Doing It To Death

by Angela Henry

  “You just what?”

  “Didn’t think you were that ambitious. I mean you’ve been here for five years and haven’t been looking for a full-time job in all this time. I thought you liked…um…the variety of working here and for your uncle,” she concluded. But that’s not what she’d meant.

  Lynette had been wrong. It wasn’t that Rhonda was trying to undermine my confidence at all. She simply didn't see me as any kind of competition for Dorothy’s job because she thought I was a lazy slug with no ambition. I should have told her Dorothy was the one who’d suggested I apply for her job, but it didn’t feel right. And until I actually had a recommendation letter in my hand, it was better to just keep it to myself. Besides, for all I knew Dorothy could change her mind.

  “Well, what about you?” I countered dryly, feeling stung. “You said working twenty hours a week was all you could handle. Why do want Dorothy’s job so bad?”

  “That’s none of your business.” She bent her head over the papers she’d been grading when I’d arrived. I was hurt and confused by her tone. What was her problem?

  “So that’s all you have to say?”

  “No,” she said, looking up. “May the best woman win.”

  Three

  Rhonda and I didn’t have anything else to say to each other for the rest of the afternoon and it bothered me a lot. We’d always gotten along so well. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on with her. But I was hardly going to ask her about it again. We were rivals now and I decided if she got the job, as much as I’d hate to leave, I’d be looking for a new position. Having seen a side to her that I didn’t know existed didn’t exactly make me want her for a boss.

  And she was wrong. The reason I’d never looked for a full-time job was because I loved my work at the center and when I’d been hired there’d been talk of a grant that would have enabled Dorothy to give me more hours. But it had fallen through. Instead of searching for a full-time position I may not have enjoyed, I stayed on when I probably should have left after the funding fell through. It wasn’t that I wasn’t ambitious. I was just settled and content. Okay, maybe a little too content.

  I stopped at the store on the way home and picked up a bottle of plum wine, a steak, and some doggie treats for Queenie. When I got back to my car, someone was waiting for me. It was Dibb Bentley. His caddy was parked next to mine and he was leaning against the side of my car blocking the driver side door. A cold hard knot of fear formed in the pit of my stomach. If I’d been fearful when I’d seen his car parked in front of Mama’s house last night, I was now terrified. This man was a convicted murderer fresh out of prison. What did he want with me now?

  “I gave your message to Lewis. Please, quit following me or I’m calling the police.” I tried to sound confident, but my throat had closed, and my voice came out low and breathy. Dibb Bentley hardly looked worried. In fact, he laughed.

  “Aw, don’t be like that, little sister,” he said. “I was across the street getting gas and thought I’d say hi. No harm done.” He held up his hands and backed away. Then hopped into his car and started the engine. “But do me a favor and tell our friend Lewis, I’ll be seeing him again real soon to catch up on old times.” He sped off before I could tell him I was done being his messenger.

  Instead, I got behind the wheel of my car and had to wait for my hands to stop shaking and my heart to stop hammering in my chest before I could drive home.

  Thankfully, I didn’t see Dibb again the rest of the week. And while things with Rhonda were still strained and awkward, we had started talking again. I just made sure not to bring up the subject of Dorothy’s imminent retirement, which had finally shown up in the paper on Friday. I read it as I ate my breakfast that morning. After reading the article, “Long Time Literary Center’s Director to Retire,” the article above it caught my eye: “Woman’s Body Found in Alley.” It wasn’t actually the headline that caught my attention. It was the photo that had accompanied it. It was Brenda, Lewis’s girlfriend.

  Brenda Howard, 58, of Willow was stabbed and killed in the early morning hours of Thursday as she was on her way home after leaving the Quickie Mart on East Grand Avenue. Ms. Howard’s body was discovered in the alley behind the store by a delivery man, around six thirty a.m. Robbery was not believed to be the motive as the victim still had her wallet, jewelry, and the items she purchased from the store.

  The article was followed by a plea for any witnesses with information to contact the authorities and listed a phone number to call. My stomach roiled and I took several slow deep breaths to keep from throwing up. Brenda was dead? Stabbed to death in an alley? It couldn’t have been anyone accept Dibb. Who else would want to kill Brenda, except someone trying to send Lewis a message? What the hell had he left at Lewis’s place that was so damned important? And what was worse, this crazy person knew where I was, which meant I needed to be someplace else. I quickly packed a bag, including Queenie’s food bowl and toys, tossed the dog and my bag in my car and headed back to my own place. The only reason I was staying at Mama’s was because Leonard hadn’t wanted to board Queenie while they were gone, and my landlady, Mrs. Carson, didn’t allow pets. But Queenie was a small dog and fairly quiet. Hiding her shouldn’t be a problem, at least I hoped not.

  I parked my car in the alley behind my duplex so it couldn’t be seen from the street, and lead Queenie around front, happy Mrs. Carson was not sitting on the porch as she usually was. It was perfect timing as it was Friday and she played bingo at the Willow Senior Center every Friday morning. But as I was going up the steps to my front door, I ran into someone coming down. It was Mrs. Carson’s son, Stevie. And he was clearly not happy to see me.

  “What you doin’ here, Kendra?” he asked, looking around nervously. Stevie always looked nervous and with good reason. He was a thief and always had either the police or people he’d stolen from after him, which begged the question: What the hell was he doing coming down the steps from my apartment?

  “No, Stevie,” I said, looking beyond him to my front door. “I live here. What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you was stayin’ at your grandma’s place ’til the end of the month,” he replied, ignoring my question.

  “Well, I’m back now. Get out of my way!” I snapped when he kept getting in my way, purposefully blocking my path.

  “But you ain’t supposed to be here ’til the end of the month. That’s what my mama told me.” His eyes were big and round and guilty. I wondered just how much of my stuff he’d plundered in my absence.

  “As long as I’m still paying rent here I can come and go as I please. Now, get the hell out of my way! And if I find a single thing missing or out of place, I’ll make sure they put your thieving ass under the jail!” Damn, I was getting tired of threatening to call the police on folks. Why couldn’t people just act right? Queenie must have sensed my distress and agitation because she growled and sank her teeth into Stevie’s pant leg. Good girl.

  “Get this mutt off me!” Stevie shook his leg in an attempt to shake off the tenacious beagle and I took the opportunity to run past him to my front door.

  I was in the process of inserting my key in the lock when I heard the unmistakable sound of music coming from inside my apartment. What the hell? Someone was in my apartment. I looked back at Stevie and saw that he’d escaped Queenie’s clutches but she had parked herself in the middle of the steps barking and growling so he couldn’t get past her.

  “What have you done?”

  “You wasn’t supposed to be here,” he said, backing down the steps. “I was just tryin’ to make some extra loot on the side.” Stevie took off running down the street just as I hurriedly turned the key in the lock and let myself in, vowing to put my foot so far up his ass the next time I saw him that he’d be licking my toes.

  I rushed into my living room with Queenie hot on my heels, looking around wildly for the person Stevie had illegally sublet my place to. My living room still looked the same, the onl
y exception was a large duffle bag sitting on my couch stuffed so full I couldn’t lift it. The music I’d heard from outside was coming from my bedroom. When I got to the bedroom I saw that the radio on my CD player was on and set to a local R & B oldies station and was blasting Didn’t I Blow Your Mind by the Delfonics. I turned it off. The bedroom was empty, but the bathroom wasn’t. The door was closed, and I could hear water splashing. Without hesitating, I burst in disrupting the person who was taking a bubble bath in my tub. It was Lewis Watts.

  Lewis was soaking waist deep in peach-scented bubbles with my shower cap perched atop his fat head. His squat barrel chest was covered in greying chest hair and his right hand, which was holding my loofah sponge, froze in mid-air as he was washing his back. We stared at each other as I took in the horror of Lewis Watts in my personal space, touching my things, the things that had touched my body: my soap, my loofah, my shower cap, my tub, my bathroom! I noticed one of my Essence magazines on the floor by the toilet, meaning his wide behind had sat on my toilet! He’d crapped in my toilet!

  “Hey there, Kelly.” Lewis’s hand was still frozen in mid-air.

  I couldn’t speak. All I could do was scream, scream and start throwing things at the man lounging in my tub like it was the most natural thing in the world. I lobbed a roll of toilet paper at him, hitting him in the chest, followed by a bottle of nail polish catching him in the forehead, then the magazine, a can of deodorant, and finally my keys.

  “Ouch! Damn! Ouch! Kelly! Ouch! Calm down!” He’d thrown up his arms to shield himself as the tub quickly filled with the flotsam.

  “Get out! Get out! Get out!” I screamed, at which point Lewis struggled to his feet giving me a full frontal view of his soapy, hairy, naked body. I screamed again and Lewis hastily grabbed a pink towel from the rack next to him—my towel—and wrapped it around him and ran past me into the bedroom and slammed the door. The towel wasn’t nearly wide enough to cover his whole body and the sight of his broad back and bare ass singed its way into my corneas as I pounded on the door.

  “Open this door, now, Lewis!”

  “I ain’t comin’ out ’til you stop acting like a crazy person.” I was a crazy person all right. A crazy person who’d just come home and found Superfly’s jacked-up twin squatting in her apartment. If he thought I was crazy now, just wait until I got my hands on him.

  I got on the floor and looked under the door. But all I could see was Lewis’s crusty bare feet and skinny ankles. The pink towel was on the floor. He was sitting naked on my bed. I shuddered and vowed to burn my bedding. If I didn’t get him out, he’d contaminate my entire apartment, which meant it was time to start using some honey to trap one big ugly fly.

  “Fine,” I said, through gritted teeth. “I’ll be waiting in the living room. Please put some clothes on and come out and tell my why you’re in my apartment.”

  I paced impatiently in the living room for ten minutes until Lewis finally emerged from the bedroom wearing—of all things—my red silk robe. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail using one of my elastic scrunchies, and he reeked of some kind of strong cologne that made my nose run. I suppressed the urge to lunge for his throat and instead took a deep breath and sat down in my rocker, gesturing for him to take a seat on the couch. Once he sat down I leaned forward and practically growled at him.

  “Explain yourself! Now!”

  “See, it’s like this, Kelly. After what happened to Brenda, I just needed a place to lay low and hide out from Dibb, that’s all. And my cat Stevie Carson said he knew of an empty crib I could use. I didn’t know he meant yo crib. But since he said you wasn’t usin’ it right now, I didn’t think there was no harm in it. Please don’t put me out. If Dibb finds me he’ll do the same thing to me that he did to my woman.” A tear welled up in Lewis’s eye.

  I sat back in the rocker and sighed. In all the excitement, I’d completely forgotten about what had happened to poor Brenda. She was dead. And if Dibb could do that to a woman he didn’t even know, what would he do to Lewis? And could I really blame him when I’d run away from Mama’s to get away from the same man?

  “What happened yesterday?”

  “Damned if I know, Kelly,” he said shaking his head. “Brenda said she was goin’ out to get some snacks ’cause we had the munchies, and I fell asleep on the couch. Next thing I know I got cops knockin’ on my door sayin’ Brenda’s dead and they needed to ask me some questions. I had to identify her since she don’t have no other relatives.”

  “Did you tell them about Dibb?” He shook his head no.

  “Why not? They need to know exactly what’s going on, because he’s not going away, Lewis.” I told him about seeing Dibb outside the store and what he’d told me. Lewis’s face went ashen. I reached for the cordless phone on my coffee table and his hand shot out and snatched it.

  “Are you crazy, Kelly? I can’t call the cops on Dibb!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a man, and men handle their business like men, not go snitchin’ to the police like no bitch.”

  “Well it’s awful funny that you have no problem running and hiding like a bitch.”

  “You need to watch yo’ mouth, girl!” he said, jumping up from the couch and looking anything but manly in my silk robe and scrunchie. “I ain’t never put my hands on no woman but there’s always a first time.” Queenie started barking at him and I rolled my eyes.

  “Sit down!”

  He actually continued standing and glaring at me for a full minute, I suspected to show me I couldn’t push him around, then sat slowly back down and crossed his arms indignantly.

  “So, what’s your plan, Mr. Man? Because I’m not looking for a new roommate, and if that big goon says another word to me, I swear I’m making like a snitch and calling the police! As a matter of fact,” I said standing up, “forget this crap! I’m calling them now!”

  “Please, Kelly, damn! Just gimme a chance to figure this shit out! Now, what was that message he told you to give me?”

  “No! Give me that phone!” I lunged for the cordless, still in Lewis’s hand, and he got up and ran into the kitchen. I ran after him and cornered him between the fridge and the backdoor.

  I knew there was no way he’d risk going outside. I thought I had him until he opened my robe and stuck the cordless down the front of his gold silk boxers. Eew! Now, on top of having to have my place fumigated after he left, I’d also have to buy a new phone. I stalked back into the living room and sat back in the rocker. Lewis settled himself warily back down on the couch.

  “Um, what about that message?”

  “I already told you!”

  “But I forgot it.”

  “Fine,” I said, conceding defeat. “He said to tell you that Dibb Bentley’s back and he needs that thing that he left at your place the night Otis Redding died.”

  Lewis looked just as confused as he had when I’d first told him the message. “Well,” he said, slowly letting out a breath. “I guess just need to figure out what it is and give it to him. I just need a couple a days, Kelly, just a couple a days. Promise me you won’t call the cops ’til then.”

  “A couple of days and that’s it, Lewis. I mean it!”

  “Thank you, girl”

  “Do you have any clue what he left at your place?”

  “Are you kiddin’?” His shoulders slumped. “That was damn near thirty years and ten cribs ago. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”

  “You’ve moved that many times?” I couldn’t get my head around that. In my entire twenty-nine years of life, I’d moved exactly three times: from my parent’s house to college, from college back to my parent’s house, and from their house to my duplex.

  “What can I say, Kelly,” he replied smugly. “A lot a ladies wanted a piece of ol’ Lewis and begged me to move in. I had a lot of love nests.”

  “Why was he even at your house in the first place? Were you two friends?”

  “Hell no!” He replied angrily. “
Dibb Bentley’s nothin’ but a murderin’ ass liar, cheat, and a thief! And the only reason he was even at my crib the night Otis died was because he kidnapped me.”

  “Kidnapped you?” Queenie had jumped into my lap and I scratched absently her behind the ears.

  “Damned straight.” I looked at my watch and realized I had about twenty minutes before I had to be at work.

  “Okay, you’ve got five minutes. Let’s hear it.”

  “It all started back in 1973 one hot summer night at Pinky’s bootleg joint,” he began, settling in for a nice long story.

  “Just the Cliff Notes, Lewis. I don’t have time for every little detail.”

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “Dibb Bentley shot and killed Otis Patterson at Pinky’s after Otis made a pass at his woman. Someone called the cops and Dibb hid in the backseat of my car and put a gun to my head and told me to drive. He hid out in my apartment for a week and told me he’d kill me if I told anyone. Then the cops showed up and carted his sorry ass off to jail. He got convicted of manslaughter and got twenty-seven years in prison.”

  “He was at your place for an entire week and you have no idea what he could have left behind?”

  “If I did, I’d be givin’ it to him now wouldn’t I? And besides I was hardly payin’ much attention to anything ’cept that gun he kept stickin’ in my face.”

  “Do you know anyone else who might know what he left behind?”

  “Nobody liked to fuck with Dibb ’cause you couldn’t trust his black ass. He didn’t have no friends.”

  “Well, what about his old girlfriend? She must have trusted him, right? Maybe she knows what he’s talking about.”

  Lewis considered this for a moment before shrugging, “She moved on a long time ago, Kelly. Dibb Bentley’s the last person she’s thinkin’ bout now.”

  “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what he hid at your place,” I insisted.

  “She don’t like to talk about that night Otis died. Hell, she don’t even associate with nobody from back in the day no mo’.”