Goodfellowe House

by Persia Walker

  I was about to rip out the page and start over, when someone said my name. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. That’s when I looked up and saw her—a split second before George Greene, one of the rookie reporters, pointed her to my desk.

  I paused, both surprised and concerned. It had been three years since we’d last spoken, but I could remember that conversation word for word.

  What’re you going to do now?

  I don’t know. What can we do?

  Just don’t give up.

  Even then she’d been thin, but now her face was lean and toughened. She was in her mid-thirties, but appeared to be older. Worry and fatigue had etched fine lines in the corners of her eyes. In another life, she could’ve been beautiful. She had the requisite high cheekbones and dark, liquid eyes, but hard work and tragedy had lent an air of permanent exhaustion and abiding grief. She came over, clutching her battered purse and looking politely apologetic.

  “Mrs. Price, you probably don’t remember me, but—”

  “Sure, I do. You’re Ruth—Ruth Todd.”

  Her smile was soft and grateful. She extended her hand and I rose to shake it.

  “It’s been a long time,” I said. “How’s the family doing?”

  “Not good.”

  Of course not, given what they’d gone through. I remembered my manners, borrowed a chair from a desk nearby and offered her a seat. She sat down with a thank you.

  “None of us has ever forgotten,” she said. “We live with it day in and day out, but it’s worse at Christmastime. Seems like we’ve lived with this for such a long time. Can’t none of us remember what it was like before ...” She stumbled, still unable to say it, “well, before it happened. We got our faith in Jesus and that helps, but I got to admit, there’s been times when I was so low it felt like my heart was scraping the ground.” She wrung her hands. “Last year, Daddy died. It was the not knowing that killed him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Mr. Todd had been a fine old gentleman. He did better than most with the cards life dealt him. He’d lost his right leg to a railroad accident early on, but still managed to make it North, teach himself to read, and open up a shoe shop that fed him and his family.

  “Now, Mama’s going, too. She’s over at Harlem Hospital. The doctors say it’s T.B., but I know it’s got to do with what happened to Esther. Mama may not even make it to New Year’s. I think—I know she’d be able to go more peaceful if she had a—if she just knew something ... anything.”

  “Yes, I understand.” Thoughtful, I picked up a pencil and rolled it between my fingers. “How’s Job?”

  “He’s fine. I took him in, raised him like he’s my own.”

  “He knows about his mother?”

  “Sure does—and that’s another thing. He’s ten now and asking questions. He’s a smart kid and I’m a bad liar. Even if I was good at making up tales, he’s too quick to believe ‘em.”

  “Lying wouldn’t make sense. It never does. Sooner or later, he’d find out the truth.”

  “The problem is, don’t nobody know the truth. Not all of it. Not really. Just which truth is he gonna hear? What the cops say—or what we say? And don’t neither truth tell the whole story.” She paused. “That’s why I’m here.”

  I tapped the pencil on the desk. “I take it you want me to write about Esther.”

  She sat forward, on the edge of the chair. “It’s time for the real story to be written, Mrs. Price. And if anybody can do it, you can. You the one.”

  I wished I shared her confidence—in me or any other columnist I knew. “If I wrote about Esther—and I’m not saying I will—but if I did, just what’re you hoping will happen? It’s been a long time. People forget.”

  “You can make ‘em remember. People will read your stuff and get to thinking about it.”

  She wasn’t giving me a compliment just to get what she wanted—or maybe she was. But I thought she meant it. The compliment was heartfelt, but naïve.

  “I write fluff. People don’t expect anything serious from me.”

  She started to object, but I raised a hand to forestall her.

  “As a matter of fact, they read my column for just that reason. They want to be entertained. They trust that when they step into Lanie’s World, they can turn off their brain and never be asked to think.”

  “You once said you’d do everything you could to help us.”

  “And I meant it. But letting you get your hopes up just because of my column would be cruel, not kind.”

  “Cruel?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I’ll tell you what’s cruel. The things people keep saying about her, the cops and their dirty suspicions. That’s cruel. As for disappointing us: Don’t even think about it. Can’t nobody disappoint us more than we been disappointed already.” She was resolute. “Well? What about it? Will you do it, please?”

  I leaned back in my chair, reflective. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Will you really?”

  “I promise. I’ll let you know.”

  She started to say more, then reconsidered it. With a sigh, she adjusted her cloche hat and rose. Shaking my hand, she thanked me.

  “Nothing to thank me for.”

  She gave a brave smile. “I want to believe there will be.”

  I watched her leave and exhaled. Every now and then someone would come in with an axe to grind and want to use my column to do it. I usually took the time to listen and I usually had to say no, but it was never easy to turn people away.

  Sam Delaney walked up. He was a carefully dressed man in his early forties with handsome features and faint gray circles under dark brown eyes. He was the most eligible bachelor in the newsroom. He was also the most remote. That frustrated a lot of the single women on staff, but it didn’t bother me. I’d pretty much lost interest in men since my husband died.

  As my boss and the city room editor of the Harlem Chronicle, Sam was hard-working, dependable and for the most part fair. I sensed he had a kind heart, but what I most often saw was his conservatism and caution. He had both instincts and imagination, but he trusted neither, not in himself or in others, and that did bother me. Sometimes, I wondered if he didn’t have too much respect for authority—never too good a trait in a newspaperman. But I couldn’t argue with his dedication. His primary concern was to protect the paper. He’d been there less than a year and had already managed to bump up its circulation. He was certainly a welcome relief after our previous editor, an alcoholic who’d harassed the women and belittled the men.

  Now, he nodded toward Ruth’s departing figure.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Remember Esther Todd?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, that was her older sister.” I explained what Ruth wanted.

  He listened sympathetically, but shook his head. “Wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s depressing. Especially right now, before Christmas. People want to read something cheerful, upbeat.”

  Practical and levelheaded, Sam had handed me the perfect reason to give Ruth for refusing her request. No doubt, I should’ve been relieved. Instead, I was faintly irritated. His response struck me as cold-hearted. It was a businessman’s answer, with a strict eye on the bottom line, and totally lacking in humanity.

  “Upbeat? Sure. Cheerful? Maybe. Maybe, that is what people want. But they also want real. Not fake.” I glanced at the page in my Underwood. “Not mindless.”

  “Trust me on this one. Folks don’t want to be reminded of crime and misery. Not at this time of year. Furthermore, that’s not what you’re paid to write about. You’re a society columnist, remember?”

  I eyed the stack of unopened party invitations littering my desk. “How could I forget?”

  “Well, then.”

  Those two words were like a key turning. They opened up my heart and made up my mind. Sam wasn’t a callous man, but his light dismissal of Ruth’s request more than irked
me. It brought back memories, of how the police had treated Ruth when she begged for help—and of how I’d made a promise I’d failed to keep.

  “Sam, I’m going to do the column on Esther.”

  My sudden resoluteness surprised him. He started to object, but I cut him off.

  “Let’s be honest. Christmas isn’t just about good times. You and I know it can be a time of misery—and not just for a few, but for the many.”

  “Lanie, what’s—”

  “There’s a whole bunch of people out there bleeding, and the holiday just shoves the knife in deeper.”

  He lifted a skeptical eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. His decision made, he was going to let me make my little speech, confident it wouldn’t change his mind.

  “They’re alone. They’re sad. And maybe, just like Ruth Todd, they’re grieving. Those people deserve to be acknowledged, Sam. We owe them something.”

  “Lanie,” he said with the patience of a saint. “I know there are—”

  “If I can write a column that gives someone hope, or brings even one person some peace, then everybody benefits.”

  “But it’s not why people read your column. It’s not what they expect.”

  “All the more reason for me to do it. Our readers will find a story about a family battling grief a hundred times more uplifting than another story about A’Lelia Walker and the shenanigans of people who don’t have a care in the world.”

  He hesitated.

  “Let me try, Sam. Just let me give it a shot.”

  We eyed one another. If it were a matter of who blinked first, it wouldn’t be me. Selena Troy walked past, giving each of us a curious glance. She was our obituary writer. Very pretty, very doll-like and very nosey. She had high ambitions—not of being a lowly reporter, but a widely syndicated columnist. Sam sighed, leaned in toward me and spoke in a tense undertone.

  “Okay, but keep it light. I’ll give the final word on it when you’re done. Understand?”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  He grimaced at my plantation humor and I hurried off to catch up to Ruth Todd. She was in the corridor, about to board the elevator. Johnny, the elevator operator, saw me running and held the door.

  “I’ll do it,” I told her and enjoyed her expression of relief. “But on one condition.”

  Some of the trust in her eyes went away. “You want money.”

  “No, of course not. What I want is for you to understand that my writing about Esther doesn’t guarantee a thing. It’s just a shot in the dark, a try that could lead to nowhere.”

  A sad but determined smile touched Ruth’s face.

  “I was taught to expect little in life, and I’ve had to get used to even less. But what I got plenty of is faith. You do what you can and let the Lord do the rest. He’s our friend, Mrs. Price. I do believe that. He’s on our side.”

  “You’re asking for a miracle. I can’t give you one—”

  “But He can.”

  As I watched Ruth Todd step into the elevator, I felt the touch of grace, and I knew that hers was the cause I’d been waiting for.

  Chapter 3

  Hours later, I sat cross-legged on my sofa in the front parlor of my house on Strivers’ Row. A cup of steaming, hot tea sat within easy reach on a lamp table. A platter by the Creole Jazz Band played on the Victrola. My old notes and newspaper reports on the Todd case were in two piles on the coffee table. The first stack contained my articles; the second comprised work by others.

  The collection of reports was less than comprehensive. I’d stopped accumulating them in late January of ‘24, right after receiving word of my mother’s illness. The articles I did have were well written, but they were less detailed than a real police report. So my file was limited, but it was a beginning, the only record of the case I had.

  I’d decided to spend the evening culling the articles for the names of police officers, neighbors, anyone who’d known Esther or been familiar with the case and been quoted. Although it wasn’t likely their memories had improved in the years since her disappearance, there was always the chance they might recall something that hadn’t been quoted or they’d considered too insignificant to mention.

  I took up the earliest of the clippings and the memories came rushing back.

  * * *

  I met Ruth Todd and Beth Johnson for the first time about two hours after Esther’s disappearance. At the time I was a police reporter for the Harlem Age. In the early hours of Friday, December 15, someone rang my doorbell, waking me from a sound sleep. I glanced out my bedroom window to see Sleepy Willy standing on my doorstep. He was a janitor at the Harlem Police Station on West 135th Street, and one of my favorite tipsters.

  “Esther Todd’s sister and a friend of hers, they down at the station raising a ruckus,” he said when I got downstairs. “Something about Esther having gotten herself into trouble.”

  My first reaction was puzzlement. “What kind of trouble would Esther Todd get into? Far as I know, she’s a church-going woman.”

  “Dunno. Just know that something’s gone wrong. That sister of hers is about to raise the roof.”

  “All right. I’ll get down there and check it out.”

  Sleepy Willy got his two bits for the info. I ran upstairs, got dressed and threw some cold water on my face, recalling what I knew about Esther.

  She was twenty-four years old and a pianist. She was enjoying—some would say enduring—the strong-arm patronage of Mrs. Katherine Goodfellowe, an immensely wealthy widow. Mrs. G, as Esther called her when speaking to friends, demanded parlor performances every two weeks at her Fifth Avenue salon. The lady always wanted to see progress and enjoyed putting Esther’s talents on display before her society friends.

  Esther was already a minor celebrity in Harlem. If Mrs. Goodfellowe had her way, then Esther would be famous beyond it. Mrs. Goodfellowe was doing everything she could to get Esther’s name out there, to make her a known commodity throughout New York City. She’d already gotten Carl Van Vechten, a popular socialite and influential columnist, to write one piece on Esther and she was pushing him to write more.

  Esther was also a single mother. She not only had to practice piano every day, but also take care of her seven-year-old son, Job. And despite Mrs. G’s patronage, Esther needed the income from a job, so she worked long hours as a laundrywoman.

  I’d seen Esther and her son perform at a neighborhood church only the prior Sunday. They were good, real good. I hated to think of anything happening to either one of them.

  I dried my face, shimmied into some warm clothes and hurried out. The snow had stopped falling and the temperature had dropped. The city was a ghost town—cold, gray and empty. What kind of trouble, I’d asked. On a night like this, there was a lot to choose from.

  No other reporters were at the station when I got there. Ruth and Beth were just leaving. I introduced myself and asked what had happened. Beth, who I learned was one of Mrs. Goodfellowe’s maids, appeared to be in shock. Ruth was frightened and angry. Esther, she said, had disappeared. No doubt kidnapped. But the cops weren’t taking it seriously. They didn’t care and wouldn’t let her file a report.

  “They think she done run off by herself. Esther wouldn’t do that.”

  “Maybe you’d better start from the beginning.”

  She told me how the evening had started as a night on the town and ended in sickness at Harlem Hospital.

  “Did you actually see anybody in the car with her?”

  Ruth thought about it. “No. But that don’t mean there weren’t nobody in there. He could’ve been hiding in the back seat. She was getting bad letters, you know. It must’ve been him who took her.”

  “Bad letters?”

  “Yeah, the mean kind.”

  “From who?”

  “Some man.”

  She explained that about two weeks earlier Esther said she’d received an unsigned threatening note in her mailbox. A few days earlier, Esther had mentioned another note.

>   “I never saw the notes—Esther threw ‘em away—but she said the guy who wrote ‘em knew all her business. Just everything. It was like he was looking over her shoulder, from the time she went out for groceries to when she went to pick up Job.”

  “Did she say who wrote them?”

  “She said the handwriting was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.”

  I scribbled all this down in my notepad, and then gestured toward the sergeant, sitting behind his desk. “Did you mention this to—?”

  “I tried to. I talked to a detective. I tried to tell him about the notes, but he cut me off.”

  I glanced at Beth to see if she had something to add, but she averted her gaze. She was pale and obviously ill. I asked Ruth where Esther parked. The corner she described was just three blocks down and two blocks east of the hospital: It didn’t sound far, but the blocks over there were long and dim.

  “May I contact you later?” I asked Ruth.

  She agreed, so I took down her address and got Beth’s information, too. Then I helped them into a taxi and returned to the station to find the lawman they’d spoken to. Detective John Reed, a thin, pale man with a superior air and bored expression, confirmed what Ruth had said. He was very disinclined to do anything.

  I took a taxi over to where Ruth said they’d parked the car. I could understand Ruth finding it impossible to accept the idea that Esther might’ve run away. I found it difficult, too, especially after what I’d seen during that church performance. Esther didn’t strike me as the kind of woman to run off in the middle of the night and leave her family, especially her son, without warning or explanation, knowing they’d be worried sick about her, no matter what kind of troubles she had.

  As we pulled up to the corner, I asked the cabbie, “You got a flashlight I could borrow?”

  His gaze met mine in the rearview mirror. “Just what’re you planning on doing out there?”