Tangled Roots

by Angela Henry

  The only thing I understood was that I desperately needed to talk to Nicole Rollins and this woman was in my way. I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to see her with her husband out of the house. I wanted to get this over with so I could tell Harmon and Mercer everything and go on with my life, which now involved looking for a new job.

  “I had no idea Nicole was even sick. What’s wrong with her, anyway?” I whispered, hoping maybe she’d throw me a crumb about what was going on with Nicole. No such luck.

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that. Now, if you have any more questions, I’ll have to ask you to consult Reverend Rollins.” She closed the door in my face before I could say another word. Shit! What was I going to do now?

  I started to walk back to my car when a large truck bearing the name Lehman’s Used Furniture turned into the driveway. The truck stopped next to me.

  “Are you Mrs. Rollins?” asked the muscular brother driving the truck.

  “No. I don’t live here. But Mrs. Rollins is home.”

  “Thanks, ma’am,” he said, and continued up the driveway.

  I stopped and watched him park in front of the house. The driver jumped out and opened up the back of the truck while his partner, a short, squat, older black man in a baseball cap, rang the doorbell. I crept back up the driveway and hid behind a clump of bushes near the truck. I was hoping there would be a chance to sneak into the house while the door was open for the deliverymen. But from the conversation I could hear the driver’s partner having with the nurse, it sounded like she might not let them into the house, either.

  “Look, sweetheart, all I know is that we’re scheduled for a delivery today at this address. Now, we can bring it into the house or leave it right here in the driveway, makes no nevermind to us. Either way, it’s not stayin’ in our truck. We got pickups to make and there ain’t no room with that thing back there. So, what’s it gonna be?” There was something distinctly familiar about the man’s voice. But I couldn’t place it. The truck was shielding my view of the front door so I couldn’t tell who he was.

  “Reverend Rollins never told me about any delivery. Go ahead and unload it and I’ll call the reverend to see where he wants you to put it.”

  I ducked down low as the deliveryman went around to the back of the truck to help the driver. Minutes later the two men unloaded a large pine armoire, the kind people use as a second closet. Dang. Did Nicole have that many clothes? Or maybe it was for the reverend himself. The nurse still hadn’t come back to the door to tell them where to put it, so it sat in the driveway behind the truck. The drivers waited by the front door, smoking cigarettes. Finally, the nurse came back to the door.

  “Okay, guys, the reverend said you could bring it on in. It goes in the maid’s room here on the first floor, just off the foyer. I’ll hold the door.”

  I had to think of something quick ’cause it didn’t look as if I’d get a chance to sneak in with the nurse standing at the door and I couldn’t take any chances. I looked at the unattended armoire and made a hasty decision I hoped and prayed wouldn’t land me in jail. While the deliverymen were stubbing out their cigarettes with their backs turned, I ran over and jumped inside the armoire. I had plenty of room to stand up and turn around. I was able to close one side of the armoire’s double doors. There were no handles on the inside allowing me to close the other door and I knew I’d be found immediately. I started to panic. I heard one of the deliverymen talking.

  “Hey, man, grab that tape measure from the truck. I don’t think the door’s wide enough. We gotta measure.”

  I got an idea and rooted around in my purse until I found some dental floss and quickly pulled off a long piece. I wrapped it around the screws on the inside of the door that attached the handle and pulled it shut. I then wrapped the dental floss around the screws holding both handles in place until the doors were tightly closed from the inside. It was dark and airless inside the armoire, just what I imagined being in a pine coffin would feel like, and I was starting to feel claustrophobic. Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it, I felt the armoire tip backwards as it was being lifted. I braced myself and remained as motionless as possible.

  “Damn, this thing is heavy!” exclaimed a strained voice I recognized as the driver’s. “I must be tired ’cause I sure don’t remember it being this heavy when we unloaded it.”

  “I just hope we can get this big bitch through the door. We already runnin’ behind schedule,” replied the other familiar-sounding man breathlessly.

  “Just be happy we don’t have to take it upstairs.” I heard the other man murmur in agreement.

  Technically speaking, I couldn’t feel too insulted since they didn’t know I was inside. But I was still embarrassed, and vowed to cut back on the pizza and hot fudge cake. I held my breath, foolishly thinking it might make me lighter. A few minutes later, after successfully navigating the front door, I felt the armoire being set down and tilted forward to an upright position. But in the process my sunglasses, which I’d stuffed in my pocket, fell out and hit the bottom of the armoire with a clatter.

  “What was that?” I heard the driver ask.

  “I don’t know,” said his partner. I thought I would wet myself as one of the men started trying to pull the doors open. But, I held on tight to my dental floss, wincing in pain as it bit into my fingers. The tug of war lasted about a minute before they finally stopped. I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  “Ain’t there a key to this thing?”

  I looked down and saw a small keyhole under the handle of the door on the left-hand side.

  “It must still be in the truck. I’ll go look for it. Why don’t you get that nurse to sign for the delivery?”

  I listened closely to the footsteps as they left the room. I needed to get out quickly before they came back and discovered the key didn’t work. I didn’t hear any movement in the room so I unwrapped the dental floss, opened the doors and got out. I looked quickly around the small, minimally decorated bedroom. But, I soon found out I wasn’t alone. As I headed towards the door of the bedroom, I heard a gasp of shock and whirled around. One of the deliverymen, the short older man with the baseball cap, was still in the room, sitting against the headboard of the bed. He was staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. I finally found out why his voice was so familiar.

  “What in the hell? Kelly? What the fuck were you doin’ in there?” exclaimed Lewis Watts. It was no wonder that I hadn’t recognized him at first because he wasn’t dressed in the Santa Super Fly gear that I’d seen him in at the Spotlight Bar & Grill. Today he looked like an everyday working man. “I’m waitin’ for an answer, Miss Snotty,” he said, lounging against the decorative pillows on the bed and, having taken off his baseball cap, no doubt smudging them with his hair pomade.

  I glared at him. This was the last thing I expected and the last thing I needed. What could I say? I was busted big-time and for once didn’t have an excuse. But Lewis didn’t hesitate to come up with one for me.

  “You been followin’ me, ain’t you? Wanna make up for bein’ so mean to ole Lewis, huh?”

  I couldn’t have heard him right. Did he really think I was hiding inside furniture to get next to him? His ego was bigger than he was. I shifted nervously from foot to foot. I could tell he was enjoying my discomfort immensely. I decided to try and appeal to his sense of justice, knowing full well he probably didn’t have one.

  “Look, I’m here for a very important reason that has nothing to do with you. An innocent young man could go to jail for the rest of his life for a crime he didn’t commit. I need to talk to Nicole Rollins and this is the only way I could get in here to do it. Please, it’s very important that you don’t tell anyone I’m here,” I pleaded. Lewis put his hands behind his head and leaned back farther.

  “Is that right? So, you on some kinda secret mission, huh? You must think you James Bond or somethin’. Well, how much is keepin’ me quiet worth to ya, baby doll?” he asked, leaning forward and patt
ing the space next to him on the bed. “Why don’t you set yo fine self on down over here next to me so we can get to know each other better?” He was grinning at me like a rat that just won the cheese lotto.

  “Have you lost your damn mind?” I asked in amazement. While I was determined to talk to Nicole Rollins and try to help Timmy out of his situation, I was going to have to draw the line at being felt up by a repulsive little man who barely came up to my armpit.

  “Then I think I’ll tell that nurse she got an intruder so she can call the cops,” he said angrily, getting up from the bed and heading towards the door. I could hear the driver talking to the nurse at the front door. I watched helplessly as Lewis started to walk out of the room with his back straight and head held high, the picture of righteous indignation. Then all of the sudden I remembered something he mentioned to me both times I’d seen him at the Spot.

  “Hold up, player,” I said before he got out the door. He turned, smiling at me in triumph, and walked back over to where I was standing and started to put his arms around me. Eww!

  “Aren’t you on disability?” I asked casually. His arms froze in midair. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, I guess Social Security won’t be too happy if they find out you’re delivering furniture when your back is supposed to be bad? I bet they’re paying you under the table, right?”

  “I don’t know how they ’spect a man to live on them little checks,” he said, bending over and clutching his lower back dramatically with both hands. I rolled my eyes. I could hear the voices of the driver and the nurse getting closer.

  “Sounds like a personal problem to me. All I know is you’ve got about two seconds to forget you saw me here or I’m going to get on my phone to that hotline they’re always advertising on TV. You know, the one about reporting disability fraud.” Actually, the only hotline I knew about was to report cable theft but I could tell by the way Lewis’s eyes were popping out of his head that he believed there was such a hotline.

  “Damn, girl! You don’t have to be like that. I thought we was friends.” To demonstrate our so-called friendship, and to keep me from busting him, Lewis grabbed me and shoved me back inside the armoire just as his partner and the nurse walked through the door.

  “Who you in here talking to?” I heard his partner ask.

  “I was on my cell phone to my lady. You know how high maintenance she is, man. She can’t get enough a ole Lewis.” Both men laughed and I almost gagged.

  “I found the key. Let’s see if this works,” said the driver. Uh-oh, I thought.

  “Oh, I got it open, man, no problem. It was just stuck,” said Lewis. “Now, if you’ll just sign this, ma’am, we’ll be goin’.”

  “Good, I’d really like to get back to my soaps. I didn’t realize when I took this job I’d have to be the housekeeper, too,” said the nurse, sounding highly pissed off.

  “I hear that, sweetheart. Fine lookin’ lady like you shouldn’t be treated like no servant. So, what’s wrong with Miz Rollins, anyway?” Lewis asked. I could hear their voices starting to get fainter and figured they had left the room and were headed towards the front door. I wanted to hear if the nurse told Lewis about Nicole so I got out of the armoire and hid behind the still open door to the bedroom. I heard the nurse saying something about a nervous breakdown. Did Nicole have a nervous breakdown? Lewis’s charms apparently worked on some women, since the nurse had given him info she refused to give me.

  From my hiding place behind the door, I watched the nurse close the door behind the deliverymen and head back to wherever in the house she had been watching her soap operas. With the day-to-day drama of real life, I wondered why anyone needed to watch soap operas. Most of us were living one every day, especially me. I quietly crept out of the room, finding myself back in the foyer. There was a double staircase leading up to the second floor. I sprinted quickly up the nearest staircase, severely overestimating my physical fitness, and had to lean against the railing overlooking the foyer to catch my breath.

  Hanging on the wall behind me was a large formal family portrait of Reverend Rollins, Nicole, Rondell, Bonita, and Shanda. Inez wasn’t in the picture. They were all smiling, but upon closer inspection, the smiles seemed a bit strained. Rollins, wearing the hell out of a gray pin-striped suit, was seated in a chair with his family standing around him. Nicole, beautifully dressed in a burgundy silk wrap dress, was standing behind Rollins with her hand on his shoulder and her long braids cascading down her back. In contrast, Rondell, Bonita, and Shanda looked like poor relations. Rondell’s ill-fitting blue suit looked thirty years out of date. Bonita’s striped dress was not only dowdy but made her hips look huge. Shanda, wearing a flowered dress with a lace collar, looked like she was twelve years old. I bet her mother had picked out the dress.

  Both sides of the staircase led to separate hallways that met in the middle of a shared landing. I turned down the hallway on the side I’d come up on. At the end of the hall was a set of elaborate double doors that I hoped signified the master suite. I tried to pull the doors open but they were locked. I jiggled the handles in vain. Nicole must have really been in a bad way to have to be locked in her room. I looked in the decorative brass boxes on the marble-topped hall table just outside the room, thinking maybe the key might in one of them. No such luck. I had a sinking feeling I knew where the key was: in the pocket of the nurse’s sweater.

  I crept back down to the first floor and followed the path the nurse had taken after she’d shown the deliverymen out. I found myself in a formal dining room that led into a large black and gold gourmet kitchen. I tiptoed into the kitchen and saw the nurse with her back to me, sitting in a chair in the family room that opened up off the kitchen. She was watching The Young and the Restless. She was also still wearing the sweater. Wasn’t she hot in that thing? I ducked down behind the large island that dominated the center of the kitchen to think. I needed that key. How in the world was I going to get it? I could turn up the heat on the thermostat, but it would take too long for it to get hot enough for her to take the sweater off. I needed to get into Nicole’s room before her husband returned.

  I peeked out from my hiding place and watched as the nurse took periodic sips from a large plastic tumbler of orange juice sitting on the long low table next to her. The table sat between the nurse’s chair and a love seat. On the opposite end of the table, closest to the love seat, I spied a small key on a large plastic key ring. This had to be the key to Nicole’s room. I was thrilled that it wasn’t in her sweater pocket after all. But how was I going to get it? I didn’t dare reach for it — she’d see me. I frantically looked around the kitchen for something I could use to distract the nurse. I finally found a nice big dead fly in the corner of the kitchen underneath a brass plant stand. I carefully picked up the fly by its wings and crawled up behind the nurse’s chair. Just as I was ready to drop the fly in her juice, she picked up the tumbler. I was afraid she’d drain it but when she set it down again, I was happy to see there was still more than enough to achieve the desired effect. I dropped the fly in for its orange juice embalming and scurried back behind the island. There was always the chance that she wouldn’t react the way I hoped. If not, I’d be screwed. If I found a fly floating belly up in my juice, considering where flies spend most of their time, I know I’d be seriously grossed out. I waited and a minute later, I was rewarded by the sound of a strangled gasp. I poked my head out in time to see the tumbler tossed into the air and it, along with the contents, landing on the gagging nurse. She jumped out of the chair cussing and spitting and covered in orange juice.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she growled. I watched her rub her tongue so hard it looked like she might rub off her taste buds. I truly hoped she hadn’t swallowed the fly. In spite of my situation, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Is someone there?” I clamped my hand over my mouth before any more sound could escape. “Mrs. Rollins, is that you?” I was frozen to the spot as the nurse walked through the kitchen right past me into the d
ining room. All she had to do was turn around and I’d be toast. I held my breath and watched as she headed out of the dining room without looking back. I ran into the family room, grabbed the key off the table, and dove behind a leather couch as the nurse returned to the room. Lewis was right. This was some James Bond shit and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Timmy owed me big-time.

  I looked to my right and saw another staircase. A quick peek revealed the nurse on all fours scrubbing orange juice from the carpet. I headed up the back staircase as quietly as possible, since the stairs weren’t carpeted. I had no idea where I was but kept moving until I found myself once again on the landing overlooking the foyer. With key in hand, I approached the double doors to the master suite and let myself into the room, closing the doors behind me. The room was large, with a high ceiling and a hardwood floor covered with oriental rugs. Blue and gold curtains, embroidered with flowers, and cream sheers hung in the windows. Heavy mahogany furniture made the room look a little crowded. Vases filled with fresh flowers and family photos covered the tops of the dressers. A large stuffed bear reclined in a rocking chair by the bed. There was something a little odd about the room that I couldn’t put my finger on.

  I detected faint rustling sounds coming from the direction of the ornately carved four-poster bed. The bed’s sheer curtains were drawn but I could hear Nicole tossing, turning, and thrashing around. She must be having quite a nightmare, and I wondered for the first time about the wisdom of trying to talk to her. If she had really had a nervous breakdown would I be able to get any sense out of her? And, more importantly, if she knew anything that could help Timmy, would the police believe her, given her current mental state? I approached the bed and Nicole cried out loudly, making me jump.

  “She’s dead! No, sweet Jesus,” Nicole moaned and continued thrashing around.

  Realizing that she must be talking about Inez, I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I slowly parted the curtains and saw Nicole lying on her side facing me. She was tangled up in the bedsheets, with her long braids hanging in her face.