Now it was my turn to blush. “Uh, the boy is David Jr. and the girl is uhm ….” A lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t speak.
“Eve. They named her Eve,” said Grandy. “And Eve here is still choked up about it.”
Shelley looked up from under the counter where she was looking for paper to make the sign about the births. “You, Eve, choked up? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.”
“Yeah, well, you have your best friend name a kid after you and then see how cool and collected you are.” I sniffed and wiped wetness off my cheeks. “Besides, I’m getting over it now. This is just my allergies acting up.”
Grandy and Shelley exchanged looks. “Sure,” they both said together.
The three of us waited on customers for the rest of the morning, then I scuttled out for sub sandwiches at noon. After we finished our meal, I reminded Grandy that she had promised to mind the store while I ran my errand.
“Exactly what was it you were going to do?” asked Grandy. “Maybe I could help. Shelley can mind the shop. Right, Shelley?”
Shelley nodded. “I’d be happy to. I can do my homework assignment for tonight’s class between customers.”
“I’m sure you’d be a big help, but this is something I promised to do for Frida and not tell anybody about it. Sorry.”
Grandy looked hurt.
“But,” I held up an index finger before she could say anything more, “I’m certain I will be calling on you in the future. Count on it.”
Grandy fairly beamed with anticipation.
I walked into the backroom to make a private call to Sammy.
He answered on the first ring. “That you, Eve? I thought about what you said, and you’re right. This is the first step in finding out about my father and Walter’s death.”
“I have one stop to make before I pick you up.”
“Don’t take too long. I’m anxious to get going.”
I ended the call, grabbed my purse and said goodbye to Grandy, who was busy showing an evening gown to a customer. Good. I didn’t head out to my car, but walked out the front door and turned right. Two doors down was Crusty McNabb’s detective agency. I’d been in his place several times before, but when he handed me an application form to fill out the last time I was there, I bolted for the door as if he’d asked me to change my hairdo. This time I wouldn’t be a chicken. I’d bite the bullet and apply for an apprenticeship. Really, how hard could it be to become a private detective?
Before I could step into his storefront office, my cell rang. The caller ID was Alex’s.
I answered, and before he could say anything, I breathlessly blurted out my plans to see Crusty. “Hi, Alex. Funny you should call because I’m just now entering Crusty McNabb’s office. I’m going to do what you suggested. I’m going to become a PI. Great, huh?’
“Eve, it is Jim Clancy. Remember me? Alex and I worked some cases down here in Miami.”
Something wasn’t right. Why was Jim calling me?
“Yes, I remember you, and I know you and Alex are in Miami now on a case. What’s up?” As I said the words, a shudder ran through my body, and the hand holding the phone shook.
“Alex has been shot. He’s dead.”
Chapter 5
Crusty McNabb’s face came into focus, then Grandy’s.
“Where am I?” I looked around the small space and didn’t recognize it. The last thing I remembered was the call from Alex’s partner, the call that said ….
“You’re in Mr. McNabb’s office, Eve. He saw you slam into his front window, then he rushed out and carried you in here. You fainted.”
I was slumped in a chair, my cell still in my hand. A voice could be heard coming from it. Grandy took it and listened, then said, “Okay,” and ended the call.
“Alex is …” I said.
“I know, dear. I’m so sorry. You just lean back and relax. I called Max, and he’s coming to take you home so you can rest.”
“I don’t want to rest. I want to know what happened. It must be a mistake. Alex can’t be dead. He can’t.” I felt like I wanted to cry or rant or shout, anything to take away my feelings of helplessness and loss.
“Sweetie, look. I’ll call back and find out more if you promise me you’ll go home with Max. Here he is now. Shelley and I will take care of the store, don’t you worry.”
I grabbed the cellphone from Grandy and dialed Alex’s number. Jim answered.
“Tell me it’s not true. Tell me it’s a mistake. It’s someone else who was shot.” I tried to stifle a sob, but it worked its way up my throat, and I could feel tears spill from my eyes and down my cheeks. I scrubbed them away with my hand.
“Eve, is there someone there with you?”
“Just tell me what happened!” I yelled into the phone.
Grandy grabbed the phone out of my hand once more. “This is Eve’s grandmother. I’m putting her back on. It’s better you let her know everything. Then I’ll be taking her home.”
She handed the phone back to me and said to McNabb, “Let’s give her some privacy.” Grandy and McNabb walked toward the door. “I’ll be right out here if you need me.”
I nodded and said, “Jim?”
“This will be hard for you to hear.”
“I want to know all of it.”
“Are you sure?”
I swallowed and cleared my throat. “I can handle it. Alex would want me to be able to deal with this.”
“Alex was in a seedy part of the city to meet a client, an African-American woman whose son had been shot by some gang members. She wasn’t happy with how the cops were handling the case, so she decided to hire Alex to look into it. We had just wrapped up another contract, so Alex was free to take on clients. But I told Alex not to get involved with this one. Where gangs are involved, the possibility of a good outcome is almost nil, and it’s dangerous to insert yourself into a gang matter. But you know how Alex is … was. He had talked to the woman over the phone and felt she deserved better than what the cops were doing for her, so he agreed to meet with her at her house. He had just pulled up in front of her place when a car drove by and someone shot him. Dead. The only good thing about this is that the cops were staking out the neighborhood and were on the scene immediately. They picked up the car with the shooter.”
Yep, that was Alex. The tough PI with a big heart.
“The guy who shot him is a kid, only thirteen years old. The gang got wind of the mother hiring a PI, and they sent this child out to kill him.”
“Why did the woman hire Alex? Why not someone local?”
“Alex had taken a number of cases here, and he had a reputation for getting things done. Alex was a great PI, Eve, but then, you knew that.”
I did know that. And his reputation for doing his work well got him killed. My mind wandered back to my earlier thoughts about how becoming a PI couldn’t be all that difficult. It was more difficult than I imagined. Sometimes it could get you killed, even if you did it right. I rethought my intention to apprentice myself to McNabb. I wasn’t scared, but I had doubts I could ever be as good as Alex. What was I thinking? Me, a PI?
“I’m coming down there,” I said to Jim.
“There’s no point, Eve. What can you do here?”
“When’s the kid’s arraignment?”
There was a moment’s hesitation from Jim. “Uh, not until tomorrow morning. Why?”
“I want to see the guy who killed Alex, just to look him in the eye and see if he’s really a cold-blooded killer or just a kid scared of what the gang would do to him if he didn’t do their bidding.”
“I don’t see what difference it would make, Eve.”
“I’m doing this for Alex. I want to be his eyes. I want to know the soul of the person who killed him. He didn’t get the chance to do that, so I’m doing it for him.”
“Just so you know, Eve. The cops contacted his family, and they’re coming here to bring his body home to, uh, where was he from?”
I didn’t
know. I’d known him for almost four years. We’d danced together, laughed together, made love, but I had no idea where his family lived. In fact, I didn’t know he had family. Were his parents still living? Did he have siblings? I knew so little about a man who at one time I thought I loved.
“Jim, could you do me a favor and find out about his family? I didn’t know them at all, so ….”
“Will do, Eve. I’ll be at the arraignment tomorrow, and I’ll see you there.”
He gave me directions and ended the call.
I got up from the chair, and on shaky legs, headed out of the office.
“I can drive myself home, Max. I need to pack a bag and head out for Miami.”
Grandy grabbed my arm. “No you don’t, honey. Not unless you tell me what you’re up to. And then, Max and I will be coming with you.”
“Don’t be silly. I can take care of myself. I …” I stopped midsentence, grabbed Grandy’s shoulder and collapsed in sobs.
“Right,” I heard her say.
“Oh, Grandy. How could this happen? Alex was … he was ….”
“Your good friend, your lover, and someone you sent away for the good of both of you. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, Eve. You’re about to blame yourself for this. Don’t be silly. Being apart had nothing to do with his death. Both of you agreed, you know.”
I nodded. Grandy read me again. In some fractured sense of logic, I was going to blame myself. “I know, I know, but it’s so hard.”
“It’s going to be hard for some time, my dear,” Grandy said, hugging me to her.
Grandy let me drive myself home, but she and Max followed close behind. As I turned the corner to my street, I saw Sammy’s truck parked in front of my house, Sammy standing on my front porch.
When did Grandy have time to call Sammy, I wondered. But of course she hadn’t. Sammy somehow knew.
I got out of my car and ran into Sammy’s arms. “Alex is dead.”
“Let’s go in,” said Grandy. “I’ll make us all a cup of tea.”
Sammy steered me to the couch, sat me down, and then held me. I felt cold and shivery, as if I were coming down with the flu, but when Sammy got up to get me a blanket, I pulled him back to me. “Don’t leave.” I moved closer to him.
His arms never left me that night, until Grandy told him to go home and let me get some sleep. How could I sleep? It was as if some important piece of me had been ripped away. I grabbed onto Sammy and refused to let him go.
Grandy had talked me out of rushing down to Miami, promising that she and Max would drive me there in time for the arraignment.
Sammy cupped my chin and looked me in the eye. “You know I would come with you tomorrow, but I think this is something you need to do without me. Grandy and Max will be with you, and I’ll be waiting here for you, Eve. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded.
When I lost my parents, I grieved as a child would, becoming rebellious, keeping the hurt inside, finally emerging from my pain with the help of Grandy’s love. Now I was an adult, suddenly faced with the reality that people I cared for could be taken from me and never return. I would have to face that truth. My parents were not coming back. Alex wasn’t coming back. Sammy grew up with no father, yet he was not bitter, nor did he give any indication he felt cheated in this life.
There are no do-overs with death. Death had knocked on my door twice with news of someone I loved. My parents’ death made me the tough, resilient person I was. Alex’s made me aware of how precious loving someone was, how losing that person made you feel as if something inside you was gone. Alex and I had made the hard choice, the right choice to leave each other. I was beginning to understand what a gift he had given me when he said I should be a PI. He would never have encouraged me if we had clung to each other. Now I had to get my life right. If I didn’t, I’d never be a whole person. His death made two things clear: I would pursue becoming a PI because it was a statement I needed to make about myself, for myself. It was the recognition that snoopy Eve, curious Eve was also intelligent, probing, motivated Eve. The second revelation was that I could be me and reach out for what I knew I wanted: Sammy. Funny how becoming a complete person meant being wrapped up in loving someone else.
I looked up into Sammy’s face and knew I was gazing into the eyes of a man who loved me unconditionally. And that was how I needed to love him in return.
“I love you,” I said fiercely.
“I know,” he replied. “Don’t be gone long.”
“I won’t, not ever.”
Despite my newly found sense of how to move through this grief, every time I awoke that night, I sobbed into my pillow as if sassy, stoic Eve had saved up a lifetime of tears for just this moment. This was about loss—gut-wrenching loss—and there was no shortcut through it.
I refused to eat anything the next morning, and Grandy in her wisdom did not give me that line about “eating to keep up my strength.” I drank half a cup of coffee and then we were on our way. Grandy held my hand the entire trip. Max drove and expertly navigated the streets of Miami to the courthouse. Sad as I was, I also knew I was the luckiest person in the world. I had family who understood what I was doing and a man I loved who never questioned my judgment in wanting to come here.
The room was filled with people. I assumed they were the family and friends of those charged with crimes and scheduled to appear before the judge today. Jim, Alex’s partner here in Miami, met us on the steps of the courthouse, and we walked in together. He kept looking at me as if he expected me to faint or scream or do something crazy, but I was numb at this point. We took a seat in the back of the room and watched other prisoners come before the judge. Then a scrawny boy, wearing gangsta pants and hair in dreadlocks, was led in.
“That’s him,” Jim said.
The name Jerome Singer was called, and the boy stood up with his court-appointed attorney, who was busily digging around in his briefcase, apparently not listening to the question the judge asked of his client.
“Mr. Saxon,” said the judge, “can you spare us a moment?”
The young attorney had the decency to blush. He looked up and said, “We plead ‘not guilty,’ your honor.”
The prosecuting attorney arose. “We’re asking for no bail and for Mr. Singer to be tried as an adult.”
Singer’s attorney said nothing.
“I know this is your first case,” said the judge, directing his comments to the defense attorney, “but let me help you out here. How about requesting bail to be set at some lesser sum? Not that I’d agree, but why give your client reason this early in the case to claim your defense was inadequate and ask for a new trial?”
Singer’s attorney again blushed and said, “Right, your honor. Request half a million dollars bail.”
As if this child or his family could raise anything like that.
The judge said nothing for a moment, directing his attention to the papers in front of him.
“Mr. Singer, it looks to me as if you’ve never been in trouble before. Is that true?”
The young man raised his gaze from the floor to the judge. “Yes. Never.”
“Hmm.” The judge looked through the papers, then out at the boy.
“Request to try as an adult denied. Mr. Singer will be taken to an adolescent facility until his case comes before the court.”
“But your honor,” said the prosecutor, “Singer killed a man, shot him dead in the street.”
“I’m well aware of that. I’m also aware of the circumstances. He’s never been in trouble before, he attends school, and I want to keep him there. And out of the hands of the gang who recruited him for this job.” The judge banged his gavel. “Next case.”
“You’re out of your mind. What kind of judge are you to let this here killer off?” The voice came from a woman standing behind us. Her face was red and streaked with tears. No one needed to tell me this infuriated and distraught woman was Alex’s mother. A balding man, portly and dressed in a suit one si
ze too small, his chubby wrists poking several inches out of the sleeves, put his arm around the woman and shushed her.
“Order in this court or you will be removed,” directed the judge.
The woman pressed her head into her companion’s shoulder, and he led her out the door. I was torn between following her to offer my sympathies and doing what I said I was here to do: get a closer look at the young man responsible for killing Alex. I pushed my way toward the front of the room as the guards began to lead Jerome Singer out a side door.
“Jerome,” I said softly.
He turned at the sound of my voice, and I looked him full in the face. His warm, brown eyes were wide with terror.
He was a child. He didn’t even look thirteen, more like eleven. He barely saw me as he gazed around the crowded room trying to find someone. His mother? No. I watched him focus on two heavily tattooed African-American men standing to one side near the back of the room. They nodded to him. I thought his eyes couldn’t be more fear-filled, but the panic in them seemed to increase, and his knees buckled. The guards hoisted him between them and almost dragged him from the room.
I was willing to bet that at this moment Jerome couldn’t even remember who he had shot, or even that he had carried a gun and pulled the trigger. What kind of threat had the gang held over his head to force him to kill Alex? Something to do with his family, I’d wager. And it was also a sure thing that Jerome would never speak any words in his defense. The gang was safe. This boy would say nothing to incriminate them.
I shook my head and walked out of the courtroom, looking outside for the woman I knew had to be Alex’s mother. I found her soon enough. She was yelling about how “Negroes in this country could get away with murder and only get their fingers slapped.” Lovely woman, I thought, but she had lost her son.
“Mrs. Montgomery,” I said, “I was a friend of Alex’s. I’m so sorry about your son.”
Old Bones Never Die Page 5