by Julie Smith
“I promise you.”
The shrug was back, the contempt.
“You’re smart to sing, you know that? It’s the way to get through. Here’s my phone number.” Talba ripped out a deposit slip imprinted with her home phone, something she hadn’t been willing to do for Millie. “Call me if you need me. I mean that; I’m there for you.” It was a lot like talking to one of the pews.
She called Shaneel over again. “Honey, you’re not a very good liar.”
“What you mean?”
“You know one of those men is Toes.”
“You ain’t no welfare lady— you Miz Scott’s detective, ain’t you?”
“Yes, and I’m pretty good, don’t you think? I got past your principal.”
She was amused. “Yeah. Yes’m. Guess you are.”
“So which one is it?”
“Ma’am?”
“Which one’s Toes?”
“I ain’ know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I was asleep that day— when Toes come by the house.”
“You went to his house with him. You already told me that.”
“I ain’ remember.”
This was going nowhere. Talba gave her a deposit slip, her “card”, and left feeling like a failure. There was no doubt in her mind that Eddie would have opened up the girl like a calzone— gotten secrets flowing out of her like cheese-and-mushroom filling. She missed the man.
Maybe I should send him some flowers, she thought. By way of apology. But she dismissed the gesture as too theatrical.
If she got to thinking about Eddie, she was going to go into a funk. The thing to do was to keep moving, to do something constructive. She headed for the Bergeron house. Eddie hadn’t lifted his embargo on the dead woman’s family, but she felt a decent amount of time had gone by. And getting to Pamela was absolutely crucial.
The woman who came to the door was thin and drawn, no one Talba remembered from the funeral. Her hair and lipstick were too dark for her skin, making her look older than she probably was. She had on neat polyester slacks in a charcoal color, and a tailored print blouse. She was dressed for doing errands, perhaps, or receiving visitors. Talba remembered that Shaneel had said the three girls hung together partly because their mothers worked. This woman must still be on bereavement leave, still trying to accept the finality of her daughter’s death.
She had deep lines between her eyes, a perfect eleven, and the forehead above them was furrowed as well, contorted so heavily Talba was reminded of a sharpei. Her eyes were frightened, darting behind and around her visitor. It made Talba uneasy.
“Mrs. Bergeron?”
“Yes?” The woman wasn’t openly hostile, but she was on the verge.
“I’m a friend of Aziza Scott. Cassandra’s mother.”
“Cassandra?” Her brow curled further in on itself; her eyes became wilder still.
“Pamela’s friend from choir practice.”
“Pammie never mentioned a Cassandra.”
Talba was at a loss. Aziza had said she phoned and talked to the Bergerons; Talba was sure of it. And that Cassandra had phoned, but couldn’t get through to Pamela. I couldn’t have dreamed it, she thought.
But it was clear that being Aziza’s friend wasn’t going to cut any ice. “Look. I’m a detective…”
Mrs. Bergeron didn’t wait to hear any more. “Lloyd! Lloyd come here!”
Almost instantly, a man appeared, his arm encircling his wife’s waist as he stepped up behind her. He was quite a bit taller than she was, and he carried a pillow of fat at his center. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt that fit him in such a way that it emphasized both his spare tire and his sloping shoulders. It was an odd shape for a man of his size; perhaps he had never done manual work or exercised.
He was almost bald, but still had a few strands of light brown hair between the two side tufts, worn too long, so they were limp and lifeless. He wore a pair of thickish glasses with thin-rimmed frames, and his face had a vague, confused look.
“Lloyd, this woman says she’s a detective.”
The man held out his hand, as if entreating a child to give back the butcher knife. “Lemme see ya badge.”
“I’m not a police officer. I’m a private detective, and I’m extremely concerned about your daughter. Let me show you some I.D.” She started to reach into her purse, but the man grabbed her forearm. She raised her chin, alarmed. Behind the glasses, Bergeron’s eyes flamed.
What the hell was going on here? She was starting to panic.
She spoke softly. “Okay, now. Okay. Everything’s all right.”
She started to step back, but Bergeron pulled her into the house, slammed the door, and slung her across the foyer. She crashed into a wall and tried to come back to her height with dignity, suddenly remembering the sensation of playing statues as a kid. The door was closed, and Bergeron had his back to it, blocking her from leaving. His wife stood at his side, forehead still furrowed. Talba’s heart thundered. What the hell is this? She hoped she hadn’t spoken aloud.
Bergeron spoke in a controlled, menacing voice. “Now you get on the phone and you get her back over here.” His arms were folded over his chest and his feet were about a foot apart. He sounded like a poor man’s Clint Eastwood.
How in hell to defuse this? Talba found she wanted nothing so much as to curl up and have a nap. She knew the impulse well. Miz Clara had been sick once when she was a child— confined to the hospital— and Talba and Corey had gone to stay with Aunt Carrie. Talba had spent the whole time under her cousin’s bed sucking her thumb. When she came back to herself, the grown-ups talked about her “coming out of her shell.” It happened to her again the first time a boyfriend broke up with her, yet again the time she saw someone struck by a car. By that time, she had a name for it— the turtle response, she called it. It was her invariable reaction to stress, and she was never more aware that it could hardly be less appropriate.
Struggling to lift the veil of lethargy that was settling over her, she ran her mouth, blurting just to keep herself animate. “You mean Pamela?” she said. “Get Pamela over here?”
“You heard me. Do it. Marilyn, bring her the phone.”
Mrs. Bergeron left, and Talba kept talking. “Mr. Bergeron, I’m really sorry about what happened to Rhonda. I’d like to help you, but I need you to…”
He spit on her. “Don’t you mention my daughter’s name.”
Talba was still trying to assimilate the fact that she was standing there with saliva on her face when Bergeron spoke again. “Nigger.”
Talba jumped back and hit the wall again, revolted beyond anything she’d ever experienced, though whether at Bergeron or his saliva she couldn’t have said. It was pretty much a toss-up.
Her anger was starting to come up, which, in this circumstance, might be more dangerous than the turtle response. The man was a racist who’d probably see anything she said as an excuse to hit her. She had to keep calm. “Mr. Bergeron, let me leave, please.”
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Even in her fear, Talba almost laughed. The man had seen too many movies. She said, “I need to go now, please.”
Marilyn Bergeron returned with a cordless phone. He took it. “Force your way in here, like that… I’m gon’ call the police on ya.”
Talba could feel her shoulders lower an inch or two. Call them! Tell them I’m the reincarnation of Bonnie Barrow. Say I shot down Amelia Earhart and killed Jimmy Hoffa. Just call them, please. Eddie would kill her, but it was better than being killed by Lloyd Bergeron.
“Give me that phone, Marilyn.” He grabbed it out of her hand and turned back to Talba. “I’m callin’ the police.”
His wife said, “Lloyd, for God’s sake.”
But he focused on Talba. “What you think if I called the police?” Talba was quiet. “Huh, nigger? What you think?” He kicked her, barking her shin, but once more she didn’t respond. “Answer me!”
“Do what you have to
do, Mr. Bergeron.”
It was the wrong answer. He threw the phone across the room and looked straight at her, yelling so loud she thought the windows would break. “That was my daughter in her coffin the other day!”
Something had happened to him, something Talba had never seen before. Before her eyes, he’d grown a good three feet, and his eyes had somehow assumed the size of personal pizzas, red and flaming behind the glasses, which only served to magnify them. His breath was a dragon’s and his voice a hammer, pounding at her. “That was my daughter! That was my daughter!”
He took a step toward her. “What the fuck do you mean comin’ in my house like this?”
Talba turned and ran, flat-out pounded through the house hoping to hell she’d get to a door. There was a long hall, and then, blessedly, a kitchen, and— yes!— a back door.
Bergeron was following. She shrieked, “You’re scaring the shit out of me!” and it was true, but she realized later he wasn’t exactly trying to catch her. In fact, if he had a purpose at all, it was probably scaring the shit out of her, but more likely he’d just lost it. And no telling where it was going to lead, once started.
The door had a button lock on it, which slowed her down not at all. She was out in a trice, and down the three steps to the side of the house. Outside, she felt secure enough to slow down a bit— she could be heard if she yelled for help, though actually, she’d prefer a quiet to a noisy exit.
However, no such luck. Bergeron stood on the stoop and hollered after her, continuing till she was out of earshot and for all she knew, long after. “This is my house. My fuckin’ daughter! Who do you think you are?”
She was in her car with the door locked before she understood just how unnerved she was. She was clammy all over, heart racing, limbs weak. Her hands were shaking badly.
Adrenaline, she thought. It’s the fight-or-flight response. Guess I’m a flyer.
She felt badly disoriented— figured it must be part of the same thing.
She breathed from her belly until she felt calm enough to turn on the ignition, and, as she drove back, worked on what she was going to tell Eddie. That wasn’t too hard: everything, probably. She’d just have to hope he wouldn’t be too sarcastic.
That is, if she was still working for him, and if he ever spoke to her again. In either case, she still had to tell him she’d called on the Bergerons, because she’d learned one important fact— Pamela was missing.
She called the office but got no answer. Eileen must not have gotten brave enough to reenter. Talba didn’t see why she should be the first.
What do I need? she thought. What do I need to get back to normal?
Coffee and water, came the answer. One to drink, the other to look at.
She was starting to feel drowsy, maybe the crash from her adrenaline high; the coffee ought to help with that. She stopped and got some at a place on Veteran’s Highway and made her way out to the lake, where she parked and got out to drink it. She tried to clear her mind of the case, of her fear, of her shame at her fear, of the memory of being spat upon and bullied. She tried just to breathe and drink and look at the lake. She didn’t succeed, or even come close to it. But by the time she got to the bottom of the cup, she knew she’d gotten far enough away to address it again.
Chapter 13
She had a little spying to do. She drove over to Aziza’s and knocked boldly on the door. No answer.
She knocked again, making it as scary a police knock as her small knuckles would allow.
Still no answer, so she did it again.
Maybe nobody was in there, but she was working off a lot of her aggressions. Just when she was about to go sneaking around peeping in windows, she heard steps coming toward her, small uncertain ones. Only then did she realize she’d probably terrified the very kid she was trying to help.
“Cassandra? You in there, baby? It’s Talba Wallis.”
The girl flung open the door. She looked pale, her face drawn as if she was about to cry. “I didn’t know who you were.” Her voice was panicked. Poor kid was home alone. She should have considered that possibility.
“Listen, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just thought you couldn’t hear me knocking.”
A voice called out from somewhere in the house: “Cassandra? Who is it, baby?”
Aziza. She was home.
The girl turned and shouted, “That detective.” She made it sound like “that whoremongering child-beater.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
Hell with that, Talba thought. “Can I come in?” she said.
Cassandra shrugged as if she couldn’t waste words on so pathetic a being as Talba. But she stepped resentfully aside.
The girl led her through the same chaos Aziza had a few days before, to the same snug back room. Talba could hear the low drone of Aziza’s voice on the telephone.
“Cassandra, listen,” she said. “If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?”
The girl laughed. It came out a short, nervous bray, perhaps meant to convey contempt.
“I get it,” Talba said. “Depends on the question, right? Okay, how about this one— can I have a drink of water?”
Cassandra was openly contemptuous now. That and puzzled. “Can you have a drink of water? That’s what you want to ask me?”
“Well, the first thing.”
The girl heaved her shoulders yet again, shrugging being a mode of expression she obviously preferred to speaking in the affirmative. She padded off to get the water.
Quickly, Talba looked for a place for one of her bugs, but Aziza buzzed in before she had a chance to plant it.
Damn! The tiny things were so useful!
The mother was as cheerful as the daughter was sullen.
“Hi, Talba. How’d you enjoy choir practice? They’re good, aren’t they?”
The question took Talba aback. Choir practice seemed weeks instead of hours ago.
“Yes… they’re quite good.” She was trying to collect her wits, having lived several lifetimes, or so it seemed, since then.
“I just got home.” Aziza had changed clothes, though— she was wearing shorts. And she’d had an extended phone conversation. “Cassandra said you didn’t have anything.”
“I showed the girls two pictures. They said they didn’t know the guys.”
Aziza sat down opposite Talba, kicking off a sandal. She curled her legs under her. “I didn’t get the details. The phone rang.”
Cassandra returned with the water and gave it to Talba. Talba passed the pictures on to Aziza. “These are the photos.”
“Oh, my God. It couldn’t have been one of these guys. Could it?” She looked at her daughter.
Cassandra gave the teenager’s “no,” the one that comes out like a whiny screech.
“You’re sure?” She gave the girl a level look, not even halfway stern. The woman wasn’t scary enough to frighten a moth— Miz Clara could give her Mom lessons. Even Talba could.
“Oh, Mom!” Another screech.
Aziza lifted a what-can-you-do eyebrow, and said, “She says she’s sure.”
“One of them’s a friend of someone who’s extremely powerful in this town. The other’s his brother.”
“Can I go, please? I’ve got homework.” Everything the girl said had a whiny edge to it. Maybe she was always that way, but Talba thought she was under a lot of pressure. She spoke before Aziza could. “I’d like you to stay a minute.” Cassandra sat down hard on a sofa, a little black cloud that plopped rather than floated.
“What man?” Aziza said. “What powerful man? These guys look like gangsters.”
“Baron Tujague.”
Aziza said, “Who?”
Cassandra said nothing. Talba watched her face.
Absolutely inscrutable.
Okay. That proves it. “You know who he is, don’t you, Cassandra?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t seem surprised that these guys are close to
him.”
Aziza said, “Will someone please tell me who Baron Tujague is? A drug dealer or something? I know very few African-American barons.”
Cassandra’s silence was so deafening she almost had to hold her ears. Finally, Talba answered herself. “He’s a rapper.”
The girl said, “Can I go now?” and Aziza nodded, not even looking at her.
“I think I know who you mean,” she said. “The guy who owns the record company?”
“The same. I think his brother’s called Toes.”
“But Cassandra says no.”
“Aziza, tell me something. What teenage girl wouldn’t react if you showed her pictures of anyone— not even someone she’d had sex with, anyone at all— and said he was the brother of a big-deal rapper? None. Not one— unless she was hiding something.”
Aziza considered it. “I don’t know. Rap’s not Cassandra’s thing.”
“Oh? What kind of music does she like?”
“She likes… well, she…” Aziza stopped cold, clearly at a loss. “She sings in a choir, for Christ’s sake!”
“Does she have a Walkman?”
“Of course she has a Walkman. She’s a kid. What does that have to do with it?” She was getting testy.
“She may be playing music you aren’t aware of.” Talba felt stupid, stating the obvious so wimpily, but this woman had a lot of hard truth to wake up to. She had a set of nasty blows to deliver— she might as well start out with a love tap.
As casually as she could, she said, “Did you know Pamela Bergeron’s missing?”
“Cassandra didn’t mention that.”
“She may not know.”
“How do you know?”
“I went to show Pam the pictures. Her parents told me.” (That was close enough to the truth.)
“Look, if Cassandra and Shaneel say you don’t have the guy, you probably don’t.”
Here was a woman, Talba thought, who’d go through near-boggling mental acrobatics to avoid looking at the truth.
She felt utterly out of her depth, feeling as she did that Cassandra was in grave danger, yet not wanting to drive Aziza farther into her shell of denial.