Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (26 page)

Forty-five frantic minutes later, I pulled up in front of Toni's house and parked behind Mother's car. If the ambulance had been there, it was now gone. I climbed the steps and beat on Toni's front door. I got no answer. I beat some more.

“Goodness, gracious child. Will you cut out all that racket?” I tuned to find Mother standing on the porch next door.

“What are you doing over there? And where is Sister Venable?”

“Aren't you forgetting your manners? Don't you think you should speak to Mr. Leroy before you go putting me through the third degree?”

Mr. Leroy wore a blue flannel shirt this time. He said, “Leave that child alone, Lorraine.” Then to me he said, “Sister Venable's at the hospital, baby. No need for us to holler back and forth like this. Come on over here and tell us what you found out.”

“First off, Quintelle and Toni are half-sisters,” I said. “Quinton Anthony Mason was their father. He was the man who got killed, not John Henry Clay. I think Miss Annie Mae got the names mixed up, which is why we were mixed up. The second thing, Sister Venable is their aunt.

“What does that have to do with poor Venable laying up in that hospital all dehydrated and everything?” Mother was seated on the sofa awfully close to Mr. Leroy. He took her hand and squeezed it. “There, there, Lorraine. I'm sure she'll be alright.” I swear Mother simpered.

“That bit of information is key to . . .” Mother's head was on Mr. Leroy's shoulder, now. I stumbled on. “You know how some girls dream of growing up to be like Harriet Tubman or even Halle Berry? Quintelle
and Toni grew up in Pit Pat, steeped in the folklore of their father's murder and dreaming of the day they could kill the man who killed him.”

It looked like Mr. Leroy was nuzzling the top of Mother's head. I stopped and watched them, transfixed and horrified. Mr. Leroy said, “Go on, baby.” It took me a moment to figure out he was talking to me.

“John Henry Clay was called to preach while in prison. He also participated in a twelve-step program. When he got out, he combined the two, traveling about the country preaching and trying to make amends to anybody he ever harmed. Because they were so young when their father was murdered, Quintelle and Toni didn't know what John Henry Clay looked like. They could have walked right past him and not have known him, which is what they did when he started preaching on K Street Mall. That's why when they got word that he was preaching up this way, they dragged poor Sister Venable downtown to see if she'd recognized him. Of course they didn't tell her what they were doing. It was kind of like a street corner line-up, without either of the parties being aware of it. Mr. Clay didn't have long to live after Sister Venable caught one glimpse of him and ran off. Quintelle and Toni saw to that.”

Mother lifted her head from Mr. Leroy's shoulder and shook it sadly. “That's a shame. I never did like that Quintelle child.”

Mr. Leroy said, “Ladies, I still don't understand how Sister Venable come to be in the wrong house.”

I looked at Mother. “You go ahead,” she said. You tell him.” She nudged Mr. Leroy. “I told you she was smart. Just listen to her lay it all out.”

I cleared my throat—performance anxiety—and resumed my narrative. “Sister Venable was terrified that John Henry Clay was coming after her for sending him to prison. That's why she tried to get arrested. Quintelle and Toni didn't tell her that they'd killed him. When they packed frantically, and left taking her car, Sister Venable was certain John Henry was on his way to get her. But Sister Venable is a tough old sister. The only weapon she had was her walker, so she took it and hobbled over to Toni's house to hide. I supposed she thought she could at least make it difficult for him to find her.”

Mother nudged Mr. Leroy again, “See, I told you she was smart.” Mr.
Leroy nodded in agreement. Then she fixed me with her I-feel-an-urge-to-get-into-somebody's-business look and said, “I wonder if there's a reward for Quintelle and Toni's arrest. I hear that they have people in Jefferson City, Missouri, and Duxbury, Massachusetts.”

My phone rang just then. I checked the caller. It was Ada Perkins. I was almost glad.

“You see that?”

“I saw it.”

“That has to make what? Three times in the last half-hour?”

“It makes four. But who's counting?”

“I am. He's gonna kill that woman at this rate!”

“No, he isn't. He isn't hurting her, he's just bullyin' her. But even if he wasn't—”

“Joe—”

“Close your eyes, Dottie. Try to get some sleep. That's a private matter, and you know it.”

It was sound advice, I knew, but I couldn't take it. Tired as I was at 3:30 in the morning, the longhaired, Stetson-wearing cowboy in the blue Dodge pickup two car-lengths ahead of us had my blood boiling too vigorously for sleep. My husband, Big Joe, and I had been lagging behind him for a little over forty minutes, his truck and ours apparently locked on identical cruise control settings as we pushed north on Interstate 15 toward Salt Lake City, and four times now the big man had taken his right hand off the Dodge's wheel to reach over and slap at the face of the woman sitting in the cab beside him. The first time it happened, I thought
I'd imagined it, but then the hand went out a second time, and I heard Joe mumble a curse under his breath, and I knew he'd seen it, too.

“We have to do something, Joe,” I said, fighting to keep my eyes open. I was only an hour relieved from a six-hour shift of driving, and my tired old bones were begging for sleep.

“Woman, be serious.”

“I
am
being serious. Look at how he's treating that poor girl!”

“I don't have to look. I've been watching it, same as you. But you don't see that shotgun in 'back of that boy's window? What do you think would happen if I pulled alongside 'im, tried to object to the way he treats his woman?”

It was a fair question to ask, and one I had no answer for. Obviously, were Joe to attempt such a thing, I'd likely be a widow—if not a corpse—before the next sunrise.

“If I thought she were in serious danger, I'd take the chance,” Joe said, growling. “But she's not. That doesn't make what he's doin' to her right, but . . .”

“It isn't worth getting shot over. No. You're right, baby, it's not.” I sighed. “I guess we'd better just stay out of it.”

And with that, I closed my eyes. More to keep from witnessing any more mayhem in the Dodge than to try and drift off to sleep.

About fifteen minutes later, I emerged from a restless doze to find our truck and Lucille, the Airstream trailerhome we keep hitched behind it, parked in the lot of a dimly lit public rest stop.

“You need to go?” Joe asked, his hand already opening his door. Obviously, he did.

I gave the question a little thought and nodded, then pulled myself upright and got out of the truck to join him. One thing life on the road teaches you quickly is, more so than “when you gotta go you gotta go,” given the opportunity, you had
better
go before you
need
to go. Otherwise . . .

The other thing the vagabond life of the roaming, sixty-something retiree teaches you is, highway rest stops are rarely the most cheerful of places. The facilities they offer are often a godsend, but other than that, most of them are dreadful in broad daylight and just downright terrifying in the wee hours of the morning. This one was a prime example.

Like most of them, it was fronted by highway and had an undeveloped wasteland at its back. Behind the two small mortar block buildings in which the rest rooms and ubiquitous soda machines resided, dry brush faded into pitch black night, giving not a clue to what perils might lay in the distance. Adding to the spooky ambiance of the place was an almost unearthly silence. I hadn't really paid much attention to the parking lot upon leaving the truck, but it hadn't been empty; there'd been at least two big rigs sitting there, and one, maybe two other passenger vehicles as well. Yet Joe and I seemed to be the only living creatures moving about the grounds.

It all made for a scene I wanted to put behind me as quickly as possible.

And I almost made a clean escape. I was hurrying out of the ladies' room, my business done in record time, when the cowboy's woman stumbled in, sniffling and wiping her nose on the back of one wrist. We met in the doorway and all but collided with each other. I hadn't seen the big woman's face before now, but I recognized her all the same. Through the back window of the Dodge pickup, I'd caught glimpses of the checkered blouse she was wearing, and the long, dirty blond hair that ran halfway down her back, just like her man's.

“Pardon me,” I said.

The cowboy's woman just nodded, red-eyed, and stepped quickly past.

Now, here is where my story could have ended without incident. This was my opportunity to simply turn and walk away, leave the lives of two strangers to whatever God's plan was for them. But Dottie Loudermilk has never been one to miss a chance to meddle. As Joe has grown fond of saying, I boldly trample in where others fear to tread.

“You shouldn't let him treat you that way,” I said, regretting the words even as they were traveling the short distance between us.

She looked at me for a moment, not at all sure she'd heard me right, and said, “What?”

“We saw him hitting you. My husband and I. We couldn't help it, your truck's been right in front of ours for the past thirty minutes.”

She didn't say anything.

“I don't know your situation, so maybe I have no right to speak, but if I were you—”

“Yeah, I know. You'd leave 'im.” She almost laughed when she said it, the idea was so outlandish to her.

“Yes. I would.”

“Well, then. It's a shame you
aren't
me, isn't it?”

“Please. I didn't mean—”

“Lady, if I had somewhere else to go, I'd be there. But I don't. Okay?”

“I'm sure you think you love him. And that he doesn't always treat you that badly. But even so—”

“You don't know what you're talking about. He
does
always treat me that badly. Sandy's a twenty-four hour jackass, all jerk, all the time.” She was angry now. “But there ain't nothin' I can do about that, 'cept try and run away again and get myself killed. Is that what you want me to do?”

“No, of course not. I just—”

“You just wish I had more respect for myself. Yeah, I know. That makes two of us.”

She barely got this last out before she broke down completely, fled into the nearest stall, and closed the door behind her before I could say anything more.

I thought about going after her, tapping on the stall door to further plead with her to save herself, but I knew that would only be compounding an already monumental mistake.

So I just said a hushed, “I'm sorry,” and left.

“What happened?” Joe asked me when I returned to our truck. I wasn't going to say anything, but he hasn't needed to be told when there's something bothering me for a long, long time.

“Nothing. Let's go,” I said. “Please.”

Now I could see that Sandy the cowboy's truck had been parked under a dark lamp post several spaces from us all along. And it was empty.

“Corrine! Hurry up in there, damnit, we gotta go!”

He was standing right outside the ladies' room door, all but sticking his head inside to bellow at her. He sounded like he was furious, but then, I had sense he always did, at least when he was talking to Corrine.

“Jeez Loweez,” Joe said sadly, disgusted by this sorry display of boorish manhood.

“Please, Joe. Let's go,” I said again, not wanting to be there when the cowboy's woman finally found the will to obey him.

We weren't gone thirty minutes when I awoke to Big Joe shouting:

“Hey! What the—”

I looked up to see him struggling with the wheel, fighting to keep our truck and Lucille aimed in a straight line. His face was a study in pique and concentration.

“What happened?” I asked, working to sit up straight.

“The damn fool almost hit me, that's what! I hadn't seen 'im coming and pulled over . . .”

“Who?” I peered out the windshield at the dark highway ahead, trying to follow my husband's gaze.

“Our spousal abusing friend in the cowboy hat again, that's who. Crazy sonofagun's gotta be doin' eighty-five, at least!”

And sure enough, he was right. There the familiar Dodge pickup was, wobbling from side to side as it rapidly shrank into the distance before us.

“Oh, my God. I wonder what happened,” I said, suddenly wide awake.

“I don't know. But . . .” He didn't complete the thought.

“But what?”

Joe glanced at me, wearing the face he usually reserves for only the most dire occasions. “It looked to me like he was alone. At least, if his woman was with 'im, I didn't see her.”

“Oh, Lord, no. You don't think—”

“Get the binoculars out of my bag, Dottie. I'm gonna see if I can't catch 'im before he disappears completely.”

While I retrieved his gym bag from behind our seats as instructed, Joe stepped on the gas, urged our Ford pickup to haul us and Lucille down the interstate with even greater urgency. It was only a matter of time before the two-truck race we'd just started came upon more northbound traffic, after which the cowboy's Dodge would almost certainly lose us for good, so I knew we had only seconds to steal a look into its cab before it was too late.

“Now, Dottie, hurry!” Joe said. “He's just come up on somebody, he's gotta slow down!”

And it was true. The other truck's taillights glowed bright in the distance as the driver applied its brakes, and it was now only twenty or so car-lengths ahead of us. I took Joe's field glasses from his bag and brought them quickly up to my eyes, spinning the focus controls madly to bring the Dodge into some measure of sharp relief. It wasn't in view for more than fifteen seconds before it used the shoulder of the road to spin around the car ahead of it and, just as Joe and I had feared, escape our reach for good, but that was long enough. Long enough to see that the cowboy in the Stetson hat and fur-lined jacket was alone in the cab now, and that his woman, Corrine, wasn't the only thing his truck was missing.

The hunting rifle that had been mounted outside its rear window was gone now, too.

“Oh, my God, Joe, what have I done?” I asked.

“What do you mean? You didn't—” He stopped when he saw my face, understanding immediately that I'd done something inadvisable yet again. “Oh, no. Don't tell me. Back there at the rest stop . . .”

“I had a few words with her in the ladies' room. As I was going out, and she was coming in. I didn't mean to upset her, but . . .”

“No! Tell me you didn't!”

“All I said was that she should leave him. That she should find a way to get away from him, that's all.”

“Aw, Jeez Loweez, Dottie! You went and stirred the poor child up! Two-to-one, she went back out to that man's truck and gave 'im some lip! Either got herself stranded back there, or . . . or
worse!
”

He was right, of course. I could see it all happen exactly that way in my mind.

“We have to go back, Joe,” I said. “We've got to make sure she's all right.”

“What?”

“Don't. Don't argue with me about this. Just turn this truck around right now and go!”

It took us a little over fifteen minutes to reach the rest stop again, and it looked the same way now as it had when we'd last seen it: dark, desolate, and as creepy as a fog-enshrouded moor. There were still a few
sixteen-wheelers parked in the darkest corner of the lot, but ours was now the only passenger vehicle around. If this had been a hot dog stand rather than a rest stop, its owners would have been forced into bankruptcy long ago.

There was no sign of Corrine anywhere.

Predictably, Joe stepped out of the truck and told me to stay put. The thought of being left there alone to imagine I could see all kinds of horrible things lurking in the shadows was unnerving, but I was too tired to join him, even if I had wanted to. I'd been awake now for over nineteen hours, and at the tender age of sixty-one, adrenaline can only take a girl so far. Nodding my head and watching Joe start off toward the ladies' room with only one of two eyes open was the absolute best I could do at this point.

“Hello! Anybody home?” Joe called out, standing just outside the door of the women's rest room in the same way Corrine's cowboy had done earlier. Receiving no response, Joe called again, and still no one answered back. My eyes drifted closed for a moment. I caught myself and sat up abruptly, just caught sight of my husband disappearing inside the bathroom.

I watched and waited for him to exit again.

And waited.

And waited.