My heart thumped uncontrollably and I wondered if I was going to jail. Technically I hadn’t laid a hand on her but I was part of the group. Maybe they wanted to take me to the police station to question me.
The short, white officer spoke first. “Tamara, your mom tells me you’re friends with Leah Boyd.”
Oh, God. “Yes.”
“Did you see her today?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember what time you saw her?”
I looked at my mother and she nodded. She had no idea. “She came outside around 12 and we got ice cream and waited for our other friends to come out.”
The white officer smiled. “Very good. How long was she outside with you?”
“I think she went inside at about 3 o’clock.” That was easy.
The white officer looked at the black officer and he wrote something down before speaking. “Was that the last time you saw Leah? At 3 o’clock?”
“Yes.” He wrote something else.
“Tamara,” the white officer said, “did Leah mention anything about walking to the clubhouse?”
Someone told! We had promised each other we wouldn’t tell anyone. We all agreed to make Leah out to be a liar. Jarvis would believe us if it was all of us against her. I bet it was Jason who told. “Um...not to me.”
“Did you see her walk in that direction at any time during the day?”
I was getting ready to lie again but then it hit me. What if someone had been watching? Someone could have easily looked out of their window and seen everything.
This was it. Say it, Tamara. Say it! “No, I never saw her walk that way.”
The black officer wrote again. He was making me nervous. “Well, that’s all we have. Sorry to have bothered you.”
My mom walked them to the door and I breathed a sigh of relief. We still had to deal with Jarvis but at least I wasn’t going to jail.
My mom walked toward me, her face ashen, and said the words that would haunt me for the rest of my life. “I don’t know how to tell you this but...Leah’s missing.”
Chapter 33
LAST NIGHT I HAD ANOTHER dream about Leah. I couldn’t remember what happened in the dream but I woke up feeling afraid. I searched and searched, desperate to recall a detail or two that would explain the dread that hung over me but there was nothing. Nothing but the lingering feeling.
I pushed past it because I was on a mission. I had tracked down Jason, although he hadn’t been hard to find. He had gained a bit of celebrity after high school as part of a rap group, Backyard Boys. He and two others I didn’t know formed the group and were pretty popular throughout the south. I was a freshman in college when I first heard about them and was shocked to see Jason in the video. He had transformed from a tall, skinny, suburban, wanna-be basketball star to a tatted out, gold-toothed gangster who rapped about a life that, to my knowledge, he had never lived. But it was like Tony always said; if you want to be good at something, act like it’s who you are.
I pulled into the subdivision—Postwood Estates—and took in the scenery. It was a beautiful neighborhood with large stately homes with sweeping yards and intricate landscaping that would make a gardener rich.
I pulled in, unsure of what I was going to say to Jayshon (his stage name) but certain I would come away with some answers. He came outside before I even got up the walkway.
“Ohhhhh shit, Tamara?” he asked.
I smiled sweetly. “Hi, Jason. Or should I call you Jayshon?”
“It’s Jason, girl! Get in here,” he said, wrapping me in a bear hug. He smelled like weed.
“It’s good to see you,” I said. “How long has it been, 10 years?”
“Longer than that. What’s going on?”
I gestured toward the house. “First of all, aren’t you famous? Why was I able to just walk up to your front door?”
He chuckled. “You know me, I’m still just a regular cat.”
“If you say so.” We sized each other up. He had aged, the way a man ages from hard living, but I had a hard time reconciling that with his upbringing and the luxury home I was standing in front of. I never understood that about the guys I grew up with. So many of them wanted to be thugs. They wanted to live hard. Me, I wanted easy. I craved easy. Maybe it was a man thing.
“You wanna come in?” he asked me.
“Yeah, we need to talk.”
The foyer was outfitted with marble floors, a double staircase, and several framed posters of the Backyard Boys performing at various venues. The centerpiece was the gold album plaque directly to the right of the door. I hadn’t realized they were that successful.
We made our way to the living room. The large area, high ceilings, and two-story fireplace gave the room a grand feel, but the brown leather sectional and recliners screamed cheap bachelor pad. “So I wanted to talk to you about something. Do you remember the little girl from our neighborhood? Leah?” I asked, settling on the cool leather couch.
“Uh yeah, of course,” he said.
“I got to thinking about her the other day.”
A cigarette appeared as if from nowhere. “Why is that?” he asked, puffing away.
“I guess I felt guilty about some things.”
His eyes narrowed. “What things?”
I searched his face. “You don’t remember what we did to her?”
“It’s been awhile. Refresh my memory.”
I didn’t believe him for a second but I humored him. “When we made her stand on that ant hill and then we tripped her and knocked her tooth out?”
“Oh, that? That was just a prank.”
“No, it was mean.”
Jason sighed. “Look, whatever happened to her in them woods was way worse than what we did.”
“Yeah but that’s what I’ve been thinking about. What if she was so upset she wasn’t thinking straight? And ran into the wrong person?”
He rubbed his beard and stared at the floor, smoke exiting his nostrils. “Where are you going with all this?”
“Do you ever feel responsible?”
“First of all, I don’t think about it. And secondly, responsible for what?”
“For what happened to her?”
“Her being killed? Why would I feel responsible for that? You think I did it or something?” I hadn’t before but I was starting to wonder. I studied him, hoping to spot a tell. “No, of course not. I just wonder if how we treated her led to what happened.”
“You can’t think like that. You start letting them thoughts run around in your mind and it’ll drive you nuts.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s not healthy...” He trailed off.
“So you do think about it.”
He shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just feel like things aren’t finished. If that makes sense.”
Jason nodded and inhaled. “It does. You don’t have any peace. My mama called it spiritual warfare.”
“Mine, too.” I grew up on it. We were devout churchgoers. The pastor was always talking about spirits and demons and curses. Sheila spent so much time fighting the invisible things she didn’t live a full life with the earthly.
“You go to church?” Jason asked me. Was he one of those types? I hoped not. “Not anymore,” I answered.
“It might help. It helped me.”
“Is that why you stopped rapping?”
He chuckled. “Nah, I stopped rapping because nobody was buying the music anymore. The rap game changed quick once the labels got to be as famous as the artists.”
I looked around. “Well, you obviously did well for yourself.”
“Yeah, I made some investments here and there. My aunt put me onto that.”
“Good for her. So do you talk to anybody else? Fefe, Diante, Jarvis?”
“I haven’t heard from Fefe in years. Diante’s in jail.”
“For what?” I’d heard he was locked up but never knew why.
&nbs
p; “Shot somebody. And Jarvis, I see him around. He comes to church on the holidays with his family.”
“He doing okay?”
“Far as I know.” He looked me up and down. “How about you? You doing okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You look good.”
“Thank you. So did you ever have anybody in mind as far as Leah goes?”
He blew smoke away from me and fiddled with the remote, flipping it back and forth, back and forth. “I really think you should just leave that alone.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me. We all moved on, even Jarvis. What happened, happened and there’s no changing it now.”
A little seed of doubt formed in my mind. “You and Jarvis have been talking about it?”
“Let it go. Okay? Just leave it alone.”
“I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. Do you know something?”
“All I know is what I learned from living this thing called life. You go picking at old wounds, you might start bleeding.”
I PULLED UP TO SOLEIL, hardly dressed for such an establishment but too focused to worry about it. I was still on a mission. I had a missed call from Tony but I didn’t have time to stop. If I stopped, I might lose my nerve.
“Hi, there! Just one?” asked the perky hostess.
“Actually, I need to talk to somebody who works here. Jarvis Boyd?”
“Oh. Is it an emergency?”
“No. It’s important, though.”
“Okay, I’ll go tell him. What’s your name?”
“Tamara Bernard. Thank you.” I sat on the leather bench and waited. The food smelled heavenly. I would have ordered something if my stomach wasn’t doing somersaults. It was Jarvis. Jarvis. I was going to see him for the first time in years.
“Ma’am?” It was perky hostess. “He can’t leave the kitchen right now but he has a break in thirty minutes if you feel like waiting.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be at the bar.” I ordered a sprite. When it came, I felt self-conscious and childish but I drank it anyway while looking at the tv. I wasn’t watching the game, but looking at it seemed like the right thing to do.
I was just finishing up when a hand tapped my shoulder. I whirled around on my barstool and there he was. My first love, although he didn’t know that. To my surprise, there was recognition on his face. “I remember you,” he said with a smile. He looked almost exactly the same. A little thicker around the middle but beyond that, he still looked good. I felt a tiny flutter.
“I was wondering if you would remember me,” I replied.
He stuck his hand out which struck me as odd. I was used to hugging. I shook his hand limply.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m not allowed to sit front of house with my chef whites on. You wanna walk around to the back right quick?”
“Um, okay,” I said. I left a five dollar bill on the bar, always the over tipper. We walked out the front and around the side to an alley. Two other cooks sat on milk crates, talking and smoking and speaking Spanish.
“There’s nowhere to sit. Sorry,” Jarvis said.
“It’s okay. So how are you?”
“I’m good. Just working, taking care of my kids. Life. You know how it is. How about you?”
“Same.” Except for the job and kids part. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here.”
“Oh, I know why you’re here,” he said, his face blank.
“You do?”
“Mm-hm. Jason called me.”
“Oh.” That was quick. Why would he call Jarvis? The seed of doubt grew a little.
“Yeah. So what do you wanna know?” he asked, crossing his arms. He was the same as he ever was. Aloof. He wasn’t exactly rude but there was no warmth there. I felt like the lovesick thirteen-year-old whose only wish was for him to notice me and give me something back in return for all the minutes of my life I had spent thinking about him. But like before, he gave nothing.
“Well first, I don’t think we ever talked after what happened. I wanted you to know I’m very sorry about your sister.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I also wanted to know if you had any thoughts on who might have done it?”
He stared at me, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I know about what y’all did,” he said, and my heart skipped a beat.
“What do you mean?”
He stared at me. “You know exactly what I mean. Jason told me a long time ago.”
I was embarrassed and ashamed. “I’m sorry about that too. Very, very sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s all good. Hopefully you felt bad about it at some point.”
“I did. I still do. I’ve felt guilty about that ever since.”
“To this day, my mama can’t figure out why she walked up to that clubhouse by herself.”
“Why didn’t you tell her?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t wanna add to her pain, you know? Would you wanna know something like that?” I had no response to that question, other than tears. I blinked them away. I was a terrible person. No question.
“Look, I’mma tell you like I told Jason, and my mama, and the police. I don’t know anything. I was riding around the neighborhood trying to sell candy so I could make enough money to buy a car.”
“So you never saw anything or—”
“Nothing. Y’all probably saw more than I did.”
Well, that was it. I didn’t have anything else. It was stupid of me to think I could solve a crime even the police couldn’t figure out. And then I remembered something. “Did Leah have a boyfriend?”
Jarvis looked confused. “A boyfriend? She was 11.”
“Yeah, but she told us she had a boyfriend and he thought she was pretty.”
“Not that I know of. She probably had a crush on somebody or something.” Believable, because that’s what we did. We crushed and pretended and sometimes even lied to feel good about ourselves. To feel wanted. And loved.
I filed it away. It was probably nothing.
“Let me ask you something. Why are you asking all these questions? You’re not a cop, right?” He raised his eyebrows quizzically, appearing to see me for the first time.
“No, of course not.”
“So what’s good? Why dig into all this after all this time?” I felt chastened. Jason was right. I was drawing blood.
“I don’t know. It’s just been weighing on me, I suppose.” It was true. “Can I ask you one more thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you trust Jason?”
“Trust him how?” he asked.
“Just...do you trust him? About that day?”
He looked down the alley toward the restaurant but didn’t move. “I believe him when he says he didn’t see anything. Why?”
“Just asking.”
“I don’t think it was anybody from our neighborhood.” He sighed and looked up at the sky. “I really don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”
“I understand. I’m sorry for even bringing it up to you.” I left out the part about visiting his mother. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s alright. I hope you find what you’re looking for. The police were never any help.” He stared at me, saying nothing, and I began to feel self-conscious again. He still affected me, even after all these years.
“You married?” he asked.
I nodded and held up my hand, flashing my ring.
“Congrats. Do I know him?” Fair question. A good number of kids we went to high school with had come back from college and married each other.
“No, he didn’t go to school with us.”
“I ended up married to Tenetra. You remember Tenetra? McBride?” Of course I did. She had long hair and a big butt and she always wore the cutest outfits and she was way more popular than I was. I was jealous of her and hated her with a passion. “Doesn’t ring a bell but congratulations.”
“We broke up a while back.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
>
Jarvis laughed. “Nah, it’s all good. I probably should have married you instead,” he said, finally smiling at me. My face flushed hot and I immediately looked down at the ground.
“Y’all happy?” he asked.
“Yeah, pretty happy.”
“That’s good. But if you ever find yourself unhappy,” he said as he walked away, “you know where to find me.”
Chapter 34
READING THE DAILIES was an exercise in tedium and irritation. If the mundane nature of the crimes didn’t get you, the bad grammar and spelling errors were sure to do you in. But every now and again, a detective could get lucky and stumble across something that related to a case, and Barrington was hoping today would be his day. He scrolled and scrolled. Robbery. Theft by receiving. Aggravated Assault. Armed Robbery. Strong-arm robbery. Rape. Theft by taking. Stolen vehicle. It was like digital Ambien. He stifled a yawn and lightly slapped his cheek. This wasn’t getting him anywhere.
His coffee was cold and the strawberry danish he bought in the cafe was getting hard. Barrington took a stiff bite and made a face. It was dry, too. He threw the pastry in the garbage can and kept scrolling until finally, something caught his eye. He picked up his phone and dialed the precinct number listed at the bottom of the report. Someone named Costas answered the line.
“Hey, this is Detective Dunn. I’m going over your incident reports and it looks like you had a possible attempted kidnapping victim in your precinct last week.”
“Oh yeah? Give me the date and time and I’ll look it up.” Barrington relayed the information and waited for Costas to return. “Hmmm...I’ve got an incident report filed for right around 7:30. Black female, 16 years of age. It looks like she thought she was being followed home from work. She called 911, and the operator directed her here.”
“So no arrest, I take it?”
“Nope. Looks like the guy bailed when he saw where she was going. A patrol tried to find him but never put eyes on him.”
Barrington sighed and thought for a moment. “Let me ask you something, man. Are you aware that there’s a serial killer targeting black females near your area?”
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