by Sposs, Mike
Kevin then said to Pat, "The McCanns had so many enemies that the list of suspects could have been a mile long."
"I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. Did you and Willie hatch this plan together?" she asked.
"No we didn't. We never planned any of it. You can ask Willie yourself if you want," Kevin said.
They pulled up to Willie's house. There was already a police squad there. Tammy was there, also. The police answered the front door when Kevin knocked. Sheila and Tammy were sitting on the living room couch behind them. Sheila indicated to the officers that they were friends and he let them in. Pat went right to Sheila and embraced her. Sheila looked glad to see Pat. They sat down and started to talk. Tammy and her worried nieces sat with Kevin. He put his arm around the youngest one and pulled her onto his lap. Tammy had the other one on her lap. They sat in silence for a little bit.
Then Tammy said that Willie himself had called to tell them he was okay and not to worry. He said he would be a little late for supper, but beyond that he was fine. Kevin breathed a sigh of relief. The little girls seemed to take their signals from Tammy and Kevin. They relaxed a little and started to play a little with each other. The officer told Sheila that they would go out to the squad car and watch the house from there. This was their normal procedure when things like this happened. They watched out for their fellow officers; and they kept away reporters, gawkers, and troublemakers.
Kevin asked Tammy about the fire and what it would mean for her. She said in a way it was a blessing. They joked that she would be eligible for unemployment now and that her application for benefits would be fun to fill out. Kevin knew then that she would land on her feet. She said she wanted to go to nursing school anyway and had saved almost enough to pull it off.
Then, Kevin asked Tammy if she knew Andre McCann. She scowled and said, "All the girls hated him. He was so creepy, the way he stared at us all the time. He was one of the managers there. One time, he walked in on me when I was undressing and tried to get me to have sex with him. I thought I was going to get raped until the bouncer came in and distracted him enough for me to get away. I heard he got beaten up yesterday. He didn't come to work. I know that. The other manager said he wouldn't be in to work for at least three weeks."
Willie pulled up in his car finally and had a word with the officers. The girls saw their dad and ran out along with Sheila to see him. Kevin, Patricia, and Tammy watched from the house. "My big brother sure plays it cool" said Tammy with a look of marvel on her face. They let the family have their private moment before emerging from the house. Willie saw them and smiled. He embraced his sister.
"Thanks for stopping by," he said, turning to face Pat and Kevin. Then, he told them that there wasn't much of a story to the shooting. He had brought the prisoner down the elevator in handcuffs. The escorting deputy wasn't paying enough attention and Donnie grabbed Willie's gun. He trained it on the escort. Willie whirled around in time to see what was happening. He shoved Donny as hard as he could into the concrete walls in the basement of the city jail. The escort pulled his gun out and fired as Donny bounced off the wall still in handcuffs with the gun in his hands.
"Everything happened so fast. I didn't have time to do anything but react. Maybe if I had wrapped him up instead of shoving him he would still be alive," said Willie.
"Maybe you would be dead instead of that man," said Sheila.
"She's right, you know. Don't second guess yourself Willie," said Pat.
"There is going to be an investigation. I am off duty as of now. I don't know for how long. I am not the one that shot him, so I shouldn't be in a great deal of trouble," said Willie.
"Do you think anyone is going to come trying to get even with you" asked Tammy.
"Shit no girl! These guys don't have no friends that they have inspired any love in. There ain't a thing to worry about," said Willie. With that he picked up his girls and headed into the house. Pat and Kevin said their goodbyes. Tammy waved to them. Sheila hugged them both.
On the way home, they drove in silence. After a while, Pat said, "Well, I don't suppose Donny's son is going to come after Willie with two broken collarbones."
"Did you hear Tammy talk about him? She said he was a creep and had tried to force himself on her once," Kevin asked.
"I did hear her say that. Maybe, more good will come out of this than we know. If Janet knew what you did, she would personally want to reward you,” said Pat.
"How about you? You're the one I want to be personally rewarded by," said Kevin.
"I just know she has a thing for you just like I do. As for personally rewarding you, I am not so sure. Sometimes, your rage scares me. You really do have to get control of that Kevin," she said.
"I know I do. When it surfaces, it is definitely Old Testament style anger. It has gotten better over time. Let’s just say I have a ways to go. I need to continue the journey," said Kevin.
When they walked into the apartment, Pat took a look at how Kevin had cleaned it out. "Now, it's really starting to hit me. In another few weeks, we are going to be moving on," she said.
"Yes, we are going to blow this popsicle stand very soon. Our school days are coming to a close," said Kevin.
Pat set her stuff down. She called her mother to let her know she was back and things were fine. They talked at length about the trip and how she played. At some point, Hannah asked Pat if she had heard the news about Donnie McCann. Pat told her mom that they had just come from Willie's house and he was okay. Pat said the same thing Willie had said that guys like the McCanns had more enemies than anything else. Their arrests had emboldened people in most cases to fill the void they were going to leave.
That night, they listened to the news and found out that Sam McCann had confessed to the murder of Sylvia Greenberg. He ratted out his brother on the other deaths, including the embalmed fetal remains. Kevin and Pat looked at each other dubiously. "I rather doubt that he didn't have anything to do with those other bodies. His attorney was all over the opportunity Donnie's death created. What a scumbag he is," said Pat.
"Yeah, I bet there are more skeletons in the closet literally than just these bodies. If the sentence is too harsh, the attorney will say his client was forced into confessing for fear of his life. His nephew was assaulted, his garage was burned, his business was blown up, and his brother killed by the police. I suppose he could make a heart-rending appeal based on all that," said Kevin
"He is still going to go away for a lengthy time. I bet Perkins feels pretty good about all this. I can't imagine he is working all that hard to find the perpetrator of all these other crimes, just as nobody worked for years on finding out what happened to Sylvia Greenberg. Until you had a conversation with Matt and crawled around those old houses on English Avenue,” Pat concluded.
36. The Proposal
Three weeks later, early on a Sunday morning, Kevin and Pat stood in front of Pat's house with Kevin's old pickup loaded with a few belongings. Pat was saying goodbye to her mother. She was making a trip to Hilton Head Island via Wilmington, North Carolina. Much had happened in the ensuing three weeks. Pat had gotten her Doctorate, and a job playing for the Houston Symphony starting January 2nd.
Sam McCann had been sentenced and sent to state prison without parole for twenty years. The judge he got did not mince words or dance the dance Sam had hoped for. Sylvia's picture had been plastered all over the paper for a few days. It was the one that showed a beautiful young girl that anyone would have loved to have as a daughter. Perkins’ release of the picture may have swung more weight with the authorities and public opinion than anyone realized.
Matt was in a halfway house. He had even started working as casual labor unloading groceries from incoming trucks into a food warehouse. The labor was hard, but the money was paid in cash by the drivers, and was remarkably good. Sometimes, if he got someone unloaded quickly enough, he would collect a nice tip. He was good enough at it to have the drivers start to seek him out when they came into t
own.
Kevin had the old print he had of Sylvia, Marcy, and him standing in front of the old grocery store blown up and framed. He had previously called Marcy's grandmother, introduced himself and asked if he could drop the picture off. After the sentencing, Perkins had revealed to the Greenbergs some of the story of how it happened that Sylvia Greenberg's case had been reopened and solved. Grandma said that Marcy had been struggling lately with all the events that had happened.
Kevin and Pat approached the house and knocked on the door. Grandma Greenberg was a spry old Jewish woman that spoke with a heavy accent you couldn't help but love. She was sharp and full of energy. She greeted them and called Marcie down out of her room. Marcy was surprised to see Kevin standing in the living room of her house. "Mr. Kelly, what are you doing here?" she asked in that sweet voice that blew Kevin away every time he heard it.
Kevin handed her the picture. "I wanted you to have this," he said. She studied the somewhat grainy picture. "That's me, mom, and you, isn't it? I don't really remember you, but I remember running to the bottom of the stairs. Mom always told me not to go further than the bottom of those stairs," she said smiling at the picture.
"I had that picture for years. When I first saw you in Mr. Sharpe's Math Club, I asked him who you were. I told him you reminded me of someone I knew years before. When he said the name Marcy Greenberg, the connection was instant. You look and sound so much like her," said Kevin.
Kevin continued, "The man that really cracked this open was a homeless guy that saw some of what happened that night. We were having breakfast one morning. I told him about the math club and how that one student Marcy Greenberg reminded me of her mother. I asked him out of the blue what he remembered about the riots. It turned out that he remembered quite a bit."
Kevin continued on, "Remember the good things about your mom. She was kind to everyone. The man that remembered what happened that night; especially remembered her giving him money and food to him when he was at the low point of his life. It just might be that his life was saved when he came forward to tell what he saw that night. She loved you dearly, too. I can tell you that."
Marcie and Grandma Greenberg thanked Kevin and Pat for the picture. Then Kevin and Pat headed out. They were going to make a trip out of this opportunity. They were not going to drive straight through or anything close to that. They were going to stop in Chicago and Wilmington for a day on the way down. They took turns driving and chatted as they drove. Kevin quickly discovered that Pat was as pleasant of a traveler as you could ever want. She only had three needs.
You just had to feed her when she was hungry. Let her go to the bathroom when she said she needed to stop. The third requirement was to let her sleep when she was tired. Kevin thought of the old saying about babies that usually it's only three things that make them fussy. They are wet, tired, or hungry. "You're my baby,” he teased her.
When they crossed into North Carolina, Pat started to get excited. She had talked to her dad several times in the last three weeks. He called her when he got the pictures, like Pat had asked. She called him when she got her job offer. He called her after he had called Hannah the first time. They had established some rapport, but still had much to talk about.
Finally, on the fourth day of the trip, they carefully followed the directions Dwayne had given them and pulled up to his house. It was a small little place on the south end of town. It looked to have been meticulously cared for. They pulled in and Dwayne who must have been waiting for them came outside. Kevin grabbed his camera and took pictures as Pat met her dad for the first time. She stretched out her hands and held his gently. They stood about 18 inches apart. They looked each other over a little. They exchanged a few words, and then they hugged and cried. Kevin was moved by the scene but kept taking pictures. Finally, after about five minutes, both Pat and Dwayne realized he was there too. Introductions were made.
"Mr. Washington, I am so glad to meet you at last," said Kevin as he shook his hand and looked him over.
"I am glad to meet you too, Kevin. Damn, you talk like a Yankee. I just told Pat she was way whiter than I thought she would be. Come to think of it, I could say the same thing to you," he said with a laugh. Kevin genuinely liked the man. He just seemed like a salt of the earth type guy. He was tall and thin with the big calloused hands of a working man. His voice was light and Kevin noticed right away that Pat and he had similar cadences in their voices. You could easily hear that she was his daughter.
He brought them around to the back of the house and sat them down at a big old picnic table. One of the things Kevin liked about the south was how fall and spring were extended compared to the North. This was just such a day. It was sunny and still fall-like despite the fact that it was December. It turned out that Dwayne was an expert BBQ guy. He had a brick grill in the back with hot coals glowing away cooking some pork. As he worked the grill, another man came around the back of the house. Dwayne introduced his brother Clarence to Pat and Kevin.
They got to work on the meal. Clarence and Dwayne had done this before. They didn't even need to talk to each other. They anticipated what each other needed and when it was needed. Kevin was impressed with how they functioned and got along. Pat noticed it, too. The sizzling pork smelled great. Kevin definitely had an appetite. They began to eat voraciously.
Kevin realized that he knew some of the same people these two guys did. So, he started to tell them about his friend Bailey. The brothers laughed as Kevin described how he clumped around on his artificial leg with a woman's nylon on his head, and gave brusque orders to Kevin. Then, they both started talking about their days as labor activists. There were some great stories. It turned out they knew some of the same old Jewish merchants that Kevin remembered from his days as a paperboy. Then, Pat told them the whole saga of the McCanns and what had transpired in the last four months in regards to them. It turned out that they remembered them also.
After everyone had eaten, Pat and her dad went for a long walk at a local park. Kevin wanted them to have as much private time together as they could. He stayed back and helped Clarence clean up. As they worked, they talked. Clarence asked him questions about the places he had been, what he liked and what he didn't like. Clarence told him how Dwayne had called him to say he had heard from his daughter. Dwayne was on cloud nine according to Clarence. Kevin asked about his family. He had two children. So, it turned out that Pat had some cousins after all; two girls in their early twenties.
Kevin told Clarence the story of how he met Pat and how they grew up together. Clarence laughed when Kevin told about being so infatuated with her he never really noticed that she was mixed until Pat told him she was. Clarence conceded that she was way lighter than he had imagined. Then, Kevin told him about how hard it had been for Pat to figure out where she fit in. Clarence observed that Dwayne and him could understand her confusion better than a white mom or white boyfriend dude could. "We lived with all that subtle discrimination you white folks don't know nothing about," he said. Kevin knew it was true.
The shadows were getting long when Pat and Dwayne came back to the house. It appeared they had talked considerably. Patricia and Kevin didn't want to impose on anyone, and didn't know how the visit would go. They had checked into a motel out by the freeway before they came to Dwayne's house, wanting to be sure they had an exit strategy if problems or frictions came up. They made arrangements to meet for breakfast the next morning. Then they went to the motel.
Pat told Kevin that they had talked and covered a lot of ground as they walked off their meal. She was tired and happy, that was what made Kevin happiest of all. They flopped onto the bed and it was instant lights out for both of them. The next morning, they ate breakfast with Dwayne and Clarence and headed for Hilton Head. Pat made some arrangements to stop to see them again and meet her cousins on the way back from Hilton Head. Kevin had offered and Pat had bought into the plan for her to drive back north with the truck. Pat was going to use it to transport her stuff to Houston when s
he headed back down there.
Later that day, they arrived in Hilton Head and met Kevin's mom. Kevin had stopped at the union hall in Savannah and signed in. He got the low down on the boats coming in and the calls being made. The hall was quiet and Kevin knew he would get out easily if he got out before the holidays were over. He was number three on the board. Judging by the runs, Kevin figured he would get the rust bucket to the Mediterranean. Kevin had to admit that his mom had actually blossomed into an entirely different person after his dad died.
Mom had lost weight and smiled a hell of a lot more than she used to. Pat knew her from the old days, but hadn't seen her in five years. She commented about the weight loss, "I get up early every day and walk on the beach. On days when there is no wind, I ride a bike. In the evenings, I do it again. There are a lot of widow ladies here, so I always am getting prodded to do something."
Pat and Kevin kidded her a little about having men friends. She took it with good nature. "I don't want any more men in my life that I have to take care of. I like things just as they are," she said.
Later, as the sun went down, Pat and Kevin went down to the beach. The water was calm and the tide was coming in. Each new wave washed something new ashore. They sat and watched for a while. It was there that Kevin proposed to Pat. He had bought a ring several weeks earlier but just couldn't seem to find the right time or place to present it. He knew he was running out of time and wanted her to be assured of their relationship. As he got down on one knee, Pat saw the ring. Without hesitation, she shook her head no, and started to cry a little.
To Kevin's complete surprise, she rejected the ring. She said she wasn't ready yet, that she wanted to wait. “You told me you would accept it in a heartbeat a month ago,” Kevin said.