by Ellen Hart
“I don’t suppose you’d consider blowing off your shift and having a late dinner with me.”
Before Avi could answer, Georgia sauntered up and planted her arms on the bar, cuddling up next to Jane. “Looks like you two are having quite a powwow.”
“It’s private,” said Jane, easing away from her.
“Now, don’t be like that. We’re all sisters around here.”
Jane thought this was as good a time as any to torpedo Georgia’s bogus story about being in law school. “Speaking of William Mitchell—”
“Were we?” asked Georgia, one eyebrow rising.
“I understand you’re not registered there.”
“You’re not?” asked Avi.
“I know it was, perhaps, an error in judgment to allow Avi to think I was attending William Mitchell. In my defense, I plead vanity. I didn’t correct her because WMCL has more status, in my opinion, than the U. If you’d like me to have the U of M registrar send you a note—”
A middle-aged man in a cowboy hat and snakeskin boots stepped up to the bar and put his hand on Georgia’s back. “Come on back to my table, darlin’. I need some looking after.”
“Well, my pleasure,” said Georgia with a sly smile. “Later, ladies.”
Not quite sure what to say after she’d walked off, Jane asked, “Do you … like her?”
“Sure,” said Avi.
“The same way you like me? Assuming, that is, that you do.”
“Of course I do. The answer is no.”
“I feel a ‘but’ coming.”
“Not really. It’s just … she’s a lot more vulnerable than people think.”
“Okay, so she’s vulnerable. Can’t she go be vulnerable someplace other than your apartment?”
Smiling, Avi said, “Of course.”
Turning to watch the dancers on the stage, Jane said, “I suppose I better get out of here before my father sends in the marines.”
“Huh?”
“Call me in the morning.”
“God, but I want to kiss you.”
“We’ll put that on tomorrow’s agenda. Top of the list.”
“The very top,” said Avi, an unexpected wistfulness in her voice.
38
On Monday morning, Emmett sat across from his banker, Carl Chumway, waiting patiently while the vice president read through his application. He’d been banking at Guarantee Savings for over twenty years and was considered one of their triple-star customers.
“This all seems to be in order,” said Chumway, stapling some pages together.
“As I said, I need the loan right away.”
“For your son’s legal expenses. I understand all that, Emmett. Even so, it may take a couple of days.”
“Can’t you put a rush on it?”
Chumway removed his glasses and sat back. “I’m sorry about your son’s problems, I really am. I’ve got a son, too. What was it he did?”
“Our lawyer advised me not to discuss it.”
“Very sensible.” He nodded to Emmett’s uniform. “Still like working for AirNorth?”
“Couldn’t be happier.”
“I imagine you’re looking at retirement in the near future.”
“Not for a few years.”
“Hard to give up a job you love.”
“It is.”
Emmett hated these pretend conversations, the kind that mimicked real human interaction. He could have applied online, but Chumway knew him. He’d worn his uniform because people were impressed by it.
“Well,” said Chumway, standing and extending his hand, “I’ll do whatever I can to expedite the matter. Call me later today. If your lucky stars line up just right, I may be able to have a check for you sometime tomorrow.”
“Wonderful,” said Emmett, tucking his cap under his arm and pumping Chumway’s hand.
On his way out the door, he thought, next stop, the car rental company.
* * *
Still riding high from last night’s discovery of her shattered taillight—and optimistic about her relationship with Avi—Jane rose early and drove over to the Lyme House, arriving just after seven. She spoke briefly with Nolan’s nurse, learning that his temperature was almost normal. He’d had a good night and was hungry for breakfast. She planned to stop by before lunch.
On her way up the back steps to the kitchen, the cell in her pocket started to buzz. Not even bothering to look at the caller ID, she answered it. “Jane Lawless.”
“Ah, hey. This is Twan Moore returning your call.”
“Oh, hi. Thanks so much for phoning back.” She sat down on the stairs.
“I assume you wanted to talk about DeAndre. Mom told me Uncle Alf was trying to figure out what he was doing in Minneapolis. Am I calling at a bad time?”
“Not at all. And yes, you’re right about my reason for the call.”
“First, you should know that D and me weren’t close.”
“I wondered about that. I was looking through one of your uncle’s family albums and—”
“You could read the smoke signals. Yeah, you’re not the first person to point that out.”
“How come you two didn’t get along?”
He sighed. “This is so weird to talk about, now that he’s gone. I guess it was partly just kid stuff. Sibling rivalry. I was closest to him in age, and I wasn’t all that happy when Mom and Dad decided to adopt him.”
“Sure, that’s understandable.”
“He lived with us for a couple of years before the adoption. He was, like, this attention magnet. My brothers played with him, my parents fawned over him. Me, I felt left out. And then, I remember I’d ask him questions about his mom, about what his life was like before he came to live with us, and he’d give me these really evasive answers. Made me think he had something to hide, you know? Turns out he did. Hey, wait. I’ve got some popcorn in the microwave. It’s beeping at me.” He returned a few seconds later. “Burned it. Jeez, I can’t even boil water without torching the entire kitchen. That was supposed to be my breakfast.”
“If you want to call me back—”
“Nah, let’s do this. Where was I? Oh, yeah. See, D was a liar. Even before the adoption, I used to hear him talking to someone on the phone fairly frequently—always when Mom and Dad were gone—but he’d never tell me who it was. He’d take the receiver into, like, a closet or the bathroom and close the door, so I couldn’t hear the conversation. That went on for years.
“One day I remember thinking, I’m gonna follow that little twerp after school, see where he goes—just for the hell of it, you know? He ended up at a McDonald’s sitting with some older chick. She looked like a hooker—glam clothes, long red hair, platform shoes, the complete deal. I stood by the order counter for a while, trying to figure out how I could sit close enough to them to hear what they were saying without being seen. It wasn’t gonna happen. So that night, I cornered him outside by the garage, demanded to know who the chick was. At first he wasn’t gonna tell me. I threatened to beat it out of him, but he still wouldn’t talk. That’s when I told him I’d tell Mom that he was meeting hookers after school. That changed his mind real fast.
“Turns out, the chick was his sister—Sabrina. He said he had to keep her a secret because he figured Mom and Dad might not adopt him if they knew he had a fucked-up relation like her. He said she was wild but he loved her. She did what she could to keep in touch with him, to give him a little money when she had it. He also said that with his ma sick because of drugs and booze, she was all he had left of his real family. I didn’t like that—him calling her his real family. So I told him, I’ll keep your secret if you do what I tell you from here on out, without any backtalk. If I get nailed to clean the basement? You’ll do it. If I was supposed to pick up groceries after school, I passed it off to him. Basically, he was my slave.”
“And he always did what he was told?”
“Well, as time went on, I guess I mellowed, but we were never gonna be close.”
&n
bsp; “He never told anyone about Sabrina, even when he got older?”
“Nope. It was such a long-standing secret that I guess he just decided to keep it. It was easier than telling the truth.”
“You mentioned that his sister had long red hair and dressed like a hooker. Can you tell me anything else about her?”
“Hell, I don’t remember what she looked like. It was too long ago. Except, and this is the real kicker, she was white.”
Jane felt as if all the air in her lungs had suddenly been sucked out. “White? I don’t understand.”
“Apparently his mom was white, but D’s father was black. D wanted to connect with him. Sabrina kept telling him she was gonna find him, but far as I know she never did.”
All along, Jane had been looking for a black woman. This changed everything. “You’ve been a huge help,” she said.
“In retrospect, I have to admit that I should have treated D nicer. Guess I’m never gonna get the chance to apologize now. Sucks, you know? Really friggin’ sucks.”
* * *
Yawning and stretching as she walked out of her bedroom, Avi was surprised to find Georgia seated at the dining room table, typing on a laptop, with books, papers, file folders, notebooks, and handwritten notes spread from one end of the table to the other.
“What’s all this?”
Georgia didn’t look up. She kept typing as she said, “Hope you don’t mind. I needed a place to work. Big day today.” She was already dressed in a business suit, her hair up in a tight bun, her makeup about as tasteful as Avi had ever seen it.
Pushing out of the chair, Georgia sailed into the kitchen. She reappeared a few seconds later with an apple and her leather briefcase. “I should be home early. I don’t work tonight and neither do you, right? Thought I’d take us out to dinner. Something nice. Sound like a plan?”
Avi was still groggy. “Um, I don’t know. I might have other plans.”
“Cancel them. I’ll call you later. If I have time.” Her amused eyes flashed.
“You seem excited.”
“You think?” She kissed Avi on the lips on her way to the door.
Sinking down on the couch, covering her face with her hands, Avi muttered, “Lord, what am I going to do?” After last night, Jane had moved from double-crossing bottom feeder to official girlfriend. What was Georgia? A friend? A friend with benefits? Sleeping with her had been a bad move all around, except that Avi didn’t really regret it. She was getting used to this being alone business, and now, suddenly, she seemed to have acquired two relationships. “A plethora,” she whispered, running her hands through her hair. “A superfluity,” she shouted to the empty apartment. “A profusion.” Heading for the bedroom to get dressed, she added under her breath, “A glut.”
Avi threw on a sweater and jeans, slipped into a pair of winter boots and a heavy jacket, grabbed her keys and phone, locked her door, and breezed down the hall. She needed groceries, and this was as good a time as any to go get them. When she spied Dorsey’s door, she walked up to it, held up her hand to knock, then stopped herself. She paced up and down the hall, thinking. When she stepped up to the door the second time, she called. “Dorsey, it’s Avi. I need to talk to you. It’s important.” When he came home from work, he never went to bed. He’d fix himself something to eat and sit in front of the TV watching old movies. He’d told her he rarely hit the sack before five, which was why he never got up until early afternoon. “I know you’re in there. I’m not leaving. I’m going to bang on this door until it drives you nuts. You might as well talk to me.” She waited another full minute, pressing her ear to the door and listening. “Dorsey? Damn it.” She gave the door a kick. It finally occurred to her that it was theoretically possible that he wasn’t ignoring her, he simply wasn’t home.
She pulled out her keys and gazed down at them. Okay, so she wasn’t always entirely ethical. He’d been so ridiculously secretive about his apartment that when the super had delivered her the new key, she’d had an extra one made. Pressing it into the lock, she opened the door.
“Dorsey?” she called, moving cautiously inside. “It’s Avi. Are you here? I came to look at that missile of yours.” Crossing toward the bedroom, she forced a laugh. “That’s a joke. We need to talk, okay?” She opened the door a crack. The bed was a mass of sheets and blankets, but no Dorsey.
“Has Elvis left the building?” she called, closing the door behind her. “Dorsey?” She ducked into the bathroom. “Nobody home, huh?” She made her way into the kitchen. The place was a disaster. Clothes draped over the furniture. Dirty dishes everywhere. The garbage can overflowing. The refrigerator was covered with a haphazard collection of photos—all of Gimlet. Apparently nobody else was important enough to rate a featured role on the fridge. “Well, we’ve learned one thing,” she whispered. Dorsey’s secret wasn’t that he was an international spy. No, it was much more prosaic than that. Dorsey was a slob.
Crossing back to the bathroom, she was appalled to see short beard hairs all over the sink. “Pig city,” she called to no one in particular. She opened up the medicine chest, thinking that she’d take a look to see what drugs he was taking—legally or illegally. He didn’t seem all that interested in Georgia’s stash the other night, though you never knew about a guy like him.
Instead of drugs, she was surprised to find a ton of makeup, from lipstick to brushes to eyeliner to foundations to several different kinds of moisturizers. On the lowest shelf she discovered something even more strange—several different-colored braids of dark wool crepe hair. Next to them were more brushes, a bottle of spirit gum, and a small scissors. She knew they were used in theater productions because she’d been in a play in high school. What Dorsey was using them for was another question.
She drifted back to the kitchen, where she sat down at a square wood table. Several small, shiny pieces of copper—rectangular, thinner than a penny—caught her attention. Some sort of foreign-looking word had been stamped into the center.
The front door opened.
Avi panicked. Looking around wildly for a place to hide, her eyes fell on the broom closet. Hoping like hell that Dorsey didn’t have it stuffed to the gills, she made a dash for it, wedging in with great difficulty next to a brown paper Target sack. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the door to close all the way. Through the crack, she saw Dorsey stride down the hall and duck into his bedroom. He came out a moment later holding a gun.
She stopped breathing.
Sniffing the air, he looked around as if he suspected something was amiss. He continued to stand in the hallway, just inches away, but finally shook it off and disappeared back toward the living room. Just as quickly as he’d come, he was gone.
Avi pushed the sack out in front of her, her knees screaming as she dislodged herself. The sack fell over, spilling several boxes of tampons onto the linoleum.
“Oh, really?” she whispered, dashing over to the window above the sink. Dorsey wasn’t hiding the fact that he was a slob, he was hiding that he was a freakin’ woman!
Straining to see through a maze of dying plants, she watched him emerge from the building, the gun nowhere in sight. He ran up to a black Chevy Camaro and got in.
Dorsey was a woman masquerading as a man. Why? A woman with a gun. Where the hell was he—she—going? Was it possible? Could DeAndre Moore’s sister, the mysterious Sabrina, be white, not black?
Racing through the apartment and down the stairs, Avi burst outside and headed for her Porsche. As she got in, she saw that the Camaro had just turned right onto Franklin. She gunned her motor and took off after him. Feeling a surge of excitement, she pulled out her phone and punched in Jane’s number.
As the Camaro turned onto I-94, with Avi in hot pursuit, Jane answered.
“Hey, Avi, I was hoping you’d call.”
“Just listen. Is it possible Sabrina is white?”
“How’d you know that? I just found out.”
“It’s Dorsey. At least I think it is. He’s a wo
man.”
“He’s what?”
“Just trust me. I saw him—her—whatever, leave the apartment building with a gun. Right now he’s on I-94 heading east and I’m following him.”
“Heading east? Jesus, I think I know where he’s going. But Avi, no. If he is Sabrina, it’s too dangerous. Pull off. I’ll take it from here.”
“I’ll call you when he stops, let you know the exact location.”
“Avi, please. Listen to me.”
“Later.”
39
Jane grabbed her coat and tore out to her car. Tapping in 911 on her cell as she gunned the SUV out of the lot, she put the call on speakerphone and tossed the cell onto the seat next to her.
“911. Is this an emergency?” came a woman’s voice.
“I think someone’s about to be murdered.”
“Give me your address.”
“No, not me. The man’s name is Emmett Washington. He lives in St. Paul.”
“Are you with Mr. Washington?”
“No, but I’m headed over to his house. Can’t you look up the address?”
“You’re headed to the house but you don’t know his address?”
“Look, I don’t know him personally. I’ve been to the house, so I know where it is, but I can’t remember the address. He’s in danger. It’s connected to two murders in Minneapolis—Vince Bessetti and Royal Rudmann. Can you send someone to Washington’s house right away?”
“Your name?”
“Lawless. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been working on this case for over a week.”
“You’re a private investigator and your name is Lawless. Is this a joke?”
Jane was beginning to wonder about her karma with cops. “Look, maybe I could talk to your supervisor.”
“One minute.”
Jane couldn’t believe it. The woman had put her on hold.
* * *
Emmett was almost done. The rental car was packed. He’d stopped by the post office to have them stop his mail. The check would be waiting for him when he got to the bank on his way of out town. He’d ordered Roddy to be home by noon. He hadn’t told him why. There would be plenty of time for that when they were in the car on their way to Canada.