The Butcher's Daughter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

“Only way to save you. It was 1968 . . .”

  “Terrible times for the Black man.” Calvin had once told her the same thing. “But what about my mother? Where—”

  “I brought you up to New York City on the bus,” Marceline goes on, not hearing the question, or maybe just pretending. “I left you for Calvin to find, because I knew he’d take you right home to Bettina.”

  “But if you were my grandmother, why didn’t you just take care of me yourself? And where was my—”

  “A child needs a mama and a daddy. Bettina and Calvin needed to be a mama and a daddy. Bettina lost a child. She couldn’t have another one.”

  “Bettina was your niece?”

  “My sister Florence’s girl.”

  Marceline’s memory is remarkable. But they’re running out of time. She’s fading. Not just from this conversation.

  “Calvin knew all of this?”

  “That man went to his grave knowing none of this. Bettina let him think you were a gift from the good Lord above. But she never spoke to me, never looked at me, again. Not another word.”

  “Why did you stay, then?”

  “Didn’t plan on it. I reckoned I’d go home to Georgia, but without Cyril . . .” She trails off sadly. “So I stayed. Keepin’ an eye on things, makin’ sure you was all right.”

  “When Bettina died, you came to pay a condolence call.”

  “She died young just like her mama.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth then?”

  “And break Calvin’s heart, when it was already broken?” She shakes her head. “You were going to be just fine. So I left.”

  “Did you follow me to Ithaca?”

  Marceline offers a nod and a faint smile. “I surely did. There I was in the Port Authority waitin’ for my bus, and who do I see? I thought, what in tarnation is that child doing? Runnin’ away from home?”

  “That’s exactly what I was doing.”

  “I know that. Knew it then. I got on that bus and I made sure you were okay.”

  “Did you pay for my lunch?”

  “I did,” Marceline admits, looking pleased with herself. “But I let you be when I saw that you were going to be okay. Found a friend. Kept her, too. Good for you, child.” She waves a hand at the closed door to the kitchen, where Amelia imagines Jessie is interrogating the older women.

  “Marceline, what about the ring? A baby ring, with a C engraved on it. Calvin said I had it when he found me.”

  “Used to be your daddy’s, and his daddy’s before that.” She closes her eyes. “I am tired.”

  “Tell me about my mother . . . please. And then you can sleep.”

  “I’m sorry, child.”

  “Please! Please tell me.”

  “Sorry for you. Sorry for her. Sorry . . .” She murmurs something that sounds like “. . . for what I did to her.”

  “Marceline, you said my father was murdered the night I was born, because I was born, and because he was Black.”

  “And because your mother was buckruh.”

  White? Her mother was white?

  “And she was killed, too? By . . .”

  Please don’t say it, Marceline. Please don’t tell me you killed my mother.

  “She was not.”

  “Then why . . . why are you sorry?”

  “Because she never knew . . .” She swallows with difficulty, then lifts her chin. “It was the only way to save you.”

  “What did you do, Marceline?”

  “I took you. From the hospital. From her arms.”

  “You took me? From my mother?”

  “She was young. She trusted me. I took you away. To New York. To my family.”

  “But . . .” Amelia’s voice is choked. “What about my mother?”

  “I am sorry every day, all these years. I wished I could have told her, but . . . terrible times.”

  “So she didn’t know where I was? Who I was?”

  “Never.”

  “Oh, Marceline. How could you do that to her?” To me?

  “She was married to a bad man.”

  “She was married? Not to . . . my father?”

  “Her husband was a dangerous criminal. But she was a good woman.”

  A good woman . . .

  A white married woman having an affair with a Black man. Pregnant with a Black man’s child. 1968. The Deep South.

  Terrible times.

  “My Cyril was a good man. He wanted to change the world.” A tear slips down her withered cheek.

  Amelia bows her head. Her father had been killed because she’d been born. She’d been stolen from her mother’s arms because her grandmother feared for her life.

  No wonder. Oh, God, no wonder.

  “Open this.”

  She looks up to see Marceline gesturing at the nightstand. Amelia wipes her eyes and leans toward it, pulling open the only drawer.

  Marceline says something.

  “Right day?” she asks, confused. “What?”

  “He is right there! My Cyril.”

  Peering into the drawer, she sees a picture frame. “Do you want me to . . .”

  “Take it.”

  She stares down at an old snapshot of a lanky young Black man with huge, serious eyes. He isn’t smiling at the camera. He looks like he’s thinking about the woman he loves, and a baby on the way, and changing the world.

  “You look like him, you see?”

  “I do. Do you have any other pictures of him?”

  “No, child. Just that one. I found it with his things, after he was gone. You keep it, now.”

  “But if it’s the only one you have . . .”

  “Soon I will have my boy again.” She closes her eyes.

  “Marceline?”

  “I’m tired, child. So tired . . . You go on, now. I need to rest.”

  “All right. I’ll come see you again tomorrow.” She stands, holding the framed photo and the little bracelet. She bends over the bed and presses a kiss to the old woman’s forehead. “Thank you. For what you did. I understand.”

  Marceline lets out a little sigh.

  Amelia walks slowly to the door. As she opens it, the old woman says, “When you see your mama, you show her that picture.”

  Amelia turns back. “When I . . .”

  “Ask her to forgive me.”

  “My mother? She’s . . .”

  “My niece can tell you.”

  “Then she’s . . .”

  Marceline doesn’t answer, breathing slowly, as if she’s drifted off.

  “She lives on Amelia Island,” a voice says, and she looks up to see Lucky standing on the other side of the threshold.

  “Amelia Island?” Jessie echoes in the kitchen. “I knew it, Mimi! I knew it!”

  “Auntie changed your birth name when she brought you up north. It was her way of giving you a piece of your mother to carry all your life. She still lives there.”

  “She lives there. My mother is alive? And she doesn’t know . . .”

  “No. I can take y’all there to meet her if you don’t mind waiting till later on tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow . . . night?” Amelia echoes in dismay.

  “It’s our annual church fundraiser. I’m the committee chairman, so I have to be there, otherwise, I’d—”

  “But Mimi’s been waiting her whole life for this!” Jessie protests. “Please don’t make her go through another entire day!”

  “Tell you what. I can give y’all the address and you can drive yourselves down in the morning.”

  Amelia offers a grateful smile and manages to say, “That would be . . . perfect. Just perfect. Thank you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday, January 14, 2017

  Camden County, Georgia

  Gypsy hadn’t wasted time leaving Marshboro after insulting Aunt Beulah’s fried chicken. She’d driven out to a budget chain hotel on the coastal highway, adjacent to a car rental agency and a large marina. She grabbed a lobby brochure for year-round fishin
g charters and called from her room to arrange one. Then, leaving her own rental car in the hotel lot, she walked next door and rented another.

  “Daily, weekend, or weekly?” asked the man behind the counter.

  She hesitated only a moment. “Weekly.”

  “You want to buy a tank of gas up front so that you can bring it back empty?”

  “Sure, that would be great, thanks,” she said, as if she did, indeed, intend to return it.

  “I can upgrade you to a nice convertible. Cherry red. No extra charge.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Really? You sure?”

  Was it more conspicuous to turn down an upgrade than it would be to drive the damned red convertible? He might remember her. But if he does, and if anyone asks, she’ll be long gone.

  She chose the black compact car and drove it to a waterfront community of luxury homes, many of which are unoccupied at this time of year. She left the car in a secluded grove near garbage dumpsters at the edge of the development. From there, it was an easy walk back to a strip mall that contains several lively restaurants. She used the phone app to summon a ride back to the hotel.

  The driver was a chatty older woman with a gray ponytail. “Have a nice dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Visiting from New York, huh?”

  It took Gypsy a moment to realize she knew that from the phone app. But of course, it isn’t linked to her real name, or any other factual details. Before the weekend is over the phone, and all its data, will have vanished into the void along with Gypsy herself.

  Now, long before daybreak, she arrives at the marina, bundled into a hooded parka against a cold sea breeze. The place is deserted, closed at this hour.

  But out on the pier, a jovial man who calls himself Cappy Todd is waiting for her, untying the ropes that lash his forty-foot bowrider to the pier. It’s called the Reel Gent. Fitting. He tips his woolen cap as she approaches and greets her with a warm handshake.

  “Right on time. Ready to head out? The black sea bass have been biting offshore the last couple of days.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Little nippy at this hour.” He pulls his hat low over his weathered, smiling eyes. “There’s a thermos of coffee under the stern seat. You just make yourself comfortable in there while I take us out.”

  “Will do. Mind if I smoke?”

  “Not at all.”

  She lights a cigarette and stares at the black water as the boat leaves the marina.

  On the same body of water a thousand miles north of here, another boat is being readied. She’d made a call this morning and made it very clear what will happen if anything goes wrong.

  “Nothing will,” he said. “You can trust me. You should know that by now.”

  Yes, but today’s the day, and the endgame is crucial.

  The first light of dawn appears on the horizon.

  She remembers the long-ago voyage to Cuba with Perry at the helm. He’d grown up in New England, rowing at boarding school, sailing and yachting off coastal islands—yet another reason she’d chosen him. And he’d been perfect.

  But now isn’t the time to look back.

  Now is the time to look ahead.

  Fifteen minutes later, she’s at the wheel of the Reel Gent, leaving Cappy Todd, his throat slit, bobbing in its bloody wake.

  Washington Heights

  The photograph Barnes found in his bedroom could have been anyone, any female figure silhouetted in a window anywhere in the world. But his instinct says that the woman in that photo is Charisse Montague, and that her life is in danger because someone believes she’s Barnes’s daughter and wants to hurt him by hurting her.

  Only three people have a key to his place.

  His mother was at sea last night.

  Rob was at the party.

  Barring emergency, the super can’t—and wouldn’t—cross the threshold without proper notification, and would have mentioned it.

  Barnes stayed up with his pistol in hand, door dead-bolted and chained, windows securely locked. He pored over hard copies of his old files about the Wayland case until sleep finally overtook him at dawn.

  Now he awakens to a ringing cell phone and morning light filtering in through the airshaft. He fumbles for the phone, sees an unidentified local number on caller ID, and answers with a wary, “Hello?”

  “Is this Detective Stockton Barnes?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “My name is Kendra, and my aunt asked me to get in touch with you right away.”

  “Your aunt . . .”

  “Regina Harrison. She said you need to talk to me about my cousins.”

  He sits up in bed, remembering. “That’s right, I have some questions . . . are you free to meet this morning?”

  She is. And she happens to live right here in Washington Heights.

  Tawafuq. Again.

  Barnes arranges to meet her and her husband at a coffee shop in an hour.

  Amelia hasn’t yet responded to last night’s texts, so he dials her number.

  Her phone goes into voice mail. Damn. He knows she’s traveling down south with a friend to meet her mother’s relatives and see if she can find information about the baby ring.

  He leaves a message asking her to call him as soon as possible, then takes a long, hot shower. When he gets out and opens the bathroom door, the apartment’s chill slams him, and he remembers something.

  Glancing at the clock, he sees that it’s ten to ten.

  “Damn.” Clad in a towel, he shivers his way back to the bedroom and hits Redial on his phone.

  “Hi, Kendra, it’s Stockton Barnes again. Listen, can you and your husband meet me at my apartment instead?”

  “At . . . your apartment?”

  “Yes, sorry. I only live a block from the coffee shop, but I have to be here to let my super in with a repairman.”

  Her silence doesn’t surprise him. She and her husband are witnesses in an unsolved double homicide.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m legit. NYPD. I’ll show you my badge. Unless you want to wait until after twelve?”

  “Jeremy and I have plans this afternoon. I’d rather just get it over with this morning. As long as you have ID . . .”

  He assures her that he does, gives her his address, and she says they’ll be here at ten thirty.

  Barnes looks around. The kitchen garbage is full and there are dirty dishes in the sink. A bag of clothes for the dry cleaner sits beside the ever-mounting stack of unopened mail. Holiday cards still line the shelves. Though he’d taken down the Christmas tree last week, boxes of decorations and gifts remain stacked on the floor where it had stood, strewn with pine needles and curled poinsettia foliage. A lone petal clings to the plant, faded to a sickly pink.

  He throws on jeans and his heaviest sweatshirt, intending to spend the next forty minutes making the apartment presentable. But as soon as he plugs in the vacuum cleaner, the super arrives with a maintenance man. Half an hour later, they’re on their way out, heat hissing through the vents again, and someone buzzing from downstairs.

  “You got company,” the super says.

  Yeah, no kidding. Barnes presses the button to unlock the main door.

  “Hey, Tony? You didn’t by any chance let anyone into my apartment yesterday, did you?”

  Tony stops in the hallway and looks back at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just making sure no one was here while I was gone.”

  “Who would be here?”

  “No one should have been. And I guess no one was.”

  “If you’re trying to say I should’a had the heat fixed sooner, then—”

  “No, it’s not about that. I just . . . never mind. Thanks, Tony.”

  He watches Tony catch up with the coveralls-clad man at the door to the stairwell just as a young couple steps out.

  Tony jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “If you’re looking for Barnes, he’s right there.”

  “A super, a
repairman, and you’re Barnes? That’s pretty reassuring,” Jeremy comments as they approach.

  “But we’d still like to see your ID,” Kendra adds.

  “Of course.” Barnes produces his badge. They take turns examining it closely, nod at each other, and accept his invitation to come in.

  “Excuse the mess. I’d offer to take your coats, but it’s still pretty cold in here, so I’ll wait until the heat cranks up. But I can offer coffee. I was just about to make a pot.”

  They decline politely.

  “You don’t mind if I make it anyway?” he asks around a yawn. “Late night.”

  “On the case? My aunt said you have new information.”

  “About Delia Montague. Yes.”

  “Not about the murders?”

  “Not directly.” He measures coffee grounds into a filter.

  “But my aunt said you’re working with Detective El Idrissi on the case?”

  “Not directly. I’m working another angle, and I have some questions about Brandy and Alma.”

  “We’ve told Detective El Idrissi everything we know,” Jeremy says. “It’s hard for us—especially for my wife—to keep rehashing it.”

  Barnes dumps water into the coffee maker and presses the button. “Why don’t we go into the living room? I’ll explain.”

  He moves a stack of magazines and a basket of folded laundry off the couch and invites them to sit down, belatedly noticing the Wayland case file lying open on the coffee table. But he can’t move it with his hands full.

  “Again, sorry about the”—brushing past the shelf with the magazines and laundry, he knocks several holiday cards to the floor—“mess. I’m just going to find a place to put this . . .”

  He hurries into the bedroom, drops the heap on his unmade bed, and hears Kendra cry out.

  “What the hell?” Jeremy exclaims.

  Barnes rushes back to the living room and they whirl to face him. Jeremy takes a step, putting himself between his wife and Barnes, as if he’s a threat.

  “What’s going—”

  “Why do you have a picture of him?” Kendra demands in a high-pitched voice, waving something at him.

  “A picture of who?”

  “Brandy’s new boyfriend!”

  Westport

  Liliana had barely stirred when Bryant kissed her goodbye in the predawn darkness, whispering, “See you Friday morning, about this time.”