Deadly Charm

by Claudia Mair Burney

  I tried to calm her. “I’m not pregnant, Addie Lee, honest.”

  I wanted to call her Mom like I used to, but I didn’t know what Jazz had told his parents about me. I feared they thought the worst of me.

  “Call me Mom,” she said, relieving my fears.

  Sasha just sighed. “Aren’t you a little long in the tooth to be having your first baby?”

  “I’m thirty-five. Thirty-five is the new…thirty-five.”

  “Didn’t you say you couldn’t get pregnant without some kind of procedure?” Carly jabbed.

  “Yes, a procedure that I didn’t have.”

  Rocky chimed in, “You had sex.”

  “I married him. Before we had sex.”

  “You could be pregnant.”

  “Shut up! I can’t be!” I yelled at my former pastor. Again, I glanced around the room. “Why are you all here?”

  “It’s about Jazz,” Addie Lee said.

  “This is a Jazz intervention? You think I’m addicted to Jazz?”

  Souldier popped up from his chair. “No, Jazz is addicted to you, Bell. You’ve got to go back to him. He’s…”

  “A nutjob,” Jack supplied.

  “Could you be a little more specific, Jack?”

  “Don’t call me Jack,” he said. “I’m Dad to you.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. What do you mean he’s a nutjob?”

  “First of all, baby. You look terrific. And Addie never calls ’em wrong. Congratulations.”

  “Dad, with all due respect to Mom’s track record, I’m afraid I’m not pregnant.”

  Carly’s cigarette smoke was starting to nauseate me. I shifted my weight on my legs. “Carly, this is a smoke-free office.”

  She kept puffing. “I’m under stress, and Timothy broke up with me. Is everything about you?”

  All attention went to her. My own intervention, and things couldn’t even be about me.

  “When did you and Tim break up?”

  “This morning. And where was my sister when I needed her? At home, doing pregnant things instead of answering any of her phones.”

  “I’m not pregnant! And sorry about the phones. I forgot to charge them.” Again.

  Maggie shook her head, her no-longer-blond hair swinging about. Her vivid blue eyes regarded me with a look of pity. “Why, you practically need maternity clothes.”

  “I do not need maternity clothes. I just need a size up. Maybe.”

  Dad Jack added, “You certainly are acting like a pregnant woman.”

  I screamed. One of those high-pitched, tormented wails like the comedian Sam Kinison used to do, God rest him. “I’m not pregnant, people, and I find it hurtful, as well as distasteful, that you’re all persisting in this mass delusion because I’ve gained a few pounds.”

  Rocky shook his head. “Elisa’s the same way.”

  “I said shut up, Rocky! This is not about your girlfriend. This intervention is about me!”

  Jack scratched his head. “His girlfriend? You mean he’s cheating on you already?”

  “He’s not cheating on me, Dad. We’re not a couple.”

  “But I thought Rocky was in love with you,” Addie said.

  “I do love Bell, but she’s married,” Rocky said.

  “You young people confuse me,” Jack said. He looked at Rocky. “You mean your girlfriend doesn’t mind if you’re in love with a married woman?”

  Kalaya answered. “No, Elisa isn’t his girlfriend. Yet. See, Rocky didn’t realize he loved Elisa until he caught Bell sleeping with Jazz. Really, she set him free to love again.”

  “Jazz and I are married! It wasn’t a sin to sleep with him.”

  “Do I know you?” Rocky said to Kal.

  I stomped my foot. “Hello. My intervention here!”

  And speaking of Jazz…When I had everyone’s attention, I continued. “What did you people come here to tell me about my husband?”

  Jack spoke up. “He’s in bad shape, especially at work. It’s that whole thing about Kate’s murder. He’s still mad because he thinks everybody turned on him. Said he gave his life to that department, and now he can see who his friends really are.”

  I wasn’t sure if I made the friends cut, despite the fact that I’d risked my life for him.

  Souldier added, “And yo, he’s missing you like mad, Bell.”

  Carly’s smoke really started getting to me. My legs felt like rubber and my stomach lurched. “Can you all be more specific? What do you mean he’s in bad shape at work?” And missing me like mad?

  I stood in a room full of people who insisted I was pregnant, but could anyone offer me a seat?

  “Will somebody please let me sit down,” I yelled.

  “Sorry,” Jack said, scurrying out of his chair and seating me like the gentleman he usually is. “We were all so surprised to see you looking so…”

  “Looking so what?” I plopped into his seat.

  “Pregnant,” Carly supplied, stabbing the cigarette butt into the paper cup. “You do have that glow about you.” She stared at me. “I’m so jealous. And you do this to me just as Tim decides to leave me.”

  Rocky, having the misfortune of being seated next to her, put a reassuring hand on hers. Her icy glare caused him to quickly pull it back.

  “Praying for you, Carly,” he said sheepishly. He gave her a powerful hit of the puppy eyes.

  I cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention. “Will somebody please tell me more about Jazz?”

  Souldier raised his hand, though nobody required that kind of decorum. “He talks about you constantly. Day and night. He’s driving everybody crazy.”

  “Really?” My heart did a little dance.

  Jack offered, “You gotta be kiddin’ me, baby. If you don’t go back to him, we’re gonna have to shoot him.”

  Addie Lee nodded. “Put him out of his misery.”

  The image did not please me. “You all seem to have forgotten that he walked out on me.”

  With the exception of Rocky and me, all eyes in the room shifted to my former pastor, who furiously blushed.

  He sputtered. “I…um…I didn’t mean to kiss her.”

  Everyone glared at him.

  “I mean, I meant to, but now I’m sorry.”

  Mason offered, “The question is why did she let you?” He and I had been through the whole sad story already. I knew he wanted me to put everyone else’s mind at ease. I so didn’t appreciate his comment.

  Rocky came to my aid like the fine man he is, and by fine I mean he’s a great person, not just a blondie-locked cutie. “She didn’t kiss me back,” he said. His earnest expression assured even me.

  Now all eyes on me. “Well, I did. I mean, I didn’t jerk away from him, but I didn’t kiss him in the way he kissed me. I wanted to let him down easy.”

  Mason challenged me. “And?”

  “And maybe I happened to be a bit self-sabotaging because I didn’t feel like I deserved Jazz.”

  My mother looked outraged. “That’s nonsense. That man is lucky to have you.”

  Addie nodded her head. “Honey, my son definitely met his match in you. You had no reason to feel that way.”

  I looked at Mason, who also nodded in the affirmative. “I told you, pumpkin. The only one who believed you weren’t worthy of him was you.”

  “She tried to tell me how she was hurting,” Rocky said. “She only wanted me to help her sort things out.”

  Mason spoke to Rocky. “She wanted the familiarity of your love because she knew you wouldn’t fail her. Don’t forget that, Rocky.”

  “I know that, sir, but with the things she’s been through, I didn’t mind offering her all the love I have. She’s my friend. I should have been thinking more about her than myself.”

  The conversation pricked my heart. I felt a little weepy, but I held it in. “I still love my husband.”

  Addie chimed in, “It’s not us you need to convince.”

  I crossed my legs, my defenses going up like gas prices.
“I tried to let him know how I feel.”

  Jack laughed. “You mean when you ripped his bodice? Funniest thing I ever heard in my life.”

  Carly’s eyes widened. “You ripped his bodice?” She looked confused. “You didn’t tell me that. When?”

  Kalaya brightened. “On Christmas Eve. First she kissed him like they were in the movies or something, and then she grabbed his shirt and ripped it off like she was gonna have her way with him right there in the doorway. It was totally major.”

  Carly whooped. “Way to go, baby sis. And she did this in front of you, Kalaya?”

  Kalaya nodded. “Let’s just say I stood at a discreet distance from the action.”

  I had to correct Kal before my legend grew any more. “I didn’t rip his shirt off. I ripped it from the top button to his waist, but I never tore it off his body.”

  Souldier looked at Kalaya. “How come you never rip my bodice?”

  “Because Jazz and Bell are married. And, um, we’re not.”

  Jack couldn’t resist. “Hint, hint.”

  This time Souldier blushed under all that cocoa brown beauty. He put his head down so his dreads covered his face.

  I sighed. “Is there anything else I should know about Jazz?”

  Addie said, “He needs you. You have to go back to him.”

  Souldier shot straight. “He’s drinking too much.”

  I thought about the night Jazz had come to my house—the night before Kate’s funeral. He’d had more than his share of alcohol. It concerned me then, but I assumed he’d buckled under the extreme stress of his situation.

  My mother rolled her eyes. “An alcoholic husband. Fabulous. You married your father.”

  Her comment seemed to miff Addie. “He’s not an alcoholic. He’s just…”

  Pastor Rocky supplied the appropriate word. “Lost.”

  Carly rolled her eyes at him and quipped to me, “Thanks to you, Bell.”

  By the time this intervention was over, I’d have put out more fires than the Ann Arbor Fire Department put out in a year.

  “How about if we all remain calm and civil? I’m speaking mostly to Ma and Carly.”

  They grumbled.

  “And don’t you start up either, Maggie.” I don’t think she heard me. She’d pulled out her portable television and was probably waiting for the Maury show to start now that they’d switched it to afternoons. She’d already stuffed the earbuds into her ears.

  “What?” she asked. Loud.

  “Let me ask all of you this. If Jazz is the one who left me, and he’s the one drinking excessively, why didn’t you do the intervention with him?”

  “Because all of this is your fault,” my mother said.

  “Ma, I warned you.” Not that I’d do anything to her. She frightens me.

  “Well it is your fault, and you’re a lot easier to pick on than cranky Jazzy,” Carly said.

  “How is all of this my fault?”

  “If he hadn’t fallen in love with you, he never would have needed to tell Kate he was getting married. And Kate wouldn’t have gone to his house, so she wouldn’t have been killed. And Jazz wouldn’t be a drunk.”

  “My son is not a drunk,” Addie said, her voice like steel.

  My mother chimed in, “And if you had stayed in the bed with your husband, instead of calling”—she frowned in Rocky’s direction—“for backup, you—”

  “Ma! I needed to process the experience. That’s the only reason I called…”

  Carly glared at Rocky. “Heaven knows what you thought virgin boy could do.”

  Rocky spoke up for himself. “I happen to be proud that I have stayed pure.”

  “Unlike Carly,” I said in Rocky’s defense. She had it coming.

  I gave her a pointed look. “Maybe all of this is your fault, Carly. If you hadn’t taken me to the crime scene, I never would have met Jazz.”

  “Then it’s your fault. If you hadn’t turned thirty-five and planned on sitting home being antisocial, I wouldn’t have had to drag you kicking and screaming out of your apartment while I was on call.” Carly picked up another cigarette and lit up. I could tell she still stung over my comment about her virtue. “I should have stayed pure.”

  “Can you keep your lungs pure by not smoking in here?”

  She ignored me.

  “How ’bout keeping my lungs pure?”

  I felt sorry for her. I really did, but I didn’t think it was the time or place for an impromptu counseling session. Actually, we were in my office and I’m a psychologist, so it was the place. But not the time.

  “I expect a succession of my clients to begin arriving any time now. We can talk about you and Tim later, Carly, I promise. Even though you weren’t supportive when I had love troubles, and you kept calling my husband ‘murder boy,’ even after he was cleared.”

  Addie shot a hard look at Carly.

  “Maggie cancelled your clients,” Sasha stated.

  “What?”

  “You can’t see people after an intervention. You have to go to rehab or something right away.”

  “What kind of rehab, Ma? I’m not the one with the drinking problem!”

  “Just go see your husband. And think of it as a long weekend. Your neurotics will be back Wednesday.”

  It’s a sin not to honor your mother. It’s a sin not to honor your mother. It’s a sin…

  I stood. If I didn’t get them all out of my office, I would start drinking and need that rehab after all.

  “So, to conclude this intervention,” I said, giving them all my “I mean business, meeting adjourned, and please go home” look, “what I’m hearing you all say is that Jazz is exhibiting classic indicators of a major depressive episode—situational, of course—and possibly posttraumatic stress syndrome, with a maladaptive pattern of alcohol abuse.”

  Everyone stared at me. Dad spoke. “Uh. No, baby. You’re hearing us say he’s acting crazy and drinking too much.”

  Rocky gave me a manageable hit of the puppy eyes. “He needs you, babe.”

  Everyone present shouted, “Don’t call her babe.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

  Maggie bolted up from her chair, clutching the miniature television in her hand. Her face flushed. “It’s a breaking news story. The reporter is at Rocky’s house.”

  “M-my house?” Rocky stuttered.

  Everyone shot out of their seats and crowded around Maggie. She held out her portable television so that we could all see the screen and snatched the headphones from the jack. We could barely hear the reporter through the tinny speakers.

  “Ezekiel Thunder, the once-disgraced television evangelist, staged a glorious comeback…”

  Rocky turned ashen. “Whoa. Did something happen to Ezekiel? He’s staying at my house.”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. Not him. It’s one of his kids. A drowning.”

  Gasps and “oh no’s” rippled through the room. Mason and Addie began to pray.

  My heart thundered—no pun intended. “A child?” Oh dear God, not the baby. Not any of them! “How many does he have?”

  Rocky answered. “He has five, but only three are with him on the trip.”

  A picture of Zeekie, my sweet little Thunder boy, appeared on the tiny screen.

  “Zeekie…” Rocky said, with a sharp intake of breath.

  I froze. Oh, God. Noooooooooooo.

  My stomach sank while my mind whirled. How could this child die? Where did it happen? The Rock House took excellent precautions to protect small children.

  It’s murder.

  Immediately I tried to talk myself out of that notion. I had no factual basis from which to draw that conclusion. I wondered if I’d been infected by my husband, who believes all deaths are murders. Were my zillions too tight? Were the tiny braids affecting my brain?

  Moments later the reporter showed the senior Ezekiel Thunder looking somber, but still working the camera, saying, “I believe God will raise my son from the dead.�
��

  I sighed.

  I had work to do.

  chapter six

  NOTHING LIKE A TRAGEDY to disperse an intervention. Yet while that child’s death horrified me deeply, God knows I couldn’t wait to get rid of my loved ones.

  We made quick work of saying good-bye, and I received several admonishments to get rest, see a doctor soon, and take prenatal vitamins.

  I tried to follow Rocky to the Rock House, but like a good intervention participant, he urged me to go see Jazz first. He’d find out what happened at the house and would have a full report for me when I came by.

  I could go back to the Rock House! An unexpected, undeserved grace, since six weeks ago Rocky practically told me to never darken the doorway of his church again.

  Maggie and my mother locked up my office, and I headed to Detroit to see Jazz. I hated to see him at work, but everyone thought it best that I ambush him in the same way they did me.

  I dreaded going to the Detroit Police Department. I had a bit of a reputation ever since all my business regarding my relationship with my husband had been published in a newspaper feature story in the City Beat. And the fact that I’d sorta taken down one of their own, proving their best detectives wrong—well, let’s say I didn’t win friends or influence people there.

  I hurried out of the February chill into the building and marched right into the department, feigning nonexistent confidence. I identified myself to the uniform manning the front desk, a harsh, dry-looking man who inspired unfair comparisons to a Brillo pad. He called Jazz on the phone, heralded my arrival, and chuckled at whatever hurtful thing Jazz said to him about me.

  Brillo Boy led me to the area where I could find my husband. He pointed, said, “Straight back,” and returned to his desk. A buzz started as soon as someone recognized me. I heard it spread among the detectives and uniforms, making me as nervous as Jenny Craig on Fat Tuesday. I finally found Jazz standing, as he always does whenever I enter a room.

  I saw his desk first; my poor eyes. It made me think of Bobby Maguire, the disheveled detective whom I drove crazy trying to prove my husband’s innocence. If detective Bobby Maguire’s desk was like the Grinch’s heart, three sizes too small, Jazz’s desk—a hulking monstrosity of steel and yellow formica—compensated. Horrid!