No Time to Die (16 page)

“When Mr. Mickey arrived, she said, ‘Too bad you colored and that police is white.’

“Mr. Mickey nodded and loaded the casket onto the horse-drawn carriage, knowing that in seven days the white undertaker would have someone knocking on his door.

“And sure enough, that cop making his rounds a week later fell to his knees and sucked his last breath right in front of Celia’s stoop.”

Tad nodded politely but I continued. He needed to hear the entire story in order to understand Alvin’s attitude.

“Her prices doubled after that,” I said. “Folks even came from out of state and she charged triple for court appearances. One time she waived her fee when a farmer had beaten a white boy for ‘interfering’ with his little girl.

“The farmer, looking ancient with his skin turned ashen from despair, sat in the first row, his head bowed before the judge, wondering what his new life would be like dragging an ankle chain. If they decided not to hang him.

“When the case was called, Celia walked in, gliding silently down the aisle. The court took a look at the little gauze bags pinned to her lapels—white bags no larger than postage stamps on the left, and blue bags, even smaller, on the right. One look and the judge, the jury, and the aggrieved plaintiff stampeded through the window, cleared the porch, and disappeared across the lawn.

“ ‘Miss Celia, how much I owe you?’

“And she had looked at the light that had come back
in the farmer’s eyes and then gazed at his terrified little girl and said, ‘Nuthin’. Wasn’t no trial.’ ”

Tad looked at me and shook his head. “You’ve got quite a family,” he murmured.

I heard the skepticism and ignored it, but Dad said, “That’s a true story. Part of our family history.” He rose from the chair and strode up the stairs. “Let me see if Alvin’s calmed down.”

We listened until the footsteps faded and Tad said, “Kid’s got a strong back.”

I said nothing, wondering if it had been a good idea to have told Alvin about Aunt Celia.

“Does Elizabeth know it was James?”

“No. She probably dislikes him as much as you do, and I’d rather keep this under my cap for now. At least until we nail him.”

In the quiet, I could hear the tick of the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs. Tad shifted on the sofa and I heard him clear his throat. “There’s something else,” he said. “I rushed away from you that night because of a call …”

“What happened?”

“Felicia Temple was killed.”

I stared at him. “Felicia? The artist?”

He nodded. “She’d been dead three days. The housekeeper had been away, and when she returned that Saturday, she found her in the kitchen.”

The kitchen. I did not have to ask how she was killed. I closed my eyes, picturing what had been found on her body.

“This makes three now,” he said.

Even as he said it, I had trouble ingesting it. Felicia Temple. Alone in that huge brownstone since the death of her husband more than five years ago. She was so
attractive everyone had wondered how soon she’d remarry but she never did. Instead she’d devoted herself to her art, turning out one magnificent painting after another, and enough pieces of sculpture to fill a small museum.

In fact, her house
was
a museum, an art gallery, and a sculpture studio all rolled in one and had been prominently featured on the Harlem house tour last spring.

She had a remarkable sense of humor. When the first strand of gray appeared, she had stripped all the color from her hair and dyed it an eye-popping silver.

“You can’t beat Mother Nature,” she’d said, “so the wisest thing to do is to work with her. Enhance her gifts. And have fun doing it. Laugh. Once we stop laughing, it’s all over.”

That’s what she’d told Dad when he’d attended one of her in-house exhibits. He’d bought one of her sculptures, a twenty-inch statue of an African warrior carved from lignum vitae in the shape of a sword, his shoulders jutting out like the haft and his arms vanishing into his sides to form the blade. A coil of metal encircled his neck and a five-inch helmet of sharply pointed brass extended from his head.

Dad had placed it on the mantel and stared at its fierce expression, trying to think of a name for it. “Felicia said ‘lignum vitae’ means wood of life and is one of the hardest woods in the world. Well, this is one hard, tough-lookin’ brother. Gotta find a suitable title. Wouldn’t want him mad at me for misnaming him.”

“Why don’t you ask Felicia?” I’d said.

Instead, he’d asked her out to dinner. In fact they’d gone out several times and I’d entertained the idea of having a stepmother only ten years older than I was and it seemed like a good idea. Dad had been a widower
long enough. But nothing happened. They’d remained good friends and she’d remained single and so had he.

Now she was gone and now I understood the desolation in back of the unshed tears when Dad looked at me.

“Listen,” I said as Tad rose and moved toward the bar. “Fix me a double Absolut. No ice.”

“You sure? What about your pain medication?”

“I’m not taking it. Makes me too sleepy.”

I watched him standing at the bar, uncapping the bottles, pouring my drink, and pouring his own, and I wondered what Felicia’d been doing in her last moments. How had the killer surprised her? How had he gotten in the house? Claudine. Marie. Felicia. How had they been so trusting?

Tad handed me the glass but now I felt a constriction in my throat and lost my desire for the drink. I studied the clear liquid, thinking of the cereal scattered over the bodies.

“What happened with the videotape?” I asked, trying to clear the images from my mind.

Tad came to sit near me again. “The film was shot outside the supermarket on 130th Street, just as Billy described, and the hands were there, definitely working on the box of cereal, but when I tried for a possible ID the manager wasn’t too cooperative. Asked for a warrant ’cause he didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit. I got the warrant but meanwhile one of the employees had split.”

“Who?”

“Guy who’d been working off the books, no Social Security number, address someplace in the Bronx. Went up there and found a vacant lot. In fact, the whole block had been knocked down. New construction going up all around Prospect. Street guy told me
the spot had been vacant about two years. So I’m back to square one.”

“You’re back to Harlem,” I said. “I think he’s right here, somewhere in the neighborhood. Felicia, Marie, Claudine. All were roughly in the same area so I think the guy’s around here too. Were you able to get a description?”

“Guy was also vague about that. He was more worried about covering his own back than he was about somebody stealing a box of cereal. Store’s part of a chain but independently managed and he may be skimming.

“Anyway, he said that the guy was about five feet eleven, not too well developed, but arms like he’s into weights. Brown complexion, perpetual frown, mid-twenties, close-cut hair. Goes by the nickname Ache. But he couldn’t ID the hands. Said it could be anyone and he was going to beef up security. He was nervous as hell. Probably thinks I’m gonna call the Department of Labor to come in and scan his books.”

I shrugged and leaned back on the sofa. The manager was right. It could be anyone. I’d shopped at several stores on sale days and saw guys who’d wandered in off the street to bag groceries just for tips. Grown men. Trying to survive in hard times.

Frustration etched the curve of Tad’s mouth as he paced the floor just as Alvin had done earlier. Not only was he trying to chase down a madman but he was confronted with my problem with James as well.

“Why don’t you let someone else in the squad look for James?” I said. “You’re handling a tough enough case as it is.”

He stopped moving long enough to look at me. “Mali, I should’ve put you in a cab. But I left you alone on a corner. I rushed off without even thinking. This is
my fault and I have to take care of it. See it doesn’t happen again.”

I raised my glass then and tried to take a sip but the stuff was too strong. My cough was so deep it scared me into putting the glass down. Then the dull throb in my hip and leg which I’d tried to ignore had moved beyond mere aching. Geniune pain was back.

“You all right?”

“I don’t know. This news about Felicia. About James. So much stuff has happened and I feel as if I’ve been away, hiding out somewhere.”

I leaned back against the cushions and studied Tad’s face. Frustration seemed to deepen the lines around his mouth, and his eyes—his flecked pupils normally so intense—now seemed dull and shallow. This problem was affecting him more deeply than I realized. I searched through the tangle of circumstance for something, anything, that might be helpful.

“Did you know that Felicia and my dad once dated?”

“He mentioned it, but didn’t go into details, except to say he’d bought a sculpture from her.”

“There it is,” I said, pointing to the mantel. The statue wavered as my vision blurred and suddenly I was crying and couldn’t stop. It wasn’t the pain in my arm or leg that caused my outcry, although that was pretty bad. This was a different injury, knowing that I would never see or hear or speak to any of these women again.

He leaned forward, gathering me to him. “Listen, Mali. I’m sorry. This was a lot to lay on you all at once. You need to relax, get some sleep.”

We looked at the stairs and knew I couldn’t make it past the first step, so I stretched out on the sofa and he spread a light blanket over me.

“I’ll sit here awhile in case you need anything,” he whispered. He settled in the chair and closed his eyes. I knew he was not asleep, but thinking of a madman, a serial killer on the loose, with no idea where or when he would strike again.

“Haven’t seen you in a while. How’ve you been?”

“Okay,” Ache whispered as the waitress wiped the counter in front of him and placed a napkin and silverware near his right elbow. He leaned forward, carefully studying the menu, wondering what three dollars could buy. Pan Pan’s had good food but for him it always came down to the same thing: a bowl of soup, a cup of tea, and possibly one of those home-baked biscuits, if he left a smaller tip.

The waitress lingered a minute, then moved to wait on someone else. Ache glanced around at the signs on the wall advertising the specials, and below the signs, the row of heavy waffle irons that sent out the sweet, steaming aroma every time a lid was lifted.

The few times he ate here, he always sat on the end seat at the counter in the back. This way, he could scan the whole place. The only people he couldn’t see were the guys in the kitchen behind the high partition in back of him but he could hear their voices, hear the clatter of plates and brief and busy exchanges as the
waitresses picked up the dishes. Other than that, he could see everybody. This made him comfortable.

He stared beyond the print on the menu, adrift in his thoughts.

Pass up those waffles. Ain’t no good anyway with all that syrup and mile-high pile a fried chicken stacked on top. Like the last meal before they strap you in the chair
.

He glanced at an old man sitting several seats away. Most of the man’s front teeth were missing but he had tucked his napkin determinedly under his chin, preparing to tackle the grits-eggs-and-country-bacon special along with the side of toast soaking up the butter and jelly.

Damn!

He stared at the man’s plate, then lowered his head again and focused on the menu so that he wouldn’t have to look at the abundance surrounding him.

Three days. Three days I ain’t worked. No more money. And all ’cause a that gray-eyed bitch. Starin’ right through me just like Mercy Anne but she saw me. She sent that cop. I knew he was The Man before he even flipped his shield. I knew it
.

He had left the box of orange juice he’d been stacking, abandoned it in front of the frozen food case and hurried to the bathroom, then walked quickly through the loading area in the back of the store where he dodged noisy hi-los shifting and stacking cartons and boxes into cardboard mountains. Once outside, he had edged between the two double-parked tractor trailers, scooted across the street, and never looked back.

Wasn’t nobody but her sent him. Made me lose my job. Lose my job
.

The waitress was standing over him again with the order pad in her hand. “You ready, sir?”

He nodded. Nobody had ever called him “sir” except for the few times he’d come in here.

“Yeah. Uh, how’s the soup today?” he asked, knowing the answer before she opened her mouth. Of course it was good. What else was she going to say, but he needed to prolong the moment.

“It’s pretty good.” She smiled, tapping the pencil against the pad. “Navy bean or pea soup. Which would you like?”

“It don’t matter. And a side order of biscuits and a cup of tea.”

“Thank you.” She smiled again and moved away to take another order and he felt disappointed that she hadn’t called him “sir” again. He followed the music of her voice, listened carefully, and heard her call some of the others “sweetie,” “honey,” and “baby.”

Mmmhmph. She ain’t called me that. What the fuck’s goin’ on? Okay. That the way you wanna play? On again, off again? Then no tip for your ass, bitch!