Sweet Violet and a Time for Love

by Leslie J. Sherrod

  “So, what was the deal between Frankie Jean and Samuel Otis King? I asked. “What, did she have an affair with him?”

  “No. Not at all.” My father scratched his head, looked up as if trying to pull together old memories. “She and her husband were too in love for extra hanky-panky, so they said. Everybody knew that Frankie Jean got a bouquet of flowers every day from her husband. She would plant those flowers in community parks to ‘share the love’ as her columns used to say. I’d say her relationship with Silent Sam was quite the opposite of an affair.”

  “How so?” Leon leaned forward in his chair.

  “Oh, she messed up when she began putting Silent Sam’s business into her ‘fiction’ columns. Like I said, they were socialites who frequented all the spots and would know all the people Silent Sam was doing business with. I guess she wanted her paper to become more than a gossip column and so she decided to make it her mission to enlighten the masses about the illegal activities of a man who was pretty much controlling the city. She tried to frame it as a series of made-up short stories, but everyone knew she was really just revealing all of Silent Sam’s operations.”

  “Sounds like a dangerous business move.”

  “Oh, it was. After a while, the feds were forced to start investigating him and his connections, which, of course, the powers-that-be who were in on it didn’t like. The paper stopped suddenly and after she laid low for a bit, she disappeared altogether following the suspicious but uninvestigated death of her husband.”

  “Wow. They killed him?”

  “Yup. I remember reading how they found his body somewhere on Pratt Street, naked and beaten to a bloody pulp.”

  “Pratt Street?” Leon asked. His bakery was on Pratt Street. I guessed we both were thinking that’s why she hung around that area so much.

  My father wasn’t finished. “I remember the news saying that someone left a bag with his personal effects at the cemetery on the day of his funeral, and his wife, Frankie Jean, immediately left town at the close of the service. No investigation, no suspects, no other mention of the case after that.”

  “Guess she had no choice but to leave,” I piped up.

  “You got that right. Everyone said that if she ever showed up again, heads would start to roll and more bodies drop to make sure the secrets behind Silent Sam’s power reign over the city would never be revealed, but that was years ago, decades ago.” My father pulled on his chin as he spoke.

  “Whatever happened to Silent Sam?” Leon asked quietly.

  “Nobody knows. People who didn’t do business directly with him don’t even know what he looks like. There are no pictures. He was never really investigated, never really apprehended. No mug shots, no indictments. Nobody knows what happened to him.”

  “I Googled Frankie Jean, and Sam, earlier today.” I pointed to a darkened computer screen. “But I didn’t get any results.”

  “No, there wouldn’t be. Sounds like there are too many secrets to expose. People in powerful places can make records, names, dates, places disappear without even a virtual trace.” Leon mulled.

  “Well, Frankie Jean returned and heads have been rolling and bodies dropping, forty years since she was last seen around here. Somebody in power is spooked.” My father sat back, satisfied with his story.

  “Why do you think she came back? Unfinished business?” I asked.

  “Or maybe she’s just an old woman who tragically lost her husband and her livelihood, who had enough memory to come back home, but enough brokenness to not be able to pull it all together,” Leon answered.

  “Somebody doesn’t want her memories to awaken. And now, she was given a train ticket to get out of town,” I recalled.

  “They said officials helped her disappear the first time around to keep their tracks covered. I guess there still must be a lot at stake and officials are helping her disappear again. Nobody wants the covers rolled back or the past revisited,” my father added.

  “The question is who?” I tried to piece it all together. “Leon, you didn’t disagree when I concluded that you were investigating something related to the drug market. You hinted that Delmon Frank was part of that investigation and was deep into it. Well, he was following Frankie Jean around, I’m sure of it, so whoever told him to trail her would have some link between the powers that be back then and right now.”

  “Back then it was guns and numbers that helped run the underground power system. Now it’s drugs. Makes sense that there would be a connection. Same pilots, different planes.” Leon bit his lip, scratched his head. “Let me get in touch with Mike and update him. See where they are and what he wants to do.”

  He dialed but hung up without talking.

  “No answer,” he explained.

  “Do you have Shavona’s number?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll try Roman.”

  I dialed Roman’s number and his voice mail immediately came on, as if his phone was shut off. Yvette’s cell phone had the same response.

  “I just tried your mother, and I’m not getting an answer either.” My father leaned forward in his seat. The three of us looked at each other.

  “They’re okay,” Leon reassured us. “Mike probably had them all turn off their phones as a safety measure, maybe even had them leave them somewhere to avoid being followed.”

  “But he would have to stay in touch with you, right?”

  “He’ll probably call me soon.”

  “So, are we just supposed to be waiting for him to call? What are we supposed to be doing right now, Leon? What’s the plan? Where do we go? Where are they?”

  “Stop worrying, Sienna. Everything’s okay. Please, Mike is a pro at this. Our loved ones are in good hands.”

  “Okay, Leon, I guess you’re right. There’s nothing else we can do until he reestablishes contact with you.”

  My father stood. “Look, you two stay here. I haven’t been in the public eye so nobody should pay me no never mind. I’m going to go down to the lobby and use that cab stand to get a cab for us. Leon, you can figure out where you want it to take us. Sienna, you’ve worked here before, so tell me where you want the cabbie to meet y’all. I figure you don’t want to go out the main entrance where someone is bound to be watching.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “The loading dock. The receiving department is in the basement of the hospital where very few people travel or have access to. Get the cab to drive to the loading dock, and Leon and I will meet you out there.”

  “Okay.” My father turned to leave. “I’ll scope out the area first and will call you when we’re there.”

  My father left, taking the elevator. Leon and I headed to the stairwell.

  “Are you going to be okay with all this walking?” Leon eyed my stomach nervously as we headed to the lower level.

  “We’ll see.” I smiled. Truthfully, I was a little nervous myself. Too much was happening. I’d been in plenty of nerve-racking situations before, but none that involved nearly everyone I loved, my family.

  Why hadn’t I just thrown that woman’s stuff away the first night I’d dealt with her? I understood now why Leon hated for me to get too involved. I was drawn to chaos and danger and the secrets of Sweet Violet were nothing but that.

  Chapter 37

  The lower level was mostly empty when we stepped off of the elevator. A bin with clean scrubs sat near the elevator door and without speaking about it, both Leon and I slipped on tops and bottoms over our clothes to better blend into the underworld of the hospital. Mostly service workers roamed these halls. Nearly everyone wore uniforms, and most were pushing carts or holding containers.

  “The loading dock is this way.” I pointed, remembering the one time I’d been down here, accompanying KeeKee during one of my coverage nights as she had to pick up a delivery that was waiting for her.

  “It’s a little bit of a maze down here,” Leon commented as we walked through the dimly lit cinderblock hallways. Pipes hung low from the exposed c
eilings. Cables and wires lined some of the walls.

  “This level is really more like a tunnel that connects all four buildings of this hospital. It’s not a straight shot to receiving, but I’m pretty sure that I remember the main turns to the receiving department.”

  Leon’s cell phone rang.

  “It’s Mike.” Leon answered. “Yeah, man, where are you? No, we’re on our way to the loading dock. Sienna’s dad went to get a cab. Okay, good. We’ll be right there.” He hung up, but just before he did so, I saw a quick glimpse of his cell’s screen.

  “Wait a minute?” I froze. “What’s Mike’s number?”

  “Huh? Oh, 443-555-0511,” Leon rattled off.

  “511. That number has shown up everywhere.”

  “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, Sienna. There are certain numbers I see all the time. I’m six feet two inches, my old address started with sixty-two, my old basketball jersey was twenty-six. Well, that wasn’t exactly sixty-two, but you get the point.”

  “I don’t think all of these 511s are coincidences, Leon. Remember, that pocket watch was stopped at 5:11. The shooting at the bakery was at 5:11. And, if you didn’t know already, the money left on Roman was $5.11 at the time of his assault.”

  “So what are you trying to say, Sienna?” Leon slowed down as we had finally neared the receiving department. Locked doors and a doorbell. We stopped.

  “What I’m saying is why does Mike’s number have 511 in it?”

  Leon groaned. “It’s just his number, his cell phone number. Nothing special.”

  “But what if it is? How did you get involved with Mike anyway?”

  “Sienna, you know that we were on the force together.”

  “No, I mean this time around. How did you get involved with this case you say you’ve been operating undercover with him?”

  “Through Mike, of course. He told me about the need to have someone who was already trained, but was enough on the outside to be an effective observer.”

  “What exactly were you supposed to be observing, Leon?”

  “Just keeping tabs of people involved in investigating high level drug cases. There’ve been concerns of corruption. That’s all.”

  “Corruption in high places. Sounds familiar.” I thought again about what my father shared about Francesca Dupree, i.e., Frankie Jean. Sweet Violet. “So to avoid discovery you’ve only dealt with Mike? You’ve only talked to him and no one else in the department? It’s never once crossed your mind that he could just be using you to cover his own tracks?”

  “Okay, Sienna, I see where you’re going with this, but before you go off on a misdirected tangent and start making assumptions about Mike and his motives, slow down. Mike is as clean as they come. You don’t know him like I do. There are things which you don’t know about him at all, like his eye, the blinking, his tics. Remember? You thought one thing, but something else was really going on with him. Don’t start this again, Sienna.”

  “I hear you, Leon, and believe me, I’m not trying to embarrass myself or you again. I just find Mike’s number way too coincidental. Can you tell me what exactly you’ve been finding out in your investigation?”

  Leon sighed, shook his head, then: “Like I said: drugs and corruption. Apparently there’s a fear that some people in high places, including police officers and possibly a person or persons in the state’s attorney’s office, are part of the drug network in the city. Heroin, cocaine, pills. Big money. That’s why they needed someone who wasn’t directly tied to the department to be an observer. Things got sticky when you became involved in the trial.” Leon sighed again. “Look, Sienna, to be honest with you, things haven’t been making sense to me either. The safe house, the sedans being driven around, I don’t know how the department could be funding all of this, while at the same time investigating itself.”

  “And you only deal with Mike.”

  “Yeah, no one else.”

  “What about that detective who planned our trip, Sam Fields? Has he been part of this whole operation?”

  “No, I contacted him myself since I knew that he was good at helping people get to safety. I remember how he helped those girls safely disappear when you dealt with their crazy mother and her fiance at your practice a few years ago. Mike was upset that I got Sam Fields involved, but like I told you from the get-go, I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

  “My stomach is tightening up again.” It was a small tug, but enough to let me know I probably needed to get off of my feet.

  “Let’s keep it moving.” Leon rang the doorbell of the receiving department.

  “May I help you?” a voice scratched through a box beneath the buzzer.

  “Yes, we need to . . . drop something off.” Leon looked at me and shrugged. The door opened and we walked in.

  “Just so you know, Sienna, I got that detective to help make plans for us. And I also got him to give that train ticket to Sweet Violet.”

  My head swung over to meet his. “What?”

  “I didn’t know all that history behind her, but I wanted to get her off the scene so you would stop obsessing over her. I told him to make sure a shelter would receive her and take care of her wherever he sent her. I was going to tell you once things calmed down a bit.”

  “Can I help you?” a young man wearing a T-shirt and jeans came to meet us at the door.

  “We just need to go to the loading dock.” I looked over at Leon.

  “Are you expecting a delivery?”

  “Um . . .” Clearly I had not thought this through very well.

  “Wait here.” The young man turned toward an office. “I need you to fill something out.”

  “Let’s go.” Leon nudged me toward the open gate and ramp on the other side of the room as soon as the young man disappeared into an office. We both hurried to the exit.

  “Hello? Where’d they go?” We both heard the young man’s voice from inside the building as we jumped down to the ground. Darting between two parked trucks, we stayed out of view until we reached the main street. Rush hour traffic was still clogging the roads, but we could see a bright yellow taxicab in the traffic leaving the main driveway of the hospital, about two blocks away. Leon sighed, looking around. There was nothing else for us to do, nowhere else for us to go; just wait and see and pray that this was the taxi my father was in.

  “The cab that was supposed to take us to the airport had the numbers 511 on it,” I told Leon as the taxi neared us, now only a block away. “Do you think that was a true coincidence?”

  “All right, 511, what would it mean, Sienna? A date, a time, an address? What is it that you think it is, since you’re so convinced it’s not a coincidence?”

  I thought about Mike’s phone number. “511, that’s the phone number travelers can use to check traffic conditions, right? Like 411 is for information, and 911 is for emergencies, right?”

  “Yes, Sienna.”

  “You said you’ve been helping to investigate drug trafficking involving people in high places. I know it’s a stretch, but what if 511 is some type of code they are using to communicate in their drug trafficking ring? If you’re talking about corrupt police officers and attorneys who are intermingled in the system with those who are doing right, maybe using those numbers helps tip the bad guys on what they do, who they prosecute, who not to investigate.”

  “I’m not following you, Sienna.”

  “For example, Roman was left with $5.11 when those guys beat him. What if somebody, recognizing that the attack had ties to your investigation, made the call to treat it like a random street robbery and nothing more, to keep investigators and resources from digging into it too deeply? And we were shot at in your bakery at 5:11 and from what I can tell, after the initial confusion, it was chalked up to a botched robbery, which doesn’t make sense. It’s a stretch, I know, but I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Okay, like you said it is a stretch, but if what you’re saying is true, how does any of it apply to Sweet Vio
let?”

  “I don’t know.” I thought about it as the cab crept closer in the evening commuter traffic. “Maybe it’s about what she revealed in her stories. Maybe that’s what she uncovered, how corrupt leaders were communicating with each other.”

  I thought more about it, trying to come up with a scenario that made sense. “I’d be willing to bet . . . that her husband just happened to be killed at 5:11. That pocket watch was probably in his bag of personal effects left at his funeral and that it was intentionally set and broken at 5:11 as a sign to her, a warning for her to get out of town. They didn’t want her dead, just not around. Maybe Silent Sam, or whoever, was a little sweet on her. I don’t know. Leon, I could speculate for hours and days over this, but who knows.”

  Leon stared at me, trying to keep up as I continued.

  “Maybe, just maybe, the numbers 511 started out as a coincidence, but then stayed around, like I said, as a code for communication. Though she seems to be out of her mind now, her return, her presence has been enough to get someone riled up. I’ve been thinking all along that whenever she shows up, something bad happens. Maybe I have it backward. Maybe something bad happens because she showed up and someone else is trying to cover tracks that would reveal the past and its present connection to how communication is happening among those who are part of the trafficking ring.”

  “So, Sienna, you’re thinking that Sweet Violet may have exposed the communication channels of corrupt leaders, and those channels and codes have persisted up to today?”

  “In light of what we know, doesn’t it seem at least possible? Maybe Delmon Frank is one of the corrupt ones. Like I said, I am certain that he was following her around. Clearly someone who knows what’s going on is. You said yourself that Alisa Billy’s death wasn’t part of the plan. And don’t forget, something happened at A New Beginning House just now, according to the news. If something bad did happen there, it’s almost as if someone is strategically wiping away any current memories or ties to Frankie Jean, because bringing her story back up may bring back new suspicions and a new investigation about current corruption in high places.” I thought some more. “And let me just remind you that Mike was quick to turn off the news, remember?”