Murder on Second Street: The Jackson Ward Murders (Sy Sanford Series Book 1)

by Rebekah Pierce

  “How you gonna take care of me, Sy? You…you drink like he does. You ain’t got no money to speak of! I can’t be with someone who ain’t got no prospects, who can’t take care of me. I’ve had enough of that. I deserve more than that, right? Right?” Her eyes pleaded with Sy to hear her and he did, but he didn’t like what she was saying.

  “You sayin’ I’m like Amos? I’d never hurt you, Lena.”

  “I know that, but … look at you, Sy. You ain’t got nothin’ ‘cept the business and even that’s not workin’,” she said.

  Sy shook his head from side to side. He looked at the beer that was on the table. He wanted to drink it so bad. Lena watched him as he struggled with the desire to drink this away too.

  “What if I solve this case? They’s payin’ me a lot of money and more … if I solve this case,” he pleaded like a child almost.

  Lena let out a deep breath, which seemed to hurt her more than anything as she almost doubled over in pain. “I’m alright,” she said as Sy rushed over to hold her up. “Do you know who’s doin’ it?”

  “I think I do, but I need more proof. They ain’t gonna believe me if it ain’t solid.”

  “He’s gonna keep killin’ until someone stop him, Sy. But what makes you think you can? Can you?” Now she walked over to Sy and put her hand on his, which lay next to the beer. She needed desperately for him to be able to.

  Sy looked into her swollen, brown eyes and said, “I have no choice, do I?”

  “No,” she responded.

  “Come on. I’m gonna take you to the hospital.”

  “No, I’ll be fine, I swear!” pleaded Lena.

  “I ain’t takin’ no chances, Lena. You could have internal bleeding or somethin’. I seen it happen before.”

  “In the war?”

  “Yes. It ain’t a good way to die, Lena. Now, come on! We gotta go now! We’ve already lost ‘nough time,” and he quickly ushered her out of the door, grabbing his rain coat and fedora hat on the way out.

  Chapter 22

  St. Philip’s Hospital was located between 12th and Marshall Street. It was not only a nursing school for Negro women like the now deceased Annie Hilks, but it was the only hospital in the Ward to treat Negroes. Richmond Community Hospital also treated Negroes, but mostly the folks that lived in Church Hill near N. 28th Street went there. Residents of the Ward would have to take a trolley to get to it, and you’d be dead by the time you got there, folks would say. Either way, no matter your socioeconomic status, these were the only two hospitals willing to care for the Negroes of the City of Richmond.

  Jeffrey Peterson had been at St. Philip’s all night waiting for news about his father. The elder Peterson had complained of stomach pains earlier that day. Jeffrey had thought nothing of it, thinking the old man had perhaps eaten too much as he was prone to do. He found his father to be a gluttonous man and often stared at him with contempt, when no one was looking, of course. He hated his father for many things, but the main issue was his greed for the finer things: food, material things and women.

  Jeffrey first learned of his father’s extramarital affairs when he was ten years old. He had cut school for the third time that week and was walking around the park near the Fan District. He was eating an ice cream cone when he thought he saw his father on a park bench with a young, pretty woman. He hid behind some bushes and watched as his father and the woman kissed unabashedly. He was still licking his ice cream cone when he saw his father put his fat hands under the woman’s skirt. Young Jeffrey was stunned that the woman let her father touch her like that in public. He dropped the ice cream cone and ran home as fast as he could.

  He ran in the front door and upstairs to his room. His mother had been sewing in the parlor and ran after him when he did not answer her about what was wrong and why he was home from school so early. When she got to his room, he had locked the door and she could hear Jeffrey throwing stuff around. By the time she and the maid got the door open, Jeffrey was lying on his bed nearly comatose. His room looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane.

  Nothing she or the maid did or said brought him around. Mrs. Peterson was about to call the doctor when her husband came home. “Elijah, something is wrong with Jeffrey,” she cried.

  Sometimes, Elijah found his wife to be overly dramatic and an annoyance to his life. He had married her because his family found it a good match, and she had gotten pregnant with Jeffrey – the end result of a one night affair. He had never really loved her, but he was forced to marry her to save both of their family’s names. He looked at her as if she were a stranger and walked right past her upstairs to Jeffrey’s room.

  When he walked in, Jeffrey was sitting at his desk writing on a piece of paper. “Is all well, my son?” he asked flatly.

  Jeffrey looked up from his writing and stared at his father intently to the point where Elijah felt as if his son had wanted to hurt him. But then he smiled pleasantly and said, “All is well, father.”

  Elijah cleared his throat and left Jeffrey to his writing. He had never had a real connection to his son, possibly because he felt that he and his mother had trapped him into a life he abhorred. His only release was his dalliances with Daphne and Clara. Yes, he had two other women – each did not know of the other and he wanted to keep it that way. He really could care less if his wife knew, but he kept it from her as well. He had a reputation to protect, after all, and no woman was going to take his career and prestige away from him.

  From that day on, Jeffrey kept his emotions towards his father and mother in check. He would often follow his father, hiding in some bushes, eating an ice cream cone. On those nights at dinner, he’d secretly glare at his mother for her stupidity in not knowing her husband was cheating on her. He hated her innocence and ignorance. She was too busy being a socialite, married to a wealthy man, to see what was going on beneath her nose. He was thinking over all of this when the doctor finally came walking down the hall towards him in the waiting room.

  “Doctor, how is my father doing?” he feigned concern.

  The mulatto doctor shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Your father has stomach cancer. I don’t think he’ll make it through the night; it’s quite advanced, I’m afraid. Better make arrangements,” and he continued on his way as if he had never stopped to talk to Jeffrey.

  For a moment, Jeffrey was too stunned to move. He had never thought of it being anything more than a bout of gas. “Stomach cancer,” he repeated out loud to himself. Then, a dark smile crossed his face as he realized that he’d soon be free of his father as well. Free to continue with his hobbies and he’d be wealthier than ever now.

  He was smiling sweetly still as he walked towards the exit of the hospital when he saw them coming in. The woman was leaning on the desperate looking man carefully. She had clearly been beaten up terribly, her swollen lips and eyes were a ghastly purple and blackish color.

  They hurried past Jeffrey, too caught up in their own dilemma to notice him. He turned and watched as the man sat the beaten woman down and went in search of help. She looked up for a moment to find him staring at her, and then she quickly put her eyes and face down in shame, he thought. She really was a pretty woman underneath those bruises, he thought to himself. He stared a second longer and then walked outside into the cold, dark October morning. She was pretty, indeed. “Too much so for that man she’s with,” he said into the cold air.

  Lena had two broken ribs, a sprained wrist and numerous bruises and bumps from her beating by Amos. The doctor gave her some pain medication and sent her on her way, with Sy close behind. They rode the streetcar in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Both knew that Lena could not go back to Amos, but she couldn’t go home with Sy either. People would talk and it would make things far worse for Lena.

  The sun began to break from behind the clouds as they got off the trolley. The retail shop owners were preparing for another day of business as they lined Second Street with their goods. Sy stopped at a fruit stand to purchase an appl
e for Lena. She needed to eat for strength and for the medicine to take effect quicker.

  “Thank you,” she whispered as she bit into the luscious red apple.

  Sy nodded and they continued on their way towards his office on Jackson Street. The morning air was chilly and bit across their faces. They hunkered in closer together.

  “Lena, I’m gonna take you somewhere safe,” Sy whispered into her ear as they walked arm in arm.

  “Where you gonna take me?” she asked, looking up into his green eyes. They were filled with pain and weary, she noted to herself. The last thing she had ever wanted to do was to bring him more pain. She quickly put her head down as a tear escaped from her eyes.

  “You’ll be safe there, Lena, I promise.”

  He decided to order a taxi; it was too far to walk where he wanted to go. Thirty minutes later, they arrived at their destination. Sy had taken her to the one place where he knew she’d be safe and where he could keep an eye on her. “Wait here,” he told her, which was fine by Lena because she could hardly move now anyway.

  He asked the taxi driver to wait for him and he quickly got out of the car and ran up the steps to the porch of the quaint house. He banged hard on Mrs. Perditia Jones’ door. She lived in a small, but Victorian designed house in the Randolph neighborhood, one of the most prestigious Negro neighborhoods in Richmond.

  A few seconds later, the door was opened by a tall, old Indian-looking Negro with a hump on his back and a patch on his right eye. “Yes sir?” he drawled. His voice was cracked with age and death.

  “May I see Mrs. Jones, please?” Sy pleaded, twirling his fedora hat in his hands like he was juggling balls.

  “Who is callin’, sir?”

  “Sy Sanford, and please tell her it’s a family emergency.”

  Sy stood patiently as the doorman went to speak with Mrs. Jones. He looked back at the taxi and saw that Lena had laid her head back on the car seat. She was tired and weary. He didn’t tell her, but he planned on finding Amos. He told himself that he just wanted to talk to him, but Sy knew better than to lie to himself.

  He was going to hurt Amos Johnson, and hurt him bad. It was one thing to be a bully towards other men, but to physically hurt a woman, and someone you supposedly loved, was dead wrong. Plus, Sy loved Lena too and he hurt when she hurt. “I’m gonna hurt him,” he vowed standing there on the front steps of Mrs. Perditia Jones’ home.

  Just then, the front door to Mrs. Jones’ home opened and the old manservant ushered in Sy with the bowing of his head. Sy was escorted into a small room off the hallway. The little room housed a small reading table with a lamp and a Victorian chair. A rather large photograph of the late Mr. Jones hung on the wall facing the doorway. He was a formidable looking man with a square jaw and hard looking eyes which seemed to jump off the canvas. He was sitting in the same chair in which Sy was about to seat himself.

  A small fire was going in the fireplace with the gold trimming; it helped to give the room a cozy feel, the opposite effect of the photograph. “This must be her reading room,” said Sy to himself as he sat down in the chair to wait for Mrs. Jones.

  A small window allowed Sy to see out front. The taxi cab sat parked and waiting. Sy had offered the driver an extra dollar tip if he waited for him to return and to keep the lady with the battered face warm.

  The driver sneaked a look at the sleeping lady whenever he felt it safe after Sy had left the car, of course. She was a pretty woman, but her man’s hands made her face ugly, the driver had said to himself. He shook his head in grief; he thought that Sy was her abuser, her husband.

  He was looking at her again in his mirror as she slept when he spotted a car parked behind him a little ways back. He thought nothing of it as he had made many trips to this neighborhood of uppity Negroes; he would often tell his friends about the things he saw when he went up there as they sat around drinking, commiserating on the lows of their lives. So, he just ignored the car thinking it another cabbie and went back to staring at the pretty, beat up woman who seemed to barely be breathing – except for the rise and fall of her breasts, which he gazed upon with longing.

  Sy heard Mrs. Jones coming before he saw her. The thud of her feet against the floor jumped to the beating of Sy’s heart and rattled a vase that sat on the mantle over the fireplace. She stood in the doorway in a heavy dress robe, her large frame blocking what little sunlight there was in the room. A strand of gray hair dangled from behind her head, having escaped from the half completed coifed bun. She had been in the middle of dressing when he called upon her.

  She was leaning on a duck head cane and breathing quite heavily. “Sanford, what is happenin’? Don’t tell me there has been another murder,” she said as she sat in a chair opposite Sy trying to catch her breath.

  Sy began to feel as if it was a mistake coming here. He did not want to be an inconvenience to Mrs. Jones, but he had no other choice. “No, Mrs. Jones. I come on a personal call. I … I need your assistance.”

  She waived her hand in the air. “Whatever it is, I will do it,” replied Mrs. Jones with a firm resolve in her voice that sent an emotion through Sy that he had not felt since the death of his mother.

  “But you do not know what I am about to ask,” he said quietly, almost as a whisper. “I think I may have asked for enough already.”

  “Sanford, you are helping us to find a killer who has no regard for human life, particularly for that of a woman, his own people. The sheriff don’t care ‘bout us down here in the Ward. You the only one who is willin’ to help us, and so whatever else you need, I will do.”

  Sy paused for a moment as he stared into the fireplace. The flames shot up like horns out of the earth. He saw his men trying to put out the fire of a machine gun which had overheated and exploded near one of the trenches. Several soldiers were burnt alive as a result of the explosion, and Sy and his men fought desperately to not only put out the fire, but to identify the remains of the charred bodies afterwards. Mrs. Jones’ voice brought Sy back to the parlor.

  “Sy, what can I do to help you?” her voice implored.

  Tired green eyes locked in with hers. “My secretary, Mrs. Lena Johnson, is waiting outside in a cab. I have just brought her from the hospital.”

  “Oh, my!” Perditia Jones interjected as her hands instinctively went to her throat.

  “She was assaulted by her husband. I have no place to take her which is safe … except here, I think. You were the only think person I could think of.” His voice shook with a mixture of rage and sadness.

  Mrs. Jones stood up and leaned on her cane. “Bring her in at once. This will be her home for as long as she needs.”

  Sy wanted to hug Mrs. Jones, but he felt it’d be out of place to do so, so he simply got up and did as he was told. He ran up to the taxi and opened the cab door nearly scaring Lena out of her skin. “I’m so sorry, Lena. Let’s go!” he ordered as he reached for her. She leaned against his chest for support as he paid the driver the fare and the extra tip.

  The cabbie smiled graciously and drove away as Lena and Sy stepped into Mrs. Jones’ home. As they walked inside of the lovely home, the taxi driver looked in his mirror one more time as he drove away and saw that the car was still sitting in its place. “I already got the fare,” the taxi driver said to the mirror, and he waved his hand out of his window at the driver.

  Sy handed Lena over to Mrs. Jones and the old manservant. His shoulders fell a little as he watched them lead Lena up the steps. Halfway to the top, Mrs. Jones called back to Sy, “Go on, Mr. Sanford. She’s fine now. We’ll see you soon,” and the three of them disappeared into the back of the house at the top of the stairs.

  Sy stood still for a moment and watched the ghosts of the three people that stayed behind. A thousand thoughts went through his mind at one time as he put on his fedora hat, checked the buttons on his raincoat and walked out the door, shutting it firmly behind him. Standing on the porch, he took a deep breath and then exhaled. He had to find Amos Johnson.r />
  Chapter 23

  The neighborhood sat quietly as if afraid to move. Something dark was in the air and everything that had breath sensed it. Sy put up his coat collar and started walking down Randolph Street towards Jackson Ward and the Jackson Barbershop, which was several long blocks away between Adams and East Clay Street. Another cold wind slapped Sy in the face as he walked, but he felt nothing. He kept his eyes straight in front of him determined nothing would stop him from reaching his destination.

  He was on his second block crossing the street when a Chrysler Imperial turned the corner sharply and missed him by inches. “Shit!” Sy screamed as he jumped back. The driver didn’t even stop to see if he had hurt Sy. He kept going, in fact, as Sy stood on the street corner and watched it disappear down the darkening street.

  A cold shiver went down his back. Not too many Negroes own cars in the Ward, he remembered saying to Preston Miller a few days ago. Something stirred deep in his gut. Sy turned in the direction that the car had come from: Mrs. Jones lived on that street.

  Squaring his shoulders, he shoved his hands inside of his coat pockets. Dismissing a dark thought from his head, Sy continued to walk towards Jackson’s Barbershop in the Ward. A thousand thoughts ran through his head as the wind whipped against him almost as if it were trying to stop him from reaching the shop. An image of Lena’s bruised and bloodied face floated in front of him as he crossed street after street.

  The last time he had seen his mother, Hattie, her face had looked the same. He remembered the feeling of rage coursing through his ten year old body as his father, Big Sy, stood over her as she lay passed out on the living room floor, hands covered in blood and breathing rapidly like a rabid dog. “Is she dead?” Sy cried out to his father who ignored him as he grabbed a trash bag and rushed into the back room returning with an arm full of his clothes.

  “Daddy, is she dead?” the frightened child had asked again from under the kitchen table. All Sy heard was the screen door slamming shut. Bang! After a few minutes of silence, Sy finally managed to find the courage to crawl out from under the table and ran to his mother. Tears fell all over her bloody face as he fell upon her screaming, “Momma! Momma!” She finally moved. It took her and Sy more than ten minutes to get her up. She told him to stop crying and to “go get me my towel.” Sy smiled sadly at the memory. Hattie was a strong woman, but still …