Devil in a Blue Dress

by Walter Mosley

  When I mentioned her name, Cedric not only looked up, but got to his feet. It was like he was a puppet, and my words were the strings that gave him life.

  “What about Etheline?”

  “I think she knew Raymond up in Richmond.”

  “Is that where she is? In Virginia?”

  “No, man. Richmond, California. Etheline told me that she had a picture of Raymond. Did you ever see it?”

  “She had lots of pictures. Lots of ’em. She took snapshots of everybody she knew with that little Brownie camera of hers.”

  Cedric stumbled over to a cluttered desk and sifted around, looking for something. He found a small photograph and handed it to me. It was a picture of him and the young woman that I first saw as a corpse. They were standing side by side, but there was something wrong. I realized that it wasn’t Etheline standing there next to Cedric, but her reflection in a full-length mirror. She was taking the picture with a camera held at waist level in her left hand. They were standing next to each other, and at the same time gazing across a distance into one another’s eyes.

  “That’s some picture,” I said. “She’s good.”

  “She’s real smart,” Cedric agreed. “She’s going be a real magazine photographer one day. And she’s an artist too. This is only half of the picture. After we took this one, she made me take the picture of her with me in the mirror. She has that one in her photo book. I told mama that I wanted to get them both blown up and put ’em on either side of my room. Then it’d be like us lookin’ at each other and takin’ pictures of each other too.”

  “You gonna do that?” I asked, to pull him further out of his shell.

  “Mama didn’t like it. She said it looked wrong to her. I think she’s afraid that I’ll move out or somethin’.”

  “When’s the last time you saw Etheline?” I asked.

  “A week ago today,” he said, as if he were talking about the creation of the world.

  “Where’d you see her?”

  “At the church,” he said, the sadness back in his tone and demeanor. “At the church.”

  “Winter Baptist?”

  “Yes sir. She told me that we should be friends. She had spoken to Reverend Winters and decided to be by herself for a while. She said that, that …”

  “You haven’t seen her since then?”

  “No.”

  “She ever talk to you about Raymond? A little brother with gray eyes and light skin.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he said. “Have you talked to her?”

  I tried to read his eyes, to see if he was crazy or lying or being sincere. But the pain of his broken heart hid the truth from me.

  “Just on the phone,” I said gently. “To ask her if she heard from my friend.”

  The music had been soft during our talk. But now a powerful soprano was professing some deep emotion—love or hate, I couldn’t tell which.

  CELIA BOUGHMAN was leaning over the wire chicken coop when I came out of the house. By the time I’d come up to her, she’d grabbed one of the frantic hens by the throat.

  “Mrs. Boughman?”

  “Yes, son?” She held the chicken up and tested it for plumpness.

  “Has your son been at home all the time for the past week?”

  “Yes he has. Haven’t left his room except to go to the toilet. Haven’t even bathed.”

  “Have you been here all that time?”

  “Except Monday. Monday’s my shoppin’ day. I have Willard, the boy down the street, drive me to the store and I buy all I need till the next week.”

  “How about Sunday?” I asked. “Didn’t you go to church?”

  “No. Cedric was so sad, I felt bad leavin’ him to go to the church that he loved. No. I stayed here and made him dinner.”

  With that she took the chicken by its head and spun the body around like a child’s noisemaker. She grabbed the neck and twisted it until the head came off of the body, and then dropped them both on the ground. The body jumped up and started running in circles. It bumped into my leg and then headed off in the opposite direction.

  “Did Cedric talk to you?” Celia asked pleasantly.

  “Yes he did.”

  “Oh that’s good. Maybe he’s gettin’ over his broken heart.”

  The chicken ran into me again. This time she fell over and lay there on the ground, kicking in the air.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Boughman,” I said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “You want to stay for dinner, Mr. Rawlins? We’re havin’ fried chicken.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I just had chicken the other night.”

  I ENTERED the department store that had become a church at sunset. Two men in dark suits saw me from up near the pulpit. They headed my way.

  “Hold it right there,” one of the men said. If he were standing behind me, I would have worried that there was a rifle aimed at my back.

  The front of the church was half a lot away, so I waited patiently. They were deep brown men with frowns on their faces.

  “Can I help you?” said one of the men. His big belly protruded so far that it created a cavern in the chest area of his suit.

  “Lookin’ for the reverend,” I said.

  “He ain’t here,” the other man said. He had small fleshy bumps all over his face and hands.

  “That’s funny,” I said. “A man over in the office just told me that he was here, gettin’ ready for the Wednesday night meetin’.”

  “Well he ain’t,” Bumpy said.

  “That’s too bad—for him,” I replied.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” the fat man asked.

  “It means that I got a problem in my pocket that he needs to know about. He needs it bad.”

  “What you sayin’, man?”

  “You just tell the minister that Easy Rawlins wants to talk to him about something of paramount concern. I’ll be sittin’ in this chair right here till you get back.”

  Fatso took the message, and Bumpy waited with me. I sat there looking around Winter Baptist. It didn’t feel like a church then, but I knew when the organ started playing and the minister was in his groove that a holy light would shine in. I had friends who didn’t believe in Heaven or its Host, but still they never missed a Sunday sermon at Winter Baptist.

  Birds were chirping from somewhere up around the ceiling. They had come into the church and set up their nests. I thought that the minister probably left them there to make that sacred space seem something like the Garden of Eden.

  “Do I know you?” a gravelly voice asked.

  He had come in from behind me, probably hoping to see if he knew me and my implied threat.

  “No, sir,” I said, rising to my feet. “My name’s Easy Rawlins.”

  “What do you want?” Reverend Winters looked more country than usual that evening. He wore blue jeans and a checkered red work shirt. The brown leather of his shoes was old and worn out. You could see the impression of his baby toes on the outer edges. A pair of shoes like that might have outlasted a marriage.

  “Can we talk privately for a moment, Reverend Winters?”

  The minister made a gesture with his head, and Bumpy started patting me down. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t lay him out either. Bumpy grunted and Winters motioned toward the other side of the room.

  We walked together, under the scrutiny of his private guards.

  “Well?” he asked me. “Let’s get this over with. I got a sermon to deliver in just an hour and a half.”

  Winters wasn’t tall or striking, neither was he delicate or particularly strong. His chin was subpar, and the top of his head was almost large enough to indicate a whole new species of man. His skin had the color and luster of dark honey standing on the windowsill. But it was his voice that set him apart from mortal men. As I said, it was raspy, but it was also rich and commanding. His voice alone made you want to go along with whatever words he was making. It was very disconcerting, but other things bothered me m
ore.

  “Cedric Boughman and Etheline Teaman,” I said.

  That brought the minister up short. He seemed to be studying his own reflection in my eyes.

  “This some kinda blackmail or somethin’?” he whispered.

  “Never did like that word,” I said. “And you don’t have nuthin’ I want, except maybe the truth.”

  “Fuck you.” The words shocked me. For some reason I never expected a man of God to be coarse in that way. But the shock went deeper than that. It was like a slap in my face, making me aware of my situation.

  “Somebody stole somethin’ from Etheline,” I said. “An album of photographs.”

  “How the hell would you know that?”

  “I got my ways, Brother Winters. Believe me. Someone stole her photograph album.”

  “So what?”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Etheline was a prostitute not a month ago,” I said. “She had a regular, a man in your employ name of Cedric Boughman. She also attended your church. She got special instructions from you—in person. Now Cedric is cryin’ in his bedroom and you sendin’ him his salary until he’s fit to come back to work.”

  “This is a Christian institution, Mr. Rawlins. We don’t turn away lost sheep. We don’t persecute a man when he loses someone he cares for.”

  “That sounds good, but it’s a lie. Cedric is either crazy or he don’t even know that Etheline is dead.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” I said. “I don’t know who killed Etheline or why. All I know is that there’s a picture I need to see lost somewhere, and I intend to find it. I will keep on asking questions until I do find it.”

  “Easy,” the minister said. “That’s your Christian name?”

  “Ezekiel.”

  “Good name. Where you from, Ezekiel?”

  “Texas mostly. I was born in Louisiana.”

  “New Orleans?”

  “New Iberia.”

  “Country, huh? Like me.”

  Just that quickly, Winters had gotten the upper hand. If we were boxing, I would have been the tomato can from Podunk, and he would have been Archie Moore.

  “You know country is plain and simple,” the minister said. “A country man does what he does, day in and day out. If the year is good then his wife got a few extra pounds on her. If it’s bad he works a little harder. That’s all.”

  I would have bet that those words were destined for that evening’s sermon.

  “Brother Boughman is in charge of school administration. He’s a good boy, but young. He gave in to temptation. He had congress with the devil, but what he found in that devil’s pit was a lost angel. He talked her into coming to church. Then he talked her into leaving that house of sin. And when she did that, he sent her here to me.”

  “Then you told her to leave him and come to you,” I said. “Then somebody stabbed her in the heart.”

  The minister winced. “I been workin’ hard for more’n eighteen years, Brother Rawlins. Eighteen years on the front lines against Satan and his crew. I work every day, all day. I’ve pulled men out of the bottle and the needle out of young women’s arms. I teach black chirren to love themselves and I give old women a place to feel like they make a difference. I work hard and I get tired sometimes.”

  “Was Etheline a rest stop?” I asked.

  “I loved her.” His voice lost its power. I almost believed him. “She was like a gift from God. At first it was just a physical thing. She had learned how to make men melt and holler. Some days she would come up into my rooms and I’d tell her to leave. But she would push my protests aside and grab hold of my spirit. She would stay with me deep into the night, listenin’ to all the weak things that I could never say to anyone in the congregation. I had to be strong for them, but with her I could let down. I could be that country boy.”

  “Are you married, Reverend Winters?”

  “Yes, son. Yes I am.”

  “So all that love was secret and stolen,” I said. “Dangerous for a man in your position.”

  “What you gettin’ at?”

  “Did she take a snapshot of you, Reverend? Did she have a picture of the two’a you together?”

  “What if she did?”

  “Well,” I said. “Some might say that a picture like that would be like Joshua at Jericho: It could bring down these walls.”

  “And you think I would hurt that girl from fear of somebody findin’ out about us?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time somethin’ like that happened. Did you write to her?”

  He didn’t answer the question, but his face admitted the indiscretion.

  “It’s like I said in the beginning, Reverend Winters. I didn’t know the girl. She’s not my concern. But I need to see that photograph. And I will have it. So if you know where I should look, it might be very helpful to your cause.”

  The minister took a seat then. He looked down at his old comfortable shoes for succor, but even they couldn’t help him.

  “You’re wrong in this, Mr. Rawlins. I had nothing to do with that girl’s death. I loved her. And even though she broke it off with me, I would have never hurt her. Never.”

  “She broke up with you too?”

  He nodded and held his head the same way Cedric had done.

  “When?” I asked.

  “On Sunday, right after service. She left me a note, said that she would only bring me grief, that she had to make a new life where no one knew her and no one could hurt the ones she loved.”

  The minister lowered his head and grieved. I stayed quiet for a minute or two.

  “Did she have any friends other than Cedric?” I asked.

  “My secretary,” Winters whispered. “Lena McCoy. Lena helped Etheline to get on her feet when she came to us. She got her a job at Douglas where her husband works.”

  “If you tell me how to get in touch with her, maybe I can figure this stuff out without causing you grief.”

  “You okay, Reverend Winters?” Bumpy asked. He and the fat man had come to investigate their pastor’s obvious dismay.

  “Okay, Reggie,” Winters said. He stood up to meet his followers. “Mr. Rawlins is gonna need Lena’s phone number. Call her up and tell her to help him all she can.”

  Bumpy didn’t like it, but he was a soldier in the army of the Lord. The commander and chief had spoken, so all he could do was heed and obey.

  ON MY DRIVE HOME I wondered at the sequence of recent events. Etheline broke up with Reverend Winters the same Sunday that she heard from me. If she had read my note first, then it could have been the reason she was getting ready to leave. She wrote to Winters, she called me—maybe she got in touch with somebody else. And if my note was the reason she was burning her bridges, then it could have also been the cause of her death.

  That is, if the minister was telling the truth. There was no way for me to know what Medgar Winters really felt or knew.

  The only thing that I was sure of was that if I had caused that girl’s death, I would make sure that the killer didn’t have a happy ending either.

  JESUS HAD MADE DINNER and eaten with Feather by the time I’d gotten home. He made hamburger patties with tomato soup and baked potatoes. She was asleep and he was in the backyard, under electric light, working on his small boat.

  Moths of all shapes and sizes flitted around in the halo of light. Jesus was working a plane across a plank of wood that he intended for one of the benches of his boat. I came up to him, took the other plank, and began work on it. After forty-five minutes we’d finished leveling the seats. Then we stained and sealed them. No more than a dozen words passed between us in two and a half hours. We had the kind of kinship that didn’t need many words.

  THE NEXT MORNING I made Feather’s lunchbox and drove her to school. She was happy to spend the time with me, and it was joy in my heart to talk to her. She was missing Bonnie, and so was I.
/>   “How come you miss Bonnie, Daddy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Lots of reasons, I guess. Mostly I just like seeing her in the morning. Why do you miss her?”

  “Because,” she said, “because when Bonnie’s home it’s two boys and two girls.”

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  I CALLED LENA MCCOY from the custodians’ bungalow on the lower campus of Sojourner Truth junior high.

  “Hello,” a man’s voice answered.

  “Lena McCoy, please,” I said.

  “Who is this?”

  “Mr. Rawlins.”

  “What do you want with my wife, Mr. Rawlins?”

  “I had a meeting with Reverend Winters yesterday. I asked him some questions that he couldn’t answer, and he suggested I ask Lena.”

  “Do you know what time it is?” Mr. McCoy asked.

  “Yes sir, I do,” I said. “Eight o’clock in the morning, workin’ man’s time. Time to get up and out of the bed. Time to go out and earn that daily bread.”

  “What questions do you have for my wife?”

  “It has to do with church activities, Mr. McCoy. This isn’t any scam. I’m not tryin’ to put somethin’ over on you. I don’t want any money or anything. Just a little information about the church.”

  “Why can’t you—”

  Mr. McCoy cut off what he was saying and mumbled something to someone in the room with him. At one point he raised his voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. I could hear the phone jostling around, and then a woman came on the line.

  “Yes? Who is this?” the woman asked.

  “Lena McCoy?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Easy Rawlins. Reverend Winters—”

  “Oh, oh yes, Mr. Rawlins. Deacon Latrell told me about you. I’d be happy to talk to you, but I’m late for work as it is. Could you meet me at the church later today?”

  “Sure. What time?”

  “How about four? That would be good for me. I have to go with the minister to an interfaith dinner at six.”

  “Four’ll be fine.”

  WHEN I ENTERED the church that afternoon, I ran into a small, elderly man wearing overalls and pushing a broom.

  “Afternoon, brother,” the older custodian hailed.