One month past his arrest, Jaylyn Stewart became an even bigger Black boogeyman. His dark face, dreadlocks, and arrest record replayed so often I barely had to look for them. I easily found an article that listed his seizure at a building address where I hoped to find his old door.
A month was long enough for any media stampede to have died down here. The small building crowd wasn’t on guard. I always had the benefit to blend easily into Harlem, if not on that particular block but into the little city unto itself. I wore sunglasses and a lime-green headwrap. I carried a faux Louis Vuitton tote from Chinatown, standard, although I saw girls far younger than me keep it official. The weather was broken. Uggs were now unnecessary. I slipped on sneakers. I hardly looked like a cop seeking a Black boogeyman, or a reporter seeking a story, or a sister seeking her sister’s kidnapper. Rapist. Maybe more.
I reached into my bag for a stack of FIND SUMMER SPENCER flyers. I gave my best “How y’all doing?” in a country twang. The accent got me further here than it ever could back home. After slight acknowledgement and bare pleasantries, I got to the point.
“I just wanted to ask y’all a favor. I’m looking for someone, and maybe one of you can help.” I spared five flyers for the small crowd.
A man took one of my notices. He blew smoke in my face, and rubbed his bald crown framed by locks. He stated the obvious: “Look kinda like you, ma.”
The raucousness I found so charming in Harlemnites ensued, to wash the moment of the solemnity I intended. But of course, it could all seem like one big joke. I smiled.
“Yes, she’s my twin sister. Some slight differences between us, though.”
“Well, now that we seen you, we know exactly what to be looking for,” a senior lady theorized. She scratched at her scalp with a cigarette in her hands, and out of practice she missed scraping her bandana with the cherry. “Why you lookin’ in Harlem?”
“We live here,” I said. “Together. Well, until she disappeared a few months past. I did the standard report. There’s been some investigating. But, not much.”
They had the usual questions: “Word?” “Police ain’t done shit?” “Why we ain’t heard nothin’ bout this?” “You sure you know all her people?” And they gave their own answers: “You know chick gotta be rich in Harlem for these cops to care.” “They’ll wait till she turn up dead ’fore we know anything about it.” “You gotta watch who you let in yo house, ma.”
“Summer Spencer,” said the balding dready, whom I assumed to be the leader of the pack. “And you are?”
“Oh, forgive me for not introducing myself. I’m Autumn.”
Their chuckles razed any legitimacy I had been going for. Not sure what to do, I simply laughed along. I must have gotten a contact high. The sun, the smoke, the walk, the strange faces, all the raspy and squealing fanfare. The block began to carousel around me, or I around it. I wasn’t sure.
“We not laughing at you, miss,” a younger boy said. “It’s just, damn . . . yo.”
A few more agreed with him. Yes, this was fucked-up.
“Well, bless your little heart, girlfriend,” said Miss Cigarette. “And you know we will call. I see your number, right here. I’m gonna keep your flyer.”
“Sit down,” said one woman minding a pan of peas and rice. “Eat with us.”
“No, no,” I said. “Thank you. I’m trying to get a lot of flyers out today.”
“You all by yourself?” asked Miss Cigarette, scowling. “Ain’t nobody out here with you looking for her?”
“Yes,” I said. “And, no. Well, some. But people lose hope, you know?”
I slipped away from their murmurs of reassurance and solidarity. I gathered I inspired a conversation on their hood from long ago, before I was here, when the girls and women and mothers and wives never came back home even then. As they involved themselves in urban legends and tall tales, I inched discreetly up the tall stoop with the flyers and Scotch tape. I had a presumed sincere purpose, but also motive. I waited for a person to exit. I didn’t have to wait long. The entrance lock was broken.
Fortunately, Summer and I were resourceful enough to spare ourselves residency in buildings not yet squalid, but ominous nonetheless. This lobby led to a courtyard packed with dumpsters. Mustard-yellow lighting revealed an ornate ceiling and black-scuffed floor men worked hard to create. Desiccated vermin have an odor that wins over incense smoke every time. So does piss. Cornered plants had long died, leaving weak sticks and hard soil in dirty clay pots. My every shuffle echoed.
I could walk down two different hallways, and staircases at both their ends, if I turned right or left. First I crept into the middle of the lobby to look for mailboxes. They were on my right. I guessed Jalyn, like so many sons of unmarried mothers, would have kept his mother’s last name: Stewart. And this could be some help in locating his apartment, if in fact he was living with his mother and not a girlfriend. I turned back to the mailboxes to see no names on them, only numbers. But I was in luck. The postman in these parts was not too efficient, perhaps mostly temps. And many boxes were broken. Residents simply piled incorrectly sorted mail on the ledge above the boxes. There was mounds of it.
Just as I grabbed some, a door in the left hall opened. I knew rapid change took place now. No one knew all their neighbors in the buildings anymore. I fiddled to find my keys in my bag’s inside zip pocket. I pulled them out and fingered the tinier mailbox key for my brownstone. But I had no need to pretend. The tenant coming out was a graying middle-aged White man carrying a large string instrument, a bass or a cello, on a shoulder strap. He skipped out, spotted his gray cat slip into the hallway, chased it a few feet, and lightly nudged the animal in before dead-bolting his door. He never looked my way.
On a landing or two above me, a baby howled and a laugh track boomed. I ignored my beating heart and grabbed a lob of magazines, utility bills, collections notices, and junk mail. I flipped through it quickly, as dutty wine music pulsed in my ears and charred meat smells crept into my nose. I dropped my hips, maybe out of nervousness, and swayed a bit as the names fluttered by. No mail said “Stewart.” I looked at the end of the ledge and saw a box from Citibank. I picked it up and it felt like checkbooks. But the name was Frankel.
I had no choice but to explore the floors, as the story had not listed an apartment number. My Nikes were soft on the limestone steps, spider-webbed and cracked, with dry-rotted blinds on each floor. The mustard-yellow lobby gave way to dull floors with brick-red doors and green tile. I wondered where a mother might plant herself with six children long-term. Corner apartments seemed most likely. They were usually bigger, wider, with more windows and at least an extra room or two. It seemed I was correct on the second floor. I heard the theme songs to American Idol and Barney playing at one time.
Someone once told me these buildings had “penthouses,” full-floor apartments up top where celebrities or lucky owners’ relatives lived, for Big Apple mini-mansions—six walking flights as part of the dues. But I never got that far in my search for where Jaylyn Stewart may have lived and a peek for signs of Summer inside.
The super, apparently Dominican, appeared out of nowhere on the fourth floor, carrying buckets and a handful of rags. I bumped into him as soon as I rounded the ledge, up a height that surely only residents or known visitors climbed. Even in my sneakers, I toppled backward. He tried to catch me but was too late.
He gained his balance as I lost mine, reached for me, and asked, “You okay, miss?”
But I rolled away from him, quickly surveying the floor to see what may have tumbled from my bag. I gathered my wallet, body spray, and keys.
He blocked my way to the steps, with his big shoulders and wide arms appearing to open and swallow me. I pushed him off from trying to help me, or at least I hoped.
“You lost? Who you looking for?”
I tried to speak a lie that did not come as quickly as it should have. And he was coming closer. So, I blurted out the truth.
“I’m looking for
where Jaylyn Stewart may have lived, because he’s a rapist and a murderer and he’s terrorized women here. And my sister might be one of them.”
His name tag read SANCHEZ. Sanchez glared, turned green, and then red. Sanchez’s shoulders seemed to look bigger, but his arms tightened into clasped hands as if he was praying. Then Sanchez came closer with each word: “You go. Jaylyn no live here no more. He gone! You people can’t keep coming around here. I call police on you. Now. You go!”
“Don’t hurt me!” I yelled. I circled around to find the nearest stairway. It was to my right. I prepared to tussle with Sanchez to reach it.
I heard Sanchez’s buckets fall as I pushed past him and ran down four flights of stairs, through a lobby where the front door gave my only light, out into a line of happy, dancing children I toppled to the sidewalk, past the hollers of their people who guarded them, circling around and around for the direction of north, to home.
MY PHONE RANG FROM INSIDE my apartment. I raced in to it. Already, the mob was calling me. I would have to apologize to them, keep nice with all people who might see my sister out there one day. And, it was only right. Perhaps I was rude, and betrayed their trust.
But wait, I suddenly thought, isn’t it my cell number on the flyer?
The phone was already in my hand and I had said hello. A few seconds into the call, I exhaled. It was not a vengeful Harlemnite. It was only a little better: a disgruntled client. She yanked me into a conversation I was getting too used to.
“I can give you an extra page, free of charge of course, to make up for my errors in your inventory links,” I said, near breathless. “I really, really apologize. I’m so sorry.”
Clara McIntyre custom-made personalized babywear by hand and sewing machine on Long Island. Her son was threatening to fire me as their web designer, newsletter manager, and blogger. I had not posted in weeks. Their search engine rankings had plummeted. Nearly every link for a customer to purchase a blanket, dress, short suit, or onesie was broken. Who knows how many customers abandoned their carts without bothering to email that they could not place their order? I skipped through my backed-up inbox as I consoled Clara. Her son hadn’t minced words in his email: “Get this fixed or lose us as a client.” He had sent it a month ago. I had missed it.
“I don’t want an elaborate website,” Clara said. “My customers are busy women. All I need is a homepage, my family’s page, contact page, product gallery, and payment page. If people get lost trying to spend money, I don’t have a business.”
“I agree with you,” I insisted. I found a napkin from takeout and used it to wipe my forehead and chest. I was dripping in sweat.
“What about a customer reviews or testimonial page?” I asked. “I can personally reach out to people on your mailing list and get that designed for you.”
“People are gonna want something for taking time to leave a review,” Clara said. “A discount or free gift. I’m barely getting by.”
“No,” I told her. “They’re popular now. People love to leave them. Your customers can do it in a few seconds.”
I worked with Clara for three years, cheaply, as I found plenty of stock photos of babies in sunny clothes and soft blankets. She was enough to keep me grocery shopping at Fairway and not Pathmark. She would send a few emails to promote sales, discounts, and personalized options; I flowered them up with sugary words current and potential customers could be sold on. Clara knew I was not from the city, and we had met face-to-face—a rare thing in today’s online gig market. She sent me a heartfelt card for my mother, a standalone one, not from a rote pack kept on hand. I never told her about Summer’s disappearance. I couldn’t do it now. She reached the limits of her understanding. We ended the call nicely.
“Damn!” I yelled to no one. I now had two free jobs to do: one I had already done that I had to correct, and a conciliatory one I would not be paid for. I turned off my computer and turned on Judge Judy. If I was not careful, I would be a defendant soon. I had enough to linger on from Mama’s life insurance policy. My freelancing was down to a few small business owners. I needed corporate accounts to pay me bigger money for my eagle eyes, writing, and marketing savvy. I must return to LinkedIn, cold calling, and networking at meet-ups.
I nearly jumped off the couch when I heard the bam, bam, bam on the door.
I was followed from Jaylyn’s building. I ran too slowly, failed to look behind.
I nicked my shoulder on the corner of a bookcase on my way into the bathroom, to think of what to do. Hide in the shower? Then I softened my footsteps to tiptoe toward Summer’s bedroom, as that room had more doors to hide behind.
But then I thought I heard Asha’s voice: “Autumn? You home?”
I stepped softly to the keyhole, and she stood there. I opened up to a man I did not expect.
NINE
“He had your buzzer wrong. He kept buzzing me.”
In a blue suit and black tie, Detective Montgomery stood in front of the peace sign sheet over our rooftop door, beside Asha.
“You missed our appointment,” he informed me.
“I had an appointment today?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he grinned. “We were supposed to check out We Go On together, remember?”
“If you don’t want the appointment, I’ll take it,” Asha said. “Mr. Noel, I do awesome back and foot work. When’s the last time you been to a chiropractor?”
“It’s been some years,” he answered.
“Good! Keep it that way. They mess you up for sure. What’s your sign?”
“Aries.”
“Oh, so you are prone to headaches and head colds. I can tell just by looking in your eyes you’re missing out on a lot of cold foods.”
“It’s not summer yet, young lady.”
“No, I mean you need foods with cold temperatures. They chill your body down when they burn off. Leafy greens, cucumber, melon if you can find it. You still need soup, but something tells me you’re running hot.”
“Asha, if you don’t mind,” I sighed.
“I’ll bring you back up a flyer,” she said on her way down.
I did not remember any plans with Detective Montgomery. I would check my calendar later. It seemed the courteous thing to do now was let him in.
“I really don’t remember. I’m sorry.”
I shut the door. He started to walk behind me, but I stopped him.
“Lemme get things together. Make sure no unmentionables are lying around.”
“Certainly,” he said, and retreated back to lean against the front door. “You don’t seem like the kind to miss appointments. I wanted to come check on you.”
“Thanks,” I said from the indentation serving as our kitchen. It stank in there. Yep, I was this grimy now. Blinds closed. Garbage bag I failed to take out days ago. The swill was uneaten salads with rotting onion and broccoli, sticky Utz snack bags, pungent kale. A sink full of dishes soaked in gray water. Fluffed eggs in a bowl, the omelets I abandoned midthought. A melted pint of ice cream. Summer’s sketchbooks, journals. Two bags of laundry I’d asked Chase to drop off for me.
“I can go,” Detective Montgomery called out to me. “We can talk another time.”
“No, no,” I told him. “I appreciate you stopping by. Care for tea or coffee?”
“I’ve had too much tea today. Water would be fine.”
“Ice?”
“Sure.”
The tumblers scattered around, polluted with lipstick and juice pulp and dregs. I recovered a clean gym bottle, held it to the ice maker, filled it with water. I slid the bowl of old eggs into the fridge. It was spare: condiments, ancient almond milk, a cheddar-hard wedge of Brie, Jell-O cups, and takeout boxes.
“Just gimme a couple minutes,” I called out. “A little overloaded with work now. I couldn’t get to cleaning yet.”
“I’m in no hurry,” I heard.
He stood patiently, alternated his gaze between the bedroom I used to sleep in and book titles on hallway shelves. I saw
myself as a toddler, wobbly and bent, not knowing the next steps, reaching out to follow someone taller. Pride recommenced. I gathered Summer’s things and my many papers to stack in a corner so Detective Montgomery could have a walking path to the couch without an impromptu Twister game. I did not have to go searching for a lighter to spark the scented candles we kept on the windowsill. One was right there. I twisted open the wood blinds, cracked two windows, washed my hands, and clutched Detective Montgomery’s water.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “You can come in now.”
He took his time, processing the scene of Summer’s intimate space. He fingered a rose quartz amulet I’d hung over the picture of me and Summer’s tenth birthday in Hedgewood, when Mr. Murphy drove through a tornado warning to bat down our homebound disappointment with our very first surprise party. The gemstone matched the balloons I knew were pink in Summer’s black-and-white creation.
“Summer gave me that necklace for Christmas,” I said. “I opened gifts without her of course.”
“Yes, I know,” he told me. He wisped the amulet aside to see the picture better. “I guess this is your mother, grandmother, and Summer, or . . . ?”
“Mr. Murphy gave us a little party that year, and took that picture we kept all these years. He was like my stepfather. My father died when I was five.”
The detective stepped inside further and took in even more, intrigued and dazzled.
“Well, I can tell people truly live well here. Nice place. Lot of character.”
Speaking of Summer Page 8