Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (31 page)

Officer Shirley—to all residents—had come forward to write a letter in my behalf during my petition to become Akua's legal guardian. A compassionate twenty-six-year-old who still appeared too small to make height and weight requirements for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, she is a mentor and regular visitor at A Woman's Place.

When I told her about the disappearing file card, under the cover of friendship, she asked if I had reported this officially or at least unofficially to Lew. I said I hadn't and didn't want her to either. She didn't respond.

“I know you're looking out for us, Officer Shirley.” I knew she was
smiling—flashing perfect teeth. I bit my tongue on the “don't expect much” slip. Actually, it was not a slip; she'd just been honest. Mel would not be a priority in any department's caseload—a fact, pitiful, but still a fact.

I reminded her of the Career Fair in December. Several residents had expressed an interest in employment with the police department. One said she'd “like to show the police which way is up.” Others were certain they had contacts the department could use badly.

“Ms. Bell, ma'am, there's a dead body on the front steps . . . I think,” Rosalee—timidity personified—said, as if she were giving the time. She appeared in the doorway of my office without making a sound, mumbled, and slowly backed away as if she were about to genuflect out of the room.

My lack of response probably matched her lack of self-esteem. It took several seconds for the little gasp and then the whispered “what?” to escape, from me, I guess, since Rosalee was halfway down the hall.

A telephone rang somewhere.

I don't remember moving, but I found myself in the doorway staring down at a motionless figure in a black leather coat. She lay face-down on the steps. A small crowd of women was assembling behind me.

Although it occurred to me that the woman might need medical assistance rather than last rites, I did not rush to touch her.

As I inched toward the woman sprawled at the bottom of the steps with her legs spread at an awkward right angle across the sidewalk, Janice rushed past me to kneel at the woman's head, turn it gently to see the face, and lift her thin brown hand to feel for a pulse. Janice appeared to know what she was doing, was gentle but sure in her handling. By the time I reached her side, she had taken off her thick brown cardigan and was placing it as a pillow under the woman's face. Her badge—Janice L. Scott, Intake Administrator—fell from the sweater and clanked to the sidewalk.

Good, she is not dead.

“Someone, please call an ambulance,” I yelled behind me. At least five long minutes had passed, and I had not even called for help. I glanced at my watch; it was hard to believe that it was only 4:26
P
.
M
.

“You might want to call the police first. An ambulance isn't going to help Arlene, now,” Janice said in the gentle, comforting tones of a funeral directress or someone used to delivering bad news to loved ones.

She noticed it before I did, and her entire manner changed. Now she needed comforting, seemed less relieved than before. A slow stream of blood ran down the steps along the contours of the body, across the sidewalk, and into the street.

I have seen full squadrons, or whatever the police equivalent would be, surround cars of every make, condition, value, and lack thereof, containing young Black men stopped for various traffic violations . . . or just because. A like force descended on A Woman's Place within ten minutes, causing me to wonder who the caller had reported dead.

When Lt. Lew Davis stepped out of his always shiny black Sable and dominated the scene with his presence, I understood the rapid over-response. He took the nine steps by twos and threes—even at forty-seven, you can do that, when you're six three and fit—locking eyes with me from step two onward.

“Glo, are you okay?” he said without attempting to pretend that this was an impersonal official inquiry. The exchange of looks and the stroking of my hair probably precluded the presumption of impersonality. And, I'm pretty sure that there was a rapid change in temperature. I flashed hot, and I am not menopausal.

I tried not to lean into him physically. I am neither the type of woman who needs or wants a man to fend for her, nor do I have the fragile build to carry that off credibly. However, I leaned into him emotionally—all five foot seven and 140 pounds of me.

“I'm fine, but obviously Arlene is not,” I said, not even looking where Janice's sweater still provided visible compassion for the young woman, whom I didn't remember having seen before, although she vaguely reminded me of someone.

“Is she one of yours?” Lew asked in a more detached manner, having regained his official composure.

“One of my what? If you mean one of the women who occasionally
finds refuge here, I think so. I don't remember her, but the intake administrator called her Arlene.”

“And did you
know
the young woman killed near the telephone booth around the corner?”

“Yes.”

He asked; I answered. He glared down at me, took my arm as if escorting me to the dance floor, and more-or-less-gently guided me into the building and up the stairs to my office door. The shock of two deaths had taken some of the fight out of me. I am not easily led anywhere by anybody. If anyone knew that, Lew did.

My office door was closed, although I didn't remember closing it. I turned the knob twice. It was locked, and I know that I hadn't locked it. In fact, I had never locked it.

“It's locked, and I don't carry the key,” I said.

“How'd you lock the door without a key? These doors don't lock automatically.” Lew placed himself between me and the door. “Who has keys?”

“Maintenance workers and Janice.” I strained to find an explanation that had nothing to do with murder, disappearing messages, or self-locking doors. It was hard to think clearly, with images of Mel and Arlene playing through my head like a still-frame black-and-white exhibit. Black and white and red.

We stood for a moment in confused silence. Miss Annie Louise, one of the oldest and most regular residents, walked toward us, heavily assisted by a beautiful hand-carved ebony cane from Kenya, she'd once bragged. She reported that the police had ordered all women present to the intake room and were acting “Gestapo-like,” and she just thought that I should know. She shot Lew a no-account you-don't-scare-me look. He smiled, and Miss Annie Louise suppressed a blush.

The three of us joined the thirty or so women assembled in the intake room. Some were fuming, and others were content to be in the thick of an investigation in which they were not probable suspects.

I asked Lew if the women were going to be questioned, detained, or what. He said that they would all be asked to give statements and that they had been asked to go back into the building so they would not compromise the crime scene.

He suggested that we get the key to my office so we could talk there, but Janice was not in the room or anywhere else on the first floor. Lew frowned and asked the two uniformed officers stationed outside the intake room if the building had been searched. Officer Turner, the older and more fit of the two, said that they had cleared the rest of the building and escorted all women to the intake room. None of the women present remembered seeing Janice after she'd made sure that Arlene's lovely young face was not in direct contact with cement. Wherever Janice was, keys that opened doors throughout the building were with her, hanging from the maroon What Would Jesus Do lanyard around her neck.

With a nod from Lew and just two words—“Go easy”—Officer Turner announced that he would take a statement from every woman in the room. The announcement included words like “please,” “ladies,” and “we will try not to inconvenience you too much.”

By the time the officer asked for the first woman on the list of possible witnesses to come with him into the lounge, Lew was halfway up the stairs to the third floor. He hadn't tried to gently strong-arm me toward his destination or even asked me to tag along. When he reached my office, he stood back and sized up the door, I think, to kick it down. I could see that he was worried and angry. He needed to be able to legally hit something. He touched the doorknob, shoved me into the wall behind him, and shifted into a crouch—in one swift, seamless movement . . .

The
locked
door swung open, and Lew eased into the dark office, gun in hand.

Even after making sure no one was in the office, he walked back in first and surveyed the room. When I stepped in behind him, I knew that I wouldn't be coming back to this room except to pack my things, and then only in the presence of a police officer with a loaded gun drawn.
I love Officer Shirley Morrison, but the officer present would have to outweigh me and look like he or she could really hurt something, if necessary, even without a weapon.

We sat on a baby blue loveseat, flecked with teal and navy, in front of the only window in the room. After the reign of the B, I had donated it to
replace her lumpy, overstuffed couch, which reeked of a perfume that could double as bug repellant and bacon—her scents of choice.

“Are you sure the door was locked? These old doors stick,” Lew said with an unnecessary touch of attitude.

“You were standing right behind me. You saw me turn the knob twice,” I said.
Just because there was no one in here to shoot for your trouble and your worry, don't take it out on me.

“I'm just searching, Glo. Just searching. Of course, I saw you try to open the door, and for a girl, you're not exactly a wimp.”

I decided not to go feminist on him and instead to take his limp bait and smile, blinking back a response out of proportion to and out of sync with Lew's intent. I then took as much of his large rough hands into mine as I could manage. While this thing with Lew might not be love yet, it was something that felt almost as good.

“You wouldn't be trying to take advantage of my one area of vulnerability would you?” he said looking at my lips. His eyes then drifted to the door, which we had left ajar. “Pleeease, let's hold this thought, but at the moment, I am in the middle of a murder investigation, and you're in danger. Why don't you leave this place, put it behind you? I'm not asking you to leave Amani behind; she is no longer here. Glo, you have made this a better place for these women. Now, go home . . .”

I still had his hands, but I could tell he thought I would be returning them shortly.

“Let's not make this a discussion of my career and housing choices. Two young women are dead.”

“Okay, Ms. Bell,” he said. “Okay for now. So, tell me what you know, and try not to leave anything out.”

I recounted what I knew, which wasn't much. When he asked if anything unusual had happened over the last few weeks, the only thing I could think of was Taywanda's departure.

Then, it was my turn to ask questions. “Do you have any leads in Mel's death? Do you think it's linked to Arlene's?”

“The first woman was discovered less than six hours ago, so the investigation is just starting. Because she died within a few yards of a pay phone, we've requested records of the last calls made. We're also
canvassing the area for her belongings, but we haven't found anything yet. Do women ever store things here?”

“Some do, mostly younger regulars. Others like to keep everything they own hidden off-site or with them, even if that means wearing several layers of clothing in mid-July. Mel carried a canary yellow backpack, I think. We log belongings in and out, so I'll check for Mel and Arlene.”

Until the streetlight popped on, I hadn't realized how dark the room had grown. Lew looked out of the window behind us.

“The call about the second woman came in during a briefing on the first,” he said.

“So, you then ordered every man and woman from the precinct here?” Someone would want an explanation of this resource allocation.

“I ordered an appropriate number of officers to the scene. There is a murderer—maybe more than one—in the area.”

Officer Shirley stuck her head in the door, and our hands found their own laps, as if we were guilty teenagers. She stepped into the office and looked at me but spoke to Lew. “Lt. Davis, we just got the phone records, and the last call was made to this building—to Ms. Bell's personal line.” She held out the telephone record, and we both reached for it.

“You were bringing this for me, weren't you, officer?” he said, as our hands met on the page and mine dropped. She didn't respond. She was definitely not a liar, and he was her superior officer. “You are now
officially
assigned to these cases. I see that you are off duty, but I'll authorize the overtime.”

I had not even noticed that she was in street clothes.

He moved his index finger down the list of numbers. Toward the end of it, he stopped momentarily, and his eyes narrowed, so my eyes shifted to the bottom of it. Only one number seemed vaguely familiar, but I made mental note of the last five.

Just as I tried to see a few more numbers without any overt movement, he folded the list rudely and stood.