Dying in the Dark (12 page)

Annette glanced at the drawing of Celia, then twisted her mouth into a half smile that broke into a full grin. “Maybe that's too harsh. It wasn't so much that she was vulgar, but she said exactly what was on her mind. She didn't like any of the art in the show and made no
bones about it, rather loudly I might add. She was like, what the hell is this shit?”

“But she liked your work?”

“No, not particularly. She liked me. I think she was more drawn to me than I was to her, and she made it her business to get to know me better.”

“So what did Mrs. Donovan, the little nun, I think you called her, think about that?”

“I think it surprised her, but Rebecca has one of those faces that never gives anything away. It's impossible to know what she really feels or even if she's happy or sad.”

“What do you mean?”

‘A couple of years back, Becky lost a child, only a few weeks old. Crib death, I think it was. She really wanted kids, and it was the saddest thing in the world, but she wouldn't let anyone share her grief. I'm sure that she and the judge mourned the death of their child in private, but never in front of anybody else.”

Annette's sigh evoked a similar one from me. We were both mothers so we knew how deep this woman's pain must have been. I couldn't imagine my life without my son; I didn't want to imagine it.

‘And her husband died before they could have another child?” I asked, my attention leaving Annette for a moment to focus on what had happened to her friend.

“There must have been some kind of a problem because she couldn't conceive again. But if you saw her to talk to you'd never know it.” She grunted in disgust. “That was part of our church's teaching, too. The Lord has His reasons, so you can't question His ways. To show sorrow was to doubt His will and challenge His wisdom.
Beats the hell out of me, too,” she said irreverently, acknowledging my confusion. “How Rebecca ended up with Clay Donovan is one of the great mysteries of life.”

“I hear he was a wild one,” I said with a salacious grin, hoping to dig up more dirt on the judge, but if she knew anything she wasn't about to share it. She simply gave a devil-may-care shrug and gulped more of her drink, the water apparently abandoned.

“So who is Aaron Dawson?” I had saved the best for last.

“The man Celia left me for.” If she felt any bitterness she didn't show it.

‘And you weren't angry about it?”

“Of course I was angry, and I told someone I love some very hurtful, very destructive things that I shouldn't have shared because of what happened and what she did to me. But I got over it.”

“What did you tell?”

“It's done now. It's over. I don't want to repeat it.”

But she took in her breath suddenly, as if she had just remembered something, and then she glanced once at the drawing on the wall and then away from me. I wondered what had come into her mind.

“So why did Celia leave?”

“Because she was pregnant.”

Through her womb, the center of a woman's being.

I was the one concealing my feelings now, and it took some serious willpower to do it.

“Celia was a stupid cunt when it came to men.” The use of the “c” word casually spilling out of the mouth of this supposedly wellbred
woman sent a shiver of disgust through me, but I hid my feelings as she continued her rant.

“Half the time she screwed them and didn't use a rubber. Liked it raw, she used to say. Can you imagine that! That's the kind of thing some low-life man says to a woman, not the other way around! She could have caught anything, brought it back home to me, anything at all. She could be a dumb little cunt when she felt like it. A real dumb bitch.” The anger poured out in her voice, in the tight line her lips formed, and the fury in her eyes. Celia had been dead for nearly four months, but the rage was still there, and it had finally broken through.

“What a terrible betrayal! Celia could definitely be a bitch.” I hid my feelings and threw in my two cents’ worth as I remembered the dust from that midnight blue Lincoln the last time I saw her. “So she was pregnant when she was murdered?” I wondered why Morgan hadn't bothered to mention it. Perhaps old-fashioned tact had kept his lips sealed; “Bury the secrets of the dead with them” had always been his motto.

“I don't know.” Annette shrugged as if she didn't give a damn one way or the other.

“Is Aaron Dawson the kind of man who would kill a woman over having—or not having—his baby?”

“Why don't you ask him,” she said sharply. She began to collect the things that were on the coffee table, the tray, pitcher, and glasses, and headed into the kitchen with them, her not-so-subtle way of indicating that our interview was over.

But I wasn't ready to go, and I followed her, notebook in hand.

“Do you know where he lives or how I can get in touch with him? The numbers I have are disconnected.”

She made me wait while she carefully washed and dried her pretty crystal glasses and climbed on a footstool to place them next to each other on the top shelf.

“Cecil knew his number. After Celia died he stayed with him for a while, but Cecil is dead now, too, so I guess you're out of luck.” Her caustic tone surprised me because it came from nowhere. But I didn't have a chance to respond. Our attention was drawn to the sound of a key turning in the kitchen door lock.

“Drew?” Annette called out climbing down from the footstool.

“Yeah.”

“Drew, where have you been?”

“Don't ask me that, and I told you what my name is! My name is DeeEss. Call me that or nothing. I came to get the keys.” He held his small body tight, his shoulders scrunched up close to his neck. He lifted a set of car keys off a hook near the kitchen door and jiggled them defiantly.

There was a snicker behind him as Pik, dressed in the usual gangsta regalia, sauntered into the room. The young woman I had seen at Morgan's stood behind him, as if she were afraid to enter. She held her baby, who started to giggle, adding an odd note of levity to a tense situation. The girl kissed the child's forehead and cheek.

Pik picked an apple up from a wooden bowl on the table, took a bite, then tossed the remainder into a nearby trash can as if shooting for a basket. I glanced at Annette, who was clearly afraid of him. I was tempted to call him on his manners, but was caught between instinct and common sense. Scolding a strange kid these days can earn you a
bullet through the head as quickly as a tongue stuck out behind your back. But this boy irked me. He had this woman cowering in her own kitchen, and I didn't like it.

“I'm Ms. Tamara Hayle,” I said, looking the kid in the eye. “I saw you at my godson's funeral.” The godson business was a stretch, but in different circumstances it might have been so. I stuck out my hand toward Pik in a gesture of friendliness. He stared at it for a few moments then shoved his into his pockets. I was lucky he didn't spit in it.

The baby started to giggle again, and I turned to the girl.

“Cristal, isn't it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” she said, and her politeness surprised me.

“That's a beautiful baby. Can I hold her?”

“Him. He a boy,” said Pik, and both of us glanced at him. I reached toward the baby and Pik moved in front of her, preventing me from taking him.

“Cecil didn't have no godmother,” he said.

“Goes to show you, Pik, there's a lot of stuff about Cecil Jones you don't know.”

He gave me what he thought was a scary look, but I've taken on scarier thugs than him, so I didn't flinch.

“I'm DeeEss,” said Annette's son, who apparently had enough regard for his mother to try to keep a bad scene from exploding in her kitchen.

“Tamara Hayle.” I shook his hand, which was as soft and delicate as a girl's. I thought again about what Larry Walton had said about Annette and her son, and how selfish she had been to drag her son into her new life. She had gambled everything on Celia Jones and lost, big-time.

‘Are you Jamal's mother? I think he might have been in my homeroom in fifth grade. I think I remember you.”

“Yes, I am.”

“How's Jamal doing?”

“Fine. He's doing just fine. I'll tell him you asked about him,” I said, which was a lie.

But for a moment, I glimpsed DeeEss as he must have been before Celia and her child entered his life. He was a kid who had been a friend of my son's, and my heart broke for him and his mother. Pik caught a glimpse of that boy, too, and didn't like what he saw.

“Let's hat, man,” he gestured toward the door, and without a word to either me or Annette, the three of them left. I heard somebody gunning the engine of Annette's car before they pulled away.

Annette fell down on her knees. “Oh Lord, please, Lord, don't let what happened to Celia's boy happen to mine. Please, Lord, please please,” she cried into her folded hands, praying like she must have at those sunrise services her parents dragged her to.

“I'm certain he'll be fine,” I said, reassuring her, but I wasn't so sure. Trouble usually finds boys like hers like lint finds black velvet. “If you need me or think of anything else, please call me,” I said, placing my card with my cell phone number into her folded hands. When I left I closed the door behind me, but I don't think she heard a thing.

CHAPTER TEN

T
he homes of the two old friends
couldn't have been more different. Rebecca Donovan's house, with its well-tended yard and beautiful exterior, was a candidate for a spread in
Better Homes and Gardens.
She didn't live in the Heights, but in a stately neighborhood in Newark, where out of loyalty and love for the city, many professionals and politicians chose to reside. In the old days, homes like these, with their wide porches and stately cupolas, could be found in many Newark neighborhoods. But they'd fallen on hard times; most now were stuffed with too many families.

As I drove down Rebecca Donovan's street, I was proud of how beautifully the neighborhood had been preserved and pleased to claim it for my city. It was like those streets I remembered driving down with my father when I was a kid. On Sundays, my father would take us picnicking on the lake in Weequahic Park, and we'd end up at the Dairy Queen on Ferry Street for cherry vanilla ice cream cones. Come spring, we'd stroll through Branch Brook Park, where the homegrown cherry blossoms challenged—and whipped—those in DC. Weequahic, Chancellor Avenue. Lyons Avenue. I could still hear
the names of those grand old places rolling off my father's lips. Someday they would be back to what they were; I hoped I'd be around to see it.

The Donovan house was located across from the park. It was a red brick Dutch Colonial, with a circular driveway and an impressive front lawn that whispered class. As I parked my car, I caught a glimpse of the spacious backyard with flower beds that probably bloomed with tulips and impatiens in spring. A white picket fence strung with climbing vines, roses I'd bet, surrounded the yard. It was the kind of backyard kids dream about, particularly if they grow up in the projects like I did. I remembered what Annette had told me about Rebecca Donovan and got sad for her all over again. Here she had a big old house, planned for a big old family, and everything she had dreamed about had been snatched away. I thought about my own son then, as I always do in these situations, and gave a quick prayer of thanks for my good fortune. My mind was still on Jamal when Rebecca Donovan opened the front door.

Her eyes were what struck me first. They were brown and as soft as a puppy's, but the sorrow in them revealed her grief. Yet she had the quick smile of a little girl, which lit up her face and brought a smile to mine. Her hair was streaked with gray and pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, which made me recall Annette's nickname for her. Her pretty skin, the color of unshelled walnuts, was dotted here and there with freckles.

“Come in, Ms. Hayle. I'm an early bird. My husband didn't come into his own until noon. Since his death I've reverted to my own ways,” she greeted me when she opened the door. I was struck by her warmth and how different she seemed from the woman I'd spoken to
on the phone two days ago. The mention of her late husband so early in our conversation also surprised me, but he'd been dead only since the end of August, less than a year. She was still mourning him, and would be for a long time.

She was dressed in stylish earth-brown wool pants and a neat, rust-colored silk blouse. Tasteful gold stud earrings peeked from her ears and a thin gold chain graced her neck. In her casual way, Rebecca Donovan was as elegant and understated as her classy home. She too could have stepped from a magazine on upscale, suburban living.

“Thank you so much,” I said, suddenly conscious of my lint-covered black wool coat, which I keep forgetting to take to the cleaners. I'd meant to wear my good one, but it was the first thing I grabbed when I stumbled out of my house at what seemed like the crack of dawn.

“I hope it's not too early for you.”

“No, it's fine. It does my soul good to get moving early,” I said, lying. I enjoyed getting up this early in the morning about as much as a toothache. But it was a clear, bright winter's day and once I got going, I felt virtuous.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks, I've had my quota for the day.” And wouldn't have made it this far if I hadn't, I said to myself.

“You don't mind if I have some, do you? I thought we could talk in the sunroom. On a morning like this it's so cheerful and warm in there. It used to be our favorite room, mine and Clayton's. On snowy weekends, Clayton would build a fire, and we'd just sit there in front of it and chat clear into evening.” Her eyes had filled with tears and she turned her head to hide them. “Please, make yourself comfortable.
I'll only be a moment.” She nodded toward a room that adjoined the well-appointed living room and I headed toward it.

I was taken aback when I entered it. The room was a shrine to her late husband. Awards and plaques from countless clubs and civic organizations filled the bookcases, many stacked against one another at odd angles. Large photographs of him alone and them as a couple covered every conceivable space. Birthday and anniversary cards and thank-you notes were tucked in front of books and on the table.