“Ceylon, you hit the nail right on the head. I’m all at sixes and sevens here. I wanted something horrible to happen to him for so long and now that it has, I feel guilty as hell,” she admitted.
“See? I knew it! Renee, honey, you have no reason to feel guilty, none whatsoever! Get Yolanda on the phone and she will tell you the same thing! He was a bad person and something bad happened to him, but it wasn’t your doing. You weren’t responsible for what happened to Donovan Bailey, not at all!” Ceylon exclaimed indignantly.
“But Ceylon, suppose…just suppose that I was responsible?” Renee whispered.
***
Even her conversation with Ceylon could not rid Renee of a sense of evil about to descend. With the fascination of a rubbernecking bystander at a five-car collision, she kept taking surreptitious glances at the television to get more information about the Donovan Bailey situation. She and Andrew had bid farewell to her parents despite Pearlie Mae’s vociferous objections. It had taken much persuasion to cleave her from her daughter’s side, persuasion that had come in the form of repeated assurances from Renee and Andrew and a final “Get in the car and let Andrew do his job, woman” from John Kemp. Finally, they were on their way and peace of a sort was restored.
That is, if repeated phone calls from every male Cochran and Deveraux could be ignored, along with messages from Ceylon, Yolanda, all of her sisters and everyone who had reason to be close to Renee with the exception of Bennie who was still in the dark about the entire situation. The convergence of Andrew’s brothers did little to calm Renee’s fear, either. They all showed up at Renee’s house in the early evening with an air of conspiracy and confidence that worked Renee’s very last nerve. When she noticed a large bandage on Adam’s hand, a hand that was red and swollen, she felt her stomach lurch
“Adam, honey, what happened to your hand?” she asked in what she fervently hoped was a normal tone of voice. His reply didn’t convey any degree of truth that Renee could discern. “This?” he replied breezily. “Accident at work, that’s all.” And that was all he would say on the subject.
Renee looked at the handsome, intelligent men sitting around her breakfast room swilling icy beer straight from the brown bottles and was torn between rage and abject fear. She was suddenly gripped with a cold, clammy sensation that was not unlike a sudden onset of flu as she toyed with the idea that someone in that very room could have been driven to do something incredibly wrong, dangerous and felonious on her behalf. She quickly excused herself and fled upstairs to quell the wrenching nausea that accompanied the fear. I am losing what is left of my mind. This can’t be happening, Lord. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four…
Upstairs in her bedroom, Renee could barely hear the murmur of voices that was punctuated by laughter every so often. After tossing the meager contents of her stomach into the toilet, she had brushed her teeth three times and tried to gauge how bad her headache was. The implacable black face of the television in her sitting room drew her like a magnet and she succumbed to its lure. She stumbled over to the armoire that housed the monster and flicked it on. Sinking onto her soft gray sofa, she clutched a rose velvet pillow and waited. Sure enough, the screen was filled with the weeping face of the sweet-faced woman unfortunate enough to be married to Donovan Bailey.
.“I-I just can’t understand this,” she wept softly. “Donovan is the gentlest, most loving man in the world. For someone to harm him, well, I…I,” her words trailed off as her tears trickled down her small pinched face.
Miriam Roberson Bailey was the quintessential corporate wife. Pretty, petite, smart and accomplished, she had set her career aside to be the perfect wife and mother of Donovan’s three children, all of whom were pressed close to her now like frightened little ducks. The news crew had superbly staged it to be just what it appeared, a terrified, grieving wife trying to be brave for her frightened, innocent children. The sight of this woebegone little family in the hospital waiting room only compounded Renee’s massive guilt. She was about to turn off the television when the scene switched abruptly to the newsroom.
“This just in: While Donovan Bailey fights for his life in Intensive Care, police report a new development in the case. A woman was seen leaving Bailey’s Southfield apartment just moments before building security was alerted to sounds of gunshots. An eyewitness has come forward and an arrest may be made sooner than anyone previously thought.” The African-American anchor managed to look concerned, informed and satisfied as he delivered this obvious bombshell. “Police at this moment are very close to identifying the woman from the description given by an eyewitness whose presence was not reported previously for obvious reasons. Security on this case has been paramount, due to the celebrity of the victim and the brutality of the attack. We at Channel 8 are pleased to be able to bring you the most accurate and most current updates on this serious situation. More details to follow on the 11:00 news,” he smirked, fairly sizzling with grandeur.
This time, Renee did turn off the television, moving slowly like someone in a trance. She could barely believe what she had just heard. A woman was seen leaving Bailey’s apartment around the time of the shooting. And that was when she had been with Andrew and her mother…had not. For the second time that evening, Renee raced to the bathroom consumed with acute nausea brought on by acute fear. She hated the vomiting, she hated the terror, but most of all at that very moment, she hated herself. What have I done, Lord? And how can I be forgiven?
Chapter Twenty Four
Renee sat quietly in the rocking chair, listening to a Norah Jones CD that was playing softly and deliberately trying to think of nothing. She’d been trying to keep her mind blank for the several hours in which she’d sought refuge at Yolanda’s. After a tense, sleepless night in which she didn’t even confide her fears in Andrew, she had gone to Yolanda’s brownstone like a frightened child running home to its mother. Yolanda, bless her heart, hadn’t even blinked. She, too, had been keeping track of the latest developments in the Donovan Bailey situation and had been more or less expecting Renee, both as a friend and a patient. She made her strong cups of tea, plied her with toast and honey and let her ramble for as long as she needed. Renee was convinced, at this point, that Donovan Bailey was at death’s door because of her. Finally, Yolanda spoke.
“Renee, if wishing bad things would happen to people made them come true, people would be dropping in the street like flies,” Yolanda gently pointed out. “Besides, the man betrayed you, violated you and made it impossible for you to pursue your chosen career at the time you were just getting a toehold in the business. Why wouldn’t you think bad things about him? What were you supposed to do, hope he wins an Emmy, a Peabody and a Pulitzer?”
Yolanda’s gentle irony was just the medicine Renee needed. Impossible as it would have seemed a few hours before, Renee almost smiled. Then the gravity of the situation returned in full force and she turned a somber face to Yolanda. “It’s not just that, Yolanda. Neurotic as I seem to be lately, even I don’t think that I have that kind of power. What I mean is, thanks to me opening my big mouth about this whole situation there were a lot of people gunning for Donovan Bailey. I mean that literally, gunning for the man. When I heard on the news that there was a woman seen, the first person I thought of was my mother. She has a gun, she is apparently not afraid to use it, she wanted him dead and she was right here in Detroit when it happened and I have no way of accounting for her whereabouts,” Renee emphasized.
“And then there’s the matter of Adam and his hand. He says he had an accident at work, which he’s never done in all the time I’ve known him. But remember, Bailey was beaten as well as shot so who’s to say that Andy’s brothers didn’t take a notion to have a good ol’ Detroit style beat down-blanket party and knock the hell out of him?” Renee’s eyes were huge and a dull pewter color from anxiety. “And then, Andrew says his father…” her rapid words were cut off by a wave of Yolanda’s hand.
Yolanda put her right hand into her lon
g braids and shook them rapidly as if to clear her head of Renee’s frantic line of reasoning. “Renee, honey, you’ve got to slow down here. Take a breath! You’re about to drive yourself crazy with all kinds of wild suppositions and fears when you have absolutely no basis in fact for any of this! And let’s drop that business about your ‘big mouth’, okay?” Yolanda leaned forward and grabbed both of Rene’s icily cold hands to make a point. “You were supposed to tell what that man did. Your family, your fiancé, your friends are supposed to care about what happens to you. You have rights here, Renee. You did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong, and neither did anyone who loves you and wanted to see him punished. Wanting a thing doesn’t make it so, remember that,” she said firmly.
Renee squeezed Yolanda’s hands tightly, grateful for their warmth. She looked around the spacious, airy interior of Yolanda’s living room with its Afrocentric décor and multitudes of plants and wished she could absorb the serenity that was evident around her. She knew Yolanda was right, but still… Before she could give voice to the ‘but’ that was hovering on her lips, Yolanda took control again.
“Renee, you keep forgetting that like you, Donovan Bailey has a past as well as a present. You also keep forgetting that there is every chance that there was someone out there who hated Donovan Bailey as much, or more than you and your family and friends. Someone who apparently wanted him hurt, someone who might have wanted him dead. Evil doesn’t exist in a vacuum, Renee; what are the chances that you were the only person he ever hurt? I would guess that Donovan Bailey injured a lot of people in his time and that one of them, or some of them, caught up with him at last,” she said wisely, never breaking eye contact with Renee.
At last the ice that had encased Renee’s insides began to thaw a little. Yolanda was another blessing in her life, Renee thought. After seeing that Renee was calmer and more comfortable, Yolanda suggested that she let Andrew know where she was and just stay there for a few hours while Yolanda went out to run a couple of errands. Renee was so wiped out that she agreed immediately. So now she was just rocking quietly, listening to the soft jazz and trying to stay calm. Over the past few hours her mind had mutated into a frantic gerbil on a wheel—she could actually hear the little squeak, squeak, squeak of tiny feet on a wire surface. Renee glanced down at her lap and widened her eyes. She had indeed been in a spin when she left the house; she was wearing her gray sweats that normally never saw the light of day outside the four walls of her house. True, they were DKNY and fashioned of cotton cashmere but they were sweats, no getting around it. Lord today, worrying about that evil man has made me into a fashion ‘don’t’.
For the first time in a good while, Renee actually laughed. She was laughing at herself to herself which under normal circumstances would not have been indicative of strong mental health, but shoot, she wasn’t retching and she wasn’t sobbing and that was a definite improvement as far as she was concerned. The buzzer by the front door rang to indicate a visitor. Renee made her way downstairs to answer it, feeling less than thrilled about her makeup-less, ultra casual appearance.
“Who is it?” she asked with more insouciance than she felt.
“It’s me, honey, Andrew,” he answered. Renee wasted no time in flinging open the door to greet him. Andrew, of course, noticed nothing amiss with her appearance; she always looked good to him. And he was bringing her good news, to boot. After a deep, hot kiss he walked her over to the sofa and sat her down. “Renee, they’ve made an arrest in the Donovan Bailey case. There really was a woman leaving the scene and the eyewitness identified her. It was Dana Pierson.”
***
Some hours later, Renee was in a place she couldn’t have conceived of a few hours ago. She was warm and cozy in her own bedroom, recently bathed in a bubbly tub full of Annick Goutal, clad in a feminine, sheerly pink peignoir and completely relaxed while digesting the remains of a fabulous dinner. And she was thoroughly relaxed, both from the excellent wine Andrew had insisted she drink and from the disappearance of the mighty weight she’d been carrying. All she was now was curious, which she freely admitted to Andrew.
“Okay, but this is the last time we are going over this,” Andrew said amiably. “Dana met Donovan Bailey on several occasions while she was in Europe. He’d offered her a job on the new cable network, on the strength of his alliance with Donnie and Clay. Now once he was back here in the States, they hooked up to finalize the details of what she felt was a new position on the ground floor of this new network.” Andrew paused in his recital to take another sip of wine, which earned him a stern look from Renee. “Okay, okay,” Andrew sighed and resumed speaking, although his eyes were closed now. Renee looked much too tempting in that gown and he wanted to get this over with so he could get on to other things.
“Well, Bailey’s family went to Maryland where his wife is from to wait until the final outcome of his supposed lawsuit against us. Bailey stayed here in this apartment that he’d rented during the negotiations, before any of us knew what a crust bucket he is.” Andrew yawned, but rallied on with his tale. “So, our little Dana, who had her own reasons for wanting to be in Detroit, took it upon herself to pay him a visit. That visit led to an encounter like the one you had with him in Pittsburgh, which led to her vowing to light him up, to the extent that she procured a gun, went back to his place and popped a cap in his ass. End of story,” he finished with a hopeful leer on his face.
“Are you satisfied now, baby? Can we discuss some more important issues?” he growled as he pulled her closer to his hot, waiting body. To his utter disappointment, Renee was not quite ready to let go of it.
“But Andy, she couldn’t have beaten him like that! That was the work of some big men or at least one man. Are you saying she arranged for that, too?”
Andrew ground his teeth in frustration and sat up. Renee wasn’t going to be happy until she had every single detail. “Well, now, that’s where it gets kinda surreal,” he admitted. “The beating was a contract job. Someone who had good reason to punish Bailey severely arranged for some wiseguys to beat him within an inch of his life. Hard as it is to believe, there are people who will maim for hire if you know where to look, and this person knew exactly which rocks to turn over, apparently,” he said ruefully.
Something in his voice made Renee sit bolt upright and stare worriedly at him. “Andy is this hat you meant about your father back in the day?” she said breathlessly. Andrew raised his eyebrows comically and then lowered them. “Well, yes and no. It appears that there were two ass-kickings scheduled for Donovan Bailey. One was sanctioned by someone who’s old enough to know better, and the other one was arranged by none other than Miriam Roberson Bailey,” he said slowly, waiting for the name to sink into Renee’s consciousness. “Her team just happened to get to him first.”
“His wife? His wife hired someone to beat up her own husband?” Renee exclaimed incredulously. “Why in the world would she do that? I thought she worshiped the man! And how in the heck did you find out all this, anyway? None of this has come out in the news,” she pointed out.
Andrew looked into Renee’s beloved face. She was relaxed, animated and totally sexy. He sighed. He was completely in love with her and would be until the day he died, but if she did not shut up he was going to have to shut her up the best way he knew. “You remember Titus Argonne, the detective Martin hired? Well, he’s still being retained on the case. He has some friends on the police force here and he called in a few favors. So that’s how I got the dirt. Now, as to his wife, she’s no fool. She knew the way women know these things that Bailey is a dog, player, whatever. Whatever. What she didn’t know was the lengths to which he would go/had gone to satisfy his need to…well, you know,” Andrew said gesturing broadly with one hand.
“She’d laid the law down to him to the extent that if she even heard about him creeping out on her one more time he was going to regret it. And Dana, oh boy, Dana doesn’t miss a trick. In addition to blowing a hole in Bailey, Dana informed his wife just
what he’d done to her. And when Miriam Bailey got that news, she went ballistic. Turns out her daddy had some connections from back in the day. He’s a liquor distributor near D.C. and he knows everybody on the east coast no matter which side of the law they’re on. So, she got the hook up, greased a few palms and got pretty boy beat within an inch of his life.
“Of course, she had no idea that Dana was going to shoot him, and Dana had no idea that Miriam was going to have him dealt with. So that’s one of the reasons that Miriam just fell to pieces over this thing, she really was scared she was going to lose him as well as scared she was going to get fingered.”
It was all a bit much for Renee to take in. She fell back against the softly patterned pillows piled at the headboard and draped a dark, lissome arm over her head. “Scared she was going to lose him,” she mused. “Well, I guess she wouldn’t want him dead, after all, but why in the world would you want to stay married to a creature like that?”
Andrew lay down on his side and stared at Renee, who had no idea how desirable and desired she was at that moment. “Love makes you do strange things, I guess. It knocked me out flat the first time I laid eyes on you and it continues to lead me around by the nose every day of my life,” he said sweetly. “I know all about love,” he continued as he pulled Renee out of her reverie and into his arms where she belonged. “I know about wanting to be with someone twenty-four hours a day, about wanting to hear their voice, smell their scent, feel their warmth and tenderness, being lonely even if they’re only in the next room. I know about someone having only to smile at you knowing in that instant that you’ll belong to them until the end of time.”
Until the End of Time Page 30