This time she gave a faint smile. She took a deep breath, set her shoulders and blinked back tears.
“It sure is Christmassy out here,” she said, making an effort at small talk.
“Yeah, that it is.”
Preparations for Christmas were under way at every corner. Fake ivy had been twisted around street lamps. Wreaths hung in storefront windows. Street peddlers sold trees. Others hawked Christmas presents: toys, “hot” dresses and the like.
When I’d woken that morning, the world was silent. Now, it was anything but. Car drivers honked at one another. Children yelled at dogs and mothers yelled at children, and the smells of greasy food, gasoline and garbage thickened the air.
When we turned the corner to Harlem Hospital, all that noise fell away. It was as though a big muffling blanket had been dropped around the place.
I asked Ruth about her mother. “Has her condition worsened?”
“No, but she’s not getting any better either.”
We took the elevator up. Diane Todd was in a room with three other women, all in their sixties, all of them fragile. The room was square, with two beds on each side. The walls were a pale yellow. In the harsh light it was hard to tell if they’d been painted that color or were simply dingy. Mrs. Todd was in the bed on the left, to the rear. She was a stick figure propped up by two fat pillows. A red and white checked scarf covered her head. Ruth went over and gently kissed her on the forehead. Mrs. Todd smiled weakly up at her daughter, then looked at me. Ruth beckoned me to come closer.
“Mama, you remember Mrs. Price, don’t you? She’s gonna write about Esther for us.”
Diane Todd extended a shaky hand. I gave it a light squeeze. Her hand was as light as a feather, and just as cool. I glanced up at Ruth. Her eyes showed worry, but she put on a smile.
“How you feeling today, Mama?”
A faint smile was the answer. Mrs. Todd’s eyes turned to me. Her thin eyebrows came together in a look of worry. Ruth gave me a pleading look. Give her some good news.
“I’ve decided to dedicate half of my next two columns to Esther,” I said. “That way her story will be in the paper twice and more people will read about her.”
Diane Todd’s eyes shone with tears. Her lips moved. I leaned closer to hear. Thank you, she whispered. She only managed to get out those two words, but they were more than enough.
If I hadn’t felt obligated already, I would’ve felt so then.
Chapter 11
Beth’s place was down on 130th Street, and a few blocks west. It wasn’t that far, but the weather was too cold and the evening too dark for me to feel like hoofing it, so I hailed a taxi to take us over.
“Does she know we’re coming?” Ruth asked.
“No, but it’s the middle of the week, so we got a good chance of finding her home.”
Ruth was pensive. “I guess her baby’d be about a year old now.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I wish I’d bought a present.”
I gave her a look. “That’s all right. I don’t think she’d expect one.”
Beth Johnson was in her late twenties. She’d once told me she’d come up from one of the Carolinas ten years prior. She only had a grade-school education, but she was knowledgeable about her work. She was conscientious and dependable, but she’d also struck me as kind of bitter. It wasn’t always noticeable and it didn’t seem to be directed toward anyone in particular. It just seemed to be part of her makeup.
In bringing Ruth along, I hoped the two women would inspire each other to more profound recollections of the night Esther disappeared. I really wanted to know whether Beth knew anything about Esther having been romantically involved with someone. It’s not that I distrusted Ruth’s information. No doubt, she was telling the truth, as far as she knew it. But the fact is, people often choose to confide in friends rather than family, even when their family ties are as close and loving as the Todds’ appeared to be.
The address Roland had given led us to a small red brick tenement. The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and entered. The lobby appeared to be clean, but it had a latent odor of urine and squalor. There was no elevator, so we took the stairs. We were both breathing heavily when we reached the fifth floor. A long narrow hallway stretched out before us. A dark door stood ajar at the far end. We started down the hall, looking for number 59.
We had gone halfway when heated voices erupted behind the half-open door, a man and woman arguing. Their words were indiscernible. There was a pause in the argument. A rough-looking man in a sleeveless undershirt appeared in the doorway. He gave us an evil-looking glance, and slammed the door.
Ruth and I exchanged looks. What kind of place was Beth living in?
We found her apartment and knocked. A slender woman opened the door. She wore cheap gold earrings, a poison green dress and bold red lipstick.
“Why, I—”
The words died in her throat and her smile, bright and fake, did a fast fade. Ruth looked stunned. I could guess what she was thinking because I was thinking it, too. Where was the straight-laced, conservative-looking young woman she’d known? The quiet, modest girl who’d been Esther’s best friend?
“Ruth! What are you doing here?” Beth’s gaze went to me and wariness crept into her voice. “And you! Why, you’re the—”
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward.
From behind the door down the hall came a shriek, and then a crash—a vase perhaps. All three of us looked down the hall.
“Should we call the police?” Ruth asked.
“Don’t bother.” Beth waved her hand. “They’re like that all the time.”
“But—” Ruth began.
“It’s okay. Since you’re here, you might as well come in. It’s not good to stand out in the hallway like that.”
After a short hallway, the apartment turned into a one-room setup. Windows overlooking St. Nicholas Avenue took up most of one wall. A recessed stove and sink took up much of another. The room itself was small and square, but high ceilinged. A scrawny Christmas tree leaned precariously in a corner near the window. It was decorated, nicely, with thin ribbons. A bed jutted into the middle. It was covered with a fake leopard skin. A chipped wood closet stood next to her bed and a black linen trunk that looked as though it might’ve once been expensive sat at the foot of the bed. A bright pink chinchilla was draped over the back of a thin wood chair. Other than the bed, the chair was the only place to sit.
There was no sign of a child. No rattles or other toys. No small pieces of clothing. Instead of sturdy wooden blocks, cheap, fragile china figurines dotted a small bookshelf in one corner and adorned the table next to the bed.
Beth gestured for us to take a seat. Three years earlier, her fingernails had been short and broken. Now they were long, sharp and polished a hard red. Ruth hesitated, then nudged the chinchilla aside and sat down on the wood chair. I remained standing. Beth gave the clock on the wall a nervous glance and then gave Ruth a thin smile.
“So, how you doing?” she asked Ruth.
“Been better.”
Ruth’s face was an open book. Her gaze roamed over the room and by the time she looked back at Beth, her surprise and bewilderment had given way to dismay and disapproval. Beth saw it; I could sense her hackles rise. Beth opened her mouth to say something heated and I stepped in to intervene.
“Looks like you’re doing well, Beth. I heard you had a baby.”
She cut her eyes at me, still full of resentment and suspicion. Her lips curled.
“So you been talking to Roland.” A sudden thought. “But he didn’t know my address, or did he?”
“He says hello,” I said. “And the baby?”
“What about it?’
“A boy? A girl?”
“A boy.”
“He’s not here?”
“Down South, with my mother.”
“I wish you’d told me,” Ruth said. “Maybe I could’ve helped—”
“You coul
dna done nothing.” Beth snapped. She looked from Ruth to me. “So what can I do for you? I, ah, … have a friend coming.” Another glance at the wall clock. “He’ll be here in ten minutes. So maybe you can tell me what you want and—”
“What’s going on here?” Ruth asked.
Beth’s mouth tightened. She put her hands on her hips. “What d’you think?”
“I don’t want to say what I’m thinking. Girl, I can’t believe you let yourself go down like this. You could’ve—”
“Don’t you go judging me! Don’t you dare!”
“But couldn’t you find something else? Something respectable? You could’ve gone to the church and gotten help—”
“The church? Which one?”
Ruth spread her hands. “Why, any of them!”
“Is that right? Well, let me tell you something. I did go to a church. The one out there on the corner.” She pointed her finger at the window facing the southwest corner. “That fine big ol’ stone one, with the fine upstanding congregation and the minister preaching every Sunday. You want to know what happened?”
Ruth opened her mouth. Beth interrupted her.
“I’ll tell you what. The minister thought he could get some poontang. That I don’t mind. But that motherfucker thought he could get it for free.”
“I don’t bel—”
“I don’t give a damn whether you believe me or not. You think I care? Hell, I got to make a living—and this is the best way to do it.”
“But Beth—”
“But Beth nothing.” She folded her arms across her chest. “What do you two want?”
Quickly, I explained my plan to write about Esther and my hope that she could give me fresh information for it.
“Are you serious?” Beth asked.
“Yes, I am.”
She turned to Ruth. “She got you paying her to do this?”
“Beth, I want you to help her,” Ruth said. “I need you to tell her whatever you remember.”
“Well, you know I don’t remember nothing. I was sick that night, remember?”
“That’s all fine and true,” I said, “but even if you can’t tell us anything new about that night, then maybe you can come up with something about the days and nights before that.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Ruth explained. “Mrs. Price here wants to know if Esther was seeing somebody. You know, a fellow? I told her she wasn’t, but—”
“But you want her to hear it from me.” Beth gave Ruth a pitying look. “You got some nerve, coming in here and judging me, and then saying you need my help.”
“Beth,” Ruth said, “We’re not judging you. We’re just surprised is all. Things are …” She hesitated, glanced around, and then brought her gaze back to Beth, “so different, you know. Your living here and … it’s not how I expected.”
Beth clucked her tongue and put a hand on her hip. “You’re such a hypocrite. If you only knew. That sweet little sister of yours? She wasn’t all that holy neither.”
“What does that mean?” Ruth asked.
“It means …” Beth hesitated. She looked at me.
“Yes?” Ruth snapped.
“You don’t want to hear it,” Beth snapped back.
“Tell me!”
Beth’s expression hardened. “All right. You asked for it. Esther was getting it, getting all she could. And loving every minute of it.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. And deep down, you know it. You must’ve. You had to.”
“But she was saved! She weren’t no sinner.”
“No, she weren’t—no more’n I am. You people tried to make a saint out of her. You wouldn’t let her breathe. But she was just a normal woman. Wanted to live, have fun, just like everybody else.”
“But she would’ve never—”
“Yes, she would, too. She would and she did.”
“Beth Johnson, you’re a liar!” Ruth cried.
“I am not. And she was so proud, too. The way she carried on about that man—”
“Carried on? She never said nothing to me.”
Beth arched an eyebrow. “Well, that says something about you, don’t it?”
I intervened. “Beth, don’t you care about Esther? You were supposed to be her best friend. Help us.”
A look of embarrassment flickered across her face.
I pressed her. “What did she say about this man?”
She took a deep breath and another glance at the clock. “Nothing much.”
“But you said she was carrying on about him.”
Beth shook her head. “No, that was … a little bit—”
“Maybe, she said his name?”
“Sexton.”
“Last name?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Something else? What he did for a living?”
“Had a job with the government. Something to do with taxes.”
Unease touched me. I knew of a man named Sexton who did taxes for the government. “Do you know where she met him?”
Beth regarded us unhappily. She swallowed and took a moment. “He was at Mrs. Goodfellowe’s, at one of them damned parties.”
“You mean he was white?” Ruth said with quiet surprise.
Beth glanced at her with derision. “He was as black as coal. As a matter-of-fact, Esther used to make fun of him—not him, but his name. Said it was as far away from describing him as a name could be.”
The sense of unease deepened. The description clearly fit one man in particular, Sexton Whitefie—
“So there,” Beth said. “It was nice talking to you, but my friend’s gonna walk through that door any minute and I—”
“Did it ever go bad between them?” I asked.
Beth folded her arms across her chest again and looked stubborn. “I need you to leave.”
“Not until you tell us what we need to know.”
She gritted her teeth. “All right,” she said in a tight voice. “But then you gotta get out.”
“Deal.”
She licked her lips. “Esther didn’t never really say much about him. I think he told her not to. Didn’t matter.” She looked at Ruth. “Them with eyes to see could’ve seen she was happy. And them with eyes would’ve known when it went all wrong.”
Ruth bristled. “You should’ve told me—”
“I didn’t have to tell you nothing. You should’ve asked. I wasn’t her sister. You were.” Beth swung back to me. “I kept after her. What was wrong? What the hell was going on? She broke down. Told me she was scared. She thought she was being followed.”
“Oh, God,” Ruth moaned.
“When was this?”
“I don’t remember. It’s been too long. But it was a while before she got kidnapped. A couple of months maybe.”
“That would’ve put it in October,” Ruth said. “All that time and she didn’t say nothing to me.” She spoke in a whisper, more to herself than to either of us.
“So,” Beth gave us an expectant look. “Now that I’ve told y’all—”
Ruth got to her feet. She advanced on Beth, her face tight with anger.
“Why didn’t you tell the police all this when Esther disappeared? It was just me talking and they didn’t believe me. I could’ve used your help.”
“There you go, blaming me again. I didn’t say nothing ‘cause I didn’t think Esther would’ve wanted me to.”
“You thought what?”
“Look, she never acted scared of him, not to me—”
“But you just said she thought he was following her.”
“I said she thought she was being followed. She didn’t say it was him. And she sure didn’t say nothing more about it—but she did make it a big deal about keeping him a secret.”
Ruth nearly slapped her. Her hand was moving—but at the last second, she caught herself, closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Her lips moved. I think she was praying. When she opened her eyes, the hot anger ha
d cooled, but the look she gave Beth was still sharper than a skewer.
Beth fell back a step. “Listen,” she said in a guilty, resentful rush, “for all I know she might’ve gone off with him. Could be she did run away. Ruth, don’t you know how tired she was? Tired of doing for everybody else. She needed to do for Esther. So maybe her being kidnapped weren’t no kidnapping at all. It was just her making a beeline for freedom.”
Ruth’s answer was an accusatory silence.
At her wits’ end, Beth pointed to the door. “Get out. Y’all can’t be here no more.”
She marched down the hall. Ruth and I exchanged glances, and then followed her. Beth yanked open the door and stood waiting for us to leave. Ruth was ahead of me. She started out, but then paused. Looking dazed, she turned back to Beth.
“I just don’t understand. Why’d she do it?”
“Do what?”
“Tell you all this and not tell me?”
“You know the answer as well as I do.” Beth looked at Ruth’s tired face and relented somewhat. “I told you,” she added with a touch of sympathy. “She was scared of what you’d say, you and your mama and daddy. And it’s not like she wanted to talk to me about it. I made her. I saw her looking sad and I made her tell me why.”
Ruth thought about that. Then she asked, “Did she tell you about the threatening notes, too?”
“What notes? I don’t know nothing about no notes. She just told me she was scared. Now go. Please. He won’t like it if he comes and finds you here.” Beth looked at me. “Especially, you, Miss Lanie.”
I smiled slowly. “Someone I’d recognize?”
Beth was not amused. “Just go, please.”
I gave Beth my telephone numbers and asked her to call if she thought of anything else. She said she would, but the way she slammed the door made me doubt it.
Ruth was pensive as we walked back toward her house.
“Do you believe her?” she finally asked.
“Yeah. Don’t you?”
“Yeah. I’m just …”
“You regret asking me to do this?”
She came to a stop, tears in her eyes. “I got a lot of regrets, but asking for your help ain’t one of them. I’m just wondering why I waited so long.”
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