shoot me!”

  He was the poorest excuse for a thief I'd ever seen in my life.

  “Who are you? And why in the hell are you wearing that perfume?” The smell of Celia's Tabu was overpowering.

  “I'm Aaron. Aaron Dawson. I just wanted to get something that belonged to me. Something that belonged to Celia. Please. Please. I didn't mean you no harm. I loved Celia. I know you were her friend, and I wouldn't do you no harm. I wear the perfume because it reminds me of her.”

  He looked up and I saw he was the man who had been at Cecil Jones's funeral, the one I assumed was a teacher.

  “Keep your head down!” His face hit the floor again and his glasses slipped off his nose, which began to bleed.

  “Don't shoot me!”

  “Keep your face on the floor. Nose first! Keep your hands overhead, straight. The police are on their way,” I said in my tough-girl voice, although I knew the security company hadn't made their call yet to verify that there was a break-in.

  “Please, please, please don't let them take me,” he pleaded. “It would break my mother's heart if I got arrested for something like this. It would kill her! Please don't let them take me.”

  Lying on the floor with his face mashed against it, blood dripping from his nose, he looked pathetic. I shook my head in disgust, more sorry for him than angry.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Trying to get what belonged to Celia. I didn't mean no harm. I thought you'd left.”

  “So you've been watching my office?”

  “Yes. I'm sorry.”

  ‘And you broke into my house?”

  “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just wanted to get it. It was all I had left from her!” Blood from his nose dripped onto the floor when he lifted his head.

  “Put your damn head down! I should shoot you with this gun right now for breaking into my place and scaring the shit out of me, you stupid son of a bitch.” I had a sudden, strong impulse to give him a couple of swift kicks in the butt, but I was taught never to kick a man when he's down, and lessons like that stay with you, so I held myself back. I sure felt like it, though.

  “Please don't shoot. Please. There's been enough killing already. Celia and the boy. Please! I just wanted to get it back. It was all I had left. I gave it to her and I just wanted to get it back,” he cried out.

  “Get what back?”

  “My ring. The ring I gave her. My diamond ring! It belonged to my daddy, and I gave it to Celia. I wanted to get it back.”

  “What made you think I had it?”

  “Because Cecil told me he was coming to see you. He told me you were Celia's friend. He said she was trying to contact you before she died. I knew he had come to see you before he died, and I thought maybe he had left it here with you. Because it belonged to his mama and he'd want it to stay safe.”

  The telephone rang. It was the security company, finally responding to the alarm, about damn time.

  “Close your eyes! Keep your hands above your head, your face on the floor. Or I'll shoot you right now!”

  “Please, please don't let them take me. Please.” I felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to laugh. I stepped over his prone body to the phone and gave the security company my code, then watched Aaron Daw-son sweat for another five minutes or so.

  “So what can you tell me about Celia Jones if I let you go?”

  ‘Anything,” he said, his voice cracking as if he were about to cry. “I'll tell you anything you want to know because I loved that woman more than my own life.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  So for the third time in less than two weeks, I sat across from one of Celia's old lovers bent upon telling me a tale of woe. We were in a crappy luncheonette about a block and a half from my office. I've put in enough time with mean-ass Negroes to know this fool was nobody's threat, but there's always that chance that somebody will flip out and turn ugly when you think you've got them pegged. A mistake like that can cost a woman her life. With that in mind, I brought him to this cafe, which was warm, empty, and reasonably clean. I ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie. Dawson ordered an orange soda. His hands shook when he dropped in the straw. It did my heart good to know I could still throw a scare into somebody.

  It looked like he was dressed in the same clothes he'd worn to the funeral, but he seemed to be the kind of man who would wear the same color and style day in, day out for twenty years and never get tired of it. If I saw him on the street, I never would have pegged him as one of Celia's men. He looked like a mama's boy, if ever there was one, and younger than Celia by about ten years. Maybe that was what she saw in him.

  “Thank you for not giving me to the cops,” he said after we'd sat down. “I don't know what my mother would have done if she'd had to come and bail me out of jail. Listen, I'm sorry about the break-in, about trying to get into your house, I'm sorry—”

  “Don't ever do it again!”

  “I was desperate.”

  “Desperate will get your ass in jail for life. How did you know where I lived?”

  “Celia showed me when we first started going out together. I had my mother's car and we were driving somewhere, and Celia said, turn down this street, then she said, my used-to-be-best-friend lives here.”

  Used-to-he-best-friend. That sounded like her.

  ‘And after all this time you remembered it?”

  “It wasn't all that long ago, and anyway, I remember everything she ever told me about herself. And when Cecil told me she was planning to go to see you before she died, I remembered that, too, and that was why I thought you might have that ring.”

  “Like I told you, the cops have the ring,” I said, eager to get him off the damn ring. “Cecil was wearing it when he died, and his father mu
st have gotten it from the funeral director. He had it on his finger the day the boy was buried.”

  He visibly shuddered, so I added, “I know the cop who is working the case. I'll see if maybe I can help you get it back.” Truth was, that ring belonged to Brent Liston because it belonged to his son, and there was no way he was going to get it back, I was certain of that. But that brought a look of relief from him, and he nodded without saying anything, glancing around the luncheonette as if uneasy. Then he shook his head as if troubling thoughts had entered.

  “I never thought when I met her it would end up like this.”

  “When did you meet her?”

  “Last September.”

  “How?”

  “Night school. I teach a course in computer programming in the adult school they run at night at the high school. Celia liked playing around with computers, and she was trying to get into another line of work. She was always trying to improve herself.”

  I smiled to myself. A love of computers was yet another side of Celia Jones I wouldn't have guessed she had.

  “What did she want to become?”

  “She thought maybe she wanted to be like an executive assistant, you know, somebody who works in a big office. She liked the idea of working around people who dressed nice, people who went out to lunch and did things like that. She wanted to make things better for herself and her son. But there was always something standing in the way, always somebody or something wouldn't leave her alone.”

  “Like who? Drew Sampson?” I volunteered the name.

  He didn't say anything for a moment. “That's Annette's husband, isn't it?”

  “So you know Annette Sampson?” I used the present tense; it was too early in our conversation to let him know she was dead.

  “Yeah,” he looked down, focusing on his soda. “She thought she was the only one who could do Celia any good. I don't think she likes me very much.”

  “Who else wouldn't leave her alone?”

  He thought for a moment, then added, “Somebody was writing her dirty letters. She showed me a couple, and they were so hateful and mean, so disgusting. I couldn't believe that somebody would say those things about her, would write that kind of filth to her. Celia said she didn't know how somebody could hate her so much for nothing.”