Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries

by Barbara Silkstone

  Chapter 35—Cady: Devotion

  “I'm Darius Quinlan Jones,” the man said.

  “Abdullah?” Athena's voice was wary.

  “Not for a few decades now.” His laugh was rich and easy. “Please call me Darius.”

  Cady was trying to remember how to breathe.

  “I'm with Hightower, Bingham and Jones, formerly of Detroit. We came out to the Coast when Motown moved its headquarters. Letty-Mae still misses the East, though. She sends her regards, Cady.”

  Cady could hear nothing but the thundering of her own heart.

  Someone spoke. Fatima.

  “You Power's lawyer? I'm the one you talked to before on the phone. You want a soda?”

  “Sounds good. Thanks,” Darius said. “Now I need to be alone with the Congresswoman. We have a lot of business to discuss.”

  Cady's hand instinctively grabbed for Athena's. She did not want to be left alone with this man, who was as close as she ever wanted to get to Lucifer himself. How dare he stand here in her bedroom, smelling of Polo cologne and talking about LaTeesha—now Letty-Mae again, apparently—as if they had all been pals in some misty long-ago college idyll?

  No, it was barely yesterday that she had smelled his true sulfuric stink, since she had come home from the hospital after the hysterectomy, weak and full of grief, to find the Camden apartment empty except for two rotting eggs in the unplugged refrigerator: Darius, LaTeesha, and the other SNCC organizers all gone.

  Gone—along with her own things; her books, her clothes, even her Daddy's “Stradivarius” violin—the last cruelty, since Darius knew by then that it was worthless.

  Her teachers had voiced doubts about its authenticity time after time, but she'd had to face the full extent of Mama's lie when she'd tried to pawn it to raise funds to pay that butcher abortionist. Twenty dollars, the man offered her: her treasured legacy was a just a beat-up, twenty-dollar phony.

  But Darius and his skinny whore had gone off to Baltimore to get married and taken even that; taken everything with them but a stack of unpaid bills and that brimstone reek of Hell.

  Athena gave Cady's hand a squeeze.

  “Don't mind me, Mr. Jones,” she said in a silky voice. “I won't get in your way. But I've got at least two of these braids to redo. They can't wait. And Helen here is the Reverend's nurse. She has to stay, too. Doctor's orders.”

  “Oh, no, I can…” Helen stopped mid-sentence. Fatima must have given her a signal.

  “May I sit?” Darius seated himself heavily on the end of the bed, putting down something he was carrying. “Cady, I know it's strange for us to see each other this way, after all these years.”

  “Except she ain't seeing you,” Fatima said. “The Reverend's blind, Mr. Jones. But only for a while. Unless somebody gets her upset. Then maybe it might be permanent. So you don't upset her, you hear me? You want regular soda or diet?”

  Fatima, bless her heart, was putting on her street-chick persona to come to Cady's defense.

  “Well, I, uh, better make it diet.” Darius gave a hint of a nervous laugh. “I haven't kept my figure as well as Miss Cady here.”

  Fat. He was fat. Cady had to admit that gave her joy.

  “Cady, I really am here to help,” Darius said. “You've got some pretty big P.R. trouble. But so far, legally, there's no way anybody can touch you. Florence Adams, on the other hand…”

  “Flo! Have you talked to her?”

  Only Flo was important now. Cady had to remember that. Even if she had to negotiate with all the forces of darkness, she had to get Flo out of this mess.

  “No one has been allowed to communicate with Mrs. Adams. But Power Magee is on his way to San Montinaro with several associates from our firm. We have a specialist in international law who's going to negotiate bail. I suppose you know that Mr. Magee has agreed to pay whatever is required?”

  “Tyrone's going to pay Flo's bail?”

  “And her legal fees. As well as yours. This is all on his dime, at this point. You don't need to doubt Power's devotion. He thinks the world of you.”

  Devotion. What a strange choice of words. What would Darius Jones know about devotion?

  “I'm grateful to Mr. Magee.” Cady kept her voice formal. “The Lord chooses His instruments in His own mysterious ways.”

  “Excuse me,” said Athena, “I don't mean to butt in here but is that such a good idea—Mr. Power going to that place? I mean, if they think he's some kind of anti-family terrorist? That's what they called him on the TV. Shouldn't somebody warn him?”

  Darius laughed. “Don't tell me you've been watching that GBA network? No offense Cady. I know you work for the Monsignor. But that man's news coverage is so twisted he's even getting the Vatican's undies in a bunch. I'm sure he's a holy man, but he's hired himself a lot of loose cannons over there. Have you met a guy named Albert Sneed?”

  “I have indeed.”

  Twisted. Loose cannon. Darius was right. So was Flo. She'd disliked Albert on sight. Why hadn't Cady paid more attention?

  “I worked with Albert for several weeks. We were preparing for my talk show debut that had to be postponed because of this.” She gestured at her eyes. “I did find his attitude less than Christian at times.”

  She sighed. At least it was a relief to know Tyrone wasn't a suspect along with Flo. But Albert and the Monsignor had tried to make him one; and jeopardized Flo's safety with that ridiculous “terrorist” talk on Bambi's newscast.

  “Well, I'm sure Sneed has a tough job trying to keep your name safe for Family TV with all this muck flying around,” Darius said. “Trying to put a good spin on this mess couldn't be easy, and when he and the Monsignor found out about you and Power Magee, well…” That big laugh again. “I can't help it, Cady. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall.”

  If Darius had really been a fly on the wall at the moment, Cady probably would have smashed him.

  “There is nothing to 'find out' about me and Power Magee.” She spoke in the clear, icy voice that had been able to silence the entire United States Congress. “Nothing at all. He's a childhood friend. Nothing more. And I suggest we don't spend any more of my friend's money than necessary here. I'm sure you've got your meter ticking.” She sat up as straight as her circumstances would allow. “So tell me, why do these foreign imbeciles think Flo had anything to do with this white girl's death, and how could anybody in their right mind think that dear old lady is a terrorist?”

  “That dear old lady checked a nuclear bomb onto that plane, Cady.”

  Darius spoke in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

  “It was the plane the wife of the Vice President of the United States was about to board. Plus Mrs. Adams gave Tina Davis the poison that killed her. Nobody else could have administered it. The snack bar was closed, and the passengers hadn't had access to food for hours.”

  Cady was feeling a slow burn.

  “That's idiotic. Nobody could believe that.”

  Darius kept on going. “The poison Miss Davis ingested—which is native to the rain forests of Columbia—kills within minutes, and no one had been near her for at least an hour, except Florence Adams. Tina Davis was known to have drug connections, and the people from Interpol are convinced that a Columbia cartel….”

  “Drug connections. Oh, so you think Florence Adams had drug connections?” Cady tried to match his calm, but it wasn't working. “Darius, do you believe my seventy-two year old secretary is involved with drugs and blowing up Vice President's wives? We worked with Tipper on the campaign to clean up rock lyrics, for goodness's sake! Besides, Flo was going to get on that plane herself. Is she supposed to be one of those suicide bombers? What has happened to your sense of reason?”

  “I'm telling you the facts as I've heard them, Cady.”

  “Well, you ain't heard them right.” Fatima seemed to have returned with Darius's soda. “The old lady did not give Tina Davis that chocolate bar. The white girl had the candy bar already, and wouldn't even give the old la
dy one piece. Even though Flo said she was real hungry. Isn't that right, Reverend?”

  “Yes. That's exactly what Flo told me on the phone.”

  On the phone. To her. Not to anyone else. How did Fatima know?

  “But how do you know that, Fatima? You didn't hear what Flo said—just my end of the conversation.”

  “Answer machine,” Fatima said. “Power likes every incoming call recorded. But I forgot, and the tape's full. I went to change it and that's the last thing that got taped; that poor old lady saying how hungry she was. I hope they gave her something to eat by now.”

  “A tape? You've got that conversation on tape?” Darius's voice always got higher pitched when he was agitated. “I've got to fax a transcript of that to my people in San Montinaro immediately. It could help clear Miss Adams. Does she say who gave Tina Davis the candy? Where's the tape now?”

  Chapter 36—Cady: Stradivarius

  “That's him?” Athena whispered after Darius and Fatima left. “That's the man in Regina's diaries; the guy you were so wild about?”

  “That's him.”

  “Oooh my. He must have had him some hard times. That man looks like he could be your Daddy. Maybe it's the lawyer suit. Do you want me to open your present?”

  “Present? You mean he brought a gift?”

  How dare he?

  “Yes,” Helen said. “A big, long box, all wrapped in gold paper with a bow.”

  Cady felt paralyzed as Athena and Helen unwrapped something with much rattling of paper and the swoosh of slick cardboard.

  “Oh, look! It is a violin. Do you play, Reverend Stanton?”

  “A violin?” So he'd returned her violin. About thirty years too late. “Is it kind of orange, with a lot of scars?”

  “No. It is beautiful—a Garimberti. It must be worth twenty thousand dollars,” Helen said in a breathless voice. “The card says. 'I only wish it could have been a real Strad.'“

  “Wait,” Athena said. “Here's something else in the box—a leather binder thing. Inside is an old photograph of Mr. Jones and Mayor Bradley in front of some building. And a newspaper clipping from 1989.”

  “What does it say?” Cady was numb to any more surprises today.

  “'Stradivarius Parenting Center Dedicated Today' is the headline,” Athena read. “Then it says:

  'Thanks to a last-minute celebrity auction, a new facility for the financially strapped day care center for children of teen parents was dedicated this week. Renamed the Stradivarius Center, the South Central Day Care House was bailed out by an auction organized by Mr. and Mrs. Darius Q. Jones, whose generous gift of a faux-Stradivarius violin once belonging to Congresswoman Reverend Cady Stanton, sold for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to an anonymous buyer.

  'Mr. Jones says that the eighty-year old German-made violin, although only an imitation of the priceless instruments made by Antonio Stradivarius in the seventeenth century, has a value all its own. As a legacy to the Congresswoman from her war-hero father, who was killed in Korea before she was born, it encouraged Stanton to study hard and earn an Ivy League music scholarship. According to prominent entertainment attorney Jones, the violin symbolizes the importance of the involvement of both parents in raising a child to achieve his or her full potential.'“

  Cady's brain felt scrambled.

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Somebody paid a quarter of a million dollars for a worthless violin?”

  “It's not worthless. It belonged to you, Reverend,” Athena said. “You know—like Jackie Kennedy's costume pearls.”

  Cady could say nothing. Did Darius think this made up for his sins? He may have soothed his own conscience, but no amount of charity donations could give her back her lost babies that could never be, or all the lost, loveless years since.

  “So you were a war-orphan baby too, Reverend Cady?” Athena said. “That's all I ever knew about my Daddy; that he gave his life for his country. I guess that's why I went into the military myself. Your Daddy was killed in combat in Korea?”

  “That was the story my mother fed me. The real truth was that Harold Stanton was a gambler and a lowlife. Yes, he did get drafted and die in Korea, but it was in a jeep accident when he was driving drunk. And he never would marry my Mama before he left, so I wasn't even entitled to his name, and Mama didn't get his pension. All she got beside his debts was a picture of his handsome self in uniform and that stupid violin he won in a poker game. She made up all the stories out of that.”

  “At least you got you a picture and a violin,” Athena said. “I got nothing but my first name. My birth parents weren't married, either, and my Mama gave me up for adoption right out of the hospital because my Daddy was already dead in Vietnam. They say she wouldn't even look at me.”

  “I am so sorry,” Cady reached for Athena's hand. “But remember, it's even harder for a mother to give up a baby once she's seen that little face. Think how much that girl must have loved you to carry you for nine months and then give you up to people more fortunate than herself. After all, she could have got rid of you with some murdering abortionist.”

  Athena pulled her hand away.

  “Reverend Cady, I do not want to get in a political argument with you, okay?”

  “I'm sorry. I wasn't meaning to push anything.”

  But it was too late. Athena was walking away. Cady called to her, with the words that were aching to come out.

  “Athena, I wasn't talking about you. And I wasn't talking about politics or choices. I was talking about me. I'm the one who did that: I murdered my baby. Abdullah encouraged me, but I'm the one who went down to that phony doctor's office and let him do that to me; to our child. May God forgive me.”

  Her body shook as the words came out; those horrible words of truth she'd never spoken out loud in twenty-eight years.

  “Reverend, we all do what we gotta do. Ain't nobody else's business, you know?” Athena seemed totally unmoved. “I'm going downstairs to see what's going on.”

  The room felt empty without her, in spite of Helen's bird-like rustlings.

  “Do you want to play?” Helen said. It seemed a remarkably inappropriate request. Something cool and smooth brushed Cady's cheek. She took a few moments to realize it was the violin. Accepting the instrument, she held it to her chin and drew the bow across the strings. The tuning was nearly perfect. Darius must have come from the music dealer. She drew the bow again and a sweet, sad note came out and hung in the air.

  But the next note was sour and grating. So was the next. Her clumsy, uncallused fingers shot with pain. Tears welled as she put down the bow.

  “I can't, Helen,” she said. “I'm no good any more. I'm not sure I ever was. It's been too long. I can't. Do you play? Please. Play for me.”

  She dabbed at her eyes with a handful of bedsheet. Helen fussed. Where was everybody?

  “Calm, Reverend. Be calm,” Helen said. “I cannot play, but I can read to you, like Fatima. Would you like for me to read more of Princess Regina's papers? You seem calmer when someone reads.”

  Helen was talking to her like an old woman. A sad, useless old woman. Humoring her.

  “Yes, Helen,” she said finally. “I am calmer living in the past, crazy as it was. Please do read to me. Take me back to that time when we believed in peace and love and brotherhood and I thought my war hero Daddy left me a real Stradivarius violin.”

  Chapter 37—Cady: If You Small at Me

  Helen spoke in soothing tones as she sorted through the box of Regina's papers.

  Cady's breathing was still ragged. She took gulps of air and asked the Lord to calm the worries that rose like demons from her chaotic thoughts.

  “What would you like me to read?” Helen said in her too-sweet nurse voice. “How about this one? It is a pretty notebook with a picture of a windmill in a field of tulips. The first page says 'Amsterdam; July 1974.'“

  “A travel journal? Yes, do read that.”

  Perfect. At least a record of Regina's travels du
ring her modeling years wouldn't take Cady's mind into another painful journey into her own past, and it might give a clue about Regina's death.

  Regina's death—or murder. If she was dead at all.

  Could it be true what Fatima heard earlier; that the body buried in all that pomp this morning wasn't Regina's? That Regina had actually been in Los Angeles at the time of the fatal accident?

  Sometimes celebrities did “disappear” from public view to get a rest from the relentless press. Or could something have happened, something that Flo had stumbled into? Maybe Flo had seen Regina here in Los Angeles last week and somehow got involved with San Montinaro politics?

  No. Cady had to stop her thoughts. Whatever the case, she had to give those troubles over to the Lord. The Lord and Darius Q. Jones. What irony.

  Helen began to read in a soft, lilting voice:

  “Amsterdam, Juli 31, Donderdag

  “Donderdag. That means Thursday in Dutch—'Thunderday'! Isn't it fitting? The day the thunder struck. This morning, in Paris, Yves suddenly eliminated me from the runway line—just pointed at me and said 'out'. Jean-Claude said it's because I'm getting too much 'boo-sum'—well, excuse me for being female—and Lulu said my purple hair destroys the 'classic chic' of Yves' new look; so why did the imbecile hire me? Then Mario, that little gnome, called me something in Italian that means big ugly cow.

  “Okay, I know I've gained a little weight, but I'm back on the Dexamil, so it will be off in no time. God! Mario is a creep. I can't believe I slept with him at the Milan show last year.

  “Then my period came; first time in two years: first time since—well, since it happened, and I ran back to the hotel totally shattered and there was Artie's letter: ten pages of venom and hate. Ten pages to say;

  “'I love Ziggy; I hate you. I'm going to San Francisco to be gay and you are such a drag you can go die.'

  “Fine Artie, I hope you die too. You and Zig and all your bitchy friends. Eight years, Arthur—eight years we've been together. I knew you could never love me like a wife. I only asked you for one small thing: that you give a damn. For that I have supported you; given you the money for your art, your drug habit and all your glitter boys.