“Yes.” I never meant to admit that out loud. But there it was: in some fantasy alternate time line of my life, I might have gone back to Annie. I closed my eyes as thoughts of Brina in the shower swept through me.
“And you two’ll fix your quarrel and everything will be perfect again.” Carolyn stated her hope as a certainty. Her blue-flecked lids quivered, coral rushing onto her cheeks as she waited for my answer.
“Yes, it will.” At least I’d made her happy.
Carolyn clasped her thin hands and shivered, the shimmy sending tremors across the shoulders of her dress. A fine lace of goosebumps pricked the fawn skin on her arms. She was cold.
Glad for the diversion, I unleashed my manners. “Mrs. Wiley, you’re chilled. Can I get you a sweater?”
“Such a gentleman! Yes, please bring my blue cardigan, if you’d be so kind.”
“From your room? Sure. Which one is it?”
“Second floor. Room 9. On the left at the top of the stairs. You can’t miss it.”
I didn’t wait for further instructions from Carolyn or an objection from Queen. I jumped from the table. Stretching my legs was good, snooping was required. I was relieved to escape the prying. And the truth-telling. The waiter approaching to clear the dessert dishes might intervene. If he offered to fetch the sweater himself, I’d be blocked. I hustled for the entrance hall and took the wide stairs two at a time.
As Carolyn predicted, finding her room was simple. The upper stories of the mansion were not as gracious in size or appearance as the ground floor. Ceilings were ten feet, no more. All the rooms were angled in cock-eyed fashion. The spaces had been subdivided by a builder driven by profit, not logic or elegance. Short corridors veered around unsettling corners, forest green carpets underfoot, muddy beige walls on all sides. The funhouse effect was amplified by mirrors placed between the doors. Maybe these constant reflections gave residents reinforcement of their identities. See your face, remember your name, recapture your past. The parade of mirrors gave me the willies.
No locks, so I entered Room 9 and closed the door behind me. Carolyn Wiley’s furniture was as simple as her dress style. A twin bed with a pink coverlet of tufted cotton. A nightstand with a white-shaded lamp. An oak rocking chair upholstered with a padded seat cushion covered in light blue checks. A shallow closet where she hung her shirtwaist dresses, and a lightweight navy-blue coat, but no sweaters. My mother always said you should fold your knitwear, not hang it, so I looked into the dresser for the cardigans. I found five – pink, navy, green, white, and robin’s egg blue.
A white cotton runner covered the dresser. On top of it were family photos. I picked up each silver-framed picture and studied its subjects. At the back of the array was a dim photo of a young couple in formal clothing. Eagle-eyed Carolyn wore her black hair braided into a crown around her head. She was leaning her shoulder into the chest of a stout man with brown curls and light burlap-colored skin to match his wife’s. Philip Wiley wasn’t smiling, but his cheeks pleated around his eyes and his dark full lips compressed in a sensuous pucker.
In front of this photo were more recent shots. Pictures of the sole product of the Wiley union, the missing son Carl. There was middle-school Carl in a football uniform, chubby and pale, kneeling alone in front of empty stadium seats. Carl in a chocolate brown academic gown for high school graduation. In a maroon gown for college commencement, with his foot braced on the bumper of a smoke-blue Buick. And in the crimson gown of the country’s most prestigious law school. In this march of accomplishment, Carl never smiled, never unpursed the full dark lips he had inherited from his handsome father.
I picked up another photo of Carl, this time in a family cluster. His weight had congealed into sloppy fat, his scowl into an icy mask. He was standing in front of a blue Buick. To his left slouched a white woman with curtains of licorice-black hair falling beside her face. In front were their two children: a chubby boy with curly brown hair and a regal stalk of a girl with long legs, sharp cheekbones, and intense eyes. Carl’s daughter was an exact replica of her elegant grandmother, Carolyn Wiley.
Scratched on the back of the photo were names: Carl, Maddie, Thornton, Athena. And a date: Seattle, July 2014. The family was stationed in the street on the driver’s side of their car. Behind the sleek Buick was a hideous pile of concrete blocks; it looked like Carl Wiley had built his house of frozen cottage cheese.
I turned away from the pictures. If I was going to snoop, I was going to be thorough. I slid open the shallow top drawer of the dresser, the place where women keep their most personal items. I found four plastic laminated IDs Carolyn had used when she served as a librarian and two New York state drivers’ licenses. I laid the two cards on the cloth runner next to the silver framed photos. The license with Carolyn’s picture had expired in 2001; her son’s license had expired in 1994.
Inside the drawer, a thick plait of silver hair coiled in a pink flowered saucer. Carolyn’s severed braid looked like a snake at rest. Nestled in the smooth strands was a large silver key. Teeth bristled from both sides of the bold shaft. Silver letters on the leather key fob read “Buick” above the car dealer’s name and address. The black tag was frayed on all four sides, the edges curled from wear and stained from sweat. I picked up the key and let the fob dangle against my palm.
Why would Carolyn Wiley treasure this old key? Why did she keep it? She didn’t have a car any more, wouldn’t be permitted to drive even if she still owned one. Had this Buick belonged to her dead husband? Or was it one Carl had abandoned when he moved west? The car in his Seattle photo was also a Buick. A smoke-blue Buick.
Men have a type, an ideal woman we keep hidden from decent people once we reach voting age. This preferred girl drifts through that interior slide show we flash when our eyes glaze during a day dream. Or a lecture. Or a dinner party. Or when we sleep. Or when we love. She may be tall, thick, short, scrawny, dark, pale, sassy or sensual, friendly or kittenish or dangerous. The specs of this favored girl never vary. That’s the one we want. Always. Same goes for autos: we have a type. A preferred car which grabs our feverish imagination at a young age and never lets go. Carl Wiley had a preference, a type. A car he craved through the years. He stuck with the car he wanted no matter what. These photos revealed he loved smoky blue Buicks. Maybe they made him feel safe. Or big, or important, or desirable. Or just adult. Who knows why, but Carl loved his blue Buicks.
This old Buick key meant something special to his mother. Something precious, something she didn’t want to forget. I couldn’t steal it. I wanted to. My gut told me this was a clue I needed to keep until I solved the puzzle. But removing an old lady’s memories wasn’t something I could stomach. I took a photo of the key and its tattered old fob. Then I grabbed the robin’s egg blue cardigan from the dresser drawer and ran downstairs to shelter Mrs. Wiley from the cold.
Dinner over, we three walked to the front hall of the dark mansion. Queen tugged on my shirtfront until I bent for a kiss on the cheek. As the bill of her red cap butted my eyebrow, she giggled against my jaw. Then she scampered toward the staircase, a uniformed attendant in hot pursuit.
Carolyn Wiley watched her friend mount the steps. “I’m so happy you came, Carl.” She pressed my hand to the dancing pulse in her chest, then kissed my fingers. “It’s been so long since we had dinner together.”
“Yes, I’m glad we found the time.” I dabbed my lips to her powdery cheek then squeezed her shoulder. The bony knob shifted as she leaned into my touch. “I’ll be going now,” I said. She sighed and nodded in resignation.
As I walked away from the grand old house, I reflected on what I’d learned. Despite Queen’s addled intervention, the visit had been salvaged by my discoveries in Carolyn’s room. The car key and photos I’d found were clues to solving my case. I couldn’t ask Carolyn a direct question about the blue Buick, either as myself or as Carl. Not yet. Her son’s car held a hidden meaning, a link
to forgotten events in Carolyn’s past. I was sure of that. But before I confronted her, I wanted to unknot the kinks in my theory. I needed an auto expert to uncover the ties between this befuddled old lady and the dead wife buried in her basement.
Chapter
Seventeen
I was the first one in the office again the next day. When Norment and Brina might arrive was a dreary guess. After fumbling my way through the dim reception area to my own office I flung aside the door. I meant to sling my jacket on the couch and head to the break room to start the coffee machine.
A cackle stopped me. A thick silhouette squatted behind my desk. “So, you’re the new muscle around here, hmm? Rook, right? Nice to put a mug to the name.”
Flicking on the overhead spotlighted the stranger sprawled in my chair. His face was familiar, but I refused to give that away.
“You seem comfortable at my desk,” I said. An even tone, a few registers lower than my normal delivery, not that he’d realize it. I didn’t carry a gun, but I could talk like I did. I kept my right hand in my jacket pocket to uphold the implication of armed threat. I issued simple orders. “Keep your hands flat on the desk. Get up. Slow. Move to me.”
He did as I’d asked. I patted both flanks of his black windbreaker and along the loose folds of his dark gray slacks.
He was unarmed. And amused. “Kid, you’re good. Real good.” A chuckle warmed his words. “Old Man Ross picked a winner in you.”
A sardonic smile tilted the bushy black moustache. Creases radiated across the dark contours of his face. He wore a pink mesh driving cap on his close-cropped head. Rose-colored aviator sunglasses, combined with black leather high tops to give him a youthful air, but I put his age at mid-fifties. Under the jacket, a knit shirt with pink-and-gray stripes hugged his chest. He had plenty of muscle, but pads of flesh pillowed his waist.
“Alright, tell me who you are.”
“Can I sit down first, kid? Or do you want to keep pretending you got a gun in your pocket?”
“Sit on the couch. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
Grinning, he sank into the middle of the leather sofa and relaxed both hands on his blocky thighs. I leaned against the edge of my desk facing him and crossed my arms over my chest. I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything more.
“Don’t you want to ask who I am and why I’m in here?” His tone was genial and hearty, like a long-absent uncle come uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner.
Rather than acting like the scolding aunt at this reunion, I’d play the curious cousin. I nodded for him to continue. “Start with your name. I’ll see if I want more after that.”
“John Burris, but only my mama and a few old boys from the South Side call me Jackie. Everyone else calls me ‘Smoke.’”
He leaned forward to offer his hand, but I kept mine folded under my arm. I knew the name; I’d seen his picture. Smoke Burris was a former employee of the Ross Agency. Norment had given me scanty details of Burris’s tenure: he was rough, honest, a wild-cat prone to following his own instincts. Four months ago, I’d needed an out-of-town hideaway for a threatened kid in my care. Brina suggested I send him to stay with Burris in Chicago. Norment made the arrangements. I’d exchanged texts with Burris but we never talked. He’d done me a solid favor. But gratitude didn’t make me inclined toward instant friendship. The man was still an invader.
“I’m not your mama, John. So ‘Smoke’ it is.” My spine relaxed. A little. “And what makes you think you can sit at my desk, Smoke? In my office. Without my permission?”
“Your office now. My office back in the day. I used to work here, kid. Didn’t Old Man Ross ever tell you who come before you in this job?” Burris removed his sunglasses, the grin still stretching his lips.
I knew the bare facts. But hearing his story would give me the advantage. So, I lied. “No, never did.”
“And little Sabrina never mentioned my name, neither?” Smoke shook his head, his brown eyes dancing a zig-zag pattern across my face.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Not a mumbling word from either of them. Well, look at that. All those texts and not a chirp. Ain’t the past a funny old thing. After all those years, all those good times we had. You’d think they’d fill you in about me.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” I hitched myself onto the desk. I wanted to ease pressure off my bum foot, but stay several inches higher than Smoke.
“And you sent the kid to me without asking any questions? “
“I trusted Norment’s judgment on that one,” I said. “So, tell me, when did you work here?”
“I guess I started here about ten, twelve years ago.”
“You guess? You’re not sure?”
“Things that far in the past get hazy, you know.” He grinned some more, like we were old chums reminiscing about cruising the streets together.
“Go on. What did you do for the Agency?”
“Man, what didn’t I do? They had me running every which way, mostly security assignments. Guarding offices, homes, private parties, things like that. Anywhere somebody needed muscle, brains, a sharp eye, and a zipped lip. That’s where they sent me.”
I nodded; this outline of the Ross Agency’s core business sounded familiar. I’d tackled the same assignments dozens of times.
But then Smoke took the description in an unexpected direction. “Every once in a while, one of Ross’s friends needed a bodyguard to escort some of his money across town. I did some of that. I learned real fast not to ask too many questions about who the client was and where the money came from. Not everything was on the up and up. You get the picture, dontcha?”
I did and it made me uneasy. Had Norment maintained his connection with local mob figures, running errands for them as recently as a decade ago? Why had neither of the Rosses ever said anything about this to me? Concern must have streaked across my face, because Smoke continued as if I’d asked questions out loud.
“This is how it worked back then. The agency had two sides to it: The legit side, which little Sabrina ran. And the not-so-legit side which Ross kept in his own back pocket. How much each half of the operation brought in varied from month to month. Sometimes it was Sabrina bringing in the lion’s share with all those neighborhood cases and security gigs. Other times it was Norment with an important haul he kept off the agency books. Cash-in-hand kind of operation.”
“Brina never knew about these other transactions?”
“No, she never did. Not to my knowledge. Norment ran with a pretty rough crowd when he first come up to Harlem as a youngblood. Long before Sabrina was born. You ever heard of Martin Colón? Sometime you want some good stories, ask Norment about numbers running for Colón’s bank.” Smoke rubbed his hands on his thighs as if to warm them. He smiled, an inward-looking expression fogging his eyes with memories of delinquencies past.
Norment had described to me and Brina his short early career as a numbers runner for the up-and-coming mobster Martin Colón. I’d first met Colón face to face when I served as a guard for his granddaughter’s birthday party. Then my ties to the gangster tightened when his thugs threatened a boy in my care. I’d sent that kid to Smoke in Chicago to escape the Colón mob. He must know some of this history. He was keeping secrets from me just as I was from him. Norment had put those old mob connections far behind him. The past was dead and buried. In the two years since I’d joined the agency, I’d had no reason to think otherwise. But I didn’t intend to share these insights with this stranger.
All this reminiscing turned Smoke’s thoughts in another direction. My silence gave him a chance to quiz me. “So, how’s sweet Sabrina doing? Married yet?”
“No, not married.”
“No? Still single? Man, what’s wrong with the brothers in this city? Chicago dude would’ve nailed that down long ago. But you East Coast boys, you talk a good hustle, bu
t you just not up to the job, right? Can’t close the deal, if you get my drift.” He grabbed his left elbow, then straightened the forearm, thrusting the clenched fist toward me twice in a crude gesture.
“I mean, that is one fine looking young sister. I know you know it too. Coming in to work every day was pure pleasure with her in the office. I mean, the legs, the ass, the whole package. What a way to kickstart the morning! Mmmm, I tell you what! That girl could set a man up for the whole day, am I right?” He smacked his lips, then rubbed his chin as his eyes clouded with happy memories. “She used to wear this particular mini-skirt, shortest in Harlem. White with blue pinstripes, like ticking on a mattress. I tell you, that little skirt could make unlawful thoughts last a whole week. No lie.”
I knew that skirt. Brina hadn’t worn it in over a year. Not since we’d been together. Smoke’s rambling was meant to provoke me. He wanted to see if I’d take the bait and challenge him out of chivalry or jealousy. To cut off his jovial disrespect, I glared at him until he shut his trap. He’d guess about me and Brina soon enough. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting bent out of shape off his rude remarks.
When he didn’t get the rise he wanted, Smoke stopped the blather, considering me with a narrowed eye. “Sabrina lost her charms since I left? Or she just not your cup of tea, kid?”
“My cup of tea is none of your business. Smoke.”
“True, true.” He laughed as if I’d made one helluva joke. When I flattened my lips and deadened my gaze, he continued in a different vein. “Say, I was hoping to see Norment and Sabrina before I left. They coming in soon?”
“They should be here in a while. Were they expecting you?” I sounded like a secretary taking a phone message. Formality kept Smoke at the distance he deserved.
“No, I’m just in town for a gig. Thought I’d drop in and shoot the breeze before the job begins. Catch up on old times, you know.”
Smoke and I chatted for twenty minutes. Him, expansive and blustery, me terse and cloudy. He told me a few stories about the young kid I’d sent to him. Whip was doing fine, studying hard in school, helping around the office, keeping out of trouble. I wanted to minimize what I revealed while prying the max from him. I needed to know as much as possible about the Rosses, given the complicated nature of my personal and professional relationships with them. But Smoke had zero need to learn anything more from me than he already knew.
Murder My Past Page 15